How to Open Back Up to Dating After a Toxic Relationship

Reader question from Rita: “How do you open back up to dating after surviving a toxic relationship?”

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Rita, I wish I could be sitting in front of you having a coffee to say the depth I want to share about this question. Because this kind of question is not just about whether to open up or not. As that just feels like a stab in the dark of “let’s hope”, or let’s not.

Why dating after a toxic relationship repeats the pattern

When we truly understand the meaning of “we create our life” we understand so deeply that creating our life is what our subconscious decides what being loved, what belonging and what being safe (as in NOT dying) means. When we find ourselves in the aftermath of experiencing relationships or situations that were traumatic for us, the only true healing we can do is with our own selves. And this does need to be done to be able to move forward. Because when it comes to the subconscious brain, we will only keep on attracting what we already know. And we need to do the work to give it a new reality.

So, to answer your question on how? You do the work to see where this pattern came from in the first place. We can not ever change anyone else. Only ourselves. You did not attract toxicity because you are toxic yourself. You attracted someone who matched the toxicity you were already tolerating inside yourself. The patterns that were created inside of your childhood (we all have patterns created in childhood, that is what childhood is) are what drew to your consciousness a relationship that mirrored some quality of what your inner self already knew. The times you kept saying yes and staying over and over again are not of fault to you, but because deep parts of you believed that was what love and belonging looked like.

This is where many people get stuck in the loop over and over again. They leave the relationship and think they are done and that geography, or time or a “different” partner is the answer. But they can’t get a different experience than the one they left because it is unknown in the subconscious. When one jumps back into dating the next person with the same nervous system running the show, same operating system in their body, same hunger for someone to finally see them and validate that they matter, they actually find someone who recognises that exact same wound. It may be a person with a different face but it is the same toxicity.

This is actually the true law of attraction in its most honest and human form.

Your invitation: become someone who would never have said yes

So beautiful woman. This is your invitation. Before you date anyone else, you have to become someone who would never have said yes to him in the first place.

That means getting curious about what in you believed his behaviour was love? What in you needed the chaos and confusion. What in you thought you had to earn your own safety, within a belonging that was not what you truly desired. What in you made you small so he could feel big. These are not character flaws, nor judgements (only people do that, not our higher selves that know this is all about our learning and growth). These are our basic human survival mechanisms. Your nervous system was doing exactly what it was taught to do and it will keep on creating and drawing in from the same code that was formed at the beginning, until you take the time to change it. And that is the work.

And this work is not some arduous punishment or woo woo ramblings. In fact, it is quite the opposite as it is the only thing that gives you access to what you truly want, need and desire.

When you start doing this work, and let’s be honest, this is our true human work, this glorious self work. It will always keep showing up changing its colours and flavours. When you get real with yourself about your patterns and build a nervous system that knows how to feel safe, start recognising red flags that used to feel like butterflies you will have partners who are actually available show up differently in your field. And most importantly, you show up different.

That is how dating becomes nourishing and exciting again instead of a fear of repeating patterns.

You get to choose

My invitation to you is, instead of asking “How do I open back up to dating?”, ask yourself instead “Am I willing to do the work so that when I open back up, I am not just repeating the same story?”

What is so beautiful about this, is that you get to choose.

And when you do I would love to work with you, if that is something you choose to do.

— Melissa Louise

Where to Find Me

I bring this work into my practice here in Puerto Vallarta, one-on-one and in small groups. Book your discovery call to speak more on how this can work for you.

Ask Me Anything

You write in, I answer, and we skip the part where either of us pretends you don’t actually want to know.

I’m Melissa Louise, certified Erotic Blueprint and UPLVL Communication™ Coach, and I’ve spent years sitting across from real people with real questions about sex, intimacy, and the relationships that hold them together, or don’t. Nothing is too much or too small. If it’s true for you, it’s fair game here.

Send me your questions. I’ll bring the honesty whilst you bring the courage to ask.

Always with Pleasure,
M

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