emotionally unavailable.....

I think I am getting wiser, I seem to be able to look back at my life and see clearly some things that have shaped me and the choices I have made.

I remember being aware that men liked looking at me, I developed breasts by the time I was 11 or so and became very quickly aware that not all men had good intentions and that some men would take advantage.
Having your Dads friend put his hands down your shirt to feel your "heartbeat",  quickly makes a young girl aware that all men are not like Granddad who's hugs made you feel safe.....I was 11 by the way.

My ex is about 7 years older than I am, and he was "courting" me from the time I was 13.  Hindsight again, if only I had told someone........
I stayed in a marriage fraught with emotional and physical abuse because I thought I had no choice.  I made the decision to marry this man, against my family's wishes and I thought I deserved the punishment.  No woman does.  I don't have nightmares anymore,  about the beatings, the torture, the curses and the mental anguish.  There were some years when there was no physical abuse, but he made up for that with the emotional abuse.  I was always afraid of doing the wrong thing, in the end I became apathetic, weak, with no opinion what so ever ( my opinions always got me a slap).

 Its taken me alot of years to move on and it has left several scars, some of which are that  I don't trust easily, I am wary of anything that is too good to be true (even to the point of ruining a relationship with my ever constant fear of the unknown) and that I thought that all men think with their dicks.

I am not a man hater, far from it.  I love men, but I seem to look for emotionally unavailable men because that is what I was.  With this getting older and wiser thing I wonder, as I now can identify what I was doing wrong, will I be able to seek men who want to treat me right and not feel like its an alien encounter? Will I be able to open my heart and seek out the men who are balanced enough to give me space and want to be with me?

I sure hope so as being emotionally unavailable is fucking tiring!