[*Anya*]

The past is never dead. It's not even past.”

― William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun

I was not going to post in this thread as it is open to the public and I do have a tendency to be a little too open at times. It works for me in the listening to each other thread but perhaps not a public one.

I will say that I have no idea how to set the bar high or, even, how to set it too low.

The premise of the thread is "...does setting the bar high help one to have a healthy, lasting, romantic relationship" (if I read it correctly).

I have not ever had one, so how could I know?

I think that my picker is broken and, in spite of long-term therapy and a great deal of insight gained: I still do not pick someone that is good for me.

Next month it will be a year that I gathered my courage to walk out of an emotionally abusive relationship that was one month shy of 4 years. I still have tapes in my head of all of the things that she would tell me that she did not like about me or my person.

It had taken years to finally turn off the tapes from my parents but then I picked someone just as good at it as they were.

My 19 year relationship was not like that but it was negative in a different way.

No need to rehash that.

I used to blame both of my exes after the relationships were over for a multitudes of issues that caused us to fail as couples; but I don't do that anymore.

I picked them. My deficits drew me to them. That is not their fault. They were who and what they are.

What is my bar? I have no idea. I truly fear that I would not know or be attracted to a healthy relationship if I fell over it.

Here I go being brutally honest again.