kickmeplz

Looking around it seems this might be the best forum for this. I'll try to keep this as brief as possible without leaving out pertinent details.

The issue: possible lack of trust in relationships, or just a great emotional defense mechanism?

Background: I'm now 24. Male. My mom is a recovering alky. I was never abused or anything like that, so sometimes I'll be reading ACOA literature and not really understand some of the 'typical' events that take place in the life of your usual ACOA. Though in some of my ACOA reading I've done I've seen a few ways I've been affected. But as far as I can tell, up to this point I've been lucky to have not suffered some of the same problems other ACOA's have suffered. (I don't know if it's possible for such a thing to come off as "braggy," but if it is I certainly apologize.)

I've been in two relationships in my adult life...for the first one, I liked the girl half to death and we got together. I found her to be ridiculously attractive. The moment we kissed, I felt myself sort of detach, I felt like we were moving too fast. We continued on for almost two years, doing a whole lot of fighting [she had a VERY conflict-loving personality due to her home life - and no, no alcoholism in her family], which scared me half to death at first but eventually I got kind of used to it. However, only on rare occasions did I really feel the warm fuzzies about the relationship; her attitude always brushed me the wrong way whenever I really felt good about us. I spent probably the last 3/4ths of the relationship telling her "I Love You" and not truly being sure inside of me if I really did. Certainly I loved her, cared for her, sacrificed for her-- but I didn't feel the warm fuzzy kind of love. I eventually suggested we consider splitting (since we fought literally every day together, and saw other red flags. She's admitted since then that indeed, she was much the cause of many of our problems), and we did in fact split.And it didn't bother me too much, until approx. 2 months later, and it then it hit me like a cannon ball.
It was a defense mechanism, I realize now; I put myself emotionally at bay so that I could do 'the right thing' and split us up as a way to prevent what I perceive would be inevitable divorce down the road.

Second relationship began a year after that first one ended, I thought the girl was somewhat attractive, but not like the first girlfriend (just sayyin'). I also saw a red flag or two (just things like different religion and different expectations regarding our roles in the marriage if we were to ever get to that stage. Yes, I asked that sort of thing on the first date). In other words, I was already only half-sold on this one. We've been going out five months now...certainly no warm fuzzies. Recently I built a legit case as to why I don't 'like' this girl. That said, at some point in the relationship I actually felt pretty great about things and a liiiiiiittle bit warmfuzzy, but as soon as I remembered those red flags my feelers' ran away, I suppose.


Now, one thing I'm not asking from ya'll, is arguments recommending I marry someone who doesn't match some of the values I've happened to mention over the course of this post (like matching religion). I'm very happy with keeping these standards. What I am asking from you is clarification as to if I just have a kick-arse defense mechanism for when I do find a person who matches my values and whatnot, or if you read this and caught things that are typical ACOA things and I'm just not seeing it.
I sort of figure that if I find a girl with the right values and everything seems to match fine and I still can't develop warm-fuzzies, then I know I probably have a real problem. But I'm also afraid that I'm chasing a pipe dream of the 'perfect' girl who will never exist (must have these values, and these looks...) and this is all some sort of mental headgame driven by a fear of intimacy, and i.e. this sort of thing is somewhat more-or-less typical amongst ACOAs.

Or, maybe it's both a) driven by being an ACOA and B) a worthwhile defense mechanism?