This is an all-too-common type of story that I get from people:
“The first man I married cheated on me. Later I met another man who seemed really nice, but eventually cheated on me, too. The man I’m with now hasn’t cheated on me that I know of, but he’s lied to me on many occasions.”
The question that immediately comes up for most people is “why would anyone put up with people who treat them that way?” The answer is “self image.” Women (and men) who grow up being treated disrespectfully have a self image that sees them as the kind of person who is not good enough to be treated any better. They may not like it and may deeply desire to be treated better, but they will continue to choose partners who treat them badly until they deal with the underlying self image.
As I mentioned in another post, they will choose abusers and try to be good enough to get the abusers to approve of them. This is not a good strategy, to say the least. What’s required is a change to that mental label that says “I’m never good enough. I’m being treated this way because that’s what I deserve.”
A person with a self image like this, created in a dysfunctional family, can sometimes do something even stranger. They will have a supportive belief that says “all men (or women) are this way” and if the partner doesn’t cooperate by behaving badly, they will find ways to push them in that direction. Does this make sense? No, of course not, but that’s the power of these subconscious beliefs.
It’s been said that before the age of 7 we’re not ‘learning,’ we’re downloading experiences and creating our story about reality from them. Then for the rest of our lives we’re making sure that we experience that reality. That’s certainly true about relationships and self worth. Fortunately we can change our story, but first we have to become aware of it – to know that it’s just our story! Once we really GET that, we can begin to write a new one.
