The Problem Must Be Me

That said, I don't know what to do about it.

Every single time I dare to love, the person is an alcoholic, or abusive, or aggressive, or suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or from Depression, or has little to no self-esteem. Or is afflicted with some combination of the aforementioned problems.

And so, it doesn't work.

The two times I have fallen in love with someone who did not fall into one of the above-listed categories, I sabotaged my own success. First, of course, with S, and then with my feelings for D, whom I didn't even tell I cared for until after I had married, assuming that L was the love of his life, that I had no chance, that I wasn't worthy, or whatever.

I want to know what I need to do.

How do I go about either falling back in love and helping to fix a man that war and trauma and love and life and children and disappointment have broken, or find the strength to let that fragile soul go, and move on?

What am I supposed to do with me? How do I solve the problem that I am, since I keep finding the broken people, people I cannot fix. People who cannot really love or give freely of themselves, weighted down as they are by despair and affliction?