Yorkiegirl,
I read your post and it was a mirror image of my own ACOA childhood and relationships with men with addictive personalities (none in active addiction at the start...husband # 1 hadn't yet discovered cocaine) and husband # 2 was in recovery.)
In hindsight that is becoming 20/20 I am truly baffled how educated women that have so much knowledge (I am walking encyclopedia on addiction, codependency, addiction treatments and philosophies and every abbreviation out there!) still end up falling in love with toxic men!
After my first divorce I rarely dated and was quite content to be single. I owned a very large restaurant and entertainment complex for 10 of those years and would have 1000 to 1500 patrons a night. Being highly successful single woman owner of this establishment that was a meeting place for the single crowd gave me the unique opportunity to observe the dating world as a spectator.
I had a LOT of men pursue me as I was considered an almost impossible challenge ... some very, very nice successful men that I inevitably turned down. I just wasn't attracted to Mr. Boring....not me. I didn't act on my attractions but I always had the eyes for Mr. Personality ... you know the guy... center of attention, always good looking, charming, sparkling eyes, witty and a little dangerous. The unpredictable one ... the one that was always going to be a challenge and never boring. My years on the couch and self awareness kept me out of those tempting bad boy relationships most of the time.
I was like an alcoholic in recovery. I tried to go sober. I dated the nice guys and I couldn't wait for dates to end! I stopped dating entirely for 10 years!
I didn't date my current husband ... he would have been on the "NOT" list! In recovery but definately an A that was highly dangerous for my codie self. We were on a team of people that were campaigning for the presidential election and traveled together for over 3 months. It was like trying to climb a waterfall... sigh.
He relapsed and I went through a year and half of pure hell... just like going home to daddy! Today we are good... great in fact. We are both now in recovery and I am looking even deeper into myself. I didn't date for all those years because if I wasn't in a relationship I didn't have to deal with my own brokenness that really wasn't healed... I just thought it was.
So...gals like us...bright, educated, incredibly knowlegable about "our subject" do we ever get completely well? I mean...like "normal"? Are those deep traumatic scars so deeply embedded in our subconscious that we will never totally be able to eradicate them?
Are there any woman out there who have already walked this path to the point we are now and how are they now? I am committed to my RAH and am in alanon and am in counseling and reading voraciously as usual ... will self knowledge help change the "feelings" from the subconscious level?
Could I have done something to make boring work? Boring is actually "normal" but how do we get our subconscious to accept that????
Love the thread... glad to find someone who understands how I have been feeling of late myself.