Lesson 11: Breaking the Vicious Cycle or Identifying and Overcoming Past Relationship Patterns

 

In this lesson, you will learn how to recognize the negative patterns you have in relationships and overcome them to develop a healthy, happy relationship.

Consciously or unconsciously, we all carry certain relationship patterns from the past into our present. These patterns, which are usually developed through early experiences, determine our expectations from a relationship and reactions to any given situation.

Uncovering these patterns certainly offers valuable insights into our behaviors, choices, and emotional responses. It also helps to break painful cycles that only perpetuate a series of nonsatisfying or dysfunctional relationships. It brings light to the subtle dynamics that limit our relationship satisfaction. Ready to find out which patterns do you have? Let’s go!

Why Learn Your Relationship Patterns?

• You see your behavior from another angle. Being aware of your patterns will help you understand your behavior, even the reasons why you act in a certain situation. It allows you to look at your contribution to the relationships that you will be entering, which is important for personal growth.
• You can finally break unhealthy cycles. Unhealthy patterns can create a type of cycle where you repeatedly end up in dysfunctional relationships. When you can finally point out what is wrong, you can work at breaking these cycles and stop falling into the same traps in future relationships.
• You get more fulfilling relationships. By recognizing and understanding your patterns, you can work towards forming healthier and more satisfying relationships. You can actively choose partners who are more compatible with your needs and expectations.
• You get better at communication and become more attractive: Knowing your patterns can improve your communication skills. Knowing that certain topics make you act defensive, for example, when you are criticized, might lead you to explain this to your partner and, together, you work out healthier ways of getting your point across.
• You become a master of your own life. Lastly, knowing your patterns puts you behind the wheel. Negative feelings or life circumstances can’t control you anymore. You are empowered to make changes in your behavior and thus be the boss of your life and thrive for more rewarding relationships.

Why Do We Have Patterns?

Relationship patterns can come from a variety of sources, often from early life experiences. They are a way of making sense of the world around us, particularly in our relationships. Some common sources of relationship patterns are:

• Attachment Styles. Understanding your attachment patterns, as we discussed in the previous lessons, is one of the keys to your relationship patterns. Knowing that you have a particular attachment type, say, avoidant or anxious, you probably can already understand why sometimes you feel insecure in relationships. However, attachment patterns are not the only keys to your patterns.
• Childhood Experiences. We learn a lot about how to engage with one another from our childhood experiences. How we were treated by our parents or main caregivers, and how they treated one another, helps us create an idea of what to expect from others in relationships.
• Past Relationships. Past relationships teach us what worked, and what did not, uncover new feelings we experienced for the first time, and our reactions. These experiences, positive and negative, can create patterns that we continue on into future relationships.
• Cultural and Social Influences. Society and culture might affect understanding in a relationship. Expectations and norms about gender roles, communication, and conflict resolution, among others, create ways in which one conducts oneself in relationships.
• Personal Beliefs and Self-Esteem: Our self-perception and beliefs about relationships also create relationship patterns. For example, if we feel unworthy of love, then we find ourselves in relationships where we are devalued.
• Trauma and Life Events: The events going on in our lives, traumas included, sometimes change the pattern of our relationship. For example, being in an abusive relationship or even facing a breakup may lead to protective behaviors or patterns in the next relationships.

How to Understand Your Relationship Patterns?

We suggest a step-by-step algorithm to understand your relationship patterns. Try to be as honest as possible with yourself. It will influence the results greatly.

Step 1. List Your Significant Relationships

Make a list of people with relationships with whom you can name as significant. This could be close friends, family members, professional contacts, and other people who added some weight to your life.

Step 2: Describe Each Relationship

Next to each name, write a brief description of the relationship. Include details such as:

• How long the relationship lasted
• How the relationship started and ended
• The dynamics of the relationship (who was leading, who was following, how decisions were made)
• How you felt in the relationship (secure, anxious, appreciated, neglected, or something else)

Step 3: Identify Common Things

Look for common themes or patterns in these descriptions. Do the same dynamics tend to show up over and over? Do you keep feeling the same way? Are you drawn to similar types of people?

Step 4: Reflect on Your Role

Reflect on your behavior in these relationships. Do you feel yourself acting or reacting the same regardless of whether or not the other person acts one way or another? Are there patterns of your behavior are just a part of the cycle leading to a negative outcome?

Step 5: Understand Your Gains

Think about what you get in such relationships emotionally and physically. What do you give to the person, what do you want to get, and what do you really get?

Step 6: Personal Traits Attraction

Identify the traits that have attracted you in the past. Are there certain characteristics that your past partners tend to have? Why do you think you are attracted to these traits? Were those traits really the signs of the behavior that you want to see in your partner?

Step 7: Understand Your Triggers

Identify your triggers in these relationships. Are there certain words, actions, or situations that consistently provoke strong reactions from you? These triggers might be pointing toward unresolved issues or patterns. If the triggers are the same with different partners, they can be a sign of your personal pattern or trauma that has nothing to do with your current partner. It might also make sense to dig into the reasons why these triggers are crucial for you. Perhaps you felt something similar when you were a kid. You can also analyze if these triggers come from your unmet relationship needs or mismatching values.

Step 8: Examine Your Break-Ups

Look at how your relationships ended. Was there a common reason? Did you tend to be the one to end things, or was it usually the other person? What can you learn from this?

Step 9: Seek Outside Perspectives

Share your observations with a trusted friend, family member, or therapist if you feel comfortable. Perhaps they can bring insight or notice things that you may have overlooked.

Step 10: Dig into the Reasons

All relationship patterns have some reasons rooted in childhood or previous experience. You can use cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), psychodynamic therapy, or solution-focused coaching to explore these underlying issues and find solutions to them.

Remember that it is important to take responsibility. While it’s often easier to blame the other person, acknowledging your role in the pattern is crucial for making positive changes.

How to Overcome Patterns in Relationships?

Now that you know your patterns, you probably ask yourself how to get rid of them or replace them with healthier schemes in your head. Change takes time. Be patient with yourself and keep in mind that the ultimate goal is to foster healthier, more satisfying relationships. Overcoming patterns is also about healing your mind and soul, so it will take some time and attention. Here are some steps to guide you in this way.

Step 1: Analyze the Underlying Causes

Take a look at your patterns list and ask yourself why these patterns might exist. Are they leftovers from past experiences and relationships? Is this about your self-esteem or fear of rejection? This can be difficult to go through this reflection on your own and you might benefit from working this out with a therapist or coach. You have to be brave to see some of these things for what they are. Remember that the more careful and honest you are in your answers the more influence your work will have on your relationship.

Step 2. Turn Your Patterns into Goals

Yes, you have some negative patterns that spoil your relationships. We all have them. It is important to be brave enough to look at this part of yourself and start to act. Next to every pattern that you found, write your goal – how you want to learn to behave in such situations.

For example, close to “I take criticism very painfully and start shouting and crying like a kid” you can write “I accept the feelings of others and ask them to use more constructive words with me. I also don’t criticize my partner.”

Step 3: Visualize Your Ideal Relationship

Take the vision of your ideal relationship from the previous lesson and check if those goals conflict with your patterns. Use the image of your ideal relationships as a source of steps that you do to overcome your patterns. For example, if your relationship goal is to “Avoid painful quarrels and conflicts” and you have a pattern “I don’t trust people because they always try to manipulate each other,” then it makes sense to create a goal related to learning open and honest communication. Say, it can be something like “I’m ready to listen to people and accept that they have a different opinion even if I don’t like it.”

Step 4: Turn Your Goals into Action Steps

After you set a goal for each aspect of how you want to change in your relationships, identify specific actions you can take to achieve these goals. This might involve seeking therapy, learning to set boundaries, and mastering some communication techniques.

Step 5: Implement the Changes

Once you have decided upon the actions you take, be ready that it might be uncomfortable to change, but it is a process, so no rush. Celebrate each progress no matter how small it might seem, and appreciate it.

Step 6: Tracking Your Progress

Keep a journal of your feelings, thoughts, and activities regarding changing a pattern. This may help you see both the progress that you are making and where you are getting stuck.

Step 7: Seek Support

Don’t be afraid to seek out a therapist, coach, or friend that you can trust as you work your way through this process. Changing the patterns in a relationship is not an easy task, so don’t feel afraid to ask for help.

Step 8: Stay Awake

Even when you think that patterns are gone, allocate some time for self-reflection on your relationship regularly. Consider whether you are finding yourself in old patterns or if you are successfully integrating the new ones. Constant self-assessment keeps you aware of what is going on with you. Regular self-evaluation helps to keep you aware of your progress. Praise yourself for the progress you make. Acknowledge and celebrate when you successfully implement new patterns. Positive reinforcement can motivate you to continue making changes.

Step 9: Take Care of Yourself

Your mental and emotional health is crucial to maintaining your new behaviors. Take care of your physical health: sleep, eat well, and engage in activities that bring you joy and help you to relax. Supportive friends and family or a referral to a mental health professional, like a counselor or therapist.

Remember that it takes time to make lasting changes. Be gentle with yourself during this process and celebrate each step you make toward your new, healthier relationship patterns.

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Course Key Takeaways

Congrats! You have just completed the class of self-discovery! Let us remind you of some major points learned from this class:

Understanding Your Relationship Needs

• Understanding your needs helps improve self-knowledge, enhances happiness, aids your partner in understanding you, and allows you to set clear boundaries in your relationships.
• Overcoming the fear of expressing needs is vital; it’s normal to have emotional needs, and sharing them with your partner is crucial instead of hiding them out of fear of appearing needy or vulnerable.
• Self-reflection reveals unmet needs and relationship expectations, guiding you in improving your relationships and overall happiness.
• Independence in fulfilling needs means recognizing that not all emotional needs require your partner’s involvement; some needs, such as financial stability, emotional support, and comfort, can be self-fulfilled.
• Seeking support from other relationships is important, as family and friends can help fulfill your emotional needs; relying solely on your partner can strain the relationship.
• Open communication is key; it’s essential to express your needs to your partner instead of expecting them to understand intuitively, which helps meet needs more effectively.
• Creating a fulfillment plan involves reflecting on your relationship needs and developing a strategy to address them, contributing significantly to your overall happiness and satisfaction.

Knowing Your Core Values

• Core values are those intrinsic beliefs that guide us in our behavior and interaction throughout life. Some of the important values necessary for dating include honesty, respect, communication, trust, flexibility, empathy, fun, and generosity, just but a few.
• Understanding your core values helps in finding someone whose values lie parallel to yours. This helps reduce friction, builds deeper connections, and finds meeting points in case of disagreements.
• Living your values means being authentic self and aligning with core beliefs; you will be more attractive to people of similar values. Align life and daily activities with core values, using specific actions reflecting those values.
• Discussing core values in a relationship doesn’t have to be direct on initial dates; you can subtly introduce topics related to your values and observe your partner’s reactions. More direct conversations about core values can be addressed comfortably by the fourth date.
• Engaging in activities that reflect your core values with your partner can strengthen your bond or reveal potential incompatibilities.

Checking Your Non-Negotiables

• Non-negotiables are the must-haves you can’t compromise in your potential partner or in a relationship in general. It can be personality traits, values, beliefs, lifestyle choices or views for the future.
• They help filter potential partners.
• They highlight your self-awareness, self-respect, and boundaries that will protect your mental, emotional, and physical state.
• You need to figure out your non-negotiables yourself, keeping in mind that being flexible is also important to make the least realistic.
• Deal-breakers are the requirements that you or your partner have. If some of you can’t agree or don’t match the requirements of each other it may show that the relationship is not right for both of you.

Setting Your Boundaries in Relationships

• Boundaries are limits or rules that one sets to determine safe and acceptable behaviors from others in all physical, emotional, intellectual, and sexual aspects of relationships.
• Setting limits protects your psychological and physical well-being, creates self-respect, reduces friction, prevents frustrated needs, and increases self-esteem.
• Poor boundaries can cause stress, anxiety, low self-esteem, depression, codependency, and burnout.
• A good way to set limits is in a four-step process: inform, request, insist, leave. The whole idea about boundaries is communication – it’s setting limits while being non-aggressive yet firm.
• Respecting partners’s boundaries means actively listening to them, asking them when in doubt about something, respecting others’ rights to say no, showing empathy without assumption, and validating the feelings of the other person. It also means apologizing when an offense has been committed.

Identifying Your Attachment Type

• Attachment types are psychological concepts that help us understand our behavior in relationships.
• Secure attachment, the most common type found in 60% of the population, develops from a safe and nurturing childhood environment, leading to comfort with intimacy, effective communication, and resilience in facing challenges.
• Avoidant attachment, affecting about 25% of individuals, arises from inconsistent or dismissive care during childhood. People with this style often maintain emotional distance and prioritize independence over intimacy.
• Anxious attachment, present in around 5% of the population, results from inconsistent caregiver responses. These individuals crave emotional intimacy and reassurance, coupled with a fear of abandonment.
• Disorganized attachment, also seen in roughly 5% of individuals, combines traits of both anxious and avoidant styles, resulting in unpredictable behavior. This attachment type typically develops from traumatic childhood experiences like abuse or neglect.
• Understanding attachment types enhances communication in relationships and helps individuals choose partners with compatible styles. Securely attached individuals tend to connect well with all types, while avoidant and anxious individuals may struggle together.
• Partners with an avoidant attachment style require occasional space, dislike criticism, and are sensitive to strong emotions; respecting their need for space and framing concerns as constructive requests is essential.
• Partners with an anxious attachment style seek constant reassurance and open emotional communication; regular affirmations of love, active listening, and keeping promises are vital in these relationships.
• Individuals with a disorganized attachment style may display erratic behavior due to deep fear and insecurity; fostering communication and demonstrating trustworthiness can help them feel more secure.

Know Your Strong and Weak Points When it Comes to Relationships

• When it comes to relationships your strong points may include emotional intelligence, effective communication, patience, resilience, reliability, sense of humor, confidence, kindness, or independence.
• You can acquire strong qualities through therapy, coaching, improving communication skills, practicing patience and empathy, and focusing on personal growth.
• Common weak personal qualities for dating may involve acting defensive, insecure, bad at communication, being impulsive, having unresolved personal conflicts, being dishonest, or too controlling, and not putting enough effort into a relationship.
• Challenging your weaknesses means setting specific goals for improvement, continuously learning and practicing new ways of being better, and seeking help if it’s required,
• Nobody is perfect; we all have our strengths and weaknesses in dating. The key lies in developing the ability to learn from our mistakes and try to be the best version of ourselves.

Setting Relationship Goals

• Setting clear relationship goals is essential for finding love and maintaining meaningful connections. These goals serve as a roadmap for guiding decisions and actions while helping you identify compatible partners.
• Goals provide clarity, establish standards, prevent misunderstandings, build a solid relationship foundation, filter prospective partners, and ensure personal fulfillment.
• Visualize your ideal relationship without focusing on a specific person; consider aspects like communication style, conflict resolution, shared interests, social life, and mutual support. Document your vision and transform the key elements into actionable goals that you can influence, encompassing both desired relationship dynamics and qualities you seek in a partner.
• Break your goals into small, doable steps that you can start right away. For example, if there’s a quality you want in a partner, try building that same trait in yourself first.

Understanding Relationship Patterns

• Our past experiences and childhood significantly shape our relationship patterns, influencing expectations, reactions, and interactions. Recognizing these patterns is crucial for understanding our behaviors and breaking harmful cycles.
• Relationship patterns often stem from early life experiences, past relationships, cultural and social influences, personal beliefs, self-esteem, trauma, and significant life events.
• Acknowledging our role in these patterns is vital for making positive changes; while it may be easier to blame others, taking responsibility for our part is key to fostering healthier relationships.
• Change takes time, and maintaining new behaviors requires patience, consistent effort, and regular self-reflection. Despite challenges, every step toward healthier patterns should be celebrated.

See you on our next courses!

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