Читать книгу The 100 Most Asked Questions About Love, Sex and Relationships - Barbara Angelis De - Страница 28

I’m presently dating a woman who’s basically a mess. She has major financial and emotional problems, and I spend a lot of my time playing “Daddy,” trying to help her. I can’t believe I’m in this kind of relationship again—it’s the third time in a row I’ve gotten involved with “victim-type” women. Why am I doing this, and how do I stop?

Why are you doing this? Because you like rescuing women … you like feeling strong, important, superior … you like being in control. Rescueholics are drawn to wounded, fragile, unloved partners like flies to honey. These relationships suck you in, and once you’re in, boy is it hard to get out!! The good news is that you’ve finally recognized the pattern, and sound desperate enough to change it.

Remember—in all codependent relationships, the rescuer needs the victim as much as the victim needs the rescuer. If you are an “emotional Robin Hood,” always finding partners in need of your help, you may in fact be completing unfinished business from childhood, acting out your little boy’s unfulfilled need to fix or rescue Mom, Dad, or another family member. Or maybe you’re attempting to rescue yourself as you felt when you were small. The problem is that like all rescuers, you are mistaking sympathy for love.

You already know from experience that this sort of relationship is doomed. You end up acting like a parent, tiptoeing around your partner in order to not upset her, and making excuses for her behavior. Ultimately, your resentment grows and although you want to leave, you feel trapped, too guilty to leave and hurt even more this poor wounded person you wanted to heal. When you do inevitably leave, you feel like you’re abandoning your lover, and beat yourself up for “failing.” Sounds like lots of fun …

You asked me how you could stop. My answer: Just stop. End this relationship before it gets any worse; encourage your girlfriend to get help dealing with her need to be rescued, and take some time to look at your own issues and needs that have addicted you to this kind of unhealthy love pattern. Make a list of all the qualities you want in a woman; make a second list of all the warning signs that someone is a potential “victim-type” mate. Read these lists constantly. Put copies everywhere. When you go out on a date with a new woman, read the lists before, during, and after the date if you have to. This will help you resist the temptation to get involved with another rescue job again while you’re healing on the inside.