Hi there, sorry to hear of all that has happened.

First thing: it's ok to love him. I too kicked myself many times for loving someone who treated me like total garbage. It is an incredibly confusing thing to love someone who treats us like crap.

There is a good chance that he treats all women he is involved with in this way because he is unable to love in a healthy way. And there is a chance too that you get involved with men who cannot love because perhaps you have commitment and control issues? I suggest this only because in my own case and many of the women here it rings true. In my case I picked a wounded man who I tried to save. Secretly though, I had a superiority complex over him. I was good, he was bad. I knew what was right for him, he didn't. This was my own issue. I had to learn that I have no power like that over another human being.

Thank you goingup! Thank you for the insight.
It is ok? I'm so lost as to what I"m doing right and wrong. I just want my head to calm down and let my heart catch up.
I think you have summed me up very well... and my situation sounds very similar to yours. I never thought about having a superiority complex over him, but I think taking some time over that might prove that you are right. So is the "no power" part of the letting go? The detachment? I'm seeing a therapist, doing the reading. I don't know what to do to practice what needs to be practiced to get me on a better path. My greatest fear is that this is simply me and I'm incapable of creating/accepting/demanding something better for my life. Are you better? Does it get better?
Thank you again!!

No problem. I think the 'having no power' is part of the detachment, in a healthy way. If you are seeing a therapist and reading 'the book' (WWLTM) you are on a great start. The biggest thing is basically to actually do the work and to never quit. And you will get better. Right now you're also grieving a breakup so that compounds the work but it will get much much easier with time.

You are capable of getting better from your life and changing, absolutely. But what you have to basically change is yourself, down to the core. I really recommend joining Codependents Anonymous (norwood recommends it in her book as THE way to recover from loving too much). I've been a member almost 3 years and it's been life changing.

It definitely gets better. I will never be 100% non-codependent because I am hard-wired that way because of my upbringing. But since I joined this site over 6 years ago I have not been in another bad relationship and I was able to earn a degree. I have seen other women learn how to stay out of bad relationships and carve their own path to self-respect. But I am still a work in progress, it's all about progress and I am way, way better than before. So there is a lot of hope!

I think I'm hard-wired for co-dependency as well. Alcoholic father. He stopped drinking fairly early in my life, but I'm recently remembering some pretty nasty fights. And my mom was a compulsive eater. Something I inherited. I run away from my life with food all the time. But it's the fear of being so hard-wired that there is no hope for change. It's really been bothering me. But the responses on here have given me hope and I feel myself lighter even in just the last 48 hours.
There is no C0AA in my city. One an hour away according to the website, but I haven't been able to get a response from them. I'm reading Melodie Beattie's Co-Dependent No More right now. Just like WWLTM, it has my name written on every page.
I admit that I have moments of extreme sadness since realizing a couple of weeks ago that this is my issue. I wonder how different my life would be had I been able to get a handle on it. That's just me… always dealing with "What ifs". I have a strong career, which I don't love. But missed out on the love of a healthy partner, children, strong family connections. Even building a family of my own. And I'll be 50 next year. Time to shake my head. One issue at a time.
Thank you again for the words. I'm a better person for having found this place already!

There is definitely hope for change if one is hard-wired. Ive seen it in myself and with other friends on the site. I've seen big change in other members of my CoDA group. We are ALL doing much better than before we began recovery. If people can overcome alcoholism with AA, they can overcome codependency with CoDA and other support groups. And they do. Life still has challenges and is hard but we don't have to live with extreme codependency being a ball and chain.

It sounds like you may also have an addictive relationship to food, in that case OA may also be of interest to you. Don't give up on that CoDA group that is an hour away. If you end up not being able to get a hold of them, they also have skype CoDA meetings as well. It's also possible to work the steps and purchase CoDA literature on your own from the website.

I'm really pursuing the CoDA meetings one city over. I think that's where I would gain the most benefit. Although you are right, I have a terrible relationship with food. I'm working on so much right now, I almost feel a bit manic in my approach to it all. Sometimes I just need to calm my mind and remind myself to be OK with me. That I'm ok.
Melody Beattie's book is helping me so much. As is WWLTM. I've read both of them twice in the last three weeks and have highlighted more sentences than I can count. At the same time it feels liberating to know that I'm not the only one out there that thinks like this.
Seeing the counsellor on Friday. I hold on to that as a lifeline. And am so happy to have found this group. It lets the thoughts come out, and the feed back has been so helpful. Especially your affirmation that change can happen. I know it doesn't come overnight. But knowing that it can happen is calming in itself.
Thanks for the tip about the skype meetings. Going to look into that if weather prevents the hour drive down the highway.
I'm so happy to have found this site!!!