Tim Arrigo explains how you attract partners who mirror your inner traits, and why trauma patterns repeat in relationships. He argues that taking responsibility for your role, even in abusive dynamics, is how you break the cycle and grow.
You don't attract what you want, you attract who you are. So imagine you went to a restaurant, and let's imagine you met a stranger at this restaurant, and you held the same political beliefs, you held the same personal values, you held the same beliefs about children and God and parenting, you would be what's called compatible with that person, meaning you'd probably walk away from the conversation and say, you know, that was a great conversation, it was a great talk with that person, I really like that person, because what you're seeing is parts of yourself that you like. And let's imagine that somebody else walked up and they had different political beliefs, different beliefs about God, parenting, life, and they saw the world differently than you. Well, you wouldn't be attracted to that person. You wouldn't be compatible with them. And see, this is what happens inside relationships. The things that you see in the other person that you like, you're attracted to, and the things that you don't like about yourself that you see in that person, you judge, you criticize. See, the more judgmental we become, the less self-aware we are. Most of the things that you don't like about your spouse are things that you see inside yourself that you haven't acknowledged. It's called your shadow side. It's the dark side of your psyche, and everybody has one. Everybody has a dark side. Parts of yourself that you repress, that you deny, that you no longer claim to be your own. See, what happens in a relationship is when you truly haven't discovered what these things are, when you haven't explored your shadow— feelings of being unlovable, feelings of being unworthy of love, insecurities, feelings of inadequacy, toxic shame. Experiences from your past that have influenced you in the way that you see the world, the way that you see relationships, what happens is you end up seeing them in other people, especially someone you're in a relationship with, and they see them in you. And see, that's a beautiful opportunity to either, A, create an amazing union and transformation where we can literally transmute our pain into personal power and a loving relationship, or what you have is trauma on trauma in that relationship where one another becomes defensive with each other, you blame one another, and you ignore and deny the fact that you're a fallible human being. You're not perfect. But see, looking inside, being self-aware was counterproductive to you at some point in your life. And see, you don't attract what you want, you attract who you are. So as you judge these things in your spouse, what you come to find out is a lot of those things are challenging you. Your wife's emotions challenge you to do what? Empathize. Which is what? Get in touch with your own emotions. See, become aware of why things actually trigger you, because things don't actually trigger you in the relationship. What they do is they antagonize things that were already there, things that already preexisted. And if you see something in your spouse, what an amazing opportunity it is is to learn to speak to that part of them, because that's how you learn to transcend the personal issues that you both bring into the relationship, and you learn how to help one another on your personal development journey to where you want to go. Either you're going to be challenged to elevate yourself in that relationship and grow, or you're going to stay stuck in a cycle of denial, evasion, feeling emotionally abused and manipulated because you refuse to look at what's there. If you're in an abusive relationship Stop blaming the other person and start to ask yourself, why am I here? What does this say about me? What is lacking in me that keeps me here? And if you're the one doing the abuse, understand one thing: why are you doing that? What does that say about you, that you need to exalt yourself over somebody else, that you need to abuse somebody else, well, it says everything about you. You could blame them every day of the week, but it says everything about you. It says everything about what you're truly hiding and what you're scared to confront. See, I know that. And you might be able to hide from everybody else in your life, but trust me, we see right through it.
