"Why didn't I see the red flags?!" Am I the problem?

Why do intelligent, high-achieving women end up in toxic relationships with narcissists and emotionally unavailable men? In this episode, Dr. Sarah exposes the hidden emotional wounds driving successful women into trauma bonds—despite knowing better.

You’ll discover why relying on logic instead of emotions can keep you stuck in painful relationship patterns. Learn how anxious attachment, perfectionism, people-pleasing, and childhood trauma make you vulnerable to emotionally unavailable partners. If you're constantly trying to “fix” a relationship, striving to be “enough,” or ignoring red flags—this episode is for you.

Dr. Sarah explains how emotional disconnection, not lack of intelligence, keeps you attracting the wrong partners. And most importantly—how to heal.

Why high achievers attract narcissists, trauma bond, emotionally unavailable men, anxious attachment, toxic relationships, people-pleasing, relationship trauma healing, emotionally intelligent women, perfectionism in relationships, stop overgiving in love.

We hope you got massive value from this episode in supporting your self-worth growth and relationship repair. If you do want more support, please click here for a free consultation https://calendly.com/relationshipsuccesslab-info/discovery-call

Transcript

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Welcome to the Relationship Success Lab, the place for relationship empowerment and actionable tools so you can heal from trauma bonding and create secure loving relationships. I'm Dr. Sarah Award-winning expert clinical psychologists and co consultants, helping high achievers to have happy and healthy relationships. If anything that we talk about today does resonate with you, please click the link below and we would be more than happy to help you. Now on with your journey to relationship success. Hello my friends, and welcome to today's episode because we are going to be talking about why is it that the more intelligent you are, the more likely you're at risk to enter these really harmful relationship dynamics, these toxic relationship patterns, and might sound a little bit strange because surely if you're intelligent, you would've seen signs, you would've seen the red flags, you would've avoided this. But somehow we end up entering these harmful dynamics anyway. So let's begin. Well, first off, I wanna talk about the divide between the head and the heart. And if you are somebody who has had a history of trauma, if you are somebody who has had a history of difficulties with your parents, with your upbringing, if you had a lot of conditions being placed on your worth and on your value. Chances are there is going to be a massive disconnect between your head and your heart. They are going to be in different spaces, and if you've never had a healthy role model with regards to how is that you deal with emotions, how you first off identify emotions, how you regulate emotions, how you tolerate distress, and how you preserve yourself in a healthy way, if you've never developed that healthy sense of self-esteem. You are going to really struggle sitting with uncomfortable emotions. In order for you to process'em, you're going to really struggle to go through the emotion in order to get to the other side. And your default mode is likely to just problem solve everything with your head, with your logic, with rationale, and that might sound like a good method. If you don't have the tools for emotional regulation or the tools for processing challenges on an emotional level, that makes sense because that's your only option, and it's been an option that's worked out for you. It's meant that you've avoided vulnerability because you've not had to sit with uncomfortable emotions and you've just been able to process things in your head. Might sound like a good option, but when it comes to relationships. It can become incredibly damaging. And there are a couple of points that I wanted to talk about. Number one is when you are divided in terms of your head and your heart, you actually end up going for incompatibility on an emotional level. Now, let's break this down. The reason why having our head and our heart in different places is that we really struggle to process. Our relationship dynamics from an emotional standpoint, because our default mode is to go to logic and our default mode to go to logic is because we have experienced a lot of trauma and a lot of heartache when it comes to anything that might tap into emotions. So like I said before, if you've never had the tools. To learn how to deal with emotions and tolerate uncomfortable emotions and realize that emotions are actually the key to getting you the answer as opposed to being the problem in the way you are not going to go down that path. But ultimately, relationships are an emotional process for us to be able to figure out whether or not this person is the right one for us. We have to sit with our emotions. Both the joyful ones and the more uncomfortable ones because it's actually sitting with the uncomfortable emotions processing both the message that this emotion is giving us, but also what it is that we do with these emotions. It is only through that process and solving the challenge that we're having in this relationship, trying to figure out whether or not this person's worked for us. It is only through sitting with the emotions that we can actually figure out the answer. If this relationship is the best one for us, if we should stay or if we should go, or if it's viable. Can we solve problems together? Can we really live out the rest of our lives together? Are we really that compatible? All of these questions, sure, you can answer them from a logical standpoint. But actually the logical standpoint will only get you so far. But it's really the emotional stuff that's important. And whenever I talk about this with clients, they'll say to me, yeah, but logically we have the, you know, we have the same ambitions in life or logically where at similar stages in life. And so why would we not be compatible and okay, yeah, that, that does make sense, but relationships. Are an emotional process, and when we're attracted to somebody, we are not attracted to them because they're funny or'cause they're good looking or because they're charming. We're not attracted to them for those reasons, even though we use those reasons to justify why we're with them, but actually we get attracted to them because they evoke a deep, hidden wound inside of us and we want to be able to solve that problem that wound with that individual. But again, this is an emotional process and if you are not aware of this process, if you are not aware of what wound evokes. The wound will still be evoked, but you're trying to solve an emotional problem with logic, and that doesn't work. You have to solve emotional challenges and emotional problems with emotion. That's the only way forward, and if you have been hammering down this line of logic, you are not really going to get very far, and you are just simply going to be repeating. Old wounds because you are constantly prioritizing logic over emotions, and you are going to default to old attachment wounds. So if you grew up in a household with inconsistent care, you're likely to have an anxious attachment style. And if that's the case, even if you are trying to solve the problems or the challenges or the anxiety that you face in the relationship with logic and, and you're going to be doing that. Actually the anxious attachment style that is hidden inside of you will come out. You are going to be needing a lot of reassurance and no matter what happens, no level of reassurance will feel enough for you, but also you'll never feel enough for your partner. And so you are constantly trying to be enough and feel enough without ever guessing that, and you end up being caught up in this rat race and this cycle and this trap simply because. You've not been able to solve the problem through emotion. You're still trying to solve it with logic, and that's why you might be thinking, oh, well, if I just did this, then we'll be happy. If I just lost a bit of weight, then I'll be happy. If I just looked a bit more attractive, then they'll be more attracted to me. If I just earn more money, then they will think that I'm really intelligent and successful. I'll be more desirable. And, and, and that's not the case because. Guess what? You achieve all those goals, all those objective metrics, and then there's the next thing, and then the next thing, and then the next thing, and then the next thing. So you are on a forever treadmill of not feeling enough. And guess what? That is an emotional problem, not a logical problem. As you've been trying to solve it with logic for such a long time and you have not gotten very far with it, so it's really time for you to look at these emotional problems with emotional solutions. And if this resonates with any of you, please get in touch. Click the link below because I'm more than happy to have a conversation with you in terms of how it is that you can do this. Okay. Okay. Second point. Is really about the traits that you possess that make you vulnerable. So if you are somebody who has the default mode of going into logic and anything that is emotional or it just feels a little bit repulsive and I just don't wanna look at it, or I want to try and avoid it as much as possible, or if you resist, if you battle with emotions,'cause again, that is not solving the problem. With emotions if you are just getting entrenched into really dark emotional spaces. But if your default mode is, is logic, you are also likely going to have a tendency for perfectionism. You're going to have a tendency for, for striving. For achieving that, fighting through whatever it is that's going on, which then also means that you are more likely to tolerate really unhelpful and harmful relationship patterns. You are more likely to tolerate relationship pain because. You are just in that space of being driven, of trying to fix, of trying to succeed, of trying to make things work out. And it's almost like flogging a dead horse, right? You're still there trying to revive something that has passed, sell by date, and, and it just doesn't work. But that's simply because you are unwilling to sit with the emotions and also you are really. Struggling to believe and to experience in an emotional state that you will be okay, like you will survive this. Logically, you might understand that you'll survive this, but emotionally, if you've never experienced. The the ability to survive emotional pain and get through to the other side, and actually the other side is beautiful, and you're stronger and you are resilient, and you're competent, and you are capable, and you are still lovable. If you've never experienced that from an emotional standpoint, then actually emotionally you may fear that you won't survive this, and so you are just driven to continuously keep this thing going. Even if. It's it's past sell by date. But then what that also means is that you are more likely to self-sacrifice. You're more likely to people please, and you are more likely to isolate yourself. So friends and family, if they're asking you, Hey, what's going on? Or if they notice signs that you might not be happy or that you're struggling, or that. Really concerned about you. You are more likely to dismiss it. You are more likely to batter off and say, Hey, you know what's not that big of a deal? I'm fine. And you just carry on business as usual. Finally, it's really important that we see any harmful relationship, any harmful dynamic or painful, dynamic, toxic pattern that we experience that this is not love, but it's actually a mirror. And the moment that we start seeing these patterns as mirrors towards us. Then we can really start to consider, well actually, what's the lesson here? That's that we need to learn? What is the thing that I need to do in order to move forward? What is it teaching me? And this is a difficult process. I know it sounds simple, but it's not necessarily easy to do. But the more that we actually consider, what am I being reflected here in this moment when I feel this urge to hold it together, when I feel this urge to fix things, when I feel this urge to fight for something that is perhaps not working. What is it reflecting inside of me? What wound is it revealing? What attachment style is it revealing? Is it actually revealing something about my past that I've still not been able to resolve and yet somehow I'm trying to resolve it right here, right now with this person, even though it stems from my history, it has nothing to do with this person, but it has everything to do with me. And the more that we actually start taking these situations. As real lessons that we need to consider, the more that we start taking it as some guidance for us so that we can improve ourselves and improve our lives and our future, that's really when the game changes. Whereas if we get entangled and enmeshed and well, maybe I just need to try harder. Maybe I just need to do more. Maybe I just need to look a particular way. Maybe I just need to find the next one. And you just kind of flick through people. Or maybe you hold onto this idea that you can resolve whatever wounds with this individual in front of you and live out the distance. If you are attached to any of these patterns and you're not looking at yourself with regards to what it is that you are doing, you are forever going to be stuck. And this isn't a lecture to. Blame you, but it's actually more of a position of responsibility. So you might not be the reason why you got hurt, but you need to be responsible over whether or not you stay in that position. Whether you stay in a position where you're trying to solve emotional problems with logic and actually what would be most fruitful for you. And if any of this resonates with you to any degree, please click on the link and let's have a conversation. Because I'm on a mission to help as many people as possible to resolve their wounds so that they can get to a better and brighter future. Until next time, take care and I'll see you on the other side. I am on a mission to reach as many people as possible, and you would be helping me out more than you know by subscribing to this podcast, rating it and sharing it with a friend. And if any of this resonates with you, please click the link to see how it is that we can help you gain relationship, fitness and move towards relationship success.