For every question I ask my clients to think about, long after the sessions have ended, the notes have been charted, and the work day has come to an end, I like to turn around and ask myself the same questions, because I believe that being a good Therapist means that you continue to do the same inside work on yourself that you are helping others with. I once saw a quote that said, “the best teachers are still learning and the best healers are still healing.” The following is a reflection of me doing this said continued inner work. It is my hope that shedding light on my personal revelation on this very common, confusing human experience, will help you better understand your own life and behaviors, regarding this issue as well.
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Today one of my clients said, “I need to figure out why I keep attracting the same type of men”, to which I responded, “when you are a person of value and you are beautiful, you will attract any and everything – People who are emotionally available and people who aren’t. People who are compatible with you and people who aren’t. People with good intentions and people who simply aren’t equipped to give you what you’re looking for. You can’t completely control who is attracted to you.
The more important question may be: Once someone has shown you who they are, and you’ve recognized that there are incompatibilities or things about the relationship that don’t meet your standards, why do you stay?” Once you can name your truth on this, that’s when the work can begin.
As I completed that session, I found myself asking myself the same question about a recent romantic interest that I had. Why did I keep holding onto hope for him/us, after strike 1, 2, and 3, where he clearly showed me that the hope that I was holding onto regarding a future for us, was not going to happen. That’s when MY WORK began, trying to piece together an age old question that many people ask as they are trying to improve their romantic relational lives.
WHAT WAS MY TRUTH? WHY HAVE I KEPT FIGHTING FOR A RELATIONSHIP THAT HAD NO ROMANTIC VIABILITY?
There were patterns of inconsistent communication. There were differences in how we approached accountability, conflict, repair, responsiveness, and work-life balance. We were on similar priorities in life, but the way we held space for those priorities in life were very different—we had different ideas about what we chose to sacrifice in order to meet individual goals, and ultimately we were living a different pacing/timeline of life. The reality was, no matter how much we had in common, what was emphatically emphasized on his behalf was that “I’m not dating right now” and what was always the undercurrent of my presence, was my desire for marriage and to start a family. As a result, in spite of our good friendship, there was no mutual movement toward the kind of romantic relationship I had imagined might eventually develop.
I knew these things.
So why did I continue holding onto the possibility?
When I stripped away all the sophisticated explanations and answered myself as truthfully as I could, I realized:
Scarcity and familiarity.
It is rare for me to meet someone I genuinely like across multiple dimensions— a college educated man in his 30s with no children but has a deep desire to become a Father, my type of personality, temperament, intelligence, including being self-aware with emotional intelligence, a heart for helping others, a leader with a strong work ethic (makes a certain income), disciplined financial mindset & habits, doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, values health and fitness, physical attraction, ambitious, enjoyable to talk to, funny, someone who understands the weight of my purpose and respects what I do, empower my growth and development (dreams), and makes me feel safe (cared for and not judged)– while simultaneously sharing most if not all of my mindset and values.
So when I did experience that combination with someone (more or less), letting go felt expensive.
There was also history.
We already knew each other. We’d had countless conversations. There was familiarity and context that wouldn’t exist with someone completely new. Starting over meant returning to the unknown.
And underneath all of that was another truth:
I am tired of carrying the full weight of adulthood by myself.
I can do it.
I have done it.
But that doesn’t mean I want to do it forever.
Partnership represented more than romance to me. It represented companionship. Family. Shared responsibility. Another person helping carry the practical and financial weight of a household. Someone to make decisions with. Someone whose life could intertwine with mine instead of everything resting exclusively on my shoulders.
When I looked at this person, I wasn’t only seeing him.
I was also seeing everything I imagined partnership with him could potentially give me.
And that realization brought me to another question:
Okay. Now what?
I’ve identified why I stayed.
I’ve identified the scarcity.
I’ve identified the fear.
I’ve identified the exhaustion.
I’ve identified the familiarity.
I’ve identified the longing.
What am I supposed to do with that information?
Insight Is Not the End of the Work
Sometimes therapy language makes insight sound like the finish line.
Identify the pattern.
Understand your attachment.
Find the wound.
Name your truth.
And insight absolutely matters.
But knowing why you stayed doesn’t automatically teach you how to leave differently next time.
You can understand your childhood, attachment style, loneliness, fear of starting over and desire for companionship—and still text the person again tomorrow.
Eventually, insight has to become behavior.
For me, the next step became learning to separate the things I legitimately desire from the person I assigned those desires to.
I want companionship.
I want partnership.
I want attraction.
I want stability.
I want a family.
I want someone with whom I can share the responsibilities of life.
I want someone whose mindset, values, and lifestyle is compatible with mine.
I want someone who I am deeply attracted to.
I want to experience what it feels like not to be the only adult responsible for carrying everything.
None of those desires need to be eliminated.
The mistake was believing that because one particular person seemed capable of representing those things, I needed to preserve access to that person in order to preserve access to that future.
Those are two completely different things.
A person can represent something you deeply desire without actually being capable of building it with you.
Scarcity Can Make Us Grade Compatibility on a Curve
This may be one of the most important things I’ve learned.
When something feels rare, we naturally assign greater value to it.
So when you finally meet someone you genuinely like after months or years of not being particularly interested in anyone, incompatibility becomes much harder to accept.
You start negotiating with what you know.
Maybe this isn’t that important.
Maybe I’m expecting too much.
Nobody is perfect.
Maybe things would be different if we were actually together.
Maybe once they really choose me, I’ll experience a different version of them.
Maybe I should give this more time.
And suddenly, you’re grading relational fundamentals on a curve because attraction feels scarce.
But rare does not automatically mean right.
Someone can possess ten qualities you’ve struggled to find elsewhere and still be incompatible with you in the two qualities that would determine whether the relationship actually works.
That’s why I’ve started thinking about scarcity differently:
The rarer my attraction feels, the more careful I need to be not to confuse the intensity of my preference with evidence of compatibility.
Liking someone deeply doesn’t make them more compatible with you.
It just means you deeply like them.
Familiarity Isn’t the Same Thing as Progress
There’s another reason letting go can feel difficult: starting over sounds exhausting.
With someone familiar, they already know the stories.
They know your personality.
You know their history.
You’ve learned their mannerisms.
There are inside jokes and shared memories and years of context.
A new person means starting from the beginning.
And familiarity can create the illusion that we’re farther along than we actually are.
But history isn’t necessarily progress.
You can know someone for years and still be at mile zero in terms of building the relationship you actually want.
Sometimes starting over with someone new is less work than spending another year trying to convert an existing dynamic into something it has repeatedly shown you it isn’t becoming.
You Don’t Have to Stop Wanting Partnership
I also don’t believe the solution is becoming so aggressively independent that you convince yourself you don’t need or want anyone.
There is nothing inherently unhealthy about wanting someone to share life with.
There is a difference between saying:
I need someone to rescue me because I cannot take care of myself.
and saying:
I am capable of carrying my life by myself. I’ve proven that. And I would genuinely like not to carry everything alone forever.
Partnership can mean another income.
Another set of hands.
Another perspective.
Another person making decisions.
Someone else remembering the grocery list, handling an emergency, paying a bill, planning a vacation, taking care of the house, figuring out dinner, offering emotional support or simply saying, “I’ve got this one.”
Of course that sounds appealing when you’ve been doing everything yourself.
The goal isn’t to convince yourself you shouldn’t want relief.
The work is making sure exhaustion doesn’t choose your partner.
Because when you’re tired enough, relief can start looking like compatibility.
YES this means choosing an empty space over an almost.
YES this means releasing someone without knowing who will replace them.
YES this means allowing yourself to want marriage without knowing when marriage will happen.
YES this means acknowledging that your dating pool may genuinely feel small without using scarcity as permission to abandon your standards.
YES this means accepting that someone can be wonderful, attractive, familiar, successful, interesting and deeply meaningful to you—and still not be your person.
AND IT ALSO MEANS:
I don’t have to convince myself that there are thousands of perfect people waiting for me.
I don’t know that.
I don’t have to promise myself that I’ll meet someone next month or next year.
I don’t know that either.
What I can tell myself is:
I would rather tolerate the uncertainty of not knowing who is coming than build my future around someone I already know isn’t choosing me or isn’t compatible with the relationship I want.
Maybe that’s what comes after the insight.
Not another analysis.
Not another explanation.
Not another attempt to figure out why this person appeared in your life.
But the willingness to leave the space empty.
Because sometimes the work isn’t learning how to stop wanting love.
Sometimes the work is learning that your desire for love doesn’t require you to keep a “possibility” in its place.
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