5 Signs Your Wounds Are Secretly Choosing Your Partners

So if you're struggling in your love life and you feel like you're on this hamster wheel of just attracting the same type of guy over and over and over again, it's possible that your type won't actually make you happy. And the reason why you're drawn to this type of guy is actually coming from a place of wounds, not from a place of worth. And Gary and I really want to dive deep into this idea because this is something that when we work with our clients, we want to dive deep with them and get to the heart of what's going on that then sets the strategy for their love life moving forward. Welcome to the Love Strategies podcast, where we help successful women attract high value men, date with a strategy, and improve their relationships. Now, whether you're single or dating or in a new relationship, we're here to help you dive into the male mind and provide raw insights found nowhere else. Backed by science, psychology, and our own personal experiences. Your hosts today are myself, Adam Lodolce, professional dating coach and founder of Love Strategy, and Dr. Gary Lewandowski, a relationship scientist, professor, and our head relationship coach here at Love Strategies. Please share with a friend and enjoy. So, Gary, I think this will be a really important one for our clients and for our listeners.

I think it is, because I think probably a lot of our listeners are familiar with this idea of having baggage, right? It's like, you know from a past, your relationship history, some past experience you had, you have baggage. And there's just something about that metaphor that never sat right with me because it just doesn't. I don't know. To me, it doesn't make sense because one of the worst things you could ever have in life is like going on a flight somewhere and leaving your baggage behind or having your baggage get lost. To think that, like, this is something you're purposely bringing along with you as a bad. It just doesn't make sense. But wounds, to me, makes a ton of sense. It feels very accurate in the sense that you had experiences that were not great. Those created wounds, and wounds heal over time. Now, depending on how deep the wound was, and I'm going deep on this metaphor, by the way, but depending on how deep the wound was, your scarring is going to occur and it's going to be more prominent or less prominent. And like, those things stick with you now, they don't have to limit you. A scar doesn't have to limit you, but it tells a story of your past and in some ways can embolden you in the right way. To move forward. And so what I like about what we're talking about today is it's really getting at the heart of what so many of our clients experience and what they share with us. And I don't know about you, but we do these. We do masterminds. We do several a week, one pretty much every day. But there's a. There's a certain. It happens every once in a while. Like, you'll have, like, fun masterminds, you have, like, lively masterminds. And then every once in a while, you have one that's just like tugs at the heartstrings mastermind. And I literally. We're recording this on a Tuesday. Just last Friday, I had one of those that, you know, I'm a. I'm a little bit of an easy crier, but, like, there is this, like, people were sharing so many deep things and insightfully and thoughtfully. And the thing that gets me to. That kind of hits me is when I see there are clients, support each other, share with each other, and just really encourage each other. And it's just like the most amazing thing. And it. It's usually around some of these wounds. And so I think what's great about our program and great about these experiences is it's really encouraging the clients to identify those wounds, but then move forward not from their wounds and not attracting men that way, but from their worth. Just such an important pivot.

Yeah, I agree with you completely. And I love this reframing around baggage versus wounds, because so many people are like, well, I need to get rid of my baggage. And this metaphor with wounds is like, yeah, you got a scar. And that's what builds character. Right. And that scar is a reminder. And that's. And that's okay. We can move forward in our life with that scar. And it's beautiful. It's a beautiful part of your story. Right. And so I just. I think it's really important where if our wounds are dictating every behavior so that we don't have any more wounds, that's not going to serve us. But if our wounds can be there as a reminder, but also allow us to move forward with the right actions, the right courage in our love life, then I think it's a win. Win all around. So I'm. I'm a big supporter of this idea.

Yeah. So the. The research side of me is just dying to make sure that we're clear about what we mean about each of these terms. Just to be clear, a wound is. Is an emotional or psychological injury usually rooted in past experiences, it's something that's happened to you before that currently influences, affects, or informs how you behave, connect or respond to other people. And for our purposes, of course, with relationships, you know, it's the wounds that affect your relationships. Now the opposite of that is attracting men based on your worth. Now your worth is about who you are right now. It's about your authentic values, desires, your intellect, who, who you are as a person authentically and genuinely. Right now it's someone who believes they are enough that they're worthy of respect. It's someone who's willing to create healthy boundaries based on self love, not out of neediness and lots of other things. And so, you know, today we're going to talk about if you're actually attracting love based on your wounds. And I think this is going to be a little bit of an eye opener. You know, you might be thinking, oh, that, that's not me. But I, I think it may not be fully you, but there's going to be like little bits of it that, that resonate. Right. Um, and I also, we're going to share the wounds that you might have. Five key ones that, that we've identified and the type of guy that attracts. So, you know, you may not necessarily recognize that you have these wounds, but then you're going to hear about these guys and be like, oh gosh, I attract that kind of guy. And then if you can kind of trace that back from like, oh, I attract a guy who's like really arrogant and full of himself. Well, why? Right? And it's like, oh, well, why? Part of the reason why might, because. Might be because of some of these wounds. And the more you understand all this stuff, the better off you're going to be and better prepared as you date moving forward.

Definitely something really interesting happens with our clients. And this is a conversation that I had with a few clients at our recent event where we host this in Boston. We have all of our Lux clients fly in and we have an amazing retreat and a lot of them are in incredible relationships. And what can happen with a lot of our clients is when they meet a guy who sends them flowers. For example, at this event, yes, we had a client who was dating a guy who's dating a new guy. It's only been about a month and a half. They've been in an exclusive, committed relationship. He sent flowers to her hotel at our Love Coaching conference.

Big move, Big move.

Move. And here's the crazy thing about this, and I, I don't want to speak more about this particular client. But if this, this happens to some of our clients where they're like, this is weird, right? This guy is showing up, he's healthy, he's available, he is there for me. And sometimes when a client is struggling and dating from place of wounds or attracting from wounds, it kind of gives them the ick, like, or just the, I don't trust this guy. This doesn't make sense. And so we always are encouraging our clients when that happens, to take a hard look at that. Is that reaction coming from a place of wounds or is it coming from a place of worth? And typically, that reaction, if we're pushing away the guys who are really showing up, that is coming from a place of wounds, right?

Because I think for a lot of clients, and thinking of the, the one in particular that you're mentioning here is it feels untrustworthy for a guy to be so kind, right? To be so available, to be so supportive. If it's like, what's the catch? And the thing is, there is no catch. This is how most guys are. It's just if you haven't had that direct experience, it feels like something that's force for other people but not for you. It doesn't feel like something you deserve. And so sometimes when clients don't get a chance to process it and talk to us about it, they'll actually start sabotaging those relationships. Because this thing that's so good doesn't feel familiar. Instead, they're much more attracted to what I call toxic familiarity. Where in your past you've developed these wounds of things not going well for you, but it's familiar. This is what's typical, this is what's normal for you. And so most of the time, what's familiar to us, we're wired that what's familiar is safe. What's familiar is comfortable. But a lot of times those dysfunctional patterns from childhood, those are not the patterns we really actually want in our relationship. But when we see them, they feel like, ah, it's like a warm blanket feeling because it, like it reminds us of, oh, this is how life is, but it's not. And it feels comfortable because it matches your emotional state or your expectations, even when those expectations are unhealthy. And so that's why it's so important to figure out kind of why you're attracted to certain kinds of guys, what those wounds are, where they're coming from. And so that's why we're going to dive into five different wounds today.

And just to top off this Story. I think it speaks to the power of our network and our community and our coaches. Because at the end of the day, she still might be feeling uncomfortable in that moment, but what really matters in that moment at the end of the day is her action. And because we're there to support her, talk through that moment, she's not going to sabotage. We're working with her to ensure she doesn't make the action of sabotaging it. Even if inside she's still like, this feels really uncomfortable. This feels weird. This feels weird. And that's where it's like, kind of. It rubs off on our clients, where it's like, oh, okay, this is normal. Like, this is. Okay, let's lean in. Even it feels a little bit off. So I just think it speaks to a lot of what we do. So let's jump into these five wounds. Gary, you want to jump into the first one. That sure acts kind of the wrong type of guys.

Yeah. So I think this. I put this one first because I think this is one of the most common, and it's the abandonment wound. And so what that is, it's a deep fear of being left behind or rejected. And so I think a lot of times this comes from early experiences where your caregivers weren't so caring. They weren't really there. They weren't either available physically, they weren't physically present, or they weren't emotionally available. It could have been them being inconsistent. It could be that one of your caregivers actually left either. Divorce, abandonment, just, you know, an absent father. It's almost always the father. And so it creates this sense of, like, people just aren't reliable. Now, the problem is you. You kind of move forward with this wound of expecting people to not be reliable and not be available. And so what kind of guy does that attract? Well, it attracts a guy who's emotionally unavailable. And I say attract. But really what I mean in this particular case is, and we say this to clients all the time, is like, you actually attract all kinds of guys. But again, what. What feels familiar? Well, what feels familiar is the emotionally unavailable guy. And so clients with an abandonment wound are just going to tolerate emotional unavailability.

And so they're going to consciously choose.

Right.

Unavailability.

Pick that one out of the lineup of all these amazing guys and be like, oh, that one's mysterious.

Right.

Let me. Comfortable feels comfortable. And it also starts to activate a past dating pattern where it's like, dating for a lot of these folks is chasing, trying to prove your worth Trying to create this like push, pull dynamic where it's like always a little exciting. It's like, no, no, no, no, no. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And it's, you know, it also abandonment, sadly, creates a dynamic where people will stay in a toxic relationship because it feels familiar and because frankly, they don't want to be alone again. And so this is obviously, you know, one of those wounds that, you know, it's very important to break the pattern.

Definitely. Moving on to the second wound that we see a lot with our clients is what we call the worthiness wound. And at the core of it, it's this belief that you feel like you're fundamentally just flawed or you're just not enough. And this is usually stemming from growing up or having a lot of criticism. It could be from your ex husband or from certainly a caregiver or just, just ongoing messages that your value depends on pleasing others or your general performance in life. And what's wild about this one is, and I've seen it so many times through my career, I've worked with clients and Gary, I'm sure you've seen this who are in their 70s, 80s, even early 90s, who are still referencing their father or their mother, who just constantly criticized everything they do. And that wound still exists to this day. It's still there, it's still in her. And until we really take a look at that and accept it and also have to, in many ways accept that person's no longer here, right? In, in these cases, like, that person's gone and now it's you and your life. And we can't allow that to permeate in our love life and cause us to attract guys who are the takers and the users, because that's what it will attract. That's who you'll choose. What will. If you don't feel like you are enough or that you're fundamentally flawed, you will attract a guy who is going to take and take and take from you, right? A guy who certainly doesn't value you as a person, who's going to objectify you, right? Who's going to only give you a little bit of value based on how it is that you might look or in the superficial side of you, right? All of this is going to play into that because that is what feels normal, right? If you're with a guy who is also highly critical of you, you're like, oh, my God, this feels like my childhood. Even though your childhood might have been a complete disaster, it might feel like your ex husband Even though you know that that was a living hell, when you go on a date or you start dating these guys who continue to repeat that pattern, it's just going to feel really comfortable for you. And so we have to take hard look at that because we don't want to be attracting and choosing these guys who would take advantage of your giving nature. And so one thing that Gary and I have been doing, and we developed this about it over the last year, is we've really been working on developing a few different archetypes that we found most clients fall into four different archetypes. And once you understand these archetypes, then suddenly you can start understanding these patterns on a deeper level and these wounds kind of play into this. And so I. What I would recommend you do is go to attractiontype.com this is a very special area where you can take this. It's like nine question quiz. And it's going to identify your attraction archetype. And, and suddenly once you understand your archetype, you're going to be able to break free from some of these wounds and where these might be coming from. So I think that's a really useful tool that I just want to throw out there for all of you, especially if you're struggling with the worthiness wound. Because once you can start to understand that your relationship problems are not a direct reflection of you as a human being, it's just a reflection of your strategy and your approach, then suddenly it can set you free again. That's attractiontype. Com. I just want to give you all that resource as we go through the remaining wounds.

Yeah. And, you know, one of the things you'll see at attraction type is one of the archetypes is the phoenix. And the phoenix is, you know, someone who's had a lot of, for lack of a better word, crap happen to them and they're, they're rising above. And so that very much directly ties into this third wound, which is a betrayal wound. So that wound is someone who has a deep mistrust from being hurt by someone they relied on, someone they cared about. I think the most common way that this happens is being cheated on. It's one of those deep, deep betrayals. And often it's the deepest when it's been going on for a while and you had no idea. Right. And then, you know, you end up in a breakup, divorce perhaps, and your former partner who was doing the cheating seems to go off and get to lead a happy life, which seems deeply unfair because. Of course it is deeply unfair. And so if you have this betrayal wound, you have this deep mistrust, what that ends up attracting, ironically, is people who are commitment phobic, people who are a little bit avoidant because you're putting out those same kinds of signals that you're a little commitment phobic, you're a little avoidant, you're putting up walls. And so if you're putting up walls, it's for a lot of people that's not going to be attractive. It's going to feel like you're a little distant. But for someone who's commitment phobic, this seems perfect. And so something that, you know, I'll say a lot to clients and this is a little tough lovey, but it's true, is that broken attracts broken. And so if you have this deep seated mistrust and approach relationships from a deep seated mistrust, who's going to be attracted to that other than other people who are tentative and have a mistrust as well. And so, you know, you're going to have these commitment phobics, the, the avoidance. You're also going to attract guys who are really jealous. They're, they're into, you know, what we call in research make guarding, protecting you, making sure no one else is after you. But you're also going to have partners who are just secret, distant, just shady and untrustworthy. And it's going to constantly confirm your fears. And it's like you're going to start, you will start, hopefully this doesn't happen. But it starts being like, what if it's me? What if I'm the problem? What if all guys are really like this? And this is something we'll see with clients and it's one of the powerful sides of our community in the sense that it's easy to start feeling like you're the problem, you're the one. But when you start hearing other people's stories and you see parts of their journey, realize, oh my gosh, it's not just me, there are other people have had this experience too. And then you hear about the experiences people are having with other men and you very quickly realize all guys aren't like this. And so I think particularly for the betrayal one, those elements are infinitely helpful. So much more so than just talking to friends who are like, yeah, all guys are evil, they're terrible. It just reinforces that wound and deepens it, if you will.

Definitely. And speaking of men, one wound that I would say men struggle with as much, potentially even more in many ways is the fourth wound by Both men and women, all people experience this is the rejection wound. And that is the fear of just not being accepted or wanted. And that's usually stemming from constant experience of feeling like the outsider or having your, you know, you go on a date, you're really excited, you feel like you connected, and then that person just ghosts on you or they dismiss you, or they're just not interested. And that kind of. It's like death by a thousand cuts in many ways, where before you know it, you just kind of to use that, like, you start bleeding out and you're like, I can't do this anymore. I can't. I can't continue with this process. And what this tends to attract is highly critical, demanding, perfectionist type guys, right? They do. Because at the end of the day, these, this type of wound is when you're getting out there, you're going to be really coming from a place of fear rather than openness. Right, Gary?

Yeah. And I think, you know, part of that fear is, am I, am I enough? And so what do you do in those situations? Right. I think it becomes really easy to lean into your people pleasing nature. And you see this with clients all the time. I will say to clients all the time, it's like, you are so kind, you're so willing to give everybody the benefit of the doubt, and that's great. But taken to the extreme, that people pleasingness makes you a doormat or a martyr, and that feels comfortable. And, you know, and I've said this to clients and they just kind of like, hear that and they're like, well, yeah, as if it's the most common, obvious thing in the world. Because once again, it's toxic familiarity. This feels normal to them. It almost see, it's like, well, how else would I be? And I think that's kind of the insidious nature of a lot of these wounds is they're operating in ways that we don't fully realize. Which brings us to the last one, which is one, I think I put this one on here because I think this is one that's uniquely positioned within folks who are successful. And that is a humiliation wound. Humiliation wound is a fear of being seen as inadequate or foolish. It's the risk of, you know, you don't want to be seen as wrong. You don't want to, you know, get life wrong, be incorrect or just be made to look as less competent than you actually are, less successful than you are. And I think a lot of times this comes from experiences in life where you were shamed or ridiculed. Ridiculed. Or made fun of or made to feel small in front of others. Usually from somebody who's like, domineering. Honestly, an emotional bully, right, who put you down or, you know, you were really proud about something and they found something in there to cut you down about. And what this ends up attracting is a partner who's an arrogant, condescending, know it all. Someone who's really focused on status. It's. It's kind of like that. False. We've. We've talked about this in. In other episodes. But like this guy who's just toxic, not like this false sense of masculinity where he's trying too hard to prove himself. You know, it could be an arrogant social climber type who just feels like he needs to be better than everyone, have a better car, have a better house, talk about how much more money he makes and all of his accomplishments. And so this starts to feel normal because you don't want to be humiliated. And so they naturally want to be up here. And so you will naturally put yourself down here a little bit and you make yourself small. You might self sabotage so that your success doesn't become as visible. You downplay your accomplishments, and you know, it. It feels inauthentic because you want to be proud of your accomplishments. Like, you work very hard for those things, and so you want to be very careful about playing small, making yourself invisible when that's the last thing that's going. It's the last thing you want to do because it's not going to help your relationship. And I think, you know, I. The key realization with all of these wounds, if I could sum it up in one kind of sentiment, is sometimes when you're dealing from a place of toxic familiarity, the most magnetic connection that you find is not about the person, but it's about an old emotional pattern. So what you're falling for when you're falling for these guys, some of these, you know, and probably you're hearing some of this, like, who would fall for this guy? But you're not actually falling for that person. You're falling for a familiar pattern, and it's leaving you stuck and confused and frustrated and in many ways alone. Even if you're in a relationship, you'll still feel alone.

Right? All right, so, I mean, we went pretty deep on this one, and I hope that this gave you a lot to think about. And the goal of this podcast is not to just rip open the old wound again. It's just celebrate what your experience and your life and take a look at the scar and accept it and then realize that I'm okay. I can move forward in my love life. And that's what we really want for all of you listening in here, and that's what this podcast is really all about, is to realize that you do have a lot of worth and you can find love not through your wounds, but through worth. It is going to feel different. You might fight it with every pounce of your body at certain moments. We've experienced it with clients, but it's absolutely possible if we can take a look at these wounds, understand them, accept them and move forward. And so if you want some help in that area of your life, I would definitely recommend hopping on a love strategy session with someone on my team. We can understand some of your patterns, where it is you want to go develop a strategy for you and see whether or not working with us makes sense. So if you want to do that, click the link in the description, head on over to loveapply.com and you can apply for that love strategy session. Otherwise, thank you so much, Gary. This was a great one and I hope it really opens some eyes out there.

Thanks, Adam.