Many people continue to get involved in negative relationships, whether it be with abusive, unfaithful, or addicted partners. This is often an unconscious attempt to repair a trauma that occurred in childhood or to work through an aspect of the trauma by repeating it with another person, hoping that this time the result will be different. But there is a way to break free from this negative pattern, and in this post I will outline the steps.

The three steps include:

The most common type of reenactment is partnering with or getting involved with people who are like one of your parents. The reason this type of reenactment is so common is that our parents (or other primary caretakers) have a more powerful effect on us than anyone else in our lives. More specifically, our parents offer our first and deepest experiences of love. Whatever negative experience we have with them, whether it is neglect, abandonment, abuse, or any other experience that causes us pain and/or shame, our relationships with our primary caretakers create our beliefs about relationships in general and how we should behave in them. These negative experiences stay with........

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