Some women are attracted to men who cause them suffering. Sad experience teaches nothing: against their will, they again fall into the same traps. It’s not about bad karma or destined fate, but about relationships that were in childhood with significant adults, especially with the mother. Explains the American publicist Peg Streep.
“Three failed marriages! It seemed to me that I figured everything out, made the necessary conclusions, and here you go! Picked another bad guy again! I’ve had enough of this already! It poisons my life!»
“Sometimes I wonder if I should meet someone. But I immediately stop myself. It was too difficult to recover after another partner broke my heart. Every time everything repeats again.
“At 46, I finally made the decision to wait for nothing and be alone. I don’t have the strength to hope and be disappointed again.»
I usually hear such stories from women who have already or almost despaired of finding happiness in their personal lives. Many of them admit that the men who attract them have obviously unpleasant features, such as pronounced narcissism, the desire to control a partner, and rudeness.
But, alas, «good guys» of such women are not attracted. Here is a characteristic confession of one of them: “Intellectually, I understand that Steve is a wonderful person: kind, predictable, modest. But the longer we are together with him, the more I yearn for Bill, who attracted me so much, despite his endless lies and dishonesty. I’m bored with Steve. Do I really need someone who hurts?
We make connections and allies with those who resemble our parents.
Many women who were not loved by their mothers ask such questions. They are always afraid of being abandoned or rejected. This makes them emotionally unstable. Some of them believe that they managed to free themselves from the influence, and are trying with all their might to leave the family past behind. One may rationalize the mother’s behavior, still hoping one day to know what her love is.
But there are those who understand that they need help. They go to therapy to understand how childhood experiences have affected them. They are best assisted by psychotherapists who are well versed in child development, attachment theory, and working with psychological trauma. Here are the possible reasons that may lead women into the arms of those who make them suffer.
1. She focuses on the familiar. Of course, this applies not only to unloved daughters. We are all unconsciously drawn to what we are familiar with: we are drawn to people, situations, and relationships that are reminiscent of our earliest life experiences. Studies show that we connect and form alliances with those who remind us of our parents.
If your parents loved and protected you, made you feel that the world is a safe place, that people can be trusted, then most likely you will choose a nice person as your partner who will confirm this feeling. Alas, the daughters of such mothers will look for a comfort zone in which there is no comfort.
2. She lives in illusions. A man must win a woman — this idea is largely shaped by our culture. A woman often takes signs of attention and gifts (here he is, the prince who will turn Cinderella into a princess!) For a sincere interest in her, she sees a desire to better know and understand her as a person behind her stormy courtship. Unfortunately, (nice) guys who aren’t so pushy seem boring or unsexy to her.
3. She takes drama for passion. Psychologist Craig Malkin, in his book Narcissism Revisited, makes an important point: “The unknown turns us on in love relationships.” This is especially true for women who have learned from childhood that love must be earned, it must be fought, it must be achieved, that it is never given just like that. And when negative feelings arise — anger, pain, fear — she tends to mistake her suffering for passion.
Alas, this is not a very healthy thing. Rollercoaster rides are exciting, but love and devotion have nothing to do with it.
4. She turns a blind eye to how she is being treated. If in childhood she was used to being rudely spoken to, the good attitude of her parents had to be earned by obedience, then, as an adult, she may not notice that her partner humiliates or she neglects her needs and desires.
Mothers who neglect their children may tell them that their feelings are not important or valuable.
We all tend to accept our experiences as normal, and many of us tend to underestimate the depth of our emotional wounds. I usually draw an analogy with a picture that can be observed in many homes: we get so used to boots and shoes lying in the front that we stop seeing them. Unloved daughters also do not see that they are being manipulated or insulted.
5. She tends to blame herself for everything. Her attitude to self-criticism was also formed in childhood: either she was directly told that she was to blame for everything, or she developed this way of coping with different situations. And now she would rather blame herself for failures than her partner. Situation: you are flying somewhere together, and for some reason your partner is sullenly silent or answers with great irritation. Do you hurry to tell yourself that this is not the time to impose on him with conversations, because you know that he is tired?
6. She doesn’t trust her feelings. Controlling, aggressive mothers or mothers with pronounced narcissistic personality traits are masterful at shifting their own blame onto their children. Daughters, for example, are told that they are too sensitive or abnormal, causing them to doubt their own adequacy. As a result, daughters do not trust their thoughts and feelings.
Mothers who neglect their children may tell their daughters that their feelings are not important or valuable. In the future, they are likely to give the partner the right to decide everything for them. They are also very vulnerable to manipulation and allow themselves to be controlled.
7. She does not understand the reasons for her insecurity. Having become an adult, she continues to unconsciously seek the love that she did not get in childhood. But if such love looms on the horizon, she, with a high probability, will not be able to recognize it.
8. She doesn’t have a healthy relationship model. Even if she begins to understand what an unhealthy relationship is, the idea of uXNUMXbuXNUMXbhealthy relationships still remains beyond her imagination. This is where psychotherapy can help.
9. She doesn’t know what love is and what it means to love. This is perhaps the biggest problem of all. If you grew up believing that love is to be pursued, earned, and paid for in one way or another, you will think that a relationship built on such conditions is love.
The feeling of being rejected hurts no less than the lack of motherly love.
Similarly, if you grew up believing that love makes a person vulnerable and often hurts, you are more likely to accept a relationship in which the partner allows himself to treat you badly. But you can still discover secure attachment. Psychotherapy or a close relationship with a partner you can trust and feel safe around will help you do this.
10. She is afraid to be alone. As children, it seems to them that their case is unique, they are the only children whom their mothers do not love, and this feeling of their own rejection, it seems to me, hurts no less than the lack of motherly love.
Since they have not received approval and support from their mother, and often from the rest of the family, they continue to look for people who will help them feel good. And therefore, to remain alone means to confirm what she heard about herself in childhood: that she is not loved by anyone, not valuable, inferior. To avoid these experiences, she can start a relationship that only confirms all these negative fabrications about her.