why do I self sabotage?

[cellandine]

If that's what I'm doing, and I think it is.

I've done it for years with diets, persisted for a while then started on a downward spiral. With jobs too, if I'm doing well I deliberately stop making an effort.

Now after years of awful relationships I've finally met someone who makes me really, truly, happy. And I'm screwing it up and I don't know why, other than I seem to feel I don't deserve to be happy. Or that everything will go wrong anyway

Does anyone else understand this?

Anyone?

Yes, I understand. There is a saying 'how can you expect someone else to love you when you don't love yourself' - maybe that is the reason? Spend some time learning to love yourself.

I do it too and am about to start therapy for it.

You'll have your own reasons for it. Mine are as a result of past event. I feel guilty for the life I have and do it to punish myself. The binge eating is my way of punishing and protecting myself. It also buys me nothing for a but when I go into mindless mode and don't feel anything.

It's taken 25 years to realise this.

Hope you can work it out soon

Yes I do this. I like to test people, as I don't believe they could really love me. Then the relationship breaks under the strain.

I do love myself, I think. I do nice things for myself. I'm quite good at refusing social invitations to things I don't want to go to, or avoiding stuff I don't want to do. I think I'm certainly kind to myself in that sense.

I just don't expect to be happy, not lasting happiness anyway. I lost all my immediate family by my early 20s. I think that may have something to do with it. The last year has been the first time since then (almost 20 years) that I've felt truly happy. But I'm making him miserable. And I don't even know I'm doing it.

Have you considered counselling for the loss of your immediate family? This could be the cause of this, it is hard for us to say why you do it. We can only empathise.

I never had any counselling at the time,I didn't see the point because all I wanted was my parents back and counselling couldn't give me that. Now it just seems like so long ago, I'd feel a fraud getting help for deaths that happened almost 20 years ago.

But possibly that's the only option. My partner is struggling with the fact i can't express my feelings, other than getting upset and crying. I can't/ won't say what I want, sometimes I go really quiet and don't speak, and literally I feel I can't think of a single thing to say. I wasn't like this at first, the more I know he loves me the worse it's got I'm happy yet I spend more time crying now than ever. He had to do a 5 hour car journey recently in bad weather and I was whiteboards he might die. Every ache and pain he has I think is a serious illness.

Whiteboards should be really worried. Not sure what happened there.

I think you would benefit from talking to someone from what you have said it sounds like you are being overprotective because of what has happened to you in the past. But it is only a suggestion xx Try not to be hard on yourself. At least you realise you have this issue, that is the first step in resolving it.

Someone I knew was similar and her counsellor called it Jonah complex - fear of success.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonah_complex

My pal worked trough it, so it is possible to overcome with assistance, good luck.

I can't help be hard on myself, i feel horrible right now. My partner and I have had words tonight. We don't argue ever really. But he doesn't understand why I'm being all quiet and won't speak to him. I can't tell.him what's wrong because I don't understand myself. I know if I can't sort this out, stop ruining things he will end it, and I couldn't bear that.

Well, on the surface it looks like you're terrified to love anyone because you think they're going to be taken away from you. Counselling really would help you with this - not a fraud at all .

As for overeating, sigh, that's been my issue, too. I've looked at sugar addiction (there's a good book called 'why can't I stop eating?' which has been a great help to me), been to OA, looked at emotional eating...

Something happened years ago that may shed some light on it: when I divorced my abusive husband, I put on a lot of weight because I was on a full-dose anti-depressant (in those days they made you put on weight). When I came off the ADs I was still wearing billowy clothes and one day I stepped on the scales out of interest... I had lost stones in weight! Here's the shocking bit: I was absolutely horrified and leapt off the scales; I felt very exposed somehow. I couldn't understand it, it was my dream to lose weight yet I was terrified. I think all that weight made me feel invisible and cushioned from life. Being slimmer also made me feel I was sexually viable [stupid thinking, don't mean to offend] and I couldn't pretend not to be, couldn't shirk a potential relationship.

It says something that until I stepped on the scales I didn't even notice I'd lost stones in weight! I was cut off from my body, myself (on purpose?).

I am scared of losing him. I do feel somehow it's inevitable. I worry we are already past that point. But I don't know how to save it.

I will look into counselling for my losses.

The eating is definitely emotional for me, I eat when I'm happy and sad.I was thinner when I met my partner, I know he prefers me at that size yet I keep eating, as if to test him.

Counselling/therapy can really make a difference. You've had some dreadful experiences, there's no shame getting help sorting them, just as you would with bad physical experiences. If you can overcome your fear/prejudice about it, which most of us have but can overcome.

Friends may be able to recommend someone, or check bacp website or speak to your doctor.
Good luck, it can be sorted

Marking place - I can really relate to this but have no idea how to overcome it

I think you're trying (subconsciously) to push him away as you wait for the 'inevitable' dumping. You don't believe you deserve him so are really protecting yourself. You need to love yourself - very American! Or just like yourself a bit.

You do need to sit him down and tell him your worries. He's not a mind reader. Tell him how much he means to you.

You can't speak and your mind goes blank because you are scared that what you have to say will mean he will leave you.

I've been there. I have a new boyfriend and shut down on him the other night in bed. I couldn't speak. Just clammed up.

Your previous relationships. Have you been with anyone got angry with you or treated you badly for speaking your mind? Ie, emotionally abusive.

You sound very similar to me. I have had counselling and have abandonment/rejection issues, stemming from being separated from my mother from a very early age and consolidated by other events since then.

Can you write down how you are feeling? Let your partner see it? In what ways are you making him miserable?

And gp. Definitely counselling. Cbt to help you challenge your thoughts.

These are really important issues, OP, and you deserve to have counseling to examine them.

It's fixable! That's the good news. But only if you are willing to do the work to tackle it.

And it's worth doing: you deserve to do well in your jobs and relationships, and it's a pity to remain your own worst enemy.

My previous long term relationship was physically and emotionally abusive.

I will try writing stuff down but I'm not even sure I can express it that way. My partner is really good at communication and talking about stuff, he finds it hard it's always him making the effort to talk.

Am definitely going to try counselling.

Look into Dialectical Behaviour Therapy.

www.amazon.co.uk/Dialectical-Behavior-Therapy-Skills-Workbook/dp/1572245131