by Katherine Woodward Thomas
Was your last boyfriend a real jerk?
Did he lie to you, flirt with other women, or berate you?
Maybe you’re kicking yourself for staying too long in a situation that took you away from your sense of worth and your values.
Did he ghost you? Cheat on you? Tell you that he didn’t love you after you gave your heart and soul to him?
And, more to the point…when you look at your relational history, do you notice that something similar has actually happened to you before? Perhaps more than once?
You may tell yourself you’re not going to get involved with someone like THAT ever again. But somehow, you end up having the same types of issues in your next relationship.
It can make you feel as if you can’t trust yourself.
If you’re still picking up the pieces after being left in shambles after yet another bad relationship, you may be starting to wonder:
Is your picker off?
Or are you just a magnet for toxic men?
It’s Like Groundhog Day, And You Feel Powerless
Sometimes we can attract the same relationship dynamics, no matter how much work we do on ourselves, or how much we try to avoid them.
Let’s say that based on what happened to you in the past, you’ve decided you’re done with narcissistic, self-absorbed people. Your strategy, therefore, is to stay vigilant and avoid anyone who seems like a narcissist.
You meet a new man, and at first he seems thoughtful and attentive. He takes you on special dates, he’s a great conversationalist, and you have a lot in common.
After a few weeks, you’re completely smitten. He’s so unlike anyone else you’ve met. He seems to have all the qualities you want in a partner, and he’s really into you.
But over time, things change. HE changes.
He doesn’t seem in tune with what you’re feeling or what you want. Even when you try to let him know, he conveniently forgets the things you tell him. He expects you to unquestioningly support him on everything and never seems to care about supporting what you want in return. He becomes critical of you, and begins blaming you for all of the problems in your relationship.
Before long, you realize, it’s happening again! You’ve ended up in yet another relationship where you feel like your needs, thoughts, and feelings don’t matter.
It’s like a scene from the movie Groundhog Day, where you wake up to a new day only to realize you’re re-living the same day. No matter what you do, you always seem to end up with the same unwanted outcome.
Again with someone who’s controlling, selfish, punishing, or emotionally distant—even though you told yourself you didn’t want to get involved with anyone like that ever again.
How does this keep happening to you when you’re so careful to avoid it?
Because as much as you think you don’t want to experience the pain, you’re actually co-creating the conditions that make painful outcomes inevitable.
What Keeps You “Safe” Can Also Keep You In Pain
It’s very likely that the pattern of bad luck in relationships isn’t something that’s happening to you. It’s happening THROUGH you.
What I mean by that is YOU are the source of the pattern.
It’s not that men change once you fall in love with them.
It’s not that you’re cursed.
It’s not just random bad luck.
You are actually co-creating the painful, sad story of love and loss. And you’re doing it without consciously knowing you’re doing it.
Seeing this clearly and taking responsibility for your negative pattern is your first step to accessing the power you’ll need to change the pattern. As long as you’re in victim mode, or blaming a lack of luck or other people for your pain, you’ll never make different choices in order to break the pattern.
Let’s say you’ve identified your pattern as always being in relationships with self-absorbed or narcissistic people, where it’s all about them and your feelings don’t matter.
That’s a painful pattern, for sure.
To step out of victim mode, ask yourself what it is about this pattern that’s safe or seductive to you?
When you look from this perspective, you may find that in relationships, you’re more comfortable putting other people’s needs first. You do this because you source your value from being there for others. It makes you feel safe to take care of someone else, and to disregard your own feelings in the process.
Maybe it feels safe to disregard your feelings and needs first because you unconsciously believe that if you asked for what you want and then didn’t get it, it would prove that others don’t care about you.
So it’s safer to not even take the risk. It’s safer to stay in giving mode and not expect anything in return.
Perhaps in your family of origin it wasn’t safe to express your needs because you were punished or rejected if you did. You were being trained, in a way, to make yourself smaller and disregard yourself.
But now, all these years later, when you don’t take the risk to share your feelings and needs with someone you’re dating, you’re in a sense training them to be selfish too.
You’re literally training them to disregard you in ways similar to how you were disregarded as a child.
You don’t admit that, deep down, you’re hurting, lonely, or unhappy until it’s too late.
The unconscious strategy that your mind created to keep you safe in the past is now creating the opposite effect.
It’s Time To Evolve Beyond Your Unhealthy Patterns
Here’s the thing: you are not responsible for what happened to you in childhood. But as an adult, you are the one who is now responsible for evolving beyond your unhealthy ways of relating.
To do this, you must first take yourself out of victim mode and learn how to recognize your patterns clearly, then take action to make different choices in order to break the pattern.
Identifying your negative relationship patterns and then evolve beyond those patterns and into the kind of love life your heart is longing for.
Signal your unconscious to move forward, take transformative risks, and stretch yourself toward the creation of something new in your life.
Move from a pattern of meeting unavailable men and getting heartbroken again and again, to meeting my husband, getting married, and starting a family.
Learn to set bold intentions that will help you actively start co-creating with the creative energies of life, as though you were weaving the tapestry of your beautiful love story into existence.
You aren’t doomed to keep repeating the same sad, heartbreaking patterns in love. You certainly aren’t doomed to being alone for the rest of your life.
Remember, life is happening through you, not to you.
Life will show up for you to the extent that you show up for yourself.
Lots of love and bye for now,
P.S. The reason it’s so easy to fall into an old pattern, even when we tell ourselves we’re going to do it differently next time, is because most of our behaviors are on autopilot and originate from our unconscious.
Look for your automatic, unconscious behaviors and choices that are creating your fate, then make new ones to bring youself the love you desire.