I cant maintain any relationships.

[BooyhooRemembering]

sorry this could be long. i'm offloading and TBH feeling sorry for shitty self.

none of my relationships, with anyone last. even acquaintences (sp?). i dont have a good relationship with my parents or sister, we dont have good laughs when we get together. it's very uncomfortable when i'm there. i'm not friends with any of my (massive) extended family. i've only ever had one serious relationship that lasted 2 years. people i have been close to (friends) have either drifted away or i have distanced myself for one reason or another. i'm realising now that it's me that has a problem. they can't all be assholes. it's me. but i dont know why. and it's happening again with a person who once was my best friend. i am so lonely and i'm still finding reasons to not be as close to people. the problem is i can always justify it. why the fuck do i do this and how do i stop it? how do i overlook things that are hurtful in order to maintain friendship? should i even do that? doesn't that make me a pushover? do i either get to be a pushover or be lonely forever? i have one close friend who is the nicest person i've ever met and would never do anything to hurt anyone but i'm terrified that i will do something or take offence at something that isn't there IYSWIM. i am going to end up a lonely miserable person if i dont change. i just dont know how to change without becoming a doormat.

any advice greatly appreciated.

(sorry for being such a whinge)

My therapist told me to think about it this way. You can be right or you can be in relationship. Only you can decide which is more important to you.

surely it's possible to have healthy relationships though? i cant believe that the people i know who have lots of friends/good relationship with parents+siblings/long term romantic relationships are compromising so much of themselves in order to be so. do they just overlook lots of stuff all the time?

Yes, I believe people do. It's certainly something I really struggle with though. I see everything as black and white. Grey confuses the hell out of me. I've since discovered that I have Asperger's and that's why I find compromise for the sake of relationship extremely difficult.

I think your best idea,is to ask some of the people in your life.
Be prepared for it to be a bit painful, but I get the impression that you do want relationships with some of these people.

Disclaimer! If any of us asked people in our real life what they thought of us, they will all list some things that they dont like about us.

hmm, yes i think i'm the same WRT the black and white thing. i could overlook some things but TBH it wouldn't feel like a real relationship then, not if the problem hadn't been put out in the open and dealt with or even just agreed to disagree. and if it's not a real relationship then what's the point of pretending it is?

there's only really the one closest friend that i would feel comfortable asking and she wouldn't be brutally honest with me. she would go a million miles barefoot to avoid hurting anybody's feelings. if i asked her she would tell me i was lovely and what i'm feeling is just human. and it would hurt her to know i felt like this. not because it's anything she has done but because she would hate that i'm not happy.

No, I meant asking the people such as your family and extended family.
We can all have family members that are difficult, but I would have thought there would have been some people in your extended family who you would have got on with.

I am beginning to wonder if you think relationships are only worth having if they are perfect
Are you a perfectionist?

No one is perfect, not you , not me, not anyone.
So yes,we have to tolerate things,just as they have to tolerate stuff with us.

Have you posted on here recently with a different name. That is ok if you have. And it was a thread I was on?

no it's not that i think people or relationships should be perfect i am far from perfect so in no place to expect that from anyone else. it just seems to be that i find myself in a place where the relationship is zapping me and i find i dont want to be spending so much time with that person, or something significant happens that seems like a turning point or a shift in the dynamics of the relationship where i feel like i am giving a lot more than i'm getting out of it. i've tried to persevere in the past because i know friendships, good ones, arent about what you get out of it but it ends up with me feeling like the person is actually taking the piss and i dont want to keep on giving under those circumstances.

there are people in the extended family who i get on with and who are lovely but the relationship isn't any more than an acquaintence if that makes sense. those that i have been closer with, i've distanced myself from again.

no i have been using this name for a few years now.

this name with variations i should have said. maybe it was somethingbooyhoo or booyhoosomething. i cant think of anything i have posted recently though along these lines. something happened today that sort of triggered off all these feelings/realisations.

do you deliberately distance yourself from people for fear of rejection/seeming needy?

ok, I understand about the extended family bit.
And I understadn how dynamices in relationships can change.

Could you give a couple of examples where you get to a point of feeling like certain relationships are zapping you?

Booyhoo, dont worry, you are not the person I was thinking of.
I do remember now seeing your name about from time to time.

no, it's usually triggered by something happening within the relationship. if i gave a few examples of things that have caused me to create distance it might explain what i mean.

with my mum- overly aggressive/physicall when disciplining my son (although our relationship has always been strained since childhood) so i have reduced the time we spend with her.

with a family member- she got drunk and assaulted me and shared alot of what she actually thought of me (i posted about this at the time) i dont have any interaction with her at all now. i dont trust her.

with close friend- spent alot of money travelling to see her recently, lend her money when she asks as she is always skint, always running her places, always there as a shoulder to cry on. she came home on wed and didn't let me know she was home, then last night text to say she would come in to see me as she was home, didn't come, i text suggesting we meet for breakfast today as she was leaving again this afternoon she said yes and would let me know what time. then she text me today at 20 past 11 saying she was leaving at half one which didn't leave enough time to meet. she's also said she will repay me what she owes when she has it but she has been out so many times in the past fortnight, (she's also going away on a girly clubbing weekend this weekend and has posted on FB pictures of new things she's been buying. i just feel like i'm being used a bit and dont want to be. she's quite a prickly person so if i spoke to her about it, she would explode and no doubt it would be the end of the friendship for good. i dont want that.

sorry, my last post was in answer to thelightpassenger

the zapping relationships are with my mum and the close friend i mentioned. my family seem to be quite big on negativity ( i realise how negative i am being right now!) and so i find it hard to spend any time with them, and TBH i dont see the point when no-one seems to be enjoying it. it always seems so strained. my friend was at my house last week when my mum arrived and after mum left friend said she noticed me visibly shrinking into myself and hardly speaking when mum was there. that's what it's like all the time, i cant be myself with her, it's not fun being around her. i cant relax at all.

i didn't mean this to just be about my mum. as i said i cant maintain relationships with anyone beyond a few years. i'm not in touch with anyone from school. 1 friend from college who used to be a very close friend is now like an acquaintence. (she's the only person from college that i'm still in touch with.)

i think you need to go to dr and ask if you have a Asperger's as you are finding it hard to make and keep friends

if you do have it you might see it in your mum also

how does your child cope in world is like you ?

hmm, my eldest is 7 and has 2 close friends at school. one he is constantly bickering with but they remain friends, the other i think is in the shadows of the other friend a bit and given the choice, ds would probably choose the first friend to have over to play. he is also in a few extra curricular things and seems to enjoy them but no close friendships have come from it, though he talks about "my friend X from scouts etc"

my youngest is 3 and at nursery but so far no close friendships. he doesn't seem to have any problems socialising though. maybe too young to tell?

what happens if i do have aspergers? there isn't anything GP can do is there?

just realising my mum doesn't have any close friends either. there were friends that were her closest friend for a few years (like me) but they all seemed to have fizzled out (the friendship, not the friend!)

Do you actually want friendships or do you just think you should have them (social conditioning)

i want them. i am so lonely. i want to have good relationship. i know some people are more than happy not having friends but i'm not.

i've had a look at a website about aspergers and alot of the symptoms/behaviours sound like me.

the drs can help your kids with classes ( if there are no cutbacks) and will help in school
as for you it will just help know that you see the world in a different way