Always the same type: which inner conflicts pull us into similar relationships

Your new partner is so different from the last one. And yet after a year you are standing in the same kitchen again, in the same argument, with the same feeling. Perhaps it is always someone who touchingly takes care of everything, while you actually long for something else. Perhaps it is always someone who pulls away as soon as things get serious. Psychologists speak of repetition compulsion. It sounds like fate, but it is more of a trail: if you know your common thread, you can spin it on in a new direction.

Why patterns repeat in general is described in Why we keep ending up in the same patterns. Here it is about love: which inner conflicts draw us to similar partners, and why the same conflicts repeat with other people too. It is best to start with your own thread.

What Freud observed, and what became of it

Sigmund Freud noticed that some people do not only remember painful experiences but live them again and again, as if something were pushing them. In Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920) he called this a compulsion to repeat, sometimes stronger than the striving for well-being¹. Modern psychology puts it more soberly: we bring learned expectations into every relationship. They determine whom we find attractive, what we notice in the other person and how we react. And because the other person in turn reacts to that, we often create exactly what we expected.

Why the familiar feels like love

Attachment: the inner script. The British psychiatrist John Bowlby described how children form an inner working model from their early experiences: are others there when I need them? Am I worth being cared for? In 1987 the American psychologists Cindy Hazan and Phillip Shaver applied this to love. In their survey, 56% of adults described themselves as securely attached, 25% as avoidant and 19% as anxious-ambivalent. Avoidant people reported fear of closeness, anxious people jealousy and a strong wish for union. How people remembered their parents was clearly linked to their style².

Parents and partners. Freud suspected that we choose partners who resemble a parent. The American psychologist Glenn Geher tested this by having people, their parents and their partners fill in personality questionnaires. On four of eight traits, partners did resemble the opposite-sex parent. The perceived similarity was even clearer: participants saw their partners as similar to their parents on every trait³. So we don’t just choose the familiar, we also see the familiar.

Schema chemistry. The schema therapy of the American psychologist Jeffrey Young describes so-called lifetraps, for example the expectation of being abandoned, of not being enough or of having to submit. Young and the psychologist Janet Klosko describe typical partner choices for each of these lifetraps. We feel drawn precisely to the people who confirm the old expectation⁴. In schema therapy this is called “schema chemistry”: the spark is sometimes less a sign that someone fits than a sign that someone can carry on the old story well. A Hungarian study of 47 couples found, fittingly, that partners’ schemas were linked, partly as shared fears, partly as complementary counterparts. A strong sense of inadequacy in the man, for example, went together more often with the woman’s feeling of not coping on her own⁵. The study is small and shows links, not causes.

Two further findings, which we describe in detail in Why we keep ending up in the same patterns: past and current partners resemble each other in personality, and people feel attached to partners who confirm their self-image, even a negative one.

The trap of closeness and withdrawal

One pattern comes up especially often in counselling: one person seeks closeness, the other withdraws. The more one pushes, the more the other needs air, and the more the other pulls away, the more the first pushes. The American psychologists Lee Kirkpatrick and Keith Davis followed 354 couples over three years. Attachment styles were not paired at random: there was not a single couple in which both were anxious or both avoidant. And of all couples, those made up of avoidant men and anxious women were surprisingly stable after three years, even though both rated their relationship rather poorly at the start⁶. Unhappy and still together: that is repetition on a small scale. Each confirms the other’s expectation. One experiences once again that closeness is not safe, the other that closeness confines.

How an expectation fulfils itself was shown by the American psychologist Geraldine Downey (Columbia University). Relationships of people who react very sensitively to possible rejection ended more often. For the women in her study, it could also be shown why: they behaved more negatively in arguments, and their partners afterwards actually reacted more rejectingly⁷. The fear of rejection thus creates exactly what it is meant to protect against.

Two people, one conflict: collusion

In 1975 the Zurich psychiatrist and couples therapist Jürg Willi wrote a book that is still a standard work in German-speaking countries: Die Zweierbeziehung (published in English as Couples in Collusion). His central idea: couples often find each other because they share the same unresolved inner conflict but take opposite roles in it. Willi calls this unconscious interplay collusion. Each fulfils a longing in the other, and at the same time each holds the other in their role⁸. Willi describes four basic themes⁹:

• Caring and being cared for (Willi’s “oral” collusion): one wants to be looked after because they experienced too little of it. The other sacrifices themselves like an ideal mother, so as never to be helpless. In MindMotion this pattern is called Taking & Giving.
• Leading and submitting: this is about togetherness and autonomy, one leads, the other submits. For us: Fit In & Take Charge.
• Being admired and admiring (Willi’s “narcissistic” collusion): one gives themselves up and clings to the other’s shine, the other needs the admiration. For us: Being Enough.
• Masculinity and femininity: role images such as “the strong one” and “the reserved one” that pin each other down. For us, closest to Shine & Step Back.

The fascinating thing is that at first collusion feels like the perfect match. Only over time do the roles harden, and then the conflict flares up over exactly what attracted you at the beginning. Try it out:

The caring partner, and the longing for something else

An example many people know: again and again it is someone who takes care of things, cooks, plans, catches you. At first this feels wonderful. After a while boredom, irritation or a guilty conscience creep in, because you “have everything” and still miss something. From the point of view of collusion, this is no coincidence. People drawn to caring partners are often unconsciously looking for the care that was missing earlier, or for the security of never having to stand alone again. The price: you stay in the role of the one who is looked after, and hardly feel your own strength.

The longing for “something else” is therefore often not a longing for another person, but for another role: being on an equal footing, giving something too, experiencing friction, feeling independent. Willi describes exactly this movement as the way out: the one who is cared for becomes more independent over time, and the carer learns to receive⁹. This often works within the existing relationship, if both of you move.

The reverse is just as true. People who keep ending up with partners who need help usually know the role of the strong one. Caring then protects against their own neediness. The question behind it is the same for both: may I be weak myself, and can I also look after myself? If saying yes plays a big role for you, read Learning to say no too.

Why we repeat the old: three explanations

Research and practice point to three reasons that don’t exclude each other but usually work together.

• Familiar means safe. The inner working model tells us what relationships “are like”. What fits feels right, even if it hurts. The new, on the other hand, feels strange, sometimes even boring².
• Confirming the self-image. If deep down you believe you are not lovable, you feel oddly insecure with someone who admires you, and strangely at home with someone who keeps you at a distance.
• Hope for a different ending. The American psychoanalysts Joseph Weiss and Harold Sampson researched a surprisingly hopeful explanation. People unconsciously want to overcome their old, burdensome beliefs. To do so, they put relationships to the test: they repeat old scenes or reverse the roles, hoping that the other person will react differently this time than back then¹⁰. Repetition is then not a compulsion but an attempt to heal.

The third point changes the view. If you keep choosing the unreachable partner, perhaps you are not seeking suffering but hoping to finally succeed in reaching them. The only problem is that the choice usually falls on someone with whom that is least likely.

The same argument with different people

Not only in love: many people experience similar conflicts with bosses, friends or colleagues. The psychotherapy researcher Lester Luborsky called this the core conflictual relationship theme: a wish, an expected response from others and your own answer to it, repeating across relationships¹². The German OPD conflict model describes the same trail with typical inner conflicts, for example between closeness and independence or between being cared for and self-reliance¹⁴.

Changing partners rarely solves this. The American couples researchers John and Julie Gottman found that 69% of relationship conflicts are “perpetual problems”, lasting differences that never fully go away¹¹. Changing partners often just changes the scenery. Knowing your pattern, on the other hand, lets you handle it differently in any relationship.

How to step out of the loop

A realistic expectation first: the old pattern rarely disappears completely. But research on relationship conflict themes shows that new, more helpful ways develop alongside it¹². And attachment is not set in stone. The attachment researcher Ximena Arriaga and colleagues describe how relationship experiences can make the inner working model more secure over time¹³.

• Make the thread visible. What repeats: the kind of person, your role, the argument? The self-test above is a start.
• Check the spark. If someone electrifies you straight away, ask yourself: where do I know this feeling from? And if someone “bores” you, ask: are they boring, or just unusually reliable?
• Find the hidden gain. What does the old role spare you? More in The hidden benefits of old patterns.
• React differently at one point. Not everything at once. Ask for something once instead of giving, stay once instead of fleeing, say once what you want. How such experiences work is described in New relationship experiences.
• Watch what happens. Does the other person react as you feared, or differently? Every different reaction rewrites the inner script a little.

Sometimes the truth also includes this: a relationship really doesn’t fit, and it is right to leave. The difference is whether you leave because of an insight or flee from a feeling that will come back in the next relationship.

How MindMotion takes this up

MindMotion is not therapy and does not offer therapy. The app is a tool for psychological self-reflection, closer to coaching. In the Mind-Check you start from a concrete scene, such as the last argument that felt “like always”. Step by step you look at what you wished for, what you feared, how you protected yourself and where you know it from. That turns the feeling “not again” into a pattern you can name. Small Moves then help you react differently at one point and see what happens.

If you want to follow your common thread, start the Mind-Check. It works without signing up.

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