Stopping the Same Dating Disasters and Learning To Grow

Have you ever wondered why you seem to date people only for them to move on to bigger and better things after their time with you? It’s as if we’re a placeholder or a test run that allows others to figure out what they want and ultimately find the relationship that sticks.

And that wouldn’t matter so much if we ourselves also found lasting love but we’re instead stuck in repetitive cycles of dating with no hope of anything lasting coming about. Maybe we are a placeholder, maybe we aren’t worthy of true love, or receiving someone’s full commitment. Are we destined to be the second option?

With that attitude, yes.

I wanted to talk about the negative mental cycle we can find ourselves stuck in when dating just isn’t going our way and how we can begin to change our fortune in future relationships.

Changing Our Fortune In Dating

In order for us to change our dating outcomes, we have to learn from our previous experiences. An inability to do so is the №1 reason you will find yourself cycling through the same relationship patterns time after time after time.

Why? Because most of our behaviors stem from subconscious origins. We may feel as if we are in complete control of our behaviors but we certainly aren’t. Emotional reactions stemming from beliefs embedded in our minds can easily draw us into bad habits if we don’t have awareness of our inner workings.

Furthermore, if someone you were previously dating has moved on, it may be down to chance (that they’ve found the right person) or maybe their time with you has taught them what they don’t want. That’s not a bash against you, it’s simply the truth. If things didn’t go to plan there was likely incompatibility there and where there’s incompatibility there is a chance to learn what we could be compatible with in the future.

Being in relationships offers us a 3rd party perspective on our own lives and our own patterns — even if we don’t want wish to see them ourselves. For example, if a common complaint is that you move too quickly, is this true? Are you falling into love too hard? If so, there may be an area for growth that may change your relationship patterns in the future.

Reflection Not Rumination

I ask you, do you reflect on past dating experiences or do you ruminate on them? Rumination and reflection differ in that ruminations lead to dead ends: Cycles of thought patterns that do nothing but focus on negatives and devalue our self-worth.

A productive reflection practice will involve healthy self-reflection and will identify areas for improvement WITHOUT damaging self-worth. If we aren’t accepting of the fact we are human and are therefore prone to mistakes we’re in a much better place to learn and grow.

You may have rose-tinted glasses as to how your previous dating experiences were functioning. If it was as great as you remembered it to be then why did it end? For me, it’s always reassuring to remind myself that if someone walked away or if something didn’t work out, that’s what was meant to happen at that moment.

When we become fixated on how things SHOULD be rather than how things actually ARE we trap ourselves in a reality that doesn’t exist. We also stop ourselves from learning from our pasts because if we wanted something and it didn’t happen, there was clearly a misalignment that needs attention.

Identifying Key Areas For Growth

Relationships serve as mirrors and are therefore great opportunities to identify things in ourselves that we otherwise wouldn’t notice — as I noted above.

If you find yourself stuck in the same relational patterns, what is it about yourself that might need your attention? As much as we can claim that the wrong people keep turning up in our lives, the wrong people can only turn up if we let them. Without our attention, relationships die.

For me, a huge growth area in my own dating experience was understanding that I couldn’t coexist with someone who was not emotionally available to me.

If someone was unclear of their intentions or showed other red flags indicating a lack of interest, my anxious attachment style would come out. From there I would chase for validation in the one place I knew deep down I could not get it.

Some of us unconsciously recreate relationships from our past in an attempt to rectify a past problem. For someone with an unavailable parent, this could look like choosing unavailable partners so that you can finally gain the approval you never had as a child.

But I digress, I kept circling the same relationships centered on anxiety and validation until I took a stand and made a commitment to myself that I would not entertain those individuals anymore. I wonder what patterns you have that might need changing?

It’s Not You, It’s Me

When we feel comfortable and safe in ourselves our experiences in dating improve tenfold. As mentioned above, when we place the responsibility on those around to us change rather than ourselves we’re destined to repeat the same cycles.

Inevitably it is US that attracts in what we have in our lives. Through our behaviors, our thoughts, and our outlook on the world. It is therefore through US that we begin to change our luck in dating.

Thanks for reading this article. If you enjoyed it, I’d be very happy if you could leave it a few *claps*. In the meantime, feel free to check out similar articles below.