Previously, you discovered why you keep picking romantic partners who hurt you. Now discover how to fix a broken picker and attract a happy, healthy love match in highlights of my radio interview for A Lasting Love with Ross Rosenberg.

He’s a veteran psychotherapist and the author of the new book, The Human Magnet Syndrome-Why We Love People Who Hurt Us.

Hadley: Let’s help dating singles who want to stop attracting matches who hurt them.

Ross: If you have a broken picker, and you need help picking a great partner, think about what it is about yourself that helps you find mental health in love. Understand what it is about you that keeps attracting the wrong person who’ll hurt you.

H: It’s good to study your 11 point self orientation scale and see where a romantic partner’s personality traits fit with yours. Are you attracting an opposite personality match who’s emotionally healthy or dysfunctional?

I’d like to clarify we’re not talking about wanting common core values in a mate, which is good, like wanting to raise a family or wanting to honor marital vows. We’re talking about opposite emotional traits, not values.

R: What’s similar is important. As much as opposites attract by an unconscious attraction force, what you do value will attract someone with these values. Yet the glue that binds relationships is the unconscious forces that attract emotional opposites.

Hadley: So it’s good to do some self reflection to be aware of your driving forces that have been with you since childhood that can sabotage adult relationships. What if you’ve done that emotional work? What if you’ve healed old traumas and you don’t have any childhood issues to work out? You’re not saying that healthy, happy people can’t attract a passionate, healthy love match?

Ross: I’m not saying that. The opposite dysfunctionals (narcissists and codependents) are at the far end of the continuum on my 11 point self orientation scale. As you get healthier and healthier you move to the center of this continuum. We all fit somewhere on it. We all are oriented more toward satisfying others needs or our own, and this is not necessarily dysfunctional.

So healthy people fit in the center of the scale. Many healthy people like to be caretakers–therapists, doctors, nurses, radio hosts. People who like to care for others will be attracted to go-getters, who focus on their own needs.

So two healthy people, who have matching opposites self orientation, will be attracted. For example I am building a counseling business, writing books, traveling for work. My wife is a perfect match, because she takes good care of me and our son, not in an unhealthy, codependent way. We wouldn’t be a good match, if she also were building a business, writing books and traveling.

When we met, we fell in love because there were unconscious dynamics that were perfectly matched.

Hadley: Why do some couples get stuck in intense infatuation that never leads to a lasting love?

Get the answers in the next highlights of my radio conversation with Ross Rosenberg for A Lasting Love.

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Why We Love Hurtful People – How To Fix A Broken Picker