VB BONNY
The Dark Side of Love: Why We’re Attracted to What Hurts Us
Nov 19
4 min read
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The Dark Side of Love and Why We’re Attracted to What Hurts Us
People talk about love like it is supposed to be soft and healing. I never believed that. Not because I am cynical, but because I have watched too many people chase the very thing that breaks them. I have watched myself do it too. We do not fall for what is good for us. We fall for what feels familiar, what feels intense, what feels like it carries the potential to save us. Even when it hurts.
I have been reading a lot of psychology books lately. Not the comforting ones that offer neat answers, but the ones that dig into how humans actually behave. Attached, Why We Love, The Body Keeps the Score, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone. These books force you to sit with your own patterns. They show you how attraction is not random at all. It has its own logic, even when it is painful.
Sometimes we are drawn to people who hurt us because they mimic something we knew long before we realized it was shaping us. Something from childhood or early relationships quietly taught us that love can feel unstable. A little uncertain. A little unpredictable. So when someone enters our life carrying the same emotional rhythm, we don’t recognize it as danger. We recognize it as familiar. And familiarity always feels easier to trust than the unknown. Why we’re attracted to what hurts us?
There is also something addictive about emotional highs and lows. When someone is inconsistent, the rare moments of affection feel more intense. This is the same psychology behind addiction. The reward feels stronger because it is not reliable. You start waiting for their attention like it is a rare event. Your nervous system reacts as if you are gambling with your feelings. This is the point where people confuse anxiety with passion. The intensity becomes the illusion of love.
Another thing we don’t like admitting is that we fall in love with fantasy.
When someone hurts us but then shows us softness in rare flashes, we focus on the softness. We hold on to the possibility that we can bring out the better version of them. We fall in love not with who they are, but with who we imagine they could be. Potential becomes a trap because it makes you ignore the hurt in front of you.
Pain can also make people feel seen in a strange way. If you have spent years pushing down your emotions, being with someone who triggers them can feel like awakening. Not in a romantic way, but in a familiar way. It is like pressing on a bruise. It hurts, but it reminds you you’re alive. That sensation gets mistaken for connection.
The truth is simple. We are drawn to what reflects our unresolved parts. This is what every psychology book keeps repeating. You can rename it or reshape it, but at the core, we fall for people who mirror the wounds we haven’t healed yet. They feel like a mirror. They feel like a challenge. They feel like a chance to finally rewrite a story that hurt us long before they arrived.
But the ending rarely changes. The hurt always returns. The intensity always takes more than it gives. The fantasy always breaks under reality.
Understanding this does not magically fix attraction. Attraction is primitive. But awareness shifts the way you respond to it. It gives you the ability to pause and ask yourself why this person pulls you in. Is it genuine connection, or is it a familiar wound asking for closure in the wrong place?
When the pattern becomes clear, the pull becomes weaker. You stop calling pain chemistry. You stop confusing emotional chaos with love. You stop believing that suffering is something you need to earn affection.
Love should not feel like you are negotiating with your own peace. And if it does, then the hurt is not the consequence. It is the attraction itself. And that is the part you must understand, not romanticize.
Understanding Why We’re Attracted to What Hurts Us
Attraction often grows from old emotional maps we never consciously created. You begin to understand your choices more clearly when you look at the early examples of love you saw, the ways you learned to cope, and the survival patterns you carried forward. When you trace it back, the present becomes less confusing. It becomes easier to recognise which feelings are real and which feelings are memories pretending to be love.
How Awareness Changes Why We’re Attracted to What Hurts Us
Awareness does not remove attraction, but it transforms the way you respond to it. You begin to question whether the pull is emotional truth or emotional habit. You begin to see the pattern rather than getting lost in it. And once you see it, you stop repeating it. That is how the cycle ends. Not through force, but through understanding.
