Nice people don't necessarily fall in love with nice people." Jonathan Franzen
If you have a tendency to think of psychology as “junk science” then get ready to have your beliefs confirmed. To understand why so many people get into relationships with people who are “bad” for them will require that you momentarily put aside logic and common sense.
Nobody consciously wants to get into a bad relationship; well at least the vast majority of people do not. However, attraction is not just, about what we want. Other factors are also at play, things like the subconscious, the familiar, feelings of deserve, and self-esteem.
We are all attracted to certain “types". It may be something physical for example; a woman may be attracted to olive-skinned men with dark hair and dark eyes. Alternatively, it may be something about their personality. A man may be attracted to women who are very giving and nurturing. When we come across the "types”, we are often drawn to them in a very powerful way. We often refer to this as "chemistry".
Many things are happening on a subconscious level that causes us to be attracted to certain types.
“You'll very likely be attracted to someone who's similar to the parent with whom you had the most difficulty, and become like the parent for whom you felt the most sympathy.” Shari Schreiber, MA
So where is this subconscious attraction coming from? Well this part becomes very difficult to swallow. The “types” that we are attracted to are generally people who remind us in some way of role models or caretakers from out childhood, most commonly Mom or Dad.
If as children we were on the receiving end of neglect, betrayal, humiliation, emotional abuse, or physical abuse at the hand of a parent, the first thing we do is to blame ourselves. That is what the child mind does. After all, Mom and Dad love me; they would not hurt me unless I deserved it. Therefore, I must have done something wrong. These wounds and betrayals of love do not disappear; they remain with us into our adult lives and often affect our relationship choices as adults.
As adults, our subconscious minds will seek out people who remind us in some way of the parent who “wounded” us as children. That means if a girl had a very critical father or male role model she may find herself in a relationship with a very critical or even abusive man.
If a boy had an alcoholic for a mother, he may end up in a relationship with a woman with substance abuse problems. Again, this is not occurring on a conscious level and we certainly do not set out to find people with these issues. Our subconscious mind is drawing us toward these people because our inner-child has been deeply wounded or betrayed by a parent and needs to find resolution.
“Unconsciously, we seek healing of these wounds in our intimate relationships. But that means we're most attracted to people who can wound us in just the way we were wounded in our childhood!” Kenneth Page, LCSW
So as difficult as it may be to believe we are attempting to reenact our childhood pain or betrayal with a new set of characters in order to change the ending. We believe that if we have a relationship with a man or a woman who is simply acting as a stand-in for Mom or Dad and we can change the ending of the story to one where the "stand in" apologizes to us, is able to meet our needs, or doesn’t betray us in the way that a parent did, then we can finally feel whole, lovable, and our childhood wounds will be healed.
Of course, it does not work, but the subconscious mind does not know that. We cannot fix childhood wounds by attaching ourselves to a substitute “parent” as adults. Unfortunately, many people do not recognize this pattern and will repeat this process repeatedly going from one bad relationship to another, continuing to recreate "the scene of the crime” with a new stand-in for the original perpetrator. Many people will be in a battle like this for the rest of their lives, trying to disprove it even as they stubbornly remain loyal to it.
The first step to breaking this cycle is simply recognizing that it exists. After that, one must have the courage to "break out" of their comfort zone and look beyond their "types". Rather than choosing people based on past "types", we need to look for people who possess the positive qualities that are necessary for a healthy happy relationship.
Source material: Psychology Today, Shari Schreiber, MA; Kenneth Page, LCSW
