Why You Keep Choosing People Who Can't Choose You

The relationships were never really the problem. They were the symptom.

It took me a long time, and finally, therapy, to understand that. So let me tell you how I got there.

The pattern

Years ago, I was engaged. It didn't work out. We had a classic anxious-avoidant bond, the push and pull. He'd leave, I'd want him back, and every single time he came back, I was drawn right in. It was toxic, and I couldn't make sense of it, because the love felt so real. So I kept asking myself the same questions on a loop:

Why did it never work? Why didn't he ever choose me? Why wouldn't he stay? Why did he keep me siloed, compartmentalized, on the porch of his life but never in the house?

After that relationship ended, I was single for five years. And then I walked straight into another one, with someone who did the exact same thing.

The only "progress" was that I saw the pattern faster and left sooner. But I still had to face the harder truth: I was the one who kept putting myself back in it. Different person, same silo.

So I finally sought therapy.

The session that changed everything

Here's the thing, the therapist I saw didn't really want to talk about my relationship problems, which was the whole reason I came. Instead, he went straight to the thing nobody wants to talk about: family trauma.

I come from a long line of it. I was emotionally abused growing up, with a father who struggled with addiction.

And in that first session, he did something so simple and so devastating. He handed me a piece of paper and said: On the left, write every positive thing that's happened in your life, starting from childhood. On the right, write every negative one.

The right side, the negatives, was so long I couldn't fit it on the page.

The left side, the positives, was painfully short.

But when I looked at what little was on the left, I realized something that cracked me open: every single positive thing on that list was something I had done for myself. Getting into the gym and building a community through CrossFit. Going back to school for my degree. Starting a whole new career. Big, impactful, life-changing things, that I had never once given myself credit for.

The realization

That list showed me the truth I'd been avoiding. I'd spent my whole life being taught, by the people who were supposed to love me, that love was unsafe. That my needs were too much. That being chosen was something you had to earn, and probably wouldn't get.

So of course I kept ending up siloed. A partner who keeps you at arm's length feels strangely like home when that's the love you were raised on. The anxious-avoidant push-pull wasn't random bad luck, it was familiar. It was the wound, looking for a matching shape.

It took years of healing, and a lot of self-love I had to build from scratch, to believe I was even capable of the things on the left side of that page. And it wasn't until I got older, until I finally found that self-love, that anything actually shifted.

What I want you to know

Sometimes getting out of the silo isn't about the other person at all. It's about going back to the root, understanding why the pattern feels like home, and doing the work to heal it.

Because here's what that list taught me: the good things in my life came from me. Which means the capacity to build a good life, and to choose a partner who can actually choose me back, was in me the whole time.

You deserve to be loved. Fully, and in the house, not on the porch. And just as importantly, you deserve to know how to walk away when you're not.

The relationships were never the problem. The problem was believing you had to settle for whatever love you could get.

You don't.

If any of this sounds like you, please consider therapy. It's where I finally found the root, and myself. Check out my support page for therapy platforms and resources to help you get started.