Why Do I Keep Getting Hurt in Relationships?

Maybe this is the third time it's happened or the fifth. You tell yourself this time will be different, and then somewhere in the middle of it, the same disappointment creeps back in. If you're asking yourself why this keeps happening, you're not imagining it, and there's usually a real reason your relationships keep landing in the same place.

So, here’s a potentially sensitive and hard question for you to ask yourself. “Whose love did I want most growing up that I couldn’t seem to get?”

Breathe.

I know that might have been a tough question, but it's an important one because many of us are chasing approval, attention, or love from someone who couldn't give it to us in the way we needed. And to answer your question of “why does this keep happening to me,” psychologists actually have a name for this: repetition compulsion, which is the tendency to unconsciously recreate old emotional wounds with new people, in hopes of finally having a different outcome.

Examples of What This Repetition Compulsion Looks Like

In dating, you go for people who are hot and cold. They rarely initiate affection, avoid deeper conversations, or pull away when things start to get serious. Yet, you stay in this relationship thinking maybe if you tried harder, things will change.

In your romantic committed relationship, you're constantly questioning where you stand, sometimes even excusing their absence or distance as somehow your fault. You get disappointed over and over, yet you keep thinking that if you have more patience, love a little harder, this time it will be different.

You spent your childhood trying to impress a parent who only pointed out your mistakes. And as an adult, part of you is still achieving and striving for for more in your career in hopes of gaining validation, even if you’ve been left feeling disappointed every time you’ve share your milestone.

In friendships, you keep investing your care and time while wondering why the the effort doesn’t seem mutual, wondering if it’s you, hoping the other person will eventually reciprocate instead of recognizing they may simply not be capable of being the friend you deserve.

At work, your boss rarely acknowledges you and the promotion you believe you qualify for isn’t happening. Instead of setting boundaries, you volunteer for more and overextend yourself to the point of burnout, trying to be a "team player" in hopes of earning recognition. And no matter what your closest supporters say, you can’t seem to accept that this has nothing to do with you, that it’s their toxic management style, or the systemic oppression you’re fighting against that’s beyond your control.

This Isn't About Your Worth

The chase isn't really about whether you're worthy of love. It's you trying to rewrite an old story, hoping for a different ending.

The painful part is that we often spend years stuck in this cycle instead of asking the one question that actually matters: is this person capable of giving me the kind of love, support, emotional safety, and consistency I need?

There's a real difference between staying in a relationship to work through something together and trying to repair it, and unknowingly recreating your original wound with a different person in a different setting. One is repair. The other is just you, repeating the same thing over and over expecting different results.

Where This Really Comes From

This pattern rarely starts with the person you're chasing right now. It usually starts much earlier, with whoever taught you what love was supposed to feel like in the first place.

If you grew up feeling like you had to earn love, attention, or approval, through good behavior, good grades, being low-maintenance, or simply not causing problems, you learned a lesson very young: love isn't something that's just given. It's something that has to be earned.

That's why the boss who never acknowledges your work, or the partner who runs hot and cold can feel so oddly familiar. It's not that you're drawn to people who hurt you. It's that your system recognizes the shape of the dynamic. You already know how to play this role. You've been rehearsing it since childhood.

This is often at the root of feeling like you're not good enough, even when there's no real evidence to support it. The feeling isn't about your actual worth. It's an old belief that was formed early. And beliefs formed that early don't tend to update on their own, no matter how much you accomplish or how hard you try in the present. That’s why you might catch yourself saying, “I know I’m good enough, but why do I keep feeling like I’m not.”

How EMDR Can Help With This

This pattern doesn't usually change just from understanding it intellectually. Knowing why you keep chasing the same kind of love doesn't automatically stop your nervous system from reaching for it again. That's because the belief isn't stored as a thought. It's stored as a felt sense, often going back to childhood experiences your conscious mind may not even fully remember. It’s that “repetition compulsion” on full repeat.

EMDR works directly with that. Instead of talking through the pattern in detail, it helps your brain sort through the original experiences that lead you to develop a negative belief about yourself that plays out in your present relationships and point of view. Sometimes those experiences have left a deep mark in your life that’s almost like a running script in the background as to why you keep feeling drawn, stuck or compelled to continue in situations that you intellectually know aren’t good for you. Over time of working through these meaningful moments, this can loosen the pull toward familiar but painful dynamics, because the old wounds driving these self-destructive patterns can be updated to reflect the beliefs that you want to be taking lead in how you navigate life.

How Healing Actually Begins

Healing often starts the moment we stop trying to earn approval or love from people who were never able to give it, and start choosing relationships where love and approval don't have to be constantly proven or earned.

If this is a pattern you keep noticing in your own life, you're not alone. In fact, it's one of the most common things that shows up in therapy, and it's very workable once you understand where it's actually coming from.

If all of this resonated with you, I invite you to consider EMDR therapy to see how it might help benefit you.

Learn more about EMDR therapy at: www.betterpaththerapy.com/EMDR

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Better Path Therapy works with high-achieving professionals who are tired of holding it all together on the inside. You don't have to be in crisis to deserve support.