Why we are drawn to people who hurt us
Author: The Narcis editorial team · updated: August 10, 2026
Clinical review: a practising psychotherapist
A calm, dependable partner seems boring, while the one who disappears and reappears brings butterflies and sleepless nights. And here you are again. Familiar? The issue is not that you attract the wrong people. It is that we can be drawn to familiar patterns of closeness, even painful ones.
Familiar is not the same as good, but the brain finds it calmer
If in childhood love sat alongside anxiety — if attention had to be earned and closeness was unstable — the mind records that love equals tension. As an adult you are drawn, without meaning to, towards what you recognise. An even, warm partner does not switch that system on, and so feels bland.
We try to replay an old story
Often this is an attempt to finally get what was missing: to reach someone cold, to earn the love of someone unavailable, to rescue. As though if it works this time, the old wound will heal. But a new person following an old script usually ends the same way.
The chemistry of a see-saw is not intimacy
An unpredictable alternation of warmth and distance can sharpen your focus on the relationship and your wish to win the closeness back. It can feel like powerful passion, but in itself it is not a sign of dependable intimacy.
What helps
Notice the pattern: what do your stories have in common? Often it is the same type of person and the same plot. Then comes learning to tolerate the “uninteresting” steadiness of a healthy relationship without escaping into familiar drama. In therapy this script can be seen whole and gradually rewritten — so that you are finally drawn to what does not hurt.
If this topic resonated — you do not have to sit with it alone.
Find a therapist for this topic →This article is for information only and is not a substitute for an individual consultation with a specialist.