The Story You Tell Yourself About Love Changes Everything

We all have that friend who talks about how she only attracts assholes. Or maybe you are that friend — the one who, every few months, is cycling through a new version of the same person, wondering why it keeps going sideways.

I’m going to be your hermana mayor for a second. The common denominator in every one of those situations is you. Before you close the tab and tell me I’m not a girl’s girl or that I’m victim-blaming, hear me out. Let me cook, as the kids say.

I learned this lesson the hard way.

There’s a story we all tell ourselves about love. About how it looks, how it’s supposed to feel, what we have to do to earn it. And as cliché as it sounds — it really does start in childhood. Your first teachers on what love looks like are your parents. What they modeled, what they gave, what they withheld. It all of it becomes your blueprint before you’re old enough to question it.

The story I was carrying was wrapped up in what a lot of people are now calling eldest daughter syndrome. If you know, you know. You’re the manager, the mediator, the one who spearheads the plans and absorbs the conflict and quietly becomes the emotional backbone of the entire household. You’re IT. The third parent who didn’t sign up for the job.

For me it was layered with something I’m genuinely grateful for, but also had to untangle: I’m the daughter of hard-working immigrants who built an entire life from scratch, from pure grinding. My parents never forced that role on me. Ever. I am very lucky to have parents who wanted me to experience life in ways they couldn’t. They worked hard. They sacrificed. They built a life from grit, exhaustion, and love.

But I decided that for myself anyway.

Because I loved them so much, I felt I owed them everything to say thank you. So I made myself the person everyone could rely on. I became indispensable. And if I ever failed at that, if I couldn’t be everything to everyone, then that meant I was a failure. A bad daughter. Someone who didn’t love them enough.

They never said this. Not even close. But that was the story I told myself, and I lived by it.

Here’s what that kind of conditioning does to your love life: when all of your emotional labor is already spoken for, there’s nothing left for a relationship. I was notoriously hard to pin down. My only real priorities were my family and my career. If you didn’t fit into either, I moved on without a second thought. I thought that made me focused. What it actually made me was emotionally unavailable. And completely open to someone who would exploit exactly that.

Eventually, I burned out.

And unfortunately, it happened at the same time I was dealing with an onslaught of negativity online that quietly chipped away my confidence. Burned out, insecure, and wired to feel loved only through being needed. Ah, yes, the perfect storm.

I found myself in a situation I later understood as deeply manipulative. But at the time? I thought it was passion. I thought the intensity was the signal. That’s not love, though. That’s your nervous system.

For those who don’t know, love bombing is when someone showers you with attention to the point of drowning and affection and grand gestures right at the start. It feels like every romantic movie you’ve ever seen. It feels like finally. Watch those old romcoms again sometime and notice how many of them are just… love bombing with a soundtrack.

Then, unbeknownst to me, I was introduced to the hell cycle: Idealization (love bombing) > Devaluation>Discard>Hoovering

I got stuck in that loop because I needed them to see me as everything. If they did, I would feel safe. So I kept chasing. The goalpost kept moving and I kept running — showing up at 200%, convinced that if I just tried harder, they’d meet me somewhere. Even 10%. I told myself I could carry the other 90%. Of course I could.

Then came the moment that finally woke me up. I remember that day so vividly.

Said like a throwaway. Like it cost him nothing. So it just clicked. There was no finish line. I was running a race that was rigged from the beginning. It was never going to be enough, because the point was never for it to be enough.

If you outsource your validation, you will always have a master.

During my divorce, I had to sit with questions I had not asked myself in a long time. What does love actually mean to me? What do I want? What do I need? Do I even know?

I didn’t. Not really. I didn’t know who I was in general at that point, if I’m honest. But one thing I knew with total clarity was that I hated the story I’d been living. And I wanted to figure out how to write a new one.

So I started there.

And here’s what I want you to ask yourself, genuinely: Do you know what you want? And do you actually believe you’re worthy of it?

Not just “do you want it” — because anyone can say they want to be loved well. But do you believe, in your body, that you deserve it? Because here’s where it gets tricky. Let’s say everything you say you want shows up. The person who chooses you clearly, takes care of you, and shows up consistently. The soft life. Princess treatment. Whatever version of that looks like for you.

What does your nervous system do?

Does it relax and feel at home? Or does it brace itself, feel suspicious, start scanning for the catch?

I ask because (and this surprised me), my healthy relationship was triggering at first. I kept bracing myself. I was suspicious of how deeply kind he was. How much he actually wanted to communicate. How when I made a mistake, there was no stonewalling, no punishment, just — it’s okay, nothing bad is going to happen here. I didn’t realize how wrecked my nervous system still was, even after a couple of years of therapy. Safety felt unfamiliar. And unfamiliar, when you’ve been through what I have been through, it can feel like a warning sign when it’s actually the opposite.

Your answer tells you everything about whether there’s still more to explore.

Listen, I am still figuring out what love looks like for me, and honestly? That part is fun. It’s not uncertainty, it’s curiosity. Self-discovery doesn’t stop, it just evolves. The version of me that’s still learning what she wants and needs isn’t broken or behind. She’s just alive.

But when I met him, I had a foundation I’d never had before. I said out loud what I wanted, and I meant it. I wasn’t willing to settle, not because I was bitter, but because I finally understood that I already had what I needed on my own. The next person was adding to my life. Not completing it. Not saving it. Adding to it.

AND once you leave a black hole, you never want to go back.

When I think about who I was in that cycle, I feel sad for her. Not in a way that disconnects me from her — she’s the reason I’m who I am — but sad the way you feel when someone you love didn’t know they deserved better. That person was me.

So what is the story you’re telling yourself?

Is it that if you can tame the bad boy that everyone wants, that means you’re special? That only grand gestures count as real love? That if he doesn’t chase you when you go quiet, he doesn’t really care? That you can love someone into becoming who you need them to be?

Examine it. Because if everyone you date turns out to be an asshole or a project, and I say this with peace and love, the problem is you. Not because you’re broken. But because when he showed you who he was early on, you decided it was a pink flag and that you’d be the exception. You decided you could fix it.

Maybe they were charming. Maybe the chemistry was there. Maybe there were good moments. Maybe they had potential.

But potential is not a relationship. Chemistry is not character. Intensity is not intimacy.

And you cannot love someone into becoming a better person by abandoning yourself.

That is not how this works.  You cannot keep choosing emotionally unavailable people and then wonder why you feel unloved. At some point, you have to stop asking, “Why do I only attract this?” And start asking, “What part of me still recognizes this as love?” That question is not easy, but it can set you free. Because once you understand the story, you can start rewriting it. And you do not have to rewrite it perfectly.

You just have to stop handing the pen to people who benefit from keeping you small.