I’ve always desired marriage and motherhood but always broken up with and in a brutal way. Why? What do I do?

[UniquePup]

No matter how much therapy I do or things I do to advance my life men seem to always treat me like I'm worthless and not enough. All of my relationships have ended brutally either with them cheating, making character judgments of me or just seeing me as a stepping stone for their future wife. 2 of them have come back to apologize to me for how they treated me. What is wrong with me? At this point the grief is so intense and it's hard not to lose all confidence. I also loved every man I dated and didn't have a desire for the relationships to end. It feels hard to take

You sound beaten down @UniquePup😕 . How old are you? How long have you been dating?

There is nothing wrong with you. Chances are you think you deserve this treatment and pick men who treat you like you think you deserve. Guess what you don’t.

I was in a similar situation. Did serious inventory including of friends and family. I went no contact with most of my family for a year after saying my peace about how they treated me. Everything changed after, including the relationships/men I attracted

What did you learn about relationships when you were growing up?.

What sort of an example did your parents show you when you were growing up?. In particular what was your dad like?, If they taught you poor relationship lessons those have followed you into the present day.

You need to unlearn all the rubbish lessons you have internalised along the way.

Other people also treat us how we expect to be treated.

You’re asking the wrong questions. Nothing is wrong with YOU clearly something is wrong with them as they treat people badly.

You do pick the wrong men though. My sister is the same, always asking why nobody loves her and failing to ask why she’s only attracted to men who are unkind and don’t see women as equal.

I am😔. I’m 31 which is making this feel so much harder. I want forever love and would do anything to understand why it’s not working out for me. I’ve been dating since I was 21. I’ve had 4 boyfriends with all relationships
lasting between 1-3yrs

I’m so sorry OP, there are some horrible men out there.
Focus on your career and own success and enjoying your life in your own right and you may send some different signals.

I’m also a big believer in not using your assets to attract men - the kind of man who is attracted to a woman in a short skirt and revealing top will be attracted to any woman in a short skirt and revealing top - he’s not usually a respectful and discerning male. More thoughtful men tend to run a mile from women who dress like this, at least until they know you.

Thank you for your comment. I really do not attract men anymore and the ones that people say are a solid catch are not interested in me. It’s a challenge and it makes me wonder if there’s something I need to heal within me. The men I dated all started out treating me well and pursuing me..eventually they’d make me cry or not show up, I’d try to fix things and look inward wondering if I was the problem

I was very lucky and grew up with a wonderful family. My dad is a wonderful guy and is still married to my mother. I eat dinner with them every Sunday and are my standard for love!
but men only seem to dislike me and even in therapy, I’m not sure what it is about me. I do feel very low and worthless now so maybe there is something to what you’re saying about the energy I’m putting out. Thank you

❤️❤️yes I will take your advice and focus on my career and other things. I also have very sweet female friendships.

as for how I dress: I don’t wear revealing clothing and my friends and men describe me as “cute” and my dating profile has been described as almost too wholesome?

I agree.
I did a similar 'life laundry' and my dating life improved dramatically.
I started setting boundaries and saying "No".
One of the mistakes many make in trying to have boundaries is seeing them solely as a means of guiding and directing or even ruling others. Boundaries are for us first and foremost.
I also learned to give myself permission to walk away from situations/people that didn't help my mental health/treat me with respect.
One way that you know that boundaries are working is that relationships start breaking down all over the place. That's telling you that those relationships weren't mutual but were on other peoples' terms.
They weren't needed, so let them go.

I'll say first off you could just have been unlucky. There are plenty of people who hadn't met The One at 31 despite trying. Also, you haven't ended up with these bad guys, so you haven't failed - congratulate yourself on not being with any of these guys any more. So many women trap themselves in appalling relationships for decades.

Other thoughts:
4 relationships of 1-3 years is quite a lot of medium term relationships in a decade, and suggests maybe you're not kicking men to the curb quickly enough when problems start to surface. I just ended a 3 month relationship and it was actually really painful as we got on great and I'd thought it could go somewhere, but I could see some emerging concerns I couldn't ignore. Do you ever end relationships at the 3-6 month stage? When you've fallen for them, but it's just not quite right? Just something to ponder.

You say you don't attract men but practically any woman can get male interest. I'm below average attractiveness for sure but don't struggle for dates. I'm therefore wondering what you think a "solid catch" is and maybe you're looking for the wrong things?
Look for the guys who are kind, reliable and consistently interested in you. I'm know I'm not going to attract Brad Pitt but you know what, it turns out he's a POS anyway.

Then it’s probably just bad luck tbh. Not everything is because of a big reason. There are a lot of crappy men around and sadly you’ve run into them.

It makes me wonder if there's something about me that is toxic or unhealed. Therapy has not led me to any conclusions, but I have become more uncertain of myself and low. I truly did want each relationship to work out and I clung on for dear life to each. I have never ended it with a guy at the 3-6 month mark. Basically if a man likes me past the 5th-8th date then we date for years. There has only been one man who showed red flag signs in the first few months (I still dated him for over a year). Everyone else was very sweet to me in the beginning. As for what i'm looking for, I think I need to be somewhat attracted to them, they take care of their body, have a stable job and empathetic/kind... I havent found that combination and truly its very rare now that a guy might be interested in me and perhaps my age also has somthing to do with it

You may just be too nice, the putting up with small things that other women wouldn’t. I dumped every guy I dated till I met DH. My tolerance for any BS from men is exceptionally low though.

The big difference between you and I is I was never bothered about marrying and having children it was a good outcome after meeting DH. Who had to ask me more than once.

I also agree there may be no big reason.

Fitting dating in to my life was hard in my twenties. Retraining for my career, sports, dance lessons, political activism, visiting friends in London. I adore DH and my DS but those years pleasing myself, they were fabulous. Do lots of stuff. Still date but do stuff for you.

Some great advice here op.

I think another good tip is to let go of assumptions about the ‘type’ of man you go for - let go of rigid ideas around looks, jobs, income etc. Just be a little bit more open to different experiences. So if you say you might only date men with a degree for example, but there might just be a cute lonely tradey out there who could be your perfect soul mate and you’d miss any chance of meeting him.

Are you Christian, even if just loosely? A couple of my friends met their husbands through Christian dating apps. Not religious loons, just nice men looking to settle down and not meeting anyone in their day to day life.

Don’t take this the wrong way, but you come across as a bit needy/desperate for True Love. Which makes me think you’ll put up with a lot of shit behaviour - and your own posts kind of confirm that.

Make sure you have some boundaries and red lines and work on being more self confident of those.

Wanting to "hang on" to relationships is definitely one of the ways you are going wrong and probably speaks to your low self esteem. It shouldn't work like that, if things are not right you should be able to recognise that and end things, not tie yourself in knots to work it out with the wrong person. It's painful in the short term but as you are finding out, saves heartache down the line.

There isn't anything "toxic" or "unhealed" about you, don't talk about yourself like that. Ending relationships at the right time (along with building healthy relationships in general) is a skill we all have to learn and many women before and since have had the same issues you describe. Some women are better placed to do this through experience of positive relationships growing up or in adulthood but it's not something that will magically come to you through healing, you have to educate yourself on what healthy relationships look like and date mindfully.

What stood out to me is “I also loved every man I dated and didn’t have a desire for the relationship to end”. I don’t think that’s normal and you must have been turning a blind eye to some shit behaviour and treatment which then escalated. Learn not to put up with any old nonsense and value yourself more

No advice but I feel the same. Nobody ever stays long enough to be married/have babies. It’s so sad and so lonely. I’m 30 so I know exactly how you feel.

I spent a lot of time as a younger woman thinking I wasn’t good enough and what was I doing wrong. I didn’t spend nearly enough time thinking I’m a really good catch and I need someone quite special to deserve me. I would argue if you’ve had four long-term relationships that you’re fairly indiscriminate about who you love. There must’ve been aspects about each of those men that ultimately wasn’t right for you, ultimately as they proved, so the question is how could you have weeded them out earlier? For what it’s worth I don’t think you can really look at anyone and think yes they’re going to be a great husband or good marriage material. People have a funny habit of being marriage material when they meet the right person.

There are also lots of very crap and noncommittal men. You probably need to be quite brutal going forward. For example, if you meet someone you really like but they say well I’m not sure about what I want yet then you dump that person on this sorry arse because they’re going to waste your time. You don’t do anything like move in with them ahead of getting engaged or married as a step forward.

I would stop looking, but I would continue being out there and investing in my interests and my hobbies and being an engaged person in life and look to meet Mann that way.