How do you "heal"?

[Healthewirld]

I've only ever known abusive relationships which I've had extensive counselling to help me come to terms with. I don't trust my own judgement when it comes to men now. I've met a really lovely (on the surface) man who isn't love bombing, is open about when he's busy rather than "busy" and responds to communication when he can. But I'm carrying all the past men in my head and I keep wondering when he's going to show the "real" him. There may not be any other him to the one he's showing me, but all the other men I have known have had another nasty side to them.

How do I stop letting the other men continually ruin my life? I can almost hear one of them laughing about this.

Firstly, you take a break from relationships with men. Give yourself some space.

Start to read up about your situation and get some therapy and explore why you keep going for the same kind of guy. There will be reasons.

Good luck 😉

A good place to start is by reading/following The Secure Relationship on Instagram

I think the author has written a book too

An alternative is Dr Nicole LaPera, her books How to do the work and accompanying workbook are amazing

How do I stop letting the other men continually ruin my life? I can almost hear one of them laughing about this

But he's not laughing. You need to take responsibility for yourself, and understand that you are creating that laugh.

Your new man can do whatever he wants. He might turn out nasty, he might turn out messy, he might turn out lovely. We all take this risk, every time we get into a new relationship. And that's fine. That's universal. What you need to learn to do is to have your own back. So, if he's lovely for 6 months, and then starts to show signs of turning crap, you need to have your own back. Currently, your exes are watching over you and judging you. You need to be the person who does that. You may still hear the laughing, but you need to understand that it isn't powerful. What's powerful is that you are moving your life forward in the way that you want, and that you will stay with a man for as long as you want to, which is for the time when he treats you in a way that feels good to you.

If you know that when a relationship turns bad, you can walk away and be fine, you won't care about what your exes would have said: you are giving them too much agency, and you fear this relationship because you give your new man too much agency.

In short, you're in charge. He gets to stay with you only if you enjoy it. And if you stop enjoying it, you move on with your head up.

What would happen if he started to show you a less pleasant side to himself? How would you feel? How would you respond?

There will be reasons, yes, and OP can spend lots of time and money on digging up the past, or she can recognise that if you walk away when someone treats you in a way that makes you feel bad, you don't need to fear relationships.

Both methods have enormous value, and I'd recommend both, rather than just one, because one gives helpful fodder for today, and one is a long term project that likely won't yield results for quite some time.

Not contradicting or arguing with you, ByeBye, just that it doesn't have to be absolutely necessary to terminate this potentially good relationship, if all it's doing is being a good relationship. Having a good partner can be a huge help in healing the past, re-educating yourself on 'how relationships work', and having some healthy support whilst you do it, as long as you realise you don't have to keep doing it if it stops feeling good.

Thank you there's a lot to think about here. I've been single for over 5 years and have done a lot of work on myself so I think I agree with @Watchkeys in that I need to now start to do this with someone else and know when to leave and trust my own judgement. I don't want to throw something away that may turn out to be a really nice relationship out of fear. I'm content on my own but it would be nice to bring someone along for the ride now.

If you think back to your previous relationships, can you spot the parts where you should have left? 'If I'd left when I noticed him looking at other women, 3 weeks after we met, I could have saved myself 10 years of trouble', that sort of thing?

If you can, think about the feeling you had when exes did these things. That's your 'red flag feeling'; the feeling you need to look out for, that should have a sign attached to it with 'RUN!' written on it it red.

You'll be ok. If you're at the stage when you're asking these questions, you're nearly there. All you have to realise is that you need to be constantly aware of these questions. You don't make a decision one day and stop having to pay attention. Even 'married with kids' people need to keep an eye on their relationships, and be prepared to leave if things get bad.