Why You Keep Attracting Toxic Guys (It's Not Bad Luck.) 🧠
Toxic men aren’t attracted to you. They’re attracted to the sign you’re wearing.
TL;DR Summary:
Four different men, who don’t know each other, keep finding the exact same “button” on one client. That’s not bad luck. That’s a sign.
The button isn’t the problem. What’s written underneath it is — and you’ve probably never actually read yours.
“Just screen harder for better guys” is the trap almost every woman falls into. I’ll show you why it can’t work, no matter how good your red-flag list is.
There are 5 signs I see over and over in my practice — each one built by a different childhood sentence, and each one calling in a very specific kind of man.
The reason the sign won’t peel off? It’s not tape. Here’s what it actually is, and why yelling at it makes it worse.
One question — nothing to do with him — is what finally gets it off. I’ll give it to you.
He Keeps Pressing My Button
A client, let’s call her CJ, sat down on our first call, crossed her arms, and said the thing I hear at least once a week: “He keeps pressing my button.”
And look, I believe her. He probably does. Some guys are absolute artists at it.
But I’ve done this long enough to know that when a woman walks in wearing a giant sign that says BUTTON taped to her chest… the more interesting question usually isn’t why does he keep pressing it?
It’s: why do you have a button? (I know, I know. Rude. Stay with me, I promise this ends somewhere kind.)
When I asked her how many guys had pressed it, she reluctantly told me four.
Four different men. Independently. Who don’t know each other. All walked up and found the exact same spot.
So I said what I’ll say to you: if four separate men, from four separate corners of your life, all reach out and press the same button, either they’re in a group chat…
…or there’s a gigantic sign.
Welcome to the topic of today’s blog: The Gigantic Sign :)
What the Sign Actually Said
When I asked CJ to describe the “button,” she gave me the surface version first, the way we all do.
“He goes cold, and I lose my mind. He pulls back, and I chase. He gets distant, and I turn into a person I don’t even like.”
Classic. Textbook. And still not the real thing.
So we slowed down. I asked her to feel where it lived in her body when he went quiet, not to analyze it, just to notice it.
Tight chest. Buzzing hands. That specific flavor of dread that shows up before any actual thought does.
And when I asked her what that feeling was really saying, not about him, about her, the joke she was about to make to deflect died on the way out.
Because underneath the button labeled HE WON’T TEXT BACK was a much older sign.
And it read: “I’m not worth staying for.”
Ouch, and she’d been carrying that around for years.
Letting men press it like it was a doorbell.
The Trap: Trying to Control the Pressers
Here’s where almost everyone goes when they figure out they have a button.
“Okay. So I just need to find a guy who won’t press it.”
I get it. It feels like the logical fix.
If the problem is people pressing the button, control the people.
Screen harder. Vet earlier. Build a longer list of red flags. Interview him like he’s applying for a security clearance.
This is what I call outside-in work, trying to fix an internal wound by rearranging the external world.
That’s the trap. Not the men.
The trap is trying to solve an inside problem from the outside.
You will never screen your way out of this.
You can’t vet hard enough, red-flag fast enough, or interview thoroughly enough to fix a signal you’re broadcasting underneath conscious thought.
The pressers are downstream. The sign is upstream.
Which means the work isn’t outside-in.
It’s inside-out.
And the good news buried in that sentence is enormous: if the sign is the variable, then you were never at the mercy of the dating pool.
You’re at the mercy of a sentence. And sentences can be rewritten.
I am going to show you exactly how to do this, of course, but you can’t take down a sign you’ve never actually read.
So first… let’s find out what your button says.
The 5 Most Common Buttons I See in My Practice
Almost every button I see is a surface trigger sitting on top of an older sentence.
Here are the five that come through my door the most.
I’ll hit on the buttons (what he presses), the signs underneath them (what your system actually believes), and who they tend to attract, and why.
Pay attention to which one makes your stomach drop a little.
That’s usually yours. :)
Button #1: “He went cold, and I spiraled.” (The Abandonment Button)
The sign underneath: “I’m not worth staying for.”
Who it attracts: Hot-cold men. Dischargers. The ones who are all in for six weeks and then evaporate.
This is the deepest and most common one I see, fosho!
When love once meant “here, then suddenly gone,” your amygdala learned to treat any withdrawal as a five-alarm fire.
So a man who pulls back doesn’t just disappoint you, he confirms the oldest thing you believe about yourself.
Yikes.
And here’s the cruel part: the panic reads as passion. The intensity of your fear of losing him gets mislabeled as the depth of your love for him.
That’s not love. That’s a threat response, dude.
Button #2: “I do everything, and he does nothing.” (The Earning Button)
The sign underneath: “I have to earn love. It doesn’t come free.”
Who it attracts: Takers. Under-functioners. Men happy to let you carry the entire relationship on your back and call it a partnership.
If, growing up, love was conditional on being good, being helpful, being easy, or achieving, your system learned that connection is a wage you earn, not a gift you receive.
I call this emotional capitalism: over-functioning in love to buy the safety you should just be handed.
You become the load-bearing wall of every relationship, and you attract exactly the men who are content to lean.
Because a woman who believes she has to earn it will out-give anyone, and some men will happily let her.
This isn’t generosity… It’s a down payment on a love you already own!
Button #3: “He makes me feel like I’m too much.” (The Shrink Button)
The sign underneath: “My bigness is dangerous. If I’m fully myself, I’ll be a burden & left.”
Who it attracts: Men who need to be the biggest thing in the room. The subtly diminishing. The ones whose comfort quietly requires your smallness.
High-achieving women get this one a lot.
Somewhere along the line, your intensity, your ambition, your feelings, your needs got a reaction, an eye roll, a withdrawal, a “you’re so dramatic,” and your system learned that being fully yourself costs you the connection.
So you self-edit.
And a man who’s threatened by a big woman is drawn to one who’s already halfway through shrinking herself, because she does his work for him.
Button #4: “I didn’t want to make it a thing.” (The Peacekeeper Button)
The sign underneath: “If I have needs, I lose the person. Keep the peace or be alone.”
Who it attracts: Boundary-pushers. Controllers. Men who mistake your accommodation for compatibility.
This is the fawn response, the fourth F, after fight, flight, and freeze.
Wrote a whole blog about this too: The Neuroscience of the Fawn Response
If conflict at home once meant real danger or real withdrawal of love, your body learned that the safest move is to suppress your own needs before anyone else can reject them.
So you go along. You keep it light.
And a controlling man reads that softness as an open door; every unspoken boundary is one he never has to negotiate.
That’s not being easygoing. That’s a nervous system that learned that needs are a threat.
Button #5: “I felt amazing when he chose me, and awful the second he didn’t.” (The Chosen Button)
The sign underneath: “I only exist, I’m only safe, when someone picks me.”
Who it attracts: Breadcrumbers. Keep-you-on-the-hook types. The ones who give you just enough to stay and never enough to land.
If your earliest sense of worth got wired to being selected, chosen, approved of, and wanted, then your self-esteem outsourced itself to other people’s attention.
Being chosen becomes the drug, and the withdrawal is unbearable, so you’ll tolerate almost anything for the next hit of being wanted.
Breadcrumbers are experts at this because unpredictable rewards hit harder than reliable ones.
It’s the slot machine principle. A man who gives you just enough, just often enough, isn’t a bad bet; he’s the best bet your reward system has ever seen.
They’re not offering a relationship. They’re offering intermittent proof that you’re real.
That’s not being chosen, though...
That’s renting your worth from someone who keeps raising the price.
Here’s the Part No One Wants to Hear
You found your button. Maybe two. (Most of us are a combo platter, don’t worry.)
So now you grab the corner of the sign, and you pull.
And it doesn’t come off.
You pull harder. Nothing.
Because, and this is the whole thing, it’s not tape.
It’s a scar.
And your system put it there for a reason.
That button isn’t sabotage. It’s a smoke detector installed by a girl who genuinely needed one.
Back then, staying hyper-alert to withdrawal, earning your keep, shrinking to stay safe, keeping the peace, chasing the next “yes”… Weren’t flaws!
They were brilliant, life-saving adaptations. They kept a younger you connected to the people she couldn’t afford to lose.
You’re not broken. You’re organized around a wound, and that organization once kept you safe.
Which is exactly why you can’t just rip it off, shame it away, or affirmation your way out of it.
You don’t remove a smoke detector by yelling at it. You go find the girl who installed it and let her know the fire’s out.
Okay, Cody, I get it, I have a sign, it’s a scar, it’s very poetic.
What tf do I actually DO about it???
Great question, Karen, great question.
The Tool: Ring the Bell Yourself
The next time he goes quiet, or distant, or hot-cold, or whatever presses your specific button, you’re going to feel it.
The surge. The chest, the hands, the dread.
In that exact moment, you do not text him. You do not analyze him, screenshot him, or draft the paragraph. You ask yourself one question:
“What is this reminding me of?”
Not what is he doing? Not what does this mean about us? What is this reminding me of?
Here’s why it works. When you ask what is he doing?, you stay in the fight with him, externalized, activated, outside-in.
When you ask what is this reminding me of?, your body answers immediately, and it will not say his name.
It’ll say something older. A bedroom door closing. A parent’s turned back. A specific age.
The second you hear that, see that, feel that, something shifts. You are no longer in a fight with him.
You’re finally in the room with her, the little one who installed the smoke detector.
That’s the only room where the button comes off.
Curious what to do once in the room? I got you, this is where IFS shines, baby!
What to Do Once You’re in the Room With Her
Asking the question gets you in the door.
Here’s what happens next. It’s how you actually update the part that’s been holding the sign.
Small reps. Unsexy. And exactly how the wiring changes.
1. Find it in your body. Don’t narrate it, locate it. Where does the surge live, throat, chest, gut? Put a hand there. You’re not trying to fix it yet, just be with it.
2. Notice how you feel toward it. Annoyed at yourself for spiraling again? That’s another part. See if you can find even a sliver of curiosity toward the anxious one instead. Curiosity is the doorway; frustration keeps it locked.
3. Unblend. Say it, internally or out loud: “This is a part of me. It is not all of me.” You are the calm adult noticing the panic; you are NOT the panic. That tiny bit of separation is where your agency lives.
4. Get curious, not corrective. Ask the part: how old are you? What are you afraid will happen if you stop sounding the alarm? Then actually listen. It’s usually protecting a much younger you from a much older hurt.
5. Update her with what she doesn’t know. This is the reconsolidation move. Let the part know what the adult you know now: “I’m grown. I can survive being left. I can leave, too. I don’t need you to scan for the exit anymore, I’ve got us.” You’re not deleting the alarm. You’re relieving it of a job it’s been white-knuckling since childhood.
Do this enough times, and the button doesn’t get “pressed” the same way, because the sign underneath has been rewritten by the one person who was always able to rewrite it.
You.
What About Truly Toxic Guys?
Taking the sign down is not the same as saying he was a good guy.
Some of these men are genuinely toxic.
Manipulative, avoidant, careless, cruel. That’s real, and it’s not your fault, and nothing about this blog excuses a single thing they did.
But here’s the line I want you to hold both halves of: he wasn’t a good guy AND men like that don’t find you by accident.
Both are true. His behavior is his to own.
And who keeps showing up in your life is the one part of this equation that runs through you, which means it’s the one part you actually have power over.
You can’t control whether toxic men exist. (They do. Always will.)
You can control whether you’re wearing the sign that makes you their preferred customer.
That’s not blame. That’s the best news in this entire blog, because it means the fix was never “find better men.”
It was always in reach. It’s in you.
Take the sign down, and watch who stops showing up.
When the sign comes down, you don’t just lose the toxic men.
You gain a self. You start speaking up before the resentment builds. You hold a boundary without a three-day anxiety hangover.
Stable, kind, available men stop reading as “boring” and start reading as “home.”
The whole field changes because you changed the signal.
How’s that for inner agency?!
It’s Time to Remove the Button
You’ve been carrying that sign for a long time.
Long enough that it started to feel like your personality, like your “type,” like just the way love goes for you.
It isn’t.
It’s a scar with a doorbell on it, and you’re allowed to stop answering the door.
The next time he goes cold, and the surge hits, you know the question now.
Don’t ask what he’s doing. Ask what it’s reminding you of.
Then go be in the room with her.
That’s where this whole thing changes.
You’ve got this.
And as always… Live Heroically 🧠
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Supporting Research
Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and Loss, Vol. 1: Attachment. Basic Books.
Mikulincer, M., & Shaver, P. R. (2016). Attachment in Adulthood: Structure, Dynamics, and Change (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.
Clark, A. (2013). Whatever next? Predictive brains, situated agents, and the future of cognitive science. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 36(3), 181–204.
Schultz, W. (2016). Dopamine reward prediction error coding. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, 18(1), 23–32.
Ferster, C. B., & Skinner, B. F. (1957). Schedules of Reinforcement. Appleton-Century-Crofts.
Fisher, H. E., Aron, A., & Brown, L. L. (2005). Romantic love: An fMRI study of a neural mechanism for mate choice. Journal of Comparative Neurology, 493(1), 58–62.
Porges, S. W. (2011). The Polyvagal Theory. W. W. Norton.
Walker, P. (2013). Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving. Azure Coyote.
Schwartz, R. C., & Sweezy, M. (2019). Internal Family Systems Therapy (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.
Ecker, B., Ticic, R., & Hulley, L. (2012). Unlocking the Emotional Brain. Routledge.
This article is educational in nature and not a substitute for therapy. If attachment wounds or relational trauma are impacting your well-being, working with a trauma therapist can help your nervous system relearn safety in connection.
Thank you for this application of IFS. So very helpful!
So incredibly helpful! Thank you!