As a young woman, I never envisioned my wedding day. I simply wanted a partner to love me in good times and bad. Yet my relationships had been rocky. I fell quickly for partners, drawn to their emotional intensity and, often, their wounds. Their hurt touched my own and I gave them the understanding and compassion I hoped to receive in return.
I’m a clinical psychologist and this a pretty common pattern I see in my female clients. Their empathy and kindness is given in excess and is rarely reciprocated in the same way. Empathy becomes our blind spot.
It’s a very vulnerable feeling to be a couples therapist who can’t find love. I had done plenty of therapy and I’d tried to learn from my mistakes. I considered myself to be reflective and insightful.
Phoebe Rogers met her ex-partner online, but the cracks started to appear after they became engaged.
In early 2020, as the pandemic unfolded, I ventured onto a dating app, hoping to find love. There I met a man who was kind, nurturing and supportive. His interest was clear and I felt reassured. In fact, I started to believe this was “it”. So when he proposed, I said yes, barely two months after meeting him. I told myself: “If you know, you know.”
As we moved in together and started planning a wedding, the cracks began to show: deeply misaligned values, perspectives, attitudes to mental health, and ways of managing conflict. I went from sheer bliss to feeling like nothing I could do was right. From feeling cherished to feeling put down. From having a voice to hiding my feelings. From the elation of having found my person to dreading my wedding day. With all that came the gnawing question: should I stay or should I go?
We’d already sent out invitations. My clients knew I was engaged. It felt shameful to be in this position. Of all people, I should have known better.
The truth is, being a therapist didn’t make any difference. My childhood, my family dynamics and my past relationship wounds overtook my professional skills. My fear of abandonment and of being alone were too strong. My worries that I was “too much” and my doubts that I was worthy of love had been operating unconsciously for years, driving my choice of partners.
I decided this would be the last time they would control my life. I called off my wedding, he moved out, and I went back to therapy. And this time it was different. The lessons felt truly profound, perhaps because I was finally open to hearing them.
It was Schema Therapy that changed everything for me. Schema Therapy focuses on our unmet emotional needs from childhood, which contribute to the formation of relationship patterns. We’re at the whim of our wounds, which impact our beliefs about ourselves and others and, in turn, drive our behaviours.
