Hello,
this is my first experience with a support group and maybe I start with just telling a bit about myself. It took me over 20 years to "wake up" and realize there is something going wrong with me. The (before) last relation was looking like a perfect match until the man shocked me in telling me I would suffer from a lack of affection and there was something wrong with me. It hit me hard enough to search the expression and I am grateful I found the book from Robin Norwood - Women who love too much. While I spend many moments crying over the pages when I read it first, being shocked in finding my own life on so many pages, it probably saved my life. I could finally start to see that a) I tried to make relations with the most impossible men work and b) discover gradually the reasons why this is so. My childhood was far from being so rosy and loving as I had remembered it. While I have never seen my parents drunk, they do abuse alcohol since I can think back. Now, since I converted to Islam 4 years ago, something which also gave and gives me a lot of strength, they do drink in secret. I was able to trace back just recently that also my grandparents were misusing alcohol and that my Mom had experienced sexual abuse as a child though I don't know how any more details. She suffered all her life from depression - which I now understand better - and I was kind of her reason to live and was supposed to make her happy. From young age, she did share all her problems with me and it took me all those years to understand and feel what this does to me. I always had to be strong and had no resource to rely on. And yes, I did look for that love in many impossible relations with men. Some did drugs, many drunk too much, some were much elder than me, 2 were from Africa, one was seriously depressed and one had been abused as a child. I was married twice and once these men were changing in a way, I had hoped for, I was getting bored and sabotaged the relation. Today I know that happiness comes from inside me and no one else can give this to me. I have learned to say “stop” to my Mom when she again comes and uses me like a therapist. I have learned to not engage into hopeless relations, but to leave quickly when it turns out to be another “needy” case. While I had a couple of weeks feeling totally numb and uninterested in men, I do have occasionally the wish to be close to someone. I do search in some online data bases once in a while as I feel still uneasy around “normal” men and also because I do work abroad at the moment. I think I should not engage in this yet, I feel too fragile, too easily hurt by someone not replying anymore and too fast to think of how well someone could match with me. It is an addiction and I wonder if I will be ever able to experience a normal relationship with an emotionally balanced man. I had much wished for children in those last years, but I think now, it will be too late. But everything happens for a reason. At least, I won’t make the same mistake to have a child only for my own fulfillment. Looking forward to read from you and learn from your experiences. Lots of hugs.