Hello, my loves. Today’s topic was actually sparked by a conversation that I had with a new one-to-one client who started today.

We were discussing something many of my clients—and me—have experienced: sudden relationship doubts.

In the beginning phases of a relationship, your body is designed to bond with someone. You’re releasing dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, all these “love drug” chemicals that make you pair-bond so that we can ensure the survival of the species. But after a while, those chemicals fade…and everything shifts in a way that can cause some serious relationship doubts to creep in.

In the beginning, when you’re hopped up on all those chemicals, you see all of your similarities—but after the honeymoon phase ends, you start to really notice your differences. And relationship doubts crop up very fast in that phase…but even if the honeymoon phase hasn’t ended, relationship doubts also tend to crop up when you’re having conversations about taking things to the next level.

Doubts and Disposability

So. You’re about to take that next step: moving in, getting engaged, getting pregnant, getting married, whatever it might be…and then the relationship doubts start creeping in.

All of the sudden, you start noticing things about them that you don’t particularly like. You start wondering, “What if there’s someone better-suited to me? What if I would be happier with another person? What if I would be more sexually fulfilled with someone else? Maybe I haven’t experienced everything I want to experience yet. Am I sure about this?”

However, these relationship doubts don’t mean it’s time to cut the cord.

We live in such a world of disposability. As much as I am an advocate for dating apps, because I think they give you access to more people that you wouldn’t have necessarily met in person, but there’s also a downside to them: when you’re using dating apps, people can become very disposable.

It becomes easy for people to say, “Oh, well, this person didn’t do exactly what I wanted them to do. I’m going to get rid of them and I’ll just get another one,” because other options are so readily available. You have hundreds or thousands of people at your fingertips; if you don’t like something, you could literally just choose another person.

So how do you tackle thoughts of, “But what if I can find someone better?”

No Such Thing as “Perfect”

Here’s the truth about these relationship doubts: you could always get someone “better,” but it wouldn’t be an improvement; it would be a trade.

You’re always trading one thing for another. Let’s say you give in to your relationship doubts, you get rid of your partner for whatever reason, and you go and find someone who’s “better” than them.

This other person might be better in bed. But maybe they have communication issues, where your former partner was amazing at communicating.

Or maybe this new person is better at communicating, but they suck at initiating.

Maybe they’re really good at taking responsibility, but you don’t feel desired by them. There’s no sexual chemistry. 

This is what I mean: it’s always a trade-off, because there is no such thing as perfection.

There’s no perfect man. There’s no perfect woman. There’s no perfect person for you. It’s about deciding that this is your perfect person, even with all their flaws and insecurities.

Maybe there are a couple things that don’t work, but 90% of the things do work. Sure, they have their little quirks and some habits that annoy you, or there might be certain aspects of your relationship that you may need to strengthen, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t a good match for you.

When we’re always in this mindset of looking for someone hotter, someone smarter, someone better, someone more accomplished, someone more successful, someone with more money, someone with better communication skills, or whatever else, we can actually miss the magic of cultivating and strengthening the current relationship that we’re in.

Now, to contradict myself, I’m not saying that you should just settle. If you’re being treated like shit, or you don’t have similar values, or if you don’t want the same things in the future, or if there’s no sexual attraction and there never has been, I don’t think that you should be together.

For example, if you had sexual attraction and sexual chemistry to begin with, you can absolutely get that back. But if you never had it to begin with, it’s a very difficult thing to cultivate years into a relationship.

However, there’s always a possibility of cultivating things like good communication or better initiation in your current relationship. So pay attention to whether your relationship doubts are based on something you can still develop.

Doubts Don’t Signal The Death of Your Relationship

When I spoke to my client, she said, “I don’t know who to talk to about this, because nobody gets it. As soon as I say that I have doubts, people think, ‘Well, you shouldn’t be with him then.’”

Now, I don’t believe that at all. I think it’s actually healthy to question and contemplate your relationship so that you are coming from a space of choice and not from obligation.

When you have relationship doubts, but you’re investigating them and contemplating them for yourself, that’s actually healthy. Because you’re able to go, “Are these relationship doubts real? Are they valid?”

Having a doubt that goes, “Oh, I don’t know, I love to watch movies and he doesn’t. I don’t know if this will work,” should probably be investigated, right? Is that really a fucking make-or-break for your relationship? I think not. But if there are bigger doubts, it is good to sit and think them through.

Having relationship doubts, especially as you embark on something as big as moving in together, having a child, getting married, whatever, is actually healthy. I’d almost be concerned if you didn’t contemplate whether it was really what you wanted.

If you jumped right into it without actually thinking about whether you could picture your life with that person if nothing changed—or if you do think about that, and the answer isn’t yes—then there’s probably some work to be done.

I’m not saying that you should break up. I’m just saying that maybe there’s some work for you to do. And maybe it’s not actually for you both. Maybe it’s actually just for you.

Not Every Relationship Doubt Needs to Be Shared

What I mean by that is that I’m all for difficult conversations and sharing and letting our partner into our internal world…but I think there’s also room for restraint. They don’t need to know your every single thought. 

There are things that we can process on our own, including relationship doubts. Or we can process through them by talking to a mentor or a friend. That’s why I love spaces like The Experience, where you can go into the group chat and you can share what’s coming up for you. You can get support from me and get support from the other women.

And whether it’s The Experience or not, it’s important to have a community where you can talk about these things without being judged for it, because relationships are not black and white. They’re very nuanced.

I think it’s important that we normalize having relationship doubts without immediately jumping to, “You should break up.” It’s important that we have safe spaces to say these things, because when we don’t have safe spaces to share about our relationship doubts, we keep them to ourselves…and then we don’t want to feel these feelings. So the doubt creeps in, it festers, and it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger until finally we can’t take it and then we just break up with them out of reactivity because we need to relieve ourselves of the tension.

And after that, we go, “Oh, thank God. See, I feel so much better. I knew that wasn’t the relationship for me. I feel so much better.” But once our nervous system is regulated again, we’re like, “Oh, I think I overreacted there.”

It’s Okay To Have Doubts…Just Don’t Let Them Control You

So, what if you didn’t make yourself wrong for having doubts? What if you didn’t make yourself wrong for having fear?

You’re not fucking crazy for having doubts. You’re not crazy for having fear. You’re not crazy for having a bit of a freak-out when you’re going to the next stage in a relationship.

You are perfectly normal. It is okay. You don’t have to run and burn your relationship to the ground. Just lean in. You can talk to your partner about it, as I have with Drew, and he has with me…or you can process yourself or with your friends. Just make sure you find people who hold space for you to express that without judging you for it.

You’re doing great. I love you. Have a great day. I’ll see you next time.

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