These hidden childhood reasons you keep choosing wrong partner
How childhood experiences can affect partner choice (Styler)
Many people have asked themselves at least once why they keep ending up in relationships with people who are not right for them. What may seem like simple bad luck is sometimes linked to patterns of intimacy learned in childhood.
Yulia Krasnykhina, a Ukrainian psychologist at the "Nezlamna" center and a Gestalt therapy psychotherapist, explained how the experience of relationships with parents or other close adults can affect partner choice in adult life.
Where relationship scripts come from
According to the psychologist, the first ideas about love, intimacy, care, and safety are formed in childhood, in relationships with parents or the people who raised us.
"It is then that we unconsciously internalize a certain relationship script and carry it over into adult life," notes Krasnykhina.
Because of this, the choice of a partner may be linked not only to their personal qualities but also to how familiar certain behavioral patterns seem to the person.
Why we might be drawn to emotionally unavailable people
Krasnykhina gives an example of a situation where, in childhood, love and attention had to be constantly earned.
"If love in the family had to be 'earned,' a person may constantly choose emotionally unavailable partners and try to win their attention," the expert explains.
A similar mechanism can also be triggered when a child grows up in an atmosphere of criticism or instability. According to the psychologist, such patterns may be perceived as more understandable and even comfortable than calm and healthy relationships.
Why familiar doesn't always mean "good"
One of the main reasons for repeating such scripts is that a person may unconsciously gravitate toward what is already well known to them.
"The paradox is that we often choose not what makes us happy, but what is familiar to us. Even if that experience once caused pain," says the psychologist.
That is why, according to Krasnykhina, people often fall in love not with those who treat them best, but with those alongside whom they feel something familiar from childhood.
Can this script be changed?
The psychologist emphasizes that life scripts are not a verdict. Recognizing one's own behavioral patterns can help a person look at their choices differently and stop repeating the same relationship script.
"By recognizing their own behavioral patterns, a person gains the opportunity to change their choices, build healthier relationships, and not repeat the same script over and over again," the psychologist believes.
According to Krasnykhina, the path to a happy relationship sometimes begins not with finding the "right" person, but with a better understanding of oneself.
