Being hurt by one guy after another certainly explains why you expect to get hurt again. However, if you dig a little deeper I think you’re going to see that the fact that you were drawn to more than one man who hurt you wasn’t an accident.In other words, the boyfriends you picked repeated patterns that you experienced in your formative years as a child growing up. We repeat what we lived as kids partly because it’s familiar and partly because we all want to recreate the wounds of the past (not because we’re masochists or gluttons for punishment) because we yearn for a happy ending this time around. Here’s how this plays out.Let’s say you had a dad who hurt you. You will choose a boyfriend who has the same character make up as the parent who let you down. Choosing a boyfriend who is similar to the parent gives the illusion of going home again. Now the stage is set to recreate the pain of the past and in no time you are suffering just the way you did as a kid.Now you set out to make it work. You try to be good and loving hoping that you will be rewarded this time around will better treatment than you received as a kid.This process is called the repetition compulsion–the compulsion to repeat the wounds of childhood. As you have learned, the repetition compulsion never yields the happy ending precisely because we choose boyfriends and girlfriends who are damaged goods–people who can’t give any more or better than our parents did. But the compulsion to heal is so strong that we know no other way but to keep doing this same dance.This explains why you have been drawn to the same type of guy. It also explains why you are scared, because you know deep down that your unconscious has likely picked another guy who’s going to do you wrong. Left to its own devices, the unconscious knows no other way to heal (even though it doesn’t work) other than setting up yet another repeat performance with a lover or mate who is bound to let you down.The only way to break free of this cycle is therapy. In individual and group therapy you will have the chance to heal your wound and all the feelings that go with it. In therapy you will establish ties with people who love you for you and don’t hurt you.When you are healed, you will no longer need to replay the past. Awareness and therapy is your ticket to freedom.
