Have you ever wondered why you are attracting the same kind of partner in your life? Why does this keep happening to me you ask yourself and your friends? Several glasses of wine later and no clearer about what is going on!
I have been there myself and it is incredibly frustrating…especially when you start a new relationship full of hope that this time it will be different…he or she will be the one…only for it to end up the same way as before and it was just a variation on a theme of previous experiences.
So what is happening and more importantly why do we pursue such relationships when perhaps somewhere inside us we know that they are doomed to frustration, humiliation, failure. And sometimes incredible heartache? Well to think about this phenomenon in psychological terms we have a couple of options. Freud described this behaviour as a “repetition compulsion”…interesting to say and easy to understand! Ha Ha 🙂
A repetition compulsion is an unconscious automatic psychological defence. So because it is unconscious quite often we don’t know it’s happening and therefore it can undermine and sabotage every relationship we have. However, when it happens repeatedly we can be curious with ourselves and think…Mmmm what is happening here that I might be contributing to? Why am I falling for people that are emotionally unavailable, married, violent, unfaithful, self –involved, emotionally demanding? The great news is that it isn’t just bad karma…how demoralising would that be if it were and we couldn’t do anything to change it!
However, the hard news sometimes to bear is that you are playing a role in creating what is happening…because through the compulsion to repeat…we are trying to win the early battle to be loved. Or undo our own personal history and attempt to make it different in the present. This one will leave his wife for me…my father will finally adore me in the way I wanted him to and put me first…This man cannot bear to live without me…if only my parents or a parental figure had adored me in the way I wanted them to… I will stop her drinking…I will protect my mother and make it okay…If I take care of her she will love me back…I took care of my mother and it was always about her.
The history we try and re-write is the troubled or unsatisfactory relationship with our parents. Mistakenly, as children we conclude that the issues that the parent is experiencing is something to do with us, I am not loveable enough, I am too much, I need to look after them more…and we believe that if we only change who we are then the issue will disappear and we will be loved and accepted. We then take this burden that we have carried for years into our relationships, yet instead of creating an experience that is different, we cling to what we know, what feels safe and familiar and in the hope that this time it will be different J
It is not about placing blame as even the most committed, loving parents are not perfect and chances are they would have gone through this too. So long as we cling to the hope that it will be different, we avoid what James Masterson calls “The abandonment depression”, the realisation that with the parental figure it won’t be different, and we cannot have those years back. Yet where we can find hope is through our understanding of what we are re-creating for ourselves, the repeat of the same painful experiences time and time again and through understanding the characteristics that we are “attracted” too that are like our parents, we have an opportunity to work towards inviting something different into our lives.
Mmm okay yet when I have had different I haven’t found him/her as attractive, it’s not exciting, feels quite boring…sound familiar? If we take commitment as our example here and link into last week’s blog that looked at the anima and animus…these responses are likely to be coming from the non-committed animus or male within. If you have experienced one or both parents as lacking in commitment towards you or displaying non-committal behaviour then it is likely that this will be part of your identity. And as a way of trying to protect you or maintain the status quo, the non-committal aspect within you will do its best to convince you that the other, if they are offering you commitment, or behaving compassionately/caring or in some way different to what you are used to is in some way not right, not exciting. Part of the thrill and the desire is the potential for it to be an alternative experience…finally I will be loved and desired this time in the way I have longed for.
It is usually the inner feminine that can spot the warning signs…usually those that we chose to ignore as our commitment afraid animus steps in to try and protect us from the very thing that we long for and at the same time that we are afraid of…love and commitment.
The healing comes through the initial task of recognising those characteristics that you are drawn to, what this means for you in terms of creating a loving, authentic and meaningful relationship, and the fears associated with having what you long for. It may be the disappointment, rejection, heartache that you may have experienced originally and that sadly through trying to protect yourself, you are repeating.
The next step is then to listen to what you might be ignoring and allow the inner feminine ( whether you are male or female) to be heard, to have a voice and to take a stand in offering yourself something different within the relationship – the relationship you offer to you- this is ultimately the place where things can be different!
Most importantly..through your own journey of discovery..be kind and true to you as inside you is where true love can begin 🙂