How Trauma Shapes Attraction
Why We Fall for People Who Can’t Love Us Back
(And What That Says About Our Past, Not Our Worth)
Most people think their relationship patterns come down to taste.
“They’re just not my type.”
“I like a bit of mystery.”
“I don’t want someone too available. That’s boring.”
Sound familiar? Yeah. It does. But here’s the thing: what we call “chemistry” is often just familiarity, and sometimes, that familiarity is rooted in chaos. What looks like “attraction” might actually be your nervous system scanning for what it knows. And what it knows… might not be what’s good for you.
It’s Not Bad Luck, It’s Pattern Recognition
If you find yourself repeatedly drawn to emotionally unavailable people, it’s not a coincidence. It’s not the algorithm. It’s not some cruel glitch in the dating pool.
It’s your brain doing what it’s wired to do: follow the blueprint it picked up early in life.
From birth, your brain starts building a map of what connection feels like. If love meant inconsistency, distance, or walking on eggshells, your body logged that in as safe. Not because it was good. But because it was familiar. And familiarity, to the survival brain, means “we’ve lived through this before.”
The part of your brain responsible for safety, your limbic system, doesn’t care about your dating goals. It cares about predictability. It’s scanning for “home,” not “healthy.” So when someone feels slightly out of reach, emotionally unpredictable, or just distant enough to keep you guessing, your system lights up. It recognizes the pattern. And that recognition feels… magnetic.
Anxious Attachment Loves Intermittent Reinforcement
Let’s talk about the thing that tricks a lot of smart, self-aware people: intermittent reinforcement.
It’s a behavioral psychology concept, studied in rats before humans, and unfortunately, your love life is not immune. The idea is simple: when a reward (like affection, praise, or attention) is given unpredictably, it creates stronger attachment than if the reward is constant.
Your brain becomes addicted to the chase.
One day they text back with hearts. The next, silence. You tell yourself, “They’re just busy.” But your brain is spinning. And then, just when you’re ready to pull away, boom. They come back, charming, warm, apologetic. Cue the dopamine hit.
It’s not drama you’re addicted to. It’s hope. And the cycle of hope and disappointment? That’s not love. That’s intermittent reinforcement.
When Childhood Shapes What We Call “Chemistry”
Our earliest experiences with caregivers shape how we attach in adult relationships. If you grew up with emotional inconsistency, a parent who was warm one day, cold the next, you may have learned to work for love. To read moods. To walk on eggshells. To feel anxious but call it butterflies.
That doesn’t disappear when you turn 18.
Instead, you unconsciously seek out relationships that mirror what your younger self understood as love. Not because you want to suffer. But because some part of you is trying to resolve the original wound.
“If I can finally get someone like that to choose me, maybe I’ll feel worthy.”
Spoiler: you won’t. But your subconscious will keep trying. Until you step in.
Signs You’re Not in a Healthy Bond (Even If It Feels “Right”)
Not sure if your attraction is rooted in trauma? Here are some red flags that often get mistaken for compatibility:
You feel anxious more than secure.
You obsess about how to “earn” their attention.
You rationalize inconsistent behavior.
You confuse emotional unavailability with depth or mystery.
You feel a high when they reach out, and a crash when they don’t.
You keep saying, “But we have a connection.”
What you’re describing might not be a connection. It might be a trigger.
You’re Not Broken, You’re Patterned
There’s nothing wrong with you for wanting closeness. The problem is when your version of closeness only activates around people who can’t or won’t show up for you.
The work isn’t to shame yourself for the patterns. It’s to understand them.
Awareness is the first interruption. When you can say, “Oh, this feels intense, but that doesn’t mean it’s safe,” you slow the reaction. You give your body a second to pause instead of chase.
From there? You can start to rewire.
Breaking the Cycle Doesn’t Start with “Finding Someone Better”
Healing can happen outside of a relationship. In fact, it should start outside of a relationship. This will allow you to become attracted to new, healthier patterns, therefore leading to a more secure relationship.
Here’s what it looks like when you start recognizing your own trauma patterns while dating:
Instead of feeling anxious and calling it “love,” you notice the anxiety and ask, “Why does this feel familiar?”
Instead of obsessing over how to earn their attention, you pause and ask, “Why am I working so hard to be chosen?”
Instead of rationalizing inconsistent behavior, you call it what it is, inconsistency, and stop pretending it’s okay.
Instead of confusing emotional unavailability with mystery or depth, you recognize it as distance, not something you need to decode.
Instead of riding the high when they reach out and crashing when they don’t, you step back and notice the cycle for what it is, unstable and painful.
Instead of saying “But we have a connection,” you start asking, “Is this connection actually good for me?”
You don’t need to become more lovable. You need to come home to yourself, the version of you that isn’t shaped by survival, but by self-respect.
The Work Ahead Isn’t Easy, But It’s Worth It
You’re not gonna fix this overnight. And no, healing isn’t linear. But every time you catch yourself mid-pattern, you’re doing something powerful: you’re disrupting the autopilot.
Start small.
Choose people who feel boring at first, and ask why “calm” reads as “dull.”
Name your reactions without judging them.
Practice safety inside your own body before outsourcing it to someone else.
Learn what secure love actually looks like, not the kind that sends butterflies, but the kind that holds you steady.
And if none of this is landing yet, that’s okay too.
You’ve spent a lifetime learning one thing. Of course it takes time to learn another.
But when you do?
Your love life stops looking like a minefield.
It starts feeling like a place you can finally rest.
If this hit something real for you, you’ll probably want to read Unpacked.
It’s the deeper, messier, more personal version of all this, stories, science, patterns, and how to stop living like your past is still running the show.
👉 Grab the book, UNPACKED: How to Detach From the Subconscious Beliefs That Are Sabotaging Your Life. If you’re tired of “figuring it out” and ready to actually see it clearly….it’s all in there.
