In Those Girls' Childhoods,
Maybe There Hides the Secret of Falling in Love with a Scummy Man
Imagine what kind of man is easy to get women's attention and preference? They may be more handsome, intelligent, have a car and a house, and have a strong and charming personality. However, many men who are loved too much often may not have these characteristics. What they have in common is: their true love are emotionally unavaliable.
The so-called ‘what you can't obtain is always stirring up.’ can explain the situation.
Women who love too much are often attracted to men who are emotionally aloof, distant and unable to make meaningful connections. However, these men have so many problems of their own that they are often not good relationship partners.
For example, some women may be attracted to a married man because it is socially unacceptable for a married man to love them, and their love is ‘emotionally unavaliable’. Or they may be attracted to a cold, emotionally unavailable person because it is difficult for them to get the appropriate emotional response from that person.
So, why is this?
‘A rule of thumb is that the harder it is for you to end a bad relationship, the more of an element of childhood endeavour it contains. Why you love so much that you develop ‘compulsive obsessions’ may be that you're overcoming the fear, anger, pain and frustration left over from your childhood. And quitting this bad relationship means giving up an opportunity to seek relief and redress for what you've suffered.’
To put it simply, it also means, ‘Loving too much and always being attracted to scummy man may stem from childhood trauma.’
Norwood, a counsellor, has met hundreds of girls in her counselling room who have ‘fallen in love with scummy man’, and all of them seem to tell the same story of growing up with fathers who didn't care about them or love them.
These fathers are not simply inarticulate, but deep down they don't care about their daughters. They constantly wonder if their fathers love them, and they constantly question if they deserve to be loved. (Is falling for a scummy man actually rooted in having a scummy father?)
So when these girls grow up, they can't help but seek out relationships with scummy men who are distant, cold, selfish, and incapable of making a meaningful connection. The love of these scummy men is just as hard to gain as the love of a father --- sounds a bit masochistic, but it's often true.
So why do they do it? Noorwood believes that subconsciously, they want to be able to repair their childhood trauma (Daddy love me again) by obtaining the love of a scummy man. They possess an irrational belief that ‘the fact that someone so scummy and irresponsible can love me is proof that I'm someone who deserves to be loved.’
But isn't someone who is called a scummy man on merit leading you on because he doesn't love you!
It's really contradictory to expect someone who doesn't love you to love you one day, but it's something that these girls are obsessed with and cling to.
In an attempt to ease their childhood trauma, girls who love too much are more likely to fall into certain substance addictions, such as alcohol, drugs, sweets, and games. They can help wounded girls distract their attention, escape reality, and temporarily numb out their empty hearts. But over time, they gradually begin to feel guilt, shame and self-loathing.
When a person is disgusted with herself, she is likely to be obsessed with seeking love from others because she needs a ‘feeling of being loved’ to rebuild her self-esteem, but at the same time, she may be ambivalent about her own unworthiness of being loved by others.
Severe Love-starved and Pleasure-seeking Pattern Patients
Self-help Guide
If you are always in love with a scummy man, and this relationship makes your life a mess, what can you do to improve your situation?
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Prioritize Your Needs a Little and Trust that Your Needs Are Important Too
If you habitually please your partner in a relationship and often subordinate your needs to your partner's, then from now on, you can try to bring your needs forward.
You are not a planet and don't need to be centred on your partner all the time. The first step to building your sense of self-worth is to believe that ‘I am important too’.
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See Who You Really Are and Don't Place Unreasonable Expectations on Yourself.
We don't need to recognise all parts of ourselves. We are definitely not lovable or valuable when we are good at everything.
The mentality that ‘my value as a human being depends on how successful I am’ is neither all right nor all wrong. You're simply defining the most valuable people as the most accomplished. This mentality can neither be proven to stand up nor refuted. As with any value system, it has both positive and negative effects --- if you decide to deny this view of value, then it might be better to define self-worth as something unconditional, i.e. something that doesn't need to be earned.
This new mindset will have a number of effects; you will always feel worthy, even when you fail. Also, you will never feel inferior or superior to your mate.
Ultimately, you can choose your own life.
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Don't Be Afraid to Seek Help
If you have too many "compulsive obsessions" in your relationship, you can borrow some childhood trauma self-help books to understand your own behavioural patterns and emotional states; if possible, you can choose to work with a counsellor you trust to achieve self-awareness and acceptance.
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You Don't Need to Use the Love of a Scummy Man to Prove That You Are Lovable and Worthy of Being Loved.
When you wholeheartedly affirm that you are a worthy person, you no longer need to get yourself into a bad relationship and expect a scummy man to change for you to prove that you are "lovable".
In most cases, our efforts to change others are motivated by a selfish belief that his change will make us happy.
There is nothing wrong with wanting to be happy, but placing the source of that happiness outside of ourselves and in the hands of others means that we are avoiding the ability and responsibility to improve our own lives.
Anyway, I hope you remember that your problem is not being too nice to people or having bad luck (always meeting scummy man) --- it may just be that you haven't learnt how to deal with your true self yet.