Breaking The Bad Man Habit

I was talking to a friend the other day about her recent dating trainwrecks, and how unfortunately she was seeing a pattern in the types of guys she kept hooking up with. And you know this happens all the time, with all of us – either with boyfriends or husbands.

So the two key questions are, first why do we have patterns and then second, how the heck do you break them?

The deal is this. When you grow up, you have a particular “picture” of what relationships and love are, based on your family of course. Your first love objects are your parents – or one parent, if that’s all you grew up with.  You are forever imprinted with this picture.

So if you grow up in a close family, that’s what your imprint is. If you grow up where the dad is never there, or he’s demanding or distant, or even worse, abusive, that’s your imprint. You are not beholden to it, but in general, we humans tend to do what’s easiest, and what is easiest is often what’s most familiar.

You spend many years as a child watching and learning how adults act in relationships, so by the time you’re ready to have one, you pretty much “know” how to act. That’s one part of your imprint. The other part is that we all have a role in our family. We might be the “good” one, or the “bad” one, or the “broken” one. We take those roles into adulthood.

So maybe you were the “good” one and your sister or brother – or even one of your parents – was the “broken” one. There’s a good chance you will internalize some sort of feelings about that.  It could be guilt – guilt that you couldn’t help your “broken” sibling. It’s way down deep in there. You may not even know it’s there. EXCEPT when you start dating.

 And this is sort of the kinky part – whatever relationship you down deep needed to address in your family is the one you end up trying to replicate in your relationships, no matter what the gender.

So your sister always had problems growing up? You might feel bad because she ended up  “broken” and so your subsequent relationships are with “broken” people you try to fix – in order to assuage your guilt for not being able to “fix” your sister. And of course you do all this in context of however you learned about relationships. So if there was arguing, you argue. If there was no arguing, you internalize everything. If no one communicated their feelings, you feel right at home when the “broken” guy you’re dating never tells you if he cares. Sound at all familiar?

Ok, so maybe you’ve been able to identify your patterns. Now what? How do you get rid of them? How do you go forward into healthy relationships and stop making the same mistakes over and over again?

Just an aside: isn’t it interesting how we can see someone across the room and be attracted to them without saying a word, and then find out they have the same screwed up issues as the last person we dated? I’m certain we “exude” some sort of smell or brainwave or something.  I mean, how else can you explain it?

Anyway…so breaking the patterns. It’s kinda tricky. First I think you need to do things differently. When I split up from #2, I socialized more, I dressed differently, I tried new activities, I moved, I changed jobs, I traveled. I pulled myself out of my OWN habits. I met new people – I socialized with different folks – maybe folks outside of my usual “comfort zone.” Not that they were scary or unsavory, just different. And different was good.

And then I worked very hard to recognize my own patterns. Mostly it involved speaking up. If something was bothering me, I mentioned it right away – which was very unusual, because my “imprint” was non-confrontational, non-communicative, so it took a lot of effort to say if something was bothering me. I learned to say “no” and also to say, “this isn’t working for me.” 

Oh, and one more thing. Your “imprint” kind of directs you in a certain direction for what you THINK you want/need in a relationship. Because you choose something to fulfill that imprint. But that may not be what YOU really need. Part of changing the pattern is deciding what you really want. What’s important to YOU. That comes with experience and time.

Some people are lucky enough to figure it out early on in life, and are unencumbered by baggage. That wasn’t me. But better late than never.

Need help with your patterns? Send me an email. Or for more manure-free wit and wisdom, check out my book, “Do I Need To Slap You?”