Asking for happy endings when you felt like you'd never meet the right one

[lizzedays]

I know I have been here before with an almost identical thread but I am not coping well so hoping people will be kind.

i need some happy ending stories. not to pretend life always works out but to find the hope i used to have that drove me forward and made me take part in life fully.

i feel so broken and lost with my twenties that now i am in my thirties i feel like giving up. i wasnt different to anyone else i dont think.. just that things didnt work out for reasons that meant that we didnt want the same things at the same time.

i feel like time is running out to meet someone and build something together. i just want to settle down. are there any men out there who want that too? the dating world seems so daunting and everyone seems to into travel and work and drinking - i like all these things in moderation but my main objective is a family.

i am really lost and struggling to see a way forward. sorry for posting again.

I was in a very abusive relationship for 10 years and had 2dc with him and 2 businesses. I had a total nervous breakdown after I left him. Lost the businesses, home, cars everything. We weren't married so literally lost it all. He had convinced me no one would want a washed out single mum like me so prepared for a life alone.
Decided to be celibate and heal myself and for 5 years I did that.
Then I met the love of my life by total chance. Loves my children and I've never met any one so kind and loving and gentle.
Total opposite to my ex.
Been together 4 years now and couldn't be happier with him. He accepts I have PTSD and anxiety and loves me for who I am.
I will grow old with this man. Oh and the sex is out of this world.
Keep the faith!

I spent my 20s single or in brief useless relationships partly because I had a fixed idea about what my 'type' was and the sort of person I ought to go out with and marry.

I met now DH when I was 30. He wasn't a left wing human rights lawyer or charity worker but a Tory working for an oil company. But he's the loveliest person I know. He's bright, well read, interesting and a fabulous husband and father. If I'd carried on worrying about what my parents and friends would think I'd still be single and possibly lonely. Instead I've been happily married for nearly 20 years.

My message is not to write people off too quickly as not your type and don't get stuck in a rut. Get to know people properly first. You might be surprised who Mr Right turns out to be.

While I was single I started going to the gym, getting fit and healthy, going out and making new friends, I learned to love my own company. I had dates with myself. Pampered myself often :) people noticed how happy I was. And I really was!

I met DH when I was 32, I’d assumed I’d end up single. Which I was kind of ok with.

I’d come to terms with it, I’d had a shit relationship where I’d been a doormat & was finally in a place mentally where I wasn’t prepared to be with someone that didn’t accept me entirely for who I was. I’d rather be single.

Been together nearly 20 years now, 2 DC, very happy. He still accepts me for me, which is utterly crucial for me.

Thanks for all the replies.

I think part of the struggle is that i feel so shit about the past relationship and feeling like i made it go wrong through being too sensitive. if i had ignored his comments then he wouldnt have got annoyed and seen me as this pathetic person, and i also wouldnt have developed such anxiety about the relationship as i was always wondering whether he did actually want me or was constantly disappointed in me. i think maybe i was too sensitive.

either way i am here feeling like there's no future. these posts are inspriational and i know i have posted before but your words really do make me feel less lonely. thank you

i put up with it though and he would often tell me "arent you going to pdo your make up," or "thats a strange bikini" and "most women would get a fake tan beofre they went on hol" (after saying already twice that i didnt like fake tans). he also commented regulalry on the fact i didnt wear heels to work, like he was disappointed in me.

God, he sounds like a complete creep who has some Barbie hang-up or something. Whatever, he doesn't live in REAL LIFE.

Be thankful you are sensitive - it is a beautiful gift to have even if hard in this world.

Just say to yourself every day "I deserve something MUCH better and it is on its way to me. Thank you universe!"

The power of gratitude and positivity will draw the right people to you who are on the same wavelength (sp?!).

You would have had an AWFUL life with someone like that.

Lots of happy endings among my friends who didn't meet their life partner until their mid or late thirties. Not my stories to tell but keep the faith, keep an open mind and keep out there.

Iflyaway - the comments weren't said in a nasty way though...it was more inquisitive i supposed, as if he was genuinely wondering. i just never understood why when it upset me the first tim he would continue to do it. he could be very generous and nice but i would always feel like i wasnt enough. like he didnt just love me and my flaws for what they were.

he was quite overweight and knew it, but i would never ever have commented or compared him to other men. i didnt want to as i loved him.

i had never felt so down about myself as when i was with him. he would compliment me often, but the other comments were always there. one time he asked why my make up didnt stay on as well as a 22 year old's in his office who i had also met at a function. i said ididnt know and must have sounded a bit hurt as he then launched into why i was being moody. i just dont know how to feel about it all. perhaps i was moody and shouldnt have been

Lots of happy endings among my friends who didn't meet their life partner until their mid or late thirties. Not my stories to tell but keep the faith, keep an open mind and keep out there.

Why do you think his behaviour standards can be so much lower than your own and you should have accepted that?

You didn't comment on his weight and ask him why he hadn't managed to stay as slim as some chap from your work, did you? Wouldn't dream of it. And why? Cos it's a bloody nasty thing to say, even if you say it in a "nice" way. Stop second-guessing yourself.

I think part of the struggle is that i feel so shit about the past relationship and feeling like i made it go wrong through being too sensitive. if i had ignored his comments then he wouldnt have got annoyed and seen me as this pathetic person, and i also wouldnt have developed such anxiety about the relationship as i was always wondering whether he did actually want me or was constantly disappointed in me. i think maybe i was too sensitive.

I'm gonna be honest you're not ready to meet someone yet. You're blaming yourself for his awful behaviour, you weren't too sensitive. His comments were vile, they're the kind of comments that chip away at your self esteem. Of course he complimented you too, very few men are pure nasty, nobody would stay with them.

Please work on yourself and your boundaries. I completely understand I'm currently doing the same, taking the time to know who I am and get my boundaries well in place.

Bold fail sorry

I was a partially paralysed single mum to 4 children (2 by birth 2 adopted) by different fathers and with medical issues and When my dp first asked me out for dinner I laughed at him. Then I made him work bloody hard to be with me.
Apparently I'm worth every second and several years later we are very happy and he's great with my children. He makes me laugh, carries me literally when I can't walk any further and even though he told me to take my chair, without compliant, and cleans.
He wants our life together as much as I do and is prepared to work for it.
There are men out there who are good and decent and true.

Mama1980 as a single mum to four kids by two different fathers at only 28 your story gives me hope

Yep that sounds like my ex. Always commenting on what I should wear, who to hang out with etc etc. It's bad news and any man who says those kind of things needs to be cut off, clean break, fresh start and no going back. Easier said than done but when you are ready you can do it.

Take one day at a time, Today I will be strong and happy, and if you don't, tomorrow is just around the corner with a fresh chance for a new beginning.

Ditch the loser, he's not interested and that's all you need to know. This relationship didn't work but another will. Time wasted on him is time you could be looking out for yourself.

Fwiw I was single for about 2.5 years before meeting my husband and thought I'd die single! But you know, I miss parts of being single, space in the bed, no one to think about except my own happiness, having my home how I want it, coming and going as I please, taking a holiday at the drop of a hat (alone! They were great too!), blasting out my own music and watching my own crap on TV, etc etc....

Try and see the positives of where you are right now. The world is yours for the taking! X

What Mama said.
The good men are out there, don't waste a minute more on a bad one.

Thanks for the posts.

this guy didnt do controlling things in general i dont think. it was just the comments. once he said he was sick of me relying on him (i may have done emotionally but i was totally financially independent and had my own house). he called me pathetic regularly. other times he would say he was proud of me.

he could go in horrific moods where he didnt speak to me. i would literally be crying asking him why he wasnt talking and he would ignore me completely as if i didnt exist. that could go on for hours at a time. he would theh mock me for crying, "here come the waterworks."

the problem is, because he could be so nice, and because he didnt do things like control who i saw etc, im not sure you can class him as being the one in the wrong. i wouldnt have commented on his weight, for instance, but men are different arent they and maybe i just took these comments to heart. i could have lsughed them off or just gone along with it rather than making myself look pathetic by getting upset.

Or you could have just dumped his arse hard the first time he called you pathetic.

He was the moody one. He was cruel to you. He cycled between nasty and nice to keep you hanging on for the nice bits. You shouldn't be thinking that you should have learnt how to tolerate being treated poorly by him.

You really ought to talk to a counsellor or something and work on your self-esteem. You need to be learning to raise your standards, not lower them.

he was nice too though. i could be difficult, i can get very anxious and probably didnt cope well with his comments for that reason. and the times when i did get upset i would be mean back to him. i just hadnt experienced that sort of tresatment before and didnt know what to do about it.

Dumping him would have been the thing to do.

You know that you wouldn't make such comments to anyone. So why are you trying to make out it should have been OK for him to say those things to you?

Of course he was lovely sometimes, you wouldn't have got with him if he was nasty all the time, would you?

Even if he isn't the (possibly emotionally abusive) asshole I think he was, it's patently clear you weren't compatible and he didn't make you happy.

Relationships shouldn't be painful.

It wasn't you, it was him.

Honestly, I've been here, you need to work through and process this. So what he was nice sometimes? He was cruel to you when you needed emotional support. It's the nasty nice cycle.

It comes up so often on here but I think the book "why does he do that? Inside the mind of angry and controlling men" would be good for you, I know you say he wasn't controlling but he put you down which is emotional abuse. Please read the book it helped me make sense of a similar relationship and highlighted other abusive behaviour I didn't notice.

You need to value yourself and realise you deserve better. You did not need to handle his nasty comments better, you needed to tell him to fuck off the first time or at very least the second time.

i understand what people are saying but i am ashamed about how i reacted sometimes. sometimes i would feel so low that i got angry and would lash out back to him. i would apologise afterwards and he would never apologise for anything. in fact he used to tell me that his mum had never once said sorry to anyone about anything, as if that was something to be proud of.

im just struggling to process it all i think. strangely, his ex contacted me at the start of the relationship and said he was emotionally abusive. i thought she was just jealous. what a fool i am

Do the Freedom Programme. Talk to a counsellor. Get yourself to a good place emotionally, you deserve better, much better.

OK, you may not like all of this OP but here goes.

Your ex was a fuckwit. You are well rid of him. Please stop beating yourself up with the mighthavebeens - the more you twisted yourself up in knots, becoming less and less of "you", the more he would have ramped it up. Block him and see that as a learning experience.

You do sound very down and I agree with PP that some counselling might be useful. Make sure you gel with your therapist, you may not get on with the first one, but a good counselling relationship can work wonders in restoring your self esteem and seeing how you got to where you are.

All this "Happy Endings" nonsense has to stop really. No such thing. All relationships end one way or another and those endings are usually painful for at least one party if not both. Do you know what my happy ending is? Being confident enough in myself to know I don't need a romantic relationship to make me complete, whole, or worthy.

Maybe have a look at this website which probably explains the way forward far better than I can - www.baggagereclaim.co.uk

For what it's worth you come across as intelligent, sensitive, but a bit battered and lacking in self esteem. Take your time, it's possible that as soon as you get all your shit together and decide you are a strong independent woman who doesn't need a man, some lovely bloke will come along and ruin it all for you

You sound like you’re still involved in your last relationship. Not that you’re still dating, but that you give it a lot of thought and it affects you still. Most of your posts here about your last relationship rather than your fear of the future.

I second whoever mentioned therapy, as it could help with that.

I honestly didn’t know if I’d find someone after my divorce but it happened and I feel really lucky. It wasn’t without effort though, and I had to sacrifice a lot for us to be together.