Getting to TRUE Love

Finding your YOU that leads to TWO

  • Categories
    • Relationships
    • Dating
    • Finding Love
    • Single Life
    • Inspiration
  • Programs
  • Work With Me
  • Contact Me
  • About

Are You a Rescuer?

Leave a Comment

Remember, he's your boyfriend, not your patient.
Remember, he's your boyfriend, not your patient.

You may be falling in love with the guy you want him to be instead of the guy he really is.

This is the third post in our series 8 Signs You Aren’t Ready for a Relationship. I’m going to spend the next week or two delving into each of these more deeply, one by one, and discussing what you can do to make sure that you are ready for a relationship when your Mr. Right comes along.

Are You Looking for Someone to Save?

Do you find yourself very often inexplicably drawn to a project guy – a guy with some serious personal problems, emotional, financial, or physical, that you think you can help? Maybe it's the guy that just can't seem to hold a job, or the guy who drinks too much or has drug dependencies. The end result is that you typically find yourself in a relationship where you are care taking for a partner, and feeling responsible for his well being in one or more areas of his life. You may even be enabling his dependencies without even realizing it.

Take an honest look at your past relationships, and see if any of these sound familiar:

  • You have often felt sorry for your past partners in one or more areas of his life.
  • You often find yourself minimizing your own needs and focusing excessively on your partner's needs.
  • You believe that people that have been hurt in one way or another deserve love more than people that haven't suffered any serious hurts in their past.
  • You have often been drawn to men that you feel need your help in pulling their life together.
  • You often feel and act like a parent in the relationship, guiding your partner and feeling the need to give advice or point him in the right direction.
  • You have found yourself in a position where you feel like his life would crumble if you weren't there to help him with your support and love.

If any of the above sound like what you’ve experienced in your past relationships, you may be prone to being the rescuer. Instead of seeking a partner to have a deep, meaningful mutually supportive relationship, you are driven by a need to get into relationships where you can be in the position of feeling needed.

This is fairly common and can be caused by several issues, such as:

  • You may be focusing on someone else's issues to avoid facing your own.
  • You may not feel valuable or worthy on your own account, so you have a need to find value in yourself by feeling as though you are helping other people.
  • You may have some serious personal issues yourself, and you find that being with someone with personal issues that are worse than your own makes you feel better about yourself.
  • You may feel that if you get a fixer upper and then fix him up that he'll be so indebted to you that he'll never leave.
  • As a child you may have been made to feel that you weren't competent enough, and now helping someone with serious problems may make you feel capable.
  • You may be trying to make up for something in your childhood that you weren't able to save. If you lost someone close to you to a drug or alcohol addiction, you may be trying to find men with the same problems so that you can relive that part of your life and save them this time. Or you may be trying to save your brother or mother from the pain of being picked on or belittled. If anyone from your childhood was mistreated, abused, abandoned, or otherwise not accepted, you may be trying to save that person subconsciously by finding a partner with the same issues and trying to save them.

As you can see, it's critical to get to the root cause of the reason that you have a pattern of consistently attracting these men into your life.

How Do You Break the Cycle?

The important thing to remember here is that if you find yourself starting to be attracted to someone with some serious personal or financial issues, make sure that you are acutely aware of his issue and consciously consider whether or not you are subconsciously trying to fix him or save him from his problem.

The best thing to do in this type of situation is to help him help himself, but put the relationship on hold until he does.

For example, if he's drinking excessively, make it clear that you are interested in a relationship but only if he can first get his problem under control by seeking professional help. Then support him and help  him to seek out professional help with his problem.

That way you are separating the help he's getting for his problem from your relationship. Let him know that you'll support him during the time that he's getting help, and you will gladly be his friend during that time, but that you will not be romantically involved with him until he gets the help that he needs on his own.

For yourself, when you enter a relationship with someone, make sure that the relationship feels equal – that is, you are getting just as much out of the relationship that you feel you are giving. You should be complementing each other – you should both be supporting and valuing each other in relatively equal amounts. Of course, you will both have your strong suits, and that's what complementing means. In order to have one healthy relationship, both partners must be healthy to begin with.

Before you get into, or re-engage with, a romantic relationship with him, you also need to make sure that you feel happy with how he is today, not just the vision of what you think he'll be in the future once he has his problem in check. Don't fall in love with his potential. If you are not absolutely happy with being in a relationship with this man the way he is right now, then step back from the relationship until it really does look like what you want out of a relationship.

The only kind of relationship that will ever work well is the kind where you feel that the person is enough for you just the way they are. Then, if there's any improvement, it's wonderful and something you can both celebrate, but it's not something that's required to make you feel happy with your partner.

Remember, you're looking for a boyfriend, not a patient. Leave the therapy to the professionals, and find yourself a man that adds as much to the relationship as you do.

To learn more about breaking free of the tendency to try to rescue others in your relationships, check out Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself by Melody Beattie.

Next post in this series: Are You Waiting to be Rescued?

Want to learn more about bringing him in closer (instead of him pulling away)?  Join our mailing list by clicking the button below, and I'll send you my complimentary video and E-book "4 Proven Ways to Make Him ADORE You (Like He's Never Adored Anyone Before!)"

Get Me Started!

Filed Under: Finding Love Tagged With: change him, How do I find Mr. Right, know what you don't want, LOVE, rescuing him, self esteem

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR MAILING LIST AND I’LL SEND YOU THIS GIFT!

Make Him Adore You Send me the video!

Programs

About Jane Garapick

Hi, I'm Jane Garapick. I'm here to provide inspiration, support and empowerment on the journey to true love. I know what it’s like to have a broken heart, a broken dream, and a broken you. And I know for a fact, that your dreams can still come true! Read more...
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Join Me On Facebook!

Getting to True Love

Popular Posts

A beautiful woman looks at her phone wondering why he hasn't called.

The REAL Reason He Hasn’t Called

A beautiful woman is upset because of the way her boyfriend treats her as he watches TV.

Why He Treats You the Way He Does

A beautiful woman is being hugged

Will He Ever Want a Committed Relationship? 3 Signs He Might

A man telling a woman he just wants to be friends. They are standing in a park on a path, out of focus, with the camera looking through branches.

He Just Wants To Be Friends

Green freeway sign with Commitment written on it.

7 Things I've Learned About Men Who Are Afraid Of Commitment

You're the one who really has tried everything to get him to come around and fully commit. You're the one who's given him more than enough time to come around and finally make the commitment . A beautiful woman is upset that her boyfriend won't give her the commitment she wants.

The Worst Thing You Can Do When He Won't Commit

Attractive young woman awaits a phone call. wondering why he hasn't called.

The Worst Thing You Can Do When He Hasn't Called

Image of a man who looks like a player showing signs he's not into you.

14 Warning Signs That He’s Not That in to You

If you've let him know that you expect the same level of commitment from him that you've given him, and he can't give you the commitment that you're looking for, then there’s only one thing for you to do. A clock is showing that it's time to move on.

Your Best Response When You're Not Getting the Commitment You Want

A beautiful woman is looking at her ex boyfriend with his new girlfriend, wondering why he wouldn't commit to her.

Why He'll Commit to Her, But Not to You

As Seen On…

Latest Tweets

Tweets by @JaneGarapick

Recent Comments

  • Heather on Why No Contact NEVER works and what to do instead
  • Emma Verhoog on The Difference Between Giving Up Too Soon and Giving Up Too Much
  • Jin on Three Things You Can Do When He’s Getting Emotionally Distant
  • stavkapro on Your Best Response When You're Not Getting the Commitment You Want
  • Turning Your YouTube Channel Into a Cash Flow. on The REAL Reason He Hasn’t Called
  • Snehal on My Boyfriend Fell Out of Love With Me

Calendar

April 2012
M T W T F S S
 1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
30  
« Mar   May »

Copyright © 2025· Getting to True Love, LLC · All rights reserved · Privacy Policy · Refund Policy · Terms of Service

We use cookies to ensure you receive the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are okay with our terms :)Got it!