Why Can’t I Find Love? How we Sabotage Relationship Potential

When the question “why can’t I find love?” plagues someone, one of two common thoughts follow it. Men and women alike tend to internally ask themselves either, “what’s wrong with me?” or “where do I go to actually find the ones I’m interested in?” Yet neither of these questions actually support you in finding love, especially soul love. 

To be specific, there is nothing wrong with you and you’re not looking in the wrong places. You also don’t just have bad luck. When we’re asking ourselves “why can’t I find love?” the answer to this question lies much closer to home. Seeing the answer, however, can be more challenging because it’s something you feel and experience rather than something you do. Let’s explore further how we sabotage love… 

---

Why can’t I find someone to love me?

First and foremost, when you so deeply want someone to love you, you will tend to do just about anything, often unconsciously, to try to get that love. Yet, attempting to contort yourself into the image of what you think will get or keep love practically forces you internally to say “ok” to things that you don’t actually desire, want, or enjoy. 

When we want love so much, we settle for less than our deepest longings, desires and visions. Our doubt in our ability to find true love begins to show up as not expressing your true needs and desires. It has you twist yourself into a pretzel trying to keep them happy so they don’t leave. In our fear of not having love, we don’t honor ourselves which includes hiding parts of yourself that you think the other person will be fond of.

At the same time, we’ve been taught that real love means giving up ourselves in favor of our partner, if we truly love them. Nothing could be further from the truth. Giving up on your needs, wants, and desires is the fastest way to repel someone you feel attracted to or destroy a relationship, if you get that far. You will lead yourself right back to that question, “why can’t I find love?”

Not honoring you in a relationship makes breaking up inevitable, which means you will be single again (and again and again). 

~Joanna Shakti

---

Why can’t I find true love?

When we experience true love, two things are true. First, it lasts. Even if the relationship doesn’t last, the love that brought you together will always be there in a healthy way. Second, and more important when it comes to sustaining relationships, we have to be authentic – real, messy, imperfect. That requirement – being totally real – is the thing that trips up most relationships. It takes a level of courage and trust that most people don’t muster. They can, but they don’t. 

You see, when you don’t show up completely and authentically you, when you pretend to be something you really aren’t. When you attempt to stay on your best behavior, the genuine you – with all your flaws, bad habits, irritations, judgements, and imperfections – eventually comes out to play. Only it doesn’t look much like “playing.” It looks more like an out-of-the-blue reaction, with ensuing arguments, often several. Your new-ish partner can feel blindsided. 

Often 3-6 months into a relationship things start to change, upsets start to happen, and you hear things like “I thought you liked Chinese food.” And you reply, “I knew you liked Chinese so I always said yes, even though I didn’t like it all that much.” 

If you’ve been going along with something that doesn’t truly suit you, when you finally speak up, or more likely, when you make a snarky sideways comment, your partner is left confused and dumbfounded. 

Trust is eroded as they likely wonder how many other ways you’ve lived a little white lie. 

Sustained trust is essential to a lasting relationship.

---

The most shocking answer to “Why can’t I find love?” 

The answer that most single people never want to hear or admit has to do with being alone. If you make finding love more important than your comfort with, and love of, yourself you’ll never sustain a relationship.

The fear of being alone is the number one reason you can’t find and keep love. A fear of being alone means you aren’t comfortable hanging out with yourself. Those who fear being alone don’t enjoy their own company. Yet if you’d do just about anything to eliminate or escape the so-called pit of loneliness in your belly, you actually reinforce the loneliness and repel any potential relationship. 

When you resist being alone you HAVE to settle. What other choice do you have? If you hate being alone, you’ll jump at whatever comes along. You’ll go for the BTN (better-than-nothing). You’ll put up with what you “shouldn’t” put up with. Then either you’ll finally wake up and end the relationship or they’ll get tired of your complaining, disappointment or nagging and they’ll end it. 

Either way you’re single again. When we can’t be alone, we don’t make good dating or partner choices. It inevitably seems that we have a broken “picker”.  As such we lose self-trust and we repeat the patterns that keep us complaining, “why can’t I find true love?”

---

Tolerance leads to breakup

As we continue to answer the question, “why can’t I find love?” we have to also consider all the ways you make the other person, and the potential relationship, more important than yourself. Every time you make excuses for your partner’s (or date’s) behaviors that don’t feel loving, kind, caring or even respectful, you make “having a relationship” more important than your own wellbeing. 

Any relationship that requires you to sacrifice your wellbeing cannot last. If you’re not being cared for in the way you desire to be cared for, if you are not getting your needs met, if you go along to get along, if you tolerate them not keeping their word, resentment begins to build. And, resentment kills love.

When you have a deep intimate relationship with you, then and only then, can you have a deep intimate relationship with another.

~Joanna Shakti

---

There couldn’t be a deeper prayer than for you to stop selling yourself out and settling in the name of love. You won’t find love that way. You’ll never feel it. It will never fill the hole you hope it will. A relationship won’t complete anything. You have to be complete first.

Do whatever it takes to stop selling you out, ever. Self-abandonment harms relationships so much more than being abandoned. You must honor yourself if you want love to last. As you’ve heard, “you can’t love another until you love yourself.”  Self-love is one of the most misunderstood and ignored prerequisites for lasting love. So understanding the 25 signs you need self-love can make a huge difference in ensuring you can stop asking the question, why can’t I find love. When you have a real relationship with you, suddenly you’ll be telling your friends that you’ve found a true soul connection and fallen in love. 

---

Since 2006, highly conscious men and women, with a commitment to extraordinary relationships, have chosen Ecstatic Intimacy to find and cultivate Soul Partnerships from their bedrooms to their boardrooms. Ecstatic Intimacy believes in coveted relationships, for all. 

You too, are invited…