5 Reasons Your Love Life Feels Chaotic — And What You Can Do To Change It
Are you attracting it or creating it?
altafulla / Shutterstock.com Many of us are subconsciously looking for chaos in relationships. It seems counterintuitive because we believe that all we want is a healthy relationship — but we just can’t have one in the midst of chaos.
Until I got into a healthy relationship, I didn't know I was someone who thrived on chaos in relationships. Chaos was exciting and adrenaline producing and it kept things spicy, which I liked.
It also prevented me from finding happiness with another person.
Are you subconsciously looking for chaos in your relationship? Knowing the signs will help you know if you are and, if you want to, figure out how to change it.
5 signs that you are subconsciously looking for chaos in your relationship
1. You're great at ignoring red flags.
Are you one of those people who sees red flags and who purposely ignores them?
Do you see that your new person is still stuck on their ex or struggling to keep a job or has a temper or tries to control you?
Do all of your friends tell you that those are red flags and that you should run?
Do you ignore everyone, because this person, in spite of their red flags, is exciting?
When I was single and dating, I met a guy who was cute. He made me laugh. The sex was great. But I could see a few red flags right away. He drank too much. Someone to who he was engaged to walk away. He wasn’t talking to any of his neighbors. He had jumped from job to job.
I saw those red flags and I ignored them. The sex was great and we had a great time together.
It didn’t take long for our relationship to descend into chaos.
We drank a lot together which started out fun but usually ended badly. I noticed that his "friends" pushed him away and that, when he was with people, he got loud and obnoxious, which made me crabby. He disappeared on Sundays, which, to this day, I don’t know why, which made me not trust him. His job consumed him and the stress of it made him not fun to be with.
We fought and had sex and I hated him and loved him and finally broke up with him and then reunited with him for the occasional romp in the hay.
All of this caused a huge amount of chaos in my life — in my heart and in my head. And in his too. And yet we couldn’t let each other go.
I was addicted to our chaos. Unfortunately, that addiction kept me from finding the relationship that I was really looking for. Walking away from him was what I needed to do to find one.
2. You are good at walking away from relationships.
Are you one of those people who doesn’t stay in a relationship very long?
Do you meet someone, fall quickly, get into an intense relationship and then run, screaming, when the honeymoon phase ends?
I have a client who does this every time. She tends to meet the same kind of guys online, ones who, like her, fall quickly and hard. We have long conversations about how wonderful a certain someone is and how she can see them lasting a lifetime.
And then, within a few months, something shifts. Everything that she liked about her guy before starts to grate on her. She pulls back from him and starts acting passive-aggressively. This confuses her guy and he gets clingy. That pushes her away further and they start to fight. Things go from bad to worse until, one day, she just ghosts him and walks away.
And what does she walk to? Her online dating site and another man to become obsessed with, at least temporarily.
My client says that she wants a healthy relationship more than anything but she thrives on the chaos of a messy one, subconsciously sabotaging any chance of it becoming one that sticks.
3. Your boundaries around infidelity are a little "grey".
For many people, a healthy relationship is a goal but a healthy relationship is boring. As a result, they try to spice things up by bringing chaos into the relationship.
And what better way to introduce chaos into a relationship than cheating on your partner?
I have a client who is a chronic cheater. She loves her husband very much but, after 15 years of marriage, she is bored. They have a house and kids and friends and work but their relationship is stale.
So, she cheats.
My client travels a lot and she has a man in nearly every port. All of these men know that she is married and that is generally fine with the guys. They meet, they have dinner and drinks and sex, and then she goes on her merry way.
And this is exciting for her. And it also causes chaos.
Chaos because she knows that what she is doing is wrong. Chaos because when she is with these men her husband can’t reach her and that makes him angry. Chaos because sometimes these men want more.
Chaos because she is balancing a lot of different lives and keeping track of them is exhausting.
And, while the chaos keeps her life from being boring, the chaos is also sucking the life out of her and her marriage.
So, if you are one of those people who habitually cheats, you might be someone who is subconsciously looking for chaos in your relationship.
4. You feel comfortable when there's a lot of drama.
I am a Pisces, and Pisces thrive on drama. It is kind of confusing because we also just want peace but I guess we all have multiple sides to our personalities.
Anyway, before I got into a healthy relationship, I absolutely thrived on drama. Any kind of drama. And if there wasn’t any drama in my relationship, I made some.
I had a boyfriend who I absolutely adored. He was a wonderful man and our relationship was one that other people saw as very healthy. And I was so happy that I was with him but I couldn’t get used to actually being content in a good relationship.
So, I would create drama. One night, I went out dancing with some girlfriends, met up with a guy friend, and decided to go on a midnight road trip with him. The night ended up with him in jail for running a toll booth and me having to explain to my boyfriend what had happened.
I had no intention of doing anything with this guy friend but, by making the choices that I did that night, I knew that I would inject a little drama into my relationship.
And, boy, did it work. My boyfriend was not happy with the choice I made and he let me know it. There was lots of door slamming and name calling and break-up promises. He gave me the silent treatment and slept in the other room.
While I hated the fact that I had let my boyfriend down, deep down I welcomed the drama, that break from the everyday steadiness of my relationship.
I knew that we would get through it — we always did — so I relished the short-term chaos.
Unfortunately, this wonderful man could only handle my drama for so long and, ultimately, broke up with me. Chaos might have been what Pisces me wanted but not him.
So, if you are someone who likes to create drama in a relationship, you are most likely someone who is subconsciously looking for chaos.
5. You crave make-up or break-up sex.
So, be honest. Does makeup sex turn you on in a big way?
Do you enjoy the sex that you have with your partner but do you LOVE the make-up sex that you have after a fight?
Back when I was single I had the strangest proclivity. I loved to have sex with men as I was breaking up with them.
I definitely didn’t want to be with them but the idea that I would never see them again made me super attracted to them. I often had the best sex I had had with guys when I was breaking up with them.
Many of my clients who are in toxic, chaotic relationships, stay because "the sex is great." They know that they shouldn’t be staying but they are worried that, if they leave, they will never know sex like this again. Many of them have never had sex this good in their lives.
And why is the sex so good? Because after the adrenaline of a fight, sex can be amazing. All of the chemicals that are coursing through your body heighten your senses and enhance the sexual experience.
Who doesn’t love sex that is amazing?
So, if you find that you crave the intensity of make-up or break-up sex, you just might be someone who thrives on chaos.
RELATED: 4 Ways To Stop Sabotaging Your Own Happiness — And Get Back To What Brings You Joy
Now that you know the signs that you might subconsciously be looking for chaos in your relationship, do any of them ring true?
Are you recognizing that, perhaps, the choices that you are making are actually the reason that you can’t get into a healthy relationship?
Fortunately, knowing what these signs mean is the first step toward breaking the pattern. Having awareness is the key way to making change.
People who look for chaos in relationships are often people who have dealt with things in their lives that have made them ill-prepared for a healthy relationship.
I know that in my life, my parents set a horrible example of what a healthy relationship looked like. They both cheated and fought regularly. When they got divorced it was acrimonious and their new partners were toxic. As a result, when it was time for me to get into romantic relationships, I had no idea what to do.
What I know now is that, by creating chaos in a relationship, I was able to protect myself from fully giving someone my heart, to making myself vulnerable to being hurt. By ignoring red flags, cheating, and creating drama in general, I could protect my heart from being damaged the way my parents had been damaged.
Awareness of these patterns was key to me starting to make a change. But I needed help. I needed someone to help me break those patterns, to help me make better choices, to make myself vulnerable and open myself up to a healthy relationship.
So, I got myself a life coach, and, working together, I was able to break that pattern of bringing chaos into my relationship and learn how to be happy with peace.
You can do this too. You can break the pattern of bringing chaos into your relationship and live happily ever after!
Mitzi Bockmann is an NYC-based Certified Life Coach and mental health advocate. She works with all kinds of people to help them go from depressed and overwhelmed to confident and happy in their relationships and in their world.