Attracting the wrong men: What to do about it
Recently, I helped Wilma who keeps attracting the wrong men who don't think she's good enough. After all, she does consider herself good enough, but why does she keep attracting the wrong men
We explored together.
After all, Wilma isn’t the only woman who struggles with attracting the wrong men. If you’re facing this problem, you might find her situation and the tips I gave her relatable and helpful.
How do you feel about yourself?
How you feel about yourself can cause you to attract someone who finds that appealing. So take a moment to reflect on how you feel about yourself.
For example, Wilma has felt all her life that she is not good enough, but rationally she knows she is good enough.
When she was growing up , she was often told she wasn’t smart enough, wasn’t likable enough, wasn’t normal enough, and that crying was out of the question. She was told to do that in her room.
Her little brother was highly intelligent, but she wasn’t; later, it even turned out that she had ADHD.
In addition , she was bullied at school . So the outside world also reinforced her feeling that she wasn’t good enough until shewas 16 or17.
In relationships, she was then also told she did not look good and was called out for being a fat cow.
She felt like she had put it all behind her.
Somehow she fails to find that man who is the right match.
And then when she meets a man with whom it's not quite what she wants after all, she waits too long to get out.
I asked her, "Are you a bit of a love addict?"
Yes, attention addict. I never got that at home and then I look for it in my partner to fill it.
Otherwise, she was satisfied with her life. She was in good health, had even lost 35 kilos, and had lovely children with her ex-husband, with whom she could talk openly.
She also did fun things quite often. Still, she wondered:
"So why do I still want someone sitting next to me on the couch?"
Do you complement each other or fill each other up?
Often there is some kind of void created in your youth that you want to fill.
The only ones who fill the void are usually interesting men who are likely also addicted —but often to sex or other addictions—and you tend to run into them quite often.
She found this very relatable.
Sounds dickish, but kind seeks kind and you will be a perfect fit for that person.
You have two wounded people together.
Perhaps everyone grows up somewhat traumatized. The feeling of not being heard or seen, there are many degrees of that.
Is what you think is normal?
Then you may also find that you find abnormal things normal.
One of Wilma’s problems was that she couldn’t really get angry when she thought back to her ex calling her a fat cow. After all, she was 35 kilos heavier back then than she is now.
So that's not okay.
She was fat and she had almost accepted that.
Slimmer now, but back then it was also not normal for someone to say to you that you are a fat pig. It's never okay if someone says you're a fat cow or whatever. Even though you are overweight.
You are not a holy virgin Mary who just gets walked on. Be the doormat.
At some point, you have to deal with that yourself.
As long as you don't solve that with yourself, you will only find people who find you perfect to fill their void. At first, this also matches you, but after a few months you find that it's someone you don't really want.
Now that's just the hypnotic phenomenon. If you hear something so often, at some point you start to think that it is so. She had already heard from her parents and schoolmates that she was not good enough and so when her friend said it, it was normal for her.
But it's just not normal when people do that.
You can accept that it happened, but you shouldn’t accept it when people say this to you.
Getting angry about what's not okay
Putting something like this behind you often requires getting angry first.
The first step is to say, "Yeah but wait a minute, this guy just doesn't make sense. What kind of retard is this?"
The first step—whether it’s bullying or anything else—is anger. It’s that feeling that you’re going to beat him to a pulp.
She had never had that. Like the Virgin Mary, she accepted it when people walked all over her like a doormat.
At some point when you think "that's just not me," you first rage.
To process this, you can make a movie of sorts in your head.
In that movie "Your Revenge," you see yourself with that guest, or personification of your hate, and you do anything you want with it. It's a fantasy. The beautiful thing is that you can then make people literally die 23 times. You can make it as violent as you want. At some point you find it becomes pathetic for that person.
Then you can move on to the next step of forgiving, letting go, and understanding—realizing that this man has his own story, too.
If you still have that anger somewhere that the other person needs to be broken or something, it needs to get out somewhere first, and you can do that with a video like this.
She did this exercise with her ex-husband. Continuing to do everything to him in her fantasy until she found it somewhat pathetic. This did nothing to her, but that mostly showed that it had already passed.
With her mother, she had also discussed what had happened, and she also did it to the best of her ability. She had also forgiven her mother because she also understood where everything was coming from. So she couldn't do the exercise with that either.
But maybe you as a reader would benefit from taking a moment to create such a fantasy movie. This can also help you distance yourself from wrong men faster.
Double check your feelings
At work, she did feel left out. That a colleague would not show her a new dress or ask if she wanted a sandwich or coffee, too.
She didn't know why she didn't then say, "Hey how nice that you have a cute dress, can I see it?"
But it did remind her of school.
Instead of saying anything, she went to cry to the manager, just like at home in her little room.
While there are people who don't realize it they are inadvertently shutting someone out. When you express it, they often do show a dress or share lunch.
Maybe that colleague even thinks she's ignoring her because she doesn't ask anything about the dress. Turn it around: how being quiet comes across to your colleagues.
If you reach out and say or double-check "hey how nice, would you like to get me some coffee too?" and then someone says "no" only then you know for sure that something is wrong and now how likely is it that they will say "no" if you ask for some too?
Until you do, you are still looking at the world as the bullied child.
Then something stops you from double-checking whether people are ignoring you on purpose or not.
This did not normally happen to her at work, but this was the first time in years that she had a job with mostly female colleagues.
She used to be bullied at school mostly by girls.
If you find yourself sometimes in such a situation that reminds you of the past, you can tap into your inner child.
Exercise: bringing child within yourself to now
To the child within you, you can say that it’s all over now. That you’re 41 now and that everything is good enough. You say this especially to that part of yourself—that child—that tells you you’re not good enough.
You used to be in a class and you wanted to belong to it, but in retrospect, why would you want to belong to those girls? There are plenty of other people. That was then and you didn't know any better.
You are who you are—not who your mother, those girls, or your ex think you are, but who you believe yourself to be. That is love. When you look in the mirror, you see light and love.
First you think about being love. Wilma found this relatable.
Then you search within yourself and let what happens happen and you come to phase in your life where you didn't know/know that you are light yet. That person lets you join in that feeling of light and love. That person invites you to see it that way as well.
That person may be 4, 8, 12 or 16 years old or in a relationship. Maybe situations come along. You let what happens happen and there is only love. When nothing more comes up you open your eyes and feel liberated.
This exercise worked well for her. She ended up with a memory of her on a bicycle, and that version of her got all happy, too.
Are you whole or is there still a void?
At the end of the session, I always check to see if it worked. Because it may seem odd that processing bullying, or your upbringing, can help you attract the right men instead of the wrong men.
But what you are doing is healing that void within yourself. Making sure that you have filled yourself so that a future partner is only a complement.
I asked her what would happen if a man called her ugly again now?
"That's not going to happen anymore. Then he'll just have to buy new glasses."
If you have worked on yourself, as with the above exercises, you no longer find those wounded people attractive and they then no longer find you attractive. Then you are too whole for them.
Then you find the very people who are also whole. Then it becomes an addition, you may have to get used to that.
Then you may not need someone, but you just want to be with someone because it's fun. Then those wrong men will stay away from you and the right men will actually come into your life.
Also listen to this session:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/195236/6855088-wanneer-je-steeds-de-verkeerde-mannen-aantrekt
Want to learn more about hypnosis and how to perform these types of exercises with people you want to help further?
Then come join the free online masterclass on hypnosis.
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