A reader’s question (anonymous): “Three long relationships, three different women: different jobs, different looks, different cities. And all three ended the same way: she goes cold, I try to win her back, she leaves me. My friends say ‘you’re just unlucky’. I don’t believe in that kind of luck three times. What am I doing?”
Don’t believe it. Three times is not luck; it is handwriting. And the good news is that the handwriting is yours, which means it can change. The bad news: it is not where you are looking. It is not in the women. It is in the script.
What is a script?
Eric Berne calls the script the unconscious life plan a child writes by the age of six or seven, based on what it sees and hears at home. Not in words, in decisions. “The people I love leave.” “I have to fight for love.” “I am the one who gets left.” Here I look at only one part of it: how it chooses partners.
Because the script holds auditions. It looks not for the person who will make you happy but for the person with whom the story can be played again. Not because you want to suffer. Because the familiar feels like “chemistry”, and the unfamiliar feels like “I don’t feel anything”. We often mistake anxiety for falling in love. The body reacts the same way.
What the audition looks like
You write: she goes cold, you fight, she leaves. Let us rewind. On the first date, what attracted you? I would bet it was not warmth. It was something out of reach: she is “different”, “doesn’t give herself easily”, “has to be won”. The warm woman who liked you openly seemed “boring”. Familiar?
That is the audition. The script “I have to fight for love” cannot be played with someone who gives it freely. It needs someone who withdraws. And you find her unerringly, in three cities, in three professions, because the style of withdrawing is visible from the first date, if you know what you are looking for. And you do. Without knowing. The anxious and the avoidant recognise each other in a crowd.
Where it comes from
Every good psychotherapist knows that the question is not “why her” but “who does she remind you of”. Not in looks. In feeling. A mother who was there and not there? A father who had to be won with school marks? A child who learned that love is something you fight for, and that when it comes easily, it does not count?
Dr Gabor Maté says we do not repeat the past because we are stupid. We repeat it because we are trying to fix it: this time to win. Every next “cold” woman is a chance for mother, at last, to stay. And every time she does not, the script says: “See. That’s how it is.” Confirmation matters more than happiness.
How the repetition stops
Not by deciding “this time I’ll choose someone different”. The mind chooses someone different; the script chooses the same. It stops another way.
- Name the script in one sentence. “I am the one who gets left.” “Love has to be earned.” Say it out loud. Notice how old it sounds.
- Catch the audition. Next time you feel strong attraction, pause. Ask: what exactly is attracting me? If the answer is “the unavailability”, “the challenge”, “the feeling that I have to win her”, that is the script speaking. Not a prohibition. Information.
- Give the “boring” one a chance. The warm person with whom you “feel nothing”: stay for three dates. Not because you must choose them. To find out whether “nothing” is a lack of chemistry or a lack of anxiety. It is often the latter.
- See your half of the game. She “goes cold”, and you? What do you do the first time she withdraws? If the answer is “I double down”, that is your move. It teaches her that withdrawing works.
- Repair it where it was written. The script is not rewritten in the next relationship. It is rewritten where it was written: in the relationship with the child who decided he had to fight. That is the work in therapy. And then, one morning, the warm woman is no longer boring.
If you are reading this and already thinking about the fourth one, she will be the same unless you first meet the first person who left. That person is not a woman. That person is older.
If you recognise yourself in the repetition, you can write to me for a free introductory consultation, in Sofia or online.
Frequently asked questions
Does this mean it’s my fault? No. There is no fault. There is a script that nobody chose at six, and an adult who can see it. The second is your strength, not your fault.
Isn’t it just “my type”? “My type” is the word the script uses to pass itself off as taste. If your type always ends the same way, it is not taste. It is handwriting.
Can the script change without therapy? Sometimes, with a partner who does not play and stays, long enough. But most people only see it when someone from outside shows it to them. Three times is proof enough that it cannot be seen alone.