How To Stop Repeating Past Mistakes in Relationships

You can’t afford to throw yourself blindly into a new relationship.

I’m finally ready to date seriously. Soon, it will be a year since I broke free from a man who was controlling and verbally abusive.

There’s something good about finally getting to a place where you can say, “I’m ready to love again.” It’s a long journey to get there.

It took a lot of tears, anxiety, and grief. I had to have a lot of strength and resilience. I faced my biggest fears and learned to live with them. I had to heal from the trauma of surviving an abusive relationship and being single and without kids at 37.

During this year of singlehood, I’ve been on a few dates. I even have a lover I’ve been seeing two or three times a week for the past 5 months.

Now that I’m ready to love again, I know that I can’t afford to repeat my past mistakes.

I can’t afford to throw myself blindly into a new relationship.

When I first started dating my ex, I needed someone to “save” me. I was in pain because my ex-fiancé canceled our wedding two and a half months earlier. I didn’t have a steady income or home, so when I met my ex, I threw myself into the relationship since he wanted to take care of me. At this point, I didn’t believe in love anymore. I just wanted to settle and do whatever it takes to secure a husband. After our breakup, I took a year to take care of myself, fix my life, and heal my heart.

It would be foolish to have suffered that much only to repeat the same shitty relationship patterns with a new partner.

Somehow, it seems easier to repeat the same patterns over and over again. But what can we do about it?

How can we stop repeating our past mistakes in relationships? This is what I learned.

#1: Understand why you fall into the same patterns

We repeat what is familiar.

Rooted deep in the unconscious is a desire to make the story turn out right: to find someone who will finally come through and love us the way we want.

But until it is resolved, the pattern of repetition will cause us to choose people who will do exactly what was done to us as children.

If you were abandoned, they will abandon you. If you were hurt physically, this may be what you experience all over again.

This is what Freud called “repetition compulsion.”

It’s important to remember that choosing partners who resemble people who hurt you in the past can never resolve the original trauma.

The reason for this is that these people may be unable to love you and engage in healthy relationships. It is only due to their own limitations or issues, rather than it being a reflection of your own worth.

Understanding is key.

#2: Not everybody deserves your attention

Keep your need to be loved and accepted in balance with who the other person is and his or her needs.

Take your time to find out more before giving your love.

Judge if they are welcoming your love and attention with appreciation and respect.

My current lover told me something I will always remember: “Honey tastes good. But if you eat too much of it, you become disgusted by it.”

I need to remember this saying and imprint it in my head. I have a hard time not giving love and attention to the people I care about because I don’t see love as limited.

I believe that love is abundant, and even the worst person deserves some love. However, this belief has hurt me in the past, and I have to break free from it.

Sometimes, my love and attention are not welcomed. They are breaching the boundaries of the other person.

I can’t force someone to receive my love and respect. Rather, I should expect love and attention to be reciprocated. It is healthier to keep our love and attention for ourselves rather than pouring it into someone who’s not ready to receive it.

When you pour love and attention into someone who is not ready to receive it, it sends signals of despair. It transmits the feeling that you’re too available. It makes it seem like nothing else is going on in your life and nobody is around you. They will take you for granted and lose respect for you, and this is fertile ground for abuse.

I know I have to make a conscious effort to keep my emotional energy to myself. I have to nourish my heart and soul first before giving it to someone else — including my lover.

#3: Take your time to get to know someone

Here’s another thing that my current lover taught me.

“Before getting serious about someone, it’s important to take time to get to know each other.”

I would like to have a relationship with this man I’ve been seeing for the last five months. But I don’t really know him yet, and I have to make a conscious effort not to get too involved for the moment.

This is the mistake I made with my ex. I threw myself into our relationship two and a half months after I broke up with my ex-fiancé. I made a big commitment from the beginning. I left my country to move in with him after only 10 days of being in a relationship with him. I became dependent on him only two months after being in a relationship with him.

I lived in denial this whole time. I ignored the red flags because I wanted so badly to focus on the good parts of him.

So when you are drawn to a new person, get to know them better before getting involved. Find out how they treat you when they are having a bad day and how they act when you say no.

How you are treated at the beginning of a relationship when you are not feeling your best is only a hint of how it will be later on.

#4: Stop expecting someone to be your source of emotional support

I’ve made this mistake over and over again. I expected the men I dated to offer emotional support. However, the truth is that I haven’t met many men who were comfortable with emotions. Apart from my ex-fiancé and my first love, I haven’t met a man capable of offering the emotional support I receive from my friends.

I’m adding this fourth point here because I’ve noticed my own tendency to expect the man I choose to love to offer some emotional support. And when I don’t get it, I fall into a victimhood mentality and complain about how unlucky I am to meet men who are not comfortable with emotions.

Let’s face it, some people are better at being emotionally supportive than others. And most people in our society prefer rejecting emotions over being rational. They have a very poor understanding of the purpose of emotions, so they reject them as if emotions are a weakness.

I’m not a victim. I’m not unlucky. I just have more emotional intelligence than most people, and I can’t expect people to meet me where I am.

Whoever you meet, you have to accept human limitations for emotional understanding. If you have a partner who isn’t so comfortable with strong emotions, the best approach is to accept where they can help and where they can’t.

Broaden your support team to include friends and family members who can also step in and be there for you emotionally when you need.

For example, I know that when I feel down, I can’t expect to talk about it with my current lover since he hasn’t emotionally committed to me. Even if he will listen to me, his way of approaching emotions is different from what I need at the moment. I can’t put the weight of emotional support onto someone who is not comfortable with his own emotions.

#4: Allow disconnection and trust the Universe

Last but not least, I came to understand that it is very important to allow disconnection and trust in the Universe or a Higher power.

With my exes, I would always be very scared of disconnection. When I would see them stepping back or pulling away, I would want to understand why and force the connection.

I guess I didn’t trust that a man I love would return from this disconnection because I wasn’t sure of my own importance, my gift.

But today, I feel different. I allow disconnection and I trust the Universe.

I also learned that in those moments of disconnection, I need to be anchored and grounded in self-love. That is my space to prove to the Universe that I love myself and choose myself first.

It is also about respect — respecting the needs of others and accepting them, because their need for space doesn’t define my worth. Disconnection is the space where I can reconnect with myself and value myself.

I am ready to love again, but I’m not ready to repeat my past relationship patterns.

I am ready to commit to someone, but I’m not ready to experience disrespect again.

Respecting and valuing myself is more important than being in a relationship. Do the same if you want to stop repeating your past mistakes in relationships.

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