After a session talking with a client about (finally) breaking up with her abusive boyfriend and hearing about the “great new guy” she’d found (not), I had a flash of her speeding down a highway in the wrong direction crashing into oncoming traffic. In my vision, while everyone was going north, she was going south and didn’t know it. Some onlookers were aghast or looked terrified, others were waving their arms and honking their horns trying to get her to see what was wrong, while still others looked stunned or shook their heads in wonder that a driver couldn’t see they were heading the wrong way.

Catch my drift here? This is how my client lived her life—and not just her romantic one either—barreling down the road in the wrong direction. Lest you think I sound like I’m blaming her, I’m not. With her upbringing by two abusive parents who were raised by two abusive parents, how could she not make terrible choices in her life? Ending up on the short end of the stick is all she’d ever known. To her romance was one collision (and repair job) after another. 

So, if your work/family/love life sounds like hers, it’s time to stop and take stock. Really stop and really take stock. It’s clear you’re doing what makes sense to you: being the sweet, nice gal/guy and letting others push you around. You’re aching for love and approval and get the opposite for your trouble. You look around and see happy, satisfied couples and wonder what’s wrong with you, what kind of weird relational defect you possess that others don’t have. 

Please believe me when I say you’re not defective, except if you’re talking about your sense of direction which leads you to repeat the past. While others move toward love, you move toward rejection because that’s what you got growing up. Or you faced deceptively conditional love which forced you to be perfect to get a hug or even a pat on the head. The defect isn’t in you, but in the way you were raised. And, of course, your parents wouldn’t have treated you as they did if they hadn’t been treated that way or some other unacceptable way. 

It's time to find out why you keep driving down dead-ends or roads with a cliff at the end of them. Discover the reason and turn your romantic life around. Read books, listen to podcasts, or find a therapist and ask them why you keep ending up with romantic partners who hurt you and somehow you miss all the red flags other people seem to spot right off. This is a fixable, widespread problem (though it might take a while). But once  fixed, you’ll be amazed and grateful at how your sense of direction will improve.

Best,

Karen