Why the “hopeless romantic" struggles MOST in love

One of the biggest misunderstandings we have about love is the belief that if we want it badly enough, it will finally arrive. That if we think about it enough, pray enough, visualize enough, or long for it deeply enough, love will one day choose us. But life often teaches us the opposite. When we are wanting love so intensely, it is often a sign that we are unavailable for it.

I know that can feel confusing to hear, especially if you consider yourself a hopeless romantic. You love love. You always have. You grew up devouring romance novels, fairy tales, and movies where love was everything. You imagined the day someone would finally come and see you fully, choose you, and make everything feel okay. You might even wonder why other women seem to meet their life partner with ease while you, someone who loves romance so deeply, struggle to attract safe, consistent love.

And here is the truth that may feel uncomfortable at first, but is deeply freeing once it lands. The very reason you identify as a hopeless romantic is often the same reason love feels just out of reach.

When we want love desperately, it usually means we have not received enough of it. Wanting is not proof of devotion. Wanting is proof of deprivation.

For many of us, this pattern begins long before dating ever enters the picture. It starts in childhood. Maybe you were not consistently chosen emotionally. Maybe love felt conditional, based on performance, obedience, achievement, or being easy to deal with. Maybe affection was unpredictable, withheld, or overshadowed by criticism and comparison. As a child, you learned that love was scarce, that it had to be earned, and that it could be taken away.

When love does not feel freely available early on, the nervous system learns to crave it. And craving becomes familiar. Over time, this craving turns into longing, fantasizing, and idealizing love as something outside of you. Something that will one day arrive and finally fill the emptiness.

On top of that, we are fed powerful cultural stories about romance. We are taught through movies and fairy tales that love comes from being chosen by the right person. That one man will arrive and rescue us from loneliness. That once we are loved by him, we will finally feel whole, safe, and secure.

But this creates a subtle inner reality where love is always in the future and never fully here. And when love is always in the future, it becomes impossible to receive it in the present.

This is why so many women who deeply desire love end up attracting emotionally unavailable partners. Men who pull away. Men who ghost. Men who say the right things but disappear when consistency is required. Men who mirror the same absence you learned to normalize early in life.

It is not because you are broken. It is because when you are deprived of love, you do not know what safe, stable love feels like. And when something is unfamiliar, the nervous system cannot recognize it as home.

When you have not received enough love, wanting becomes louder than receiving. Fantasy becomes more comfortable than reality. Idealizing becomes easier than discerning. You may find yourself drawn to men who are inconsistent, distant, or emotionally confusing because that dynamic matches what your body already knows.

Spiritual teachings have pointed to this truth for centuries. In the Bible, Matthew 25:29 says that to those who have, more will be given, and from those who do not have, even what they have will be taken away. This is not a punishment. It is a description of perception. When you experience love internally, you can recognize it externally. When you do not, it feels invisible.

A Course in Miracles echoes this by teaching that love accepted draws more love, while love rejected diminishes awareness of it. When love is placed on a pedestal in the future, it is rejected in the present moment. And when love is rejected now, it cannot be perceived, recognized, or received.

This is why wanting love intensely often blocks it. Wanting creates distance. It places love above you. It makes you feel small in comparison to it. And when you feel smaller than love, receiving it feels overwhelming, unsafe, and fragile.

Even if your dream partner were to walk into your life, sustaining that connection would feel difficult. You would overthink your words. You would worry about saying the wrong thing. You would feel anxious when he is not around. You would question his feelings and need reassurance to feel safe. Not because something is wrong with you, but because your inner foundation has not been built to hold love yet.

Love cannot rest on a fragile foundation. It is like placing a house on glass. Without inner strength, safety, and familiarity with love, the relationship collapses under its own weight.

This is why attracting love is not about wanting it more. It is about becoming it.

Becoming love means learning how to receive love now. Not from a partner first, but from within. It means allowing yourself to feel safe, whole, and enough without waiting for someone else to complete you. It means embodying the love you wish to experience, rather than fantasizing about it saving you.

When you do this, the obsession fades. The pedestal dissolves. The fantasy loosens its grip. You no longer feel smaller than love. You become spacious enough to hold it.

And when love arrives then, it does not feel overwhelming or fragile. It feels natural. It feels aligned. It feels like an extension of who you already are.

Love stops being something you chase. It becomes something you allow.

And if you desire deeper, supported guidance in learning how to embody love safely, shift these patterns in your nervous system, and call in a healthy, secure partnership with ease, this is exactly what my one on one coaching is designed for. You can explore that journey through a free consultation linked here, where you will also receive a powerful energetic insight into what needs to shift next in your love life.

Because love is not something you wait for. It is something you become.