“Forgiveness is just another name for freedom.” ~Byron Katie
Aside from the fact that I was born on Groundhog Day, I didn’t know why I kept falling into the same relationship patterns, which inevitably led to heart-crushing breakups.
I knew that I had a deep capacity to love, or so I thought, but it somehow wasn’t enough. I always ended up either feeling taken for granted or fighting desperately for my partner’s attention after the initial attraction phase wore off.
I couldn’t help becoming someone else, someone I thought I needed to be in order to avoid being abandoned. This, of course, backfired, because it further lowered my self-esteem and caused me become even clingier and more neurotic.
It was hard to not get down on myself for who I became in relationships. I didn’t know how to process the end of a relationship or how to separate what was my partner’s emotional stuff and what was mine, so I walked into the next relationship with accumulated anger, resentments, and taller walls around my heart.
It was easier to blame the guy for being emotionally unavailable, withdrawn, selfish, and all the other names I called him. This went on for over a decade.
Still, somehow my divorce was peaceful, and at times I even called my ex-husband in despair after a breakup, crying, “He doesn’t want me anymore.”
He’d jokingly say, “Well, you shouldn’t have divorced me.”
I knew what he meant. And I knew why I called him. It was the only relationship that didn’t blow up in my face at the end. I needed to see that I wasn’t a complete and utter mess and that I had something good to offer in a relationship, even if it didn’t last forever. We were able to remain friends who talked a few times a year.
After my third heartbreak, I knew that something had to give. I became very depressed and lost hope for being able to have a happy relationship that didn’t end in divorce or a dramatic breakup.
I kept asking the Universe, “Why am I not healing? What is wrong with me? Why do I end up falling in love with unavailable men and then clinging onto them for dear life?”
I prayed all day, every day. My hope was eroding fast and my self-rejection was growing by leaps and bounds.
The answer came in the form of one word: forgiveness.
To be honest, I was not interested in forgiving anything or anyone. I wouldn’t even know where to begin or who to forgive. Instead, I just added more toxicity to my pain by letting resentments turn to hate. This gave me a false sense of power and the illusion of protection from further pain, disappointment, deception, and betrayal. I felt like I’d had enough of all of these.
In my mind, forgiveness meant that I would die without receiving compensation for the ways I’d been wronged. That was just not okay.
I sat on my throne of righteous indignation for a few more weeks. In the meantime, I was twisted up in knots over the guilt I felt from having hurt all my partners, which I didn’t know what to do with either.
I wrote an email to my last boyfriend, which he didn’t respond to. That hurt even more. I got to feel what it’s like to not be forgiven for the mistakes you’ve made.
Non-forgiveness may feel like power and protection, but it ends up becoming a lonely, self-made prison cell. At that point, I knew that I was creating more unhappiness and loneliness for myself.
I finally gave in. Even though it took weeks for my ego to calm down and open to the idea of looking at who and what I needed to forgive, the thought alone started to make me feel lighter.
Since my biggest pain revolved around men, I started with my father.
In my last three relationships, I had relived the trauma I’d experienced with my dad.
My father loved his younger sister more than any of us and was never shy about expressing it. As a little girl, I watched my father adore my aunt in ways I longed to be adored by him. She was a grown woman, only eight years younger than him, but he treated her like his beloved little girl he would bend over backward to please.
What I got was mostly scolding, angry, disapproving eyes from him. I knew that he was capable of offering love to someone, but that someone was not me. My aunt had already filled that spot before I was born (not her fault) and there was nothing I could do to be daddy’s little girl.
I felt helpless. He was the only father I had, and I was too young to seek other solutions.
Of course, the men I fell in love with played this part really well: They all had a former lover they couldn’t get over, they had a wandering eye that left me feeling as if I weren’t enough for them, or they were burned out from showering their former partners with adoration and getting hurt in the end.
They were wounded by those partners (and possibly their own mothers), so they either didn’t know how to connect intimately with a woman and commit to her, or they were too burned to risk going there again. Regardless, I was getting the short end of the stick despite how much I loved them.
As I wrote my story, I started seeing the threads. I prayed for this pattern to be healed and lifted up from my consciousness, burned the pages along with it, and let go of the outcome.
I waited for the process to start working and watched for signs. Nothing seemed different for a while. I was still grieving and feeling remorse for my own mistakes.
Then I realized that I had to process my “love story” from the vantage point of my former lovers and forgive myself as well. The other side of the non-forgiveness medal was guilt. Both were toxic and blocks to my happiness.
So I wrote about my mistakes and again asked the Universe to give me a clean slate. At this point, knowing that there was nothing I could do, I put all my focus on caring for myself and making plans to achieve my goals. I wasn’t in charge of the Universe and couldn’t dictate when the healing was supposed to come.
A few days later my last partner called and said that he wanted to have a heart-to-heart conversation with me. I didn’t know whether he wanted to yell at me or talk about patching things up, but I agreed to meet. I had nothing to lose.
I called a good friend and told him what had happened and all about my forgiveness process. As I was telling him the story, it felt as if the person who was talking was not me. My words were softer; there wasn’t a trace of anger or blame left in them.
I heard myself say, “It’s no one’s fault, you know. We are all trying to find healing. Even my father. He didn’t know how to be with his daughter. His relationship with my aunt was safe. For some reason it was in the cards for me to experience that neglect so I could use it for something greater.”
In that moment I felt my heart open. I saw the walls around my heart melt away in my mind’s eye. He was quiet for the longest minute. Then he said, “Banu, this is the most loving thing I have ever heard you say. I am speechless.”
I can’t explain what a miracle is, but I now know they exist.
My former partner and I had our talk, and I was able to hear his side without getting defensive or attacking back. I was no longer looking at him and seeing my dad. I could just see Jim as Jim, as the man I love and as someone whose healing I could contribute to by giving him the gift of seeing who he truly is.
After our talk, as we started spending time together, I found myself actually seeing him for the first time. He was freed from the role he had to play for me in order to get to this place of forgiveness. He was free to be himself.
The future of us? Who knows? We decided to take it one day at a time and rebuild trust. I no longer feel the need to make him do or be anything.
My heart is at peace knowing that I now have something more to offer in a relationship than my projections and resentments from the past, which have nothing to do with the person I am relating to. I have to tell you, I feel like a new person.
Your pain served a purpose and brought you to this place where you can also recognize your own patterns, if you’re willing to look for them. In a way, those unhealthy relationships were gifts because they provided clues as to what needs healing in your life. So give forgiveness a chance. That is the only way to wipe your slate clean.
Recognize that we are all perfectly imperfect—we’re all working through our own patterns and trying to heal our pain—and that forgiveness is the biggest gift you can give yourself and anyone. I hope that you can have this. You are worth it.
Sad girl with heart image via Shutterstock

About Banu Sekendur
Banu is an intuitive coach and a healer. Her passion is removing emotional, mental, and energetic splinters that create blocks to joy. You can connect with her on her website and her budding Facebook group Heart Alchemy Crusaders.
Banu,
Thanks for sharing this post and your story. I’m so glad to hear that you are on the path to stronger, healthier relationships in your life, and especially that you have let go of the negative pattern that has been closing your heart to love and positivity! Your post resonated with me in many ways, particularly as regards forgiveness. This is something I have struggled with throughout life and I’m sure some of my tendencies have been similar to yours because of it. In the past couple of years I have been working hard to forgive, understand and open my heart. It is not the easiest process, as you know, but it sure does feel like a miracle once you feel it happen. 🙂 One moment in your post that struck me was where you were talking to a friend and felt like a new person. That instead of blame you brought understanding. I’ve found one of the best things I can do for myself in a given situation is to remember that other person is a human just like me! He or she is on their own path to healing, as I am.
Thanks again for your story. 🙂
Anna
Hi Anna,
Forgiveness is a big one for everyone. I think we need to be “done” with holding onto the resentments and seeing what they take from us clearly to get here. True, they are human too and flawed like the rest of us. Great perspective! 🙂
Thank you so much for the note!
Love,
Banu
I was moved to say thank you for such a succinct yet broad description of the difficulties of understanding our hurts and finding our way to a better relational place…Especially because the self relationship is so clearly identified as the key to release and joy. It has given me hope because it seems to really represent how so many of us struggle..and work to find new ways of being.
Hi Banu,
great post! Honestly, I am glad I have insomnia right now and came here and read this… I definitely needed it.
My pattern is pretty much to fall in love with women that can’t/won’t have a relationship with me. The thing I can’t wrap my head around is that I am asexual, and have felt little to none desire for anyone for most of my life, and I only felt attracted like 4 or 5 times. Of course when I felt that I didn’t know that the women were unavailable, but by the time I found out it was too late because I was too invested and I don’t know how to really stop. Then I start doing pretty much what you said… becoming someone else, morph in any way possible because if I were perfect, they wouldn’t have an excuse to not want me, right? Well, I really suffer because of that, after all we can’t make someone love us, and I ended up with an emotional baggage similar to what you described. Except I have no way out of this situation as of now — other than accepting I might never be reciprocated in my life.
Anyway… I find interesting the comparison to previous situations, in my case particularly with my grandmother and mother… the whole, I could be perfect and it was never good or enough for my grandma to love me, and my mom is probably the most emotionally negligent person I have ever met. I wonder where did I get the pattern of falling for unavailable people even before knowing they are unavailable, though. It’s hard to practice forgiveness for something I don’t even know what’s wrong…
Hi Gabby,
We unconsciously attract unavailable people for many reasons. I don’t know what yours is. But some typical ones are: feeling undeserving of love, having seen “bad” examples of relationships and marriages (parents?) and having made a decision at a young age to not be like them or to stay single. Those vows we make to ourselves (sometimes we don’t remember), set the stage for our adult relationships. If they are all unavailable, your inner being might be screaming, “You need to love me first!”. It’s so strange how the higher part of us prevent us from being in a relationship to protect us sometimes. Or you might have some deep negative beliefs about relationships and/or women (or both). Forgiveness was the overarching solution to my projection. I was seeing my dad in my partners and reacting to them in unloving ways. So my pattern couldn’t heal because I couldn’t fully love the man I was with but used him to work through my dad stuff (not intentionally!). But I still do need to work with my fears, have self-love as an ongoing practice and look into my beliefs about men and relationships. You can do this. Start somewhere. Journaling can offer you clues as to where healing is needed. Don’t give up.
Best wishes on the rest of your journey,
Love,
Banu
Thank you for the note, Charles. I appreciate your kind words and am happy that my story offered you some hope. Take that and run with it. Look deep into where that light of hope is highlighting and feed that. Much love,
Banu
I had an awe moment just like you did. I was sitting on the bed, sitting with my feeling, allowing myself to go to a place I had (and sometimes I am still doing) masked for ever. From Childhood to adulthood, i asked myself, “Would those people still had made the same choices, if they knew the pain and hurt it would cause for me internally?”…I cried like a baby at that moment – knowing they wouldn’t.
Gosh that moment for me was so emotional.
I’m still in this process actually.
Thank you so much for sharing your story & wisdom! 🙂
Banu,
Thanks for putting this post up. Aspects of it resonated with me very strongly. I like you am close to my long term relationship and often call for advice and when I break up with someone got to her. We have know each other many years and are close friend but she split with me rather than the other way round.
I wrote to my ex partner and got some form of polite reply but hope I can with help let my barriers down and hope that she will give me the forgiveness and allow us to rebuild the trust and affection that we had ( and I still do have).
Chris
Hi Banu,
Thank you for your article, it is very clear. My love life has been somewhat similar so far, I’ve had two boyfriends who are very introverted and did not make me feel stimulated enough. While they are not very similar, the feelings I had with both (anger, frustration, injustice etc.) somehow reflect my feelings toward my parents, and actually the second boyfriend (whom I’ve been with for two years now) constantly reminds me of my dad in his interests, introversion, lack of friends and need for social life and so on, which gives me a lot of resentment towards him and makes it hard for me to keep going as I fear a lonely life with him.
When I met Allen, my second boyfriend, I was surprised that he shared the same first name with my first boyfriend (whom I had broken up for six years), and also a lot of traits with my dad. Over time his need for space and alone time as well as his quiet nature made me feel rejected, cry, feel abandoned, go nuts and try to get away from him, all while we are good friends, share some interests and attitudes to life, enjoy each other’s company and so on.
The issue with us is on the one hand that he needs much more alone time than me, while I want to get out with him more, and also see him more often, but also that I got stuck in a pattern of being afraid of even talking to him for fear that his answers might show lack of presence, interest, and I might go crazy and feel hurt. It is very clear to me that I did not overcome the relationship pattern from my last relationship, that is fuelled by fear of abandonment, co-dependence etc., but once I try to overcome it, can I have a chance with my current boyfriend again? Or does overcoming a pattern mean acknowledging it but moving on from the person who hurt us?
Hi Banu! Are you still around?
You will never find her again… Mwahhhaahah!
Wink to Charles Mohammed.