Repetition Compulsion: How To Stop Re-living the Same Relationship (Over and Over Again)

You live and you learn, they say. In truth, it doesn’t work this way.

Do you ever feel like you are living in ‘Groundhog Day’?

As I was telling my therapist how my relationship situation keeps moving in a circular motion (aka me being single and alone), she introduced me to a brilliant concept: repetition compulsion.

According to Wikipedia:

Repetition compulsion is a psychological phenomenon in which a person repeats an event or its circumstances over and over again. This includes re-enacting the event or putting oneself in situations where the event is likely to happen again.

You don’t do this becuase you are crazy, but because you are trying to create a different ending to a negative or traumatic situation which you feel was left unresolved in the past. In love, you could be living the same relationship over and over again in the hopes that you will break the cycle and create a different outcome.

Basically it works like this:

1. We experience a bad situation, it could be a complicated relationship, for example one in which we feel like we want to ‘save’ our problematic partner.
2. We try our best to make it work, however we soon discover we cannot change the other person and despite our biggest efforts nothing seems to work.
3. The relationship ends and we feel exhausted and heart broken.
4. We choose a new partner with the same dysfuntion. All of a sudden, we begin living the same relationship again with the deep rooted belief that this time we can ‘win’.
5. The same problems arise as we try harder and harder to fix the situation again. We try something different like being nicer, more patient, more direct, calling the problem out sooner…nothing works.
6. It all comes crashing down yet again. There is no way to fix this situation and we live re-live all the same pain and sadness.
7. Heartbroken, we superglue the remaining pieces of ourselves trying to make them look like an antique mosaic vase rather than a second hand suburban forgery piece, we get back up and get back on the horse and just when we think at last we will achieve a new ending, the same exact thing happens again and again.

Have we gone mad?

No. It’s repetition compulsion. Because we couldn’t figure out a solution to the problem, we live it again and again to see if the next time we are able to reach a different outcome.

Spoiler alert: you are very unlikely to ever reach a different outcome.

How incredible is this example:

There is a specific instant after you meet a person you are crazy about, when you think: yes. This could be my forever person.

It doesn’t happen every time you date someone of course, but in my case it usually hits like thunder, my personal Eureka moment. With Brown it was in the morning after our first date (and subsequent night together). I thought he was a very insipid human being prior to that day, so after discovering he was in fact wonderful and spending a long night repeating to him ‘who knew you were this incredible’ he went to the kitchen where, naked, he prepared the one breakfast I would never ever eat.

I stared at his perfect naked body as he handed over a plate made up only of ingredients I truly detest, I looked at him, gorgeous, caring, sweet, manly. Yes, I would eat this freaking bowl of fruit. He truly could be my forever person, and what a flipping forever!

When I got home I spent a whole day staring at my phone which thankfully immediately rung with a message asking me on a second date. I knew then and there that there was one thing I needed to do: change his ring tone so that I could in fact do something, anything else with my life, apart from staring at my phone all day.

It had to be discreet, not something so blatantly different from my regular one just in case he ever decided to send me a message and hear his own special tone. So I chose a discreet ‘beep beep’. Exactly like the normal beep just double.

To this day, his beep is a simple double beep.

Fast forward 5 months from that day (and a terrible breakup), as I’m about to walk out of the house I finally hear it: beep beep. There’s no mistaking that sound. He wrote me.

As I look down from my phone I see a different W-starting name. It wasn’t him yet the beep was the same exact one.

Turns out a year ago I had gone out with someone I thought could be my forever person and I very originally had the same exact thought, a thought I believed to be completely new.

Welcome to the magic world of repetition compulsion. It wasn’t just the ring tone that was the same, it was the same story.

In a fashback it suddenly became extremely clear. Let me show you the two situations side by side:

Let’s call my recent ex Brown, as per the previous posts, and the other Harry.

Brown: I met him 9 years ago in the neighborhood, acquaintance for many years, I found him quite boring despite being extremely handsome and successful. Never considered him for a partner. Out of the blue asks me on a date, the date is spectacular and ends up being a 48-hour date, I wonder why I had never considered him and go all in. We talk about the future and all that jazz. I change his ringtone two days later to be able to focus.

End of the story (which you have all read on my blog): he was likely avoidant, left me out of the blue and cut off communication leaving me in huge pain as I have no understanding of why it went from amazing to nothing in one day.

Harry: met him 9 years ago at a house party through friends. Became acquaintances. I had even gone on a remote date with him which I had forgotten all about as he seemed dull. Out fo the blue he asks me out. Best date ever, he cooks for me, flowers, massage, making love, talk about future. Beautiful message the next day, changed ring-tone, disappeared. No apparent reason, just gone.

After things ended with Brown Harry re-appeared out of the blue. I went on another date with him, 48 of the most spectacular hours. Art exhibition followed by drinks and dinner. After dinner drink at his, we kiss, he asks me to Wimbledon the next day. I cancel my day of work and meet him at noon for the tennis tournament. He looks elegant and wonderful, conversation flows and we get closer and closer. We are all over each other all day, touching, snuggling, engaging. We go for drinks after Wimbledon then dinner then we make out passionately in front of a cinema. I ask if he would like to come home with me, he says he’d love to but he has to walk his dog. To be clear, both our flats were 10 minutes away from this cinema.

What’s happened? Nothing.

Guys, I am freaking clueless.

He is looking for a long term partner, so am I. We share values such as family, loyalty, we want to live life in the same way, art, travel, friends, no plans, couple at the center. Yet nothing. Sexual attraction definitely there, spark is there, he spent 48 hours taking me out and nothing.

This is the same exact situation as Brown.

I swear to you it now hit me that I have been repeating this pattern for longer than Brown and Harry and I have never cracked the pattern, I never find the solution.

Clearly all of these men are avoidant. I knew it, I saw it, I spotted it right away, yet I ignored the signs every single time thinking I could be the person to change this. Maybe I watched ‘He’s just not that into you’ one too many times thinking I could be the exception. Is that even how it works in real life?

How do you break the cycle of repetition compulsion?

Faber est suae quisque fortunae

Each person is the architect of his own fortune. Sallust

Those who have ever taken a flight with me know that I bring terrible luck. I fly loads and all of my flights typically are delayed. I got on a flight today and thought: wow, I was just upgraded to business class. This is wonderful. As I am sitting on the flight writing this article and looking out of my window I realize on thing: I read my seat number wrong. I had upgraded myself to business class!

Wow. I only realized it half way through the flight and I am so happy about it, it feels wonderful. I never would have done this purposefully however now that I am here I am psyched.

This opened my eyes to a harsh truth: there is no one out there you can ask for permission, there is no magic sign that will appear from the sky. If you want to upgrade your life, You are the only person who’s permission you actually need to do so.

If you needed a sign, this is it.

We build our own destiny. Yes, partially it depends on who we meet and on randomness and on the people we happen to meet and on aligned timing, however lots of it is up to us. Our choices shape what happens. Our ability to learn from the past gives us the opportunity to create a better future, one that we can happily live rather than one that looks like ‘Groundhog Day.’

On top of repetition compulsion I have to say that familiarity feels more comfortable than constant change, therefore we tend to feel more comfortable repeating the same situation than diving in a completely new one. That said if you want a different result, you will have to take different action to achieve it.

How do we break the cycle?

All change starts with awareness, therefore identifying those patterns that keep us running like a chipmunk on a wheel is the very first step towards jumping off and heading down a new path.

For now remember this: when you feel like you’re stuck as a second class passenger please remember that this is your flight, you choose the destination, and you decide when it’s time for an upgrade.
As for me my friends, I have decided that my time to upgrade is now.From business class of my BA London-Pisa flight, I wish you all a spectacular flight.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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