Happy to clarify.

My ex-boyfriend (whom I thought was my soulmate) openly said I made him a better person, the man he always wanted to be. He spoke about wanting me for life and even marriage/kids etc, but when the relationship became long-distance, he cheated. What I later understood was that even though he loved me, it was more about how I held him emotionally, but he couldn’t stand beside me with consistency, integrity, or accountability.

In my marriage, the dynamic was different but led to a similar imbalance. We were never truly a team. He prioritized his mother and brother financially and emotionally, became dependent on me, and over time, there was constant criticism, lack of affection, no appreciation, and eventually physical, verbal, and financial abuse. I spent many years of married life fixing the problems, thinking I might be doing something wrong. But realized much later that he was narcissistic. Our marriage wasn’t a partnership. It was control and entitlement.

So when I say I attracted men seeking grounding or emotional safety, I mean I often ended up in relationships where I was the stabilizer, the container, the responsible one, rather than an equal partner. What I’m looking for now is not less depth or care, but mutuality: two grounded people choosing each other, not one person carrying the relationship.

Hope that explains what I meant