Why We Date at Our Own Emotional Level, There’s No Such Thing as Dating Up
The simple truth you really need to hear.
Maybe your partners are hotter or smarter than you, have more money or security, appear to be more put together, or whatever. Perhaps just the opposite — that you are seemingly the “better half.”
But don’t let the resumés fool you. Y’all are two peas in a pod.
In fact, most people who claim to want more intimacy, closeness, affection, and emotional connection in relationships have a loooong and extensive track record of dating people who literally cannot provide those things.
Meaning, they *think* they want one thing, but their operational beliefs, core values, childhood trauma, and nervous system are all wired up for self-preservation by any means necessary.
It’s not necessarily that they’re addicted to breadcrumbs. But in most cases, a breadcrumb is all they can tolerate.
So yes, it’s quite possible that you partner up with shitty people because of a fundamental rupture in your capacity to trust and withstand vulnerable and authentic human connection.
You may be able to look back on your life and see times when perfectly healthy, secure, functional, and delightful human beings took a liking to you, and you threw a f**king hand-grenade at them and dove into a sewer.
This is textbook Insecure Attachment behavior.
People who didn’t get their attachment needs met as a child (feeling safe, seen, soothed, and secure) inevitably self-abandon in a desperate attempt to get their needs met in protective ways.
They lose touch with their wants, needs, feelings, thoughts, preferences, and boundaries.
They don’t have a healthy self-concept or a realistic understanding of how relationships are supposed to work because all they have is their broken-ass childhood relational experience to go off of.
So they pick partners who will play patty-cake with them and kinda sorta meet some of their needs, but who are juuuust wounded enough to keep at arm’s length.
If you’re in a f**ked up relationship, it’s because that feels safer to you than a healthy one.
And my heart breaks for you.
Healing is definitely possible.
Adam Murauskas is a relationship coach and Medium top writer. He and his wife Rebecca abandoned their careers and moved to Panamá in 2019 to pursue passions for helping people heal. Take a free relationship quiz at FixYourPicker.com or find daily content on Instagram @fixyourpicker.