• Do you get involved with people that you are actually 'not really into'?

• Do you say or do things that hurt the feelings of others, which causes them to emotionally step back from you?

• Do you habitually let your partner down? Intending to commit to your word or promise, but too often fall flat on delivering on your promise? 

Relationships can be complicated, just as people are also complex. We can contradict ourselves, and hurt those we love without knowing why.

We can promise the world to someone; to love, honour and cherish them, but then we can do and say things to sabotage the essential trust, respect and love nurtured over time.

Some of us enter a pattern of sabotage, replaying a cycle of damage and repair in relationships.

And, sometimes, our life is a series of short-lived relationships, unable to develop long-term meaningful relationships.

Relationships are not supposed to be painful. However, they can help us mature and grow emotionally and psychologically. And this growth can hurt. 

Signs of a relationship self-sabotage

Everyone needs love. And we all deserve love. Unfortunately, the road to love can be full of twists, turns and potholes.

Clinging to the fear of abandonment, feelings of inadequacy, family heritage and past traumatic experiences impact our quality of relationships.

Negative thinking patterns are a magnet for relationship issues. This can create a pattern of always finding something wrong with your romantic partner, workmates, family, friends, and practically anyone who tries to establish a healthy relationship with you. 

Sometimes, we need to learn and develop within ourselves before building trusting, safe, long-lasting loving relationships.

For some people, as much as they want love and intimacy, they can unconsciously sabotage their relationships for fear of getting too close. 

Sometimes, the greater the emotional connection, the greater the risk of hurt due to loss. This loss could be through a separation, or even the event of death. For some people this can be associated with feelings of anxiousness that prevents them from continuing a relationship. 

The roots of relationship sabotage

Developmental psychologists tell us that our upbringing has a huge impact on how we relate to others as adults.

British psychiatrist John Bowlby said "the quality of the early parent–infant attachment has lasting impacts on development, especially on later relationships"(1).

Bowlby suggests we all create internal working models of attachment styles. 

Studies suggest that as adults we unconsciously seek out our attachment styles that we developed as children—unless we take action to examine and change these attachment styles throughout our life experiences. 

This means that children who experience love and attention in their early years will seek out secure and stable relationships as adults. In contrast, if someone has an upbringing in which they feel unloved, unattended, or angry or confused, then as a young adult or adult, they will enter relationships in which they act with avoidance, or with resistance.

This can help explain why some people sabotage their relationships or avoid being in relationships altogether. With an insecure internal working, people can avoid forming deep relationships or experience overly anxious feelings when forming close relationships.

The fear of failure, or their false beliefs about themselves, would always compel them to turn on the negative self-talk switch. This eventually leads to the development of insecure attachments, an attachment style in which one avoids connecting emotionally to others.

With avoidance, or resistance attachment styles, we can be wary of getting too close to anyone. We can feel insecure and act out in jealousy. We can be overly dependent on our partner, not allowing them to have the breathing space that balanced, healthy relationships need.

• Do you push people away (sabotaging the relationship) because the feelings of getting close make you anxious or uncomfortable?

• Do you avoid authentic intimacy?

• Do you feel that you are simply not lovable? Or repeatedly ask your partner, how could they love you? 

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you might have an insecure internal working model. But please don't lose heart! The good news is that this can be changed. 

Sometimes We Can All Use a Hand to Move Forward

By finding the right therapist, healer, coach or counsellor that suits your responsiveness style, you can shift limiting belief systems that create avoidance and resistance attachment styles of relationships. 

A pattern of sabotaging relationships can be transformed, so that you can experience secure, long-lasting, deeply loving relationships.

You can address any feelings of insecurity, allowing for a greater sense of self-worth and authentic confidence to be developed.

You can also instigate change through bringing an awareness to your pattern of behaviour in relationships by observing your thoughts and actions.

Observe yourself without judgement. Give yourself space and permission to recognise your patterns and belief systems. 

When we decide to take action to do the work on ourselves, we not only grow and evolve as a person, we also become better role models for our families and communities. We become better employees and business owners. Remember, we can all change. Our minds, bodies and hearts can relearn new truths.

• Can you recognise secure, avoidance, or resistance style relationships in your life?

• What is the single, next best thing you could do to support creating more meaningful relationships in your life?

Sasha

If you found this article interesting, you may like ‘Are you on the ‘love-hurt’ merry-go-round?’

This article was originally published for Natural Therapy Pages.

references:
(1) Emotions, Attachment, and Social Relationships In Life-span human development (9th ed) Carol K. Sigelman & Elizabeth A. Rider, 2017