Welcome to the group!  I have been perusing the groups in the Relationships and Sexuality one, and I guess I just didn't see one there with a general relationship discussion for women that might suit what I'm needing these days...anyway I hope you will join in and support each other and discuss all things relationship related!! 

Let me introduce myself.  I am a 50 years young woman who has had a lifetime of abusive, destructive, toxic and broken men come in and cling to my very empathetic and kind-hearted, loving soul and just suck the LIFE out of me emotionally and mentally, and quite often financially as well.  I've been abused, and USED my entire adult life in one way or another, no matter how much I have worked hard on ME...and I've come a VERY long way, so much so that the little girl who got married, had a baby and was horribly abused by her husband - I don't even recognize her anymore.... 

I was in a domestic violence situation for six years with my daughter's father many years ago and escaped that situation (with a lot of scary and horrible things that ensued after)...in 1996.  My daughter was 6 at the time.  Following that, I parked myself in an Alternatives to Domestic Violence group for two years, and got myself some healing for the domestic abuse situation I'd endured. I've had PTSD since that time, anxiety, off and on bouts of depression, 27 years of hypervigilant insomnia, and  unfortunately have been battling the storm of that for nearly 30 years running now.  What that stress has done is ravaged my body immensely.  I now suffer from an autoimmune disorder, where my body attacks itself, ESPECIALLY under great stress...and I've been pretty sick after the last two relationships stressed me to the MAX.

After I left my first marriage and escaped domestic violence with my life and my daughter...I utilized those two years and I did get stronger, I started working on me, and even got to the point where I helped other women who were being abused to get free and safe....

In 1998, I ran into my old childhood sweetheart...It felt safe to reconnect with one I KNEW would never hit me, one I KNEW would never abuse me in those ways...the safe choice.  He proceeded to check out of our marriage emotionally and physically and mentally six months into the marriage, the day MY father died (he has daddy issues of his own and really glommed onto mine)...and yet, dumbass me, I stayed for NINE YEARS....because I believed in committment, and because I believed that maybe he'd snap out of it and I tried for those nine years to get him to get some help for what was eating him...again, another very broken man.  A lot of damage had been done to him in the 16 years I hadn't seen him before we reconnected.  I also stayed nine years in that "marriage," because I was still working on me, and since he didn't want anything to do with me basically on any kind of emotional or physical level, it was easy just to say okay, I'll selfishly focus on myself, my daughter, my work, and I buried myself in work, while he plopped in his recliner each day after work and literally zombied out in front of rerun after rerun of THE SIMPSONS.  To this day I can't even HEAR the opening credits of that show...

I worked those 18-20 hour days so I was too tired to have to feel or face the fact that I felt like the MOST UNDERSIRABLE and unwanted woman on the planet...so I had to mentally shut down my libido or my desires, basically EVERYTHING of what I NEED from a husband....and of course my self esteem was going in the toilet... It's the only way I could emotionally survive being completely cut off physically six months into my marriage, and basically ignored...  The things that does to a woman's psychological and emotional wellbeing, not to mention the loss of trust or intimacy with that person, a complete and total disconnect, and no amount of what I did to try to "fix it" or encourage him to fix it, be a part of fixing it--I asked him to go to counseling for his "grief" (or whatever that was!) over MY DAD, he so wasn't THERE for me to grieve my own father.  And we were NEWLEYWEDS...I felt like all the progress I'd made on my self esteem and personal growth after my domestic violence was incredible, and miraculous, and it was all unraveling bit by bit, year after year of this painful marriage. 

I finally left that situation and ever since then, it has been a series of more broken men who seem to seek me out with some kind of homing device and work their way into my life with all the pretty words and all the charm, and they'll sustain that beautiful perfection for about six months before they...I don't know, get comfortable?  Complacent?  And start to really let out the REAL them...and take away all the things they portrayed themselves to me to be, after they'd snared and secured that relationship with me.  They then proceed to suck the life out of me with guilt, intimidation, manipulation - all the ways they can to keep that relationship going as long as they can, all the while pushing the limits, then when they realize or know they've gone too far, they try to reel me back in with the pretty words, etc., pretty soon (and quicker than ever now after years more of this!) it really rings hollow and those pretty words and apologies no longer work....When that happens, when I try to encourage communication about the issue when it first crops up, they refuse to discuss, become VERY defensive, put it all back on me, because they can't handle their own shit or have never worked through their own demons (some of these men have actually finally then admitted to me they never worked on their own demons!).  I would really have appreciated them staying the hell away from me, but of course I'm so welcoming, warm, loving, empathetic, I have such a great listening ear, I've grown pretty wise about a lot of things after all this pain, and they want to bleed me of that peace I've worked so hard to gain....

So...here I sit again with the same thing happening to me AGAIN...Always....over and over and over and over again.

I am done.  I am really done.  I'm trying to safely (emotionally and physically) extricate myself from this latest one that is one year and one month duration so far.  I NEED it to stop.  I had become so strong after the last one...I had made a PROMISE to myself I'd never live feeling like this again, and here I am, feeling EXACTLY LIKE THAT YET AGAIN.  This would be now FOUR failed attempts at a relationship commitment following my divorce in 2009.  I AM SO DONE.  And I'm so okay with that.  I just need to be free and I need to be ME.  But it's very complicated with this one, and he is VERY manipulative, and he is also VERY filled with anger and rage about his own issues, and he fuels that with excessive use of alcohol (just like my first abusive husband).  Funny, this is the first ALCOHOLIC to attach himself to me after my abuser...and because of my abuser, I swored I'd stay away from alcoholics...And this one SNUCK RIGHT IN....oh what a charmer.  And I feel like everything I've learned in 30 years flew out the window.  I was so easily manipulated, after ALL THIS TIME?!  And I no longer trust ME either, another reason I'm DONE with relationships.

Now, this current one has not "beaten me" but when he's really drunk, he verbally assaults me, he emotionally manipulates me, he uses his past hurts against ME, though I have nothing to do with what happened to him nor have I ever done ANY of those things to him.  He has no place to go and only RECENTLY got his drunk ass back to work after two and a HALF years of being playboy and spending all the last of his funds at the beginning of this year when he met me...I ended up having to support his ass for three months because he was in my home, and he had nowhere to go, and he wasn't getting work (and still drinking, though I will give him this - he has TRIED to reduce, tried to even stop - and apparently has reduced enough to sustain employment again...but now he's a man I don't even RECOGNIZE and he's going through all kinds of demons giving up the demon alcohol...so just another step in another complicated situation.  So I have got to get him out, and I'm working on that. The absolute STRESS of him the last seven months sent me into a real tailspin of flares and worsening illness.  I'm really sick now after this one.  So again...I'M DONE.  So done with relationships. I have to take care of ME and survive now.  And I know what the immense stress of a person does to me physically.  Unfortunately the next man to do this to me will cause me a heart attack or stroke (and I'm not joking...) and I'm not willing to give my life for these broken souls who can't seem to stay away from this unbelievably still shiny light and positivity that I try so hard to continue to be in spite of it all. 

Interestingly, when I have just lived a single life and a had benefit friend...these things are NEVER a problem, there's never an issue, everything runs smoothly.  Perhaps I just am too broken myself now for committments anymore.  I have very little tolerance for this kind of shit anymore, and it's VERY hard to trust at all whatsoever anymore.  They always end up the same way.  Eventually a girl starts to wonder, the common denominator is me.  There must be something absolutely inherently wrong with me that no man can sustain an honest effort beyond six months or that all the broken ones can find me by some kind of sick RADAR...

What is it about a woman who will treat a man like a king, always be nurturing, loving, caring, communicative, open, HONEST, loyal, affectionate, loving, committed and monogamous, and incidentally always ready for action - sounds perfect right?  What all men CLAIM they want - but what is it about this girl, ME, who really does exist like this...when they get it, they totally shit on me by six months? 

I think single for the rest of whatever short time I have left is the way it will be once I get out.  Anyway....that's why I created this group.  I feel like I'm going crazy and I would love to have other women who are in this same pattern, this same situation, or similar issues to talk to about it.  Thank you and I hope you all enjoy the group.