This morning I started to think about the changes I have gone through in life and how, in some ways, I have become a better person, while in others I have a lot of work to do. Then I started thinking about the events that led me to make changes or changed how I saw things. That reminded me of the whole situation surrounding Heather and I came to a realization. If I look at the bad relationships I have had, and I mean the truly bad ones, I was supposedly the guy who was the first “nice guy” for each one of those ladies. When you look at their history before me they were always in abusive relationships.

This kind of hit home for me because, while I was never like the guys I am thinking of, I was a real ass for a long time. I am not at all proud of what I was or what I did, and I also realize I will never be able to undo what I did. On the other hand I realize that I probably got in to some of those relationships to try to make up for what I was. In the case of Heather, for example, I absolutely felt like I deserved what I got. I remember thinking that when we were together. Looking back it was absolutely insane, but it was how I felt at the time.

If I look at the pattern of these relationships I realize I was trying to “help” these women. In some cases I was helping them out of abusive relationships. In others I was trying to help them get back on their feet. In some cases I was just hoping to help these women realize they deserved better. But when you get right down to it, I don’t think I really helped any of them.

I won’t go in to specifics for most of the relationships out of respect for the women involved, but I will try to explain it using Heather as an example since neither she, nor our relationship, are worthy of my respect.

First, when we met she had nothing. I mean that literally. She had just returned to Texas after getting away from not one, but two, total losers. The love triangle she left consisted of the father of one of her children who beat her so badly when she was pregnant that the baby was born with serious disabilities, and the “gentleman” who introduced her to crack, pimped out at least two women after they got addicted, and either planned on turning her out. Heck, for all I know she was turned out by the guy.

So when she came back she had nothing. She had left almost everything she had behind. And her only option when she got here was to live with her ex-husband and his wife. Now, keep in mind, the reason he took her in was because he was still in love with her. Hell, he chose the subdivision they lived in because it had the “Heather’ in the name. (Not sure how his new wife felt about that). Not that he wasn’t an abusive ass too. Yes, he beat her as well.

Needless to say she had lousy self image. She didn’t think she was worthy of a decent guy. (OK, put aside for the moment our relationship and the fact it seems to confirm that, in fact, she wasn’t worthy of a decent guy, even if I am not a decent guy, as some would argue.)

So here we have a woman who has nothing, was used to being abused and who thought she only deserved assholes. So, naturally, I was in full Captain Save-a-ho mode and tried to remedy all of those things. And what, exactly, was the end result? I lost so much weight people assumed I was ill, I was hit on more than one occasion, I was almost arrested for having the gall to try to stop her from hitting me AGAIN and I was out several thousand dollars.

And what did she end up with? She went back to the guy who beat her when she was pregnant (with the assistance of the ex who also beat her). He did it again and she ended up in the hospital. She also ended up with nothing as she ended up having to abandon most of what I had given her to get away from him. I’d say we can safely say from this story that I failed in all three of my goals to make her life better.

So what is the lesson here? I could say that when you get right down to it people can only help themselves, and that is true for the most part, but there’s another lesson. To a certain degree you can tell a lot about someone by the people they chose to get serious with before. (Yes, I realize this also makes me undateable.) If someone has always been in shitty relationships, that is probably what they are going to be used to. And if you don’t give them what they are used to you will be lucky if they just dump you. It seems like they try to turn the relationship you have in to what they have always had.

I am not saying that you can’t give people a chance if they have made mistakes in the past. But I will say that, if there’s a pattern, you can probably expect that there’s a reason for it.