Most of us weren’t actually taught what love looks like. We were taught to tolerate it.
I’ve been married twice.
I’ve experienced just about every red flag in the book—love bombing, gaslighting, controlling behavior… and even one truly bizarre date where a guy spoke in a British accent for over an hour before he forgot and his real voice slipped out. I wish I was kidding.
I’ve settled more times than I can count. I stayed in situations where I was made to feel like I was the problem. Like if I just tried harder, loved better, or fixed myself enough… things would finally work.
But life eventually teaches you things if you’re willing to look honestly at the patterns.
When you’ve been burned enough times, you start to learn how to read energy. You learn to spot red flags faster. You learn to hear the difference between sincerity and performance. You learn what inauthenticity feels like in your gut.
And the biggest lesson of all? Seeking love outside of yourself never works.
The right person doesn’t complete you. They hold up a mirror.
And sometimes that mirror is uncomfortable, because it shows you the wounds you still need to heal. But the right person also sees you… sometimes even before you fully see yourself.
They recognize who you are underneath the armor you built to survive.
Hell, I even turned my experiences into a coloring book called Surviving the Modern Dating Dumpster Fire. If you can’t laugh at the chaos a little, what are we even doing here?
But somewhere along the way I started realizing something bigger.
People experience relationships through the filter of their trauma. Two people can live the same moment and feel completely different realities because of the stories their nervous systems are telling them.
And lately it feels like something is shifting.
More people are healing old wounds. Learning to communicate. Questioning what we were taught about love in the first place.
Love isn’t supposed to feel like confusion, anxiety, or emotional survival mode.
Love should feel like alignment. Connection. Patience. Growth.
Maybe love isn’t something you chase.
Maybe it’s something that finally finds you once you stop abandoning yourself.