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Old 09-14-2021, 03:08 PM
  # 5 (permalink)  
advbike
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Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: Sonoran Desert & Southeast Asia
Posts: 6,561
Maxing out support often pushes them further away. I am a codependent man, and while I have mostly avoided alcoholics, there were a few when I was younger. Partying was always the most important aspect of the relationship for them. We are just someone to have fun with. They may even want more, but it will be a shallow relationship. Mostly I have tended to get into relationships with emotionally unavailable women, often quite attractive, or with an "edge".. but difficult to get close to and emotionally distant. And the more we try, the more the walls go up, eventually leaving us heartbroken. I have done this so many times I can't count, although in recent years I started to figure it out, had a lot of therapy, and learned about codependency and attachment styles.

I have also had a few relationships with normal, emotionally healthy women over the years, but found the relationships lacking in some way - either not exciting enough or the spark wasn't there, so my eye would wander or I would get bored. It's all a very dysfunctional pattern on both sides and we tend to attract those who are at the same level emotionally which in my case often meant not very healthy. Or of the opposite attachment style. Or those who need fixing. There was so much dysfunction, loss, alcoholism and absent caregivers in my childhood that it has been difficult to figure it all out. But I definitely have trouble with boundaries, saying no, and asking for what I need, and have been taken advantage of financially, as I tend to be overly generous too.

It is very important that you read the codependency book - it will open your eyes. It did mine. And one about attachment styles would be helpful too.
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