WH - these are really important questions to be asking yourself, so that you don't keep repeating this pattern in the future.
Why DID you ignore those red flags? I know in my case, my ex also had several red flags that I ignored.
In my case, I think a few factors were operating:
- I'd just come out of a long relationship with a man who was unavailable, and then a short relationship with a guy who also wasn't available. I was anxious to be "paired up".
- Obviously I wasn't confident enough to refuse to settle for a man who had ambivalence about me.
- my ex DID have a lot of qualities that made us a good fit; we wouldn't have lasted 24 years otherwise. I like to think I made it longer with him than anyone else would have under the circumstances.
- I'm such a loyal, loving person that I just couldn't wrap my head around the idea that my partner, maybe, wasn't quite so much.
- I don't come from divorce and dysfunction so I underestimated the role it had played in his life.
In my POST-divorce dating, I went through several men who were unavailable emotionally or otherwise. What was really happening was that I felt more comfortable with them, because I wasn't quite ready to give myself fully to a "real" relationship. Now I've been in a serious relationship for a year with a man who treats me like a queen, because I'm finally ready to accept that.
