Jody -
you've hit the nail on the head in my opinion. It took me a long time to get to this place but I'm willing to work out it to stay here. I don't have the energy for any more fixer uppers. I could recognize that my picker was broken but I didn't do anything about it. I guess that I kept thinking that it had majically been fixed. I used to say that if I ran into a healthy man, I would be friend's with him. If he was sorta sick I would sleep with him. If he was really sick, I'd marry him.
I wish that I had had the courage to take a time out and focus on me and my needs. Actually, I did do that several years ago. It really worked and I became involved with the most wonderful man and we married. Long story short - he ended up with frontotemporal lobe dementia. I think that going man free is probably the best solution for someone like me. I was so torn up after that that my guard was lowered and my now RAH reeentered my life. He was an active addict and I didn't realize it until I was head over heels with him.
One of the times that we most need recovery is after a relationship ends. If we don't work on ourselves then I believe that it is pretty likely that we will return to the same sort of man that we've already been with.