by Katherine Woodward Thomas
“You’ve got so much going for you. You’re attractive. You’re smart. You’ve got it together. I don’t understand why you’re still single.”
If you’ve ever heard this well-meaning but irritating comment from friends and family, you know how much it can hurt.
You may even agree with it.
You ARE attractive.
You DO have a lot going for you.
You may even have no trouble getting dates or meeting single, attractive men.
Maybe you’ve been in love a few times in your life, maybe with men you thought were your soul mate, but who just couldn’t go the distance with you.
You just can’t figure it out.
You have so much love to give.
Why are you having such a hard time finding a partner you love and who loves you and wants you as his partner for life?
Why haven’t you found “The One” yet?
I know how you feel. When I was in my early 40s, I wondered the same thing. I didn’t understand why all the men I fell in love with over the years weren’t willing to ask me to marry them.
It was baffling and upsetting, but I had my theories why this was happening. Yet I discovered that all of my theories about why I wasn’t finding long lasting love weren’t exactly right. It wasn’t until I figured out the real reason I was struggling in love that everything came together for me and I met the man I’d marry.
The Painful Question: Why Didn’t Any Man Want To Marry Me?
I was single for a long time and thought I knew why, but I was wrong.
When I was in my early 40s, I was an attractive, charismatic woman—petite but curvy. I was well-educated and had a bright future ahead of me, career-wise.
I had no trouble meeting men.
As a matter of fact, my favorite advice from my girlfriends at the time was to treat men like buses: another one will be along shortly, so no need to fret when you miss one.
While it may sound like I enjoyed my single life, I wasn’t really happy being alone, ever. For as long as I could remember, I wanted to be married and have children.
Yet despite how many men I attracted with my looks and personality, I was still struggling to find The One. Until I turned 41, the only man that had ever wanted me for his wife was a guy I dated in high school who I’d broken up with decades before.
I thought it was because there weren’t enough decent, available men out there.
I attributed my single status to bad luck or bad timing.
For 20 years, I really had no idea what the REAL reasons were that I couldn’t seem to meet a man I could love and who would love me and want to marry me.
Many of us don’t. We may think we “have a lot going for us” if we’re attractive, smart, fun, or have external success, so if we haven’t yet found the right partner, it can be confusing and painful.
It can be especially challenging because of the way many of us are choosing to meet other singles today.
The Kid In The Candy Store Syndrome: Is It Happening To You?
Modern dating culture can really take a toll on singles, especially with the advent of “swipe” dating apps that force you to make split-second decisions based on appearance alone.
You can scroll through literally hundreds of choices at a time. The more you increase choice, the harder it is for people to choose.
This is particularly difficult for women in childbearing years who want to meet their life partner and create a family, because many men have a “kid in a candy store” attitude about dating.
Women do too, by the way.
I know because I did. (Remember my bus analogy?)
If you aren’t meeting enough quality men, you may blame that “candy store” mentality, especially if you feel a bit inhibited about your age, looks, or other personal issues. If you are going on plenty of dates, but not really connecting with anyone special who feels the same way about you, you may blame the culture of casual sex and non-committal relationships.
When you think about the state of your love life right now, you may only be seeing problems, and chances are, you think most of those problems are outside of you: Unavailable people. Dating apps. The crazy dating culture.
You’re in a space of scarcity and negativity.
Which means there’s no room for you to be in a space of possibility about love.
When you’re in a space of possibility, that’s when the magic happens.
The key to getting into that magnetic, magical space where something new and wonderful can show up is to shift your focus from all the external reasons about why you haven’t been able to manifest love, to seeing how you are unknowingly creating your situation from the inside out.
Just like I did…
The Real Reason I Stayed Single For So Long
I did figure out why I had stayed single for so long, eventually. One day I had an epiphany after complaining to a friend about yet another man who left me hanging.
What I realized was that I had unconsciously been making choices to meet and stay with unavailable men because I was afraid of losing my autonomy. I was also terrified of being truly emotionally dependent on anyone, because I didn’t want to experience the pain of loss if a man left me.
Quite literally, I was projecting forth a way of being that repelled available men and magnetized the kinds of men who had no desire to be emotionally vulnerable with me, or anyone.
I even made unconscious choices to ignore the good, available men when they appeared in my life. (For example, I had met my husband six years prior to getting engaged to him, and even though we had chemistry and got on great, I rejected him! And then spent those six years thinking of him as the one that got away…)
In essence, whether I dressed a different way, or got a makeover, or learned how to communicate or flirt better—it wouldn’t have mattered one bit. I would continue to struggle in love if I hadn’t had this epiphany and decided to make different choices in my behavior and way of showing up.
All it took was one single internal shift and the universe opened up for me, and real love was a possibility for the first time in my adult life.
What about you?
What internal blocks are getting in the way of you finding the right partner and showing up in a way that magnetically draws true love to you?
Find Out What Your Internal Blocks Are So You Can Make That Critical INTERNAL Change
Here are a few examples of internal blocks and all of the inner inconsistencies you may have without even realizing it…
You’re harboring resentment from a relationship that went wrong long ago, and now you show up in every new relationship with a certain edge of defensiveness. It puts your potential partners off and causes them to back away from you.
You still show up in self-defeating ways because of childhood hurts or past wounds. For example, you don’t speak up for yourself or you don’t express your feelings and needs. Therefore, you are literally training people to hurt you in ways similar to how you were hurt as a child, thereby validating that it’s not safe to open up your heart to others.
You have a unconscious belief that you’re alone and that people will always leave you. Because of this belief (that you aren’t aware you have), at the first sign of conflict, you launch a preemptive strike and break up first. Or, you withdraw your energy from the relationship so the other person sees your lack of interest and leaves.
There are endless examples of these types of hidden ways we cause our own chronically single status.
When you discover what yours are, that is what allows you to finally transcend them.
Look for the invisible inner obstacles that have been getting in your way.
Once you become conscious of how you’re the source of your own painful patterns—not getting second dates, not connecting deeply enough, being cheated on—you’ll put the power back into your own hands and restore the gift of choice to your love life.
When you show up differently, men will react to you differently and the payoff is immediate.
You’ll start to get more attention from better quality men. They will be more open toward you. You’ll more easily feel chemistry with the men you date.
You’ll have more choices, and in a good way this time.
And you’ll forget all those false reasons why you thought you couldn’t meet a good man.
Because you’ll finally meet The One, and that’s all it takes.
Lots of love and bye for now,
P.S. When you blame the crazy dating culture, or the losers you date, for why you haven’t met The One yet, you’re making yourself a victim of something you have NO control over.
Put YOURSELF in the driver’s seat of your love life because it shows you how to make different choices and take new, bold, empowering actions toward love.