u/hahhaahhhaaahhhaa

So I am 24f and I have been dating since I was 19. I used to meet people in person and I also have met people thru dating apps. I make sure to not only pick people who I am attracted to online bc I know that anyone can be a match for me.

But the thing is that I keep falling for emotionally unavailable guys who are great at first but then things fall apart within 3 months. Usually after 3 months I ask to define the relationship and ask if it’s serious and they say yes and agree to be my boyfriend… for a week until they break up. Or else they are emotionally abusive towards me in which case I have to break up with them. As a result I have never had a relationship for longer than 4ish months and it’s starting to drive people away. When I tell people I’ve only been in short term relationships people ask “but you seem so normal?”

As a child i experienced parental neglect and severe childhood bullying, but ive spent thousands of dollars on therapy over the course of 3 years. It’s helped but I feel like ive hit a wall where talk therapy no longer helps me anymore. It helps in the way of being able to vent my frustrations and pain, but it doesn’t help me in the way I want with relationships.

I need to stop pursuing relationships avoidant men asap. The issue is that I can never recognize them when I see them. Because at first they ARE emotionally present, and then the switch comes later. But I never recognize a good secure guy as one I can be in a relationship with.

Is seeing something funny or shocking and my first instinct is to text him. But then I remember he broke up with me a week ago. I remember how he made me feel my happiest and my saddest. I remember that we are no contact.

I remember how I have you blocked on my phone and then I unblock him and stare at my screen hoping that somehow a text comes through telling me exactly what I want to hear. Then I block him again.

In my dreams we didn’t break up. It’s the one time I can escape reality, he’s there and he’s happy and so am I. But then I wake up and look at my phone and see that nobody has wished me good morning. And I remember that he left me and gone back to his ex. She’s no longer a skeleton in the closet of our relationship, she’s a real person that he is using for a reason I don’t know and won’t ask.

I try to move on. I work out and I do the dishes and my laundry and go to work the same as I used to. But everything feels different now. It’s harder and more complicated than I remembered it being. I get frustrated easily and give up. I let the flies eat the garbage, deadlines slip past me, and I leave my clean clothes on the floor.

I call friends and family who coo understandingly and they call him an asshole that they never liked. But it hurts because to me he’s still the person I fell in love with.

I watch the remaining episodes of the show we used to watch together and the funny parts are no longer funny.