Many relationships begin when someone wants to be rescued from their life, like Cinderella who found her prince. One way to jack up your self-esteem is to be the hero for someone else. Lenny, the hero of Super Sad True Love Story admits he has a history of dating abused women that he can rescue, which then feeds his frail ego. 
What I notice in working with heroes, heroines & victims, is that it is a successful strategy for all of them to avoid their own lives. Whether you are the rescuer or the victim, in reality, the answers are to be found only in your own life.
It is much easier to leave a bad marriage when another person represents the light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. That is the simple truth of why so many people leave that way. It is much more difficult to leave a marriage without the comfort of someone else by your side. The right thing to do is always the hard thing to do. Go it alone & face the loneliness.
Everyone deserves to get dumped for who they are not because there is someone else.
A lot of hero energy is out of our awareness. We just want to be good people. We want to help people. We want someone else to have a better life. Maybe, a better life has to be earned through hard struggle.
I’ve always believed that the struggle of life matters. We grow to embrace greater depth of character from figuring out how to cope with loneliness, financial devastation & our kids, whose hearts are broken. The sum total of our lives is dependant on all of our choices.
Give up the rescue idea & decide to rescue yourself. Rescue is built upon the very shaky foundation of illusions. Illusions have very little to do with the harshness of reality. Illusions are so powerful, especially in the very beginnings of romance.
You look up your old high school sweetheart on Facebook & feelings entangle you in all kinds of schemes to get together again, because that’s the person you are “meant” to be with. There are lots of romantic ideas about this other person & you feel as if you know them because history is just that powerful.
Remember that feelings are not facts & try hard to resist their seductiveness, because that has almost nothing to do with reality. Remind yourself that feelings alone are not the secret path to truth. The path of truth is built on the power of thinking & feeling together.
