Women who Love too Much Community Group

WHEN BEING IN LOVE, MEANS BEING IN PAIN... This group is to help women through the journey of realizing they can love themselves. To help realize that they are capable of having a happy, healthy, whole relationship and break the cycle of abuse and heartache from loving emotionally unavailable men.

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arat38 01/12/2010

I read this in a book today "Addictive lovers (that's us) don't believe they can be whole alone. The pervasive feeling that something is missing directs them to an adult relationships to unconsciously seek out others to meet their unmet needs. The difficulty is that a person out of touch with his real needs tends to seek out people similar to the original person (ie. a parent) who did not have the capacity or information to meet those needs in the first place." - Is It Love or Addiction by Brenda Schaeffer.

It took me soooooo long to realize that all my searching outside of myself was just wasted energy. All the guys I tried to fix, all the abuse I took, all the heartache and pain, all the trying to fit a circle into a square was useless. By focusing on myself I have learned so much. I was that girl who thought something was wrong with me if I wasn't with a man so I pushed and pulled and fought to keep my focus on relationships...that way I didn't really have to look at me and what was really going on. Now that I have I don't blame men anymore or myself or my parents. I am now focues on what makes me tick. I am like a puzzle and I have all the pieces. No one has taken them away from me or stolen them or misplaced them. I am a puzzle and I have all the pieces that I need to put myself back together again:)

deleted_user 01/12/2010

Thank you. I needed to read that !!!

deleted_user 01/13/2010

My first post! thank you for this group, it has been so helpful. I really liked the above post but it brings up questions in me.
As someone still anxious of not being in relationship, I wonder what to do with a really good man who loves me. I left him because 'it wasn't feeling right' and headed straight into a very addictive and painful fling with a man who displays serious narcissistic qualities - now crashed and burned.
Do I have to be alone to really heal? To finally face this fear? Or can it be with done with Mr Good Man, who makes me feel very peaceful just before the depression and self hatred kicks in.
Could it be that I am the narcissist in this scenario? My callousness for Mr Good's feeling shocks me at times. His willingness to love me no matter what makes me feel important and safe. I am doubting everything about myself after my dealings with Mr Fling, and so unsure as to what is driving me.

deleted_user 01/13/2010

Good post, Arat. You know, your comment, to me, points out one of the wonderful parts of all this - that we're through the hardest part. In my opinion, the hardest part is all that time, pain, and wasted energy trying to figure out how to make things work by looking outside of ourselves for the answers. All the hurt that came with not having it work. But there's a point where we finally get it and realize that it's in us we need to look. For me, and I believe most of us this is true for, it took years of looking in the wrong places, years of lessons being sent, before I caught on to this. Now is the fun part. Still tough and painful at times, but so much more rewarding. And so much less painful than looking outside of myself and finding nothing that actually worked. Thanks for posting it.

Hi Preciousbunch - welcome to the group. I'm glad you're here and I hope you get as much out of it as I have.

There are a thousand things I'd love to say to reply to your post, but time-wise I really shouldn't even be on here right now. I'll come back later, but you will probably hear some very wise thoughts on your questions between now and then from the wonderful ladies on here.
For now, I would recommend reading one of the older discussions here. It's titled 'sometimes I wonder if perhaps I'm the narc not him??' I found it and I'm putting another reply on it just to make it come to the first page of the board.
Another one is 'Characteristics of WWL2M'. I'm pulling that one up to the first page also. My recommendation is to take a look at those and see what feels right for you. Keep in mind that if your are a WWL2M, it is quite possible that you put walls up in one relationship and not in another. It's a balancing act - a wonderful thing called interdependent is in the middle/healthy ground somewhere. But we can go to either side of it by being either codependent or overly independent. Wish I could write more.

Have a wonderful day and, again, welcome.

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