Is Your Ex Keeping You From Finding Real Love? 5 Hidden Signs You Are Missing

92 snips

Apr 18, 2025

Ever feel trapped in the same dating cycle? Discover how your past relationships might be holding you back from real love. The discussion dives into 'repetition compulsion'—the tendency to relive emotional patterns. Learn to identify your attachment style and how it affects your romantic behavior. Jay highlights five signs that your ex could still be influencing you. Plus, find out how to break unhealthy patterns and reparent yourself for better emotional health. Change your patterns, change your love life!

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Books

Transcript

Episode notes

INSIGHT

Familiarity Feels Safe, Even If Unhealthy

People unconsciously recreate familiar emotional patterns in relationships, even if harmful.
Familiarity feels safe to the brain, despite being unhealthy.

INSIGHT

Past Relationships Impact Present Love

Emotional baggage from past relationships strongly predicts dissatisfaction in new ones.
Your past is influencing your present love life even if your ex isn’t present.

ADVICE

Five Signs Past Controls Dating

Watch for these signs: emotional walls, panic at closeness/distance, repeating unhealthy partner types.
Recognizing early signs can reveal if your past controls your dating life.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

Do you ever feel stuck in the same dating patterns?

Do you think your past relationship is still affecting you?

Today, Jay unpacks the powerful and often hidden influence our past relationships have on our current dating pattern. Drawing from psychological research and personal reflection, Jay explores the concept of repetition compulsion—the unconscious tendency to recreate emotional patterns from our past, especially in romantic relationships. He reveals how our early attachments, particularly those with our parents and first loves, shape the way we love, what we fear, and even who we are drawn to.

With compassion and clarity, Jay outlines the five key signs that your ex—or more accurately, your past relationship wounds—might still be holding the steering wheel in your current dating life. He then re-introduces the attachment theory, helping them identify their own attachment styles—whether anxious, avoidant, or secure—and how these styles play out in their romantic behaviors. His message is clear: you are not broken, you are patterned—and patterns can be changed.

In this episode, you'll learn:

How to Recognize When Your Past Is Sabotaging Your Love Life

How to Break the Cycle of Repeating Unhealthy Relationship Patterns

How to Tell the Difference Between Familiarity and Safety

How to Avoid Self-Sabotaging Healthy Relationships

How to Reparent Yourself and Meet Your Own Emotional Needs

This episode is both a compassionate wake-up call and a hopeful guide for anyone seeking to build healthier, more fulfilling love. Whether you're recovering from a breakup or simply ready to stop repeating the past, this is the episode that could shift everything.

With Love and Gratitude,

Jay Shetty

Join over 750,000 people to receive my most transformative wisdom directly in your inbox every single week with my free newsletter. Subscribe here.

Join Jay for his first ever, On Purpose Live Tour! Tickets are on sale now. Hope to see you there!

What We Discuss:

00:00 Intro

01:16 How Past Relationships Shape Your Dating Future

02:39 We Recreate Familiar Emotional Patterns In New Relationships

09:18 Five Signs Your Past Relationship Is Affecting You

12:09 What Are The Different Types Of Attachment Styles?

22:35 The Path To Earned Security

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.