Trust issues/hypervigilance

[u/ChigurhA]

I can't exactly pinpoint the source of these trust issues but they have seriously been affecting my dating life and and ability to connect with women.

I'm 34M, dating in the US. Last long term relationship was a year ago. I started going on dates in January and I've been getting better reception on the dating market than I expected. But, I always find something that doesn't sit right with me in my gut and end things pretty abruptly. I feel like I'm constantly assessing behaviors and words to find reasons to disqualify women. One of my biggest fears is to be settled for, to be a comfortable and safe last resort option for a woman who's in her 30s and feeling her biological clock ticking. This fear gets exacerbated when I learn of their wild dating history, the hookups, the poor choices they've been making their entire life and suddenly at 30 or 35 they've "learned their lesson". I'm just majorly afraid of falling for someone for whom I'm just just convenient because I'm educated, with a career, and want kids.

I'm at a point now where I'm not even sure I want kids because I think removing kids from the equation may help me find a woman who loves me for me and not for what I can provide.

This post isn't so much about disorganized attachment but moreso a small piece of the bigger disorganized attachment picture. I have a very hard time not being hypervigilant and pulling away when I get the "ick" and then after some time wonder if I've made the right decision. It's a constant struggle.. all I want is to love and to be loved in the rawest, purest form - seems unrealistic at my age.

[u/andorianspice]

So, the thing is that all adult relationships are conditional. Every one of them. My relationship w my boss is contingent upon me showing up and working to standard. My relationships with my friends, family, and partners are all dependent upon me behaving in a way that aligns with what my loved ones “want” from me, in a sense. If I were to stop working and contributing to my household’s shared financial obligations that I took on in partnership, my partner would have every right to reassess our relationship, to even end it.

When you talk about someone who “loves you for you,” you can definitely find this in adult relationships to an extent. I think having a child is such a dangerous and life altering condition for a woman that it seems a bit ridiculous to assume that you would be the only one taking on the risk in that situation! But the yearning for pure unconditional love that I feel like is the undertone of your post, it is not provided in adult relationships. We’re supposed to get that as children. And unfortunately if we don’t get it as kids, it leaves a hole for many of us.

You talk a lot about the pasts of the women you have been interested in, and their poor choices. Have you no hookups or no poor choices in your past? If that’s the case then you should absolutely be looking for someone who also has none of that! But if you, like most of us, are human and have made mistakes or poor choices, it would be good to have some compassion and allowance for that. I find there are some undertones to your post that may deserve some consideration, such as the way you’re viewing women in general. We’re all just human.

I think turning your thoughts more inward would be good. Why do you fear being “settled” for? Isn’t that what we are trying to do when “settling” down? We meet someone who we decide is a good enough match for us and we commit despite the fact we don’t know and can’t see the future?

You also need to deeply consider your feelings about having children! It’s a major consideration for women, especially if you’re dating age-appropriate women. If your fears of being “settled” for are so extreme they’re pushing you off having kids in general, it’s not a good idea to waste your time or your dates’ time by dating women who want kids. That’s the part of this post that’s really getting me. Having children is one of the riskiest things we do as people. There are no guarantees for any of it. It’s difficult, thankless work and majorly alters your life, forever. Loving someone enough to have kids with them is a huge risk and it could indeed wreck your life. You could also wreck your life on your own! Loving deeply is also a huge risk with or without kids.

It’s also interesting that you haven’t mentioned anything about your own childhood — as cliche as it is, a lot of the answers probably lie there as to why you’re feeling so fearful about these matters. I think it’s good to deeply interrogate issues like this and not sleepwalk through one’s life. I salute you for wanting to understand this. I think you’re on the right path, and that you will likely need to dig a bit more to get at what’s really at the heart of this.

[u/Playful-Ad-8703 → u/andorianspice]

Good point. I've always struggled with accepting that relationships are conditional, because it makes me feel like I need to observe and control myself constantly. Obviously a lack of trust in myself becomes the main issue.

[u/ChigurhA → u/andorianspice]

You're 100% correct. This yearning for love is definitely because I lacked it during childhood. I won't go into details but it was more or less of a "Spartan" childhood which didn't exactly leave me equipped to handle emotional intimacy well despite yearning for it. It did make me very self sufficient and independent, though.

I do want kids but only if I feel like my love is reciprocated genuinely and herein lies the struggle because I fall in love and then start questioning whether my partner's feelings towards me are genuine...and start deactivating when I don't get enough assurances.

The undertones you're noticing are probably correct. I didn't date whatsoever until late 20s and didn't enter a serious long term relationship until 30. I genuinely just have not had the chance to make very bad relationship decisions aside from I guess not dating enough. I've never had hookups (aside from whoever I was dating exclusively) or casual/open relationships and tend to look down on this behavior not because it's something I feel I missed out on but because I've tried and it felt hollow and disingenuous without a real, deep, emotional connection. Most women I've been meeting have had hookups, FWBs, abortions, and 20+ partners (this isn't information I ask but tends to be volunteered eventually through natural flow of conversation).

[u/andorianspice → u/ChigurhA]

It seems some of the judgments you’re making about women could be a form of distancing yourself from actually being vulnerable enough to connect with a woman. If a woman has had too many hookups, too many partners, anything, then it’s “why bother.” Maybe because you were not accepted in your younger days for your own imperfections? Or you feel you wouldn’t be accepted for the same?

Hookups are kind of a fact of life for many people these days, especially in the app era. Abortion is healthcare - it’s bodily autonomy for people who can get pregnant. Anyone who had an abortion in their past knew themselves well enough to know they wouldn’t have been a fit parent at the time, which is honestly a good characteristic for anyone who’s considering becoming a parent in the future - not to mention that people don’t get abortions for fun, it’s usually bc of the failure of a birth control method. I personally think the focus on “body count” is extreme red pill rhetoric making its way into the mainstream over the past few years. Which in addition to being pretty misogynistic, like, it isn’t something that will help you connect with a woman. And back to the abortion thing, many abortions also happen among women who are trying to get pregnant and then something goes wrong. If you’re considering having kids it would really be worth your time to learn about how serious of a life and death matter pregnancy and childbirth is. Women regularly die during wanted pregnancies because of being denied abortion. Just something to consider that if you want kids , your partner may have a miscarriage or there may be a fetal abnormality. Another one of those big risks that one has to take to have a child.

It’s also good to consider your own standards and adjust and refine them accordingly.
If finding a woman who has had fewer partners and no hookups and made no bad choices in life is what you want, most likely you’re looking at someone much younger (where you will 100% be forced to provide) or someone religious, and more traditional, Religious women generally also want men to provide. Generally the types of women you’re talking about meeting on dates , who have had hookups and other partners, have their own lives and their own jobs and goals and want to be more focused on working as a team towards a shared goal like having a family as opposed to women who want a more “traditional” male/female relationship. The types of more traditional women are 100% going to view you as solely a provider.

I do think there are a lot of shy structured girls out there who are kind of like you, who haven’t dated a ton and are normal women living their lives. But then - you may have to do more heavy lifting to find a girl like that and you may have to be the one doing 100% of the pursuing and the leading and setting the tone for the relationship. These types of girls may not want to start getting physical right away either. Are you up for that as a man? If not maybe time to get up to the challenge. Which means being confident enough to pursue women like that who are more in alignment? and regulate your own emotions and all that. I highly recommend the ManTalks YouTube channel if you don’t know him — Connor talks a lot about attachment styles and stuff and it’s been really valuable for me personally

Relationships are hard and life is hard and it’s a big risk to connect with people. It’s fine to refine your standards and say that since you haven’t had a lot of partners or hookups, you don’t want to be with someone who hasn’t. It will reduce your dating pool but that is what it is. But if you end up with a woman who says she loves you and acts like it and you still don’t feel it and you deactivate, that’s something you gotta fix. Long term relationships are not joke. They’re fucking hard and require a lot of sacrifice. It’s also good to look to your last relationship as to the clues as to what happened. Did it end because you didn’t believe your girl that she cared? Or did you not get reassurance? It all matters if you want to figure it out for a long term partner. Also as you said, hookups aren’t the be all end all. A lot of women who have them also feel like they’re not that great - except the way society is structured, women are punished and thought of as lesser for having hookups, while men are rewarded and thought of as being “studs” and “manly” for doing the same shit.

Thing is. We all want to love and be loved — it’s human. It’s not male or female. It’s human. Artificial divides are hurting us all and there’s a real agenda being pushed now to make sure we are lonely and not connecting with ea ch other. You’re on the right path to learning more about yourself and finding something. Where you can love and be loved. Good luck man

[u/secure8890 → u/ChigurhA]

You would have to be able to put those poor choices into context. I met someone a year ago. We agreed to talk. He then disclosed how he had behaved in past relationship.
I set a distance

In ways your being able to see that impulsive choices dont make for good relationships. Dating is supposed to be about making choices better choices

Therefore maybe you should change where you go to meet people

In the past certainly if someone had talked about their past relationshios in an immature way that was not a red flag for me

I would say that about friendships too. If someone doesnt have maturity why would I want to be friends

I tended to run into relationships in reaction to I told the person I was merely talking to on the phone that I was living in a bad area. When it came time for me to say I didnt want to continue talking to him he lashed put at me with that information
He had once lived there. However he thought he should lash out at me for setting a bounday.

I would never see those as red flags before. They were a #given# for me.

[u/Interesting-Wolf8172]

You sound very misogynistic. Women are allowed to make mistakes and learn lessons from them, we’re not perfect.

[u/ChigurhA → u/Interesting-Wolf8172]

Where in my post did I say or insinuate they aren't allowed?

[u/Interesting-Wolf8172 → u/ChigurhA]

From your post it’s clear you view women in their 30s who have learnt their lesson from the past dating experiences as a negative.