- “What’s wrong with me? I keep getting involved with abusive men. I’m learning about red flags, but in spite of this, I continue to get involved with men who emotionally and physically abuse me.”
- “Every woman I get involved with ends up cheating on me. I don’t understand it. Is there something wrong with me?”
- “I have a pattern of getting involved with men who become extremely critical of me. They don’t start out that way. In fact, in the beginning, they seem very loving and kind, but as time goes by, they become critical.”
These are just three examples of the questions many of my clients ask me when they begin therapy. Fortunately, there is an answer to their questions. In this post, I will explain what often motivates us to develop the pattern of choosing the wrong partners. In my previous post, “Traumatic Reenactments in Abuse Survivors,” I discussed how we tend to reenact (repeat) unresolved traumatic events as an unconscious way of resolving them. Thus, a young woman whose father abandoned her when she was seven years old may continuously get involved with men who abandon or reject her in an unconscious attempt to complete her unfinished business with her father. By getting involved with abandoning men, she is unconsciously trying to change the outcome of what happened to her as a child. Children who are abandoned often blame themselves, and so will work very hard to “get it right” this time in their relationships.
In this post, I will discuss the most common type of reenactment, what I call “relational reenactments”—repeating a trauma through our relationships. This type of reenactment can manifest in various ways but often involves continuously entering relationships that are unhealthy or even dangerous, often without realizing you have developed a pattern.
Even though relational reenactments can often be dangerous because the repetition compulsion is just that, a compulsion, we often feel powerless to change our repetition patterns. Those who are involved with these types of reenactments feel compelled to return to a person or situation that recreates a past trauma in an attempt to change the outcome. For example, someone who was abused in childhood may not only continually get involved with abusive partners but be unable to end the relationship, even when their very life is threatened. They are so bent on “getting it right” this time, on “getting a do-over,” that they remain stuck in a negative pattern.
The problem, of course, is that we cannot change the past, and our attempts to do so can keep us from doing the real work. This work involves two major endeavors: 1) we need to process our feelings of anger, pain, and shame related to our previous trauma, and 2) we need to complete our unfinished business with the person or persons who traumatized us. But before we begin either of these steps, we need to identify our trauma.
This can often be difficult. One of the reasons trauma can have a long-term impact on our physical and mental health is that traumatic memories are often not stored in the same way that our other memories are. For example, memories of traumatic events are often unintegrated, meaning that instead of residing in the past with all our other recollections, trauma memories can show up in the present as troubling symptoms like flashbacks, nightmares, panic attacks, anxiety, depression, or a need to avoid reminders of the traumatic incident. Or they can show up in the form of reenactments.
Many of you are aware of your major trauma: You were physically abused as a child, your mother died when you were young, your father abandoned the family when you were nine, you were sexually abused at age five, or you were severely neglected by your mother. But for some, your trauma is less clear. In 2019, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Kaiser Permanente conducted a study to measure adverse childhood experiences or ACEs. They found that there are 10 ACES of trauma that impact the vast majority of sufferers.
Exercise: How Were You Traumatized?
Put a checkmark next to each of the following types of trauma you believe you experienced growing up.
1. Physical abuse.
2. Emotional abuse.
3. Physical neglect.
4. Emotional neglect
5. Sexual abuse.
6. Mental illness (living with a relative with a mental health issue can have a significant impact on a child).
7. Divorce.
8. Substance abuse. Substance abuse in the home can lead to a variety of unsafe conditions for the child
9. Violence against your mother (any violence in the home is traumatic but witnessing violence toward the primary caretaker, usually the mother, can be especially traumatic for a child).
10. Having a relative who has been sent to jail or prison.
Typical Reenactment Patterns in Relationships
When someone becomes involved in a relational reenactment, they often unconsciously seek out a person who is similar to a person who traumatized them. The unconscious goal is to change the other person, either to have a different result or in order to receive better treatment from them. If they could just get the person to treat them well, they could ameliorate feelings of self-blame and self-hatred. Below is a list of the most common types of relational patterns. Read the list carefully and put a checkmark next to the ones you identify with.
- Your partners tend to become emotionally or physically violent.
- You tend to be attracted to people who are unattainable (e.g. married, unable or unwilling to commit).
- You tend to become attracted to people who have a serious problem (e.g. alcoholism, drug addiction, sexual addiction, eating disorder) and you believe you can help them or cure them.
- You are repeatedly rejected and or abandoned in your relationships.
- You are often cheated on or betrayed.
- Your partner becomes sexually demanding.
- Your partners tend to be sex addicts or addicted to porn.
- Your partner begins to act out (e.g. drinking excessively, flirting with other people).
- Your partner’s personality radically changes as time goes by (e.g. he becomes more demanding or controlling).
- Your partner becomes jealous and possessive.
- You discover something about your partner you can’t accept (e.g. criminal behavior).
Take a good look at the items you put a check mark next to. Do you have an understanding as to why you choose the partners you do? Can you see a connection between your patterns in relationships and a childhood trauma?
If you haven’t yet made a connection between a previous trauma and the people you tend to get involved with the following exercise may help.
Exercise: Identifying Your Pattern
You will need three or four letter-size pieces of paper.
- On the first piece of paper create a list of the characteristics of your last or current partner. Include both negative and positive characteristics (i.e. smart, funny, selfish, angry).
- On the second piece of paper make a list of your mother’s positive and negative characteristics.
- On the third piece of paper, do the same with your father’s positive and negative characteristics.
- Now put all three pieces of paper side by side and compare the lists. Circle any and all similarities between the three people.
- Study your three lists and reflect on the similarities you’ve identified. For example, your last romantic partner may have been exceptionally angry, just like your father. Your current partner may be overly critical and rejecting, just like your mother.
- These lists can lead you to an understanding as to why you chose your current partner or your last partner and thus may reveal the fact that these relationships are reenactments.
- If you need further proof of your pattern of reenactments, write down the positive and negative characteristics of two more of your previous relationships (either on a fourth piece of paper or divide your first piece of paper into columns). This is a great way of confirming how you have been reenacting your relationship with your mother or father or both.
Hopefully, the information and exercises in this post have helped you identify the primary cause of your relational pattern.
*Please note: all exercises in this article are excerpts from my book, Put Your Past in the Past: Why You May Be Reenacting Your Trauma and How to Stop.
