Saviour and Martyr Complex in people who love too much

The need to be needed

Devoted attachment to someone who is not good for us is based on childhood experiences. This comes with roles we adopted in our families.

As we denied our own needs, we had to look after others or put their needs first in the family. Due to our home situation, Being an older child with a single parent, or perhaps having a parent who had addictions or illnesses, wr had to look after others.

Alternatively if we were brought up by authoritarian parents, we were afraid to speak up because we feared consequences. Neither our parents nor we could protect ourselves, because we needed to be strong.

For this reason our needs for love, attention and safety were not met to avoid being needy. To show our strength we had to keep looking for opportunities to occupy ourselves with the needs of others.

We have been pretending to be grown up for so long, we feel like it is too late to have our own needs met. We cannot acknowledge our own fear and pain and ask for help. So we help and nurture others hoping for love.

We now confuse what feels good and what feels bad as the same due, to growing up in unhappy homes.

Because our home life was unmanageable due to someone struggling in the family , we made heroic efforts that lead our family to depend on us. We saw this as love.

Our competence which is felt by the gratitude we get from others overshadows our fear and the burden of responsibility.

When we are children and treated as indispensable, we feel elated and accomplished. We feel like saviours rising above difficulties and chaos to rescue our loved ones with courage.

The only problem is the saviour complex requires a crisis to function. Without stress and chaos, we become emotionally overwhelmed.

We were children with noone, though everyone had us. We earned approval and a sense of worth by working hard taking care of others while being martyrs.

What we do now

We become magnets for people who spell trouble.

We might then gravitate towards partners who come and go because you do not look for qualities that determine compatibility. You might go for looks.

We might be intelligent, attractive and capable, but get into relationships fraught with pain and hardship.

We gravitate towards men whose mothers get involved in their lives and relationships or enable them.

The men might we see , might also see other women while we keep giving them chances.

We might threaten breaking up so that they fear losing us.

We do not accommodate men who are healthy for fear of losing the men who are needy and erratic.

What to do

Look into similarities between your life as an adult and your life as a child.

Heal and parent your inner child.

Learn to ask for and accept help instead of being independent.

SIFTSEM your feelings and decisions.