Norwood describes that these kind of women often had abusive and neglectful parents who failed to ‘provide a basic sense of security and validation to their daughters in childhood, so that they are programmed endlessly to seek out men who remind them of these familiar familial abusive patterns.

These women want to fix things/people and make things right.

That old ‘Freudian repetition syndrome’. For to these women ,romantic love must be full of suffering, longing, pain and torment.

I think this can also apply to men, who may seek out abusive, emotionally unavailable woman who remind them of their neglectful mothers.

The hand that rocks the cradle is often the first individual a child meets who is abusive in some way.

I’m thinking of writing a sequel entitled ‘Women who Love too Little’, to all those women who failed to provide basic love , care and kindness to their offspring. And who set in motion these awful scenarios that are constantly repeated in life. For, as we all know, it’s the sub-conscious that runs the show.

And, incidentally , people who become therapists and counsellors and who are drawn to their craft, are often the very people who experienced some form of emotional neglect themselves.They are usually more ‘fucked up’ than their unwitting clients.

But all these dysfunctional patterns are established in childhood.

Parents really do ‘fuck you up’, as Philip Larkin so eloquently put it.