Hi 1more, welcome to PC. Sometimes a person will choose someone so that they can fix them and make the person love them. This is a fantasy from childhood when the child wanted to make the parents finally love them. In adulthood you could be still trying to work out this fantasy?

I believe that when a person has grown up in a dysfunctional family that it is very difficult to be around healthy people. It is difficult because healthy people will really "see" you and if you came from a dysfunctional family, your self worth will be low and when you have low self worth you don't want anyone really seeing you. You don't want to be lonely so you settle with unhealthy people. Unhealthy people don't "see" others so it feels comfortable. The challenge is to work on your self worth and attempt to be around healthy people and work through your discomfort. I had to work through this.

You write that your parents used physical punishments. This could have been abusive then. I was emotionally neglected and I see it as neglect and not abuse. My parents were not abusive. Others have told me that all neglect is abuse but I believe that I have the right to define my own experience.

Have you ever been in therapy to work through all of this?