 How did the beauty and the beast lyrics go again? Oh yes, a tale as old as time. For years, this Walt Disney classic has been teaching young people that you can find somebody broken, get with them, and through your love and devotion, you can change them and find the amazing person that's inside. But how true is this? Using a more modern reference, kind of, but not really, let's look at She's All That, this story of a young Freddie Prince Jr., who's the job big man on campus, and he takes a bet to turn young Rachel Lee Cook, this little nerdy girl, into the prom queen. But through this experience, he turns into this amazing, good-hearted man who falls in love with Rachel Lee Cook. But the reality is, is that this doesn't happen, and usually it happens a little more like this. So in this video, we're going to talk about why you need to quit dating broken people. What's up, everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul, where we talk about the problem, but focus on the solution. And if you are new here, my channel is all about helping people who struggle with mental or emotional difficulties. I also do some stuff on addiction recovery. But today we are talking about why you, yes, you, need to quit dating broken people. Much like I said in the intro, this is something that so many people do. And it's something that we've kind of been trained to believe we can do since we were very, very young. I use examples of Beauty and the Beast and She's All That, but fun fact about Chris, I actually am a huge fan of romantic comedies. I just am, don't know why. But anyways, growing up, I was watching these movies or TV shows about how you can date somebody and you can change them. And the reality is, is that a lot of times we can't. What you need to realize is people are very set in their ways. Now, this is somewhat contradictory to other videos I've done about neuroplasticity. We all have the ability to change, but getting somebody to change on their own is one of the most difficult things that you can do. And what happens is we end up getting into a lot of very, very toxic relationships. We find somebody who's broken and I think on a subconscious level, we think that we're going to get this huge achievement in relationships when we date the bad boy or the broken girl and we loved them so much that they ended up turning into what the beast turned into, this amazing prince charming. But that often doesn't happen. And the problem is, and you might be able to relate to this, we stay in these relationships way past their expiration date. We stick around and we're like, no, no, no, no. Once they change, I know everything will be fine. And the law that we tell ourselves is that we cling on to these very small, very minuscule instances where this person did something kind or they did something for us. They did something that was very out of character. And we cling to this idea of if they could just do that more, then they would be the perfect person. But the problem is a lot of times that doesn't happen. Now, I know I'm going to get a lot of backlash for this video and I will be making a follow up video for this. So please make sure that you subscribe and hit the notification bell because there's a lot of broken people out there probably wondering like, Chris, you're saying that I'm broken and I shouldn't date anybody. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is it is not your responsibility to fix anybody. I am coming from a place where I did nothing but date broken women my entire life. A lot of it stemmed from my childhood on a psychological level. I am the child of an alcoholic mother. I could never fix her. So I was always trying to look for women that I could fix. But in order to fix something, you have to find something that's broken. The problem was I spent years and years and years dating people who had emotional baggage, mental health issues, childhood trauma. And I was going to be the one who saved them and showed them that some men are good and not everybody out there is terrible and I can help fix you. But the problem was that I dated these women for so long that eventually it took its toll on my own mental and emotional well-being. The problem with this too is that we purposely date these people who are broken thinking that we can fix them and then we don't eventually, maybe it happens in a few months. But most of the time it takes a year or two years of us just being drugged through the mud before we finally end things whether it's from them or it's from us. And then we start getting into that self-pity mindset. We start thinking, oh, I'm never going to find love or all men or all women are just terrible and why can't I just find the right person? The reality is that we're never going to find the right person if we keep looking for a fixer-upper. I know that there's a lot of very good, well-natured people out there and you find that it's your duty to fix people who need help. But this isn't your responsibility. And take it from me. The whole reason I made this YouTube channel or the reason I work at a drug and alcohol treatment center that also specializes in mental illness is because I love helping people and helping them overcome their difficulties. But this is a job that I am paid to do. When it comes to my emotional and my personal life, that's not something that I have the energy or the emotional capacity to do on a regular basis. And the reality is a lot of you don't either. But sometimes what we do is we lie to ourselves. We say, I can deal with this. I can tolerate this. I can work with this. And typically we can during that honeymoon phase, the first month or two months, we're like, oh, she just has some quirks. She likes to trash my room or slit my tires. But it's just cute. Things like that. Or women out there, you're like dating the bad boy. And at first it's kind of fun. It's a little exciting and things like that. But after a couple months when that honeymoon phase is over, when the dopamine isn't firing as much as in your brain, you start becoming miserable, because this person is not changing. This is something I try to teach people all the time. Like don't make it your job in relationships to find people you have to fix. If you want to fix something, become a car mechanic, become a plumber. Hell, go build Lego sets and break them and put them back together. That's where you can get your fixer upper your energy out. It's not meant to be with people. So I am in the healthiest relationship I've ever been in with my wonderful girlfriend. We're coming up on a year together. And she's one of the first women that I've dated where she didn't need any work. She was just fine the way she was. And I talked about this a little bit ago in a video I did a few months ago. So make sure that you're checking out the info card. The video was titled like why I love crazy women. And I used to have this idea that women who had their stuff together, they were boring. And I needed somebody more feisty and stuff like that. But the reality was, was the more I chased these types of women, the more problems I was having and the more emotional and mental issues I was having, it made me turn to drugs and alcohol even more. So now, you know, I'm with somebody who doesn't need any work. And that's fine. That's okay. But we really need to start looking at ourselves and saying, why am I chasing these people who need to be fixed? As I mentioned, make sure you subscribe to my channel if you haven't yet hit that little notification bell, because I'm not saying that broken people are going to stay broken forever. I'm not saying that at all. But you have to realize that they are not in a mental or emotional state to date anybody. They cannot give you what you need. You need love, you need affection, you need attention. You need all of these things. And when you're constantly giving it and not receiving it, you start building resentments towards this person. We all have almost like a fuel tank of how much we can deal with. And it's completely full in the beginning. That's why a lot of us get into these bad relationships with broken people because we think we can handle it. When that fuel tank is completely filled, it's easy. But after months, years of going through this is draining and draining and draining. And now you're just stuck in this relationship. So if you have found out that you are someone who also dates broken people, I highly recommend that you start working on yourself. You start analyzing yourself through some of the methods that I've presented on the other videos on this channel, analyze yourself, say, where does this need to fix people come from? Like I mentioned, mine came from being the son of an alcoholic mother. Yours might come from somewhere else. A lot of ways to do this is through therapy, through meditation, through 12 step programs, whatever it is, you have to get down to that underlying issue. Something I will be making future videos on is codependency. A lot of people have codependency, but codependency is on this spectrum. So while you may not be on the severe end of it, you may have some of those traits that makes you hunt out and seek these people who need to be fixed because you find these people so you feel needed. If you feel needed that you have to provide for them, whether it's financially, mentally, emotionally, whatever it is, that's an issue. So I really want you to take a step back and look at this and ask yourself, why am I dating broken people? Why do I keep looking for this type of person? Once you can start realizing that and figuring that thing out, you'll start to notice that your relationships get a whole lot better. But anyways, I hope this video helped you out. I hope it gives you some clarity. If you liked it, please give it a thumbs up. And if you are new here, I'll say it once again, hit the little subscribe button right below this box right here because I'm always making videos to help you with your mental and emotional well-being. Also, be sure to click or tap on one of those thumbnails. Check out some of the other awesome videos on this channel. Thanks for watching. I'll see you next time.