For years, I thought I was just bad at relationships.
Romantic. Family. Friendships. Didn’t matter.
They were messy. Painful. Dysfunctional. And I was the common denominator.
I felt like a failure. Like something was deeply wrong with me.
Because surely, if I was suffering this much in relationship after relationship, it had to be my fault, right?
I watched other people glide through seemingly calm, caring connections and thought: That life isn’t for people like me. I’m too broken. Too much. Too wired wrong.
And because I’d been taught – from an early age – that everything was always my fault, I carried it all.
If someone was upset with me?
I must’ve done something wrong.
If someone lashed out or withdrew?
It must’ve been because I failed to anticipate something. Said the wrong thing. Wasn’t lovable enough.
My whole nervous system had been trained to treat love like a chess game:
Play the right move, they stay.
Mess up – even slightly – and I lose everything.
So I kept performing. Perfecting. Pretending.
Trying to earn love by staying ahead of everyone’s emotions.
And then one day, something cracked open.
I realised: they were not perfect either.
That some of these people – no matter how much I loved them – were actually in the wrong.
They were dysregulated. They were projecting. They were harming me.
And that realisation didn’t make me bitter.
It made me free.
Because suddenly, I wasn’t cornered anymore. I could stop beating myself up.
I could stop trying to out-perform rejection.
And finally – finally – I could start loving myself.
That’s when everything changed.
Because all of us who hold ourselves to ridiculously high standards?
Who self-analyse and self-blame and try harder than anyone else we know?
If that worked… it would’ve worked by now.
You don’t need more self-criticism. You need space to heal.
If this post resonated, I’d love to invite you to take my Relational Health Questionnaire.
It’s free. It’ll help you get clear on where you’re stuck – and what to do next to move forward.
It’s not your fault.
It never was.
And you don’t have to be stuck anymore.
Harris