We Seek The Redo

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There’s a dangerous idea that love should be smooth — that if you’re doing it right, there won’t be conflict or friction.  

But the truth is, every relationship will trigger you. That’s not a flaw — that’s the function. 

Relationships are mirrors. 

They show us the places within ourselves that ache for attention. 
The parts still trying to protect us. 
The patterns still waiting to be rewritten. 

Whether it’s with a partner, a parent, a friend or a child — the trigger is the teacher. 

So the point isn’t to filter ourselves down to avoid setting someone else off. 
That’s not care — that’s self-abandonment. That’s the path to resentment, enmeshment and disconnection. 

The real work is learning to bring our whole selves to relationship. 
Not as a demand, but as an act of self-trust. 
And to meet and be in relationship with others who are also willing to do the same: 
To hold their own discomfort. 
Take responsibility for their reactions. 
And stay conscious inside the connection. 

This piece is about what happens when we don’t yet know how to do that — when we come to love unconsciously, seeking completion. 

But it’s also about the pivot point: 
when we begin to choose truth over reenactment, 
self-responsibility over performance, 
and wholeness over wounded hope. 

On love, triggers and the quiet work of being whole 

I’ve been sitting with this confronting realisation: 

That so much of what we call love — or chemistry or soul-deep connection — is really a search for a redo. 

A quiet, unconscious attempt to rewrite the ache of the past. 

We are wired to return to what we know, even if it hurt, because our body is still trying to complete that unfinished story.

To complete the story our childhood never had a chance to resolve.
To find someone who will finally meet us in the places we were once made to feel too much, too little or not enough. 

With him — the one I reconnected with — it felt different in many ways from what I’d known growing up. 
His tenderness. 
His presence. 
The way he met me gently, without demand. 
Not with bravado, but with quiet attunement. 
He didn’t try to fix or impress — he just was. 

There was an openness in him — emotionally present in a way I hadn’t known before. 
For a moment, it felt like he could finally hold the parts of me that had always felt like too much: 

Too tender. 
Too expressive. 
Too alive. 

But even in his difference — in his soulful sensitivity and gentle way of being — the pattern was the same underneath. 

Not just the ache I felt to be seen — but the ache to stay connected when things got hard. 
The longing not only to be held in my vulnerability, but to remain close to his, too. 

Because what breaks my heart isn’t just being left. 
It’s when the door closes. 
When the other turns inward and disappears behind their own discomfort. 
When I can’t feel them anymore — can’t reach them — and something tender between us goes cold. 

That’s the ache I carry. 

Maybe it’s the child whose mother was competent but cold —
who learned that tenderness and affection weren’t available.
Now, as an adult, they seek that softness in partners who withhold it,
reaching and hoping that, this time, if they can just get through, the child within will finally be held.

Or the one who spent their childhood trying to earn a distracted father’s attention —
who learned that love is something earned, not freely given.
Now, as an adult, they are drawn to partners who feel just out of reach,
believing that if they’re just good enough, do enough, prove themselves enough — love will land and stay.

Maybe you were the one no one really saw — present but overlooked.
The child within you learned that being noticed was fleeting, conditional, or never quite enough.
Now, as an adult, any attention feels like oxygen, and you lose yourself trying to hold it, hoping that this time someone will truly see you.

Or maybe no one ever asked how you were — only what you achieved.
The child learned that love and care were tied to performance, not presence.
Now, as an adult, you feel most alive when you’re useful, helpful, or needed — but exhausted when your own needs rise to the surface, quietly yearning to be noticed without having to prove your worth.

Maybe your experience of love was inconsistent — sometimes warm, sometimes withdrawn.
The child learned that security was unreliable, that connection could vanish without warning.
Now, as an adult, you confuse the high of unpredictability with passion, chasing people who leave you guessing, unsure if comfort is trustworthy or boring, unknowingly replaying the rhythm of early uncertainty.

This is how the body makes a map — how what once hurt us becomes what feels like home — and why we keep finding ourselves in the same story, just with new names.

We all carry echoes. 
And if we haven’t met those echoes ourselves, we’ll keep seeking someone else to do it for us. 

That’s the wound running the show. 
The belief that we still need someone else to give us what we never got. 
To hold all of this for us. 
To make it safe. 

Even when the person is different — and he was so different in his essence and heart — the rupture was familiar. 

I open. 
I’m met. 
I hope. 
But it doesn’t last. 
They leave. 
I’m alone again — holding all of this. 

The pain wasn’t about him, exactly. 
It was about the part of me that had learned to brace for disappointment. 
To wait for the warmth to disappear. 
The part that equates love with effort. 
The part that believes opening always ends in grief. 

This is the thing we often miss in love: 
We don’t cling to what feels good. 
We cling to what feels familiar. 

We don’t just want love — we want the love that will heal the wound,
even when it takes the same shape as the love that once caused it.

As David Deida explains in his book Intimate Communion,
“Because romantic attraction is based on qualities in your partner that you unconsciously recognise from your childhood experiences, you’ll be as fulfilled and as unfulfilled by your partner’s love as you were by your parents.”

It reminds us that our longing isn’t random — it’s tied to the earliest patterns of care and attention we experienced.

We think we’re choosing someone new — 
but often, we’re reenacting something old. 
Trying to get it right this time. 
To prove that if we’re lovable enough, the ending will change. 

But unless we’re conscious of that — unless we’ve met our pain with tenderness — 
we’ll keep pulling people into the dance we never got to finish. 
We’ll expect them to succeed where others failed, 
without realising the script is still the same. 

And when both people are unaware of their patterns — when neither has met their wounds — it’s only a matter of time before those wounds start speaking for them. 

Even in love. 
Even with the best intentions. 
Especially then. 

Because without awareness, we don’t just love each other — we trigger each other. 

And triggering is not a failure. 
It’s the nature of relationship. 
To love someone — truly — is to bump up against their tender places. 
To mirror the pieces of them that still ache. 
And to be mirrored in return. 

The point is not to avoid triggering each other. 
It’s not to filter yourself, walk on eggshells or try to be perfectly smooth so nothing erupts. 

That’s not love — that’s fear wearing a mask of harmony. 
That’s self-abandonment. 

When we tiptoe around someone’s unconscious patterns — 
when we contort ourselves to avoid their pain — 
we’re not being kind. 
We’re becoming complicit in a dynamic where no one is really seen. 

And in doing so, we turn ourselves down. 
We hide. 
We perform. 
We lose access to our full, alive self. 

But when we enter relationship with consciousness — 
when we’ve met our own pain and can name our own patterns — 
then the trigger becomes a portal. 

Then we can say: 
“This touched something in me. I see it. I’ll take responsibility for it.” 

And the other can meet us with compassion instead of fear. 

This is how relationship becomes a place of healing rather than reenactment. 
Not by avoiding friction — 
but by learning how to walk with each other through it. 

This was the pivot point: 
Recognising the child in me still wants the story to end differently. 
She still hopes for a connection that stays open. 
That doesn’t shut down when emotions get big. 
That doesn’t retreat from the intimacy of being seen in what’s real. 

She’s not looking for perfection. 
She’s looking for presence. 
For someone who won’t flinch or flee when things get messy. 
Who stays reachable — even inside the ache. 

But real healing doesn’t happen by rewriting the ending with someone else. 
It happens when I stop rehearsing the old wound altogether. 

When I can turn inward and ask: 
Can I meet myself in the places I wish someone else would? 
Can I soothe my own ache without outsourcing it? 
Can I express my tenderness, my longing, my grief — and let it be enough, even if no one else witnesses it? 

That’s the quiet work of healing. 
It’s how the nervous system learns a new rhythm. 
It’s how we begin to separate love from reenactment. 
And how we stop mistaking chemistry for resolution. 

Because the love I felt — the hope, the beauty, the soft opening — 
yes, he made it safe for me to unfurl. 

But it always lived in me. 
And even now, without him, it still lives in me. 

When we can hold that truth, 
our relationships stop being reenactments of our wounds — 
and start reflecting our wholeness. 

With love,

Rhian xx

This piece is part of a series. Check out the other posts in the series here.