Reflecting on my relationships

[Tinydance]

Sorry I'm posting so much but I'm in a very strict COVID lockdown for a couple of months now and I'm hardly working because of that. So I have a lot of time on my hands. 

I've been wondering if there's something wrong with me in regards to dating. I'm 36 years old and I've dated a lot of people and been in a few long term relationships. But all my longer relationships have only been 1.5 - 2 years long. I've been in maybe five of those and I ended all of them myself except one. I think I did have good reasons for them. I also had a pattern with most of them of breaking up and getting back together at least once or twice, but often the relationships were off and on.

Also I've been doing a lot of online dating since I was eighteen years old but I've never really had a relationship with anyone from online. Whereas some of my close friends found their partner online and one of them has been married to her husband for 14 years and has kids with him.

I have a bit of a weird relationship with my parents. My Dad never took any interest in me, never contacted me since I moved out of home at 23. He's always been very cold and apathetic towards me and basically we have zero relationship. I felt very rejected by my father because he just never seemed to care about me at all. I don't really know the whole story but I know my Mum had a still born baby before me and some miscarriages. I'm an only child. My Mum has been the total opposite of my father. I'm not sure if she was also overcompensating but she was very overbearing and clingy. Very nosey and overprotective over my life. Even when I still lived at home, if I went anywhere she constantly called me just to talk and it was actually embarrassing in front of my friends. She was constantly overly worried about me. Even when I was in my mid 20's and I moved back home for a couple of years, she treated me like this. Now she messages me every day or every couple of days, which is fine.

I don't want to do that Freudian thing of blaming my parents for anything, but I'm not sure if because of my parents maybe I have some kind of unhealthy relationship attachment style. I ended most of my relationships and I'm not sure if that's because I was dating the wrong people in the first place or whether I'm just dysfunctional in a relationship. I just don't understand why other people can have long term relationships and marriages, but it's never happened to me. I have a lot of friends, many very close friends and some of them I've known for 10-20 years. So with friendship it seems to be no problem but it's just with romantic  relationships there seems to be some kind of issue.

Do you think it's normal to have this type of relationship history? What experiences have you had? I'm just not sure if this happens to everyone or maybe I'm actually doing something wrong.

[DarkCh0c0]

Tiny, it's better to unfold these issues with a therapist. I know it helps me too.

Nonetheless, if your father was absent and uncaring, maybe you go out of your way to seek love from partners who are similar to him? And try to fix your past without realising it? Or you seek such partners because you don't know better? What a better and healthier version of love is like?

I remember your last partner was into drugs and didn't seem to care about you. The one you just broke up with seemed to tell you how much of a "nice" man he was and you should almost owe him your life. A cat can be nice too! Smh. None of them really made you feel loved or special + there were incompatibilities, but these you can learn quickly to detect with time.

[Tinydance]

8 minutes ago, DarkCh0c0 said:

Tiny, it's better to unfold these issues with a therapist. I know it helps me too.

Nonetheless, if your father was absent and uncaring, maybe you go out of your way to seek love from partners who are similar to him? And try to fix your past without realising it? Or you seek such partners because you don't know better? What a better and healthier version of love is like?

I remember your last partner was into drugs and didn't seem to care about you. The one you just broke up with seemed to tell you how much of a "nice" man he was and you should almost owe him your life. A cat can be nice too! Smh. None of them really made you feel loved or special + there were incompatibilities, but these you can learn quickly to detect with time.

Yes I think I should talk to my therapist more about my relationship struggles because I've never really done that much before. It's just really strange because I really want a relationship so much, I've always wanted marriage and a family. I don't have trouble having people interested in me, I've always had people interested in me. My friends all say I'm a nice, caring person. I'm also pretty but I'm just a little chubby. I work with people with disabilities and mental health and have done this work for 7-8 years. A lot of my clients and their family have been very happy with me and tell me I'm great, etc. 

I'm just really starting to get a feeling that maybe I'm doing something wrong. I think one reason is I spent too long with some people who had some deal breakers but I loved them and I thought if I just tried hard enough, they would "change". I can see now that you shouldn't do that because people don't change. 

But I'm also wondering if due to the fact that my Mum really smothered me and took TOO much interest in me and was clingy, that if I meet someone good am I maybe running away from them? I'm really trying to think what I should do differently but it's hard because I just don't quite know. It seems very hard especially to meet someone on online dating because there doesn't seem to be much connection. But I'm not sure if maybe I need to give people a chance more. Some of my friends did find someone online so I know it's possible.

I just don't understand why with some of my ex's we'd talk about kids, marriage and that kind of stuff but that just never happened and the relationship just ended. But in all fairness mostly it was me that ended it. 

[DarkCh0c0]

Yup.

Maybe you need to re-adjust with a therapist what a healthy relationship is for you, and what you can and cannot accept in a man. Also, with practice, as soon as you see major imcompatibilities, you'll learn to say no from the get go.

In the meantime, you could focus on being happy with yourself. When you're happy with your life, and you start dating a man who doesn't add much to your happy life, then you'd know that he's not for you. But you need to be healthy and happy with yourself and not be desperate to be in a relationship.

finally, a relationship is a work of two. So not all the weight of the past relationships had to do with you. The other partners have a share in that too.

[Tinydance]

5 minutes ago, DarkCh0c0 said:

Yup.

Maybe you need to re-adjust with a therapist what a healthy relationship is for you, and what you can and cannot accept in a man. Also, with practice, as soon as you see major imcompatibilities, you'll learn to say no from the get go.

In the meantime, you could focus on being happy with yourself. When you're happy with your life, and you start dating a man who doesn't add much to your happy life, then you'd know that he's not for you. But you need to be healthy and happy with yourself and not be desperate to be in a relationship.

finally, a relationship is a work of two. So not all the weight of the past relationships had to do with you. The other partners have a share in that too.

Thank you Choco. You are very kind. I think one reason why some relationships only lasted for 1.5 - 2 years is that I was infatuated with someone who actually had pretty incompatible things but I really wanted it to work so kept pushing on. I was madly in love with my ex-fiance for example who admitted a few months in he has anger issues and then things became obvious like that he'd smashed in a keyboard at work. But he had lots of excuses all the time as to why he behaved as he did and I believed him.

I do need to be happy on my own and that's very true. That's been hard during COVID because I live alone and I don't have any pets or anything. So it was really nice to have the guy I was dating for 2.5 months because our state premier still allows people to see their partner. He was the only person I saw constantly all that time which I guess contributed to me seeing all the negative sides of him pretty quickly lol

It's hard for me in lockdown because I'm very outgoing but I got through it last year and I'm still plodding on. I know I'll make it  🙂

[Fudgie]

First off, any therapist worth their salt can recognize how deeply your parents (and their associated relationship) can impact you and your ability to form your own relationships. I would talk to your therapist and ask her/him if she has some experience with "psycho dynamic" therapy. If so, then they can really help you unpack this old stuff and help you see how it impacts you today. 

I know it sounds cliche and Freudian but it's actually a key part of getting better for most people and those trained in psychotherapy are taught about this. I mean, if you think about it, it makes sense. Your parents are usually the first ones in the world to not only show you love but to model interpersonal relations to you. Of course their relationship and personal dysfunction would impact you! 

[Tinydance]

19 minutes ago, Fudgie said:

First off, any therapist worth their salt can recognize how deeply your parents (and their associated relationship) can impact you and your ability to form your own relationships. I would talk to your therapist and ask her/him if she has some experience with "psycho dynamic" therapy. If so, then they can really help you unpack this old stuff and help you see how it impacts you today. 

I know it sounds cliche and Freudian but it's actually a key part of getting better for most people and those trained in psychotherapy are taught about this. I mean, if you think about it, it makes sense. Your parents are usually the first ones in the world to not only show you love but to model interpersonal relations to you. Of course their relationship and personal dysfunction would impact you! 

Yeah it's weird but I've never talked about this with my therapist. I really feel like I should. I've struggled with relationships all my life just in the sense that they don't last long. I would really like to experience being with someone long and possibly marriage. I just don't seem to be able to know how to make a relationship last.

[Batya33]

2 hours ago, Tinydance said:

It's just really strange because I really want a relationship so much, I've always wanted marriage and a family. I don't have trouble having people interested in me, I've always had people interested in me.

I'm glad you're looking for answers again.  From what I read (again it's limited by what I read/what you post) I don't think your actions reflect wanting marriage and a family.  Your choices in men, your choices in sexual encounters, your choices to drink to excess and how that affects your romantic-related choices- how you choose it to.  Your actions to me reflect desperation, eschewing responsibility for choices that can really hurt you physically, emotionally, hurt your chances of connecting with someone real (and that's also because for every time you're drunk, or having casual sex, or chasing after someone who's never had a relationship in his 30s and rationalizing - you are foregoing opportunities to meet people who might be your match - it's about timing and you're wasting precious time especially if you want a family).

 I love how you don't wish to blame your parents!  I felt exactly the same as you at age 36.  I'd been in several long term relationships and engaged twice by then (once we canceled the wedding 6 weeks before and once it was only a 5 day engagement when I was 23). 

When I ended my 7 year on again off again relationship in the mid 2000s in my late 30s I had a sort of epiphany a few months later when a friend -who was friendly with my ex, a lovely person (ex was!) - mentioned something about his personality that finally gave me my aha moment as to why this Mr. Right on Paper/all around awesome guy and I simply didn't click. 

I even called the ex and mentioned it to him in actually a very diplomatic way -he took it well, he agreed with me  that he was like that.  That was in May, that was  the beginning of my sort of changing my outlook without even knowing I was.  I ended a short term relationship with a guy with an anger disorder (luckily he never ever took it out on me but I wasn't taking any chances), and two months later my husband and I met up again after years apart (I've mentioned this quite a lot here). 

But at that point I had become the right person to find the right person.  I wasn't excited anymore by unavailable men/challenges related to unavailable men, I was ready to be excited by someone who wanted me too, I was ready to not need the thrill of the "beginning" to keep things interesting, passionate, right.  And he was ready too.  And we'd both changed so much over the years such that now we were right together and when we cancelled our wedding we were not.  My dad was very ill -mentally- most of his life.  We had a volatile relationship till my 30s when I forgave him (my ex helped me with this process) and realized I loved and respected him.  He loved me too.  That I knew almost the whole time - but then I knew.  My mom and I have always been close.  

My husband actually -of course -still has some of the traits that turned me off so many years ago -but less so -he changed a lot -grew in confidence - and I grew in patience too - and when I see those traits crop up it doesn't shake me to the core -I'm able to deal with it, communicate with him, communicate with myself as to how to manage.  Nothing dramatic or awful - just I see what years ago I saw and couldn't tolerate -at the level he manifested them.  Same with me, I am sure -I changed too and for the better -meaning a better match for him.  

Everyone takes a different path -some find it so easy -checklist - go to college, party at college, graduate college, get a job and move out and along the way either in college or after or in grad school etc or at work meet a guy who fits the bill and who you have butterflies over, date a year, get engaged and plan a wedding reception for a year, do all the social media posts and photos galore and raise your eyebrows in the smug married way at those friends who are in their 30s at some point and -gasp -still single-and double gasp - don't need a fancy double jogging stroller.  OK fine.  Good for them.  Not what I did and I'm mostly glad I didn't (mostly - I wish I  could have had a less stressful pregnancy given my age and it would have been nice to have the opportunity for a second biological child).

Again my opinion about your choices not matching up with what you say you want is just my individual opinion.  It's so hard and challenging and I hope you find your match!

[smackie9]

So what were the issues that led to these relationships ending? Is there a pattern there that you see? Like date people who are more like your father? Aloof, emotionally distant?

[Lambert]

Hi Tiny

My approach to your post might be a little different than others... While I think working with a therapist is best.  I have a perspective to share separate from that. 

Maybe you're not dysfunctional in romantic relationships. Maybe you have picked some not so great matches, but to say one reason explains all of it is a little unrealistic. 

I tend to think all relationships are great until they're not. Maybe something changed, maybe the other person was at fault, maybe you were, maybe no one was.  It's just how it went down. 

I think the biggest thing you have going for you, is you want to examine yourself and do better. 

So with that in mind, maybe you need to spend more time thinking about and deciding what you're really looking for in a partner. Furthermore, what are the actions that they will take to build the life and relationship you want. 

You've posted the pressure associated with the desire for a husband and family. So your racking your brain with each relationship to make that happen. Like a problem to be solved. "Each guy, how can it work out" mentality.

Maybe you need to get to know yourself better so you can see more clearly deal breakers and stop trying to fix things. See crap as broken and move on. 

I have had some relationships fail and sure from the outside is like what wrong with me? but no! it's what's wrong with the situation and is it better to let it go? 

Stop seeing everyone as potential 

Stop trying so hard to be with someone

Start trying to be with yourself. 

You'll gain strength, clarity and peace.

Hope this helps! ❤

[Carnatic]

I've known people who've had all-kinds of relationship histories, I can give a couple of examples:

People who have sporadic short term relationships that always end with them being dumped and unhappy. I have a friend who is mostly single, a talented musician but otherwise very shy and is not conventionally attractive (think, folky and unkempt) but occasionally a woman will become infatuated with him, date him for a bit and then dump him.

People who can go for extremely long periods of never being single, they maybe have a few different relationships in this time, but one relationship has always started just before the previous one ends... my ex was actually one of these people.

People who you would think were conventionally super-attractive (I have one friend, he's a rock climber and has the physique to match, looks like a model but is a talented poet and generally a very sensitive but also emotionally well adjusted person) but who just gets rejected constantly. He's actually in a relationship right now so fingers crossed for him but even then she rejected him at first only to get back in touch months later.

I have a couple of friends (actually probably this is the standard mode for people I'm friends with) who flip between being promiscious and just having flings and then attempts at a long-term relationship which they then get totally into only to get dumped).

Then of course there are the people in long term relationships, I know stable and not-so stable couples, and sometimes the not-so stable outlast the ones you thought were heading for marriage. It just turned out they were better are pretending everything was perfect. I've had friends be in a really sweet looking relationship where they just seem ideal for each other only to break up out of the blue.

People are just different, I wouldn't say any of these people is especially dysfunctional in their relationship pattern, we all follow our own patterns because we're all more predisposed towards some behaviours and less to others. I do get your dissatisfaction at the existence of such a pattern but I don't think it hints that there is something you're doing wrong, and while patterns can tell you what happened with 100% certainty they can only tell you so much about the future, and they often break. I guess humans by their very nature are dysfunctional, there's a degree of dysfunctional function, dissatisfying satisfaction in all of our lives... I guess.

[LaHermes]

7 hours ago, Tinydance said:

that Freudian thing of blaming my parents for anything

Tiny. There is nothing "Freudian" about looking into one's childhood (not talking about blaming). The saying "the child is the father of the man/woman"  is very true. 

One cannot but be affected by childhood and dysfunctional parenting. 

7 hours ago, Tinydance said:

My Dad never took any interest in me, never contacted me since I moved out of home at 23. He's always been very cold and apathetic towards me and basically we have zero relationship. I felt very rejected by my father because he just never seemed to care about me at all.

It is beyond my comprehension how a Dad could be like this. But then I am going by what my own wonderful parents were like.: steady, stable people.

 

7 hours ago, Tinydance said:

I just don't understand why other people can have long term relationships and marriages,

This requires no deep understanding Tiny. Otherwise none of us would be in a stable (sane and healthy) long LTR or marriage.  

People for a steady background, where there was good example, are innately able to make good choices. That is what it boils down to: good choices.  Being able to choose wisely (referring to LTRs and intended marriage) is the secret, and that involves a good ability to read people, and not to pick up the first thing that comes along. 

 

[SooSad33]

I agree totally with ongoing prof help.  I've done this repeatedly through the years.  Therapy is good for listening & guiding. For all sorts of things.. coping skills, just to vent & feel heard.  Nothing wrong with a good therapist 😉 .

I do feel this will help you work through some of your challenges - mainly concerns over your own ways & how you feel & deal with issue', relationships and even your own self ( I am sure you question a lot).

It's all experiences.  But, I always say to never compare your life to anyone else's.  We all go our own ways, some never marry, so marry young.  some have kids yet other's never do.

And as for relationships, is never a good idea to keep going back to an ex - I always think of the saying.. 'the past has nothing new to say' . 😉 

I had kids young ( w/ 2 ex's) and my brother never married until almost 40. He did is in a smart way IMO.  He had a rough go with first gf, but they got into drugs & it all had to stop 😕 .. He took a good 10 yrs on his own, and remained that way until he truly felt a good interest in a woman, in which he felt she was to his liking and compatible.  They married just over a year later.

Anyways, I am sure you've sat back & thought on a lot of things.. which is good!

Yes, you may have been affected by your upbringing.  we are all different where one of my kids is negative & challenged but the other's moved on quite well- thankfully 🙂 . So, that may very well have made a difference for you.

Is also good that you do go out & have an active life style. But. I do feel is best that you remain on your own to work through this stuff that's bothering you.  Maybe you have been through enough for now and is time to just sit a while on your own until you truly feel 'okay' to consider being involved again.  Is not good to run into something because you are bored/lonely. ( wrong reasons).

So, take this one day at a time.. Have some hobbies/crafts to keep you busy at home?  You have no pets, but have you considered one? To keep you company.

 

 

[DarkCh0c0]

@Tinydance I thought you might like this https://www.calmmoment.com/wellbeing/11-best-podcasts-for-wellbeing/

[Capricorn3]

7 hours ago, Lambert said:

Stop seeing everyone as potential 

Stop trying so hard to be with someone

Start trying to be with yourself. 

You'll gain strength, clarity and peace.

^ My thoughts exactly.  I think this is the crux of the matter. Great post Lambert.

[LaHermes]

20 hours ago, Lambert said:

Stop seeing everyone as potential 

Stop trying so hard to be with someone

Start trying to be with yourself. 

You'll gain strength, clarity and peace.

 

On 9/1/2021 at 10:46 AM, Tinydance said:

I just don't understand why other people can have long term relationships and marriages, but it's never happened to me

In Lambert's excellent summary you will find the answer Tiny.

You see, the saying "hungry people make bad shoppers" is so true. 

[Tinydance]

15 hours ago, DarkCh0c0 said:

@Tinydance I thought you might like this https://www.calmmoment.com/wellbeing/11-best-podcasts-for-wellbeing/

Awwww thank you so much ❤