Destructive Relationships: Why Don’t We End Them?

Although you try to fix it, you still end up having to face the same profile of people in your relationship. Those which fill you with discomfort, obsessions and with which you form destructive relationships. Have you ever wondered why you attract these people who don’t suit you  ? Does this amount to bad luck? Not at all. What happens to you has a name and is known as the vicious cycle of re-traumatization.

When we repeat the same torque pattern once and then another, something is happening. In fact, people don’t come to us for no reason, we choose and attract them for a good reason. Instead of shouting halt, we invite them to come into our life. There is something about them that attracts us, although sooner or later history will repeat itself …

What do we overlook when we are falling in love? What mistakes do we make when getting to know someone? Finding the answers requires more than just observing the way we behave when meeting a person. You actually have to go back to childhood. For some reason, we are repeating our past and reliving what once hurt us.

Laura’s story and her destructive relationships

Laura is an 18-year-old who began to experience her first romantic relationships. She had low self-esteem and found through social media and chats that some people might be interested in her. Thus, she fell in love with the first boy who noticed her on the networks. Although at first her physique was not to her liking, she thought that over time this might change.

This boy cheated on Laura. She discovered several messages on her phone giving dates to other girls and telling them “what did I like the other day”. But she decided to keep quiet, until she was no longer in power. The relationship was ruined but before it even broke Laura already had a new person to date. Someone who was married. Someone with whom she cheated on the couple who had cheated on her herself.

Laura’s relationships were all disastrous and she didn’t realize that she was causing this situation herself. She never gave herself time to be alone and started relationships without actually pleasing the person she was with. She was deceiving herself. She did not feel love but a need for approval and a search so as not to find herself alone.

All of Laura’s relationships were destructive and repeated in the same pattern. The people she entered into a relationship with were married or ended up being unfaithful. In fact, Laura was involved in relationships where her partner would pull away from her, leave her alone, replace her with someone else, cheat on her and lie to her… Where could that come from?

Laura had experienced a family situation where her father cheated on her mother. The latter allowed it and at one point, she did the same. Her parents were on the verge of divorce, but they eventually stayed together. After 20 years of living together, they finally separated for good. Laura’s mother had always felt cheated, alone, as if she was “the other”. His father had always cheated on his mother and constantly led a double life. He even had a child with one of his other relationships.

Breaking the vicious circle of re-traumatization

Laura was unaware of the impact her home environment had had on her. In her relationships, she chose partners similar to her father. In a way, she relived this loneliness, this feeling of being the other and the fears she had experienced during her childhood.

Attracting the same thing once and then again is nothing more than a warning signal that should allow people to be aware of what is going on and to make decisions accordingly. Blaming others will not help us in the face of what is happening. We are responsible for our own life and we are the only ones who can decide how to experience it.

This is not a simple situation. Laura, for example, could have taken the opposite point of view, thinking that it was better to be alone so as not to have to deal with people who might hurt her. In this way, she would reject any improvement in the couple although she would stop perpetuating the pattern she had followed until then. She would limit herself and probably not be happy.

For this, it is important not to fall into extremes. It is important to find a balance, to see what is not working, to analyze the mistakes that we make that push us to develop destructive relationships. All of this is very important for building our relationships.

We can get out of destructive relationships. For this we must first be aware of the trauma that lives in us and that marks us. Our only goal is to overcome it.

Let us not blame people, do not act like victims and do not comply. With a decision, we can change the course we had been on until then. Now are we ready to face the fear of change?

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