Before we met each other, we had to unlearn a lotg Post

Before we met each other, we had to unlearn a lot.

Both of us were drawn to chaos in past relationships. She told me that the men who made her heart race were always the ones who made her question if she was enough. She’d get hooked on their attention, waiting for a message, a signal, something to feel chosen again.

When it came, it was a high. When it didn’t, she’d spiral. But it never occurred to her that the feeling she called “chemistry” was actually her nervous system reliving old abandonment wounds.

I was no different. I chased intensity. If a woman was emotionally erratic, unpredictable, or pulled away just enough to keep me reaching, I was all in. I thought that hunger meant I was in love. But it was just me chasing the same disconnection I’d felt growing up. Trying to fix it by winning someone who was never fully available. And whenever a woman showed up with clarity, warmth, and availability, I lost interest. It felt unfamiliar. I’d mistake it for a lack of spark.

We both had to come to terms with the fact that we confused love with anxiety.

It’s common.

Especially for people who were raised in homes where love wasn’t consistent. If love meant proving yourself, walking on eggshells, or never quite being enough, your body learns that instability equals connection. It memorizes the spike in cortisol, the nervous checking of your phone, the hope that maybe this time they’ll see you by texting at the right time, with the right sentence and the proper emojis. And it calls that love.

So when someone comes into your life who actually makes you feel calm, steady, and safe… your body doesn’t know what to do with it. It feels foreign. It can even feel wrong. The lack of adrenaline reads like a lack of attraction. So you pull away. You second-guess. You say things like “he’s nice, but I’m not sure there’s attraction/spark/chemistry.”

What’s actually happening is that your nervous system isn’t registering safety as love. It’s used to emotional tension. So the very thing your mind says it wants like consistency, kindness, presence, feels flat when it finally arrives.

That’s what makes it so easy to overlook a good man or woman.

He doesn’t play games. He doesn’t push and pull. He doesn’t trigger your trauma. He responds to your messages… in his own time. He tells you where he stands. And because there’s no emotional chase, it can feel like something’s missing. But what’s missing isn’t the spark. It’s the addiction to inconsistency that your body’s still recovering from.

We almost missed each other because of this… we even ended things for a while because of that exact reason.

When we first started dating, it felt simple. Honest. Grounded. Not fireworks, not fantasy, but peace. At first, we both thought it might not be “enough.” There was no drama. No chase. Just care. And over time, as we kept showing up for each other, that care deepened into something rich. Like a fire that stays lit, a warmth.

Now, that safety is the most magnetic thing between us.

But we had to get there. It took us learning to recognize the difference between chemistry and chaos. Between attraction and anxiety. And most of all, it took a willingness to stay with the calm, even when it felt unfamiliar.

If you keep being drawn to the same kinds of people who hurt you… if love always feels like uncertainty and overthinking… it might just be that your body is still wired to find home in the very patterns you’re trying to heal from.

It makes you human.

But it also means that when something healthier comes along, you might miss it.

Unless you’re brave enough to slow down and look again.