I’m almost 33, and have lived so much I may as well be 80.

When, and if I ever, decide to date then being involved in local community service will be the way to go. I have no more fears of running from a guy who alerts my danger vibe now- I used to be a fixer and one who craved outside validation (“If I fix him, he will love me forever and then I will feel love for myself” kind of thing). No more. I have been loving myself okay for two months now. I have no wishes to have the past two guys be in my life due to their abuse, as well I will not let anyone remain in my world if they get out of line. This site has helped me realize that abusers can only change themselves (if one in a million chance they realize they are abusers). I don’t have time to waste on that project, nor energy.

I will kick away any prospect who turns out to have abusive signs, and I will practice daily healthy boundaries so I do not let myself get trapped again. I can get angry at me at times for staying with two of them for so long- but I was not the abuser just a sad confused girl with no boundaries and no idea of what love looks like. I do have a vague idea now, but trust that someone can meet that vague idea is low. I know I have been sucked into abuser-boy-land for the last decade so as I write this, haha, I think I need to go discover great-guy-land then maybe hope will return. For sure.

Where is great-guy-land? I need a map.

Thank you Brad, and thank you NML!!

xoxox
Thank you again, Brad.

I am pretty sure that by the early twenties, most of the good guys have either found a mate – or stopped looking very hard. And that is what you are facing. Nothing that pairs you up in the singles market is likely to include all those men of good character that aren’t interested in dating as social recreation.

My recommendation is to continue as you plan, to stop dating for a couple years. But I think you will find someone in your community, if you get active in your community. Get to know the good people and important issues in your community, and let a few (happily married) women know when you are again interested in making a home and family. Call it networking, call it being active in your community. Or just call it healthy living. Focus on character issues, and honor and honesty, in your life and those around you. Don’t assume that any guy knows or understands any social rules or expectations, especially about dating. At the same time, run away, quickly, from any guys with slick lines, that are too easy to get to know – that are demonstrably focused on sex and not a shared life.

The guy boxing groceries, the guy in the back of the hardware store or ushering at worship service – that you never see where singles hang out. There are lots of candidates for a woman looking for a good man. Just be prepared to win his trust before you can get his attention. Keep everything based on respect and honor, and the worst that is likely is to win a friend.

Sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite!

I have decided to educate myself on how to get past choosing the wrong guys, and for now decide to be alone. I have not been in a real relationship in two years yet have been stringing myself along (and being pulled in by) a bad unrequited love for years.

I am very sad lately because I do not believe there are great guys out there. I cannot trust a guy- how he will be wonderful and pull me in only to turn out to be a jerk. I cannot trust a guy. I can only trust I will not involve myself with one.

I’ve been busy with a lot in life anyway so I have a lot that makes it easier being single, but as far as I recall I wanted a wonderful man to call my own and me all his.

I just don’t believe anymore. I don’t believe there are great guys at all.

I will value myself, and do what I want to help the world a better place alone by myself.

My heart wishes there were great guys. If there are, I don’t live on the right planet.

I do not feel broken in spirit. I do feel my dream guy bubble is burst. I’m very tired. Thank you for letting me get this out so I can get some sleep.

@NML
This site is such a blessing…its raw honesty and bang-on insights, the like of which I’ve NEVER EVER seen before…I’m day 2 NC. And never in my life did I get it until now. I’ve had AHA moments before, but WOW…reading your posts and the experiences of others REALLY puts all the disjointed pieces…puts EVERYTHING together me. I’m only now just starting to “get it”…the pieces are fitting…and now, for the first time in my life, I understand what seems to be the huge missing piece of the puzzle…the answer to my achilles heel. Funny enough, it feels like the windows have opened and I am breathing fresh air again, and look forward to ….discovering my life. I’m only just starting to feel a sense of empowerment that I never had before..it’s been a lifesaver. I still have a long road ahead of me…but thanks to you and your posts, I’m starting to get it…finally, after a lifetime…finally.

Be sure you follow the links and read the full description of what NC is defined as – an active choice, a physical block to any means he might have to contact you, by blocking his phone, filtering out his email to trash before ever knowing he emailed you, blocking his texts. The point is to never know if he *tried* to contact you. If you see he left a voice message or text, if you notice an email, even if you don’t read or hear the message, then that is not NC.

NC is about taking a stand. NC says to your inner self, “I am done.” No matter what he wants, I don’t care. “I don’t care if he changes, I don’t care if he mends his flaws, I don’t care if he left X and is ready to settle down with me.” You recognize that men, dysfunctional men, don’t change. And you recognize that, for the rest of your life, you cannot risk his contact or attention, because it *will* harm you.

NC is about healing. You accepted someone into your life that wasn’t suitable for the long term relationship you need. That is a problem, a well adjusted woman in charge of her own destiny, exercising her knowledge of what she needs would not have allowed herself to be distracted by eye candy, a sob story, or a fixer-upper that would be oh, so grateful if her loving could fix his problems. Shoes don’t stretch, the song goes, and men don’t change. NML points out the insecurity, the danger, the silliness of falling in love with what he could be, instead of rationally dealing with what he is.

NC lets you identify why you accepted this kind of dysfunction partner-prospect, and why you stayed when you should have known that what you wanted wasn’t in the works. Because you need to change that inner vision, rediscover the inner voice that screams “This guy ain’t got it! Run!”, you need NC to keep the past, the bozo, from distracting you from the work and self discovery you need.

NC helps put time and insight between yourself and the silliness of the past. As long as you wait on his input you are really deluding yourself that he will come around, that the dysfunction of the past will be mended, that even though you picked a perpetual dater with no concept or interest in anything beyond a dating relationship, that he might become prince charming. By leaving him in the picture, by keeping up the idea of a relationship with him you bind yourself, body and soul, to your dreams of what he might be – and you bind yourself into the pain and disappointment and delusions of the past.

So NC is a conscious choice to build a new you, one without bonds to that bozo. NC recognizes that you cannot afford to have him in your life. NC is a promise to yourself, to pick a mate-prospect that is suitable first, and only then will you pursue the important question of whether you enjoy making him happy.

NC is an important step toward self esteem. NC is a refusal to compromise what you know is right and what you need for the sake of someone that isn’t going to be happy with you anyway, or at least beyond the moment.

We talk about red flags and warnings. And we talk about boundaries. When one does something that steps across what we consider acceptable, we might enforce a boundary with a warning, “I was disappointed you didn’t show up last night. Lying to me about plans, failing to let me know when something comes up is very disrespectful, and feels as if you take me for granted.” But letting such things repeat – is not a boundary. A boundary has teeth. “I am sorry, your lack of consideration shows lack of character, lack of honor. I cannot trust or respect you or your word. Thanks for your time. Goodbye, please do not contact me again.” A boundary might trigger either a warning or an ending. Knowing and acting on boundaries is a very good way to discover and develop self esteem.

“Didn’t your mother tell you that it is the dates a girl walks home from that shows her mettle, not the ones she rides home from?” (Mike Shepherd, in a SF novel).

Value your own values and needs first. This is very, very scary stuff.

Best of luck!
.-= Brad K.´s last blog ..ps: Empowering girls, and self confidence =-.

please get away from these two quickly and quitely. Neither are any good for you – alone or together. What a horrible pair, and what a horrible r/s, and what a horrible way of going on. You really don’t need any part of that.

I understand that our upbringings have had a deep impact on how we recreate our relationships as adults – but, before now, we didn’t understand that. Certainly I didn’t. My parents have been together for over 54 years and, while they wouldn’t see each other hurt or ail, they hate each other on a day to day level. Like you, my expectation of what a r/s is going to be like comes from that…

But not now I understand the how and why of that; and, thanks to this site and its wonderful posters who are always so ready to share, I’m learning more and more all the time.

I now declare – hand on heart – that if the option is to live in a r/s like my parents (or many of the other relationships I’ve witnessed throughout my years) I’d rather stay by myself.

Actually, I like my life. I could do with earning a lot more money (lol) but, apart from that, I enjoy me, my daughter, our animals, getting out and about, writing, doing my own thing…

I hate what these eejits do to my life and how they make me feel – or, maybe, rather how I make me feel over a dopey nobody who was my own mental creation anyway.

I’m promising myself everyday now that the very MOMENT some guy makes me feel “maluky” in any way whatsoever, about anything at all – HE’S OUT. No more. I’m not working to clean up my life, self and mind just to let it be soiled again by a ninny of any description.

A friend and most certainly a Lover/Husband/Partner should add to life, not detract from it; not mar and disrupt it.

Will you please stay away from this man, sadthing, forever? Leave him to the awful creature screeching and scrawling around him right now – they deserve each other.

You deserve way, way better.

love, Leonine.

Sadthing, well said and what a great visual, thanks for that one. Love is supposed to be healthy fun and engaging, and not filled with weak efforts, disappointment and pain. And we are capable of deciding who we choose to share our time with.

Thanks for your comments, I hope I’m not in for trauma, drama, stress and pain in the future as I really don’t enjoy it, but you’re probably right in that on some level I’m more comfortable with this than anything else as I grew up in a house full of it.

I can see that the relationship between the AC and the scary woman is the same as that between my father (EUM supremo) and scary stepmother. My stepmother was like a spitting cat when it came to competing with me for my father’s attention and guess what? 40 years later here I am again, only this time I am armed with knowledge and the help of this site. Thanks again.

@ Prickly

Great story and very uplifting to hear. Your comment about always having to ‘reel them in’ reminded me of something my stepmother said when advising me on how to deal with the AC’s hot and cold behaviour ‘they are scared deep down so you need to reel them in gently, I to do this with your father’ Subsequently both my Dad and the AC said ‘once a woman gets her hooks into you there is no escape’ – there is though a guaranteed future of pain and misery trying to please them.

NO, NO, NO -you should not have to reel them in at all, they should be splashing and swimming towards you with enthusiasm, no need for hooks at all.

I often wishes there were more posts on this site about good
outcomes from learning about EUM. Today I realized that i have the EUM to thank for me being very very clear about what I am looking for as I am single for the first time in 30 years.

Thanks for sharing. What your story says to me is that the man is self confident and emotionally aware enough to be conscious of your feelings as well as his. Does this make him perfect for you ? Ahhh, only time will tell but…. so far he is not EUM and for that reason alone I am breathing a sigh of relief for you, cause EUM’S are a PIA, or worse !