What I Need

A few weeks ago, I met with a friend for dinner and we talked about our mutual relationship problems. She was recommended a book "Women Who Love Too Much" by Robin Norwood. In talking about the book and my relationships with men, it became apparent that this is a book that I need to read. I think it's going to become a pass-around book as I'm waiting to receive it from her when she finishes it, and I can already think of the next person it's going to when I'm done. But in the meantime, I've decided to do some research on what exactly it means to be a woman who loves too much because I always had the ideal that you can never have too much love or love someone too much.

There's a list of 15 characteristics of women who love to much. And I was shocked to figure out that I consist of 13 of those 15 characteristics. I have found that two of them sum up my role in relationships over the course of my entire dating life, starting 14 years ago when I was 16.

1. By being drawn to people with problems that need fixing, or by being enmeshed in situations that are chaotic, uncertain, and emotionally painful, you avoid focusing on your responsibility to yourself.

I'm a smart woman, but I am drawn to men who live chaotic lives. Focusing on their chaos allowed me since my first boyfriend at 16 (who was on house arrest by the way) to not have to look myself in the mirror and face my insecurities of not feeling pretty or attractive. I'm drawn to men who need fixing. I seem to think that if I love him enough, he will change because of me. I believe love has that power. But it's just an avoidance mechanism of not facing my own responsibility to myself.

2. If female, you are not attracted to men who are kind, stable, reliable, and interested in you. You find such nice men boring.

In high school, I broke the heart of a friend because I wasn't attracted to him the same way he was to me because he was kind, stable, reliable, an interested in me. As a friend, we got along great, but as relationship potential there wasn't any because I found him boring. In college, I dated a wonderful guy for a few weeks. He was kind, stable, reliable, and definitely interested in me, but I found something lacking in that relationship as well. I was bored. I had nothing to do. I didn't see the relationship going anywhere because I wasn't needed by him to make his life better. I left that boring relationship to pursue an emotionally unavailable guy, who simply used me for several years in college.

Then I met my husband right after I graduated college. He was divorcing, had a son, was unemployed, and was emotionally challenged. I again thought I could help him. I could change him and he would love me. Even throughout our marriage, I can look back and see all the times I tried to change him. How I pushed for what I thought was best. And how in the last 7 months, I still have problems letting go of that relationship even though I know it's detrimental to my well-being, and even in some ways, his. We used to joke throughout our marriage that at least we could never say it was boring.

In the few times I've attempted to date since I've been separated, I find myself drawn to those same type of men who aren't boring but aren't emotionally available to me either. The bad boys, you know those ones who have a past that you probably don't really want to know about. The ones your Mama warned you about. The ones who are going to leave me in their ruins as they pass through.

I absolutely love the movie "He's Just Not That Into You." It's a beautiful story of a woman, Gigi, who is trying to find love. She over-analyzes everything she does and everything men do. Like Gigi, with everything that happens with a man, I call and collect opinions from all of my girlfriends to get their opinions on what's going on in my life: keeper, get rid of him, hold out for a little while, check into him more, slow down and see where it goes. And I'm constantly watching for the signs of whether or not he's really into me. And I have to say I'm completely clueless.

I'm clueless because if I'm interested in him, I want him to be interested in me. That's the way it's supposed to go. And my interest in a man causes me to conduct myself in a manner that is pattern specific to women who love too much. I do all of this because I want to be loved and right now my view of love means that I am needed by someone else. I'm a good person (and one of these emotionally-unavailable-to-me men even said on the good person scale of 1 to 10, I'm an 87) and know what it is I deserve. Even one of my favorite songs "What I Need" reminds me that I should just hold out instead of trying so hard to convince him of how great I am:

"What I want is to hold you, because my world without you is just another lonely place to be. But what I need is to hold out, until you have no doubt there's only one love for you and it's me. So, I'll be strong, 'til you can believe in what I need."

But I still find myself following the patterns of being a woman who loves too much...

I accept sex when I want love

I am extremely loyal, remaining in harmful situations too long

I attempt to convince others of what they ‘should’ think and how they ‘truly’ feel

I become resentful when others will not let me help them

I compromise my own values and integrity to avoid rejection or others’ anger

I do not ask others to meet my needs or desires

I have difficulty making decisions

I judge everything I think, say or do harshly, as never ‘good enough’

I lavish gifts and favours on those I care about

I put aside my own interests and hobbies in order to do what others want

I value others’ approval of my thinking, feelings and behaviour over my own

I'm waiting for the tools I need to change this about myself. I'm embarking on another new journey, a journey to relearn how to love without loving too much. I'm looking at my knowledge of my relationship habits as being in recovery from an addiction. I'm addicted to the pain, the chaos, the drama, the love I give. I have to stop expecting that in a relationship. I deserve more. I deserve better. I deserve to not put myself through the emotional hell that I do. Admitting is the first step to changing this within myself...