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Why do I always date men who need fixing?

Why do I always pick men who need fixing? - ALBERTO MIRANDA
Why do I always pick men who need fixing? - ALBERTO MIRANDA

Dear A&E,

I’ve just broken up with the man I’ve been dating for nearly a year. Due to his childhood he suffers severe bouts of depression. I’ve had my own difficulties in the past but have addressed them through therapy; I’m now fairly stable and wanted to share my happiness with him. It’s not the first time I have entered a relationship intending to ‘help’ someone. Last time it ended painfully. If I could understand why I’m predisposed towards men with ‘fixable’ psychological problems, I could avoid it better in the future. I’m in my 30s and can’t spend the next decade on car-crash relationships. —Fixer

Dear Fixer,

Oh there is so much to love about you. You are currently stuck in the horrid helper hamster wheel of setting yourself on fire to keep someone else warm. This is not a victimless crime because you are doing damage. To yourself. And there is no virtue to be found in being broken by relationships.

You say that you wanted to share your happiness with him even if it meant becoming slightly less happy yourself. Trouble is, the maths doesn’t work. There is no equation that says, ‘If I give you a bit of my joy, leaving me living in the lack of joy, then that equals “OK”.’ You don’t end up with more, you both end up with less. We have to be wholehearted humans to be able to love other wholehearted humans. We don’t want lack, we want abundance.

You are a brilliant, kind person with some baggage who is attracted to others with baggage. So far, so everyone. We are all a bit broken. What you need is someone who complements these fractures and strengthens your structure, rather than have you fold yourself into tiny bits to plug their emotional gaps.

In Untamed, her bestselling call to the women of the world, American author Glennon Doyle writes about the broken marriage that she desperately tried to fix. These days, the truth that she holds most absolute is this: ‘I love myself now. Self-love means that I have a relationship with myself built on trust and loyalty. I trust myself to have my own back, so my allegiance is to the voice within. I’ll abandon everyone else’s expectation of me before I’ll abandon myself… Me and myself: We are til death do us part.’ So here’s our advice: it begins with you. Do not ignore the red flags, the inner voice that says, ‘This feels wrong somehow,’ or, ‘Here we go again!’ When you meet a man, those early whisperings in your gut are warnings to be heeded from now on. You have a habit to break – you’ve had therapy but now you need to do some work in the field.

You need to truly understand that you are enough for a partner, without fixing them. Mending men is not your purpose; it’s not even fun and it never works. Maybe if you change your internal monologue, you will find that the force field around you changes and you start to attract men who contribute more than their oversized baggage.

Sometimes if you change the thoughts, you can change the feelings too. You could start the work with a cognitive behavioural therapy workbook like Mind Over Mood by Dennis Greenberger and Christine Padesky, which we have both done (Annabel may not have finished it), and we’re absolutely FINE…

Seriously though, it’s about starting to put the brakes on unhelpful automatic thoughts and outdated coping mechanisms, and slowly untangle knotty self-love issues. Because when you can only measure your happiness in relation to someone else’s – well, that’s a very unstable emotional economy. You don’t want high investment, low yield, Fixer. You want all the riches. You deserve them. Now start by telling yourself that.

Do you have a dilemma that you’re grappling with? Email Annabel and Emilie on  themidults@telegraph.co.uk All questions are kept anonymous. They are unable to reply to emails personally.

Read more from The Midults:

I have a good marriage, great kids, a stable career. So why am I unhappy? ​

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