Those who are addicted to ‘being in a relationship’

A friend of mine, who is actually a very nice person, has dated 100s (yes -100s!) of men, but has never been in a relationship with any of them for longer than a couple of months (and sometimes weeks).

Over the course of the last 10 years she had only 2 miserable relationships that lasted for about 2 years.

You may wonder what is wrong with her and why she has such a bad luck. Can’t she just see early on who is on her radar? Is her radar broken? Or maybe…. maybe she is just addicted to dating and the feeling of ‘being in a relationship??’

I thought I would step into her head one day to better understand what is happening. I wanted to understand what drives and motivates her to hook up with literally ANY guy who smiles at her or gives her a compliment.

Here is my ‘translation’:

“I cannot be alone. It is a very scary feeling to feel alone. Being alone to me is the same as being lonely. I need constant attention and constant presence of other people to not feel alone, empty… or worthless. Looking around only proves my point – it is the worthy, beautiful, and interesting women who get attention from men all the time. I want to be that woman – beautiful, worthy, and interesting… THEREFORE I see attention from other men as a proof of that.

I like meeting new people because in the very beginning this is how they make me feel. They treat me nice, give me attention, call and text all the time. They make me feel very special and so I do not see any point of saying ‘no’ when it comes to sex. It is true that I may not always feel personal attraction towards them, but it is not important. What is important is how they make me feel. I want to feel like I mean something to them. Their attention and treating me nice validate me as an individual. I do not feel unworthy anymore.

I do not have problem with having multiple partners. If all of them make me feel good, then I do not see any point of rejecting them. Why should I reject a man (or men) who makes me feel ‘worthy’? I need that. I need to feel interesting, beautiful, and worthy. These men, all of them, give me this feeling.

Most of these relationships do not last, but it does not bother me. As soon as it happens I simply replace my previous source of good feelings (i.e. a man) with another one. In essence, constant stream of new men guarantees that I will never feel alone.”

Here is the test. Does the above makes any sense to you at all??

I could not believe it myself but some of us, unfortunately, do have this problem. Maybe not to such a severe degree, but still. By the way, do you know what she felt like every time those short term, shallow relationships were over? Like a poo.

You are addicted to ‘being in a relationship’ if:

~ You cannot be alone in between relationships and all of your relationships overlap each other
~ You are so desperate to be with someone that ‘being selective’ is not what you want to ‘waste your precious time’ on
~ You date people below your standards and put up with horrible treatment
~ You never feel fully happy in any of your 1 star relationships since most of your partners are temporary, random, poor quality partners
~ ‘In the name of a relationship’ you constantly go against yourself
~ You would rather be in a miserable relationship than be alone
~ You never or almost never initiate breakups
~ You would rather stick with 1 small teeny-tiny excuse to stay than with 100 solid justifications to leave
~ You need drama, anxiety, and periodical ‘poor me’ self-monologues to feel alive. Breaking up with them signifies death.

The final result of addiction to ‘being in a relationship’ is not ‘happily ever after’, but Loneliness.

If you think this is not true and you have been running in the right direction, then why are you still Lonely? If you were to STOP running for a second, embrace the Loneliness and reflect on what is happening do you think things would be different?

Sorry to bring it up with you, but everything you have been doing so far has brought you CLOSER , not FURTHER to the Loneliness. You have not been running AWAY from it – as you might think – you have been running TOWARDS it.

Let me prove my case by breaking down behaviors and believes of those who are addicted to ‘being in a relationship’ and show how destructive they actually are.

~ You cannot be alone in between relationships - > you SHOULD give yourself ALONE time after the end of each relationship to 1) heal and move on 2) to reflect and understand what happened. If you skip this precious period you will never learn from your past experiences and be destined to repeat the same mistakes over and over again. Until you learn. If you do not break the cycle you may end up playing the same doomed relationship scenario with your next partner.

~ You are so desperate to be with someone that ‘being selective’ is not what you want to ‘waste your precious time’ on. -> How is being with a wrong partner not a waste of time? So, you are willing to waste your life on jerks, but refuse to spend that exact time on weeding them out? Do you see my point here??

~ You would rather be in a miserable relationship than be alone.-> YOU ARE ALONE ALREADY. You are not receiving what you should be receiving. You are on a crumbs diet and you are starving. That is why it is called ‘miserable’!

~ You never or almost never initiate breakups -> You can surely stay in your broken relationship as long as you want. You may even stay in it like forever. It will forever be broken and you will forever feel miserable. And lonely. Savvy women recognize this and leave without delaying. Those who do not - stay for years and decades. Which ones do you think win? If you want to win you know now what to do, don’t you?

~ ‘In the name of a relationship’ you constantly go against yourself. It must be very hard to keep saying ‘Yes’ every time you feel like saying ‘No’ or constantly pretending like everything is OK if it is not. Are you worried that if you say ‘No’ or disagree with them on something major you will lose the relationship? Well, guess what? This is what every quality woman goes through with every man during her selection process. She does these things all the time and this is how she ends up being with high quality guys and good long-lasting relationships.

~ You date people below your standards and put up with horrible treatment -> Do you know what it means? It means that you are not just addicted to ‘being in a relationship’, you are addicted to being in bad relationships. This one is scary, and if you do not see it as a major wake up call then I do know what else could shake you up.

At this point, to break the cycle, your awareness wouldn’t be enough. You would have to make a conscious effort to modify your thinking and behavior. These are not easy to achieve and seeing a counselor would be a good idea.

We cannot spend our entire life chasing after love and care without addressing our own lack of self-love first. Say no to the toxic high and get off the relationship crack now!

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE: Articles - How to be lucky in love and How to recognize a commitment phobic man before he breaks your heart or this quality e-Course The Woman Men Adore... and Never Want to Leave