Why Do I Keep Repeating Relationship Patterns?

Why Do I Keep Repeating Relationship Patterns? You might notice it in different ways.

You end up in similar relationships, even when you try to choose differently. You say you won’t people please this time, but slowly find yourself putting the other person first again. You tell yourself you’ll speak up, but in the moment, you can’t, or you understand things logically, but it doesn’t seem to change how it feels or how things play out.

Over time, this can leave you feeling frustrated, stuck, or questioning yourself.

“Why does this keep happening?”

Patterns aren’t random

From a Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) perspective, we might look at thoughts, behaviours, and cycles that keep something going in the present.

This can be really helpful for managing anxiety, intrusive thoughts, or low mood.

But when patterns feel long-standing — especially in relationships — there is often something deeper underneath.

This is where Schema Therapy can help.

Rather than focusing only on what’s happening now, schema therapy looks at how early experiences shape the way we relate to ourselves and others.

How patterns begin

Many people I work with have had early experiences where their emotional needs weren’t consistently met.

That might look like:

• Feeling overlooked or not really seen

• Having to put other people’s needs first

• Growing up around anger, unpredictability, or criticism

• Learning that showing emotion wasn’t safe

• Feeling responsible for others from a young age

  
  

As a child, you adapt to this.

You find ways to cope, to manage, to stay connected or safe.

Those adaptations often make sense at the time.

But they don’t just disappear.

They become patterns.

Why they keep repeating

As adults, those same patterns can continue — even when they no longer help.

You might:

• People please in relationships to avoid feeling rejected

• Struggle to trust others but long for closeness

• Be highly self-critical but push yourself to cope

• Avoid your own feelings because they feel too much

• Feel responsible for how others feel

  
  

Even when you know what’s happening, it can feel very hard to change.

That’s because these patterns aren’t just habits.

They are emotional learnings, often held at a deeper level.

“But I understand it… so why can’t I change it?”

This is something many people say.

Insight is important — and CBT can help build that awareness.

But when patterns are rooted in earlier experiences, they often need more than logic to shift.

They need to be felt, understood, and worked through emotionally.

That’s where schema therapy differs.

It helps you not just understand why the pattern exists, but begin to change your relationship with yourself within it.

What therapy focuses on

In therapy, we might start to gently explore:

• What patterns show up for you

• When they first began

• What they helped you cope with at the time

• What feels difficult about changing them now

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We also begin to look at how you relate to yourself within those patterns.

For example:

• Are you hard on yourself when things go wrong?

• Do you dismiss your own needs?

• Do you feel guilty for putting yourself first?

  
  

Over time, the work is about creating a different experience internally — not just changing behaviour, but shifting the pattern at its root.

Change doesn’t come from forcing yourself

Many people have already tried to “just do things differently.”

Be more assertive. Set boundaries. Stop overthinking.

And when that doesn’t work, it can lead to more self-criticism.

But these patterns were never about a lack of effort.

They developed for a reason.

Change tends to come from understanding those reasons, and gradually building a different way of responding — one that includes your needs, not just other people’s.

A different way forward

If you recognise yourself in these patterns, it doesn’t mean something is wrong with you.

It usually means you adapted to something that was difficult.

And those adaptations are still playing out.

Therapy offers a space to begin understanding that more deeply, and to move towards something that feels more balanced, more connected, and more sustainable.