“Those who do not remember
past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana
“Why do I always wind up with wrong person? I want someone who is kind, loving, reliable and open. Yet my relationships are always with men who are angry, hostile, emotionally unavailable and cannot keep a job.”
“I want a woman who is emotionally stable and independent, but I always wind up with women who are overly dramatic, tend to hysteria and depend on me to make their decisions.”
These are common problems brought to me by clients. They blame bad luck, coincidence or accident for winding up with exact opposite of type of person they say they prefer in a relationship.
One very attractive female marketing manager in her mid thirties agonized - “If I went to a party and there were fifty men in room - and 49 were college graduates who were business or professional men - and 50th was a high-school dropout with a felony police record - number 50 and I would somehow find each other.”
We make our relationship choices based on life experiences accumulated from childhood. We subconsciously integrate these experiences and react from them to current situations.
Children’s psyches are like unwritten slates. The messages we receive from our parents are stored upon them as if etched in stone. We internalize these messages and accept them without question as we mature because in child’s mind, mommy and daddy - who are our ultimate authority figures - said it is so!
When a little girl has a father who is physically present but emotionally absent and does not provide her with love and nurturing she needs, she will grow up with a big empty space in her heart where that love should have been. The message - although unspoken - tells her that she is not important and not deserving of love.
This little girl will subconsciously seek a man with her father’s rejecting characteristics - so she can relive her initial relationship - and this time she will win.
