Crom. OK, here’s a chart that pretty much I think explains a lot: look at the first chart, addict/codependent, and I think that describes the thing with Lauren perfectly. http://www.healthymind.com/s-relationships.html
So yeah, we both need help.
It’s pathetic and unattractive, I know. What I don’t know is how to break out of the pattern, and I’m aware that I have been in denial as much as she is (and still is) but argh. You know, argh. I should be smarter than this and be able to overcome it, but I keep falling into this regardless of good advice or prior experience.
So at this point, I have to ask; how do I help someone with sexual addiction if I myself am co-dependent? That sort of thing is actually kind of impossible, isn’t it?
You are describing my 20s. My solution was to move 3000 miles away and start over.
You live in Baltimore right? Because every woman you describe must be the younger sister or daughter of someone I knew.
Look, you want to know how to change your pattern? use your beer money - or draw a few extra portraits like you mentioned at the top of the thread, and spend it on a therapist. Probably 5 sessions, and you are a new man.
I’ve been getting sex but a lot of other guys are getting sex, too, and sex with me specifically doesn’t seem to mean that much; she just wants sex in general. Now yeah, it’s great to get laid but I do care about her and I think that this is something that she’s doing that needs some sort of professional help, help that I can’t provide. I’m not just talking about her dating non-exclusively, I mean she’s really fitting the profile on that chart, I know for a fact that she’s sleeping with a variety of guys she barely knows, and she’s already given me strong hints that she knows it’s not healthy behavior but she keeps doing it anyway, and that to me sounds like an addiction. It sounds like, “yeah right, so you just get laid all the time” but it’s really not like that and I know (from her own admission) that she considers these flings to be bad decisions.
I had a good talk with a friend recently who pointed out that there is a simple solution: walk away. I have no legal obligation to her and I can’t “fix” her, so continuing anything with her is just going to enable things to just keep going as it has been. I really don’t want to lose her friendship but I have to distance myself from her at least physically for now.
Yeah, I freakin’ know. But advice from this particular *friend *counts for a lot more than random message board advice. I know NOTHING about most of the people who were trying to counsel me, mocking me, just plain hating me, etc. Lesson learned: if I want advice, even if it’s on an embarrassing situation, don’t go to message boards; go to friends who actually care about you. Simple lesson to learn, I know.
For the mockers and haters just dying for material: I know Lauren’s messed up, I know I’m messed up, too, just for wanting to continue to be with her. Please just move on. Right now I really don’t need the mocking and heckling and all that. I know I need to make a change, and I’m trying to do that, but it’s tough. I really *do *care about this messed up chick. You’re not helping, and if you continue, then I pretty much think you’re an asshole who just loves to find people to mock to feel better about yourself. I’m willing to bet you have issues of your own. You might not make the mistake of posting them on a message board as I have, but so far, I have met very few people who don’t have things they want to change.
And of course the mockery bothers me a bit, I admit it. You guys wouldn’t be coming back if it didn’t, just like a bully wouldn’t be coming back to try to harass some kid on the playground over and over again unless he was getting a response. You see someone expressing weakness, and you strike. I get it. Darwin is proud, all that. Really, if your only purpose is to heckle, please move on.
Some more unwanted advice here. If you want people to stop talking about this, stop posting updates! I doubt anyone is stalking you to the extent that in a week or month, if you don’t talk about this, they’ll bump the thread to mock you! For what it’s worth, I don’t see any hate here, and no malicious mockery. Oh, good luck with sorting things out, it does sound like a difficult situation. I’m aware it’s much easier to say “walk away” than to actually do it.
I also see no mock, no hate, and a lot of joshing. Most of the advice was sincere and well thought out. The hard time you got from us is the same hard time you’d get from a friend who says ‘unplug the blender before you try to fix it’, and then winds up driving you to the ER.
Wow! I got this thread mixed up with this other one.
I was kind of shocked that it change from a “friend” to him and was thinking that was quite the admission. Fortunately this guy is in an only mildly messed up situation. (camparatively that is.)
Or the lesson is that these strangers on the message board have the same advice as your friends. So, in order to save yourself some grief, realize that straight away instead of dragging on your misery for weeks.
As far as us “haters” (btw: you are not 14 years old, stop calling people “haters”), here’s how I see it: IRL, when my good friends are doing something incredibly stupid and self destructive, then come to me for advice, I will happily advise them on how to straighten up. I’ll even offer help when they come to me a few more times. But at a certain point, when someone absolutely refuses to listen to reason, YOU have to realize for your own sanity that this person isn’t going to listen, and stop trying to give advice. That’s where I think the most of us are. You solicit advice, then willfully ignore it. You aren’t stupid, you’re just choosing willful ignorance.
Not just “willfully ignore it”, but willfully ignore it, post updates that bemoan the issues you still have that you wouldn’t have if you didn’t ignore the fucking advice, and then finally take the same goddamned advice you had been given here, where you asked first from a real life friend. Derp derp, glad you wasted weeks of your life spinning your wheels, then sneer at us for giving the same advice you ended up taking.
That’s it? That’s the end? I’m in real time now? No more updates? awwwww.
I’ve spent all afternoon reading through 10 pages of a thread I forgot about a month and a half ago wondering how it could possibly have the steam to keep rolling along. Turns out that steam was attached to a train engine that jumped its tracks around page, well, 1.
Hey, remember Ashley? The waitress whose only crime was wanting to be a teacher? Doesn’t seem so fucking crazy now, does she?
In summary, a Haiku
Cuckoorex. Oh Cuck
oorex Cuckoorex Cuckoo
rex Cuckoorex…siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh.
I didn’t *specify *anyone as a ‘hater’, so if you self-identify with that label, it’s your choice. I’m not sure why that would be considered a 14-year old’s term; that’s terminology I’ve heard and used for a long time. It’s like saying, “that’s cool with me,” I don’t feel there’s anything odd about anyone my age saying it. Phrases go in and out of fashion, I know, but I’m not going to start affecting “grownup talk” for some reason. My writing voice is usually pretty close to my speaking voice. Not a big deal, just thought I’d say something about it while I’m responding, because quite frankly you sounded condescending.
As for the advice; I KNOW it’s reasonable advice. I know I should walk away, probably the same way a drug addict knows they should stop using. It’s just *not *that easy. Even after getting good advice from RL friends about the situation, I’m still involved. Believe me, I absolutely know that the advice is good, but it’s really, really difficult to just walk away for me.
OK, third request for the mods to close the thread, please…
Cuckoorex, I think a mod would have to stumble on this thread and your requests for closure in order to find it. I think you can click the ‘report this post’ triangle on your own post. Then you can email the mod that way. Or something.