The Women Weren’t the Pattern. I Was.

I Didn’t Attract Broken Women. I Was Fluent in Broken.

For most of my life, I thought I was just unlucky in life and love.

Different faces. Different stories. Same ending.

Somewhere along the line I noticed the pattern: I was always the guy who “understood her.” The safe one. The patient one. The fixer. The emotional paramedic who arrived with empathy and left with emotional debris stuck to his boots.

Broken women.

That’s the easy label.

Hey, labels are lazy, and lazy thinking keeps you stuck!

The harder truth? I wasn’t attracting broken women. I was resonating with them.

Trauma Bonds Feel Like Destiny

When you grow up around emotional inconsistency, injustice, or inequity, your nervous system calibrates itself to chaos. It becomes fluent in it!

Psychologists call this trauma bonding. It’s when intense emotional experiences, especially inconsistent reinforcement of affection and rejection, create powerful attachments. The highs feel euphoric. The lows feel catastrophic, and your body confuses that volatility with passion.

Dopamine spikes. Cortisol floods. Attachment locks in.

You don’t fall in love.

You get neurologically hooked.

That’s not romance. That’s operant conditioning with lipstick on.

Attachment Styles Don’t Lie

For years I told myself I was just loyal. Just patient. Just “ride or die.”

Alas, attachment theory doesn’t care about your self-narrative.

If someone with an anxious attachment style pairs with someone emotionally unavailable or avoidant, the dynamic feels magnetic. The anxious partner pursues. The avoidant partner distances. The anxious partner tries harder. The avoidant partner retreats.

Sadly, both call it chemistry.

What it actually is? A nervous system reenacting old scripts.

The anxious partner feels needed when fixing. The avoidant partner feels safe when not fully seen. It’s a dance choreographed long before either person met.

The reality, if you grew up learning that love requires earning, rescuing, or enduring, you will unconsciously seek partners who confirm that belief.

Not because you’re weak.

Because your subconscious wants familiarity over health.

Savior Complex Is Just Ego in a Cape

There’s something intoxicating about being the stable one.

Being the rock. The healer. The man who stays when others leave.

Psychology calls this the rescuer role in the Karpman Drama Triangle. Rescuer, victim, persecutor. Round and round it goes.

The rescuer gets identity from being needed. Without someone to save, who is he actually?

That’s the part that stings.

If a woman is whole, regulated, self-loving… she doesn’t need rescuing. She chooses. She partners. She reciprocates.

Unfortunately, if your identity is built on being indispensable, mutuality feels unfamiliar.

Not wrong.

Just unfamiliar.

You Cannot Be Someone’s Self-Worth

This is the conclusion that cracked something open in me.

You cannot expect to find love in someone who does not love themselves.

Not because they are unworthy.

In truth, because self-hatred leaks.

It leaks as jealousy. As control. As emotional volatility. As projection. As self-sabotage. As push-pull dynamics that leave you exhausted.

If someone lacks self-concept clarity and internal validation, they will seek it externally. From you. From your reassurance. From your consistency.

Ultimately, you will feel like you’re pouring into a cup with no bottom.

Love cannot stabilize someone who has not stabilized themselves.

That’s not cruelty. That’s neurobiology.

The Familiarity Trap

There’s a phenomenon called repetition compulsion. Freud coined it. Modern trauma psychology confirms it.

We unconsciously recreate unresolved childhood dynamics in adult relationships, hoping this time we’ll fix the ending.

If you experienced inequity, emotional neglect, or inconsistency early in life, you might subconsciously chase partners who recreate that dynamic.

Not because you enjoy pain.

Sadly, because your brain is trying to master it.

It’s like replaying a level in a game you never beat.

The problem is, real people aren’t therapeutic simulations. They come with their own wounds, defenses, and blind spots.

And two wounded people trying to heal each other often end up reopening stitches.

Love Without Self-Love Is Dependency

Real love requires secure attachment, emotional regulation, and differentiation.

Differentiation means I can love you without losing myself. I can disagree without abandoning you. I can need you without collapsing into you.

Someone who doesn’t love themselves struggles with differentiation. They either cling or withdraw. Idolize or devalue. Idealization and devaluation. That’s a hallmark of unstable relational patterns.

Alas, if you’re used to chaos, calm feels boring.

Let that sink in.

Calm can feel boring when your nervous system equates intensity with intimacy.

The Brutal Question

If I keep attracting broken women, what part of me still feels at home in brokenness?

That’s not self-blame. That’s self-awareness.

Maybe I was drawn to women who needed me because being needed made me feel significant.

Maybe I equated suffering with depth.

Maybe I confused emotional turbulence with passion.

Or maybe I was simply repeating what felt familiar.

Growth is brutal because it removes the fantasy.

You don’t just wake up and “find better women.”

You become the version of yourself who is no longer magnetized by instability.

Maturity Is Boring, And Beautiful

Now that I want something different, it feels harder.

The reality is that I’m not chasing adrenaline anymore. I’m looking for peace. Reciprocity. Stability.

Boom, and here’s the twist: healthy love doesn’t announce itself with fireworks. It shows up with consistency.

No dramatic entrances. No emotional cliffhangers.

Just presence.

If someone loves themselves, they don’t need you to complete them. They invite you to build alongside them.

There is no savior dynamic. No trauma bond masquerading as destiny.

Just two regulated adults choosing each other daily.

That might not feel cinematic.

But it feels safe.

In truth, after a lifetime of intensity disguised as connection, safety starts to look like the real luxury.

The Final Realization

You cannot build a home in someone who is still at war with themselves.

Moreover, you cannot keep trying to be the peace treaty.

Love is not rehabilitation.

It is resonance between two whole nervous systems.

If I want to attract someone who loves themselves, I have to keep strengthening the parts of me that no longer need to rescue, fix, or endure.

Understand, the pattern doesn’t break when you meet the right person.

It breaks when you become the right pattern.

So when that happens, the broken don’t disappear.

They just stop feeling like home.

Ciao!

Damien

Psychological Glossary

1. Trauma Bonding

A strong emotional attachment formed through cycles of intense affection followed by mistreatment or withdrawal. It is reinforced through intermittent reinforcement, meaning unpredictable rewards create stronger attachment than consistent ones. Your brain gets addicted to the relief after pain, mistaking survival chemistry for love.

2. Operant Conditioning

A learning process where behaviors are shaped by rewards and punishments. In relationships, inconsistent affection acts like a reward schedule that keeps you hooked. The unpredictability strengthens the bond.

3. Attachment Theory

A psychological framework explaining how early childhood relationships shape adult relationship patterns. Developed by John Bowlby and expanded by Mary Ainsworth.

Common adult attachment styles:

• Secure Attachment – Comfortable with intimacy and independence.

• Anxious Attachment – Fears abandonment, seeks reassurance, hyper-focuses on relationship stability.

• Avoidant Attachment – Values independence excessively, withdraws emotionally when closeness increases.

• Disorganized Attachment – A mix of anxious and avoidant behaviors, often rooted in trauma.

Attachment styles are not destiny, but they heavily influence attraction patterns.

4. Anxious–Avoidant Dynamic

A common pairing where one partner craves closeness (anxious) and the other pulls away (avoidant). This push–pull dynamic creates emotional volatility that often feels like intense chemistry.

It is usually nervous systems reacting to each other, not “soulmate energy.”

5. Karpman Drama Triangle

A social model describing dysfunctional relationship roles:

• Rescuer – Fixes others to feel needed.

• Victim – Feels powerless and seeks saving.

• Persecutor – Blames, criticizes, or controls.

People rotate between these roles unconsciously. The rescuer often believes they are noble, but the role can enable dysfunction.

6. Savior Complex

Not a formal diagnosis, but a psychological pattern where someone derives identity and self-worth from rescuing or fixing others. Often rooted in early conditioning where love was earned through caretaking.

7. Self-Concept Clarity

The degree to which a person has a stable, clearly defined sense of who they are. Low self-concept clarity leads to dependency on external validation and unstable relationship behavior.

8. Projection

A defense mechanism where a person attributes their own unwanted feelings or insecurities to someone else. Example: A partner who feels unworthy may accuse you of not loving them enough.

9. Self-Sabotage

Behaviors that undermine one’s own goals or relationships, often unconsciously. Common in individuals with low self-worth who struggle to tolerate healthy intimacy.

10. Repetition Compulsion

A concept introduced by Freud. It describes the unconscious tendency to recreate unresolved childhood experiences in adult life, especially in relationships, in an attempt to master them.

You replay what hurt you, hoping this time it ends differently.

11. Emotional Regulation

The ability to manage and respond to emotional experiences in a balanced way. Poor regulation leads to volatility, impulsivity, or emotional withdrawal.

12. Differentiation (Emotional Differentiation)

A concept from family systems theory (Murray Bowen). It refers to the ability to maintain your identity while staying emotionally connected to others. High differentiation allows closeness without losing yourself.

Low differentiation leads to fusion, dependency, or emotional cutoff.

13. Idealization and Devaluation

A relational pattern where someone alternates between placing a partner on a pedestal (idealization) and harshly criticizing or withdrawing from them (devaluation). Common in unstable attachment patterns and certain personality structures.

14. Intermittent Reinforcement

A behavioral principle where unpredictable rewards create stronger conditioning than consistent ones. Slot machines use this. So do inconsistent partners.

15. Nervous System Regulation

Refers to how well your autonomic nervous system maintains balance between activation (fight-or-flight) and calm (rest-and-digest). When dysregulated, calm can feel boring and chaos can feel familiar.