The Same Draining Choice, Repeating With Different People

You might notice

• You repeatedly feel drawn to a certain type of person, even though you already know how the story with them tends to end.
• You find yourself playing the same role in every relationship — the one who always gives more, always concedes, or always flees when things get serious.
• People around you notice the pattern before you do, and ask: "isn’t this the same story again?"
• At the start of each new relationship you feel confidently that "this time is different," despite early signs resembling what came before.
• After the relationship ends, you look back and find the same decisions you made last time — not just repeated bad luck.

What generally helps

• After each relationship ends, write down honestly the specific moment you first felt a familiar signal — anxiety, an overly strong pull, or an urge to rescue someone — pinpointing the actual moment is more precise than the broad judgment "I choose bad people."
• Before getting swept up in a new relationship, track actual pace rather than declared intent — how this person actually behaves when you disagree, not how they describe themselves; patterns repeat in early actions more than in words.
• Decide in advance — while calm, not in the middle of attraction — on two or three signs that, if they appear early in a relationship, will make you stop and seriously reconsider, rather than deciding that in the moment of attraction when clear thinking is hard.
• Ask someone outside the relationship whose honesty you trust to tell you early what they see from the outside — not after you’re already invested — because the distance others have is precisely what you lack in the early pull of attraction.
• When you notice yourself justifying a behavior that resembles what you regretted before, pause for a moment and name the repetition clearly to yourself: "this is the pattern I know" — naming it alone breaks part of its automatic pull.

Source: Schema therapy — early maladaptive schemas (Young) · General developmental guidance, not a diagnosis or a substitute for a professional.

Tools that may help now