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Unlucky in Love
hazyjo
Posts: 15,476 Forumite
Not sure where to start... think I just need to offload/have a rant/feel sorry for myself.
Dumped my boyfriend last night for taking cocaine. Been a problem for a very long time. He's bipolar (cocaine addiction and bipolar often go together). I've been nothing but loving, supportive, generous and kind (and a crazy mental b!tch cos of the stress he's sometimes put me under!).
Thought we'd turned a corner. Have had the happiest few weeks in ages, but on a rare night out together last night, he took it twice in the toilets. I could smell it on him - and, to cut a very long story short, he did a urine test later and failed (yes, it really did come to that - actually, I once found a bottle of wee hidden outside the bathroom window on the flat-roof extension, then another under the effin' floorboards in the bathroom so he could try and use it to pass a test if he'd taken coke!).
I was screaming in the street at the top of my lungs like a mad woman at midnight yesterday. That ISN'T me. I remember being with BFs and never/very rarely having so much as a crossed word. He's pushed and pushed me until I've broken.
Love is a funny thing - but I realise that however totally besotted and loved up we've been with each other, it is NOT enough. I cannot be with someone like that any more or I will end up either locked up for my own sanity, or locked up for murder (I think I am joking!).
Now this is from me, someone with a brain, someone reasonably intelligent... I've taken him back before after knowing he's done it and he's promised time and time again never to touch it after realising what he'd lose.
I'm just fed up. REALLY fed up. I want NORMAL. A nice, normal man. I am VERY unlucky in love. Twice divorced, and lots of boyfriends inbetween.
This is a rundown of my more serious relationships:
J: Lasted 2-3 years from age 14. We split when he went to Uni.
A: 7 years, met when 17. Fair enough that we split at 24, we were best friends and loved each other, had a flat together, but there was no romance. Sad times.
P: Met around 24. 6 years, got married when I was 30. He cheated on me and left me (3 months after the wedding - it started 3 days before!). He cried on my doorstep for months, but I found out he was still seeing her, then she got pregnant. Nice. (He had only had one relationship before me (married her) - wasn't like he was some jack-the-lad. Far from it.)
K: Met when 30, he was 15 years older and lived in Preston (via internet). He lied about LOTS. Was married with a kid (I didn't know until after around 4 months - I'd stayed at his house and he'd booked a holiday with me! She'd phoned me to tell me one lunchtime. They split, he rented in Manchester for a year, we dated during that time, then he lived with me for a year. Split up when I realised he was a complete obnoxious selfish tw*t.
B: I was 30-something. Long distance again (Middlesbrough). Lasted a year or two. Bit of a lad... loved being with him, great bloke, but he was out with his mates a lot when I wasn't there, and drinking/partying frequently. Wasn't prepared to take a gamble and sell up and move up there. Sometimes regret it, especially as he got married, moved away with his wife and has calmed down a lot.
C: Lasted a year. He was 18 years younger than me. Cheated on me - I dumped him.
S: I was aged 38, we married quickly, I left him when realised he loved alcohol more than me. Lasted 3 years - we're still friends (and currently selling the joint house). I miss him... but it wasn't to be.
And now G. I've just had enough. There've been others too. I sound like a right goer now lol.
It's not like I've jumped straight from one to the next, there have been gaps - honest!
I suppose I need to be more sure from the start. Not continue a relationship with someone who isn't really so good on paper. But then when do emotions come into it. You can't have a tickbox list when looking for someone - or can you? I have tried dating sites in the past, but have found most of them to be serial daters. Had a couple of month-four month relationships, but nothing deep and meaningful/really loved up.
I do like being in a relationship! I love being half a couple and doing things together and loving someone and vice versa. But I am also very independent. I have lots of friends and do lots on my own. I'm not someone who needs a man by my side, I am happy to go along to something on my own or take a mate.
I just feel a bit lost. I don't want to split with G. He's the first man I've cried at by just looking at his lovely face - and vice versa. We sit and hold hands all the time, we cuddle lots, we are so very affectionate, attentive, and bordering obsessed with each other. But it's still not enough, is it. I feel utterly destroyed. I won't take him back. I feel like he's taken me for such a mug, and it's not the first time. If I go back now, I'm basically saying he can do it again. It has to be over for my own sanity. I can't offer him anything else, it's reached the end of the road. He made a noose and threatened to kill himself when I left in October - so I'm hoping he's not done anything stupid. Not heard from him since 2am. He knows I mean it, so is probably off somewhere getting totally off his face. He said before that he'd do that if I left. This isn't like before. This is absolutely final.
(Prob can't reply til Mon.)
Am I really unlucky?! Most of my friends have been with their partners for decades. I wanted children. I'm 42. It just ain't gonna happen.
Jx
PS was going to do all this under a different username, but sod it. I'm too 'heart on my sleeve' for all that malarkey.
PPS Going out with friends tonight, no tears, will enjoy myself...
Dumped my boyfriend last night for taking cocaine. Been a problem for a very long time. He's bipolar (cocaine addiction and bipolar often go together). I've been nothing but loving, supportive, generous and kind (and a crazy mental b!tch cos of the stress he's sometimes put me under!).
Thought we'd turned a corner. Have had the happiest few weeks in ages, but on a rare night out together last night, he took it twice in the toilets. I could smell it on him - and, to cut a very long story short, he did a urine test later and failed (yes, it really did come to that - actually, I once found a bottle of wee hidden outside the bathroom window on the flat-roof extension, then another under the effin' floorboards in the bathroom so he could try and use it to pass a test if he'd taken coke!).
I was screaming in the street at the top of my lungs like a mad woman at midnight yesterday. That ISN'T me. I remember being with BFs and never/very rarely having so much as a crossed word. He's pushed and pushed me until I've broken.
Love is a funny thing - but I realise that however totally besotted and loved up we've been with each other, it is NOT enough. I cannot be with someone like that any more or I will end up either locked up for my own sanity, or locked up for murder (I think I am joking!).
Now this is from me, someone with a brain, someone reasonably intelligent... I've taken him back before after knowing he's done it and he's promised time and time again never to touch it after realising what he'd lose.
I'm just fed up. REALLY fed up. I want NORMAL. A nice, normal man. I am VERY unlucky in love. Twice divorced, and lots of boyfriends inbetween.
This is a rundown of my more serious relationships:
J: Lasted 2-3 years from age 14. We split when he went to Uni.
A: 7 years, met when 17. Fair enough that we split at 24, we were best friends and loved each other, had a flat together, but there was no romance. Sad times.
P: Met around 24. 6 years, got married when I was 30. He cheated on me and left me (3 months after the wedding - it started 3 days before!). He cried on my doorstep for months, but I found out he was still seeing her, then she got pregnant. Nice. (He had only had one relationship before me (married her) - wasn't like he was some jack-the-lad. Far from it.)
K: Met when 30, he was 15 years older and lived in Preston (via internet). He lied about LOTS. Was married with a kid (I didn't know until after around 4 months - I'd stayed at his house and he'd booked a holiday with me! She'd phoned me to tell me one lunchtime. They split, he rented in Manchester for a year, we dated during that time, then he lived with me for a year. Split up when I realised he was a complete obnoxious selfish tw*t.
B: I was 30-something. Long distance again (Middlesbrough). Lasted a year or two. Bit of a lad... loved being with him, great bloke, but he was out with his mates a lot when I wasn't there, and drinking/partying frequently. Wasn't prepared to take a gamble and sell up and move up there. Sometimes regret it, especially as he got married, moved away with his wife and has calmed down a lot.
C: Lasted a year. He was 18 years younger than me. Cheated on me - I dumped him.
S: I was aged 38, we married quickly, I left him when realised he loved alcohol more than me. Lasted 3 years - we're still friends (and currently selling the joint house). I miss him... but it wasn't to be.
And now G. I've just had enough. There've been others too. I sound like a right goer now lol.
It's not like I've jumped straight from one to the next, there have been gaps - honest!
I suppose I need to be more sure from the start. Not continue a relationship with someone who isn't really so good on paper. But then when do emotions come into it. You can't have a tickbox list when looking for someone - or can you? I have tried dating sites in the past, but have found most of them to be serial daters. Had a couple of month-four month relationships, but nothing deep and meaningful/really loved up.
I do like being in a relationship! I love being half a couple and doing things together and loving someone and vice versa. But I am also very independent. I have lots of friends and do lots on my own. I'm not someone who needs a man by my side, I am happy to go along to something on my own or take a mate.
I just feel a bit lost. I don't want to split with G. He's the first man I've cried at by just looking at his lovely face - and vice versa. We sit and hold hands all the time, we cuddle lots, we are so very affectionate, attentive, and bordering obsessed with each other. But it's still not enough, is it. I feel utterly destroyed. I won't take him back. I feel like he's taken me for such a mug, and it's not the first time. If I go back now, I'm basically saying he can do it again. It has to be over for my own sanity. I can't offer him anything else, it's reached the end of the road. He made a noose and threatened to kill himself when I left in October - so I'm hoping he's not done anything stupid. Not heard from him since 2am. He knows I mean it, so is probably off somewhere getting totally off his face. He said before that he'd do that if I left. This isn't like before. This is absolutely final.
(Prob can't reply til Mon.)
Am I really unlucky?! Most of my friends have been with their partners for decades. I wanted children. I'm 42. It just ain't gonna happen.
Jx
PS was going to do all this under a different username, but sod it. I'm too 'heart on my sleeve' for all that malarkey.
PPS Going out with friends tonight, no tears, will enjoy myself...
2024 wins: *must start comping again!*
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Comments
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Breaking up's awful isn't it, sweetie. Perhaps now is not the best time to view your relationship history with any objectivity, but I'm not quite sure why you're beating yourself up about this. Your past doesn't seem that different to a lot of people's - some relationships just don't work out. I've seen worse, trust me!
Give yourself some time. You're going through a harrowing break-up. Don't examine things just yet. Do it when you're feeling stronger."Growth for growth's sake is the ideology of the cancer cell" - Edward Abbey.0 -
"I suppose I need to be more sure from the start."
Yep. I would thoroughly recommend this. For everybody, not just you.
"You can't have a tick-box list when looking for someone - or can you?"
Yes, you absolutely can. Make a list of the absolute deal-breakers, write them all down and memorise them.
You sound well rid of this bloke. Coke-heads are often the worst kind of druggies, and are nearly always liars and wasters while seeming to keep the appearance of some kind of normality. If he was constantly nodding out on the sofa on heroin there would be no pretence of normality.
Get rid of this idea that you're "unlucky" because I don't think that's true. You've made some poor choices and been let down by a fair number of a-holes. That's unfortunate but don't let it taint your attitude to relationships or it could become a self-fulfilling prophesy.0 -
BitterAndTwisted wrote: »"You can't have a tick-box list when looking for someone - or can you?"
Yes, you absolutely can. Make a list of the absolute deal-breakers, write them all down and memorise them.
TBH, this is sort of what I did
. I'm not much of a romantic and I personally think that the best relationships are ones where you're compatible, want the same things and value the same things. To find someone like this, you can be really quite clinical. I'm not really a believer in all that 'love at first sight' thing, and I roll my eyes every time I hear someone say 'he's my soulmate!'.
It might seem unromantic to some but I decided to approach finding someone in a measured way some years ago and set my sights on someone who seemed to match the criteria. We've been married five years now and we couldn't be happier.
"Growth for growth's sake is the ideology of the cancer cell" - Edward Abbey.0 -
I don't think it's helpful to view yourself as 'unlucky in love' because it ignores the fact that you're in control. Whomever you end up with, the quality of those relationships, everything in fact is all your own making. You chose those people.
If you feel that you always end up with wrong' uns, then the first thing to do is examine your own self and the reasons why you're attracted to people who are bad for you."Growth for growth's sake is the ideology of the cancer cell" - Edward Abbey.0 -
Fluffnutter (mad name!!!) you are spot on there. I've seen friends too many times seemingly drawn to 'the wrong man' like moths to a flame. It's bizarre.0
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Awww you read like my life story. All ive met are liars, chancers and wasters. Im 47 and the last guy i met said all the right things but actions speak louder than words, and he let me down on more than one occassion. Another guy stole from me!! I could go on but i wont. Im trying not to loose fatih but its hard. Its not as if i throw myself at them either. But theyve all lied and around the 5week mark i get to know their real self. I dont jump in head first anymore. On the good side you are taking control, you know what you will and will not put up with. Ive learnt now. And although im still searching ide rather be on my own than in a c**p relationship. I dont let my heart rule my head like i used to and im sure you will have good times with your girlfriends. As a friend of mine at work today said to me "Your so unlucky and you never meet the right guys, but your still trying". I didnt know whether to laugh or cry.0
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You have done absolutely the right thing, I've had boyfriends who habitually smoked dope and they gradually became more useless and selfish - well shot of that one and I've never looked back.
Have you got a cat - or dog - highly recommended for unconditional and enduring love...
I can't give you any boy advice as I'm hopeless with them too....but at least you know you're not alone.Less stuff, more life, love, laughter and cats!
Even if I'm on the shopping threads, it doesn't mean I'm buying! Sometimes it's good to just look and then hit the CLOSE button!0 -
Going on what you've listed as your list of men in your life other than one or two instances it appears you are attracted to guys with an edge. Be that alcoholism, drug abuse, much older, much younger, "bit of a lad" etc. That and there's no gap between any of them. That's always a recipe for disaster. although the women like the "bad boy" thing does ring true for many. Not so much that they are actually bad, but they seem interesting. You'll probably be surrounded by Mr Normals, but they probably come across as boring, dull and thus unattractive.
You need time out to enjoy being on your own. Just so that you know how to enjoy yourself for you and that a relationship is an extension to that. A relationship shouldn't be the default position for happiness. It should be one that makes an already good position in life better.
You need to use your head more. Don't get involved with people that bring a ton of drama no matter how exciting that may seem. Drug abuse or alcohol abuse, not even worth a second of your time.
Oh and let's be honest most folk are on their best behaviour in the opening weeks of a relationship. There's no need to rush into anything, take your time and really get to know someone before committing.0 -
He's pushed and pushed me until I've broken
You are not broken. If you were you would still be with him, settling for way less than you deserve and being dragged down lower and lower. You have made the right decision and moved on from him.
My advice is to take some time out and be by yourself for a while. Find out what you really want from your future. The past is the past, dwelling on it and regreting it is not going to change it. Let the present be just about you, your needs, your hopes, your ambitions. That way you can carve out a future that ultimately makes you happy. Maybe you will find someone to share it with in time, but dont rush to find that The best day of your life is the one on which you decide your life is your own, no apologies or excuses. No one to lean on, rely on or blame. The gift is yours - it is an amazing journey - and you alone are responsible for the quality of it. This is the day your life really begins.0 -
Must confess - I think most of my life I entered relationships with mud covered sun glasses
tried tooooo hard to please, and overlook things. Got to a point when i realised I couldn't do that anymore.
Any carp from the outset now, and I just walk away. Just can't be doing it anymore - very happy with my friends, dogs and family
Chin up hon xx And yes, take some time out0
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