Excerpt from "The Right Relationship Can Happen: How To Create Relationship Success":
You are not unlucky in love; merely unaware of the messages life strives to clarify.  Unless past events are understood, you will continue to attract similar individuals, and the outcome will produce comparable results until you grasp what the universe greatly wants to teach you.  The starting point for this journey is to explore past relationships with significant people in your life.  Those you attract reflect the energy you send out into the world.  For example, if you are dishonest in your relationships, you will attract dishonest people to mirror your actions.  The endings of such relationships will be attributable to dishonesty, but until you learn that you have an issue with honesty and look at your role in the demise of the union, you will continue to attract dishonest people.  

Creating physical distance from the past or delving into new relationships is not a solution.  By taking full responsibility for the relationship choices you have made and not casting blame on others for the absence or outcome of intimate relationship, you are in a position to be worthy of the universe’s gift of receiving and attracting the right person into your life.   Blaming others only gives the universe the message that you require the permission of others in order to have the right relationship.  This thinking shifts the power to those you believe are responsible for creating this circumstance.

            The road to understanding and exploring the past often begins when we are at the lowest point.  We can only go up from there.  All our lessons and experiences are about ourselves and not other people in our lives.  We alone can control our emotions and reactions.  We are not responsible for the reactions of others.

If you believe the people you love will leave, and eventually you will end up emotionally isolated, a feeling of abandonment dictates your behavior.  If dating situations, are you drawn to those who are unavailable to you in some significant way?  Have you been attracted to married individuals or those who are seriously involved with someone else?  Are you drawn to individuals who have limited time for you, such as workaholics, long-distance relationships, or people who travel extensively?  Have you been in relationships with people who treat you with ambivalence?

If you are dealing with this particular pattern, you feel that you will somehow be left alone, whether people close to you may die, leave home forever, or walk out on you for someone else. Because of this belief, you may cling to people too much and end up pushing them away.  Even normal, brief partings may upset you.

Abandonment anxiety begins early in life and involves basic safety.  While growing up, you may have experienced a turbulent family environment and felt vulnerable, fragile, and moody. You probably felt that something terrible might happen at any moment.  Those who were supposed to love, care for, and protect you did not, which resulted in a feeling of desertion. Because of this pattern, you are drawn into relationships with people who have the potential to trigger this feeling of abandonment.  You may be attracted to people who seem to have the potential to provide you with a stable relationship, but never completely fulfill it.  Your relationship partners keep you guessing on their level of commitment and connection to you.  Because this is a familiar feeling, you are attracted to the idea of never really being sure if they will remain in your life.

If you expect others will hurt, abuse or take advantage of you by cheating, lying, manipulating, humiliating, or physically harm you, a feeling of mistrust and abuse controls your behavior.  In dating situations, are you enticed by people who are out-of-control?  Have you been involved with individuals who are excessive in areas such as drinking, bad temper, and/or criticism?  Have your former relationships or dating partners exploited your weaknesses, cheated on you, disrespected and manipulated you?

If you see yourself in these situations, you hide behind a wall of mistrust to protect yourself and never let people get too close.  You are skeptical of the intentions of others and usually assume the worst.  You expect betrayal in your relationships.  You avoid relationships altogether, form superficial relationships, or select people who treat you badly and then feel angry and vengeful toward them.

As with abandonment, your childhood was unstable.  You might have experienced emotional or physical mistreatment.  Fighting in the family was not within normal boundaries.  As a result, you had a strong feeling of not being protected as a child.  In adult relationships, you are most attracted to individuals who are abusive in some way because it feels comfortable to you.

If you believe no one truly cares for you or understands you, a feeling of emotional deficiency controls your behavior.  In dating situations are you attracted to people who rarely listen to you?  Are you drawn to aloof, untouchable people?  Do you feel that the more you give in a relationship, the less you receive, and you therefore feel misunderstood?  In intimate relationships, you may sense that your need for love will never be met adequately by anyone.

If you suffer from this pattern, you are often attracted to cold and selfish people.  You may be cold and selfish yourself, which leads to dissatisfying relationships.  You feel cheated and alternate between being angry about it and feeling hurt and alone.  Your anger drives others further away and ensures your continued deprivation.  You feel empty, emotionally disconnected from others.  You really do not know what love is.

The origins of this schema lie in your relationship with your mother.  You might have received a less than average amount of nurturance as a child and were not soothed adequately.  You also might have felt unloved because your mother did not give you enough attention.  This lack of attention could have instilled a feeling of emotional disconnection from your mother.  As an adult, you compensate for your feelings of deprivation by becoming demanding and narcissistic.  You may act as if you are entitled to get all your needs met in your relationships. 

If you feel fundamentally different from others, and avoid social functions because you are very self-conscious in these gatherings, a feeling of social exclusion controls your behavior.  In dating situations, are you drawn to people who are the opposite of you, and have the outward signs of belonging that you lack?  Do you pursue partners who are very attractive, popular, conventional and at ease in social situations?

If you see yourself in these situations, you use escape as your primary means for coping.  By avoiding social situations, you ensure that nothing changes.  You are more comfortable, but you cannot improve your social skills by hiding from the world.  Although you avoid it, you yearn for connection.

As a child, you felt left out by peers and did not belong to a group of friends; as an adult, you avoid socializing in groups and making friends.  As a child you felt excluded because some quality about you set you apart from others, resulting in rejection by your peers; as an adult, social exclusion is not always apparent.  You could be very comfortable in intimate settings and quite socially skilled.  This feeling of exclusion appears at social events such as parties, meetings, classes, or work.  At these events you are restless and feel anxious.  You look for a place to belong in these settings, and these situations bring up feelings of undesirability and inferiority.