Why You Keep Choosing People Who Dismiss Your Feelings

Why you’re drawn to people who dismiss you—and what it says about the wounds you’re trying to heal.

It’s a strange kind of pain—to feel unseen or unheard by people you care about, to have your feelings brushed off or minimized. Even stranger is the realization that you’ve chosen to be here. Again.

It might not be conscious, but you find yourself in familiar dynamics, with people who dismiss your feelings and make you feel like you’re asking for too much. And beneath that confusion is often a quiet, persistent hope: If I can make it work this time, it’ll mean I’m loveable. It’ll mean I matter.

This isn’t a reflection of your weakness. It’s a reflection of how you’ve learned to survive.

Standing in a room full of people, yet feeling completely unseen. It’s not about fixing them—it’s about choosing yourself.

The Pattern of Trying to Rewrite the Past

For people who grew up in families where their feelings weren’t seen, respected, or valued, relationships can start to look like do-overs.