Could be a long winded post. Sorry in advance.
I'm a 26yo man who over time has lost essentially all connections with past friends and family. Before I say I don't have anyone; I have one close interpersonal relationship with my GF who I cherish. We have lived together for the past 8 years. My concern is that I'm becoming emotionally overdependent on her because I simply have no-one else. I get on well with her family but the connection is not quite the same as having your own parents/ siblings etc. and I wouldn't say that I am particularly close with them. Although I love her and don't have a reason to think something would split us up, I am conscious of the fact that "life can happen" and things can be unpredictable. This was a sobering thought as I realised that if anything did happen, I would be utterly alone. I would have no-one to pick me up if I had to go to hospital, no one to help if I was sick, no one to call if I was having a bad day. The list goes on and it's scary. Moreover, one person cannot be absolutely everything and I don't want to place any burden on her she shouldn't have to shoulder. It is something I have become acutely aware of lately.
You might ask how did I get here? The primary reason is that I, along with my siblings were raised in a highly abusive household. As soon as we got old enough, we got the heck out of dodge. This is the short version of course and have only in the last few years gone n/c with my father as finally became too destructive (as much as I really didn't want to). I have some very infrequent contact with some siblings but for the most part we have scattered to the four winds. I think for some of us, seeing each other again reminds us of the past and would rather move on. As for extended family, they were never really interested or didn't want to get involved so buried their heads in the sand. Adversely, I had many friendships throughout high school and university. However, I lost them all due to constantly moving chasing work in distant cities with my GF. I had kind of a "run away" complex and maintaining friendships with people I grew up got harder to maintain from the other side of the state. Some close friendships I regret that I was also responsible for jeopardising.
Since then, I've been trying to network more with people and create friendships but wow it is difficult. I've tried local clubs, trivia nights at the local but people seem to already have a core set of friends or are simply on different wavelengths. I have tried meetups, friendship apps but they are a minefield of volatile personalities or have nothing in common. I have managed to make a casual friend but we are not close and I'd consider him closer to a drinking buddy than a good friend.
Has anyone been in this spot that could give me some advice? How do I become independent and gain grounding in creating a circle of supportive relationships that aren't just my GF?
tl;dr: My question is how do I create a network of supportive relationships from almost nothing?
[link] [comments]
* This article was originally published here
No comments:
Post a Comment