The feeling radiates during the day but it particularly aches at night.

Have you ever replayed an old argument, a breakup, or a familiar moment of being let-down (or letting your partner down) wondering how you ended up here, again. You thought this person might be different. But now you’re left with confusion, hurt, or self-doubt. And somewhere in your mind, the same painful question loops again:

“Why do I keep falling for people who hurt me?”

It can feel like you’re stuck in an invisible pattern. A client of mine called it a roundabout where they were unable to take an exit. One that pulls you back into the same kind of relationships, even when you know better.

You might feel ashamed, frustrated, or just exhausted.

However, this pattern didn’t start with you and it’s not your fault.

You’ll be glad to know that there is something you can do about it.

How Do We Understand This Pattern?

Let’s begin gently: you are not broken.

These relationship patterns and its repetitions don’t make you weak or naïve. It’s to your credit that you have spotted them because many go through life being driven by them without ever fully addressing, let alone recognising them. Studies show that simply seeing and questioning our automatic beliefs is a powerful sign of resilience and readiness for change.

Those automatic beliefs come from the emotionally decoded experiences we formed long before we had a say in them.

Perhaps love in your early life was inconsistent, conditional, or unavailable.

Or maybe care was something you had to earn, or people you trusted made you question your worth. Your nervous system adapts to survive in these environments.

For example, let’s say that you had an unstable upbringing, so over time, your nervous system becomes wired to expect uncertainty. To this day, it scans your environment for emotional cues via a hypervigilant baseline. Such baselines are not known for accurate interpretation of sensory information, e.g. when someone triggers you with unpredictable hot-cold behaviour it can feel familiar, and emotional instability can feel like chemistry, but it’s your anxiety that is dressed up in connection.

Perhaps you grew up in a home where emotions weren’t named or paid any attention, therefore, emotional distance or withdrawal may have been the norm. Years later, you could interpret someone’s emotional unavailability or stoicism as “safe” because it mirrors the emotional climate you grew up in, and on the contrary, someone who is openly expressive or emotionally attuned might make you feel uncomfortable, possibly even overbearing.

What we can draw from these two examples is that the nervous system often mistakes the familiar for the safe, even when the familiar hurt us in the past.

So, we’re not drawn to what’s good for us, we’re drawn to what’s familiar.

You can learn more about the nervous system in my blog two weeks back on hypervigilance.

Attachment Patterns: What You Learned About Love

These patterns often begin in early relationships. Psychologists John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth described this as attachment, which is a kind of emotional blueprint shaped by how safe, seen, and supported we felt growing up.

The following are some of the typical patterns that are unconsciously followed, quietly guiding who we are drawn to and what we are willing to tolerate, even if we end up getting hurt:

· If love was unpredictable, we might now chase after it.

If love was unpredictable while you were growing up, your nervous system may have learned to work hard for it. You might now find yourself overextending, over-giving, or anxiously waiting for signs of care.

· If closeness once felt unsafe, we might pull away when things get too intimate.

Closeness in the past was possibly met with criticism (“don’t cry / grow up”), intrusion (boundary encroachment), or rejection (parental withdrawal in time of need). Therefore, intimacy in adult relationships may now feel overwhelming. You might pull away just when things are going well, or maybe feel suffocated by emotional availability. It’s not that you don’t want love. It’s that your system is still trying to keep you from what once felt dangerous.

· If care was conditional, we may find ourselves drawn to people who make us work for affection.

Very common, unfortunately. If care in your early life was conditional, only given when you achieved, behaved, or suppressed your needs, you may now find yourself drawn to people who make you work for affection. At some point, love became tied to effort. You learned to give more than you received, to prove yourself and earn your place. And even now, you might feel more comfortable with someone who keeps you guessing, rather than someone who offers love freely, because that’s what love once meant to you. Again, it is what is familiar, not what is safe.

· If conflict meant danger, we might now avoid hard conversations.

By danger, if conflicts led to shouting, withdrawal, or punishment, you might now avoid difficult conversations altogether. You may find yourself walking on eggshells, fawning (better known as people-pleasing) to keep the peace, or pushing down your needs to avoid upsetting someone. But avoiding conflict comes at a cost. It can leave you feeling invisible in your own relationships: heard, but not fully received. You also don’t get a chance to grow with your partner and overcome challenges together.

· If vulnerability led to shame, we might now hide our feelings or needs.

If you were mocked, ignored, or made to feel like you were too emotional, “too much”, you may now find it hard to express your true feelings or needs. You might minimise pain, avoid asking for support, or feel exposed when you open up. It’s not that you don’t want connection, it’s that you learned long ago that vulnerability wasn’t safe. Hence, you protect yourself by hiding the very parts of you that long to be seen.

Lots of these attachment patterns can be linked to an individual having a low sense of self-worth which you can see in my past blog.

The good news is that habits can be unlearned.

Patterns can change.

And you are not destined to repeat what hurt you.

The Innate Need to Feel Seen

A key element in healing these patterns is the deep human need to feel seen. As my friend, Francesca Sciandra writes, relationship satisfaction often depends less on reaching out and receiving the other person and more on whether someone truly understands and holds our experience.

When we fall into repeating patterns of hurt, it’s partly because we’ve never been witnessed in the vulnerable ways we needed. In counselling and hypnotherapy, one of the first steps to breaking this pattern is you being able to experience feeling seen in small amounts, at a time, by a compassionate other. From that place of witnessed presence, you finally clue up on what real emotional safety and healthy love actually feels like.

Of course, recognising the pattern is only the beginning. Even when we understand why we feel what we feel, it can still be hard to choose differently when our body and mind have learned to treat familiar pain as safety.

That’s why correcting these patterns isn’t about being smarter or trying harder.

It’s about gently rewiring what love feels like, from the inside out.

How Therapy Can Help You Break the Pattern

You don’t have to carry this alone.

I offer a warm, steady space to understand these patterns, not to judge them, but to gently explore where they come from and how they’ve shaped your relationships.

In counselling and hypnotherapy, we don’t just talk about the past, we tune into how your body holds those experiences now.

This kind of work might involve:

· Looking at where your ideas about love and safety first began.

· Noticing how you respond when someone gets close: do you move towards them, pull away, or manage it in some other way?

· Meeting the younger version of yourself who once had to work so hard to feel loved.

· Rebuilding your sense of self-worth and trust, from the inside out.

With patience, you begin to feel something clearer, steadier, and more nourishing.

Free Guide on the Therapeutic Process and What to Expect

This isn’t about being told what to do. It’s about feeling supported as you gently untangle the old patterns and start to choose something new.

If you’re reading this, you’ve already taken the first brave step: being aware of the pattern.

And from that awareness, change can grow.

With the right support, it is possible to feel safe enough to choose differently.

If you resonated with any of this, I offer a warm, non-judgemental space where you're welcome to bring your unfiltered story. Whether you’re feeling stuck in old relationship patterns, or simply curious about what something more nourishing might look like, therapy can be a place to explore that gently, at your own pace.

You’re welcome to book a free 20-minute call if you’d like to see whether working together might feel like a good fit.

Book a Call

References

Ainsworth, M. D. S., Blehar, M. C., Waters, E., & Wall, S. (1978). Patterns of Attachment: A Psychological Study of the Strange Situation. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Alperin, S. (2023). Your Nervous System will always choose a Familiar Hell over an Unfamiliar Heaven. Medium. Available at: https://thewell-beingcollective.medium.com/your-nervous-system-will-always-choose-a-familiar-hell-over-an-unfamiliar-heaven-e52a71d57803. [Accessed 09 August 2025].

Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and Loss, Volume 1: Attachment. Basic Books.

Bradshaw, C. (2024). What Do We Experience When Our Therapist Is Fully Present? Psychology Today. Available at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-existential-station/202310/what-do-we-experience-when-our-therapist-is-fully-present? [Accessed: 09 August 2025].

Copley, L. (2025). Anxious Attachment Style: What It Is (+ Its Hidden Strengths). PositivePsychology. Available at: https://positivepsychology.com/anxious-attachment-style/. [Accessed: 09 August 2025].

Foster, B. (2025a). Therapy for anxiety: Beyond labels. Ben Foster Therapy. Available at: https://www.benfostertherapy.com/blogs/therapy-for-anxiety-beyond-labels. [Accessed: 09 August 2025].

Foster, B. (2025b). Why Can’t I Relax? Uncovering Hypervigilance and How to Feel Safe. Ben Foster Therapy. Available at: https://www.benfostertherapy.com/blogs/why-cant-i-relax. [Accessed: 09 August 2025].

Foster, B. (2025c). When You Feel Like You’re Not Enough: How Hypnotherapy Helps Rebuild Self-Worth. Ben Foster Therapy. Available at: https://www.benfostertherapy.com/blogs/how-hypnotherapy-helps-rebuild-self-worth. [Accessed: 09 August 2025].

Foster, B. (2025d). How to Stop Overthinking (Without Cutting Off Your Head): Reconnecting Mind, Body and Intuition. Ben Foster Therapy. Available at: https://www.benfostertherapy.com/blogs/how-to-stop-overthinking-without-cutting-off-your-head. [Accessed: 09 August 2025].

Richardson, S.M., & Yates, T.M. (2024). Early Childhood Relationships and the Roots of Resilience. In: Tremblay RE, Boivin M, Peters RDeV, eds. Masten AS, topic ed. Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development. Available at: https://www.child-encyclopedia.com/resilience/according-experts/early-childhood-relationships-and-roots-resilience. [Accessed: 09 August 2025].

Schwartz, A. (n.d.). How Relationships Change your Brain – Heal Attachment. Dr. Arielle Schwartz. Available at: https://drarielleschwartz.com/how-relationships-change-brain-heal-attachment-dr-arielle-schwartz/. [Accessed: 09 August 2025].

Sciandra, F. (2025). The Secret to Relationship Satisfaction: Feeling Truly Seen. Francesca Sciandra. Available at: https://francescasciandra.com/blog/the-secret-to-relationship-satisfaction-feeling-truly-seen. [Accessed: 09 August 2025].

Van der Kolk, B.A. (1989). The compulsion to repeat the trauma. Re-enactment, revictimization, and masochism. Psychiatric Clinics of North America. 12(2), pp. 389-411.

The Pattern You Can’t See: Why Do I Fall For People Who Hurt Me?

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