An aura of being open to unhealthy men

[VimtoCordial]

Hi Everyone.
There's been something on my mind lately. My past two significant long term relationships have been an abusive one (a marriage) and an unhealthy, possibly verging on abusive one (an engagement). Other than these two men, I've had a very short term relationship with a guy you could hardly have called a boyfriend, a string of one night stands in my early twenties, and a few dates here and there more recently.

So, what I'm wondering is this. Abusive men seem to be able to sniff out potential victims and home in on them. Does this mean that decent men can also recognise women who have this "victim" state and avoid them?

I ask because, if you discount the one night stands as they were thirty-odd years ago, other than my unhealthy relationships, I had a few single dates on OLD, and nothing else. So I just wondered if perhaps men 'know' somehow that there's something questionable about my abilities in relationships and avoid me.

I'm not currently looking for anyone right now, so it's not a case of me moaning that no one likes me. It's more of an academic question, and if there is something I can do then I can start doing it. Body language for instance.

What do you think, Mumsnetters?

Hi @VimtoCordial, from my own experiences I don't think it's a clear cut case of walking around with an aura that screams abuse me or avoid me as such but accepting or rejecting potential relationships based on what seems 'normal ' to you and that comes from your conditioning in childhood. I had a personality disordered, dismissive and neglectful mother which led me to believe that chasing relationships with men who were self absorbed, dismissive and neglectful was normal. I tolerated an awful lot of abusive, nasty behaviour because it seemed normal to me. I believe someone with a more normal childhood would have not gone further than a first date before realising that something was 'off' with these people. I didn't seek out healthy relationships but accepted what was on offer. I was very passive in that sense. After a lot of therapy and the subsequent reparenting it gave me has opened my eyes to what is normal and healthy behaviour in others and better self esteem has led to better boundaries. So for me working on myself has led to better choices. I think that saying that you can't love someone until you love yourself, however overused, is so so true.

I like the dance analogy @rvby. Makes a lot of sense.

I also like the dance analogy. Expanding it further, I think there's also been an element of someone who's a fantastic dancer wanting to dance and I've wondered why they've wanted to dance with me so have rejected them and chosen the poor dancer instead.

@VimtoCordial I've wondered why they've wanted to dance with me so have rejected them and chosen the poor dancer instead

I like the Gift of Fear too. My ex definitely sought out abused women - all of his most recent partners came from abused backgrounds, and the woman that kept returning for more was the most abused - she takes the worse treatment from him I have ever seen, but thinks its just love. I wish somehow that we (the chain of girlfriends) disproved the theory that abused people carry on being abused. 0

I know he sought us out. At the outset he sat me down and made me tell him about my childhood and marriage - he actually wouldn't let me out of the room. At the time (because he seemed to be just interested and sympathetic) I was fine, but afterwards I realised it just allowed him to groom me. I am very wary now of sharing0 anything about my past with people I meet. 0

I also agree that you model the relationship of your parents. My mother kept taking my father back no matter what he did. I have done the same 0

i have no idea where the 0s keep coming from

Good point @rvby
I remember reading an article years ago when Rihanna went back to the man who beat the crap out of her. It was something along the lines of that if your mum, aunts, grandmas were beaten by their partners then that’s what love looks like.

As in, if he didn’t beat her it would be almost like he didn’t care.

As in, if he didn’t beat her it would be almost like he didn’t care. Yes! this is in my family as well in a different form. My DF was a "free spirit" and didn't pay much attention to my DM - so when I married a jealous, possessive, controlling man, and years later the marriage imploded, my DM thought I was mad to leave him. "But he loves you soooo much, why can't you see that?" Thanks mum, v helpful

My past two significant long term relationships have been an abusive one (a marriage) and an unhealthy, possibly verging on abusive one (an engagement)

Same here OP, except they were both marriages. & It's my mother who is the vindictive narcissist towards all her children, but especially her daughters.

I've now been with my lovely DP for 6 years. I'm happy, and life is peaceful.

I stayed on my own for 4 years after leaving 2nd marriage. In that time I realised there's no point ruminating (even tho I did for a while). I had to put the work in on myself. Not avoid it. Know who I was and what kind of partner I wanted, and being prepared to be alone if I didn't meet anyone. No more being with a man, ignoring red flags (there are always early-ish signs you're with the wrong man) then as time passed getting into sunken costs mode because I was so caught up on how much time I'd invested. I went NC with my mum too, hard but like a weight lifted off my back.

Anyway, what rvby said:

It takes a long time to discipline yourself not to dance with those people

Thanks everyone for your responses today.

Further than that sometimes I've been like, you look stupid dancing like that, wtf is wrong with you? Dance properly! ... when obviously I am the one who actually has no idea what the dance is supposed to look like and I'm basically being an arsehole to myself and to the other person.

Ouch. I know this scenario! It's a defence mechanism for me and it ensures I keep these men at arm's length.

I definitely recognise that abusive men I've known have been badly treated by their parents.
An abusive ex didn't know who his dad was, was physically abused by his mum and his brother was taken into care.
Unless people are willing to accept they carry these scars and seek professional help I feel they are very likely to repeat the patterns of childhood.
I think in my case I am a bit of a rescuer and feel I can help people which has led me into trouble.

I think there's some truth in there about rescuers. My brother is in an abusive relationship. He goes on about how he will help his wife get better from her MH problems. He always has a plan on the go for how he will get her to understand how awful she is and "get better". He is committed to changing her personality. Twenty five years and every year the abuse and control gets worse. He is a shell of a man. I reckon he is addicted to seeing himself as the saviour (despite saving noone). Even our dad (long divorced from our mother) commented "He has only gone and married his mother".

Such an interesting thread.

Agree that boundary-testing starts early doors and they get the measure of how much messing you’ll put up with.

The post upthread by @GoddessOfGettingThereInTheEnd, about still being a target for narcissistic women, is just spot-on and crystallises thoughts and feelings that I’ve been having for ages about my interactions with some of my friends (frenemies).

Also agree about the “dance”. What I don’t understand though, is why (having never witnessed affection between my parents) I was willing to accept love-bombing from abusive ex-H at the beginning, but ran a mile from real affection from nice men. Maybe the love-bombing fed into some Hollywood ideal I had of love. Ended up a horror movie anyway.

Abusers don't sniff out victims. It's a slow process of boundary pushing, red flags etc and many women/men walk away early on.

People who have experienced trauma (either the abuser or the victim) tend to have difficulties with boundaries and 'over-sharing' and unrealistic bonding early on in relationships. So exposing vulnerabilities but conversely, also triggering the 'rescuing'.

This is another point when many will walk away.

The ones left (including me) are the ones that end up in an abusive situation. Both parties played a part though one ends up suffering more than the other.

Thingsdogetbetter is right. This is why boundaries are so important. Abusers will try it on with lots of people. People with healthy boundaries will walk away early at signs of dickish behaviour and the abuser just moves on to a more ready victim.

I think also it has a lot to do with how you respond to this behaviour. When I was a lot younger I used to respond positively to dickish behaviour from men because I thought it was a sign that the person was mysterious and interesting - I interpreted signs of honesty, commitment and reliability as signs someone was "boring". Which had a lot to do with my dad and the sorts of things he valued. He was't abusive but he was very selfish and set huge store on the idea that people were "interesting" (by which he meant clever, well educated and with a good career) was more important than their kindness or reliability. So my template was set to steer clear of anyone who appeared too straightforward, making me a magnet for arseholes who liked messing with my head.

I've slowly, over time, trained myself out of this. But I think family dynamics are really important. You can get over having a poor male role model, but its difficult and you need to be very vigilant about the patterns which have influenced your life and the shadow they cast over the sorts of men you respond to.

@MayFayner, it is that one piece of the puzzle that remains!! I am trying to figure it out.
You heal past the point of tolerated men who try to erode your boundaries, and then a narc female in a group targets you to exclude you.
The only blessing for me is that I dealt with it slightly better than i did the last time one narc female tried to ostracise me out of a group. Narc2 if i can call her that was literally furious with me for setting a small boundary (dont misrepresent me). But I feel (hope) that after her rage subsides she will be slightly less gung ho excluding me.
3 years ago at work, i tried to rise above being ostracised, and that just signalled to her that i was a doormat. I ended up excluded from everything.

@MayFayner interesting, i have also been able to tolerate being love bombed in the early stages of a relationship but yet felt stifled by somebody's certainty/commitment 😳🤔

I can only guess that at that love bombing phase i still knew deep down it wasnt real so it didnt stifle me 🥴