Is it my fault that I'm single?

If you’ve just been through a breakup, or you’ve been single for a while, one question might lurk at the back of your mind. You almost don’t want to ask it, afraid of the answer you might get. But you think it all the same. Is it my fault that I’m single?

It almost feels like a natural question to ask. Advertising has bombarded us for years with messages that there’s something wrong with us—something we can only fix if we buy their product. So it’s tempting to think you might be to blame for your single status.

This question isn’t really a productive one. It leaves you afraid of meeting someone new and repeating the same patterns. You might even end up blaming yourself for past breakups. It makes you question whether you're even capable of having a relationship.

Unfortunately, that kind of emotional baggage in the background leads us to push potential relationships away because they hurt.

And I can tell you that no, you don’t need to give up. No matter the relationship, they always need two people. You can’t have one partner doing all the work to keep the relationship going because it takes two. Did your partner leave you to make all the effort? Then they’re to blame, not you. And remember, some people are just not compatible.

But if you are asking this question, then it’s worth digging into a few things. While it’s not your fault, there are things you can do to make you feel better and increase your chances of success in the future. Read on to learn why it’s not your fault and what you can do about it.

Explore Your Relationship and Dating Patterns

People might know there's something wrong but they can’t quite put their finger on what it is. Because of that, nothing changes, and they keep doing the same thing over and over. They just want to find love and have a healthy relationship, but it seems to elude them.

If this is you, it’s important to look at what's going on beneath the surface. Otherwise, you'll just keep doing the same thing—and getting the same result.

So maybe you’re someone who keeps meeting people who treat you the same way. Maybe it’s the same type of person. Perhaps they’re unreliable, unfaithful, or emotionally abusive. Somewhere in your unconscious , there’s a belief running that says, “This is what I deserve. It’s the only way I can get love. This is normal for me. It’s how I should be treated”. If you don’t interrupt that internal programming, your brain will guide you towards more of these relationships purely because they’re familiar.

People end up not trusting their judgment and are afraid to enter relationships again.

So try journaling on these two questions.?

• What kind of people do you gravitate towards?
• What relationship problems have come up for you in the past?

This will give you some data and you might even be able to start connecting dots between the type of people you date and the relationships you have.?

For extra information, try listing any red flags that were present with these relationships that you ignored. This will help you to spot them again in the future so you can avoid dating those types of people again.

What’s Your Connection With Yourself Like?

It’s amazing how many people don’t really have a connection with themselves. They don’t pay attention to their feelings and they learn to put other people’s needs before their own.

These people might only feel good if they've got other people's problems to deal with. They may only feel loved if they get attention, even if it’s negative. So the drive to get attention, or to be helpful to those around them, helps them feel like they’re getting their needs met. It also means they can avoid looking at their own situation because it’s too painful.

So it means that after a breakup, people who haven’t learned to connect with themselves lose all sense of their identity. They’ve spent so long going along with everything their partner wanted that they’ve lost what they wanted.

If that’s you, don’t beat yourself up about it. We're taught how to think and act, but we’re rarely taught how to feel. Feelings are our connection to ourselves. Ignoring those feelings creates that disconnection. And you don’t just end up disconnected from yourself. You also disconnect from your partner and everyone around you.

We take on so many of our traits in childhood. We learn how to treat other people, but also crucially how you let people treat you. It can become difficult to know what is external programming and what is part of our essential identity.?

For example, say you have a parent who never listens to your problems, but expects you to help them. You’ll take on the programming that your feelings don’t matter, and you’re only valuable when you’re being helpful. If your essential identity is to express yourself and process emotions verbally, then that’s going to get squashed.

People like this need to go through a period of rediscovering themselves after a relationship. They need to figure out what it is they actually want.

It’s important to know what you want for you. So get your journal out and do some journaling on these questions.

• What do you want from life??
• What do you need to feel safe and loved??
• What does your future look like??
• What will make you happy??
• What do you want in a relationship?

If you don't know yourself enough to answer those questions, then you'll struggle to meet someone compatible. That’s because you won’t know if you’re aligned on any issues because there's nothing to align with.?

People will often do a back-to-front thing of meeting someone they like who’s attractive and then decide to be whatever it is their partner wants. Where does that come from? It’s a way of saying “Please love me. I’ll do this for you. Please love me.” If you’re working for love, then it’s not love that you’re getting.

Figuring out the answers to those questions is a pretty simple fix for that issue.

And in future, if a partner asks you something or wants something from you, instead of just saying “yes”, ask yourself, does that feel right? What would you like? The difference will amaze you.

You Don’t Need to Work for Love

If you’ve spent any time in the online dating space, you’ll know there are plenty of people offering ‘quick fixes’ to finding love. Let me dispel a few myths for you.

You don't need to treat people mean to keep them keen. Nor do you need to send scripts to make people like you. You don’t have to date several people ‘in rotation’ before you decide which one you like best. And you absolutely don't need to wait an hour before you text back.

None of those behaviours are healthy human behaviours. They’re manipulative games.

Think about the way that you make friends. You don't use manipulative techniques to make them like you. I'm betting you wouldn't keep them hanging while you wait a specific amount of time to reply. You're just yourself! And they like you.

So why would you do anything different for a potential partner? Put it this way: Would you want someone to work for your love? Or would you just love them for who they are?

People in this position don't realise how amazing they are. So when they don't love themselves, they can't imagine why anyone else would love them. And that's why they start jumping through hoops to make other people love them.

There’s a simple exercise you can do to build your self-love. Grab your journal again and list out all the things that are important to you. That might be things like protecting the environment, social justice, caring for animals, honesty, being a good friend, and so on. Stick to the things you genuinely care about, not just the ones that’ll make you look good on social media. This list is only for you.

When you’re done, leave your list for a day or so. Then come back to it with fresh eyes and look at the values you’ve identified. Now ask yourself, what would you do if you met someone with your values? You’d think they were amazing, and you’d appreciate them as a person.?

You can always ask trusted friends what they like about you so you can add extra values to your list. But it’s important to come up with your list first, since your opinion of yourself matters so much more than what others think.

You don’t need to be the perfect partner. You just need to be yourself.

Your identity is so important. The way you create your life matters. If you don't see the value in yourself, you'll struggle to let others see the value in you, too.

Taking the Positive from your Dating Past

One of the difficult things to admit about personal development is that not all growth happens in positive circumstances. In fact, a lot of it happens during hard times. That’s actually healthy. Look at plants. The seeds need to force out roots, which need to burrow down into the soil. Then they need to push out shoots and shove their way out of the soil to reach sunlight.

But the plant gets on with it. Because when its roots absorb water, and it reaches sunlight, it’s done the hard part. Now it can get on with growing.

If we apply this to relationships, you can find a surprising number of positives even in terrible relationships. For example, you might realise you don’t want to date someone with kids. Or you don’t want to date people who are emotionally unavailable. You can use your dating past to figure out what you don’t want… and use that to understand what you do want.

We've all been in that place where you’ve had a breakup or you’ve been single for a while. Then you decide you're not loveable, or people only use you, and you create a story about it. Your brain does this to help it make sense of what’s happened.

But your brain tells itself a story. It doesn’t tell itself the facts. And it doesn’t look at what you got out of it all.

So pick a past relationship and answer these questions in your journal. Try to be objective for the first question. You might like to answer it as if you were a third party talking about yourself.?

• What is the actual truth about why the breakup happened??
• What have you made the breakup mean about you??
• What have you learned as a result?

Doing this exercise will help you understand so much more about what you want, desire, and need. This makes it much easier to find now you know what you're looking for!

Get Clear When You’re Dating

So now you’ve figured out what it is you’re actually looking for. Next, you’re onto dating!

Don't treat dating like fishing, where you just toss your profile onto an app and wait to see who bites.?

Let's look at it this way. Imagine you're redecorating your house. You want it all clean lines, brushed steel, and chrome fittings. So you start ringing around interior designers. If you just said 'yes' to the first person who answered the phone, you might end up with a design that looks like a bowling alley in the 1980s!

Set deal breakers to guide who you want to respond to, and who you don’t. Maybe you don’t date alcoholics, smokers, or people with children. Getting clear on these gives you a great place to start in finding someone compatible.?

You can also learn behavioural profiling so you can read what a person is really saying in their profile in the Love With Intelligence Academy . It’ll save you so much time and heartache in the long run.

The clearer you are on your deal breakers, the easier it is to set boundaries and say no to the people who aren't compatible with you. I had a client who knew she didn’t want to date anyone with children. An attractive guy messaged her, who not only had two children but was also getting divorced! My client wished she’d never bothered getting into the conversation at all after he started using her as a free agony aunt. All because she ignored her own deal breaker!

It’s important that you pay attention to what people tell you. Say you want children and you meet someone amazing who doesn’t. It doesn’t matter how amazing they are—you’re not aligned on a major issue. Don’t assume they’ll change their mind.

Be Honest With Yourself

A lot of people aren't particularly honest with themselves. They're afraid to look at areas of their life, especially if it's filled with painful memories.

Looking at those memories could actually offer a core reason as to why you push away relationships. Yes, it’s hard, but the key to change is awareness. It gives you more choices.

Don't beat yourself up about things that have happened. Have compassion for yourself. You were doing the best you could with the knowledge you had at the time. Remember, hindsight is always 20/20!?

If you went into a relationship with the intention of showing love? Then that's all you need to know. If they couldn't love you back, then that's on them, not you.

Don’t skip the healing part . If you try to jump into a healthy relationship without healing, you can find them uncomfortable. If your new partner accepts you as you are, this can feel unfamiliar and you can either re-enact patterns from previous relationships or just push your partner away. You don’t want to ruin an amazing relationship because you weren’t ready.

But don't expect your healing to be 'finished'. You'll always find new things to heal in relationships, but with the right partner, you’ll be able to help each other. You’re also both always evolving, so you’ll always find new things to work on.

The most problematic relationships happen when people commit to a relationship before they commit to themselves. Commitment is less about commitment to the relationship and more about commitment to yourself.

Commit to yourself, your learning, and your happiness. Two people who are committed to themselves find it far easier to commit to each other. They’re more accountable for themselves, so they make better partners.

So No, It’s Not Your Fault That You’re Single?

But you have more control over things than you think you do.

You’re allowed to enjoy the life you want and the relationship that will make you happy. The right person will want the best relationship for you, too.

We’re bombarded with ideas about how we should be from an early age. Think of your parents, other family members, friends, advertising, movies, and novels—they all have an impact on what you think you should be doing.

Look at all the things you've learned and ask yourself, "Is this true for me?" If it’s not for you, then you get to change it. Give yourself permission to make choices about what works for you, not what you’ve been told to do.

If you’d like to dig further into figuring out what you want, then check out our free Meet the One guide. People have met their partners after working through the exercises in it, so head over to www.lovewithintelligence.com to get your copy!