Is there any hidden meaning to be found in thinking about what the people you have fallen in love with say about you?

Not really a pattern, necessarily. They were all very different people. It showed me that early in my life I had a thing for jerks. I was always consciously aware, though, that it was the moments that those people were assholes to everyone else.. but nice to me.. that made me so attracted to them. I guess I like to be made to feel special.

I’m on good terms with my ex lovers and ex husband. They’ve each told me I am a good friend, I’m loyal and I’ve been important to their lives.

What does it say about me? I think it says I’m a trier, I’m a hard worker and I pick people who share my values as far as relationships go, both romantic and platonic.

Is there a pattern to the people you have fallen for over the years?
Definitely, both physically and in personality.

Have you ever sat down and analyzed what it says about you?
Yep.

What it means about the way you were feeling at that point in your life?
Taken as a whole, it’s pretty clear I’m attracted to partners with energy, diverse interests, a strong sense of exploration, and with a clear knowledge of self. Beyond that we need to hit it off as mutually engaging friends and grow from there. It’s worked out pretty well, my closest friends, not counting my wife, are all ex’s. While we’ve changed the nature of our relationships we still love each other. (Looking at that, I guess it also says I’m strongly attracted to people who are in it for the long haul; and I’ve been pretty consistent with it for a while because looking back at each point parts may have been different, but the core’s been the same.)

Yes… The “pattern” goes like this: *And it never fails… No matter what I do.

They come in to the situation knowing exactly who and what I am, how I can be at times,and how I behave.

They court and persue me, they lie and say “I love you” believing or feeling that is what I need to hear to make them feel less like sc*mbags for the fact that it isn’t true. Then, when I find out they are lying sacks of refuse and useless sacks of human unwanted baby brew… I get angry, they lie and tell me “That’s not true, I really do love you.” and then I believe them again thinking maybe I’m just being difficult? Because I CAN be difficult, so I give them another chance, and guess what? They do it all over again.

By now… I am a pissed off, belligerent, b*tch because you just got over on me, twice…
And I’m hurt and angry (two things I often get confused) then I leave, he apologizes and promises that it will never happen again, promises me it’s all his fault, or… says he has no idea what I’m talking about and convinces me that I’m actually being unreasonable and difficult…

Then the whole “One more chance” bullshit happens and guess what? Then I usually go nuts and threaten him, and spit out other various seemingly insane and irrational things that fly out of my mouth like a bat out of hell…

Then he get’s pissed off and blames it all on me because I am a “Crazy b*tch” and of course he didn’t do anything wrong, he is a saint and should have Jesus wash HIS feet!

and then he shoves his new bi*ch in my face and puts me down for everything I ever did for him, anything I ever gave him and justifies his own shitty behavior by throwing me under the bus to make himself look like a decet person, (no matter what he did to me) praises his new bitch because she is just as oblivious and belligerent as he is, and she coddles his stupid ass and agrees with him when he claims he is perfect no matter what kind of bullshit he pulls on her too…

And I lose valuable life space and time out of my life that I can never get back again wasted on liars, d*uchebags and infamous narcissistic megalomaniac liars.

All of them… Every single one of them has used me for everything good I had ever given them, done for them, helped them to create, loved them through and supported them through.

For what? Nothing… NOT ONE OF THEM, has even been worth the breath it took to say their names. Useless idiots that should have had the shit knocked out of them by their mothers for treating women like garbage disposals.

That is what I find and what finds me… Whether or not I know it or see it ahead (I don’t do that anymore, you can’t turn an idiot back into the man that he never was in the first place…nay nay nay, don’t bother!) ... or if I learned it the hard way after it was too late and there were feelings and emotions that I couldn’t just turn off that is what I get regardless.

No matter what I have ever done…right, wrong, kind, mean, good, bad… It never mattered
THIS is the pattern men follow with me. It has been a collosal waste of a life, my youth, my sanity, my heart and my body.

Which is exactly why… I want nothing, and no one anymore. I will never do it to myself ever ever again. It’s just not worth this aggrevation, heartache and bullshit.

Even if I could believe any one of them that approaches me at this point, I wouldn’t bother anyway. Love isn’t worth this much… It’s not all that big a deal really and I say if a person can live without… then DO live without. Otherwise it’s a needful thing and a waste of time.

*For me… Not for everyone. I know some of you love junkies manage your addiction rather nicely… As for me, I am CLEAN and QUITE sober!

I try to believe there’s no hidden meaning, but of course it’s not like that. But if people are calling you something, I guess there’s a chance you may be that.

Yes, there’s a pattern, but I’ve obviously severed it for now.

@GabrielsLamb… I think… Out of all that bullshit, you got some beautiful children. Focus on the good. Stop giving energy to the bad and allowing these “men” to hurt you. You’re not clean as long as you keep feeding this darkness inside you : ( The darkness they created that you still cling to. Why? I have no idea. All I know is that I sense the black energy you are choosing to stand in. I believe it is your choice. You are an extremely strong, intelligent woman. If you truly wanted the demons gone, I personally believe they would be. You won’t be sober until you stop drowning yourself in “their” filth.

I’m not trying to hurt you or attack you in anyway… I personally find you to be a wonderful, charismatic person. The anger and darkness I sense makes me sad.

My lovers have all been red-headed (or blond), catholic up-bringings complete with catholic school (except my wife), highly intelligent and artistic. They have all had a very strong moral system. The Catholics all exhibited a strong sense of guilt. I think they all believed in leaving the world a better place than they found it.

What I find interesting is the Catholicism. It makes me wonder what happens in a Catholic family that creates a woman I find so attractive? They are, as I said, very bright and creative. They also seem to be very caring and compassionate. They are people I admire and who I would model myself after.

I wanted, I think, to learn compassion. But mostly I just enjoy people like this: smart, creative, with their hearts in the right place.

@GabrielsLamb Just saying…. SLAA tells us that emotional anorexia is not sobriety. I’ve never had that problem (anorexia of either emotional or sexual varieties), but it’s something I hope you’ve thought about.

Well, I apparently have some very peculiar unresolved issues.

Both husbands numbers one and two were tall, dark, handsome and in the same class at the same university (although I met them sequentially, twelve years apart).

Most have been beneath me, and not just in the sexual sense lol. But seriously, I’ve dated people I can control in a way – this sounds harsh but it’s not in a horrible sense. I know I am smarter than them, have more going for me, etc. and they know it. Therefore I stand as the better person in the relationship and the one that the other person is desperately trying not to lose. It tells me – obviously – that I want the power in the relationship, which I never thought I did until I looked back on this a few months ago. I realized it now because I am in a relationship where the power is more in balance and he calls me on my shit and I call him on his.
@wundayatta What religion (or not) are you?
@Blackberry Obviously?
@gailcalled How did that happen? Are you a professor that it was the same class but years apart?

I am irreligious, @Ponderer983

Although, I discovered, at the age of 20, that my mother’s mother was a Jew, fwiw. My father’s parents were Northern Baptists. I never went to church except when visiting my grandparents.

Why do you ask?

I met husband number one on a blind date. The woman sitting next to me in my calculus class at my college (down the road from that university in Cambridge) fixed us up. He was a sophomore. We were married at the end of my junior year, for reasons that escape me now.

Fast forward many years. I was living in Manhattan, as a single mother, with my two-year-old daughter and seven-year-old son. He was in second grade at PS 6. The NYC public schools were about to go on strike, so I began to check out the private schools in the city.

I went to nine of them for interviews and info sessions. At one, recommended to me by my lawyer, who was on the board of trustees, the headmaster came out to meet me, also at the request of my lawyer. Then said headmaster showed up at the hour-long interview I had with the Director of Admissions.

My son was admitted to the little school, which I loved, and he attended it for four years. The head and I hit it off and began having coffee and chats, when I discovered where and when he had attended university. That was a shock.

Reader, I married him.

@wundayatta A few things – speaking in generalizations (which is always bad, but an unfortunate necessity) when people are non-religious they tend to not be able to tolerate people with strong religious beliefs. I, as a non-believer, find it difficult as well. If my S/O wanted to go to church when I wanted to do something else, it would bother me. I find it to be a waste of time believing in something other than yourself.
You also brought up the strong sense of guilt these women exhibited. Did that ever manifest as power for you in the relationships? Knowing someone is quick to feel guilt surrenders a lot of power. I tend not to feel guilty for my actions as I do most (I can’t make that a definitive statement, unfortunately) things with conviction, therefore guilt free.
And sometimes, opposites attract. And sometimes, sameness attracts. Was just wondering from that angle where things stood.
@gailcalled trippy!

@Ponderer983 None of them were practicing Catholics while they were involved with me

As to guilt creating power for me—I’m laughing so hard I can’t breathe. I was brought up with more guilt and shame than a whole school full of Catholic girls. I was desperate for anyone who might love me and might give me the smallest crumb of approval. I think that’s where the compassion came in. They could probably sense the fragility of my inner self, and they might have felt an urge to try to support me, since they saw so much good and talent in me that I never saw.

I’m not sure if they would have felt a desire to rescue, because if that was the case, then it might have been a reason for us breaking up, and no one ever mentioned that. I felt like I needed rescuing, but I would never let anyone rescue me.

In any case, I always felt like I was on probation. If I ever did anything wrong, they would jettison me. This turned out to be true, although sometimes the jettisoning was quick and decisive and other times it was passive-aggressive and slow. In the latter case, it was never clear who ended up ending it. I was the one who made the overt decision, but I may have been responding to cues too subtle for me to become conscious of.

These are games we play without being aware of what is going on, I think. The psychologists are fond of saying you marry your mother or your father or both. So I figure my girlfriends were probably pretty excellent players of the shame game, which is related to the guilt game. So it’s more likely a case of like attracting like.

For me, it has been a long process of figuring out that I don’t have to be a success or save the world or even be anything in particular in order to be worthy of life. lt’s been a complicated trip to come to the realization that one has life whether one is worthy or not. That worth is not relevant (except to other people, if they think such judgments important).

To realize that it’s ok to be noone; that I don’t have to beat myself up because I’m not who someone else told me I should be; is a kind of tenuous freedom. It lets me let others love me, at least provisionally. I no longer feel like I need to be worthy of their love. Well, at least some of the time, I don’t feel I have to be worthy. This allows me to believe people when they say they love me, instead of having to tell them they are fooling themselves.

It’s a huge change for me. A life change. But it is having a huge impact on my marriage. Both of us need to change if we are to come to an accommodation that will allow us to live in what is, essentially, a completely different relationship. That change is in progress, but I have no idea whether we will be able to make the transition and still have our marriage be viable. Pretty scary. Not a thought I ever would have entertained back in the days when I didn’t believe I was worthy of being my wife’s husband.

@Ponderer983 Obviously what?

@EnchantingEla No hon, you are 100% right… and people like you, actually dealing with me as a human being again is actually helping me out more than you realize… Thank you, I appreciate you very much for being honest with me, that is a kindness that you don’t find often in this world…

*You actually got a tear. I thought they all dried up… *Warm smiles. ♥ Love & Light to you!

@wundayatta

Thank you as well for all of the same reasons. ♥

@GabrielsLamb <warm smiles and hugs>

It says I quite clearly have impeccable taste in women.

@wundayatta A strong sense of self and worth is more important to yourself in the long run than any other person’s love or their perception of you. So good you found that out, but I do hope for the survival of your marriage if that is what you strive for!
@Blackberry You wrote “obviously severed it for now.” What is obvious about what you have severed?

@Ponderer983 Oh, I’m not going to waste my time looking for, or investing in “love” at the moment.