I cannot be loved by another because God does not love me.

We are the relationship addicts. Even if we’re not in relationship, we are talking about it, fantasizing about being in one, watching “Love Island” or “The Bachelor/Bachelorette”, or reading about them. And if we are in one, we love to fantasize and future plan with our partners, imagining what we’ll do for them as much as what they’ll do for us.

We love the stories, the RomComs the happily ever afters and happily for nows. Real world relationships don’t compare to the ones we’ve concocted in our minds and we’re very good at virtual relationships and situationships because having something is better than nothing. Not that it really matters because our preoccupation with relationships is so great, we tend to engage with them in our minds without even telling the other person.

Our core issue, I Am Not Good Enough, plays out in our relationship dramas, the highs and lows. When everything is good, we are adept at seeing where things could go wrong if we do or don’t do X, Y, Z. But we wind up compromising so much of ourselves in the long-term in order to hold onto the relationship, that we forget that the only way to truly heal this theme is about coming to love ourselves first before we can really experience the love of another.