Hey Crystal,
First of all, you’re doing an amazing job!! You’re here & your safe 🙂 so well done.

I’ve recently been through a similar situation with my ex, we split in June last year. I was similar to you, in terms of wanting something/someone outside of myself to “fill the empty gap within me”, my relationship with my mother isn’t great either & can relate to 90% of your story.
I’m not going to sit here & say that it’s easy, because it has quite easily been one of my biggest challenges in life, I feel quite annoyed at myself, because I lost my Nan & Grandad a few years ago & I’m sure this feeling has been worse! Anyway, you’ve acknowledged this situation & the triggers you have, which is so amazing! Being aware means you’re half way there! I think one of the main things that has helped me through funnily enough is therapy but mainly meditation. Have you tried it? There’s an app called Headspace which is a good place to start. If you haven’t heard of meditation in the unstigmatised way, it’s basically realising & acknowledgibg your emotions/feelings, sitting with them & not making a story out of them. So realising you feel sad. Even saying it… I feel sad, I am sad, you might cry.. but you don’t need to think “I fell sad because of my ex boyfriend & what happened & how I feel about myself &…” – make a story out of it. You’re sad, just accept it. Meditation really helps with this – it doesn’t happen overnight, they say it takes 21 days to form a habit but I’d say after 2 months I was witnessing a different side to me whereby I stopped making these stories in my mind & I stopped ruminating about ‘what ifs’ & what I should’ve or could’ve done.
As for my self love I realised I had none & I beat myself up a bit, played the victim, but I realised that got me absolutely nowhere as I still felt the same if not worse than before. I owned the fact that yes I left him get away with far more than he should’ve & I put myself second but at the moment I came to that realisation was so powerful because I knew I would find & use the tools & techniques to heal myself.
Before I would seek a new relationship in the hope that someone could fix the parts that, quite frankly, I couldn’t be bothered to fix myself & I got myself back into a circle with another man who hurt me just as much as the one before. So I cut off all expectations of potential lovers & started, & still am, concertrating solely on myself.
The books I have read have been very powerful & on many occasions I find myself crying in the pages, but I just let it flow.. Usually after 5 minutes I tend to feel released & continue reading (what that fly on the wall must say about me!) I will paste an acceptance quote on her after (don’t want to lose this that I’ve wrote).
Please know that there are no overnight cures (at least I’m yet to find them) & that this is all a working progress (it’s been 8 months for me) & that you get out of it what you put in. So if this is a real problem for you, which sounds like it is, perseverance is key.. just keep going. Those patterns through meditation & work will subside & you’ll come out the other side more awakened. I hope I’ve covered your question, let me know yours thoughts?

The books that have helped me are:
Barbara de angelis – how did I get here?
Brené brown – the gifts of imperfection
Harriet Lerner – the dance of anger
Kristin Neff – self compassion

Well done on where you’re at, you’re doing an amazing job!