How to Overcome Bad Dating Past

Too many men and women, who have a series of negative dating experiences or relationships, come to believe that they are destined to fail with the opposite sex in the future because of their bad dating past, and that there is nothing they can do to change that. This is unfortunate, because such beliefs have no rational foundation. Although your past says something about you and your dating habits and patterns, concluding that your future love life is doomed just because of your past is a very extreme assumption and will serve no useful purpose. Thus, it is very important that you don’t allow your past disappointments in dating and relationships affect your present and future attitude toward dating and the opposite sex and become a victim of your own past. It is a much better idea to treat your past dating experiences as valuable lessons from which you can and should learn what to do, what to avoid doing, and how to improve your future interactions with the opposite sex in order to have a better dating life.

Disappointments Are Part of Life

All kinds of disappointments are just part or reality. This applies to jobs, friends and romantic partners. It’s normal to have bad experiences before you find something or someone special. That’s why we call it “special”. Once you embrace the reality that that majority of people are not going to make you happy and that it’s totally normal, it’s going to be easier to move on after a disappointing experience without having it crush your motivation to continue looking for a special connection with a special person.

Do Not Let Your Bad Dating Past Dictate Your Present and Future 

You must remember that just because things didn’t quite work out the way you wanted them to with the previous one, two, five, or even more dating partners before, it doesn’t mean that it will not be different and better with your present or future partner, especially if you do something to make sure that you don’t make the same mistakes again and again. Those bad past dating experiences are only a waste of time if you make no use of them. But you can and you should benefit from your past. What you owe to yourself is learning from your past experiences – making sure that whatever issues you dealt with before, you are capable of dealing with today better than before.

I often meet people who became extremely jaded after being cheated on and dumped by several of their dating partners. Often, in a subconscious attempt to retaliate, these people who have been hurt turn to sleeping around or cheating on and dumping others as some kind of remedy or general revenge to restore their ego. This will hardly ever be an effective way to overcome the pain of past bad dating experiences and bad break-ups.  It is a much more effective way to overcome bad dating past by realizing and accepting the fact that such disappointments are a natural part of dating life. It’s absolutely normal for a person to go through 10, 20 or more dating partners before they find the “one.” This is just a natural part of the dating “game” that nobody can be insured against. You can either hate it and feel like you are on some kind of mission, or you can choose to enjoy the process of meeting and dating new people, even if things don’t work out in the end. Dreading dating and being overly attached to the outcome will only make you come across as needy and desperate, and who is therefore less likely to find that special someone.

Further, you simply cannot rely on the quality of your past relationships to determine the way things will go with the person you are seeing now or will be dating in the future. Even if ten people have cheated on you / lied to you or caused any other pain and problems, it says nothing about the person you are seeing now or the next person you will meet. So, resist the desire to generalize and believe that just because you had bad experiences in the past, your present and future will be similar to that past. After all, it would be a great shame if you didn’t manage to connect with that special person because your negative past was blinding you and prevent you from seeing that person for who he really is.

Surely, there is no insurance policy against arguments, fights, break-ups and other dating problems, but hey – taking a risk and moving forward with your current life and possibly your present dating partner is that small risk that we all take – it’s part of life and part of the dating game. And if you are still hurting after a recent bad dating experience, make sure to hear our useful article on overcoming painful break-ups.