I've been single for twenty years, and I am so lonely

[julietbeatrice]

I find myself wondering what is wrong with me.

I do have trust issues, which to be honest I think relate to my upbringing, but I know people who had similar backgrounds to me who have had relationships. Why can't I?

I was very anxiously preoccupied in my attachment style. I still am to a degree. But knowing about it helps. My only relationships have been with a gay man, a man who didn't want to put a label on it but enjoyed a relationship, my abusive xh. I read a book by ''Jeb Kinneson'' (?) which made me realise that even an abusive relationship can be a way of avoiding intimacy. That made me angry when I first read it but now I think there's truth in it.

I don't know if any of this resonates with you but I used to feel really uncomfortable if people did too much for me, or ''saw'' my life. I was only comfortable with them seeing selected snap shots of my life, as controlled by me, but if anybody got to know me well enough to have an opinion on my real self, I would feel exposed and vulnerable and panic and withdraw. Not consciously of course, I would think I had just gone off them.

What was your upbringing? Mine was parents who never allowed me to express an emotion. I was a people-pleaser. I was trained to fit in around other people and to have no needs. They kind of weren't that in to me! So I felt ''attracted'' to men who didn't want a relationship with me, hence my very short list of relationships.

I think it is possible to change who you're attracted to.

Have you read Heller and Levine's book ''Attached''? If you haven't, you should! It's an eye opener.

I've done a lot of work on myself, trying to figure out why I didn't / don't have relationships, why it seems the norm for other people and yet it doesn't happen for me.

Are you often attracted to people who aren't 100% interested you in the right way? LIke, they're giving you some signals but not in a serious way, or not in a respectful way?

To be honest, I'm very, very rarely attracted to anybody. I have definitely "turned off" that part of myself.

*I don't know if any of this resonates with you but I used to feel really uncomfortable if people did too much for me, or ''saw'' my life. I was only comfortable with them seeing selected snap shots of my life, as controlled by me, but if anybody got to know me well enough to have an opinion on my real self, I would feel exposed and vulnerable and panic and withdraw. Not consciously of course, I would think I had just gone off them.

What was your upbringing? Mine was parents who never allowed me to express an emotion. I was a people-pleaser. I was trained to fit in around other people and to have no needs. They kind of weren't that in to me! So I felt ''attracted'' to men who didn't want a relationship with me, hence my very short list of relationships.*

That all really resonates. Very helpful, thank you.

Sounds like ''the problem of being too nice''.

I definitely recommend the Attached book by Heller and Levine but I read some good articles about the problem with being too nice.

Basically if you're not comfortable with people doing things for you because it leaves you feeling uncomfortably ''beholden'' to them then you want to owe people nothing. That's how uncomfortable you are with receiving (affection/support/favours). Basically you want the status quo of who owes who what to be in equilibrium. Although you can probably give?? But not take a favour.

If somebody lends you a tenner are you there at their desk at 0905 the next day to pay it back? That's me.

The article which I cannot find now explains that this modus operandi of never accepting any favour or help or support or 'goods' or service from anybody because it makes you so uncomfortable triggers a ''red flag'' feeling in men who are good people. They consciously or unconsciously sense your BOUNDARIES and they respect them. And they back away and don't pursue a relationship with you.

But you haven't been in bad or abusive relationships that's good (well relatively, less 'work' to do!) You feel lonely but you haven't been entering in to bad relationships so luckily the self-worth is there, you could fix this with a bit of a tweak?

Two good books I read a few years ago were

1. Nice girl syndrome by Beverley Engel
2. Jonice Webb (childhood EMOTIONAL neglect). Her books are quite specifically geared at people who may have believed/still believe that their childhood was OK! so they cannot understand why they feel so like relationships are for other people.

I think I have subconsciously recognised that I would be very vulnerable to an abusive relationship and put up my guards accordingly.

That's very helpful though. It's true about the money! That is me!

Yes, I know what you mean, and it's better to be single and protecting yourself than to end up having your boundaries eroded to suit somebody else's agenda.

There is a WEALTH of information out there and it's helped me a lot. Theory and practice are different though. I found I had to learn it in theory and then there was no way around it, I had to go on bad dates and put up with a few ''learning curves'' before it all clicked in to place in an instinctive/intuitive way. Probably not there yet, not 100% but every man is a VAST improvement on the last. Or, more precisely, every relationship is more ''real'' perhaps than the last. I feel like I'm still learning but going in the right direction so it's possible.