An ex said this to me near the end of our relationship:

This sounds pithy, but with some thought, it is disappointing.

Let me illustrate: you are the common factor in your…

• Successes
• Meals
• Travels
• Relationships (all of them!)

That is what ‘you’ and ‘your’ mean. It’s a tautology.

Using ‘you’ suggests the person is the problem, which isn’t informative or helpful. I think ‘Failure is the common factor in all your failed relationships’ focuses on what to investigate. This distinguishes being from doing, the distinction between ‘I am happy’ and ‘I am feeling happy.’

Looking back over my romantic relationships, I don’t have any ongoing (romantically), so no successes there.

In terms of ended relationships, I think I can count a few as having ended amicably, even if not mutually.

I do appreciate through all of them how much I have learned about my partners, people in general, and myself.

A question that came to mind going through therapy for my last relationship was: why did I stay in some relationships far longer than I should have?

Answering this required revisiting the impact of my parents’ relationship when I was young. They divorced when I was in grade 3 or 4. I internally reconciled why they broke up relatively quickly: they were different people moving in different directions. What I hadn’t done was reconcile the impact on me.

The basic formula was:

• One parent left.
• The other parent was critical of perceived shortcomings.

The burning questions for the parent that left were, ‘Why didn’t they take me with them? Was I not good enough?’ For the other, I never felt good enough in so many ways.

This was the basis of my imposter syndrome (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome) and attachment issues.

I was afraid of forming attachments to others for fear of criticism or them leaving me. When I did, I hyper-invested in relationships, to my (sometimes severe) detriment. I was afraid to assert boundaries or acknowledge my wants and needs. I internalized problems in relationships as my fault and apologized for so many things that were never my responsibility.

With the underlying anxiety of the relationship, I was also sensitive to feedback or criticism (real or perceived). It would hurt if my efforts to change based on feedback or criticism weren’t recognized or acknowledged.

Fortunately, I got information from both my parents about what happened during that time from their perspective. Like Sadness touching long-term memories in Inside Out, I have been revisiting my past and reprocessing past relationships.

This is still a work in progress. It helps that I have done so much in my life already that I can draw upon those as examples of what I can do and the challenges I can overcome. I’m working on figuring out what I want and being good with wanting things for myself.

What helped identify and get to this point were:

• Advice from my therapist & Therapist Uncensored (podcast): go slow and be curious when feeling emotions. Examine what you are feeling and try to tease apart the emotions occurring directly from the stimulus vs. those from other background factors. Is the emotional response disproportionate to the stimulus? Why?
• Getting facts about my parent’s divorce.
• Looking at all my relationships, the successes and the failures, to compare. I don’t mean just romantic relationships, but family and friendships.

On the last point, are there thematic differences between successful and unsuccessful relationships? Some questions that might be worth exploring are:

• Is it challenging to be close or vulnerable with others?
• Do you need to control the relationship?
• Are you afraid of losing relationships, over-investing and not setting boundaries?
• Is there a pattern to who you have relationships with?
• What are your expectations in a relationship? Are they realistic?
• How do you handle differences, feedback, or conflict in your relationships? Is it personal?
• Do you undervalue yourself and think you are only worth whatever scraps you get from your ‘partner’?

If you are reading this article, I suspect you are working on your relationship challenges. May you unravel your own past, discover and overcome your barriers, and have positive, close relationships now and in the future.