The past impacts our present every day, whether it's in how we approach certain situations, or how we emotionally react to what people say.
In romantic relationships, people can sometimes repeat behaviours to make up for the falls of their previous ones. In psychology this is called repetition compulsion, and it essentially means you're trying to fix the past by pursuing similar situations or people who once hurt you.
There are several signs that you haven't let go of the past, and these can manifest in how you behave with your current partner. Often, these patterns can start incredibly early with the relationships you had with your parents growing up.
"Our childhood experiences with our parents and our teachers and our friends really do have a pretty big impact on how we operate both personally and professionally in early adulthood," Jennifer B. Rhodes, a psychologist, dating coach, and founder of $4, told Business Insider.
"There's a pretty big population of people who enter early adulthood who have insecurity around creating and managing relationships. So I think what happens is when you're not fully aware of the patterns you experienced at a younger age, you actually reenact those as an adult - and sometimes it doesn't look pretty in your personal or your professional life."
We spoke to several relationship experts to find out how to tell if you're still hanging on to your past, and how this affects your current relationship.
Here are the 11 signs they came up with: