My epiphany

This is merely an epiphany i had in my years of dating that I would like to share. Its been a while since I did this and fortunately it feels so good to write again. This story I'm about to share is experiences I've had along the way in my early 20's to my now newer 30's.
As we all know breakups can be the toughest challenges we face man or woman, but the knowledge we inherit due to it is rather rewarding. See...i noticed a pattern developing in my dating life.Damaged, broken men seemed to flock me with no hesitation. Addicts, cheaters, sexually damaged men would come running to my door. I didnt know it yet, but as the months would go on i noticed their issues creep up. What i didnt know was that these damaged men truly didnt know how to love themselves yet...but they desperately wanted to love someone or so they thought. Their actions said otherwise. What i didnt know was that they were on a journey of trying to figure out what it just was they needed to complete them. I was always told it was "me" and i thought wow I must be a catch for all these men to say im the "one". What made me experience my epiphany was that it wasnt just "me" but more so the caring empath I was. Empaths tend to be the safe haven for the damaged. They sense a side of peace and calming that they run to that because it was what theyre searching for but within themselves.
A lot of people mistaken happiness in a partner when in reality its happiness within ourselves that we crave. Men would say how I made them feel secure and they could easily talk to me not realizing I've heard that from almost everybody. Even at my job, my clients would say they felt secure with me and I was easy to talk to about personal subjects.
Back to the topic at hand though, I just never understood at the time in my 20's why my exes would cheat, name call, lie and use even after they told me I was their rock more the less. I felt a sense of responsibility behind it and started to go all wrong with it by becoming co-dependent. Not realizing I was the relationships would end up toxic and damaging to me. It was so damaging that I started to lose pieces of myself that I will never get back to this day. I'm not sad about it though, I grew from those lessons and re-gained my self-worth. At the point of this co-dependency, I started to work over-time in the relationship by handling my exes problems first-hand mistaking it for "true love". We are taught as young girls to take care of a man, to nurture him, to love him etc. The problem is that we tend to do it all wrong. We think that their problems are our problems and we step in, take over and ur partner forgets their problems and seems happier because now you took leadership. Now wer aggravated, tired, drained, exhausted and bitchy because now the burden is ours for the sake of love. No! this is all wrong and its okay because I was holding onto that pattern for over a decade. Wondering why nothing lasted after I was faithful, strong, independent, loving and nurturing. I wondered what was wrong with me. Was it because I wasnt spontaneous enough? Maybe i wasnt adventurous enough in the bedroom? Or maybe what it really was was that I was doing it all wrong with the wrong people? Now im not saying those people are destined to be alone or deserve to be alone. I'm also not saying that there isnt people out there who manipulate or do things out of sheer excitement due to their depressed and sad life. What I'm talking about is self-love. Something we all too often forget to make our number one.
Self-love takes years of experience, lessons and unfortunately sometimes heartache in order to realize what its all about. Its something that took me about 13 years to realize and experience and I'm still learning to this day. There is a constant process to learning how to love ourselves a little more each day. It is a slow process but oh is it an eye-opener. It's so worth it, trust me.
The last guy I dated was a challenge. My old ways tended to creep up without me even realizing it. Being an empath we tend to love helping others which isnt a burden to us in any way. The problem lies when we forget about ourselves and we wonder why we are aggravated, feel invisible, feel like giving up or we feel like fighting for the sake of love like were on a battle front. I started to realize that my partner did not in fact love himself, the difference with him versus all my exes was that he treated me good. He made me feel like the only woman in his eyes and that meant everything to me. That's all I ever wanted was to be seen for who i am. Unfortunately, when someone doesnt love themselves in the relationship they cant love their partner fully. They may not even realize what theyre doing sometimes because they look to you for their happiness instead of themselves which will in fact damage the relationship. Guaranteed. It may not happen right away but you will start to fight and bicker when things get tense for you. The pressure to fix someone creeps up again and before you know it youre turning into your spouse's therapist rather than their girlfriend. its not your fault. Never blame yourself for trying to help the one you love. Realize the problem and find the solution. Harsh i know but you have to before you damage yourself again.
My ex and I were pretty great in the beginning. Communication, sex, everything we were on the same page. It was a breath of fresh air given the fact I hadnt dated in over 3 years. Mainly, to work on my self-love. Which did great for me. I highly recommend doing this.
Anyways, after some time things changed. He was insecure and had anger issues. He was delusional and tended to start arguments based off his insecurities which I in no way triggered. I was faithful, caring and yes I may have made some mistakes along the way..not denying that, I was trying to make it work. Long story short, the fights would intensify, the energy in me started to drain daily, headaches would form, stress would build and I started to forget about me. My ex had severe depression along with mental health problems but the main issue was his recent break-up with a very toxic ex. Then i started to realize. Our relationship was a shadow of theirs. He was trying to subconsciously fix his past relationship by mimicking it with ours. We tended to do the same things they did but in his words "better". The issue started when the things she had done to him were his insecurities that reflected back to us and he assumed I was going to do the same thing even though I never showed any signs for him to be suspicious.I woke up one morning after we had argued the night before to the point I had to block him to prevent permanent damage to our relationship, and realized that I was in fact being co-dependent yet again.I was impressed with myself though to notice these actions for once in my life. I realized that he didnt love himself, he didnt give himself enough time to heal from his previous ex, and that I was trying to help him do that. We as individuals can support someone and be there but we cannot change someone and we cannot fix someone damaged. Only they can do this. They can be taught about self-love and healing but they have to do it for themselves. Not us. Themselves. Realizing this early in I knew the next choice I had to make. I had to let go. He made it easy for me by hanging out with his toxic ex because i "ignored" him for two days. I was using those two days to re-focus, breath and focus my attention on me because I was neglecting myself to help him. He made his insecure choice to see her to make "amends" because he was still hurting from that relationship. I wish him the best on his self-love journey.
Self-love like I said earlier, takes years. Do not wait for someone to love themselves to get back together or get back together with someone who is trying to love themselves. On first hand, we may distract them from focusing on themselves by wanting to focus on us. Secondly, it defeats the purpose of self love to wait for someone to get better. It could take years before any wisdom sits in and they may not want to be with anyone during that journey.
I realized that most of my exes had recently got out of very toxic relationships before they met me. I realized the pattern and I realized how to handle it. I realized I myself still needed to work on myself and that it is a day to day journey.
I think now at the age of 31, my interpretation of a lasting relationship would be both partners who in fact love themselves, who want to support self-love by creating boundaries and space when needed. I think communication is 100% needed. When we feel we talk. It's needed. We cant hold things in thats when the self-love can be torn in ourselves. I think not being so serious all the time is great too. To be able to be young again and not care at times makes the relationship not feel like a career.
I am still working on myself and my lessons I learned even with the damage and heartache has helped me be more aware of my surroundings and familiar with patterns. I love myself and I will not allow myself to fall into the trap again of thinking caring more for someone besides myself is "true love". True love is loving yourselves unconditionally and sharing the fruit that comes from two people.