I'm addicted to infatuation... help!!!

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-21-2004
I'm addicted to infatuation... help!!!
2
Sun, 11-21-2004 - 6:42am

Hi everybody!!

I need your help in this one.

I'm 29 years old and I have a problem, at least I think I have one.

I have this pattern (I gues this is more common then I think for reading posts here) of meeting a guy, feeling interested, start dating, start feeling buttterflyes, but as soon as I see that it's turning into a relationship, I withdraw, start beeing sick of them and eventually dump them. This happened quite often the last years. And everytime was with good guys.

I guess I can relate this to what happened previously in my life. I had a 8 year very toxic relationship, with many verbal abuse and some physical. My self-esteem was very low at the time. But what gave me courage to end it was meeting a guy trough a chat room. He was from France, we never actually meet in person, but we fell in love with each other at the time, very badly. It gave me again a lot of feelings I was missing so much, like feeling loved, feeling wanted, feeling infatuation, feeling the butterflyes, I start having some self-esteem again and it gave mo courage to end the relationship. After some months, I stop talking with him also.

I guess I become addicted in feeling that infatuation stage for someone, and when it starts becoming serious, probably inconsciously reminds me of that 8 year relationship I had, and I feel fear of beeing hurt again, and fear of loosing the freedom I have now, and I start seeing so many defects in the guys and running away. I don't like this, because I do want to have a good and healthy relationship with someone, but I never pass the infatuation stage. In a matter of weeks (or days) I go from attraction to rejection. The "bad boy" type is good for infatuation and for adrenalin, but I really don't have patience for this type of guys neither I want to have anything only casual, things have to make sense to me.

My friends say it's a matter of finding the right guy for me, but I think: is it really that the issue? Finding the right guy? I believe having a right guy can help, but I think this is also my problem with myself.

Anyone experienced this before? Please I want to have some insight from you. Thanks.




Edited 11/21/2004 6:58 am ET ET by oneandyou
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-10-2003
Sun, 11-21-2004 - 1:53pm

Your post should read..."I have emotional baggage that's keeping me from having healthy relationships with myself and others".

IMO the issue there is NOT finding the right guy, it's finding WHY you do you want to keep people at an arms length. The baggage you have regarding your 8 year toxic relationship IS affecting you and all the relationships you try to establish. See, abuse is not something you forget overnight. It requires therapy and self-help to be able to overcome its trauma. Have you been in therapy for this issue?

The France guy is an example of how this affects you. He's in France and you say you never met, yet you fell in love. Dear, you feel in love with a fantasy man that you created in your head based on what he told you over the net and, perhaps, on the phone. People can be anything over the net...it's not personal, it's machine, it's a screen. Whomever you chat with can be whatever they want to be...a single guy, an actor, a business man, a player. The other person can charme you and you can believe it. For you it was good to feel wanted and treated special for a few weeks, months? However, he couldn't touch you or control you. You lived your life as you pleased. In time you got tired of this and you left. With the other guys you met and left after a while happened the same....the start of a relationship is honey-bunnie...every one puts their best foot forward and acts in their best behavior. After a while, the "true you" emerges and then is when you get scared...you wonder if "he'll be the same as the guy who abused you. I better go before he yells or hits me like the other guy did". This is called baggage.

To get rid of this baggage that won't allow any relationship to be healthy you have to find yourself first, go through therapy and help yourself. Set boundaries and enforce them. Review your standars in life and go on with them.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-24-2003
Sun, 11-21-2004 - 2:01pm
This is a direct result of internalized fear... fear that you will encounter a similar situation as the one which brought you grief... it isn't a relationship that you fear but rather the fear of enduring the same results again.