why do some people attract "bad" mates?

[vash]

recent thread got me thinking.

i have an past girlfriend. awhile back, i got a call from her (i almost kicked my bro's arse for passing along my ###). she got married to a doctor, just had her second kid, husband started cheating, then he started abusing her. i dont know if it is verbal or physical abuse. she was in tears, crying about always meeting the wrong type of man. she said i was only bad for her, because i was commitment phobic.

(on a side note. she had no direction in life, i couldnt even figure out her ever changing college major, she was going to drop out to move with me to SF..NOT! i was not commitment phobic, i just didnt want to start out in life supporting someone,,anyways, i digress)

the guy before me beat her also...WTF? is it a self confidence thing? i dont get it. i changed all my phone numbers, and moved on.

[Rick Lee]

People are attracted to certain personality types before they even recognize those characteristics in that person. It's bizarre, but an absolute force of nature. BTDT! After about three GF's in a row with near identical issues, none of which surfaced until a few mos. into the relationships, I figured out that I was the problem and needed to stop looking for a certain type. I guess I just got lucky with my wife, but I dated her for three years before getting married, just to make sure.

[charleskieffner]

everyjuan wants to save the damsel in distress at least once in life. some learn from that "once" others dont.

if the chick cant reload .308 clips/bait her hooks/ wax a porsche/swab decks on a boat/screw like a mink 6 days a week/go poo in the woods in the winter/cook like a biltmore chef/figure out a 10mm wrench from a 3/8 ratchet/ lube a chain on a dirty bike/drive a quad/shoot all her rounds at the range into a ashtray size circle/feed my dog/clean up after dog/backwash/brush pool/ make chile rellenos and tamales und sauerbrauten..............................what the hell do you got?????

a freeking RETARD WITH A VERY EXPENSIVE ROCK ON HER FINGER THAT YOU BOUGHT! WHICH MEANS THEIR ARE (2) ******* RETARDS IN THE EQUATION!

[charleskieffner]

p.s. i have dated my girlfriend longer than my ex...........................FOR A DAMN GOOD REASON!

[Hawktel]

I dated my X for 4 years, lived with her for a year and a half to make sure it was going to work before proposing.

6 months of marriage she went insane, and I figured out that Marriage isn't a good thing for a guy like me.

Now I can't get rid of her. texts me all the time, even after I changed my number.

[The Gaijin]

Originally Posted by charleskieffner

reload .308 clips/bait her hooks/ wax a porsche/swab decks on a boat/screw like a mink 6 days a week/go poo in the woods in the winter/cook like a biltmore chef/figure out a 10mm wrench from a 3/8 ratchet/ lube a chain on a dirty bike/drive a quad/shoot all her rounds at the range into a ashtray size circle/feed my dog/clean up after dog/backwash/brush pool/ make chile rellenos and tamales und sauerbrauten..

All good things.

[Rick Lee]

Originally Posted by Hawktel

I dated my X for 4 years, lived with her for a year and a half to make sure it was going to work before proposing.

6 months of marriage she went insane, and I figured out that Marriage isn't a good thing for a guy like me.

Now I can't get rid of her. texts me all the time, even after I changed my number.

How old was she when she snapped? In my experience, after the age of 28, they have it a little more together. Before then, anything can happen.

[Dan in Pasadena]

My opinion is that people don't "attract" bad mates. They may be attracted to peope that are bad mates, but that is from poor decision making. I understand making a poor decision, but some people make poor selections in their mates over and over.

Personally, I don't think there is any such thing as "unlucky in love". I was married 20 years before divorcing. She came home one day and decided she didn't want to me married to me anymore. Even though we have two wonderful children as a result; in 20-20 hindsight she was probably not the person I should have chosen to marry.

[jhynesrockmtn]

Personally, I don't think there is any such thing as "unlucky in love". I was married 20 years before divorcing. She came home one day and decided she didn't want to me married to me anymore. Even though we have two wonderful children as a result; in 20-20 hindsight she was probably not the person I should have chosen to marry.

I had a similar experience but was told she knew right after we got married it was wrong. The intimacy was never there. I always thought it was my fault. Kids came, I stayed, we were good parents together and did all of the financial/life stuff well but no spark. Finally a Porsche purchase pushed her over the edge. All of a sudden she started seeing me spend some of "our" money, which by the way I earned while she was a housewife who didn't cook and could barely clean. I did get two great kids out of the deal.

Now I have a great fiance' who is excited when I'm around, I could stare at her all day long, is a great cook and doesn't need my now significantly smaller bank account. I'll dive in again, what the heck. I have a confidence this will work. Not sure why, but I did learn yesterday (Myers Briggs) I'm a gut feel type of decision maker anyway so best not to analyze too much.

My big advice to my kids is to not get married until your older than I was and have dated. lived with, loved enough people to know when it's right based on experience and maturity.

[The Gaijin]

Yes, some people keep going down the same bad path. They are convinced they want a certain type and and are finally going to figure out how and make it work. Not.

And not just - " I want a buxom blond" or "a guy with a load of money".

Abusers, criminals, addicts, narcissists. People throw themselves at all types.

[DasBoot]

Originally Posted by charleskieffner

if the chick cant reload .308 clips/bait her hooks/ wax a porsche/swab decks on a boat/screw like a mink 6 days a week/go poo in the woods in the winter/cook like a biltmore chef/figure out a 10mm wrench from a 3/8 ratchet/ lube a chain on a dirty bike/drive a quad/shoot all her rounds at the range into a ashtray size circle/feed my dog/clean up after dog/backwash/brush pool/ make chile rellenos and tamales und sauerbrauten..............................what the hell do you got?????!

Ahh...we can only hope to find such a woman! I'll settle for the "screwing like a mink" trait.

[Arizona_928]

Originally Posted by charleskieffner

make chile rellenos and tamales und sauerbrauten..............................

only arizona where you can mix tamales and brauts...

[Sonic dB]

A good question that I have some experience with.
I am not married and dont plan to...but I am attracted to a certain kind of women...yes i admit that sexy, kinky, outgoing, high maintanance chicks appeal to me... i like the game, i like the chase, and the funis usually very good...

unfortunately there is a ton of baggage and issues that come with this choice in women... im a good example of a person who likes the excitement but doesnt want to settle for the quiet little wall flower girl... and settle down, etc. snooze..
Ive had quiet nice girlfriends before, and i get bored after awhile...

so i suppose my answer is that i have a character-flaw of my own in my preference for romance to be fast, fun, free and exciting.... and this somehow fulfills some void that I have in my own personality etc. but there are drawbacks to this, namely flamouts....which i have accepted and now try to avoid getting in to. Now I just focus on trying to at least
get a woman who has some character as well, so it wont all come totally down to sh-t in the end.

Maybe i will get with a nice girl in the end...but the problem is that i dont look for them naturally.

As for women who go with guys who beat them... i have no idea why other than to speculate that they have very low self esteems, and their getting beaten and abused helps them to "accept" their own identity as being low self worth.

[Hebrewhomeboy]

It's crazy! I had a string of great normal girlfriends, then I was married for a short period of time to a frigid controlling b-word, and my now-ex fiance was banging someone else and on drugs. Go figure!!!

[RSBob]

When we are young, we are all fed a line of crap about the ideal mate from the marketing firms on Madison Ave. They have to look and smell good, wear the correct trendy clothes, like a sense of humor, long walks on the beach, candlelight dinners, and on and on. I bought into it, and all my friends bought into it - Why? Because we were young, impressionable, stupid and in the demographic cross hairs of master marketing geniuses.

What Madison Ave doesn't teach us is exactly what IS important. They are all about attraction, not compatibility (boring!) They don't talk about alignment in personalities, intelligence, values, faith, economics, hobbies, passions, philosophies in child rearing, political affiliation, motivation, cleanliness around the home and on and on. All terribly boring and don't sell a single solitary thing.

Before I married my 'starter wife' I had an idealized vision of my woman - cute, slim, blond, good sense of humor, and some one who cared about people - preferably some one in health care. She turned out to fit the bill and was a nurse to boot. We had great chemistry, great passion, great times, and shared a few interests.

A few years I discovered we were on completely different intellectual planes (going opposite directions), I worked to stay current on events, politics, etc so I could thoughtfully discuss the world with my friends. She should care less and preferred to ignore the news and read romance novels, and it just went south from there. 3 years later we divorced, and barely speaking.

Skip to the present. I have been very happily married for 5 years, together for 10, with a woman I met on line. We matched up our interests, philosophies, beliefs, passions, and peculiarities on a filtered data base which rank ordered our matches. It was cold, analytical, unromantic and as it turned out brilliant. It cut to what was really important and what makes compatibility work, not the fluff.

What attracts a person to an abuser? People appear to be attracted to the same type of people - usually some one like their parent of the opposite sex. If they came from an abusive or dominating family situation, it is familiar, even though not desirable. Then you get in to co-dependent personalities, domineering type who like subservient types, and vice versa. What is terrible is when good people get suckered into a relationship with a damaged person. Its a totally calculating play on the unsuspecting person. Some time people are just convincing actors, know how to act to attract people and then resort to their flawed personalities after the honeymoon period is over.

[livi]

Simple. I was an easy pray and it took a long time for me to realize that.

[slakjaw]

Thats a really good question. I seem to attract bad mates. Maybe not "bad mates" but women who are not compatible with me. After 5 years with my ex I have been single for going on 4 years now.

[svandamme]

I am attracted to crazy broads,
trainwreck "dancers" and what not, the kind that takes you high at first, then drags you down, down, dooooooooown...

Normal pretty girls, for some reason don't get me fired up..

i blame my mother, if you look up "bat**** crazy" in the dictionary
most likely you'll find an explanation of the words, followed by (example : Stijn's mother).

But i've broken the vicious circle now... I've come to the conclusion that my sensor array is defective, and can't be trusted... So trained my legs to disconnect motor control from the brain if it senses elevated hormone levels related to "luuuv"... when it's detected, i'm Forrest Gu-uuump V2.0, i'll run, and i'll keep running till it's over...No amount of high is worth trainwrecking...

[onewhippedpuppy]

Well said Rick. After personally seeing how some people date, I'm amazed the divorce rate isn't higher. I think the focus for many people is on exactly the wrong things.

As for Cliff's original question, I think in many cases the person is trying to fill some need in their life, even if it's subconscious. I had a female friend (no really, no sex here) who was largely ignored at home, especially by her father. Her younger and older sisters were both very intelligent, and while very creative and artistic she didn't get much attention. Her solution? Bang guys as soon as they show interest in her. It worked out well for many of my friends, not so good for her. She couldn't/wouldn't accept the fact that the attention she was getting wasn't due to her personality, it was due to being an easy chick with a nice rack. I was always amazed just how ignorant she was to her own behavior, even when I called her attention to it. She finally got a little nutty, and I had to quit hanging out with her.

[Shaun @ Tru6]

People are trying to fix what happened to them when they were 8.