DesertEyes

Well, I don't know about you, I can only tell you what I know about me :-)

In my case it's not that there's something unhealthy in the _situation_. It's something unhealthy in _me_. What a relationship is _supposed_ to be is a two-way exchange of support, shelter and love. Each partner is supposed to make their best efforts to make the other partner's life better.

What I was doing was finding partners who I would not trust to provide me with support, shelter and love. I was not ready to accept the fact that I was lovable, was still mired in lousy self-esteem. My primary goal was to create a false front with which to cover up my lousy self-esteem, and what better way to make myself look good than to surround myself with people who were more screwed up than me.

When I looked in the mirror I was too scared to look at _me_, so instead I looked at my g/friend-of-the-week. She was pretty messed up, so I _had_ to be better than her. 'course, rigorous honesty is that my g/friend probably thought _I_ was more messed up than her ;-)

What I had to do was get my own "feces amalgamated" first. Found me a couple good shrinks over the years that did me a world of good. Worked the various 12 step programs I belong to. Hung out with people in the program that had the kind of life I wanted to have, and listened to their stories about how they got themselves to that point. I avoided the people that had the kind of life I was currently living.

Eventually I got to a place where I could look at myself and honestly say "I've come a long way, doing ok and heading in the right direction" Once I was able to show my true self without shame to anybody who cared to ask, I no longer needed any kind of "crutch" to bolster my self-esteem. Most days I feel just fine with who I am. (Some days I lose my serenity and go crawling back to a meeting :-)

Once _I_ became healthier in mind and spirit I was no longer attracted to losers of the kind that I was.

Now I am comfortable with people who need _nothing_ from me. They're perfectly capable of living life on their own. They have their "feces amalgamated" and don't need any kind of "rescuing" from me. I don't need rescuing either, and most of my "issues" are doing just fine. I started dating people who had a place to live, had a job, had a car that worked, were not on their way to jail, and who wanted to date me simply because they felt it was more fun to hang out with me than with somebody else.

One of those ladies I married :-) Twenty years later and we're doing mostly good. Not _always_ good. Not perfect. We sometimes have little misunderstandings and sometimes big ol' fights. But the overwhelming majority of the time we have a great relationship and we make each others life better simply by being here.

At the moment we've got several huge problems that life has dumped on us and we're doing our best to work thru them. Even if our marriage doesn't survive, the last twenty years have definetly been worth it. I know that if we split up it's going to hurt like )*)&(^ but in the long run we'll both come out stronger for it, and we'll both find somebody else the share the rest of our lives with.

Whadya think?

Mike :-)