5 Beliefs that keep you from having the relationship you want

Some people believe they just haven’t met the one. Or their standards are too high. Or the world has become too superficial. Or, there’s just something wrong with other people (and they can give you a detailed analysis of exactly what that is).

These explanations might be plausible (sometimes), but they rarely lead to meaningful change. More often, they become a dead-end of resentment and resignation.

From what I’ve seen again and again in the therapy room, and life, is that the real reason people don’t have the relationships they want is this: they lack the skills and emotional bandwidth to make it through the cycle of rupture and repair.

Look beneath phrases like:

“They won’t get it anyway.”

“Why should I be the one to say something?”

“They should already know.”

"I've said it so many times before."

“I just don’t have the energy for this."

"It's a me problem."

And what you’ll usually find is fossilized beliefs that keep you frustrated and alone (even if you're partnered). 

• You think a relationship can't withstand your true feelings. You censor yourself or bottle things up, driven by an unconscious belief that if you really showed your anger, hurt, and needs, the other person would walk away. No questions asked. No second chances.

  
  

• You believe that if you voiced what you’re really feeling, it would make you unbearable. Harsh. Unlovable. Inherently bad. Like saying it out loud would expose something dark in you and confirm everything you fear might be true.

  
  

• You live by an invisible rule that says you get one shot. One emotional moment, one comment too far, and it’s over. No redo. No repair. No space to clarify or circle back.

  
  

• You’ve had formative experiences that taught you it’s safer to avoid conflict. Times when your genuine emotions either created distance, escalated things, or led to outright rejection. So now, when conflict arises, your nervous system votes to bail. It suddenly feels urgent to go empty the dishwasher, hang up the phone, or ghost the conversation altogether.

  
  

•  Your mind frames potential conversations as yes-no scenarios and not as issues to be explored collaboratively. 

At the core, what’s missing is the experience of working through difficult dynamics and communication breakdowns and coming out the other side closer, not further apart.

That’s the work I do with patients.

When done well, therapy becomes the ultimate rehearsal space where you get to stretch the boundaries of what you believe is allowed to feel, to say, to want. It’s where you practice speaking up, shutting down, saying the difficult thing, and discover that the relationship can survive it.

You build emotional stamina. You learn that your anger can be useful, not destructive. You witness what happens when someone meets you with softness instead of punishment.

Therapy gives you the rare experience of failing and finding out it didn’t break the bond. It built it.

Because intimacy isn’t made in the moments when everything is smooth. It’s made in the mess, in the emotional rubble, when both people are still standing, still curious, still willing to try again.

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Kate Winkler works with individuals and couples who reside in NJ. Click here to book a free intro call.