The Core Concept — The repetition of divorces within the same family is not a genetic accident. It is a systemic pattern transmitted unconsciously, one that can be identified, understood, and transformed. With the right therapeutic approach, breaking the cycle is possible — and you can be the first generation to do it.
Your grandfather divorced. Your father too. And today, you find yourself wondering if your own marriage will survive.
Or perhaps you are already on your second or third significant breakup, without truly understanding why relationships don't last in your life.
This repetition is not a curse. It's not "in your genes" either. It is a transgenerational pattern — and like any pattern, it can be decoded and interrupted.
Understanding the Mechanism of Repetition
In psychogenealogy, we distinguish several levels of transmission that explain the repetition of divorces:
1. Systemic Fidelity to Pain
When breakups were particularly traumatic in your previous generations (domestic violence, betrayals, abandonments), descendants may unconsciously identify with the pain — and reproduce it to remain loyal to it.
It is counter-intuitive but profound: ending a relationship that is actually working can be unconsciously experienced as a betrayal toward an ancestor who never knew such stability.
2. Transmitted Beliefs About Marriage
The words heard during childhood sink deeply into the unconscious. "Men never stay." "Love always falls apart." "In our family, we're not good at relationships."
These phrases, repeated within the family system, become self-fulfilling prophecies. The child who absorbs them will — without wanting to — confirm these beliefs through their own relational behaviors.
During my consultations in Dubai or online with French-speaking patients from around the world, I often ask: "What was said about love in your home, when you were a child?" The answer is almost always revealing.
3. The Absence of a Healthy Relationship Model
If you have never seen in your immediate environment — parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles — a couple that lasts and functions well, your brain could not integrate this model. You grew up without a map toward a fulfilling relationship, making it difficult to navigate toward that destination.
Concrete Steps to Break This Cycle
Step 1: Map the history of family breakups
Build — or have a trained practitioner help you build — your genogram. Identify:
- At what age each divorce or major separation occurred,
- The emotional circumstances surrounding each breakup,
- The people who experienced similar separations in the lineage,
- The unspoken truths and silences surrounding these stories.
Goal: Identify the pattern precisely, in order to disengage from it.
Step 2: Hear the hidden messages
Every repetition hides a message. That message seeks to be heard — not to make you suffer. Working with a psychogenealogy practitioner allows you to decode:
- What ancestral wound is this cycle trying to express?
- What invisible loyalty does this pattern honor?
- Who in your family tree would feel affected if you broke this pattern?
Step 3: Perform symbolic acts of liberation
Psychogenealogy uses both cognitive and body-based tools to transform these patterns:
- Writing symbolic letters to ancestors,
- Therapeutic scenes that recreate family dynamics,
- Symbolic separation rituals between your story and that of your ancestors.
These are not magic. They anchor in reality a profound decision: I take hold of my own life — they had theirs.
Step 4: Relearn how to be in a relationship
Once the pattern has been identified and symbolically released, comes the work of rebuilding — often the most delicate phase:
- Learning to recognize a healthy partner,
- Tolerating stability without sabotaging it,
- Building a new family narrative for your eventual children.
This is long-term work, made of small steps. And it can begin as early as your next session.
Conclusion: You Can Be the Generation of Change
Every family has experienced breakups, wounds, and lost loves. This is not your shame — it is your shared humanity.
But you have something your ancestors didn't: the awareness and the tools to change the course of things.
You are not destined to repeat. You do not have to make your children pay for what you could not resolve. Healing is possible — and it can begin now.
Do you feel this pattern in your own life?
Book a psychogenealogy session with me, online or at my practice in Dubai, and let's work together to break this cycle for good.