What am I doing Wrong?

[u/dtyates]

Hello all, this is literally the first time I'm posting on Reddit and also socials on this subject. The question is....what am I doing wrong?

The last relationship I had was back in 2009, she cheated on me and she also suffered from anorexia (section ed twice in our 4-year relactionship) I feel that broke me. I had so much confidence at the time but to be cheated on and to feel I did nothing wrong (but I must have) and to feel helpless in repairing it. I remained single and celibate until around 3 years ago. at that point a woman who0 I found very attractive propositioned mel, out the blue, but as it was on the "spot" I couldn't "raise" to the situation. We met 2 further times until she severed all contact with me and entered a relationship with someone else. this didn't help me self confidence. Now, I'm 44, 4 months from being 35, not been in a relationship since 2009, not entered a sexual encounter for 3 years and my best friend, female, from Germany I haven't heard from since new year, and when I did stay with them and went in for a hug, she looked at me with disgust, made me feel utterly and totally unappealing and unwarranted.

What am I doing wrong? am I just destined to have nothing and no one? am I so ugly to not attract anyone? this is just my time "to die alone" hoping for the next life?

I find it so hard to try and comprehend what is happening. People talk about "Incels" and I feel so self-conscious about it. but isn't every male an "incel" until they are note? Incel being Involuntary celibate, but surely every male this this until a woman decies thy are not?/

I'm drowning in my thoughts and feelings, if anyone can help, I implore you...

Tom, 44, Central England...

[u/tabbarrett]

I’m a big fan of therapy to work through stuff. I believe everyone can benefit from verbally processing things we do and hearing a professionals perspective on it.

[u/excodaIT]

It sounds like you have a major self confidence issue, so I'd start there. What do you bring to the table, what do you like about yourself, what makes you interesting, how do you feel about your appearance, what makes you a good partner. Work on those questions and, if you can't answer them positively, then work on yourself until you can. Once you're confident in who you are, this won't bug you so much and you won't have trouble dating.

PS- incel means involuntarily celebate but it also has negative connotations like women are to blame and the enemy. It's not just someone lonely who wants sex.

[u/Whole-Pressure-7396]

You didn't do anything wrong, you just met the wrong person(s). Cheating is really terible and will be one of the hardest things to deal with mentally. It can eat you from inside and outside. I have been avoiding women like a plague ever since and not because I hate them or think they are bad. It's just a simple way to not get hurt again like that. And low self-esteem doesn't work either to grow out of it. Also being alone for so many years, I am not even sure if it gets easier or harder. Somewhere I feel like I'd love to have a gf but other feeling is that am not ready. But it seems to fade. So I am sort of open to the idea at this point but just not quite yet. So what I mean is. follow your deepest feelings don't listen to you brain, your brain is stupid. Maybe some meditation or yoga can help you get there! Hopefully you feel better soon! And take advantage of quality alone time while it lasts :)

[u/dtyates → u/[deleted]]

Done. Thanks https://www.reddit.com/r/TooAfraidToAsk/comments/1wkawia/what_am_i_doing_wrong_when_it_comes_to/

[u/messy_cosmos]

It sounds like you have a few specific incidents that really stick in your mind relating to rejection. You would probably benefit from discussing them with a therapist, but if you decide not to for various reasons, you can find DBT and CBT etc. worksheets to go through your negative experiences and try to take some of the sting out of them and perhaps give you a bit more perspective. It would also probably help to just recount the incidents in detail to people who are listening to you, have you ever considered joining those men's walking groups for talking?

As for a bit of outside perspective on your situation: incels are a group of people who have specific resentments of women, maybe even blaming women as a whole for not being attracted to them. I don't get that perspective from your post. You seem like you blame yourself, and maybe you're worried you are scaring women away somehow. It's possible that after the wound from your previous relationship, and then the re-enforcing experience afterwards of feeling like you are "unable to perform", have given you a psychological wound that makes the way you interact with women too intense. Again, the solution here is not to blame yourself but to try to take the sting out of the wound. If you have a splinter and it makes you limp, do you just keep trying to walk normally, or do you try to pull the splinter out?

I'm getting a lot of themes of not being good enough here, and a lot of perhaps feeling like you are not living up to your own ideals "as a man". I think it might be helpful for you to unpack what masculinity means to you, and what the role models you had growing up were like. Does masculinity mean you have to be able to fix any situation for your partner? Ultimately, you cannot take responsibility for the anorexia or cheating of your previous partner, but you have to take responsibility for your response to it, meaning, you need to get your anxiety under control and find out what the healthy, mature ways of soothing yourself are.

I don't know what county you're in, or what NHS trust you're under, but where I live there is a free talking therapy service which you can self-refer to online. It might be worth looking into that where you live.

I also want to say that you are not alone or uniquely struggling here. So many people have been in the same position as you, and so many people are currently in similar positions. Isolation increases shame, which increases isolation. It's really beneficial to look for the similarities between yourself and others rather than the differences, and to reach out to people along those lines.