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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

I am only attracted to broken men

133 replies

FeathersSpitting · 15/01/2023 17:58

It's me, I'm the problem in all my relationships. I am attracted to broken men, who have the same or similar childhood wounds as me, who remind me of my sad and angry dad. I'm 35. I've had countless amounts of therapy, I've been in numerous abusive relationships. After a year or so on my own and building my life up I've dipped a toe into online dating and I only fancy the fucked up ones. Least this time around I am not entertaining it..but I'm definitely the problem.

How weird am I to be attracted to men with childhood issues similar to mine. It's like I've got a radar for them. Decent men msg me and I just go YUK, ex cocaine user who has no contact with his kid I go YUM.

What more is there that I can do? Stay by myself forever!

OP posts:
Thisisworsethananticpated · 31/12/2023 14:34

FeathersSpitting

thats a great update

I however have cringed as I got back together and split with the fella I posted about a few times over the course of 2023 🙈

so spent another Xmas pining over him

i target better goals for me in 2024

Original poster
FeathersSpitting · 31/12/2023 17:16

@Thisisworsethananticpated don't beat yourself up, if you could have done better you would have ((hugs)). I know it sounds cliche but could you focus on a different goal in 2024 rather than men? Gym, cycling, something creative? Put some of that nurturing into yourself? Then you'll be happy either way. Add something to your life, don't take away anything x

OP posts:
Thisisworsethananticpated · 31/12/2023 18:40

FeathersSpitting

thanks and you are spot on
im off the apps and want to heal and do some different stuff and handle things differently

I found out today my ex (father of children ex) has a partner which has thrown me a bit

But your advice is sound

pikkumyy77 · 31/12/2023 18:59

FeathersSpitting · 15/01/2023 18:49

I'm bored of therapy and I'm bored of wanting broken men to day dream over and have butterflies for. It's boring/but not boring. I could refer back to therapy (work benefit is 12 sessions of counselling each year). I do know I have more work to do. Stable men make me want to run away screaming 😂 it could be a self-worth thing, I think it's more an intimacy thing. Like I can only share myself with a person who has the same wounds/or maybe it's me seeking my dad over and over. So annoying that I've had therapy on and off for about a decade now and I'm still not okay 🤬

What you are doing in these relationships is called “undoing” in therapy speak. Not only do you want to/desire to “save” these guys you want to do over your failed relationship with your father and undo his abandonment of you by starting these doomed relationships and then ending them and, with more or less regret snd shame, abandoning them.

A healthy partner would not be do needy, and you couldn’t condescend (to rescue) them, and they might dump you as your father did. So dating losers and rejects is going to feel powerful and secure to you. They never fire you, you always quit. And all your friends applaud you rather than pity you for being dumped from a great relationship.

I would recommend either EMDR or DBT or IFS (Internal Family Systems) to learn to work with your parts. You may be bored if therapy but there is really no way out of this self imposed drama prison.

pikkumyy77 · 31/12/2023 19:01

Alcemeg · 17/01/2023 14:46

I think I know what you mean, OP, in that a key attraction between me and DH is that we have both had tough lives and have developed a lot of humour and resilience. I couldn't be with someone who'd lived a more sheltered life, e.g. if they'd never done drugs of any kind. It's just a whole sphere of experience missing.

Re knowing your own value, though, you mention "My choas is not easily hidden." Could you view it as a source of pride, rather than shame? I mean, Walter White at the end of Breaking Bad has a lot of chaos to cover up, but it's the chaos that transforms him from an ordinary schoolteacher into an awesome superhero.

Uh…Walter White is a sociopath, not an awesome superhero.

Blinkityblonk · 31/12/2023 19:25

Great update, OP!

Pinkbonbon · 31/12/2023 19:44

Lol Walter White is terrifying.

A supervilain perhaps but certainly not a superhero. He has very little regard for anyone but himself. Manipulates, lies, bullies and is narcissistic to the core.

Jessie is arguably more of a (if, very flawed) superhero archetype. Yes he acts with self interest but he shows morality, compassion, care for his companions, loyalty, bravery in the fact of tyranny. He's flawed af...but Walter White is just an evil person.

Anyway... xD

Blinkityblonk · 31/12/2023 22:46

@Pinkbonbon I once read a head count of all the people Walter White killed, and it ran into 100's. Everyone still hated on Skylar more though!

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