HMN 2025: Attracting and attracting the wrong partner

In a previous post, I discussed the signs of a potential abuser as a guide for choosing an intimate partner. This post focuses on making ourselves safe without limiting our emotional growth.

Two conditions increase your chances of attracting the wrong people and your chances of being attracted to the wrong people.

• Trying to make someone love you.
• You fall into temptation and fall in love with someone.

There is no personality type that is attracted to or attracted to bad partners. It has more to do with one’s position of self-worth. Does it come from within you or from someone else?

If it comes from within, we tend to look for potential partners who are likely to give as much as we give. If it comes from someone else, we may be trying to manipulate that person into “filling us up.”

Sorry for the extended metaphor, but if we recognize that we have a hole inside, we’re more likely to grab a little cup and bring people in to fill that hole. Because people with big cups look for partners with big cups who are likely to give as much as they do. People with small cups think they have a big hole and look for people who are satisfied with the little they can give. You’ve probably guessed that the “hole inside” is an implicit assumption that we are unworthy of love.

Feeling loved does not make us feel worthy of love. If we don’t feel worthy, we won’t be able to fully trust someone who claims to love us. We probably assume, at least subconsciously, that they want something else: money, sex, a sense of conquest, new shoes, something or someone else. Because we can’t be enough for them.

The only way to truly feel worthy of love is to be compassionate, kind, protective, and loving. This gives potential partners the opportunity to do the same.

For some people, it is difficult to maintain interest, compassion, trust, kindness, and love. You can do it for a while, but not for long. When care, compassion, kindness, trust, and love decline in a relationship, anger automatically appears. Avoid potential partners who describe their former romantic partner with anger and no understanding or sympathy.

If you find yourself having to describe your ex-lover with resentment, without understanding or compassion, practice self-compassion and self-kindness, and practice compassion and kindness toward others until you feel like you deserve to be loved. This will greatly increase your chances of attracting the right person.