Dating in the Age of Healing

I have both personal and professional experience with dating after going on a healing journey.  It can be enlightening and frustrating both.  For most of us, we may be comfortable in patterns that we establish early in our lives, and they give us a sense of safety and security.  However, as we age, that perceived benefit no longer works the same way and it may actually start to turn into something more detrimental to us.  This is often the place where people start therapy, following a breakup or frustration from the fallout of a situationship they were in.  For most of us, the people we feel most connected to or most drawn to it usually stems from there being a familiarity to them that other people do not have.  That can often be more of a red flag than anything else, because that usually ties back to trauma responses or coping skills we developed that are no longer working how they used to.  For me, early on I discovered that the people I felt the strongest connection to were often people who had the same traits as those I was healing from.  That immediate “click” was my body pulling the safety bar down as I was preparing to ride the big looping roller coaster…and as it turns out, I did not want to be on that roller coaster.  So now with that knowledge whenever I notice that, I apply a brake and look more closely. 

For most of us, it will go beyond just our patterns and recognizing that someone is not right for us and will point to the fact that there are people walking around wounded from their own pasts.  A point of conversation I have with friends and clients alike is how once we cross a certain age threshold there is a certainty that someone is carrying baggage into any potential relationship.  The question is how they are at unpacking that, and once they unpack it, do they expect us to do anything with it.  If we have done a great deal of work healing from our own pasts, we can communicate our needs, wants and expectations and can confront the feelings that may come up for us within a relationship.  Sometimes we might need reassurance or space, but we can ask for it now.  We have baggage, but we can unpack it and put it away ourselves.  We also can explain to a potential partner the things we packed for this relationship journey.  However, that means we should be able to expect the same from our potential new partner.  But if they have not invested in themselves and done their own healing work, they will expect us to handle their baggage and expect us to know what to do with it and why it is there.  Sometimes that baggage could be things from their childhood, the instability they experienced means they struggle with feeling stable, always waiting for the other shoe to drop, or it could be from past romantic partnerships where maybe they were cheated on or abused and anticipate the same treatment so are prepared to run or have their defenses up.  In either of those scenarios, we might feel compelled to try and coax them into safety or comfort out of our own baggage rather than simply holding space for them.  That winds up creating an unhealthy dynamic which can often make us feel like we are trapped within its confines.

Beyond that though, an unhealed individual may be refusing to be accountable.  They may see it as always someone else’s fault and maintain that energy going into any new potential relationship.  In therapy, we explore all sides and angles, and we work on the things that fall within our control, which are our choices and our responses.  The flip side of that is that often the partners we are choosing (historically speaking) are leaning into that dynamic and not being accountable.  If they are not accountable, then we wind up being accountable.  At its core, this is a boundary issue which we can address and in “Office Space” parlance, we can “fix the glitch”.  We no longer let our boundaries be easily pushed and we hold our expectations in a way that if someone does not meet them, then they do not get to ride the ride.  At first this is a challenge because maybe someone is attractive or interested in us (probably both if you are sweating this) and now the last thing we want is to lose out on someone who we could totally vibe with.  But as we have grown and done our own healing journey, we can start to see that someone who is not accountable for their own actions and choices is more of a pet or a kid we are adopting rather than the partner we are seeking.  As we realize that sure, we may be bummed or grieve that things don’t work out with them, but we also are relieved we did not invest in another dead end situationship that frustrated us to no end and ultimately left us feeling like shit about ourselves. 

Chances are, if you are reading this, you have done a lot of healing work or are actively doing or pursuing it.  If that is true, good for you.  I want to encourage you to hold out hope and remind you that there are people who are willing to be accountable who will actively seek to communicate with you and who will try to make sure you feel loved, safe and secure and who want you to feel all the wonderful things you have been wanting to feel.  In the short term though, make sure you are not settling for less than, and make sure you set the bar higher than you did before.  Then take your time getting to know someone, give it several months of time to explore how they treat you and make you feel to ensure they are on the level.  Beyond that, make sure you are doing the “controlled descent into vulnerability” where you both are being vulnerable a little at a time, and in fairly equitable ways.  Just as you would not land in airplane in a nosedive, nor will you build a relationship in one.