Why do I love people that hurt me?

Have you ever asked yourself that question? You just broke up with a person that is very manipulative and you ask yourself, "Why did I fell in love for them?" Have you found a pattern on your past relationships? Are you thinking why me again?

Many of us suffer from chronic post-traumatic stress disorder from traumatic experiences during childhood. Such experiences leave deep scars that sometimes we don’t even realise exist. They sure affect the way we attach and feel when in a relationship. Reactions to traumatic childhood (including all types of abuse, as neglect) can vary from manifesting co-dependency (of self-love deficit disorder), obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression or narcissist behaviours. What kind of symptoms you manifest depend on a multitude of factors including the personality of your parents, yours, external influences, presence of siblings, etc. We might manifest more than one of those types of clusters of symptoms.

If you have co-dependent behaviours you might still be always looking for external sources of validation to affirm you have value as a person. You might lack self-esteem. Normally we look inside and find love for ourselves, not outside. When you encounter someone that is in the other extreme and express narcissistic behaviours, being those trauma-related or addiction-related (pathological narcissists, drug addicts, borderline personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, psychopaths, etc) they might love-bomb you in one way or another. Love bombing is when they bombard you with love messages, love demonstrations, promises, making a thousand plans for a brilliant future with you, etc. They start the flirting really strong as you were made for each other. That love bomb hits you hard because of the low self-esteem. You feel like you are in the top of the world, you finally found your prince or princess charming! That can be a normal thing at the beginning of any normal relationship. However, here the co-dependent loses himself because of their lack of self-esteem. The next phase is when the problems start. The co-dependent will keep looking to the person they are in love for that validation, and the emotional manipulator will only give that validation (in the form of sex, saying I love you, being nice, gifts, etc) when they can get something they want in exchange. That can be sex, money, submission, or just any other favour. This is called conditional love. In conditional love, you only get love, when you please or do something in exchange.

If you can imagine two extremes of a continuum, in one end the co-dependents, on the other extreme, emotional manipulators that only care about pleasing themselves at any cost. On the centre of this spectrum would be normality. People around these extremes would still be normal, but going too much to one extreme and they will be susceptible to manipulation, or manipulators. It would look somewhat like this:

It is worthy to note that you can be on one of the sides near the centre and still be within normal levels of codependency or narcissistic behaviours. Many people manifest codependent or narcissistic behaviours at healthy levels. You would still be attracted to the people on the other side of the spectrum. If both are not outside normality levels, the relationship won't reach toxic levels. The problems are near the extremes of the spectrum.

It is also interesting to understand that you might have professional relationships with narcissists or other emotional abusers. Or a parent or sibling. Here I'm only talking about romantic relationships with emotional manipulators.

Many of the people who have been abused in their family of origin and exhibit co-dependent behaviours have difficulties understanding their feelings. So they get hooked by the love bombing, almost like it is a drug they are addicted to. Strong feelings and emotions it is all they can relate to. So when they meet a person that is on the same extreme as them, they feel no chemistry. Usually, they can’t find a connection, they do not “fall in love” and they feel like the relationship is dull. The emotional manipulators, on the other hand, are attracted to someone that can give them what they want. Sometimes, most often than not, they do not even realise they are emotional manipulators and will never admit the damage they cause. Yet, they are incapable to love people on the same extreme of this spectrum as them, because they do not please them.

There are two main things to take from this:

1) You are likely blind to this process happening because the love-bombing feels like you found what you need to fill the hole in your self-esteem. Furthermore, the second phase when the love bombing stops you might still not see it happening if you grew up in a traumatic environment, sometimes the abuse is just familiar. It is a continuation of what you had as a child on your family of origin. As it is familiar to you might feel like home, although it is painful because it is dysfunctional.

2) Until you fix your self-esteem problem (and very likely your boundary problems that comes with it) you will be susceptible to “fall in love” for people that will hurt you. After you re-establish that self-esteem, you preference for romantic relationships may start changing naturally and you may start feeling aversion of people that have narcissistic behaviours or are manipulative. You might start noticing a change towards another style of attachment to the romantic pair where you can look to the other one for what they are and not for that external validation. That is the only way of avoiding getting back to the same process with a different or even the same emotional manipulator again and again.

Please have a look at my article about self-esteem if you think it might help you.

I suggest books like:

• The human magnet syndrome, by Ross Rosenberg (most of the info in this post comes from here)

• Facing codependency, by Pia Mellody

• Homecoming, by John Bradshaw

• Complex PTSD, from surviving to thriving, by Pete Walker