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Healthy love felt too quiet for me.
It was boring.
Something always felt like it was missing in stable and consistent relationships. I didn’t know why I was drawn to emotionally unavailable partners, but I was certain that the ones who pushed me away must be keepers.
I believed “nice” men were lame. However, “bad boys” sparked my interest. Rebellious, unpredictable men were such a turn on for me. Their untamed nature was like a magnet, making me fall in love so quickly—so deeply.
Don’t even get me started on the push-and-pull dynamics, the endless situationships, and the on-again-off-again cycles. I loved them. Weird, right?
Ultimately, the pattern became obvious. As I left my 20s, it became clear to me that my taste in men was, well, horrible. It all started making sense when I willingly chose to give the “nice” men a chance. Instead of chasing toxic dynamics, I set out to uncover why those men repulsed me and why I was wired for men who were emotionally absent.
The discovery was stunning. When I gave the “nice” men a chance, I was flooded with new, unfamiliar emotions that didn’t feel safe. It was a new, unfamiliar dynamic. I felt unworthy of it, and the closer I got to those “nice” men, the weirder it got.
After examining the issue closely, I discovered that “nice” men weren’t boring and “bad boys” weren’t hot. In fact, it wasn’t about them at all…it was all about my nervous system. Apparently, our nervous system plays a massive role in choosing our partners, but we just don’t know it.
It remembers moments and feelings that we have long forgotten and is on a relentless mission to recreate them so we can feel safe. One of the ways that our nervous system recreates traumas and memories is through romantic relationships. Because our partners subconsciously remind us of our parents, we tend to choose the ones who might mirror the feelings we felt with our parents in childhood.
Regardless of the quality of the feeling, the nervous system thinks it’s normal. It can’t differentiate between right and wrong, and it obviously can’t communicate it to us. So when we “fall in love,” there’s something deeper than chemistry and compatibility that’s happening. There are a whole lot of traumas that are being activated beneath the surface.
If we experienced safety and gentleness with our caregivers as children, we might seek partners who are emotionally healthy. However, if we experienced neglect or irregularity, we might seek partners who are emotionally absent. To sum things up, our partners often exhibit our parents’ tendencies and behaviors.
The shocking truth is we don’t seek love per se; we seek what’s familiar. We want what we have always known. I know it’s jarring, but we can experience a new reality if we so choose. To start, we need to step over the “boring” feeling that we experience with healthy partners and give them a chance if we feel a combination of attraction and hesitancy with them. That’s not boredom; that’s unfamiliarity.
The hesitancy might be our nervous system rebelling, and it’s our job to recognize the rebellion.
Then, we need to dig deep and figure out the attachment style we have with our parents. If we figure that out, we can easily recognize the pattern that our nervous system might be trying to recreate. We can rewire our nervous system by exploring the roots of our romantic choices. To heal our adulthood, we need to revisit our childhood. If we start there, we can build healthy, genuine relationships that have no expiry date.
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author: Elyane Youssef
Image: giuliajrosa/Instagram
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