Seeing a pattern
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| Wed, 12-20-2006 - 10:07pm |
I seem to have a relationship pattern and wondered if anyone else is like this. Most of my relationships last about 2 years. The first few months are great, but toward the end of the 1st year I start questioning if this is really the person I want to be with. Then I spend another year bouncing back and forth between wanting to end it and wanting to make it work. It's hard to end it because it's gone on for so long and we are both so attached, but it's not moving forward, either. I have had 3 relationships like this. In addition, I have had 2 marriages that I wanted to end long before they did. I initiated all of the breakups except one (including the marriages), but in all cases there had been a separation or distance beforehand.
After my last divorce I stayed away from relationships for about 4 years partly because I didn't want to get into another situation like that. I finally got involved with someone and the exact same thing happened. I knew for months that I needed to end it but just couldn't figure out how. We took a personality test at work and one of the characteristics of my personality type is difficulty leaving bad relationships. Am I destined to just keep repeating this cycle?

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I have a habit of wanting to break up...
My boyfriend is used to it by now but I sometimes feel so stuck and constrained and so I discuss all the things wrong with our relationship until we are right at the point of breaking up (or after) and then I realize how much I love this person and how I don't want to live without them. And so I come back apologizing for thinking such a thing and then things are FANTASTIC and I love this person so much for weeks or a month before the cycle starts all over again. I've been in LTRs my entire life and this has always been a cycle. After a while they just don't take me seriously anymore - I understand why, but that doesn't make what I feel any less. And like i said in the thread, I don't know if it’s me being a commitment phobe or me choosing the wrong men but still trying to make it work.
And then I see other women making it work with these men that are liars, cheaters, druggies...and I gotta wonder what the hell my problem is when I am complaining about his choice of pets and that being a reason to break up.
I gotta say that I also don't decorate my house, hang pictures, and I OWN the damn house! But I still figure that I might move out someday - and I don't want to make it that much harder when I do.
I wish there was a thread where happily married people for 10+ years could give advice on how they knew, how they met, and what attitudes they grew up with..I would LOVE to read that one!
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