for a male survivor please come forward

[rebecca24]

for several years i wanted to marry a survivor. i have had a few come into my life. one wishes to remain in his shell and not coming out to express himself for a long time and i suspect he will stay there for a while. please share your thoughts about this those of you who have healed. would you take on someojne who is disabled yes or no

 

[Marmite]

Rebecca,

Sorry if it sounds a bit like fatherly advice, but maybe there is something here that may help you, of the things I and loved ones have learned through the years. This is what I would recommend to a daughter of mine:

In this area, we male survivors work the same as any man:

Marry a man ONLY for who he is NOW; not for who you hope and wish he could become.

No one ever changes us. Ever.

We change ourselves or it does not happen.

If we choose to change, it is within our own time frame, never someone else's.

He may change, but he may change in ways you did not anticipate. He may become a different person altogether, someone who is no longer attracted to you or to whom you are no longer attracted.

If you try to change him, he will resent you for it. We men all resent that, whether we are conscious of it or not. (It's so common, we even have several catch phrases for it.)

Women who desire and attempt to rescue and heal us always end up deeply hurt, frustrated, feeling rejected, and alone as a result.

If a man loves you and is a good choice for you, he will rise to the occasion and make himself a good mate beforehand: not after.

Never...N-E-V-E-R marry a man on the promise he will change.

Literally, get a pen and pad. List the qualities of a good mate you would imagine choosing for your own daughter. Then use the list as a template of qualifications in finding a mate for yourself.

Believe it or not, there are plenty of "good catches" to go 'round out there; they just are not drawn to anyone trying to "fix" them. In fact, they are repelled by the notion.

"You complete me" is a BIG red flag in dating. Rather, look for an attitude of, "You enhance my life" in a potential mate. (That goes both ways, for you as well as for him.) Learning this lesson early will spare you many future heartbreaks and sorrow in dating.

You seem like a very loving and compassionate soul; it's perfectly okay to expect those traits in a mate without having to pry it out of him. Be careful who you date. He may not want love; he may need only help.

Be wise and calculating in choosing to whom you give your heart, for your heart may disguise fixation and infatuation as "true love."

 

[dark empathy]

usually I agree with kieth, but on this occasion I don't.

i would really like someone who cared enough to be willing to try and fix me, sinse I am genophobic, it is something I cannot do for myself alone, and it is simply painful that nobody has ever wanted to be close to me accept during my abuse.

Of course this might be unique to my situation, sinse I have been trying to fix my own problems for 7 years now and not managed it, sinse it's pretty difficult to fix problems with communicative touch and fear of physical closeness when you've got nobody to experience those things with. indeed it was my attempt at a gesture of physical affection that landed me in recovery in the first place, Maybe for other men with other problems it would be a different question.

It seems from what I've seen on this forum the problem isn't women who want to fix their so's issues, so much as when their so doesn't themselves want to be fixed or isn't as much committed in the same way as their partner, it seems to need to be a mutual thing.

On the disability front, a good friend of mine suffers clinnical depression (of a chemical and inhereted nature), and! profound arthritis, meaning she uses a wheel chair. I am however not surprised that not only has she had several boyfriends but she recently got married to another friend of mine, sinse she is extremely well versed in the art of conversation and is a genuinely good person I'm not surprised.

if you are female men will make the first move, this is the bane of my own existance sinse I do not have the ability to do that due to genophobia, but it is unfortunately true even if your disabled, indeed I once saw a disability related statistic which showed a %50 of disabled men were single or had been for the previous 6 years, while %10 of women. While you can't draw too much conclusion from statistics, this does seem to show something pretty clear about society's attitudes towards disabled women vs disabled men, having a disability myself this certainly goes with my own experience.