This time last week, I had a thread about the heartbreak I feel about not having been loved by my parents and the impact it has had on me and my ability to form relationships.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/3264195-How-do-I-cope-with-the-heartbreak
I was always told growing up that I would never be loved and was given all the reasons for this. I could write pages on the flaws I was told make me unloveable. I tried to find love to prove to them and myself that I was loveable and I could be loved. But I got it so wrong. Very quickly, I ignored/avoided/rejected decent men as being 'too good' for me and only ever dated men who were very obviously damaged. I used to say I was only attracted to 'inept' men but it was more than that. I gravitated towards men who were no more capable of loving or being loved than I was due to their own sadness, issues and traumas. It was their pain and their damage that drew me to them. In part, I wanted to show them the compassion I hadn't experienced and 'love them better' but I also felt I was only good enough for men other women would reject. After all, no one would 'choose' me so I had to ensure there'd be no 'competition'. I guess they were drawn to me for the same reasons 
I understand now how this was all a recipe for disaster but I was only a teenager/young adult at the time and it both felt real and made sense to me. The 'relationships' were sometimes little more than FWB/drinking buddy and other times were characterised with anger, sadness and cruelty born of insecurity and self loathing. There was little emotional attachment - not healthy, positive ones anyway and certainly no love. The first time I was hit I told my mother and her response was to ask what I'd done wrong and warn me that next time - he might dump me.
My husband was one of these men. We got together when I was 26 and I was the single parent of a toddler. We weren't in love. He was equally damaged and felt that if he could right the wrongs in my life then his would have been worth something.
We've both grown up a lot. Both had counselling and therapy and have brought up two, largely, well adjusted and happy children. But our relationship ultimately broke down when he met someone else. I've been largely single for 6 years. I have had 3 short term relationships, the last ending quite recently and I'm still struggling with the lack of love.
I had some lovely comments on the other thread but today I'm really struggling with thoughts of being 'unloveable' and easily replaceable.
I'm also really struggling with the number of married men who have actively pursued me over the past few years. Only one single man has approached me but the number of married men is well into double figures. And I'm not including drunk chancers on a night out, I'm talking colleagues; friends; the husbands of friends, etc.. Who've made several attempts at 'woo-ing' me over weeks/months. I'm struggling with the knowledge that none of these men are genuinely attracted to me and don't love or respect me. But I'm also struggling with what this means for men and love generally. How can they love their wives? It doesn't help when I read on here that "my husband would never do that..." because I know some of the wives of these men and they genuinely believe the same. And so did I, until they did it.
My female friends haven't experienced similar so I think there must be something about me that makes me a target for these men. On the surface you wouldn't know this is how I feel. I told a couple of friends recently about my background and its impact and they were shocked and had no idea. So I'm not 'obviously' a target. But there is something that men see in me that makes me suitable for an affair and sex but not for a relationship and love. If I knew what it was, I could change it. There must be something I'm doing. And I don't know what it is.
Or is it them?