You Were Taught to Feel Unworthy — But You Can UNLEARN It

You were raised to believe that love equals betrayal, that being cheated on is commonplace, and that casual hookups are not only acceptable but safer than being truly loved. Yet when someone genuinely cares for you and truly sees you, you feel numb. Conversely, when someone lies, vanishes, or sleeps around, you stir to life — your romantic drive switches on and pours all its energy into what ultimately destroys it. If you grew up in a household where deceit and dysfunction were the norm, it can warp who you’re drawn to, how you read other people, and whether you’ll ever receive the kind of love you secretly crave. This is a trauma wound, and while it’s not your fault, the consequences of those trauma-fueled beliefs are destroying your life. So what can be done? Today’s letter comes from a woman I’ll call Rhysa. She writes, “Dear Anna, some background: I was raised surrounded by men who displayed infidelity — my father, my uncles, and every man I’ve known seemed to cheat. They betrayed their spouses, girlfriends, and fiancés.” (Alright, imagine I’m taking a highlighter and circling the lines I want to revisit later.) Let’s look at what’s happening in Rhysa’s life. She continues, “My mother stayed with my father after she learned about his actions. My aunt stayed with her husbands despite the pain they caused. My most recent relationship ended nearly two years ago. The man cheated on me about a dozen times and then left. I knew it was happening, yet I could never bring myself to walk away. Afterwards I went to therapy and worked on my traumas, especially the grief of losing someone who was still alive. Two years have passed, and in the meantime I’ve had multiple hookups and situationships. Now I either cling to emotionally unavailable men for a week or two before deleting their numbers, or I feel nothing at all for people who try to invest in me. I see no man as “good.” The ones I’m attracted to share one trait: inconsistency. What do you suggest, Anna?” Rhysa — thank you for writing. I have several clear suggestions for you. First, I’m sorry you grew up with that moral chaos: people committing repeated betrayals that the culture would typically label destructive, yet your family somehow covered it up or reached some grim accommodation so the household didn’t fall apart. That kind of environment was devastating, and I understand how wounding it is. I experienced similar demoralizing adult behavior in my upbringing, not identical but enough to leave a lasting mark. When the adults who were supposed to model integrity behaved immorally and then lied about it, it warps a child’s sense that something is wrong. It leaves a deep imprint on what we find attractive. Attraction is a mysterious force — it’s not something you can simply wrench into submission. People without trauma sometimes assume we could will ourselves to stop choosing the same kind of person, as if deciding were enough. If only it were that simple. Attraction emerges from deep wells connected to early bonding: how close we were to caregivers, what scared or hurt us, and how those experiences shaped the blueprint we carry forward. It’s very difficult to control. We love who we love, and for people with attachment wounds it’s heartbreaking: the same longing for a loving relationship exists as it does for anyone, yet we repeatedly attach to someone who won’t treat us well. We become terrified of speaking up about our needs, honest about our feelings, or saying we’re hurt by someone’s conduct. For many of us it also prompts destructive behaviors that harm others or at least show a lack of consideration. Your ex cheated on you twelve times. You suspected it and he ultimately left, but you couldn’t leave him. That’s the core malfunction of a traumatized attachment: betrayal activates love rather than repelling it. It’s a maladaptive response — nothing in biology or spirituality should want that for us. The pattern makes no sense to people watching from the outside: it contradicts what we claim to desire, what others know we want, and what’s in our best interest. But the mysterious power of attraction is real. There is hope: these patterns can be healed, but not through superficial fixes like breathing exercises, simple conversations, or airy visualizations alone. This is deep work. I took years to solve many issues in my life, and fixing this specific pattern took longer than anything else. Choosing unhealthy partners sabotages the rest of your life: finances, friendships, health — everything can slide when you remain in a damaging relationship and can’t extract yourself. I see this as a tragic mix of an attachment wound that draws you in and an abandonment wound that prevents you from leaving — like sticky flypaper that smells sweet to an insect and traps it. You may recognize early on that someone isn’t right for you, but by then you’re already attached. Here’s the first crucial rule to break that cycle: stop having sex with people so quickly. You said you’d been to therapy but still engaged in hookups and situationships. My advice to you, Rhysa, is to stop hookups and stop situationships if you truly want a committed, loving relationship. Casual entanglements occupy the emotional and practical space that a partner should fill. You won’t meet a great match if your heart and time are spent on people who aren’t emotionally available or who betray you. Repeated betrayal drains you; the light of who you are fades and potential partners who would cherish you can’t see the real you when you’re diminished. So if you want a healthy relationship, you must stop the patterns that dim you. Therapy can be valuable, but simply “talking about trauma” and grieving the loss of someone still alive isn’t enough. What’s useful is concrete clarity about boundaries and a roadmap for entering relationships in a way that protects you — especially when attachment and abandonment wounds keep luring you back into harmful dynamics. That period you described must have been excruciating, and it results in deep self-blame and doubt. Yet you can change it now by making a firm decision to stop repeating those patterns. If you suspect childhood trauma is shaping your love life, there’s a quiz that lists common signs of trauma affecting relationships — it can help you see this more clearly. You’ll find a free quiz in the top link of the description below this video: check the first two visible lines, then click “more” to open the rest of the links. There are a lot of helpful resources there. You can’t control others to the point of finding a perfect person who will never hurt you. Life isn’t perfect, but you can get very close by being conscientious: don’t attach too quickly, be clear with yourself and others about standards, and date with intentionality. Many people bristle when I say, “Don’t sleep with someone right away.” They ask “How soon then?” That’s the wrong question. The right question is whether you’re giving yourself time to discern. How long to wait is personal — some wait until marriage, some until engagement, others for six months, a year, or three months; opinions vary. But if you only ever date people who insist on sex immediately, you’ll continually attract people who demand the same. Dating should be a process of getting to know someone to decide whether you want to go deeper, not a sequence of casual encounters that turn into attachment by accident. I had to relearn this: dating as a civilized, deliberate practice where you gather information about another person’s goals and character before allowing intimacy. If you want a committed marriage or partnership, you must change the default. For many of us with abandonment wounds, it feels unbearable to leave a bad relationship because ending it promises a tidal wave of depression, loneliness, and pain. Staying seems easier. That’s the abandonment reaction. Once you name it and recognize it for the trauma response it is, you can distance the feeling from reality: you can say, “That impulse is my brain chemistry hijacking me right now.” When you can see it for what it is, the rational part of you can step in and make a better choice, even while the sensation persists. Having that insight gives you options and allows you to use practical tools to pull yourself out of the ditch. Tools include structured dating practices and supportive friends who agree to help you stick to the plan. Many therapists won’t raise this pattern either; some frame every heartbreak as a mirror to teach you about yourself, as if repeated heartbreaks are a noble path. That perspective can be harmful. Getting your heart broken excessively drains you, and you deserve happiness and steady love. Some advice comes from people raised in intact families who never had to fight for emotional safety, but when you didn’t grow up with that cushion, wasting years in relationships that break you is a serious loss. There’s another way. Some of the wisdom older generations offered — grandmothers or great-grandmothers — preserved the idea that taking relationships slowly protects the precious person you are. Birth control altered sexual norms by separating sex from pregnancy risk, but slowing down a relationship is about protecting your own emotional life, not just avoiding babies. With mutual respect, you can date politely and keep each encounter a choice: “Do I want to see this person again?” That discipline preserves your energy and your capacity to shine, making you visible to a partner who truly fits. A few people claim they can have casual sex and still keep the best parts of themselves untouched, but that rarely holds up. If hookups and situationships consume you, your brightness dims and someone who would be an ideal partner won’t notice you because you’re emotionally depleted or distracted by other entanglements. Entering a relationship with presence and focus is a healthier approach: discernment can then guide you toward something real. I say this because I’ve seen the harm and lived on the other side of it. My first marriage, for instance, wasn’t what I’d call a true marriage — it was legal and happened because I was pregnant, not because we were a good match. I loved my children and I’m grateful for them, but I wish I’d made better choices earlier so my kids’ father could have been someone I had chosen with full clarity and commitment. My grandmother’s counsel — that it’s better to get it right from the start — is wise. If you didn’t get it right before, do your best to get it right now and honor yourself. Don’t wait for strangers to notice your value and treat you well. Self-respect has to begin with actions consistent with love for yourself; often “loving yourself” is easier said than done, and it starts with doing — making choices that reflect the respect you deserve. Non-romantic relationships can be a training ground for love: learning to be present, caring for someone else, and practicing generosity without romance still teaches you about being loving. Also, entering a situationship when you secretly know the person isn’t right can be a form of exploiting someone — using another person to fill a vacancy while expecting the relationship to end because it’s not true or sustainable. That’s not fair to them. If this advice clashes with what others tell you, you can ignore it, but I’m speaking to those whose attachment wounds have damaged their romantic prospects and who want committed love. Don’t settle for less. At first, drawing a firm boundary — “I will only date intentionally, not jump into sex right away; I need time to discern” — may feel terrifying. You might fear you’ll never meet anyone. That’s a common worry, but it’s not true. When your nervous system and demeanor convey healthy standards, other people will pick up on that vibe. People who primarily want to exploit others won’t detect an easy target anymore. Predatory behaviors, like grooming, work because victims often unknowingly signal availability through trauma-conditioned passivity; manipulators feed off that. For example, on a date someone might casually mention an ex and test how you respond. If you freeze and accommodate, your trauma may have taught you to seem indifferent even when your heart hurts. That communicates a message you likely didn’t intend: “Do whatever you want; I won’t hold standards.” Trauma distorts the signals you send. So adopt a deliberate standard and practice living by it: go on dates, let the other person initiate, don’t push intimacy, accept a first date invitation and then see how the person behaves. Let them pay the first time if that helps you assess interest. Watch whether they show up with consistent interest or whether they waffle. You’re trying to avoid people who don’t have the capacity for or willingness to commit. Someone who cheated twelve times may have once convinced themselves they loved you, but that pattern is evidence of being profoundly unreliable and damaging to others. When you allowed the first betrayal to slide, it likely signaled to him that you didn’t hold yourself in protective regard — so why wouldn’t he continue? If your standards don’t filter that behavior, it repeats. Don’t assume hookups and situationships will magically transform into a committed relationship like in a fairy tale. That occasionally happens, but almost never. More often it keeps you stuck in the mud. Instead, lift yourself out by rinsing off old patterns and moving forward with a new, intentional approach that matches what you truly want. You deserve steady love that calms life’s storms and offers safety; such reliability can also be a powerful salve for childhood trauma. It may take time to grow into being loved steadily — initially you may be defensive like a frightened animal, but with patient, consistent care you can learn to trust. I speak with many people through coaching, group programs, correspondence, and reading comments, and the same pattern appears again and again: people neglected in childhood often don’t know what a good partner looks like, and attraction gets tangled with chaos. We mistake the adrenaline of instability — the drama of someone giving and withholding affection — for romance, when in truth that’s not love. You might find a “nice” steady person boring at first, and attraction matters, but as you heal other wounds using tools, community, and intentional experimentation, your sense of what’s attractive can shift. Try small experiments: go on a date and text a friend afterwards to debrief. Don’t do this alone. Don’t default to rom-com or porn scripts for how relationships should unfold. Instead, clarify your vision of a healthy future partnership and act with structure. To help with that, there are downloadable tools: a free list of signs that someone is partner-material is available in the description (second line down). I wrote it after learning from trial and error, and it helped me — I followed the advice and eventually married a wonderful man. We’ve now been together for 17 years and married almost 12, and I’m grateful I learned these lessons. I wish I’d known them sooner, so I’m passing them along. The free checklist in the description is yours to keep; below that you’ll find additional programs and coaching if you want deeper support. Use these resources to start turning things around. Rhysa, I hope you hear this and find the courage to change your habits — they may look scary or threaten loneliness at first, but drawing a boundary against half-love relationships often produces an immediate rush of empowerment: suddenly you’re living with integrity and honoring a life vision you actually want, rather than constantly sacrificing it. This period, the time you spend preparing yourself, is not wasted; it’s part of the process of readying the person you’ll become for true, lasting love. If you enjoyed this talk, there’s another video you might like about emotionally unavailable people — a person who is emotionally unavailable may try to be in a relationship but cannot truly love or be present, or they may be someone who’s simply flat-out unavailable. That video is queued for you here.”