well im a man...ive never cheated or abused a woman. I tend to be overly emotional. So not all men are what you may think they are.

So im going to say yes....there is a man out there that can love you unconditionally and not hurt you.

Hi hon..

Yes, there are many, many men out there who are right for you and will love you unconditionally and do the best they can not to hurt you. As soon as you come into the same love for yourself, ..unconditional, ..self-trusting,..true self love..you will find them. The only thing preventing you from seeing these men is the inability to see the beauty, honor and faith in yourself and use it to stand up for what you want in life.

I agree that there are men out there who will love unconditionally. U see I think along the same lines about women. Is there one who will love like that and not run off and have an affair?
It seems to be the person who you are attracting. Get rid of that and it ends the cycle.

Thanks for the replies. I have a few questions..

Ms Teri, I know that I need to have self love, self trust. I am struggling with just how to go about obtaining them. I have let myself be abused for so many years, that it is normal.

Lostdaddy, I wonder how I go about attracting the wrong types of people???

Quit looking for 'him' and start working on yourself. Build a relationship with 'you'. Take care of yourself, treat yourself, educate yourself, be gentle, self-analyze, discipline yourself...be your own best friend for a while.. how ever long it takes. Once you find peace and comfort inside you will be able look outward and see a whole new world.

I wonder if I will have to look for him when I reach that point.....or if he will just appear. ;)

I am in the same place as you. I have been so hurt in the past that not only do I not trust men but mostly I don't trust my own judgement in them. I have always attracted and been attracted to guys that don't treat me well and I have finally come to the conclusion that I have to change the way I think in order to start attracting nice guys.

My problem now is figuring out how to change myself so I can spot the jerks ahead of time. I've had had to become very tough on myself and ditch a guy at the first sign of him not treating me right or giving off a bad vibe and not even allow myself to think "what if he really was a nice guy and I just didn't give him a chance". Woman have good intuition and we have to use it. In the past I would over look the gut feelings I would get because I didn't want to be lonely but now I know for my own sake that I would rather be alone than be abused again.

For now I wouldn't even worry about whether you should be out looking for the guy or if they will find you. I would start working on yourself, reading everything you can on abusers so you will be able to recognize them before they get to you and so you don't put yourself back in that position.

You hit it on the head: You need to trust yourself and your own sensibilities. It's more an issue of what you can tolerate rather than trusting yourself. When you feel someone exceeding your threshold of tolerance, you can trust yourself to take a step back, look at the situation and address what it is that's hurting you. If they don't like your assessment, that's their problem.

Hi, nomore.

My experience with recovery in trust came on much stronger when I understood it was necessary first to trust myself, to trust me to make decisions that made me feel good about myself, not dependent on people that also can not trust themselves. It's not about how others take care of me, but knowing that no matter what I will take care of myself. I will decide who is trustworthy and have my own back in case someone cannot be trusted. No one is perfect, including me, so knowing how to trust myself is alwaysfirst on the trustworthy list. Knowing I am less and less likely to sell myself out for love/approval/acceptance is the aspect of trust I most had to work on.