to think that after you've been in a shitty relationship you should learn from that mistake and not lurch straight into another shitty realtionship and another and another and another..........................

[conniedescending]

I see this in some of my friends and all over posts on the internet. Some women (and men as well most probably) don't seem to learn from one disastrous relationship to another.

Spent most of yesterday with my devastated friend who's partner has left her again and gone god knows where because of what seems to be an argument about my friends work - she needs to go overnight for a conference and he is a jealous control freak. Sounds dreadful yes, but her ex husband was exactly the same and yet 6 months later she starts seeing current guy who got arsey when she came to my house after work and stayed a bit longer than she had said. Her bf's though school were the same.

This leads me to think that actually some women become addicted to being the victim. I said to my friend last night that the warning signs were there after the 3rd or 4th date about current DP so why didn't she knock it on the head????? very frustrating.

I had a terrible relationship in my early 20's....he was a drinker and aggressive. When I finally saw the light and got out of it I took great pains to avoid anothe man like this ex. In fact, a man who had a a few too many pints was a complete no no and any sign of testoterone overdrive and I was repulsed.

Why why why do women do this to themselves???????????

because they lack in self esteem

As someone else said earlier, I too had a long list of wants and don't wants in a man and Dp met most of those requirements and I fell in love with him.
Connie, perhaps it is sad. Perhaps it's me that is sad, but I spent the best part of 5 years on my own afer violent and abusive relationships with men(including two marriages over 20 years)and I think it just made me less attractive to men in general and me more angry, cynical etc...I even got asked by a colleague if I was a lesbianand when I asked him why he asked that, he said it was because I never had a good word to say about men. Well, in my experience, there wasn't anything good to say about men.
Maybe Dp will still be in my life for 20 years more, maybe he wont, but I doubt he'll ever feel the need to physically hurt me, no matter how long he's with me.

I think if you go straight into another relationship you are highly likely going to pick someone who has many mental similarities to the abusive person you've left. It happens because you don't get a chance to consider why you put up with the abuse, or ask yourself what is it about yourself that accepts that abuse/stays around therefore take part in it. I think we should have lessons at school to learn how to spot abuse, and ask ourselves why we tolerate it... I try to help my children but it would be great if there was more education at school on this subject

if its a violent relationship your friend is in get then to contact womans aid, they help you to recognise the behavioural patterns and try to prevent you getting into a similar relationship again.

i have been in contact with them and they ahve been great, also helping me to sort out an array of different things such as contact issues etc.

If it's any help, i know at least four people who have been in violent and/or abusive relationships with one or more men who have then gone on to have long-term relationships (still with them after at least five years), with no signs of abuse or break-ups in sight. It can have a happy ending, thank goodness. The four women also varied greatly in their own inner strength and the amount of support from others they recieved, but IME the ones who are less able to cope on their own need support from others to break free.

Even if that support is 'only' good friends on MN.

Connie, I agree with you. And it's not just women going from one awful relationship to another, it's sticking in the same one, despite all evidence that the cycle will repeat itself.

I had a friend who was in this ridiculous cycle with a man whereby they'd be "friends", then it would develop into more but always she would say she was "just having fun and not taking it seriously because it's nice to have someone around" until eventually, they'd be together so much that she'd finally start to acknowledge that actually she did love him and want to be with him and thought he felt the same and then he would drop some bombshell on her where he'd tell her about his actual girlfriend, or remind her it wasn't exclusive and she'd be devastated because he'd been giving her all the signals that implied he was madly in love and then this came "out of the blue".

Except, but the time she'd been through the cycle with the same man 5 times, the rest of us were entirely uninterested and none of us were surprised when he'd drop the bombshell. She lost a lot of friendships as a result as she was always chronically needy during the break up phase, and secretive with lots of lying during the getting together phase.

I have come to the conclusion that most women don't want to have the mirror of reality held up to their relationship.

I have one very close friend whose DP is lovely but for many reasons, not right for her.

If she feels like a moan, I listen and try to say nice things about him to make her feel better. If she wants to 'big him up' and say how great he is then I agree with her.

My job as friend is to develop selective amnesia and pretend that I haven't heard it all before, and that I have forgotten what a disaster their relationship is when she says great stuff about him and talks of their future together.

I think we all tend to do this. And unless the guy was actually abusive then I say we just have to let it slide.

If she wanted support in breaking up with him I'd be there like a shot and she knows this.

Part of the problem is of course that women (and to an extent, men) are still subjected, from a very early age, to absolutely relentless heteromonogamy propaganda: you're not 'complete' without A Partner, nothing matters more than Lurrve, if you are over 30 and not married/living with someone and never have been then there must be something very wrong with you etc, etc,etc. The majority of people are not very self-reliant and so flouder around looking for The One. Mercifully, in most cases, they settle for the first available, attractive and ready-to-pairbond person they find, and the worst that happens is they get a bit bored with each other - or one of them decides that another attractive person is The One and fucks off... But people who believe that any relationship is better than no relationship unfortunately stick with abusive or unsuitable partners for much longer than they should.

The bottom line is that actually, quite a lot of people would be happier single anyway. I am profoundly grateful to myself that I recognised this reasonably early on (well before the age of 30 anyway) and subsequently refused any and all offers of monogamy or living together or marriage. I never liked couplehood, and though the occasional well-meaing twat suggested therapy, the answer was far more simple (and affordable) - staying single.

oh solid and up to now i thought you were a romantic really

i am in love

Some people are scared of being alone.
Being with anyone feels better than being with no-one.
Self-esteem is a big problem for lots of people.

ZIppi: well, good luck to you. Many people do find non-abusive partners and live reasonably happily ever after - no reason why you shouldn't be one of them.

Easy to agree with solidgold there, but what if the person has been single already for years and hates it?

I enjoyed being single in my youth but that was then. My friend was single for two years before meeting her DP, and though he clearly isn't right for her, she'll stick to him like glue now as it took so long to find him and she hates being single.

I don't feel I can say 'break up with him as he's not perfect' as my own relationship is much as solid described ie the first attractive guy who wanted to be in a relationship. He's lush but god knows it's far from ideal or perfect. I could leave him but I like having a nice house and a dependable DP like him.

I suspect that many people live like this. Many - most, even.

This annoys me tbh and I have been guilty of allowing an unpleasant relationship to happen and almost rushing into another one.

I was with an abusive partner, tbh because I had such a dysfunctional childhood I had no idea about a healthy relationship. He was a twat but I allowed it to happen. I would have quite happily gone from that relationship to another because I was so used to being controlled I felt so alone.

In my current relationship my dp has been a twat but not to that extent and again I allowed it to happen by being gernerally pathetic. I have now made it very clear that if he want me he needs to change.

MZ: well, people who stick to a horrible or unsuitable partner because they hate being single are at least partly to blame for their situations (ie it's not necessarily all the partner's 'fault' - unless the partner is really abusive). They will have decided (which of course they have every right to do) that the horribleness of the partner is outweighed by the fact that they have a partner. It's a bit pathetic, but it's their lives.

But then I don't get what's so wrong with being single, unless it's that life can be a bit of a bore when you are surrounded by monogamist bucketheads who treat you as either a threat or a failure for not having another human being welded to your side. But the answer to that is to find less stupid friends, not to take up with any old psycho, bullshitter or cocklodger just to prove you can.

I feel sorry for women (and men) like this tbh.

My lovely s-i-l is contemplating taking my brother back again. He was mean and nasty to her ds and nice but uninterested to their ds. Never contributed financially,went out for 1 night and stayed away for 2/3 nights a few times. Kicked him out.

He ended up with an 18 year old girl (he's 35) living at my mums. Wrote off the motorbike mummy bought him and was caught drunk driving/assaulted a police man and is up inh court in January.

She wants to take him back. Her parents who are v v good to her and the dc have said if she has him back then they are washing their hands of her.

I think she will eventually have him back I really want to slap her at times!!!

Solid, I think you raise an interesting point. That was definitely the issue with my friend - she thinks she's a failure because she's approaching 30 and not married. And from the age of 24 every time she speaks to her mother, she is asked why she's still single. So she'll put her eggs with the wanker, in hopes, rather than be single.

Some people should be single and aren't. Some shouldn't be single but are. Some simply should be single for a while.

I know that the reason DP and I work is because he knows that while I love him madly and love having him in my life, I am still independent and able to do my own thing. And he's the same. So it works for us.

I think my friend will have him back too - he's not violent (well to my knowledge) but he's controlling and jealous so tends to try to keep her away from her friends and family.

Wish solidgold could talk some sense into her really!

BSB: most relationships that work are a bit like that: the participants have functioning lives that don't consist of nothing but The Relationship. It's nice to love someone and be loved back (if that;s what one is into) but it's not essential.
But people are funny about singlehood. A man I knocked around with for a while occasionally (well, till told firmly to stop) used to say that he couldn't understand why I was still single and someone hadn't 'snapped me up' - he didn't seem to get why that annoyed me.