How do childhood experiences shape partner choice?

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Childhood experiences shape partner choice mainly by creating familiar emotional patterns that people unconsciously seek to repeat or resolve.

Familiar pain can feel like attraction: If someone grew up with an avoidant, withdrawn, drinking, violent, or otherwise hurtful parent, they may later be drawn to a partner with similar traits—not because it feels good, but because it feels familiar. That pull is often outside awareness and can look like “chemistry” at first.
People often reenact unfinished childhood business: Lori Gottlieb describes this as “marrying our unfinished business” and says people may be trying to master or win love in a situation where they felt helpless as a child.
The wrong partner can initially seem right: A person may choose someone who seems like the opposite of the painful parent, only to discover the same hurtful traits later. The reliable, emotionally safe person may then feel dull or like there is “no chemistry,” because they do not trigger the same old emotional reactions.
This pattern is tied to attachment systems: Childhood attachment experiences are repurposed in adult romantic attachment, and earlier attachment styles can influence later partner choices and relationship dynamics.
Awareness and therapy can change the pattern: Therapy can help people notice the unconscious forces driving partner choice, recognize the “redeemer” or familiar-pain pattern, and become less driven by old childhood dynamics.

In short, childhood tends to shape partner choice by making familiar hurt feel magnetically compelling, even when healthier options are available.