Love is among the most powerful human drives. It shapes our art, our poetry, our deepest longings, and our most desperate heartbreaks. Yet for many of us, the experience of love is often tinged with confusion and pain. Again and again, we find ourselves drawn to people who hurt us, neglect us, or cannot give us the intimacy we crave. We ask ourselves, “Why do I keep falling in love with the wrong person?”
The truth is that our choices in love are not random. They are not simply about compatibility or chemistry. They are profoundly shaped by the invisible hand of our childhood experiences, and by the wounds we carry forward into adulthood.
Love as the Search for the Familiar
From the moment we are born, our brains and nervous systems are shaped by our relationships. A baby does not come into the world fully formed; she develops in the context of her environment—particularly the emotional availability of her caregivers.
If our parents are attuned and emotionally present, we learn to expect safety in relationships. But if our caregivers are distracted, wounded themselves, or unable to meet our needs, we learn something else: that love is unreliable, conditional, or even dangerous.
Later, as adults, we do not fall in love with what is healthy—we fall in love with what is familiar. If neglect or rejection were familiar in childhood, then—even without knowing it—we may feel drawn to people who recreate that dynamic. The nervous system whispers: “This feels like home.”
Trauma and the Hungry Child Within
As Dr Gabor Mate reminds us, trauma is not what happened to us, but what happened inside us as a result of what happened. Trauma is the wound we sustain when our needs are not met, when we have to suppress who we are in order to be accepted.
Every child has two irreducible needs: the need for authentic expression and the need for attachment. When those needs conflict—when being authentic threatens the bond with a parent—the child will sacrifice authenticity for the sake of attachment. This is not a choice, but a survival strategy.
Fast forward into adulthood, and those suppressed needs resurface in our relationships. If, as children, we were made to feel unworthy, we may choose partners who confirm that unworthiness. If we had to take care of a parent’s emotions, we may be drawn to partners who need caretaking. These relationships are not accidents; they are the psyche’s unconscious attempt to complete an unfinished story.
A man I once worked with, for example, was repeatedly drawn to women who were emotionally distant. He would fall madly in love, only to find himself desperate for their attention and devastated by their withdrawal. When we traced his history, it became clear: his mother had been loving, but chronically depressed and unavailable. His nervous system had learned to equate love with yearning, distance, and the hope of eventual connection. In adulthood, he kept replaying that same scenario, hoping unconsciously that this time the story would end differently.
The Science of Attraction
Neuroscience helps explain why these patterns are so persistent. Our brains form neural pathways early in life, and those pathways shape our perceptions of what feels right. Daniel Siegel, a psychiatrist and researcher, speaks of interpersonal neurobiology—the way our brains are wired in relationship. In infancy, our nervous systems are literally shaped by the emotional environment we inhabit.
Even at the genetic level, trauma leaves its imprint. Epigenetic research shows that stress and neglect can alter how our genes function, and those patterns can be passed down through generations. In this sense, our choices in love are not just about us—they may be the echoes of wounds carried by our parents and grandparents.
The Difference Between Intensity and Intimacy
One of the most common mistakes people make is confusing intensity with intimacy. The rollercoaster of highs and lows, the drama of longing and rejection, can feel intoxicating. But intensity is not the same as closeness. In fact, the relationships that trigger our deepest wounds are often the ones that feel most compelling, precisely because they activate those unresolved childhood patterns.
This is why stable, genuinely caring partners can sometimes feel “boring.” If your nervous system is accustomed to chaos, calmness can feel unfamiliar—perhaps even unsafe. Healing, in this case, means learning to tolerate the safety that once felt foreign.
Practical Reflections: How to Break the Pattern
Recognizing these dynamics is the first step toward change. Here are some reflections I often share:
- Notice the repetition. Ask yourself: what patterns keep showing up in my relationships? Whom am I drawn to, and why? Do I find myself re-living old wounds with new partners?
- Identify the hungry child. When you feel desperate for love or terrified of abandonment, recognize that it is not your adult self reacting, but the wounded child inside you. That child still believes they must cling, perform, or suffer to be loved.
- Offer yourself compassion. Instead of blaming yourself for choosing the wrong partners, ask: what part of me was seeking healing here? Self-compassion interrupts the cycle of shame that keeps us trapped.
- Learn to distinguish need from love. True intimacy is not about filling a void, but about two whole beings meeting in their fullness. The moment you expect another person to fix your childhood wounds, you place a burden on them that no partner can carry.
- Seek presence, not perfection. In relationships, what heals is not grand gestures, but the capacity to be present with ourselves and one another—even with our pain.
Love as a Path to Healing
When we understand why we fall in love with the wrong people, we also discover the hidden opportunity in our relationships. Every disappointment, every heartbreak, can become a doorway to deeper self-knowledge. The partners who trigger us are not our enemies—they are mirrors, reflecting the wounds we have yet to tend.
Healing does not mean we will never feel the pull of the wrong partner again. It means we can pause, recognize the old story being replayed, and choose differently. Over time, our nervous system learns that love can be safe, nurturing, and reciprocal.
In the end, love is not about finding someone to complete us. It is about becoming complete within ourselves, so that when we meet another, we are not grasping at them to fill our emptiness, but joining them from a place of wholeness. Only then can love fulfill its deepest promise—not to replay our past wounds, but to open us to genuine connection in the present.
