This Is Why You Keep Getting Heartbroken

Insanity is repeating the same pattern and expecting a different result.

We know this when it comes to our goals, but love enters the picture, this rule flies over our heads.

If you've been experiencing consistent heartbreaks, there's a pattern you're ignoring.

Most likely, it's something you've overlooked without meaning to.

I hope I can help you unpack it. 

You Are Choosing Potential Over Reality

When you love someone, you tend to see them through a rosy bubble.

Your mind is full of who they can be instead of who they are. 

You are not delusional, you only feel hopeful. 

You know that if they tried a little harder or improved one aspect of their lives, they would eventually become who you believe them to be. 

So you invest your emotions into that version.

You make excuses for their toxic flaws.

You bend your own rules to accommodate them.

You're pouring into them at your own expense because you believe you'll be rewarded with the dream version of them.

Loving someone and sticking with them isn't the problem. 

The issue is you love an idea.

When you fall in love with the idea of a person, you only set yourself up to be disappointed when they consistently show you the opposite. 

I'm not saying that people can't become better.

It's just there's a possibility it might never happen with you. 

Why do you want to bet your peace on a future version they probably may never become. 

The more you relate with that person, the more emotionally invested you become.

And by the time you finally realize the change was only in your head, it's become harder to let go. 

And that's what makes your heart hurt even more when it's finally over. 

You Ignore Red Flags Because You Want It to Work

You're not blind.

You didn't miss the red flags. 

You noticed them like many people do. 

When you looked away, your guts screamed for you to pause and reflect. 

The only issue was you cooked up some sentences to justify tolerating those red signals. 

You told yourself it wasn't that serious, that you only needed to endure, that they didn't know any better. 

And this created context to behavior that made you uncomfortable.

I know you felt you were being mature. After all, only difficult people end relationships over a few flaws.

Really?

What you don't understand is that you're abandoning yourself. 

You're training your mind to ignore your own needs and training your nervous systems to embrace what's clearly dysfunctional.

My dear, anything you overlook in the beginning won't change overnight. 

I'm not saying people don't change, of course, people evolve. 

But change is intrinsic. 

Nobody changes until they decide to. It doesn't matter how much love you pour into them. 

And it's easier to influence someone who is open to growth. 

You Get Emotionally Invested Too Quickly

Sweetheart, falling in love isn't the problem. 

It's the pace. 

There's a natural pace where two people get emotionally attached with time. 

And then there is a pace that is driven by desire, loneliness, or the excitement of being chosen. 

And it can be for one or more reasons. 

You've spent so much time fantasizing about your romance that when a man opens the door for you, you're already thinking of having his babies. 

Or maybe you were starved of love as a kid because your parents were never available, so you fall for some playboy who knows how to make your heart dance with sugarcoated lies. 

Either way, you can't seem to stop yourself from falling hard too fast. 

When this happens, your ability to properly assess a person reduces.

Instead of asking questions, you'll start performing husband or wife duties.

Paying bills.

Sleeping with them.

Cohabiting.

Investing together. 

What makes it concerning is your focus shifts to how you can make it work instead of what is right for you.

You should move into caring deeply about someone when you have enough information about who they are and find them worthy of being in your life. 

Skipping this process keeps you in the heartbreak loop.

You Stay Longer Than You Should

You keep overstaying your welcome.

You know something is off, and that thing is not usually loud or dramatic like cheating or physical abuse. 

Sometime, it could be something quiet.

Maybe a white lie about where they went or how they keep comparing you to their ex. 

Instead of leaving, you decide to give them more time.

You want to confirm what your spirit is clearly against, while cooking up hope they will change.

Before you know it, you gaslight yourself into thinking you're the problem.

And in doing so, you allow a situation that could have ended with mild disappointment to turn into deep heartbreak.

I know leaving earlier is easier said than done sometimes.

But staying longer does more damage to you while making the breakup more painful than it needed to be. 

You Prioritize Being Chosen Over Choosing

I won't lie, it feels good to be wanted.

Knowing someone desires you, especially if it's someone you equally like is the equivalent of receiving a credit alert.

But it's easy to get carried away by the idea of being pursued that you stop asking yourself if you truly want this person. 

Instead, you focus on maintaining their interest. 

You wear the clothes they like, not the ones that fit your body shape. 

You start speaking softly because they told you their ex had a loud voice. 

You pretend to be adventurous when you'll rather cuddle up with a book.

You overlook things because you don't want to be labelled suspicious. 

You're now performing to force a connection with someone you don't really like. 

And when the relationship ends, you feel like you lost yourself and that's what hurts more. 

You Do Not Have Clear Boundaries

Without boundaries, everything feels acceptable until it becomes unbearable.

You tolerate inconsistent communication

You accept less than you need.

You allow behavior that does not align with what your needs.

Because you are not enforcing your boundaries.

Maybe because you're afraid they would leave, and being agreeable makes you less difficult. 

It's not just about knowing what you want, but acting on that knowledge.

If you want to set effective boundaries, you need to be willing to disappoint someone else in order to stay aligned with yourself.

Without them, you remain in situations that slowly wear you down.

You Confuse Love With Endurance

You believe that love requires suffering.

So you stay when he hits you. 

You endure when she cheats on you.

Because somewhere in your subconscious, you believe this is another challenge to your love and pushing true is proof you love that person. 

Not all difficulty is meant to be endured.

Some of it is information.

It's life showing you that that relationship is not right for you.

When you mistake love with endurance (yes, that's what it is, a costly mistake) you stay in situations that require you to constantly prove your commitment at the expense of your well-being.

And over time, what you call love begins to feel more like survival.

You Do Not Pause to Reflect Between Relationships

Rebounds are becoming more common than we think.

People are jumping into the next relationship with the hope they can forget the last one, or to one up their ex.

But unprocessed heartbreak will repeat itself.

If you move from one relationship to the next without taking the time to understand what happened, you’ll repeat the same patterns.

You'll choose the same person who destroyed your trust.

You'll judge the next person from the same warped standards you started the last one with. 

Reflection is what interrupts patterns.

It allows you to see where you ignored yourself, and where you stayed longer than you should have.

Without that pause, experience does not become wisdom.

You'll only recycle heartbreak.

Repeated heartbreak is painful.

But it is not meaningless.

It is often pointing to patterns you need to address.

Once you understand the role you are playing in the outcomes you are experiencing, you'll begin to choose differently.