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PART 2: WHY, WHY, WHY? INTRODUCTION
How did we get into the downward spiral that leads to heartbreak?
Obviously, this is an incredibly complex question and every woman’s circumstances are different, but here’s my simplified explanation, developed from years of observation and study, working with many clients… and lots of personal experience.
I believe we enter the downward spiral that leads to heartbreak through a combination of factors:
- We’re born with a sensitive nature, which makes us more acutely aware of difficult stuff that’s happening around us and more likely to take things to heart AND
- We experience difficult situations and/or painful relationships in childhood and don’t get the kind of emotional support and security we need to get through them in one piece.
Growing up in these circumstances means we aren’t able to make sense of the difficult stuff that happens or manage our painful emotions in a constructive way. So we store away emotionally charged memories and unhelpful beliefs… i.e. we start to accumulate the Emotional Baggage that gets in the way of our adult relationships (we’ll talk about what Emotional Baggage is and how it’s formed later on in PART 2).
Most damaging of all is the feeling that we aren’t loved enough and therefore are somehow not lovable as we are. We also get used to feeling bad in relationships and this skews our expectations and raises our tolerance of bad treatment.
A lack of healthy role models and inadequate ‘emotional training’ in childhood may also mean we miss out on learning key skills we need to make relationships work well… and we may learn dysfunctional coping strategies and ways of thinking/behaving that sabotage relationships, (more on this later in PART 2).
So, we end up with:
- A build-up of Emotional Baggage that keeps catching us out, including…
- Not feeling good about ourselves & our value as relationship partners
- Low expectations about relationships & an elevated pain threshold PLUS
- Faulty relationship skills and dysfunctional ways of behaving
Put together all these ingredients and what do you get? Rotten relationships that lead to HEARTBREAK. We’re attracted to the wrong guys and we stay with them, even when they treat us badly or make us unhappy. And we aren’t attracted to decent guys, complaining, ‘he’s not my type’ or ‘there’s no chemistry’. Or else we push them away with our complicated or difficult behaviour or scare them off with our insecurities.
With each bad or disappointing experience, we feel even worse about ourselves and expect even less from relationships… Welcome to the downward spiral.
So it’s partly inborn and partly a reaction to life events… or to put it another way:
Here’s how I summed all this up rather frivolously in my ebook:
- Combine three parts Emotional Baggage with two parts Feeling Bad About Yourself and one part Low Expectations in a cocktail shaker.
- Add a measure of Faulty Relationship Skills and a dash of Dysfunctional Behaviour and shake up well.
- Pour over crushed hopes and serve with a large box of Kleenex
Cheers!