[marymkearney]

Yeah, this. A lot of wise, learned-it-the-hard-way advice here.

Growing up with bullying and beatings, kinda wires your adult brain to seek out relationships with controlling people. That's its comfort zone, it doesn't know how else to be in the world.

One way to start rewiring, is to figure out what YOU want in a partner. I don't mean looks, but qualities and values and behaviors. Assume you had a relationship with a beauty - how would you want that beauty to ACT, toward you and toward others?

Sadly, physical perfection is a really inefficient criterion for your primary sort. It's fun for about a week ... but then you're stuck with whatever random stranger is behind the mask.

Could be that your manliness is just fine, but your picker needs a tune-up.