SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

This seems to b the most difficult thing for me. This is my 2 nd time around. My first XH cheated. The best thing thing that came from that was my dd who is now 6. I thought I meet the man of my dreams after my XH. We purchased a home together then the 1st week in I found a giant crazy ball of lies. He had a lot of issues and didn't bother to tell me. He was on Craigslist posting for men and women. Claims he knows y now...there was a trauma in his childhood. It took me refi the home and him moving out to realize this. I know I'm rambling but....

Now it's another chapter in my life it's difficult to face. Where do I fit in ? Y do ppl choose to hurt me? Is it me? Y can't i b ok w my decision and move on? Any advice would b much appreciated !!!

Ok. I'm going to ramble. I could be totally off base, but you will know if there is any truth to it, and you can go from there.

If your DD is only 6 now, somewhere in the past 6 years you D her dad, and then met this new man, and moved in with him.

It sounds like you got the D done, then wanted the "dream" of immediately finding the perfect mate, and just get on with it. What you got instead was a toad.

I'm a firm believer (now) that broken attracts broken. It sounds like you didn't take the time to really look at yourself, and spend time working on what makes you happy WITHOUT a man in it.

I don't think you are permanently broken or doomed or whatever. I think right now you should just work on making yourself and DD happy with just the two of you. It does not mean you have to forget men forever, but you need to be happy and confident yourself to attract a happy healthy man for a relationship.

I think it is amazing you have came out with your child and you have a home. You have strength to go through this again.

There are no guarantees but you can come closer.

Focus on you and your child. Be ok with being alone and meet friends romantic and nonromantic and enjoy yourself. With time you might meet someone but give it time.

Be grateful for your strength and use it to propel you to a better place.

Y do ppl choose to hurt me? Is it me? Y can't i b ok w my decision and move on? Any advice would b much appreciated !!!

Ok, this is me, not projecting onto you. So don't want you to be unnecessarily offended.

For me, I asked these same questions.

And, the more I posted and read on SI, I started to see a pattern and started remembering things that should have been red flags, hell they were and I saw them, but choose to ignore them.

With that said, I looked more closely at those red flags I choose to ignore. Why did I ignore them? It's complicated.

I had serious abandonment issues that I buried.

So, when he love bombed me, I didn't see anything wrong. It fed my need to be desired. I needed someone that I thought couldn't live without me because I never wanted to be abandoned again. When he said or did things that I knew I deserved better on, I gave lip service only. I may have gotten mad, but I didn't walk when at times I should have walked. I LET him treat me the way he did, or didn't treat me the way I deserved. He could not have said or done the things he did if I hadn't put up with it.

But then he would love bomb me again.

My FOO is violence and abandonment. For me, I have to work on those things and fix myself and love myself more. I grew up with violence, and ever since, it has always been a deal breaker. If he had hit me, no question I would have walked the first time. He never hit me, he hurt me in other ways. I know now, that the only reason he never struck me was because that was the one thing that would have made me walk.

Oh, and one of my other issues, because I grew up with so much violence and dysfunction, that I didn't have a realistic perspective of what more milder dysfunction was. Therefore, my tolerance was much higher to put up with BS as well.

Sometimes we need to ask instead, why do we let people hurt us. Not everyone is in this boat, but a pattern has made itself clear to me. Many of us have seen at least yellow flags, and choose to ignore. Maybe work on the real whys of how you let those yellow and red flags get by you.

Nobody wants to admit that they are terrified of being all alone. But it WAS what I was terrified of. I was so afraid that I let fear paralyze me into not leaving when I should have walked a long time ago.

I hope this helps.

[This message edited by StillLivin at 11:52 AM, February 24th (Monday)]