I Quit Dating. Here's What I Did to Change My Love Life Forever.

This is part 2 of a 3-part series.

Part 1: Uncomfortable Truth About Why I Kept Losing Myself in Dating and Choosing Unavailable Men

Before meeting my husband, my love life was going in circles. I was stuck in my career and used dating as the antidote, which always left me with more brutal damage. Then I met a narcissist. My anxious attachment went into overdrive, and I lost myself completely. For a while, every mistake, every date gone wrong, every messy breakup could be filed under being young and dumb. But as I reached my mid-20s, without making any tangible progress in my life, I had run out of excuses. I could feel the shame acutely: the shame of knowing better, of having been there before, of doing things that I knew were bad for me yet still not being able to stop, of losing self-control, of always falling behind.

Dating felt like progress, but it turned out to be a distraction, an escape, a cry for help. Without it, I was left with a life I no longer loved, one I felt deeply disappointed in. There was really nothing going on. I couldn’t change jobs, my salary barely got me by, and I spent my free time crying over unavailable men who did not give a shit about me. It was far from what I’d envisioned when I first moved to London. 

I used to have big dreams for myself, with wide-eyed excitement, and there I was, just passing the time. Reality was closing in on me. My future was no longer a blank canvas full of possibilities; I could see my trajectory from where I stood, and it looked bleak. I had no family around, no roots, no attachment to anything. At one point, I even felt that if I disappeared, no one would know. Being on a work visa in London was excruciatingly hard and lonely. I had avoided facing this truth because underneath it was the real, painful question: what the hell was I doing with my life?

That year, I had to take a good look at myself, and it sent me into panic attacks. I curled up in bed and called a crisis helpline, something I had never imagined myself doing. I cried to a woman on the phone, desperately asking for help. She calmed me down and then pointed me towards talking therapy. It was the start of me finally saving myself and taking control over my life. That year, I rebuilt myself, and I came out on the other side a changed woman. My life was never the same again.

I’m writing this, almost 7 years later, having found my emotionally secure, loving husband and built a life I love. I’ve got my passport, owned a home in London, and built my career to Director level in Financial Services. I helped my family pay off debts and provide for my mum. And now I get to pursue my passion and build my own business to help other women. I’ve grown into the person I’d always wanted to be.

In my last post, I shared the 10 reasons I kept dating unavailable men. Today, I’m going to break down exactly what I did during my ultimate dating break - my rebirth year.

I stopped dating completely. I deleted the apps, the numbers, and the undefined interactions. I needed to remove the constant stimulation and uncertainty so my nervous system could settle.

I could have done what I had always done: found another stranger to attach myself to or kept drinking to avoid facing myself. This time, I did neither. I let myself fall apart. I let myself hit a new low even when I thought I had hit rock bottom. I stopped trying to numb everything so I could examine the habits and beliefs that were hurting me.

It was very painful and uneasy. I felt as though I was recovering from an addiction, and sometimes I worried I would remain stuck and waste more of my life. But admitting to myself what was happening made me feel ultimately lighter, and it gave me back the control - I finally knew where to start to fix it all. I realised it didn’t destroy me. So I let my true, vulnerable self finally be seen, and so she could be met.

I also learned to sit with myself when difficult thoughts and feelings appeared throughout the day, and in the beginning it happened a lot. Previously, I had interpreted distress as a problem that required immediate action, often an attempt to return to something familiar. I would reach for alcohol, respond to an interested man I knew was wrong for me, or contact the person who had hurt me to try to put things right or simply to get the next dopamine hit.

Those responses would give me instant relief but had repeatedly made things worse. I began practising staying with the feeling instead. I could acknowledge an insecurity, remember the past, or miss someone without sending a message or finding another distraction. Eventually, the intensity would subside. I began to build the trust that I could get through those moments and take care of myself without repeating my past patterns.

I came to therapy with a laundry list of self-identified issues: weak ego, low willpower, love addiction, dopamine dependency, low self-esteem, anxious attachment, relationship anxiety, and perfectionism.

After waiting for NHS therapy, I accessed private sessions through work insurance. The therapist who assessed me made my problems feel understandable and manageable like she had heard them all before. It gave me hope, as previously I had thought my issues were too much. Then they matched me with a therapist. I requested a female therapist because my issues were related to men, but none was available, so I agreed to see a man.

His approach was unusual to me. He barely asked questions. I entered the room and he just stared at me. It was awkward for me so I filled the silence by talking. For the first couple of months, I often left wondering whether therapy was helping. After about ten sessions, because I had opened up on my own, I realised I had felt more comfortable with him and trust was built. He began to offer insights, and I felt more anchored by going to therapy every week.

As I shared more, I became sensitive to whether he showed care and respect. I would analyse his expressions and sometimes email him afterwards when I felt uneasy. He reassured me, and we continued.

After about eight months, I became increasingly uncomfortable with things such as him yawning and forgetting details I had shared. I explained my concerns, but didn’t feel his response acknowledged them. He mentioned transference: feelings from my previous situation being redirected towards him. I didn’t disagree, but I still wanted to change therapists. I was proud that I could make that judgement and decision for myself.

He was a man in an authority figure to me, but I could acknowledge my experiences, call him out, confront him, and then act to remove myself from the situation in service of my feelings and needs. I knew something fundamental was shifting.

I returned to the first therapist who had assessed me. Her approach was more structured, and our conversations suited the more stable place I was now in.

Here’s a summary of the six skills I learned in therapy and how they helped me.

1. Emotional regulation. I learned to distinguish thoughts from reality. An anxious thought wasn’t necessarily true. I could acknowledge it, name the feeling or write it down, then let it pass.

2. Independent judgment. When I described myself as having acted “crazy,” my therapist questioned that label. I had been distressed. I could understand my response and decide what was acceptable to me.

3. Emotional expression. Talking let me express things before I had processed them. Unlike writing, I didn’t have to organise my thoughts as I went. Being heard already helped.

4. Reparenting. I was introduced to schema therapy, which explores how unmet emotional needs in childhood can lead to patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving that continue into adulthood. I learned to recognise those needs and respond from the perspective of a caring, responsible adult. When I felt vulnerable, I could ask what I needed and how to meet that need without causing myself further distress.

5. Dream journaling. My therapist suggested recording my dreams for a week. The feelings mattered more than the details. Recognising them helped me separate past distress from my present circumstances.

6. Stability and self-trust. Weekly therapy gave me consistency and somewhere to build trust. Outside sessions, routines helped me practise meeting my own needs reliably.

For the first time in my life, I went to France on my own. Travelling on my visa wasn't easy, but I made the effort.

It was a way to keep my brain engaged with something completely new and disrupt its obsession with the narcissist. I needed to build new dopamine pathways. At that point, the breakup was still fresh, I was still craving his attention, and I still ended up texting him from the trip. That’s to say the process wasn’t linear. But it was still important that I reclaimed my sense of agency.

For example, when I landed in Bordeaux by myself, my phone ran out of battery. I decided to just jump on a bus leaving the airport. I didn’t know where it was going, but somehow I trusted my gut (in hindsight, this was crazy.) I knew zero French. I had no idea where I was going, so eventually I got off at a random stop in a busy area. It was midnight. I tried to ask a woman who had just gotten off with me for directions, but she couldn’t understand me. In the end, I found a pub, which allowed me to charge my phone. And luckily, my hotel was just ten minutes away! Unbelievable. It felt amazing. I was so proud of myself (and glad nothing dangerous happened)

Travelling solo also allowed me to discover who I was outside dating and the job I felt stuck in. I had spent so much time morphing myself into someone to be liked and picked by other people and following my family’s expectations to find a sponsored job in the UK that I needed to find out what I actually liked and wanted for myself. What did I enjoy? What was I curious about? What did I want to do when the choice was mine?

I wanted to feel curious about the world and my place in it again. I wanted to get out of my own head so badly.

I started cycling to work. Similarly to solo travelling, cycling in central London forced me to focus on what was in front of me, instead of being inside my head with my anxious thoughts (or I might get hit by a bus!)

After a while, one day, on the way home, I stopped at a park and watched the sunset. I didn't take a picture. I just sat there and enjoyed it. I felt peaceful and happy, and I realised how much I needed these simple experiences in my daily life.

Being present was something I had to practise. At one point, I even went to a group meditation class at a temple - I tried everything. I had become used to constant emotional ups and downs that feeling calm could be deeply uncomfortable. Without the next message, the anticipation or the drama, I didn't immediately know what to do with myself.

So I had to learn to experience an ordinary moment and enjoy it for what it was, not anticipating more intensity and feeling like something was missing. It was a dopamine fast. I trained myself to enjoy my everyday stable life.

I signed up for swimming lessons. I arranged my schedule around them and kept going. Learning gave me something to concentrate on and a way to make progress that was within my control. Having regular activities also made my week more predictable.

I had previously let my mood determine whether I did anything for myself. Now, I was putting activities in place that supported me regardless of how I felt that day. Exercise, learning and being around other people became part of my routine.

Improv is a form of live performance art. We made up scenes on the spot, which meant listening, responding and supporting the other people in the scene. I became more comfortable expressing myself fully and less self-conscious.

Sometimes I thought my response was awkward or unfunny. Normally, I would have replayed it and criticised myself. But the scene was still happening. I had to pay attention to my partner and respond to what came next. There wasn't time to keep reviewing the thing I had just said. I had repeated opportunities to try, get something wrong, enjoy myself anyway, and continue. You’re not meant to dwell on any one interaction. In fact, when you think you get it “wrong”, it always turns out to be funnier and better.

That taught me something I needed outside the classroom. I couldn't keep living backwards, trying to produce a better ending to something already over. I needed to give each new experience my attention, do my best, and let it end when it ended. Seeing life as a series of chances to try, learn, and enjoy being myself took the pressure off getting everything right.

It also helped me retrain my sense of what I deserved, of what relationships should feel like. I could feel psychologically safe, be myself, have fun, and feel light around other people. I wasn’t walking on eggshells or worrying that something I did would push them away unexpectedly. I needed repeated experiences of that to familiarise myself, and to expect it from the men I dated.

I volunteered with a charity that ran a three-course roast dinner with live entertainment for isolated older people once a month. I served meals, washed up, cleared away, and chatted to the people who came.

In the aftermath of the breakup with the narcissist, I did so many things out of character that made me feel ashamed of myself and question my own worth. So volunteering helped me gain wider perspectives and recognise that I was not worthless - I could help others; I could make someone’s day a bit better.

Living in London, surrounded by different lifestyles, social classes and ideas of success, I had become confused about what made me good enough and what was actually important. I was measuring myself against people whose lives looked impressive but who had little in common with me and did not treat me well. Meanwhile, I lost sight of qualities I already respected in myself and the people I loved: kindness, care, sincerity, and respect.

These values formed a basis for self-respect that I could strengthen through my own actions. They also became the compass that helped me make decisions and choose who to spend my time with. When I felt drawn to someone’s impressive life, I could ground myself and ask whether we were actually compatible on fundamental levels, and whether I would even want to be real friends with them.

I love writing. Writing always helps me feel like myself again. For some reason, even when I was at my lowest and felt completely worthless, I still knew for sure that my writing had value. It was my way of understanding and deciding who I was, and how I processed my experiences.

That year, alongside writing articles on my blog, I wrote many emails to my future self. I used a website called futureme.org and wrote to myself as though I was a separate person. I’d been doing this since I was 15.

One of my very first emails to my future self:

Even at that age, I had acted like a parental figure to myself without realising it. Every year, I would write two emails: one on my birthday and one at the new year. Much of this writing acknowledged what had happened to me and expressed hope for the future.

Writing to myself like someone who would read my words months or years later made me consider how I wanted her to feel. I could be honest about painful experiences, but I wanted to offer her encouragement too. Using “we” and “us” helped me feel connected to my past, present, and future selves. I had someone to look after, and someone on my side.

That year, I used what I called the “parent voice” much more frequently to push myself forward. I put what had happened into my own words, as honestly as I could. I admitted my mistakes, called myself out, took responsibility, and acknowledged the hurt. Then I told myself what I was going to do about it.

I made promises to myself and delivered every single one of those. It reassured me that I would be ok because at every step of the way, I got myself.

Email from December 2018.

Email from April 28, 2019

Email from July 14, 2019

Email from October 22, 2019 

A few months after this, I met my husband.

I’ve finished my programme landing page with my first cohort’s testimonials. Have a look!

Applications close on 28 September.