The 7 Steps
Lesson Summary:
Everyone has patterns. They are not character flaws.
Every single person has at least one pattern in relationships that doesn't serve them. Your ex has one. Your parents have one. I have one. The goal of this lesson is not to make you feel broken. It's to bring what's been unconscious into the light so you can choose differently.
These patterns are not random. They were learned early, and they made sense at the time. The same behavior that helped you survive or adapt as a child often becomes the very thing that creates dysfunction in your adult romantic relationships.
Where patterns come from: your childhood conditioning.
Around ages 5–6, we learn who we need to be in order to get love and approval from our parents—especially from the parent whose love felt slightly (or significantly) more scarce. We adapt to that ecosystem: becoming the people-pleaser, the perfectionist, the overachiever, the peacemaker, the joker, the one who stays quiet.
We also observe our parents' relationship and make decisions—sometimes doing exactly what we saw, sometimes swinging to the complete opposite. Either way, we are shaped by it.
What was functional in childhood (and may even work well in your career or friendships) often fails in intimate relationships, where vulnerability and fear of abandonment are most activated.
The fear underneath every pattern.
Every reactive pattern in a romantic relationship (i.e. clinging, shutting down, people-pleasing, getting angry, stonewalling, game-playing, withholding love) comes from one core fear: I am not enough, and therefore I will be abandoned.
This fear is universal. Even people with solid self-esteem experience it. The difference is in how aware you are of the pattern that fear triggers in you.
Common patterns to look at honestly.
Clinging or becoming anxious when you sense distance
Shutting down, stonewalling, or becoming unavailable
People-pleasing, then building resentment, then blaming or punishing
Getting so comfortable in a relationship that you stop trying or disengage from your own life
Playing games: withholding, pulling away to get them to chase, not answering calls
Using tears, anger, or drama to get love rather than asking directly
Psychoanalyzing your partner rather than looking at your own side of the street
See both sides of yourself.
This work requires honesty about what you do that doesn't serve the relationship, but it must be balanced with an equally honest recognition of what you bring to a relationship that is genuinely great. You need to know both.
If you can only see your flaws and not your strengths, that itself is an old pattern: using this breakup as yet another reason to beat yourself up. That pattern needs to be broken too.
Analyzing your ex.
It's natural to want to psychoanalyze your former partner to gain closure and certainty, but your diagnosis is likely incomplete. And even if it were accurate, it's not the most useful place to put your energy right now.
That said, understanding the dynamic (i.e. how you triggered each other, what fears were activated in both of you) can be part of gaining a fuller, clearer perspective on what happened.
Workbook:
Complete exercises “Step 4: The unfinished work of your childhood and your patterns in a relationship” and “Rules and Expectations” in your workbook.
Remember:
Every pattern you have (i.e. every way you punish, withhold, cling, or shut down) is an attempt to prove you are enough, or to prevent being abandoned. It started in childhood and it made sense then. You are not broken. You are becoming aware. And awareness is where everything changes.