Help A Relationship Addict

I am a relationship addict. I have jumped from relationship to relationship throughout my life and don't know who I am anymore. All my relationships have been unhealthy and unsuccessful. I try to fix girls and rely on them to fix or rescue me. I can't stand being alone. Recently I broke off my engagement to a wonderful girl who just wasn't quite sweet or affectionate enough for me. She was uptight and I just couldn't relax. We both were holding each other up to nit-picky sky high performance standards in many areas and we argued constantly for the 1.5 years we were together. I knew she was bad for me and followed my gut in pushing her away. Now that she has moved on (1.5 months later) she has started dating a guy she works with. We have stayed in almost daily contact since she moved out. I am in unbearable pain. For a while I would beg her to come back to me every day and she'd just reject me over and over again. She contacts me out of the blue all the time too usually when she has a hangover or has done something irresponsible or been abused by a random guy she met and wants to be comforted or rub it in my face. But now, she has started dating a guy that makes her laugh and she's taking it slow with him. They were friends at work for the past 6 months and it is killing me. I fear she will no longer need me or contact me anymore once she has him more regularly in her life. Why do I care? Why can't I move on? Why do I stare at my phone all day hoping she will call? I know all she can offer me is more pain. Even if she were to take me back it would just be pain like it was when we were together. Sometimes I feel that the pain of even the most unhealthy relationship like this one where we objectified each other from day 1 and were just playing roles rather than really accepting or loving each other is better than being alone. I am so afraid to be alone. She has social skills and a higher self esteem than I do so she is out there making friends, dating, being active. I cannot do anything but ruminate over a fantasy of a relationship that never was. I am constantly filled with thoughts of "what might have been" had we just found a way to become healthy together, or met at a different time. In so many objective ways we were perfect for each other. I fear anyone else I meet will not measure up to her. She was like a porn actress in bed. Her family was like Norman Rockwell perfect. Even though she had major self esteem issues of her own that made me miserable and we just tolerated each other I lament everything that I lost or that could have been. I dread the end of the workday... where will I go? What will I do? I hate going home. I just sit there on the couch watching infomercials hating myself. I used to have interests and passions but she convinced me that all my individuality was just a compensation for lack of social savvy. I feel so rejected by a "cool chick". I feel I will never be normal. I want to be the person she tried to make me, rather than have to look within and discover myself.

Despite all this, there is a glimmer of hope in me that I have finally recognized this addiction and what it was doing to me. Even though I currently hate myself, I have this hope that if only I could truly see myself, I would like what I saw. I have this faint sense that being single for the first time in many many years could be a real chance for me to restore my lost self esteem and then even to eventually find a relationship that has a chance of success, happiness, acceptance, love, family. I just have no idea how to go about doing it. I am in therapy and on anti-depressants. I have reached out to friends and family, they all know what I am going through and are there for me, but I am not really making any progress. I still haven't touched my guitar in weeks. It's messed up because when we first broke up I was actually happy to be broken up and feeling positive I made the right choice until I found out she was dating and having sex with someone else. Then my world just fell apart. Knowing she doesn't need me has been crippling to me. Even when at the same time I am truly happy for her that she has been able to move on, I haven't. I feel doubly guilty because she knows I am unable to move on and she cares enough that it is making her feel guilty for doing so. She calls and checks in on me to ask if I am ok and I can't fake being ok. I always convey to her that I am freaking out.

I used to be such an individualist. I used to pride myself on my idiosyncrasies and the things that made me unique and special. She convinced me that those were the tendencies of a narcissist and that the goal of life is to fit in and make others comfortable. Well, she made me very uncomfortable, and she hates herself too and is so wound up and critical and can't seem to enjoy anything. She always demanded I take her on extravagant dates and pay for everything and even when I was perfect and wearing the clothes she picked out for me and behaving in the prescribed manly manner she would constantly nit pick and complain. Now she is dating a guy who makes much less money than me and she says she isn't nit picky anymore and apologizes for how she objectified me but she won't come back and treat me right. She has moved on and wants me to as well.

All my friends say I am a catch. I am smart, handsome, fit, good in bed, have a nice house, car, job. How can I be happy? My therapist says I have to make myself happy before I will be ready for a relationship. How? How when I am still brainwashed by this girl who made me lose my identity, and she wasn't even being herself either when she did it. It's so ###$ up. I don't know what to do.

It's been 6 seeks since she moved out, a month since she slept with someone else. She's dating a guy she likes more than she ever liked me, as evidenced by the fact that she doesn't make him jump through all the hoops I had to and pay through the nose. I feel like I was raped by a prostitute if that makes any sense at all. I can barely remember any reasons why we broke up. Even reading the hundreds I wrote down doesn't help. All I know is I am miserable and I would give her all my life savings to come back to me. I cannot bear to pick myself up out of bed. I need a master. I never had to make my own decisions with her and it is so hard to do it for myself. I feel like I've been bested at my own game the way she manipulated and controlled me and made me bark like a dog for her. I am dating and met a nice girl but I am so afraid that I will hurt her or that she will hurt me like this. I am literally afraid to love again at the same time that I know it's the only thing that can make me happy. I need to be part of a couple. I hate being alone. Especially around the holidays. God this sucks. I hope time makes this better.

I can relate with what you're saying. I was also a serial monogamist who couldn't bear to be alone, couldn't bear the end of a relationship and, well, much of what you've mentioned here. You are asking what you need to do, but you have an excellent idea of what you need to do. It's all in your post. You wrote down a whole lot of things that would really work for you to make this better. The only thing you didn't write is that you need to cut all contact with this ex. It's driving you crazy and cutting you up. I know it's a difficult move but from someone who's tried it, it is so much easier than staying in contact. I am reticent to recommend such a cheesy, shallow book, but get your hands on It's called a Break Up Because It's Broken, and do everything it says. I did it with my last relationship break up and I couldn't believe how well it works. It won't solve your relationship addiction but it will help make this last break up quite a lot easier than it is at the moment, while simultaneously giving you back some self respect.

The other thing you said is that you need to remain single. Bravo. That's exactly what will help. Learning to love yourself is the only way towards loving another. I stayed single for 2 years and it was difficult at first but what an amazing journey for me. I put myself back together, I found myself, identified all the ways I had been messing up my relationships. It was only then that I was able to have a healthy relationship and when I did embark on one, it was so utterly different from any of my past relationships. There was intimacy and honesty instead of self loss, loss of self respect, obsession and all those other things. And when it ended I didn't fall apart like I always did in the past. I remained entirely whole, without that awful depression and self hatred and doubt. I'm realistic and I know that, being a self-confirmed relationship addict, you're not likely to end the relationship you're now in. But remember this if you end up breaking up with this woman too.

It can be difficult to pursue passions when in the thick of depression. Are you sure you're not still depressed? Have you told your therapist how you're struggling to pursue things you enjoy?

I've found that sometimes when I'm depressed, if I force myself to do the things I used to love, it helps my depression get better. But it depends on how depressed I am. If I'm in too deep, I just can't enjoy anything and only medication will help. Regardless, though, I'd try to seek out a lot of contact with friends because being solitary really strengthens depression for me. When ever I'm feeling bad, the very first thing I do is make plans with friends, often, every day if possible.

There are a lot of things in your post that you said that would really help you. I suggest reading through it again and following your own advice.

Another option is love addicts anonymous. You can find meeting lists on the internet, or you can phone their phone line and they may arrange for someone to take you to a meeting. It is scary in the beginning, but later it very probably will become your safe haven.

Good luck.

Oh, and I just wanted to say that your ex's advice that you shouldn't follow your passions and should rather be this self sacrificing jesus is ridiculous and very codependent. Please become a full person with passions because that is the only way you will ever have anything to give anyone else. I have a friend who's a love addict and he has no life whatsoever, no passions, no other friends and I find him incredibly draining because when we get together he has nothing to bring to the table. I'm approaching him with a full week and all my passions and he just has nothing but me. People without lives and passions can only take and they're not even aware of this. I want to be able to sit with a friend and listen to them talk about things they love to do, things they have done, friends they have seen. Instead, he has nothing to talk about except me. It's very boring and I'm becoming so cramped and bored with him that I'm considering ending the friendship. And I can assure you he really believes he's a self sacrificing person with so much to give.

-- Sat Dec 10, 2011 11:35 am --

I can relate with what you're saying. I was also a serial monogamist who couldn't bear to be alone, couldn't bear the end of a relationship and, well, much of what you've mentioned here. You are asking what you need to do, but you have an excellent idea of what you need to do. It's all in your post. You wrote down a whole lot of things that would really work for you to make this better. The only thing you didn't write is that you need to cut all contact with this ex. It's driving you crazy and cutting you up. I know it's a difficult move but from someone who's tried it, it is so much easier than staying in contact. I am reticent to recommend such a cheesy, shallow book, but get your hands on It's called a Break Up Because It's Broken, and do everything it says. I did it with my last relationship break up and I couldn't believe how well it works. It won't solve your relationship addiction but it will help make this last break up quite a lot easier than it is at the moment, while simultaneously giving you back some self respect.

The other thing you said is that you need to remain single. Bravo. That's exactly what will help. Learning to love yourself is the only way towards loving another. I stayed single for 2 years and it was difficult at first but what an amazing journey for me. I put myself back together, I found myself, identified all the ways I had been messing up my relationships. It was only then that I was able to have a healthy relationship and when I did embark on one, it was so utterly different from any of my past relationships. There was intimacy and honesty instead of self loss, loss of self respect, obsession and all those other things. And when it ended I didn't fall apart like I always did in the past. I remained entirely whole, without that awful depression and self hatred and doubt. I'm realistic and I know that, being a self-confirmed relationship addict, you're not likely to end the relationship you're now in. But remember this if you end up breaking up with this woman too.

It can be difficult to pursue passions when in the thick of depression. Are you sure you're not still depressed? Have you told your therapist how you're struggling to pursue things you enjoy?

I've found that sometimes when I'm depressed, if I force myself to do the things I used to love, it helps my depression get better. But it depends on how depressed I am. If I'm in too deep, I just can't enjoy anything and only medication will help. Regardless, though, I'd try to seek out a lot of contact with friends because being solitary really strengthens depression for me. When ever I'm feeling bad, the very first thing I do is make plans with friends, often, every day if possible.

There are a lot of things in your post that you said that would really help you. I suggest reading through it again and following your own advice.

Another option is love addicts anonymous. You can find meeting lists on the internet, or you can phone their phone line and they may arrange for someone to take you to a meeting. It is scary in the beginning, but later it very probably will become your safe haven.

Good luck.

Oh, and I just wanted to say that your ex's advice that you shouldn't follow your passions and should rather be this self sacrificing jesus is ridiculous and very codependent. Please become a full person with passions because that is the only way you will ever have anything to give anyone else. I have a friend who's a love addict and he has no life whatsoever, no passions, no other friends and I find him incredibly draining because when we get together he has nothing to bring to the table. I'm approaching him with a full week and all my passions and he just has nothing but me. People without lives and passions can only take and they're not even aware of this. I want to be able to sit with a friend and listen to them talk about things they love to do, things they have done, friends they have seen. Instead, he has nothing to talk about except me. It's very boring and I'm becoming so cramped and bored with him that I'm considering ending the friendship. And I can assure you he really believes he's a self sacrificing person with so much to give.

She never said I shouldn't follow my passions, she just didn't love me for them. She loved me for this stereotype of a man she wanted to mold me into. I knew she didn't love me for me which is why I broke off the engagement. I never really loved her for her either because to me, I couldn't really see anything unique about her other than that she was a slutty socialite. She had no individuality. When I talked to her about these things she implied that hobbies and interests and passions were for people who were less attractive or lacked social skills.

Now that we've broken up, she let me know she is pursuing passions "to find herself and be more like you(me)". Also, she's dating a guy who is short fat and makes half as much as me and telling me how she's going so easy on him and not making him jump through the hoops and meet a stereotype like she made me do. It just makes me feel so worthless that she couldn't love me for who I am. Also, how could I have ever proposed to someone I knew didn't really love me or that I didn't really love?

I realized today my mother never acted like a mother. If anything, I had to parent her through all her moodiness. I realized I am trying to get a mother out of romantic relationships. I have a fear I will never be able to have a healthy relationship that lasts. Since this is the one thing that I want more than anything, realizing this makes me not want to go on.

-- Mon Dec 12, 2011 1:49 am --

Or, maybe I should just tell women this on the first date:

Hey, so, see... basically I am extremely codependent and want a woman who will mother me and allow me to maintain a state of infancy for the rest of my life, more wine?

-- Mon Dec 12, 2011 1:52 am --

All I want is to be able to feel like I know I should feel: excited to have freed myself from an unhealthy relationship, excited to be single and to find myself. I was so happy when she moved out. It was only when she cut me off sexually and had sex with someone else that I started asking for her to come back and got really depressed. How do I shake this off?

Women out there who want to hurt men who dumped them: just let them know they can't ###$ you and that you are ######6 someone else, but that you are there for them anytime for them to call and beg you to come back so you can reject them again.

There is a way out of this. i know at the moment it feels overwhelming and complicated but there is a way to begin sorting through this stuff, and with hard work, you will be able to have a healthy relationship again. But if you continue to have relationships before you've done the work you'll be perpetuating the problem. I found it was impossible to resolve my issues while still dating. I had to remain single for a couple of years, do therapy, go to LAA meetings, do the work. Thousands of people have done what I did. It is very possible.

You've admitted you have a problem. Now you have a choice: you can stay in the problem and not do anything about it, and continue to suffer. Or you can pick yourself up, find a therapist, get to LAA meetings and start resolving the problem. One of these choices will give you a better life. One of them won't.

This issue is making you suicidal. Suicidal ideation is a very dangerous thing. You have the opportunity to find happiness. Go out and take it.

Sex and being in a relationship are my 2 greatest passions in this world. They are the 2 things I want more than anything else. I feel so inferior for being faced with the possibility that I must refrain from these activities due to my own issues. It feels like being castrated or impotent. I used to say that if I couldn't have sex there would be no point to living. All of my hobbies and interests and even my job and house were all acquired for for the purpose of attracting women. I don't know what hard work I can do that will make me feel better.

Are they passions or are they obsessions? You say sex and love are what make your life worth living but from the sound of your post, sex and love are making your life miserable. You even alluded to suicide. You're saying you're a relationship addict. A relationship addict is someone who uses relationships to change how they feel, uses them obsessively and absolutely falls apart when the relationship ends. So we have to learn how to find meaning in life besides relationships, so that we can in future have healthy relationships that aren't obsessive. A relationship is meant to be two whole people who don't desperately need each other and obsess about each other but instead love each other. We can't love when we're obsessed. It just feels like we can. We have to learn how to cope with our emotions and be emotionally independent enough not to approach a relationship with an endless hole of need that stifled and drained the one we're with. We have to learn how to set boundaries and be separate from our partners instead of enmeshed.

I can't say whether you're a relationship addict. I'm just speaking about it because that's what you called yourself. Do you understand the concept of an alcoholic having to hit a rock bottom before they want to give up alcohol? It can be that way for relationship addicts as well. You asked for help and I'm telling you what might help you. Well, actually, I'm telling you what helped me when I kept finding myself in your situation over and over again. I don't want to pressure you into doing anything you don't want to. All I can offer is my own experience. If you're not ready for anything drastic, maybe you just want to make a beginning. If you see a therapist or to to an LAA meeting, nobody's going to pressure you either. It's all your decision and in your control. You can start with small steps that you're comfortable with if that's what you want to do. Nothing wrong with that.

As I say, I'm not here to pressure anyone into taking any specific action or to convince anyone to do things a certain way. It would take me an absolute age to tell you all the work I've done to overcome this problem so I'm just saying there are things that can be done if one wants to enough. I was quite satisfied to carry on my addiction for 15 years before I sought help. In fact I needed to. I had to be completely convinced that what I was doing would never work. I used to think it wasn't me that was the problem, I just hadn't found the right person yet. I had to keep looking for that right person for quite some time before I was ready to admit I had a problem and I'd never actually be able to make it work if I did find the right person because I was incapable of real love. I actually eventually looked back and realised that I'd already been lucky enough to find the right person twice in my life but my addictive way of dealing with the relationships had destroyed them. I was only ready to make a change in myself when it was very clear to me that I had a problem. Maybe you're not convinced that there's a problem?

I am convinced there is a problem, because I am absolutely falling apart now that I am not in a relationship anymore. My ex could have been the right one. A lot of times I felt like she was an angel gift from heaven. But then a lot of the time I was miserable. I thought she was phony and cold. I don't know if it was her or me that was the problem or if it was both of us. I just know she seems to be able to move on and I can't. I feel like it is the end of the world if she really was the right one and I let her get away. I can't stop thinking about her. I am still obsessed with her. Every moment of the day I am praying she will call instead of treating myself right. I know that it's true that I have to become happy on my own and love myself before I can love another. I just don't seem to be able to do it.

Why do I feel like I was moving on just fine after we broke up until I found out she had slept with someone else? How do I get over this?

-- Tue Dec 13, 2011 5:53 pm --

In general, how do I break my head out of a groove it seems to be stuck in? I feel like maybe changing my routine might help, joining clubs, teams, classes, etc... I feel like if I had sex with someone else it might help quite a bit, but dating is so hard.

Yes, it might help you a little to get out and do other things, start living your life without her and stop taking her calls. Taking her calls is rubbing salt in the wounds. But it's not an absolute solution to your problem.

Having sex with someone else will help temporarily but it's not going to take away the problem and when the new woman has left, one of two things will happen: 1) you will go back to feeling this pain you are feeling now or 2) you will develop an obsession with the new woman, forget about the previous one and again have an unhealthy relationship that will end again and leave you in the same pain you're in now, or worse.

You will keep repeating the same behavior and it will continue to have the same results. One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. If you want a different result, you are going to have to do things differently next time.

I only know of the two solutions I've mentioned before. Get therapy and go to LAA or SLA meetings and start participating, look into doing the HOW program there, get a sponsor and do the suggested things. The more you put into it, the happier you'll be. So basically it's just a question of how free do you want to be?

I think what's happening here is you're asking for help but you're not liking the help I'm suggesting for you. Maybe you want an easier, softer way. We all did. Then we came to realise that there simply wasn't one. I simply don't have any easy solutions to this problem.

I know exactly how you feel. It took me 4 years to get over my last ex. We were engaged and when our relationship was good, it was better than anything I'd ever experienced. It was an absolute fairy tail. When it was bad, it was a nightmare. I was so obsessed with him that even though I knew going back to him would yield the same results, I simply was incapable of saying no to him. I suffered so badly the first time he left me, I completely fell apart but I couldn't stay away from him so I moved to the other side of the country, believing that would help me get him out of my system. I began to put myself together again in very positive ways but he moved to a small town close to my city. He came to visit me valentines day the friday night he arrived. I had a great job. I knew he was going to ask me to come back. I knew I had to say no. He asked me to move to this small town he'd moved to and I said yes, couldn't help myself. I packed up my gorgeous apartment overlooking the sea, I quit my great job and moved to a go nowhere town with one traffic light. After a month he left me again and I was stuck in this hell hole. Again, I fell apart, it was torturous, I became skeletal, suicidal. Then I got a little better and he wanted me back. This continued for 5 years. He had to leave for good because I was incapable. And when I didn't see him for years, it was so hard, I almost killed myself. I didn't care about anything but the fact that I'd lost him.

2 years later I started therapy and meetings and I got better. Now I'm able to have healthy relationships and I'm so happy. I'm a whole person with wonderful friends. I'm independent. I'm living for myself, instead of obsession and 'love.' I can end relationships without falling apart. I'm not scared of getting involved anymore because I know if it doesn't work out it's not going to feel as if I'm dying. That's my experience. That's what helped me.

Wow, your situation is way worse than mine.

Thanks for the advice.

I am just frustrated because when I was with her, I was confident that I wanted to break up. I was confident that I deserved better. Even in the first few weeks after she moved out I was fine with it and following my passions and believing in myself. It wasn't until I found out she'd slept with someone else and was dating that I fell apart. It's like, as soon as that happened I forgot all the bad things about her, or, they became so much less important. Now, all I can think of is the good times. All I can think is that she is the best I will ever do and I am now condemned to live in misery due to a small mistake on my part. I never wanted her this bad when we were together. I broke up with her many many many times and knew it was wrong from the get go. Where is that knowledge now? How do I get back that feeling that she wasn't right for me and that I was right to dump her and that I deserve better? Just go to love addicts meetings?