Why You Keep Repeating the Same Relationship Patterns — and How Childhood May Be Shaping Them

You know the relationship isn’t working.

You recognize the pattern. Your friends may recognize it too. You may even promise yourself that next time you’ll choose differently.

And then somehow, you end up in a remarkably familiar situation.

According to clinical psychologist Dr. Nicole LePera, repeating unhealthy relationship patterns isn’t necessarily about consciously making bad choices. It can be connected to something much deeper: the human tendency to seek what feels familiar—even when familiar isn’t necessarily healthy.

In a Heal Squad conversation, LePera, known as The Holistic Psychologist, explains how childhood experiences can shape the nervous system, influence adult relationships and affect everything from boundaries and emotional expression to codependency and the partners we choose.

The first step toward changing those patterns, she says, is understanding the role we may be playing in creating them.

Why Familiar Can Feel Safer Than Healthy

One of LePera’s central ideas is surprisingly simple:

Human beings are drawn to what they know.

Familiarity can create a sense of predictability. And predictability can feel like safety.

That can become a problem when the relationship dynamics we learned early in life weren’t particularly healthy.

A child who learns to monitor a parent’s emotions, for example, may become an adult who constantly monitors a partner.

A child who learns that expressing sadness causes a caregiver to withdraw may become an adult who suppresses difficult emotions.

A child who learns to put everyone else’s needs first may continue doing exactly that in adult relationships.

The circumstances have changed.

The pattern hasn’t.

“We seek familiar,” LePera explains, “even if again it carries consequences that don’t serve us.”

Trauma Isn’t Always the Event We Think It Is

When people hear the word trauma, they may think of major experiences such as physical or sexual abuse or severe neglect.

LePera says those experiences can have profound effects. But she also focuses on subtler relational and emotional experiences that may influence development.

Consider a child who becomes sad.

The child expresses that sadness, but the emotion overwhelms the parent. The parent withdraws.

The child may gradually learn:

When I show sadness, I lose connection.

So the child adapts.

Maybe they stop showing sadness.

Maybe they become exceptionally good at reading the room.

Maybe they learn to keep other people happy.

Those adaptations can make sense in childhood.

The problem is that they may continue operating decades later.

Hypervigilance Can Follow You Into Adulthood

LePera describes how a child who doesn’t consistently experience safety can become highly attentive to what’s happening around them.

They scan.

They anticipate.

They watch other people’s moods.

The underlying strategy is:

If I can predict what’s about to happen, maybe I can protect myself.

LePera describes this as hypervigilance.

In adulthood, that pattern may show up in relationships as constantly monitoring a partner’s needs or emotional state.

Are they upset?

Did I do something wrong?

Is an argument coming?

What can I do to prevent it?

Someone may appear extraordinarily attentive to other people while actually operating from a deeply ingrained need to maintain safety.

Your Nervous System May Have Learned to Expect Stress

LePera says understanding relationship patterns also requires paying attention to the body.

She describes three broad nervous-system states.

One is fight or flight, when the body is activated in response to perceived stress or danger.

Another is rest and digest, the calmer state in which the body can rest and carry out normal functions.

The third she discusses is shutdown, when someone becomes overwhelmed and may feel numb, disconnected or depleted.

If the body becomes accustomed to stress, LePera says calm itself can initially feel unfamiliar.

She describes experiencing this personally: although she thought of herself as someone who wanted peace, her body had become accustomed to stress.

When stress disappeared, peace didn’t necessarily feel peaceful.

It felt uncomfortable.

Why Healthier Choices Can Feel Wrong at First

This may help explain one of the most frustrating parts of changing an unhealthy pattern.

You finally do something different—and it doesn’t immediately feel better.

You set a boundary.

You say no.

You stop trying to fix someone’s mood.

You express what you actually need.

You choose a different kind of partner.

And suddenly you’re uncomfortable.

It’s tempting to interpret that discomfort as evidence that you’ve made the wrong choice.

LePera cautions against making that assumption.

The new behavior may feel uncomfortable because it’s new.

She calls this resistance and encourages people to anticipate it.

Over time, a new behavior may become more familiar. But initially, the old pattern can actually feel safer simply because you’ve practiced it for years.

What Is a Trauma Bond?

LePera uses the term “trauma bond” to describe familiar relationship patterns rooted in earlier experiences.

In her explanation, people learn how relationships work through their earliest caregivers.

They learn what they can express.

They learn what gets attention.

They learn what threatens connection.

And they learn how they may need to modify themselves to preserve that connection.

Imagine a child whose mother can’t tolerate sadness.

The child still depends on the mother, so the child learns to show less sadness.

That adaptation can then become part of the child’s relationship template.

Years later, that person may still suppress emotions or prioritize another person’s comfort over authentic self-expression.

The behavior may no longer be necessary.

But it remains familiar.

The Good News: Patterns Can Change

LePera says people can evolve out of these patterns.

But awareness comes first.

Ask yourself:

What role do I repeatedly play in relationships?

Do you suppress your needs?

Do you avoid expressing certain emotions?

Do you constantly anticipate what another person needs?

Do you feel responsible for keeping everyone happy?

Do you repeatedly choose relationships that produce similar outcomes?

Once you can recognize what you’re doing, you have an opportunity to make a different choice.

That doesn’t mean changing the other person.

It means changing how you participate in the pattern.

Codependency Can Look Like Caring

One pattern LePera discusses extensively is codependency.

It isn’t always obvious.

In fact, some codependent behavior can initially look caring, generous or loving.

You anticipate everyone’s needs.

You make sure your partner is happy.

You adjust yourself around their mood.

You put them first.

You avoid doing things that might upset them.

But LePera describes codependency as becoming overly reliant on other people or filtering your own needs through what those needs might mean for someone else.

Your partner comes home stressed.

Suddenly, you’re stressed.

You want something but worry that asking for it will upset them.

So you don’t ask.

Eventually, you may become so focused on another person’s needs that you lose contact with your own.

Putting Someone Else First Can Eventually Create Resentment

Constant self-sacrifice can appear loving in the moment.

But LePera warns that something else may be happening underneath it.

Resentment can accumulate.

You repeatedly ignore what you need to take care of someone else.

Eventually, you may become angry that the other person isn’t meeting needs you haven’t allowed yourself to prioritize or communicate.

That can lead to blaming the partner.

But LePera asks people to also examine their own participation.

Did you repeatedly override yourself?

Did you automatically put the other person first?

Did you expect them to somehow recognize needs you weren’t expressing?

Taking responsibility for that behavior doesn’t mean taking responsibility for everything wrong in a relationship.

It means recognizing where you have the power to change.

Insecurity May Begin With Not Feeling Safe

Relationship insecurity is another pattern LePera connects to early experiences.

When care or emotional support isn’t consistent, she says a child may develop beliefs such as:

I’m not worthy of having someone show up for me.

I can’t trust my needs to be met.

I’m not safe.

That child can become an adult who searches outside themselves for reassurance and validation.

But LePera argues that relationship insecurity can’t always be solved through thinking alone.

Someone can repeat affirmations or tell themselves everything is okay while their body remains highly activated.

“If our body isn’t safe,” she says, “our mind isn’t going to be safe either.”

Her broader point is that emotional wellness should be approached holistically rather than treating thoughts, relationships and physical states as entirely separate systems.

Childhood Can Create a Deep Sense of Unworthiness

Why would a child blame themselves when their needs aren’t met?

LePera says young children don’t yet have the developmental perspective to understand the complexity of an adult’s behavior.

They don’t understand generational trauma.

Financial stress.

Work problems.

A parent’s own childhood.

A caregiver’s limited emotional skills.

So when something goes wrong, the child may interpret it personally:

It must be me.

If their needs aren’t met, they may conclude they’re somehow unworthy of having those needs met.

And that belief can persist.

The adult may continue minimizing needs, tolerating unhealthy situations or feeling uncomfortable asking for what they want without understanding where that reaction originated.

Parents Can Love Their Children and Still Be Emotionally Limited

LePera also emphasizes an important nuance.

Parents themselves were raised by other people.

Some generations were primarily focused on survival and basic needs.

A parent may have provided food, clothing, housing and protection while never having learned how to help a child understand or regulate emotions.

That doesn’t erase the impact on the child.

But it can provide context.

A parent who was never taught emotional awareness may have had very little ability to model it for the next generation.

The pattern can then continue until someone recognizes it.

Healing Doesn’t Require Remembering Every Detail

It can be tempting to believe that changing a pattern requires identifying the exact childhood moment that caused it.

LePera says that’s not necessarily the case.

You can begin with what’s happening now.

Notice the pattern.

Notice the emotion.

Notice what happens in your body.

Notice what you’re afraid will happen if you behave differently.

Then begin experimenting with new choices.

That might mean expressing a need you’ve historically suppressed.

Setting a boundary.

Allowing someone else to be upset without immediately trying to fix it.

Or simply learning to tolerate the discomfort that comes from behaving differently.

Being Single Can Be an Opportunity to Work on Relationships

For people struggling to find a partner, LePera offers somewhat unconventional dating advice:

Stop focusing exclusively on finding the right person.

Instead, examine how you already behave in relationships.

That includes relationships with friends and family.

Are you able to communicate your needs?

Do you know what those needs are?

Can you tolerate disagreement?

Do you abandon yourself to preserve connection?

Do you expect other people to make you feel safe?

Rather than asking only, What qualities should my future partner have?, LePera encourages people to also ask:

Who am I when I’m in a relationship?

Because changing the person across from you won’t necessarily change a pattern you’re carrying into every relationship.

A Healthy Partner Isn’t Someone Who Meets Every Need

This distinction is especially important.

LePera isn’t suggesting that people shouldn’t rely on partners.

Healthy relationships include support.

But there’s a difference between receiving support and making another person responsible for your entire emotional well-being.

What she describes instead is creating a safe space for needs to exist.

You should be able to express what you need.

Your partner should be able to have needs too.

Sometimes you’ll support each other.

Sometimes you’ll meet your own needs.

And sometimes one person may not be capable of giving the other exactly what they want at that moment.

Expecting another human being to show up perfectly every day is, in LePera’s view, unrealistic.

Sometimes a Relationship Has Simply Run Its Course

Not every relationship ends because someone did something terrible.

People change.

Needs change.

Lives change.

And sometimes two people don’t grow in the same direction.

LePera cautions against assuming that the length of a relationship automatically proves its health.

Twenty years together is twenty years together.

It doesn’t necessarily tell you whether both people feel safe, authentic or fulfilled.

Longevity alone isn’t the goal.

The more useful question is whether the relationship still creates room for both people to be themselves.

Healing Means Relearning How to Hear Yourself

LePera compares healing to peeling an onion.

Underneath the adaptations, habits and beliefs we’ve accumulated is what she describes as an inner knowing—the ability to recognize what feels true and authentic.

For some people, that signal has become difficult to hear.

For others, they hear it but don’t trust it.

I know what I want to say, but how will they react?

I know what feels right for me, but someone else told me differently.

So they filter themselves.

Healing, in LePera’s description, becomes a process of gradually peeling back those layers and reconnecting with the person underneath them.

And that process isn’t always comfortable.

“Healing is a painful journey,” she says.

But discomfort doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going backward.

Sometimes it means you’re finally doing something your old patterns never allowed you to do:

choosing differently.