Have you ever wondered why you keep ending up with all the wrong guys? It’s likely that you’re unconsciously following your love script–the way you handle your relationships and love. Our love scripts assign us to various roles: the doormat, the rescuer, or the perfectionist, to name a few. Your unconscious might be getting it all wrong, but you can turn things around and stop the cycle of bad relationships with a little self-awareness and self-help.
Two major people serve as the most significant influence in the ways you seek and conduct personal relationships. First are your parents. If they were emotionally compatible, affectionate, and could provide a safe and nurturing environment for you or your siblings, the chances are high that your love script is written for relationship bliss.
On the other hand, if your parents were emotionally distant and cold to each other, spent a lot of time arguing, or behaved violently, then you might end up reproducing the same destructive and dysfunctional behaviour of your parents–unless you could watch out for them.
Your experiences with the opposite sex are also significant in shaping your attitudes and behaviours towards relationships. If you had a brother or sister, or have close friends from the opposite sex, you probably regard the other sex as a human, potentially friendly, and not something to be afraid of. You’d have also seen their human faults, which means you won’t have unrealistic expectations in a future partner. Bad experiences with a sibling will also affect how you view the opposite sex.
If you consistently fall for abusive, mood-swinging partners, it’s time you rewrite your love script. Consider your parents’ behaviour and write down any problems that they might have encountered in their marriage. The same goes for your experiences with the opposite sex. While you can’t time-travel and change the past, you can learn from these experiences and grow.
Evaluating your parents’ behaviour or experiences with the opposite sex might be a painful, complicated process, one that will make you feel very vulnerable and exposed. You’ll be reliving many unpleasant memories and feeling the same bad emotions you felt when these transpired.
But this process allows you to break down the defences you put up and to work through your insecurities rather than bottling them up or sublimating them. The act of evaluating the past from a more adult perspective will give you closure.
Once you figure out the source of your relationship trends, you can start thinking about the lover you want, and the lover you want to be. The next time you find a potential partner, take things slowly and be open.
If he or she is the kind, loving, caring person you want to be with, then he or she will understand your insecurities and fears, and help you get over them. It will take time until you’ve entirely rewritten your love script. But once you have, you’ll be a better, happier person now that you’ve stopped the cycle of bad, unhealthy relationships.