Why do so many of us constantly end up in the same bad relationships? Some women even claim that it's like they keep dating the same bad guy over and over.
Is there something wrong with their selection process? Not quite, but it isn't as simple as you might think.
How do we go about choosing our relationships and how much choice is really involved? Some might say that we all have certain qualities and attributes that we look for in members of the opposite sex and based on those things we decide on the person who is right for us.
But is it really that simple? Is the process of attraction and mate selection that logical and straightforward.
If it was why would so many people get it wrong? Why do so many people seem to choose the wrong person or even worse choose the wrong person over and over? Clearly it is more complicated than simple free choice.
Freud believed that our mothers and fathers have a lot to do with the people we are eventually attracted to.
You may have heard the saying, "we marry our mothers and fathers".
Sounds kind of strange but studies have shown that men do have a preference for women who not only remind them of their mothers but who also resemble them.
The same is true for women and their fathers.
Of course this is not always the case, and I am not suggesting that every girl can draw a straight line from her husband to her father.
In fact sometimes the opposite occurs; sometimes a girl may marry a man who is quite the opposite of her father.
But the point is parental influence often plays a role in our relationships with members of the opposite sex.
Imagine for a moment a young girl, let's call her Suzie.
Let's suppose that from the time she was born Suzie's father pampered and indulged her every whim.
Suzie's father was very loving and made her feel that she was the most wonderful girl on earth.
All things being equal there is a very good chance that young Suzie will grow up with a very good sense of "self-worth", not to mention a sense of entitlement.
Suzie's relationship with the first man in her life, her father, will become the model for all future relationships that Suzie will have with members of the opposite sex.
According to this theory it would only makes sense for Suzie to expect men to indulge her, pamper her, and treat her with dignity and respect, just like Dad did.
But what if young Suzie didn't have such a positive experience with her Dad? Let's say that Dad didn't pay much attention to his little girl.
Perhaps Dad was often critical of his daughter or even mean and abusive.
What kind of self-esteem is young Suzie likely to grow up with then? There's a very good chance that Suzie would grow up not thinking very highly of herself.
After all if the first man in Suzie's life, her father, didn't treat her with dignity and respect why should she believe otherwise about herself? And further more, why would Suzie expect to be treated with dignity and respect from any other man? Of course all the same things hold true for young boys and their relationships with their mothers.
The bond between a mother and a child, particularly a male child, is perhaps one of the strongest of all human bonds.
So it would seem that our relationships with our parents certainly come into play when we go in search of a mate.
Parents who provide children with positive self esteem and feelings of self-worth pass that on to their children just as parents who knowingly or unknowingly make their children feel that they are "less than worthy" instill that belief in them.
But those feelings do not end with the children.
They become powerful forces in who we look for and feel comfortable with when it comes to our choice of a mate.
We cannot underestimate the power of "the familiar" when it comes to the relationships.
We are all attracted to the familiar.
One of my all-time favorite quotes goes something like, "In life we don't get the person that we want, we get the person that we are.
" So "what are" children who grow up with loving supportive parents? They are people who love themselves and think highly of themselves.
They are also people who feel that they deserve to be treated in a very special way.
And "what are" children who grow up with unloving abusive parents? More often than not they are people who do not have very high self-esteem.
And they often do not believe that they are entitled to be treated like they are special or deserving.
So it would seem that relationships and mate selection are much more complicated than simply choosing the person who has the qualities that we want.
How much free choice are we exercising when selecting a partner if we've already been subconsciously programmed from childhood to believe certain things about ourselves? It doesn't matter if these things are true or untrue; truth has nothing to do with it.
That's one of the pitfalls of childhood, we don't have the ability to question or challenge the things we are told and taught to believe, we simply accept them to be true and move forward.
There is tape recorder which resides in our subconscious child minds.
It is running and recording all the time.
It doesn't block out the bad and it doesn't have the ability to tell truth from lies; it records everything.
And that tape gets played back over and over in our minds when we become adults.
If all of this is true it would certainly explain why an otherwise intelligent woman would be in a relationship with a verbally abusive man.
She is only doing what she knows how to do.
She is comfortable and feels "familiar" in the role of being verbally abused.
This is who she is.
Does she want to be verbally abused and disrespected? It really doesn't matter what she wants.
Remember, the quote "we don't get what we want, we get who we are.
" It also explains why despite previous bad experiences some women end up with the same type of man over and over.
If you ask them why, they usually just blame it on bad luck or the fact that they make bad choices.
What they fail to realize is that they really aren't exercising much choice at all.
This all sounds pretty depressing and hopeless particularly to those who did not have very effective nurturing parents.
So does this really mean that we are doomed to marry our parents? Certainly not.
Just the knowledge and recognition that this dynamic exists is the first step in breaking the cycle of bad relationships or better yet never getting into one in the first place.
However insight alone is not enough to accomplish this.
Remember that quote I mentioned earlier, well there's a second part to it.
It says, "If you want more, then you have to be willing to be more.
" That means that we are not doomed to continue the cycle.
If you want more from a relationship then you need to be more yourself.
What does that mean? It means that before you go looking for a relationship you need to recognize those aspects in yourself that lead you to make bad relationship choices.
Specifically your levels of self-esteem, self-worth, and self-love.
Only after you have sufficiently addressed and resolved these issues will you be successful in finding someone who you will be happy with.
The point is it all starts from within.
You have to reject the negative feelings and voices that are inside you and start from scratch.
Remember that "tape recorder" I mentioned that plays in our minds? Well quite often it plays false information and lies and those lies need to be challenged and erased.
Our inner tape recording needs to be examined and edited and those negative messages need to be replaced with positive messages of self-love, approval, and self-acceptance.
You must challenge every negative thought that you have; everything you thought was true needs to be examined and questioned.
If you think you're stupid, then the challenge questions are, "How do I know I'm stupid?", "Who said I was stupid?", "What proof do I have that I'm stupid?" If you think you're a loser then the questions become, "Who said I was a loser?", "Just because someone may have called me a loser, does that make it true?", " What proof is there that I'm a loser?" You get the idea.
I am not saying that the process will be easy or that the changes will occur overnight.
After all many of the thoughts we believe about ourselves go all the way back to childhood.
But with patience, determination, and courage you can change your inner dialogue and increase your self esteem and finally get the relationship that you really deserve.
There are many effective techniques for accomplishing this.
These include cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), the use of positive affirmations, and subliminal audio recordings.