'I don't give myself a chance to fall in love'

At 27, Stephanie has never had a serious romantic relationship. After a few weeks, she prefers to flee her partner, for fear of being judged or rejected.

Stephanie's question
'I'm 27, and I'm still and forever single. I don't give myself a chance to fall in love because I'm convinced that as soon as I've spent a week or two with a man, he will have found me full of faults and abandon me.

Over time, I realized that I often attract men who I don't like, or who are inaccessible.

I also often felt like I wasn't loved by my parents, especially my father. Could I subconsciously be afraid to meet a man for fear of meeting someone who looks like my father?'

Couples therapist Caroline Kruse's response

'Stéphanie puts it well: she does not 'give herself a chance to fall in love' for fear of being abandoned. She gives up the first to avoid being abandoned. It is no coincidence that she attracts men who do not do not like, and if, no doubt, she rejects those who like her: this is part of the avoidance strategies that she implements so as not to be confronted with this risk of abandonment.

'She thinks she suffered in her childhood from a lack of love from her parents. We should try to better understand how this impression is fixed in her. But, as a result, Stephanie lacked this base narcissism that allows you to have confidence in yourself and in others. Hence her quest for an idealized love to which she aspires and which she fears with the same intensity: Stephanie gives up out of fear. to be abandoned , but also of surrender , to lose oneself in the other, to allow oneself to be absorbed in it.'

'Perhaps she is indeed looking for a man in the image of her father, but who would love her like her father, who she thinks did not love her...while fearing that history repeats itself and he also rejects it.'

'Stéphanie analyzes herself well. She knows what she should change in her attitude, but something in her opposes it. Advice aimed at modifying her behavior would, in her case, make little sense. So I think that 'An analytical therapy where she could, in a protected setting, experience trust and abandonment would be of great use to her.'

Learn more: Caroline Kruse's website
Read also : His interview on the quest for the ideal man