Most women i ended up in relationships with were damaged. This isnt me coming to my own conclusion, but they would literally tell me about the horrible things that happened to them down the line. It also does not help that I have no game and rarely cold approach. I do know how to hold a conversation unless the woman clearly does not want to speak to me which i take the hint. So, most women I was romantically involved with made the first move.
Doesn’t matter what type I’ve dated physically since I’m not a shallow person. I usually go by how we get along, but down the line when things get hard or the tiniest bit of struggle occurs they bounce.
So, to the men who were in this predicament of attracting damaged or toxic women consistently what did you change about yourself to attract a woman that is not those things?
Thanks in advance.
17 comments
Join the club
Could you elaborate on what you mean by “damaged” and “toxic”?
You attract the level of dysfunction you project into the world. Hot messes attract hot messes, and most hot messes jump from one mess onto the next mess because they can’t stand to be alone. You need to take some time off dating and work on yourself, discover who you are, what you like, what boundaries are you comfortable with? So on and so forth. I was a serial monogamist for most of my life, jumping from partner to partner until ultimately I had a child with a woman who was, in retrospect, about as wrong for me as could possibly exist. Took some time off dating after the divorce, worked on myself, learned to love me and to be okay being alone, and then a wonderful woman found me 🤷♂️
TL: DR, you’re desperate.
My therapist pointed out I have “broken wing syndrome” as I get into relationships in an attempt to “save” them. The ones who are drawn to me are naturally broken people.
“So, most women I was romantically involved with made the first move.”
This is the first and most glaring issue.
You are taking what you can get rather than pursuing what you want. What do you want? Write it down. Determine what your standards and boundaries will be based on what you write.
The book “No more Mr. Nice Guy” by Robert Glover may be helpful for you.
There’s a lot in your language here that suggests that you yourself have an unhealthy attitude toward dating. Starting with “damaged women,” human beings are not merchandise. We don’t get damaged, we get hurt. Likewise, “cold approach” is a sales term. The goal is not to sell or be sold anything, it’s to make a natural and genuine connection so both parties can make an informed decision about what they want. Plus, most women most of the time don’t want to be “cold approached” by someone with romantic interest. If there isn’t a reason to start a conversation, don’t. Even the idea of “having game” is a little backward, because– again– connecting with a potential partner isn’t a game.
On the whole, it sounds like you’ve been reading Pick-Up Artist resources, or hanging around with people who have, and that’s entirely counterproductive to the goal of creating a healthy, nontoxic relationship. The primary function of PUA strategies is to quickly filter out women with good boundaries, leaving you with just the ones who have problematic relationship behaviors. Arguably effective if you’re trying to maximize your body count, but directly contrary to the goal of creating a stable and loving relationship.
If you want to create a healthy relationship, communication and boundaries are your watchwords. Both respecting your partner’s boundaries, and not putting up with partners who don’t respect yours. Don’t give third chances to partners who have already been told once that their behavior hurts you.
And in terms of meeting women, don’t bother with the cold approach. Either stick with the milieus where people go specifically to meet partners (e.g., online dating, speed dating, singles events) or find ways to connect with a wide range of people in a nonromantic way (e.g., hobbies, classes) so that you can get to know women on a friendly, personal level before deciding who you want to get closer with.
There’s a lot to unpack here.
* Calling someone damaged is rather uncouth. Most people have been through some shit – and not everyone has the tools or support to deal with those things. Bottling it up doesn’t count. If you haven’t had the displeasure of doing so – consider yourself fortunate.
* Not everyone that doesn’t get along with you is toxic
* Meet their friends. If you get along well with her friends, there’s a good chance you’ll get along well with her in the long run.
* Maybe you’re looking in the wrong places. The people that are putting in the work are doing just that – and you can only be in so many places at once.
* Personally? I only ran into this problem when I didn’t know what my own real values were like. Pretty women were easy to gravitate towards and having a carefree attitude made people feel safe enough to talk to me, so at some point they’d trauma-dump.
* What changed it in the long run? Working on my personal boundaries and learning how to communicate with kind and tactful honesty. I believe that the biggest reason why my current relationship of 5.5 years works the way it does is because she’s able and willing to put in work and I’ve earned her trust enough to nudge her in the right direction *when she asks*. I know she doesn’t understand me when I speak a certain way, so I make an effort to frame things in a perspective she can.
I don’t know, but I’ve identified I do similarly. I’m not the most handsome or charismatic, but I’ve been proactive, and thought I was identifying people with good character, with similar interests, where there was mutuality, etc…
​
If I look back though I think the common threads I can see:
– I accept people when they have low self-esteem, going through a tough time, don’t have a stellar career, etc. I _thought_ I was judging people based on their character instead of something vain.
– I support, a lot. I know this so I try to not over extend myself, however on an OCEAN score I score around 85% on agreeableness. This I think makes me attractive to people wanting to take advantage.
– I don’t think I have covert contracts, like Robert Glover outlines, I’m pretty forthcoming with what I want/need, however I might have a healing story, as Lindsay Gibson outlines. I think mine’s pretty small, my parents are pretty supportive, however I have an all-out narcissistic brother that takes up the family resources.
– I was naive about covert narcissism, and also too accepting of signs of emotional immaturity. I was aware, but not acting in my own self-interest from that point.
From there I’m making some changes that I think are useful:
– I’m looking more at what people accomplish – career, money, passion/volunteering, insurance and health care, trips, pets, etc. Something that shows responsibility and intention.
– I’m really sensitive to someone taking responsibility/ownership of their issues. I might be a bit militant about this atm, and need to dial it back. I can lend an ear, but they better take care of their own shit.
– I’m paying more attention to my gut feelings. I don’t get scared off by responsible people, every-time it goes off, it seems to be around people that aren’t emotionally mature. So it seems to be tuned right, I just need to listen to it.
– I’m still figuring out my healing story (_Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents_ by Gibson).
I also would say, I’m just not prioritizing dating. A relationship is something I loved being in, however I’m not accepting cheating/abuse. It does seem there are a lot of people out there, that just are very immature, despite being in their 30s,40s,50s… There’s lots of other parts of life to prioritize, so I’m focusing on those, for my own enjoyment.
Good thread, curious what other folks see within themselves.
Reading this post and some of your responses, I can’t help but also notice the language issue here. People can’t be broken or damaged. They can be hurt. They can have toxic behaviors, and they can need therapeutic help (but who among us doesn’t, right). They can have gone through trauma.
Which isn’t to say that there haven’t been ex’s in your life that didn’t stalk you or key your car, but I think that reflecting on what you’re projecting into the world is going to do you a lot of good here.
Your only description of damaged and toxic is how they handle the breakups, have they consistently been diagnosed with legit mental illnesses? Have you realized they were toxic/unhealthy/abusive to be with?
What was your mom like growing up?
I love my mother but shes bipolar and I’m naturally empathetic
The ones I fell for and developed relationships with were consistency unstable types
Through therapy and experience, I learned my issue was boundaries, specifically boundaries on self respect with how I am treated and boundaries with taking on their problems, thinking with my support and love their problems are fixable, and I recently had the major realization after my divorce, I failed to hold them fully accountable for their bad behavior
I chalked up bad behavior to their mental illness and was too understanding/tolerated too much. The good sides was them, the bad sides was mental illness (subconsciously in my mind).
Fact is regardless of what challenges someone has going on, its their choice who they want to be and how they want to treat someone they love. By not recognizing that I took away their agency. Also they have to want to be better and do the self work after deciding they want professional help. No amount of my love can fix someone or get them to treat me with the love and respect I seeked and knew I deserved.
Its all a journey and OP I’m really glad you’re diving into this to break patterns and have happier relationships. Patterns always exist for a reason and its a 2way street
You definitely attract what you put out. Take time to focus on growing into someone you love and respect before anyone else will love and respect you.
Learn about settings healthy boundaries, unstable types often lack any boundaries even in regards to what they tell you(over sharing too early), getting feelings faster than is healthy/normal, expecting too much from a relationship too fast, etc
The woman I’m with now is the most stable and secure and healthy relationship I’ve ever experienced, tbh didnt think something like this existed and was unrealistic. We get each other and are so compatible are so many deep levels, its insanely fulfilling and healing
You’ll only attract the love and respect you feel like you deserve. I was in an emotionally abusive relationship and looking back it was because I didn’t have a great impression of myself. I saw myself as unworthy so I was open to being treated poorly. Once you build up your self-confidence and self-worth, you stop catering to people who don’t treat you the way you deserve to be treated. You don’t have time for it.
When it comes to partners this can get tricky because the view of yourself could be tied to how you witnessed your father treating or being treated by your mother.
What’s likely happening is you’re so open to bringing anyone in as long as they like you and they’re looking for easy prey that allows themselves to be controlled, so they, the toxic person, can manipulate the relationship into what they want and control for their skewed version of safety.
This is how you get into relationships with Narcissists.
Raise your standards, settle with being single until you get something that’s healthy for you, and work with a therapist to dig into past relationships and see why you don’t love yourself as you should.
Attractive women who are mentally attractive have no reason to approach men, because they are approached often by them anyway.
If you have a certain standard in beauty, your dating pool seems to be limited to attractive women who approach men, because they deem it necessary (often because many men avoid them)
Just a theory for thought.
Approach women of your choosing, many mentally healthy out there.
Listen, I think you might just be learning that everyone has some baggage, we’ve all lived. Some worse than others, and some bury it deeper than others
There are probably a lot of people you know that have baggage, even though to you they seem free of it. what’s different about the girls you have been with is that these women are opening up to you because they are close to you
It’s possible these girls were not for you for other reasons?
I feel like if you if you were completely in love, you’d be falling over yourself to help them carry the load
Could there have been some other factor in the relationship that highlighted all the negatives?
Maybe take a step back and think about the type of things your really attracted to in a woman, the things you’ll be comfortable with 30yrs down the road or more as well as now
What are you really looking for? Did these girls tick those boxes? Or did you just jump in?
I went through and am still kind of stuck in a phase where I am attracted to and get attention from girls with “daddy issues” as some people call it or “commitment issues”. I learned that while some people may have those issues or they don’t. That I filled a need there for them, and they filled a need there for me. Being a hero or white knight until it gets real. Realize it can get real for you before it does them. They’ve had their share of white knights, and you’ve had your share of “projects” or “puzzles”. Seems like you’re at an impasse once it hits a certain point. You’ve gotta search or be found outside where you normally look. Communication is where it gets “crazy”, but if you’re not ready to personally communicate. It will be what it has always been.
It’s not that you “don’t have game.” You just haven’t found the right woman that you connect with, is grounded, and shares the same values as you, I’m guessing. That game stuff is all an illusion. But it is just a game. If you stop taking it so seriously, you never know, maybe some day when you least expect it, that woman will come into your life. I stopped trying so hard and that’s what happened. Weird but it’s laws of attraction I guess.. God or life or whatever you believe has an odd sense of humor That’s how I like to look at it at least.
The only game you need to worry about, is being yourself. There’s lots of crazy out there, and it’s hard to find the right one. Have patience
How was your parents’ relationship?
You seem to be getting some hate from this post from the way you describe the type of women that you attract, but I understand what you mean.
I think a better description is women who have been through traumatic events or issues in their life and haven’t yet fully worked through them.
I dated a girl like that in the past. Nice lady, but she was a handful and ultimately as much as I was willing to help, she needed a professional and I had my own life to focus on and couldn’t drop everything on a whim all the time to go help her.
The best thing you can do is take the time to work on yourself. You mentioned that you don’t cold approach women and I’m the same way. Therefore the best thing you can do is work on becoming a person that attracts the type of woman you want. Be the best version of yourself and remember you don’t have to get with the first woman that approaches you, and that a polite and respectful rejection is just fine