Why do I compare everyone to my bad relationship?

It's a part of your life that won't be forgotten so easily, and it is an experience that takes time to heal from. After that experience, the same feelings and emotions come back at the thought of another relationship because it's the feeling of being afraid that it will happen again. It's hard to trust someone again and be able to see the good in someone else after falling in love and getting hurt, but when the time is right, you won't feel like you have to compare everyone, and you'll be able to love freely again and be happier than before.

It could be because your partner doesn’t treat you right, and you feel that others may do the same to you. When I was in a poor relationship, my partner made me feel like I was always doing something wrong. There were trust issues in our relationship. I started seeing everyone the way I saw him: as an untrustworthy person. Categorizing everyone as untrustworthy or bad is easier than leaving yourself vulnerable. Comparing everyone to your relationship could be your way of making yourself feel more secure. It could be because there is a specific personality trait you dislike about your bad relationship.

Your bad relationship affects how you view other people! You may have been abused, verbally or physically, or some other form of neglect in that relationship. When you meet new people you may be wary about if they will act like your bad relationship. I personally was in a mentally abusive relationship. It lasted about a month, after that I had a very hard time trusting new people and people in general. I understand what you are going through and remember that not everyone will act like that past relationship!! It may be hard sometimes, but remember that life goes on and better things are coming your way!

Once the winter holidays are over, the stores can’t seem to help themselves. Valentine’s Day red and decorations hit the stores right after New Year’s and the spotlight gets turned on to our relationship. With the big day looming, many people start to think: “Is our relationship wonderful enough? Romantic enough? Supportive enough?” “Am I glad I’m in the relationship I’m in?” We may find ourselves trying to keep up with the metaphorical “Joneses” who seem to be more affectionate, more mutually helpful, and better at managing conflict than we are. Social media certainly doesn’t help. Most of the posts about relationships celebrate how happy, happy, happy people are to be with their sweetie doing sweet things: vacationing and weekending in picture-perfect places; frolicking in the snow or on a beach or sharing exotic food, amazing cocktails or craft beer. A few posts contain complaints and rants but, admit it, if a Martian were to learn about American relationships on social media, it would come to the conclusion that it’s 99% fun and romantic with only a complaint or two in the mix.

From my personal experience, it’s because after one bad relationship, we lose trust in all our other relationships. We believe that all our other relationships are gonna be like this. I believe that it’s vital that we give ourselves the time to recover before entering a new relationship. And when we do enter one, it can be hard but we should try our best to see the good sides to our new relationship as well instead of just trying to see all the bad sides. And also, we shouldn’t feel guilty that we compare everyone to our bad relationship. We had been hurt, and it’s not our fault.

Bad relationships often leave lasting impacts in our lives. After we've experienced something like that, we never want to have it happen again. So our brains look for patterns and signs that we might be making the same mistake, or that someone might be just like the person who hurt us. That impulse is useful. It protects us from people who WOULD hurt us. But it can also get in the way. It means that it's difficult to trust the new people in our lives and we jump to false conclusions. It can be very difficult to learn to trust again.

You've been hurt. A lot. So it's completely understandable why you feel like you cannot trust anyone anymore. This is an assumption by the way. I think that comparison is something that you might be doing automatically, since your brain is trying to prevent you from going through the same traumatic experience. To move on from the past, it's most likely impossible to just "will" yourself to stop comparing. Perhaps you should try to let go of what your ex did (which will be incredibly hard and take time, of course) and remind yourself that not everyone is like him/her/they.

From personal experience, when we love someone and they hurt us, we feel a violation of trust. That trust is what's used to build the initial relationship and is the foundation for everything. Once we have poured a lot of ourselves into a relationship and then trust is broken, it can be hard to extend that trust to other people. Personally, for me it's because I would have never thought the initial person would have hurt me, so this new person, no matter how nice, could hurt me too. It takes time to build that trust again with a new person, usually longer than it did initially because you want to feel safe.

I compare everyone to my bad relationship because I am worried it will happen again. It was a horrible time in my life, and I want to try and keep it from happening again. To go through a relationship like that again would be devastating to myself and my family. I was able to get out of it, but that doesn't mean that if it happens again I will be able to get out as easily. If I am on my game, and do everything I can to avoid the situation I was previously in, then maybe things will be better.

Sometimes we can find ourselves comparing new partners or even other people in our lives to partners we had in relationships that were not the best for us. That may be because "bad" relationships tend to leave an impression on us. Maybe they were unhealthy or traumatic in some way, so that our memory holds on to them to protect us in the future. Sometimes this results in us thinking of the "bad" relationship, even as we engage in new ones. Any type of "significant relationship" is capable of becoming a "point of reference" for future relationships, but it's important that we also recognize that people are unique and different, and that not everyone is comparable to reference points we may have previously stored in our minds.