Loving Broken Men: Rescuing Mr. Potential, Part 2 - Click Here
Seth Meyers Psy.D.
Insight Is 20/20
Changing your behaviors is key to romantic success
The only way to change who you’re attracted to is to change your behaviors first. If you find yourself attracted to broken men — men who have tons of potential but haven’t yet owned up to it — you repeat a pattern I call ‘rescuing wounded souls.’ In Part 1 of this post, I described who the rescuer is and how the rescuer feels in her relationships. Now, I’m going to review some behaviors that will help you solidify a new identity, one where you learn to say that you would never again waste your time rescuing a wounded soul. After all, unless you’re a paid therapist, it’s not your job to act like one.
Learning how to avoid men who are wounded souls and make yourself more attracted to men who are your actual equal isn’t easy, but it is possible. I spend many chapters in my book, Overcoming Relationship Repetition Syndrome, discussing specific tools and techniques you can use, but I’ll review two here that you can use to change your relationship patterns.
One critical step in changing is conducting interviews with people who have good romantic relationships, and those people could be friends or family members. The key is to ask only two or three people you can trust to be kind and not judgmental with you. Start by explaining that you’re dealing with a relationship problem that you want to solve; describe your problem (the pattern where you tend to rescue wounded souls); ask if your confidant was aware that you have this problem (even if you already know the answer); and ask your confidant why he or she believes that you engage in this pattern.
Why is conducting interviews important? First, because you need to admit to yourself and someone else that you have a problem; second, because you need to open yourself up to the idea that someone else might be able to help you solve the problem.
Another step in changing and learning to avoid broken men is to create and use daily affirmations. In mental health, therapists refer to this concept as self-talk, which describes the running inner dialogue that we all have in our minds in response to things that happen in our lives. For example, when something bad happens to you, do you tell yourself that you did your best, or do you tell yourself that you always come up and short and should have tried harder? What you tell yourself is your own self-talk, and evaluating the type of self-talk you engage in is critical when it comes to your romantic relationships.
www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/insight-is-2020/201207/loving-broken-men-rescuing-mr-potential-part-2%3famp
Insight Is 20/20
Changing your behaviors is key to romantic success
The only way to change who you’re attracted to is to change your behaviors first. If you find yourself attracted to broken men — men who have tons of potential but haven’t yet owned up to it — you repeat a pattern I call ‘rescuing wounded souls.’ In Part 1 of this post, I described who the rescuer is and how the rescuer feels in her relationships. Now, I’m going to review some behaviors that will help you solidify a new identity, one where you learn to say that you would never again waste your time rescuing a wounded soul. After all, unless you’re a paid therapist, it’s not your job to act like one.
Learning how to avoid men who are wounded souls and make yourself more attracted to men who are your actual equal isn’t easy, but it is possible. I spend many chapters in my book, Overcoming Relationship Repetition Syndrome, discussing specific tools and techniques you can use, but I’ll review two here that you can use to change your relationship patterns.
One critical step in changing is conducting interviews with people who have good romantic relationships, and those people could be friends or family members. The key is to ask only two or three people you can trust to be kind and not judgmental with you. Start by explaining that you’re dealing with a relationship problem that you want to solve; describe your problem (the pattern where you tend to rescue wounded souls); ask if your confidant was aware that you have this problem (even if you already know the answer); and ask your confidant why he or she believes that you engage in this pattern.
Why is conducting interviews important? First, because you need to admit to yourself and someone else that you have a problem; second, because you need to open yourself up to the idea that someone else might be able to help you solve the problem.
Another step in changing and learning to avoid broken men is to create and use daily affirmations. In mental health, therapists refer to this concept as self-talk, which describes the running inner dialogue that we all have in our minds in response to things that happen in our lives. For example, when something bad happens to you, do you tell yourself that you did your best, or do you tell yourself that you always come up and short and should have tried harder? What you tell yourself is your own self-talk, and evaluating the type of self-talk you engage in is critical when it comes to your romantic relationships.
www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/insight-is-2020/201207/loving-broken-men-rescuing-mr-potential-part-2%3famp
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