Why Do I Keep Ending Up in the Same Situations? The Psychology of Repeating Patterns

You left the job with the boss who never noticed you. Two years later, you have a new title, a new company, and a new boss who never notices you. You ended the relationship where you did all the giving. Now you're in a new one, and somehow you're doing all the giving again.

At some point most of us stop and ask: why do I keep ending up in the same situations?

It's one of the most common questions people bring to me, from founders and senior leaders to people in the middle of a life change. And it's usually asked with a quiet sense of shame, as if repeating a pattern means you're not learning, not trying hard enough, or simply unlucky.

It means none of those things. In psychoanalysis, repetition is one of the oldest and best-understood ideas we have. We don't repeat because we're stupid. We repeat because part of us is trying to solve something, and it keeps using the only solution it knows.

This post is about why that happens, how it looks for each archetype, and what actually helps you step out of the loop. If you don't know your archetypes yet, take my free archetype test first. It takes a few minutes and shows your top three.

1. The people change, the feeling doesn't. Different boss, different partner, different friend group, and you end up feeling the same way: unseen, used, controlled, left.
2. You can predict how it ends. Somewhere in the middle of a new chapter, you already know the last page.
3. “Why does this always happen to me?” is a sentence you've said more than once.
4. Your reaction is bigger than the situation. A small comment ruins a whole day, and part of you knows it's not really about that comment.
5. You start over, and it follows you. A new city or a new job brings relief for a few months, and then the familiar story returns.
6. You know exactly what you should do, and still don't. Insight alone hasn't changed anything.

If three or more sound familiar, you're not stuck because you lack willpower or information. You're living a pattern that has a purpose, and the way out starts with understanding what that purpose is.

Over a hundred years ago, Freud noticed something odd in his patients. They didn't only remember painful experiences from the past. They repeated them, in new relationships, with new people, often without realising it. In a 1914 paper, he wrote that the patient “repeats instead of remembering”, and later he called this the repetition compulsion.

Today we understand it better, and three reasons come up again and again in my work.

Our nervous system doesn't sort situations into “good” and “bad”. It sorts them into “known” and “unknown”. A boss who is cold the way your father was cold is painful, but you know how to survive him. A boss who is warm and direct might feel strangely uncomfortable. So, without choosing it, we drift toward what we already know how to handle.

One of the most hopeful ideas in psychoanalysis is that repetition is an attempt at mastery. Part of you goes back to the old situation because it wants a different outcome this time. If I can finally make this distant person love me, then maybe the old story was not about me. It's a brave wish. The problem is that we usually try to win with the same moves, so we get the same ending.

The psychologist Lester Luborsky found that most of us carry a core relationship pattern with three parts. I call it the core script:

1. I wish… what I long for from other people (to be seen, to be free, to be safe)
2. I expect… how I believe others will respond (they'll leave, they'll control me, they'll take)
3. So I… what I do about it (try harder, resist first, withdraw, give more)

Here's the trap: what we do in the third step often creates the response we feared in the second. If I expect to be overlooked, I stay quiet, so I'm overlooked. If I expect to be controlled, I push back hard, so people tighten control. The script proves itself right, and the pattern feels like fate.

Every repeating pattern also does a job. Staying in the role of the one who gives protects you from the risk of asking and being refused. Leaving before things get deep protects you from being left. Kegan and Lahey call this an immunity to change: a hidden commitment that quietly outvotes your goals. Until you see what the pattern protects you from, it will keep winning.

Every archetype has its own favourite loop. Here's the pattern I see most often for each, and the quiet belief that keeps it going. You'll probably recognise more than one: most of us lead with two or three archetypes.

Notice that every belief made sense once. It was the best conclusion a younger you could draw from the situation you were in. The pattern isn't a flaw in your character. It's a solution that has outlived its problem.

Patterns don't break when we try harder. Trying harder usually means using the same moves with more force. They break when we see the pattern clearly enough to choose something different, and then practise that choice in small, safe steps.

1. Name the pattern, not the people. Write down the last three times this situation happened. Leave out who was to blame. Look only for what repeats: what you wanted, what you expected, what you did, how it ended.
2. Write your core script. Finish three sentences: “I wish…”, “I expect others to…”, “So I…”. Most people recognise their script within minutes, and feel both relief and discomfort at how accurate it is.
3. Find what the pattern protects you from. Ask: “If I did the opposite of my usual move, what am I afraid would happen?” That fear is the engine. My free 4-column worksheet walks you through this step.
4. Catch the moment, not the outcome. Patterns have an early warning sign: a tightening in the chest, a familiar thought, the urge to rescue, push back or disappear. You can't change how it ended last time. You can notice the moment it starts this time.
5. Change one move, on a small stage. Don't try to rewrite your whole life. Choose one low-risk situation this week and do the “So I…” step differently: ask instead of giving, stay instead of leaving, speak instead of waiting. Then watch what actually happens. Very often, the world doesn't respond the way the script predicted.

This is what psychoanalysts call working through: not one big insight, but many small moments of noticing and choosing differently, until the new way starts to feel familiar too.

Some patterns are woven so deeply into how we lead and love that it's hard to see them from the inside. That's not failure. It's exactly what working with a coach or therapist is for: a second pair of eyes on the script you can't read because you're living in it.

If you recognised yourself here, you already did the hardest part: you noticed. A pattern you can see is a pattern you can start to change.

1. Find your archetypes. Take the free archetype test to see your top three and the trap each one tends to repeat.
2. Do the exercise. Download the free 4-column worksheet and find what your pattern is protecting you from.
3. Work on it together. If you'd like help seeing your own script, I work with people on exactly this: stuckness, repeating patterns, and the story underneath. Book a session with me.

One question to sit with this week: what am I hoping will be different this time, and what would I need to do differently for it to be?

1. Why do I keep repeating the same mistakes? Usually because the “mistake” is an old solution: it protects you from something you fear. Until you see what it protects you from, it keeps feeling like the safest option.
2. What is repetition compulsion? A term from psychoanalysis for our tendency to recreate familiar, often painful, situations, partly because they feel known and partly in an attempt to give them a different ending.
3. Why do I attract the same type of partner or boss? We're drawn to what feels familiar, and our own behaviour often brings out the response we expect. Both can change once the pattern is visible.
4. Can you break a pattern on your own? Often, yes: start by naming it and changing one small move. Deeper patterns are easier to see with a coach or therapist, because they're hard to notice from the inside.