Are You Choosing Partners that Mirror your Parents?

I often see people end up in relationships that, initially, they're very attracted to the person, but we find out later on in the relationship, when things start to go awry, that they remind them of their father, or their mother, or some familiar relationship in their childhood family-of-origin relationship patterning. And we call this imitation of the family schema, in my field. Imago is another thing you could google that would explain some of what I'm talking about. I just want to say that it is very common for people to wake up at a certain point in a relationship and find that they are in the middle of a very similar feeling of rejection that they might have felt from their father, and lo and behold, they're surprised that, yet again, they've chosen a man in their life, just as an example, who is rejecting and cold and emotionally distant. And they thought, my goodness! You know I was just working with a client the other day, “I've chosen a different kind of man. He's affable, he's social, he's not at all cold...”
Seemingly. But as we dig further into the relationship, as it's starting to fall apart, we realize that, my goodness, this has been a relationship where, this woman client of mine, is constantly trying to get the attention of her partner, to feel loved, feel seen, feel heard, feel the type of attention that she has now detected that she's been craving since she was at crib age, 2, 3 years old. So I thought that we should definitely put a video together about this because I see this so often: people choosing their partners in a very unconscious way, and they end up choosing partners who are just like their parents. So I'd like us to be extremely conscious of this, because once you start to wake up to this pattern, the likelihood is the future people, partners in your life, will be less about that kind of auto-pilot choosing of the parental schema. And then you will probably end up in a relationship that is quite different, because you've woken up, and you're aware, and with awareness comes choice, and with choice comes empowerment, and with empowerment comes the potential for deep happiness. And happiness in a way that you're able to share with a partner that is not recreating patterns, time in, time out, repetitive patterns from family of origin.
So I invite you to really look at the relationships in your life and analyze them, to see whether or not they are like your family, your parents, how you felt treated by your mother, how you felt treated by your father, and if they are, go about the business of entering into a therapeutic context where you can look at this. Also, write in your diary about it, so you become more and more aware, untangling any confusion that might be there for you. I wish you much success in your relationships.