Made a mistake with my toxic ex bf

agree with you 100% also in regards to your other post, I did grow up with a binging alcoholic...my mom never divorced me and a therapist told me that fact alone is traumatizing..so it’s learned behavior that maybe that’s normal behavior from a man..I know it’s not. He is 45, seeing a therapist but yes it can really take years..and that’s if you even admit you have a problem.

gymgirl, I've followed your relationship threads for over a year about this guy. Each time you claim you are through with him, but then you post a new thread about how he's blocked you again and is such a bad influence on you. So, it's hard to support you when you know he's bad for you, but you consciously choose to return to him and then make excuses as to why you go back to this bad guy.

This merry-go-round you've chosen to ride with him, will only stop, when you are serious enough to stop the addictive pattern of involving yourself with a guy who is bad news. I feel bad for you, b/c you are clearly not ready to leave him behind or you'd stop posting about your interactions with him.

What do you think you need, so that you can finally stop going back to this guy?

(((gymgirl)))

Him seeing a therapist isn't going to JUST fix his problem. It can take the rest of one's life to break their unhealthy pattern even if they stop drinking or using drugs and see a therapist.

You can love someone and at the same time learn that person is simply never going to be healthy for you in a relationship.

There are lots of times I just sit and grieve in that I married a man thinking he loved me, that I would feel safe with him and I never really experienced that with him. The man I am married to can be so nice sometimes, his Dr. Jeckle and then I have to deal with his Mr. Hyde who can be mean and selfish and condescending and I just want that person to get away from me. It's always ALL ABOUT HIS DAMN DISEASE. He gives me a hard time sometimes when I ask him to help me, yet I watch him inconvenience himself to get a meeting together for some guy who is basically on house arrest because he got caught drunk driving too many times. Some man that had to put the alcohol before the life of others he put in danger when he insisted on driving drunk.

If I had known what I was getting in to, the years of challenge, I would have never married my husband.

I understand what you mean..first, the binging..when my ex goes MIA it’s usually him binging..who turns off their phone for hours unless they wasted? And he also very much has the jeckyll and Hyde..so many times I second guess myself but my intuition was always right..especially when I started to learn more about his childhood and abuse..he was never loved so no wonder

I try not to spend too much time analyzing why he is the way he is because all it does is providing you with excuses to stick around (poor guy etc).

If he was your husband or son or brother or some other “for life” person, I could see how understanding him is of importance. But he is just a guy you hang out with, I’d spend time analyzing why you choose with these guys and what are your reasons, instead of focusing on why he does what he does, focus on what you do and why. And I recommend therapy. Not to analyze random men, but analyze yourself and wats to improve YOUR life.

Analyzing others who aren’t of any significance to you takes time away from mproving your life and working on yourself. It’s deflecting technique

He is of no importance. You are

I agree. It’s all about him, what he does and how he doesn’t treat you right when it should be about why you accept such behaviors. Narcissists are wizards at making it all about THEM. Now it’s time to focus on you.

It sounds like "you" were neglected in your childhood because you grew up with a binge alcoholic parent. There was a pattern with this that became normal to you, even when you did not know to even realize it as an unhealthy pattern. A parent who binges is "there and then not there" very similar to what this boy friend is doing. You have accepted this pattern of behavior not realizing it was NEVER healthy for you to be around.

Also, a lot of the time, binge alcoholics drink so much they black out. They don't remember what they are doing when they get to a certain point when they get drunk. When they binge, they don't think about anyone or anything except the binging into a drunken stooper and pass out.

I saw my father do this where he tended to binge on the weekends and would drink until he passed out on the sofa. I did not KNOW that was a binge alcoholic. My mother would fight about it with him too, and he always had excuses, it was always her imagination etc. A binge alcoholic doesn't like it when someone calls them out. They often say they don't have a problem and they think that because they don't do this every day that they don't have a problem. They think they are controlling it when they wait till the weekend or only drink when they are not working etc. Thing is, an alcoholic keeps drinking until they are drunk they want to be blind drunk. A person who doesn't have the problem doesn't drink and drink but can be ok with just having one beer or one glass of wine.

I think you are LEARNING how you unknowingly learned to see things as ok or normal when they are NOT normal to anything but to the disease itself. The disease of "addiction".

My input isn't so much about you understanding him as much as you understanding YOURSELF and how you fall into this "it's what you know" that keeps you going back. What is "familiar" doesn't always mean something is good for you or healthy for you to have in your life. This ex is an unhealthy person and YOU cannot fix him and he may not be able to fix himself where he can experience an actual healthy relationship.

For some people getting sober is only the first step because a lot of alcoholics have deeper problems they never resolved but instead used the alcohol for an escape. Actually, many recovering alcoholics discover they suffer from ptsd. If this ex experienced childhood neglect, he may have began using the alcohol as an escape. Thing is, when someone does that they stop growing and maturing. This individual is not an adult and neither was your mother.

You know what they say, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results". You keep going back because it's what you know and everytime you do, you exprience yet another bout of you being unhappy.

What have you changed in your own life that exposes you to healthier people?

A saying I use often: " Toxic people are like toxic waste. They both need to get dumped."

Have you had former, healthier romantic relationships?

Every other person on here describes your issue perfectly.

Sadly, I am also someone who meets all the criteria for setting myself up in relationships with emotionally unavailable men too.

It feels like I am desperate to get them to love me. But they won’t or can’t. It’s unfulfilling.

I had a couple exes who were substance addicts, who also came a little close then darted away. My low self esteem and thirst to ‘win’ their love kept me going back. But nothing ever really materialized with them. I had non addicts exes who were pretty healthy relationships but I turned off to them. So, I have a theory that these unavailable men are safe because they will not commit and the available ones who will are too anxiety provoking because they will commit. IDK if this makes sense. Just my personal theory. The issue is within us.

Gymgirl, your mother's problems controlled her life and you grew up having to accept that YOUR needs and things that were important to you were not important to your parent. This dynamic is what is familiar to you, what you know. Well, this is exactly what this ex is doing with you too.

It sounds like you get very lonely, desire some kind of presence that can give you "some" kind of affection and recognition. There are people who at times will provide "some" crumbs of affection. This is what keeps you going back. This is what your mother did too, you learned to survive on "crumbs". This is the familiar that never was healthy for you and you had to learn how to live your life this way when you had no choice. You learned to relinquish your own needs and were even encouraged to see this as "normal". This is what codependents do, they give up their place, their needs, things that are important to them to others. They typically end up with a presence that puts them in this role and they tend to settle into this role because it's what they know how to do.

You mentioned in another post that your mother never divorced you? Well, a person who needs the presence of a codependent learns how to keep that presence in their life. Also, this is what you have been taught to do, the role you ended up being place into. Sure, you get to a point where you get sick and tired of having to do all the caring and work, so you walk away from that individual. However, you end up going back because it's what you are familiar with and for you to totally end that role can feel like you are responsible for being lonely again.

I don't want my input to encourage you to feel bad about yourself Gymgirl. That tends to push a person to actually go back to a person that isn't healthy for them and then just not talk about it. I know because it's what I did myself. I watched my mother stay with my father who did not respect her and tended to only be able to see things HIS way. My mother stayed with my father, but she was LONELY with him. However, in my mother's generation women were expected to learn how to be codependents. People will say, "my father was such a jerk and I don't know how my mother stayed with him and put up with it". Well, a lot women were taught to believe they had no choice but to "put up with it". I know some of that rubbed off on me, after all, anyone can be maleable to following along long before they have any ability to know any different.

spot on. I don’t even know what I saw on him..it’s not like he treated me like a queen and made me a priority..his friends are always his priority while I am put on the back burner. Have to respect yourself enough to know you deserve better and keep it moving

I want one who will commit but it’s like I want the emotionally unavailable man to commit..as if I can change his mind..

Don't fall in love with someone's POTENTIAL of what they COULD or MAY be able to give you. What you want is to fall in love with who they are RIGHT NOW, as they are now, not for the person they COULD BE or the person YOU WANT THEM TO BE. Ideally, you have what you want RIGHT NOW. This guy is not it.

He definitively isn’t..he is who he is.

Im working on detaching myself emotionally..and it’s overwhelming..I want to meet someone but I have to be alone for a while..I don’t want to settle for someone again out of loneliness

Oh, girl, I've been there. I've made so many mistakes when it comes to relationships. I've settled for far less than what I deserve out of loneliness too, so I fully understand that.

But that's how we learn.

You have to get to a point in life and with relationships where you're completely fed up with settling for less. SO fed up, that you're willing to tolerate the loneliness verses getting entangled with yet another person who will disappoint and hurt you.

Next time, when you're ready, you make sure that they're worthy first, before committing yourself emotionally and before even dating them exclusively. You have to adopt a vision of yourself that says I respect myself TOO much to accept anything less than what I truly want.

what’s ironic is how he said I never smile..didn’t occur to him that he’s causing that because he’s so self centered..

No kidding, what was he expecting? You smiling with him being a jerk and a drunk? Tell him that now when you are done with him you are finally smiling, then block him. Enough of this dude

new year, no more stress! He said that to be a big jerk..not going to mess with my vibe!

true though..he saw I was settling just to get attention..no more.

This is something you wanted to have happen with your mother too though, you wanted a parent you could change, to get that parent to see how worthy you were to love. You have a deep desire to FIX it when you experience an emotionally unavailable person in this case a significant other.

This is what codependents and enablers do and they never really CHANGE the person they hope to change. They walk away only to sit and ponder what they could try next to get the change they want. This is exactly what abusers and toxic people want, they even bait for it by being nice or saying they miss the person they only want to use and control again.

You are trying to find a way to overcome whatever you could not change or fix and this goes way back for you. You have developed a habit with this and it's never going to be something positive for you.

You know, @Open Eyes, you bring up something really important here.

This is SO true. We often find ourselves in relationships familiar to our parental relationship in order to fix what was wrong in the parental one. And that pattern often repeats itself again and again and again, until it's finally resolved within the person who is repeating the pattern.

I learned in my own life that instead of looking to a man to give me the love I never received as a child, that I had to give it to MYSELF. The love, the validation and that unconditional acceptance of who I am.... I am still working on this.

And yes, @Gymgirl71, it seems you may be doing what Open Eyes is suggesting.

Maybe it's time to work on some self-love and self-acceptance first?

This is something we tend to work on our entire lives Hope/Gymgirl. No one really has it "in the bag" so to speak and if they tell you they do, they are not being honest.

I think the key is figuring out the things you practice that can make you vulnerable and do your best to make changes for yourself so you are not so vulnerable. We are vulnerable in that we are all human and in that are prone to making mistakes or misjudgements. And quite honestly, many are raised by parents that practice behaviors that we come to think as normal that are not normal and these lacks in our parents can contribute to our being vulnerable before we even really understand what that really means.

Gymgirl, you tend to keep knocking on doors of individuals asking them to give you something they will NEVER know how to give you. Some people are NEVER going to be available to anyone and there is nothing you can do to change that.