On Attachment

#204: Why You Keep Repeating the Same Relationship Patterns

• Stephanie Rigg • Season 1 • Episode 204

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Ever look back at your dating history and realise you’ve basically been in the same relationship over and over again — just with different people? Maybe you thought you’d learned the lessons, yet somehow the same dynamics keep playing out.

In this episode, we’re unpacking why these patterns form, why they feel so hard to break, and how you can start shifting them. We’ll explore how your early experiences shape an unconscious “blueprint” for love, how your nervous system pulls you toward what feels familiar (even when it’s not healthy), and the beliefs that keep certain dynamics on repeat.

I’ll walk you through a process for spotting your own relational through-lines, interrupting the cycle, and expanding your capacity for the kind of steady, reciprocal love you deserve.

Whether you’re in the thick of another “same story, different person” relationship or reflecting on past patterns, this episode will give you clarity, compassion, and practical steps to move toward something different.

🔥 Save 40% on my Healing Anxious Attachment course for 72 hours only! 🔥

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Speaker 4:

You are listening to on Attachment A place to learn about how attachment shapes the way we experience relationships, and where you'll gain the guidance, knowledge, and practical tools to overcome insecurity and build healthy, thriving relationships. I, I'm your host relationship coach Stephanie Rigg, and I'm really glad you're here.

Stephanie Rigg:

Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. In today's episode, we are talking about why you keep repeating the same relationship patterns and dynamics. So this is gonna be something that a lot of people will relate to, whether you are actively dating at the moment and you feel like you're cycling through different versions of the same person, or maybe you've had a series of long-term relationships in your life that upon reflection have a similar look and feel to them. I think that this can be a point of frustration for so many of us, particularly when. We like to think that we're doing the work and we're cultivating more awareness and intentionality around it. And yet, we gravitate towards similar dynamics that are maybe not in alignment with what we are desiring for ourselves and our relationships. And I think that that can be somewhat disheartening when, the thing that we say we want is so far from the thing that we end up becoming attached to. And yet this is something that so many of us will have experienced and will relate to. And so in today's episode, I wanna dig into that a little more. Why it is that. We might be drawn to, we might gravitate towards people, feelings, dynamics, patterns that are not what we say we want or that are not healthy, or that are not, in service of our deeper desires around partnership. Maybe you keep finding yourself, going after people who are really, really affectionate and loving at first, and then suddenly ghost you or you keep finding yourself in relationship with people who have a lot of unhealed trauma or, other heavy burdens or, untreated addiction. So many different things that, again, it's not like we're heading out into the world trying to find these kinds of patterns, and yet we might really consistently end up in them. And as I always say to people who kind of throw their hands up and say, I don't know why I keep attracting emotionally unavailable people, or, I don't know why I keep attracting, immature, avoidant, this, that, and the other. My response is always to turn the question around and ask, what is it within you that is drawn to these people? Because in most cases, connections are a two-way street and we are part of that equation, right? We are drawn to people as well. Something within us, lights up and goes, oh yes, I feel a spark there. I feel some attraction. I feel some intrigue, and I am drawn to that person. So taking ownership of that. And as always, this is not about blame or fault, it's just about recognition of the part that we might play and the pieces within us that might be drawn to those dynamics and getting curious as to why, as to, what need that might be meeting, why that might be more comfortable for us than the thing that we say we want. And ultimately as a good rule of thumb, our reality will always reflect what. The deeper parts of us feel is safe even if it's painful. Sometimes uncomfortable and painful are actually more comfortable than the vulnerability of doing something differently. And that's what we're gonna be digging into a bit today. So before we get into today's episode, couple of quick reminders. For folks who are in or around London, I am gonna be in town very soon. On the 13th of September, I'm holding an event in London. It's gonna be a lovely intimate talk q and a meet and greet. A beautiful opportunity to gather with me and like-minded others. It's not a workshop, so it's not something if you're a little bit nervous or shy and you don't like the idea of having to. Of talk. It's not like that. I'm gonna be the one talking. And while there'll be opportunity for people to ask questions and interact, there's certainly no pressure to, so if that feels a little daunting, the idea of going along to something where you have to be visible and vocal fear not, that is not what this is. But equally. If you'd like that, there will be scope for you to do that too. So, if you're in or around London and you are free on the 13th of September, I would so love to see you there. The link to buy tickets is in the show notes and there's the link to buy tickets is in the show notes. Second thing is just to mention if you haven't already, I know many of you have, if you haven't checked out my free training on how to heal anxious attachment and finally feel secure in life and love everything that we're gonna be talking about in today's episode is very much in keeping with, what I go into in far more depth there. It's about a 75 minute free training. So I definitely encourage you to check that out, register, find a time to come along because it is packed with information and insight and takeaways. And I would love to be able to share that with you if that appeals. Okay. So let's get into this conversation around why you keep ending up in the same relationship pattern. So, this is a very well established trope. I mean, the concept of repetition compulsion goes way back to, early psychoanalysis, psychotherapy. This idea that we continue to seek out opportunities to reenact our wounds and our past traumas and our unhealed stuff, like we will continue to gravitate towards people who allow us to play out those stories in, an unconscious bid to seek resolution or to find a different ending to the story. A similar concept is put forward by Harl Hendricks and Helen Kelley Hunt in their book, getting The Love You Want. If you haven't read that book, I really encourage you to check it out. They're the creators of Imago Therapy, a couple's therapy modality. And what they suggest is that we gravitate towards partners who exhibit a mix of the positive and negative traits of our caregivers. And so there's this unconscious pool, almost a magnetic force that draws us to people who have a similar imprint and who interact with our nervous system in a similar way to our earliest blueprint for what love and connection looks and feels like. And if that sounds a little bit farfetched to you, if you're thinking like, no, I'm definitely not just going and trying to date people who remind me of my parents. I, I totally hear you. I had that reaction when I first heard it, and I also, had The story that my past relationships were all quite different and the people were all quite different. And that didn't really apply to me. When I looked more closely and, asked some more incisive questions, it became clear that. It is not necessarily about the outward traits or characteristics of the people that you're dating. It's about the deeper dynamics and the roles that you fall into and how that might be reminiscent of roles you've played before. And I think that that's really at the heart of a lot of this is of course if we have adapted in a family system where we had to become very good at caretaking everyone else's needs, for example, we had to always try and be good and perfect in order to be lovable or to get attention or approval. And maybe if we made a mistake we had love or connection, withdrawn. And so we were always hyper-focused on, being perfect, never making a mistake, never slipping up. And now we have this really strong perfectionistic streak or we were a really good peacemaker and, learned how to attune to everyone else's moods and needs and to go around and mediate between all of the conflict and chaos that might have been happening around us. Like there are so many different roles that we can be funneled into and, ways that we can develop in a system that might be under stress or strain. And so as we get older in that. It becomes part of who we are in a sense, in that it fuses with our identity that we are the helpful one or we are the good one, or we are the caring one. And we are the self-sacrificing one. All of these different kind of traits and identities that we can take on. think so much of the time, those things can become confused with our sense of our worth and value. So if I have come to believe that my value resides in my ability to take care of everyone, my ability to not cause a fuss, not be difficult to make myself easy to love by having no or low needs all of these things, I think when they become intertwined with our sense of what makes me lovable, what makes me valuable to people, then it makes a lot of sense that we would end up in relationships where we get to play that out. Because on some level we believe that that's what makes me lovable. That's what's gonna earn me someone's love. And I'm really well adapted to functioning in an environment where that feels true. So if I then pursue a relationship with someone who's sometimes available but sometimes not, sometimes really loving, but then sometimes really cold and aloof and confusing in their behavior, while a person with a different imprint to me might look at that and go. I'm not really up for that. That doesn't really work for me. I really value consistency in a partner, and so I'm, I'm not really interested in investing time and energy with someone who leaves me guessing. For me, having a background of, a chaotic home environment or feeling like love was conditional or feeling like, everything could change at a moment's notice and I always had to be on high alert. Again, this is just speaking by way of example. My system might not register that person's behavior as a problem and actually might light up and go, aha, I know how to deal with this. I know how to respond to inconsistency. I know how to respond to unpredictability like I was made for this, right? This is my sweet spot. This is my zone of genius is. Kind of tiptoeing around and gathering information and being hyper alert and hypersensitive to any shifts in temperature. This is really like what I am so good at because I've had so much practice. And so even though it's not what we want, we might say like, no, I want a secure relationship. I don't wanna have to be so on edge all the time. I just want to be able to like rest and trust and receive. We don't have much practice at resting in love or trusting in love or receiving someone's unconditional love. And so the thing that we don't have much practice in is not gonna feel comfortable. And there's probably a big part of you that does not feel worthy or deserving of that kind of love. And that feels much more at home with the unpredictable love. The inconsistent love, the unavailable. Person. All of those things, it's really important to recognize that if you keep ending up with that there's something within you that feels safer and more comfortable in that than the alternative. And to be clear, if you are listening to this and feeling like, I'm broken or there's something wrong with me. I just wanna really emphasize that this is not meant to discourage you. It's actually meant to offer you an insight and an invitation into curiosity. To ask the question of like, okay, clearly there's some incongruence within me. There's some polarization of one part of me wants healthy love, and yet I keep coming up against these dynamics that are so far away from that thing that I say I want. So there is another part of me, or maybe several other parts of me that are quote unquote sabotaging that, which is really just to say that have their own agenda and that think that they are protecting me in some way by continuing to engage in other relationship dynamics that are, less healthy. Okay. And, a, a really neat little exercise that you can do to get a bit more clarity on this is write down a relationship timeline of your past few relationships and. Maybe you can write down At the start I was drawn to, whatever traits and qualities and I felt with them however I felt. And then when things started to shift, what were the feelings that came up? What were the challenges and how did I respond? And then, as it started to unravel or those sorts of, you're just mapping out the trajectory of the relationship in terms of. Both what happened outwardly, but also what the feeling tone was. And notice if you see any patterns or trends there. And notice like in that, what was I hoping for at each stage? Maybe at the start, I was hoping that this person was going to be the one that was going to change everything for me. And then when they started to pull away, I was hoping that I could get things back to how they were, or I was worried that I'd done something wrong and so I tried to suppress myself or, tried to make them happy when they started to pull away, or I worried that I wasn't attractive enough and they were losing interest in me. Like all of these things that are very rich and fertile in terms of our own understanding of self, because so much of that is about us and not them. The stories that we tell ourselves, the meaning that we make from things that happen in our relationship tells us so much more about us than it will ever tell us about them. So, what does it take to actually shift this? I wish there was like a quick and easy thing that I could give you. I really think the broader work of. Healing, coming home to yourself, building awareness of all of these things, building your relationship skills, regulating your nervous system, like all of it kind of funnels into ultimately changing your patterns of attraction. I think one really big and important piece is. That if you know you are actively pursuing and engaging with someone who lights your system up in these ways who pulls you into patterns of uncertainty, self-doubt, anxiety. You've gotta be so self-responsible about the extent to which you continue to choose to engage with those people because you will not shift your patterns while you are enacting your patterns, right? When you are so deep in them and you are feelings. So fear driven and reactive. It's a bit of a fantasy to think that you're gonna be able to grow out of your patterns while you're still really actively engaging with them. Because really think about it, if we think of these patterns as protective strategies, if we're still in the war zone, we're not gonna put down our weapons, so to speak. There's probably an imperfect analogy as most of my a analogies are, but you get the point, like, if I'm still in the environment or I'm still experiencing the conditions that my protective strategies are purpose built for, why would I let them go? I wouldn't, it doesn't make sense to, there's wisdom in those strategies when you are still in relationships that are marked by those traits of inconsistency, unpredictability, volatility, and so on. So expecting yourself to be able to shift while you're still deep in it is probably not realistic. And that's a really important thing to realize is that every time that you reenact the cycle again with a new person or with the same person. If you aren't doing things differently, if you're just doing what you've always done and you are replaying it over and over again you're strengthening and reinforcing the pattern because you are reinforcing all of the painful stories about yourself, about relationships, about other people. You just collecting more evidence in favor of the old way. So there's gotta be some self-responsibility and some agency that goes along with the awareness to say like, okay, I have gotta, I've gotta do things differently. I've gotta turn left where previously I would've turned right? Like, I've got to actually take action in the direction of a new way if I wanna shift this for myself. And I think that. So many people, I hear this all the time from students in my programs. It's like, I can't do it. I'm not strong enough. I can't detach, I can't let go. I can't walk away. And even though that feels really true, I think the more true thing is I don't want to because it's too uncomfortable. And I think when we can shift to a more honest thing, that then puts a spotlight on the agency and the self-responsibility, and it really holds a mirror up to the fact that we do have choice. It's just a hard choice to make. And I think that that can be quite a confronting, but ultimately empowering thing is rather than just saying, I can't saying I don't want to because it's too hard. So that's a really important first step is choosing to no longer engage with those patterns if you're actively in them, or at least if you're in them saying, like, I'm not just gonna keep doing things the old way. I'm gonna set boundaries. I'm gonna speak up for myself, I'm gonna follow through. If I say that I won't tolerate something I'm not gonna continue to chase people or pursue people who are not showing interest in me or who are unsure about me. All of those things, you've really gotta step up there if you wanna shift these patterns. And then secondary to all of that, perhaps if you're not in it at the moment, is, going into new relationships, getting so clear on what qualities you are available for and unavailable for. So, again, I've spoken about this so many times, like if you don't have some sort of framework for what you are looking for in a partner and a relationship beyond attraction and they, like me you're gonna end up in those dynamics because if you are just leaving it to your subconscious to pick a partner for you, you are gonna be picking a partner who slots into your old patterns. Almost certainly.'cause that's where your attraction is going to go. Now this isn't to say that you. Have to pursue relationships with people who you feel zero attraction to. I think attraction's still important, of course. But it has to sit alongside more intentional assessments of compatibility and value alignment. So getting clear on what are my values? How do I want my relationships to feel? What are my red flags, so to speak? I tend not to use that language'cause I find it to be a bit inflammatory and alarmist. But what are the things that. Signal to me, both in terms of the way I am feeling and my behavior that this feels familiar in a not so good way. And what are the things in them that would signal to me like, maybe this is not the right person for me. Until you have clarity on that, you are gonna be much more susceptible to just like going with the flow. And the flow will probably take you to places where you don't wanna be. Because if we just follow those familiar feelings, we will end up in familiar places almost every time. Okay. I'm gonna leave it there. I hope that that has been helpful in giving you a bit of a sense of like, why do I keep being drawn to these familiar patterns and people and dynamics, even though. I want a secure relationship. I do think we have to get honest around like, am I ready for a secure relationship? And the truth is secure relationships are really vulnerable in ways that insecure ones or dysfunctional ones, unhealthy ones kind of aren't. Again, because all of our protective strategies are. Kind of poised at the ready in those unhealthy relationships because we know them so well, we can feel a little bit naked in a healthy relationship where there's nowhere to hide. Suddenly we can't blame someone else. We can't point the finger and say like, you are not paying enough attention to me, or You are not, giving me enough affection or. You are so inconsistent. I never know how you feel if someone suddenly shows up and is really, upfront and clear and consistent and steady that might actually feel really, really scary for you. And so getting honest about like, are there maybe pieces within me that aren't ready for that or that are resisting that because it is. So uncomfortable in its unfamiliarity. And I do have a couple of episodes that, that touch more on that last piece that I'll link below. Okay. Guys, thank you so much for joining me. I really hope that this has been helpful. As always, thank you to those of you who leave me comments and reviews and ratings. It'll help so much and I'm immensely grateful as always, for your support. Otherwise, I look forward to seeing you again next week. Thanks guys.

Speaker 5:

Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment. If you wanna go deeper on all things, attachment, love, and relationships, you can find me on Instagram at Stephanie under Reig or@stephanierigg.com. And if you enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a review on a five star rating. It really does help so much. Thanks again for being here, and I hope to see you again soon.