At the mid-point of Sandy’s counseling session, she looked up at me with tears in her eyes and pleadingly asked “Why do I keep finding the same kind of men? Why do I fall in love with men who can’t love me?”
At that point, she connected the dots in her life and realized that even with all of her relationships, they had a common pattern. It was as if it was stuck in the same bad relationship over and over again.
She saw the pattern and now had to consider her options. Part of her felt stupid for repeating the pattern and part of her wanted a way of breaking free from the pattern.
She felt caught in a no-win situation. Those kind of situations are filled with frustrations.
It was as if she continued re-living the same unhealthy situations again and again. It felt like the same relationship with a different face.
Although she wasn’t really a magnet for those kind of men, she felt like one. When she was with them, it was a pattern she was familiar with, even though she detested it.
It hurt seeing Sandy go through that moment. I also knew that she had to see it, before she could start changing it.
She was struggling with trauma bonds that kept her locked into unhealthy patterns in her life. She found those kind of men attractive, even though she knew how things would end. Other types of relationships scared her even more.
Trauma bonds are not limited to physical symptoms, they include repeating patterns and cycles in your life. When those bonds are unhealthy, they keep you locked into unhealthy patterns. You can call it a dysfunctional dance.
His affair was just part of the pattern she had seen time and again. She didn’t cause the affair, it wasn’t her fault. Although she didn’t cause it, Sandy needed to work on breaking unhealthy patterns in her life in order to change the patterns she often returned to.
One of the best ways of moving past those patterns is breaking the bonds that come with traumas. She had experienced her share of them.
In the video on ‘Overcoming Affair Trauma, you can learn ways of changing the patterns in your own life. The video guides you in getting unstuck from your past. In many cases, those ugly things from the past keep you from having the future you want.
The place to start in making a new life may be in ending the patterns from what happened to you before.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
