There Are a Lot of Good Men

Here’s the reason I didn’t choose one.

My husband broke my heart. He was capable of things I never thought possible. It has taken me a long time to heal from this incredibly unhealthy relationship.

But here’s the thing.

I chose him.

Believe me, I dated a lot of guys who were truly good men.

But that was too easy. Not thrilling enough for me. Not enough of a chase. I was too young to understand what this meant. I thought I was immature and ‘fickle.’

I was certain as I grew up I would gravitate towards the right type of guy. And eventually, during college, it looked as though I had. He was a nice guy. A Steady Eddie. There would be no games, no back and forth, no drama.

I had outsmarted myself or grown into myself. Either way, you choose to look at it. I had fallen for a good guy rather than reject them as I had in the past.

But yesterday has a way of following us into the future.

I was still choosing the wrong type of guy, only I was blissfully unaware.

I didn’t understand ‘not falling for the good guy’ had so much less to do with him and so much more to do with me.

Daddy Issues

Girls with daddy issues are susceptible to bad boys.

I’m not one to cry over my past. On the contrary, it made me who I am. But it’s not uncommon for daughters with poor male role models to complicate their love lives by making poor choices themselves.

My father left when I was five years old.

He was actually a gentle, funny, genuinely good man. But he was also an alcoholic. Not the mean kind. The life of the party ‘lamp shade’ drinker.

Nonetheless, he would drift in and out of my life for years.

I knew I wanted to avoid an alcoholic and I did. Instead, I married a different type of unpredictable personality — a narcissist.

I remember the day I told my marriage counselor to be straight with me. What was it in my past had led me to choose this particular personality? Though I must admit I feared his answer.

“Oh, Colleen not everything is textbook but possibly it’s because you had a father who physically abandoned you and you gravitated towards a man who emotionally abandoned you,” he said.

Girls with daddy issues don’t always make great choices in men.

Enabling

I didn’t realize while building my adolescent dating resume that I am an enabler.

Now a reformed enabler.

Enablers are overly caring individuals who see the best in people and are likely to tolerate bad behavior over and over again. They are also great at making excuses for the ones they love.

In other words, enablers lack boundaries and self-protective instincts.

This precludes them from getting themselves out of bad relationships. Instead, an enabler will remain in an unhealthy situation. For no other reason but they love the person they love. And they will worry less about themselves and more about their significant other, even when not being treated properly.

They might say things such as “I know he/she shouldn’t be treating me this way but he/she is stressed,” or “He/she can be mean but really he/she has a really big heart.”

An enabler will continue to see the best in someone who is behaving badly. Even if they might complain in-between. It will be followed by making excuses because it’s their deeply caring, empathetic, and overly forgiving nature.

One day my marriage counselor cleared up the confusion between enabling and kindness.

“Colleen, why did you continue to put up with so much for so long?”

“I thought I was being kind.”

“Colleen, kindness is forgiving bad behavior once or twice. Enabling is forgiving bad behavior over and over again.”

Hence, why my marriage counselor told me I wasn’t just an enabler. I was a major, major enabler. An overachiever of sorts. But in all the wrong ways in terms of healthy relationships.

Lack of Awareness

I didn’t have awareness about my family of origin or my own personality.

If I had, I could have made a better choice.

I knew I didn’t want to marry an alcoholic like my father. But I didn’t understand the other side of the equation.

My mother was an enabler.

I didn’t have all of the parts of the puzzle to put together. I was the emotional blind leading the blind. This combined with my youth made me misinterpret certain things.

For instance, those hard-to-get guys I found so exciting…

It turns out it wasn’t my immaturity that led me towards them. Hard to get didn’t equal thrilling. It equaled a difficult personality. Someone I was running towards who was running away. Someone who would selfishly string me along but never make a commitment.

A man who leaves and returns only to leave again.

Que the daddy issues.

But back then there wasn’t as much awareness on these topics. Nor did I have the benefit of family counseling. There was far less emphasis on relationship education.

Again, I was the emotional blind leading the blind.

I was ill-equipped to understand my dating choices.

Can I blame my husband for his actions?

Absolutely.

But not without accepting responsibility myself.

I not only chose him but I remained with him long past when I knew I should leave. I may not have fully understood family of origin and enabling, but I knew I deserved better.

I know a lot of really good men.

I just didn’t choose one.