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So how do you avoid reenacting your childhood abuse or neglect
experience in your romantic, intimate relationships? How do you
avoid getting involved with someone who is a replica of a parent or
other abuser? And how do you prevent yourself from treating your
partner in the same abusive ways as you were treated as a child? That
is what this chapter is about.
All the information and strategies that you have learned so far will
help you to avoid repeating the cycle, as will the work you will con-
tinue to do in the section on long-term strategies. But there is also
some specific information that you will need to know now in order to
avoid repeating the cycle of abuse in your romantic relationships.
Your choice of partner is one of the best indicators of how much
you have recovered from the abuse or neglect you sustained as a child
and whether or not you are at risk of continuing the cycle of abuse. In
this chapter you will learn some specific strategies to help you break
your pattern of continually choosing partners who will victimize you
or allow you to victimize them. For those of you who are new to rela-
tionships, you will learn suggestions and strategies that will keep you
from developing a negative pattern in the first place. You will also
learn what a healthy relationship looks like so that you can begin to
replace your unhealthy patterns with healthy ones.
Reevaluate Your Relationships
Because we tend to surround ourselves with people who are similar to
those in our family of origin or to our abusers, to take on the same
roles we had in our family and to treat our partners in the same ways
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How to Prevent Partner Abuse 159
we saw our parents treating one another, it is often necessary to
reevaluate your relationships in order to break the cycle.
The first thing you will need to do is to identify your pattern.
When you look back on your previous relationships, do you recognize
the fact that many of your partners were very similar in terms of tem-
perament, personality characteristics, and possibly even physical
characteristics? Have you found that you tend to pick the same kind of
partner over and over someone who is excessively critical like your
mother, someone who is passive like your father? If you are having
difficulty seeing the parallels, the following exercise will help.
Exercise: Discover Your Pattern
1. Draw a line down the middle of a piece of paper. On one half
of the page, list the positive personality traits of your most cur-
rent lover; on the other half, list his most predominant negative
personality traits.
2. On two separate sheets, do the same for each of your parents or
primary caretakers.
3. Notice if there are similarities between the traits of your most
current lover and those of your parents. Pay special attention to
whether he or she shares negative traits with one or both of
your parents.
4. Now, once again on separate sheets, list the personality traits
of your previous three lovers (if you have had that many).
5. Notice if they share any personality traits, particularly negative
ones.
6. Compare these traits with those of your parents.
7. Circle the negative traits that your partners (both present and
past) and your parents have in common.
Most people with a history of neglect or abuse notice a close cor-
relation between the traits of their partners and their parents. With
only a few exceptions, the traits that matched up most closely tend to
be the negative traits.
While it may seem logical to look for partners who compensate
for, rather than duplicate our parents inadequacies, the fact is, we
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160 Breaking the Cycle of Abuse
tend to do the opposite we attempt to recreate the conditions of our
upbringing in order to correct them. We attempt to return to the scene
of our original wounding in an effort to resolve our unfinished busi-
ness. If one or both of your parents were overprotective or engulfing,
instead of looking for someone who allows you plenty of space and
freedom so you can overcome your fear of engulfment, you find your-
self repeatedly attracted to partners who smother you. If one or both
of your parents neglected or abandoned you, instead of looking for
someone attentive and reliable so you can overcome your fear of
abandonment, you find yourself attracted to partners who are unreli-
able and neglectful.
The repetition compulsion is so powerful that even after you have
become aware of the fact that you have developed a pattern of choos-
ing a particular type of person you can still fall into the trap. This is
why you need to make a list of your new partner s characteristics and
compare them with the list of your parent s (or other abusers ) charac-
teristics each time you enter a new relationship.
Any or all of the following warning signs may also help alert you
to a pattern:
" You fell in love at first sight.
" You developed extremely intense feelings toward him or her in
a very short time.
" He or she is your type.
" Whenever you are around him or her it is so intense it feels like
there is electricity in the air.
" Something about him or her feels very familiar.
" You feel so comfortable with him or her, it is as if you ve
known each other all your lives (in fact, you have).
" You can t really explain why you like him or her, you just do.
" Ever since you met him or her you ve been obsessive you just
can t get him or her out of your mind.
Once recognized, these patterns can be broken by completing
your unfinished business from the past. We ll discuss this in part four.
For now, begin by saying no to an intense attraction to a person who is
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