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Love is not a justification for unhappiness.
By Joe Amoia
Last updated on Dec 14, 2023
Are you tired of riding the rollercoaster of love where your love life is a constant series of ups and downs?
When it comes to dating and relationships, you are not alone. Single people are looking for love, and many are also frequent riders on the dating roller coaster.
Unfortunately, most of these daters are tired of the constant ups and downs and would love to finally get off the rollercoaster.
There is an easy way to stop riding the rollercoaster of dating and find love. It’s so easy it often gets overlooked.
Here's how you unknowingly sabotage your love life:
1. You pick the wrong people
The first sign you may be sabotaging your love life is you pick people who are wrong for you.
Have you ever dated or been in a relationship with someone who treated you like dirt, yet you kept chasing after them? Were you ever involved with someone, and you gave them all the power to dictate the rules of your relationship?
Do you choose people who won’t commit to you or are emotionally unavailable?
Yes, they might be exciting and unpredictable. They may even be mavericks in life, but once the initial excitement wears, you settle into a routine and find that the challenging lover makes you miserable.
2. You stay too long
The second way you block your path to love is by staying in unhappy relationships for too long.
You know you should leave. You know you are not treated with the love and respect you deserve, but you stay. You come up with every excuse and rationalize why it is OK for you to stay in a bad relationship.
You say things such as “It’ll get better,” “They’ll change,” “It’s not that bad,” “I can live with it,” “But I love them,” or “But they told me they love me” as if love is a justification for unhappiness.
Love is a feeling, nothing more and nothing less. To make a relationship work, other aspects need to be in place, such as respect, honor, integrity, communication, compatibility, etc. If someone loves you, and you love them, all of these other aspects will be in place.
When a person loves you, they will treat you with the respect you deserve.
3. You operate from fear
The third way you unknowingly sabotage yourself is by making choices and decisions from a place of fear.
Instead of doing things because you want to, you do them because you feel you have to. You are afraid if you do what your gut tells you to do, you won’t be able to experience the life and relationship you desire.
You must make tough decisions to confront what bothers you and makes you unhappy. Instead of speaking up and saying your peace, you clam up and retreat into your fear.
You tend not to ask the crucial questions because you fear the truth. Instead of finding the truth quickly, you bury your head and ignore all the red flags flying in your face.
The clearest indicator of a fear mindset is when you fear commitment.
You are afraid to willingly and openly give 100% of your heart to someone because they will hurt you the same way you have been hurt.
Your past heartache and frustration have caused you so much emotional pain you unknowingly put up a wall to protect yourself from ever being hurt again.
This unconscious defense may protect you from having your heart broken again. Unfortunately, it creates an impenetrable wall. This wall makes it impossible for you to have the love you desire.
Getting your heart broken never feels good. But ask yourself, what hurts more, putting up a wall and protecting your heart from being broken, or never finding the love and relationship you desire?
The ride will end if you choose not to get back on.
The next time you think the ride will be different if you try it one more time, decide to stay off.
One of the conundrums of dating is that no matter how much people say they want a great partner and a great relationship, their choices and decisions often say the opposite. It’s like complaining the whole time you are on the rollercoaster and immediately getting back on and going for another ride.
If you are unknowingly sabotaging your love life, you will make it almost impossible to have the type of lover and relationship you desire.
You don't have to make things harder on yourself.
Pursuing people and relationships that are unfulfilling and make you unhappy is likely due to you sabotaging your chance of finding and having the relationship you desire.
If this has been your experience in your love life, I bet you have at least one of the three signs of self-sabotage blocking your path to love.
It’s not easy to confront your past. But isn’t the prize worth it?
A loving, happy, and fulfilling relationship with the right person for the right reasons is the greatest gift on Earth.
Love does not favor one person over the other. There is nothing you could have done in this life that would deprive you of the greatest gift in life except for one thing…you.
You can have the love you want if you want it. But it is up to you to make it happen.
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Joe Amoia is the founder and creator of GPS For Love. He is an International dating and relationship expert who specializes in helping single women navigate the complex world of men, dating, and relationships.