5 Simple Ways To Stop Choosing Mr. Wrong Over And Over Again
We all do it... But we can stop doing it and be happy!
getty Did you just break up with another person who's totally wrong for you? Are you wondering how to stop choosing these guys over and over again, so that you can, once and for all, be happy?
It happens to all of us. We really want to find the person we will love forever. Yet, we repeatedly choose someone who not only isn’t good for us but who is often just like the person we dated last time!
Seems silly, right? It is but it's very common. Luckily, you can stop this tendency in its tracks with a little bit of awareness and action.
The five ways to Stop choosing the wrong guy:
1. Know what you want
You know when you go shopping for a car or a new house, you have some idea of what you want. Automatic or standard? Red or black? Ranch or cape? City or suburbs? Either way, you head into one of the biggest decisions of your life, knowing what you want.
Of course, we can’t always get exactly what we want. Sometimes, what we want ends up being different from what we thought we wanted, but knowing mostly what we're looking for at the outset is important.
People always say they want someone who is attractive, funny, intelligent, financially secure, etc. However, how do you want your person to make you feel?
For example, instead of someone being attractive, you might like someone who makes you smile when you see them. Instead of someone being funny, you might like someone who makes you laugh out loud. Someone who is financially secure may mean someone who makes you feel safe.
Knowing how you want someone to make you feel is way more important than looking for specific traits in someone.
You know that guy who's hot, but then he opens his mouth and what comes out makes you want to run for the hills? That's what I mean. So, take stock of what it is you truly want in a relationship and how you want your forever person to make you feel.
2. Look hard at your past
Do you know the phrase, "History repeats itself"? It does, and in more ways than one. If you take a moment and take a rundown of your last few lovers, I'm betting that all of them have at least one thing in common.
Perhaps your first reaction is to think that I'm wrong here, but I'm most likely not. Think harder.
One of the biggest issues in my marriage was my husband’s drinking. I swore to myself that I would never choose a guy who drank too much. And what happened? Almost every guy I've dated since my divorce drank too much (except for one, who was in recovery).
I also promised myself that my next life partner would have a healthy relationship with his family. Again, this was not a common thread between my partners.
Unless we learn, we tend to choose the same people over and over. We make the same mistakes over and over. This is why so many second marriages fail — because we don’t learn a thing from our first marriage, and we plunge in again quickly and blindly.
So, take a serious look at your past. On a piece of paper, write down the pros and cons of the last few people you have dated. Note their similarities and vow to yourself that you won’t get involved with someone similar again.
3. Don’t ignore red flags
Red flags are those things that you notice that, as your relationship develops, cause concern.
Perhaps your person isn’t nice to their mother, or spends a lot of money, or struggles to hold a job, or doesn’t like your friends. You know what I'm talking about.
The thing about red flags is that they are ignorable, and as a result, they get ignored. We see the flags and look past them, hoping that we're wrong, or hoping that our person will change, or hoping that if we just love them enough, those red flags will disappear.
Unfortunately, red flags rarely just go away. So, if you see red flags that give you pause, that make you wonder if this person is the person you want to be with, don’t ignore them.
You probably ignored them in relationships past, but I encourage you not to do it again. That is if you want to stop choosing the wrong person over and over.
4. Listen to your friends
How many times have you had someone in your life, and your friends told you that that person just wasn’t good for you?
How many times did they see the things that you didn’t or weren’t willing to see? How many times did they encourage you to stop taking so much and move on?
It's essential that, if your friends — the ones who know you well — see issues with your person, listen to them.
More often than not, your friends only want what's best for you. Yes, they might have extreme ideas about how bad your person is for you, but their ideas are, more often than not, based on the truth.
So, even if you don’t trust yourself to stop choosing the wrong person over and over, trust your friends to have your best interests in mind and look out for you. That’s what friends are for!
5. Don’t be scared to be alone
One of the major reasons that we choose the wrong person over and over is because we're willing to take whatever presents itself to us. We're so scared of being alone or we believe that the person in front of us is the best that we can do, that we try to make them be more than they are.
Because we are scared of being alone that we ignore red flags, we don’t listen to our friends, and we talk ourselves into believing that this person can be who we want them to be if we just love them enough.
So, a key part of how to stop choosing the wrong person over and over is to know that it’s okay to be alone. And it’s essential that you believe that you can — and will — find someone else.
What I can promise you is that, if you stay with someone who is wrong for you, you'll waste time not being single and available for when the right person comes along.
We all do it. We all go into dating knowing that we want to be in a couple, but we don’t necessarily know what we want.
Furthermore, we don’t look at our previous relationships to learn from past mistakes. We ignore red flags and our friends' advice, and we compromise because we are worried that we will be alone forever.
The right person is out there for you. Follow these steps and you will find them and you too can live happily ever after. You can do it!
Mitzi Bockmann is an NYC-based, certified life and love coach.