Dating Articles  

When It Comes Relationships:  Patterns Don't Lie

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...many women who were involved with men who were alcoholics. Their stories were different and yet they all had an eerie pattern of familiarity. They found the men "exciting" and felt an instant "chemistry" and couldn't understand how the same man could turn out to be so mean, insensitive and hurtful.

As their time in my group progressed some of these women found the strength (although temporarily) to begin setting limits with or even leaving such abusive men and when they did the group cheered their courage.

Fast forward 2 months. In nearly ever case the same women who had left their abusive relationship would begin dating someone new. He was different they assured the group and in many ways the new man in their life was different until they had dated him for a few weeks or months and seemingly out of nowhere, the same abusive traits of the former boyfriend or husband began to manifest in their new boyfriend.

I saw this pattern repeated so many times that I stopped counting. Usually by the third relationship I and the group had enough "evidence" to show the woman in question their relationship pattern with men.

It wasn’t that they intentionally sought out these type of men, but a subconscious belief was attracting them to these type of men based on their low self esteem. Those that were willing to pay more attention to patterns rather than intense feelings were able to date different type of men and ended up with a wonderful marriage.

Those who insisted that all they needed to do was find the right man were destined to continue their downward spiral indefinitely regardless of the amount of relationship advice or intense therapy they undertook.

Do you know your relationship pattern? Do you know what the men you have dated have in common? It won’t be obvious, but if you take some time you will be able to see a pattern and if you don’t like this pattern, you can change it.

When a person is willing to learn from their accept responsibility for their patterns, they then have the ability to change those patterns and get the results that they want because it's will always be true -- Patterns don't lie.