Why Am I Still Single?

Relationship struggles are not always about being single. Many emotionally intelligent, capable people find themselves repeating painful patterns in love — whether dating, married, divorced, or unable to fully let someone in.

I’m a great catch so why am I still single?

I know she’s wrong for me but I can’t help thinking i’ll never find anyone as good as her again

Why do I keep attracting ar**holes?

I loved them with all my heart and they turned around and said they couldn’t give me what I gave them. WTF?!!

I cant help myself, the first 3 months are always great and then I start getting hyper-critical of them. I end up driving them away

Any of these sound like you? Perhaps so if you’ve read thus far.

At any rate I can definitely relate to all of the above sentences that have clients have said over the years. I can relate because I was on the same path of trying to understand and heal my relationship patterns. And the journey was long. Even after seven years of personal therapy, 3 years of group therapy and training as a therapist myself I hadn’t created the kind of relationship I wanted. I had an intellectual understanding of my issues.

But that didn’t shift anything.

I knew it was due to my attachment trauma. I knew, intellectually that I had a fear of intimacy. I knew that was at the bottom of the dysfunctional patterns of chasing the unavailable, or putting up with shi**y behaviour, or creating fights to keep partners at bay and eventually weaken the relationship to breaking point. But the understanding didn’t shift anything.

And it likely doesn’t for you either, dear reader, or you would’ve moved on by now.

There’s a difference between knowing something intellectually, and allowing yourself to actually feel the attachment trauma. Feel it emotionally, feel it in your body, bypassing the thinking brain. After all if you’re a high-functioning over-achiever as I was in many ways, intellectualising is likely your safe place.

Problem is, healing rarely comes from thinking our way out of something. If that was the case then you could just ask Chat GPT to tell you what you’re doing wrong and why.

However to really create shifts we need to connect with ourselves, all of ourselves, in relationship to someone else.

That someone else being a skilled relational therapist of course. Then using a blend of Relational Gestalt Therapy and Attachment-Informed EMDR, alongside Internal Family Systems Therapy. real change can occur. And that’s when we get not only the true intellectual ‘click’ as to why we are they way we are. We also get the change.

Why Relationship Therapy?

Because attachment trauma occurs in relationship. In our earliest relationships with our caregivers. We have a neurobiological need for connection at any cost. If we don’t get a good enough connection then we adapt. However the cost is that we lose connection with aspects of ourselves. We abandon ourselves. This is our creative and brilliant way to adapt.

And it works, it helps us to survive. Until it doesn’t. In adulthood when we are trying to get lasting love. We realise that we are:

Numb, unable to reciprocate loving feelings

Hyper-independent and wondering where all the good men or women are

Falling for unavailable partners

Ending up in abusive relationships

Giving way more than we receive

Sabotaging those who do dare love us with fights, jealousy etc.

To name a few.

And so where best to heal relationship trauma but in a relational therapy setting using Gestalt Therapy. In this approach I work with you using our here-and-now therapy relationship as a microcosm of what happens in your relationships. I bring awareness to how you show up, how you interact with me. If appropriate I share how I am experiencing you or what i’m feeling in relation to you. I might invite you to try out relating in a different way for example by making statements to me. The aim is to use the therapy relationship to gain awareness over your patterns and also how to shift them. This is super helpful to uncover blind spots and the subtle ways we can avoid emotional intimacy

Why Attachment-Informed EMDR and Internal Family Systems?

Combined, these are a great way to get straight into the attachment trauma networks of the brain, bypassing the thinking brain. With bi-lateral stimulation you connect with unprocessed childhood pain. Due to the adaptive information processing system your brain is able to properly ‘sort’ the trauma by putting it in the ‘past’ category rather than stuck in the ‘present’ category where it gets triggered any time you are in relationship. Once properly categorised in your brain and the intensity of the pain processed, EMDR is also used to exchange your negative core beliefs e.g “I’m powerless'‘ or “I’m unworthy” for more helpful beliefs like ‘I’m lovable’ or “I can choose who to trust”. Read more here.

Internal Family Systems is a great way to work with parts that sabotage us in relationships or want to sabotage the EMDR process. By befriending them and unburdening them, we have the freedom to relate different. Read more here.

So dear reader, if any of this resonates with you and you’d like to know more, let’s have a chat.