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Love isn’t a Band-Aid. It won’t fix your trust issues, erase childhood trauma, or teach you how to communicate properly. Relationships are work—but when you haven’t done your own inner work first, that “happily ever after” can quickly start feeling like emotional warfare.
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Here are five things you should absolutely overcome before stepping into a relationship. No filters, no fluff—just the truth.
1. 💔 Emotional Baggage from Past Relationships
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Still secretly stalking your ex? Comparing every new person to the one who left you unread in 2020? Constantly waiting for someone to disappoint you, because “they all do”?
Yeah—that’s not love-ready energy.
Before you can pour into someone else, you’ve got to unpack the pain you're still carrying. Past heartbreaks have a funny way of whispering doubts into your ear, even when things are going well. And if you haven’t made peace with what happened—or who you were back then—you’ll bleed on someone who didn’t cut you.
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Heal. Forgive. Move on. Otherwise, you’ll keep dating the same story with different faces.
2. 🧍🏾♀️ The Fear of Being Alone
There’s nothing romantic about needing a relationship just to feel valid. If being single makes you feel empty, you’ll cling to the first person who shows you attention—even if they’re clearly not good for you.
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When you fear solitude, you lose your standards.
Learn to sit with yourself. Go to brunch alone. Discover what makes you happy when no one else is around. The more comfortable you are with your own company, the less likely you are to tolerate nonsense just because you want someone to text “good morning”.
Be whole on your own, not half waiting to be completed.
3. 💷 Financial Instability (and a Dodgy Relationship with Money)
Again—no one’s saying you need six figures in your bank account and a Tesla in your driveway. But you do need to be financially self-aware.
If you:
Avoid budgeting like it’s the plague
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Get triggered talking about money
Constantly expect your partner to cover everything ...then you’re not ready to build something serious.
ALSO READ; 4 emotions people often mistake for love
Money can’t buy love, but it can cause a lot of unnecessary tension if you’re not on top of things. Relationships come with spending—birthdays, bills, brunch dates, emergencies—and if you can’t hold your end down, resentment builds.
Handle your wallet before you hand someone your heart.
4. 🪞 Lack of Identity and Boundaries
If you don’t know who you are, you’ll become whoever they want you to be. And that’s a fast track to feeling lost, drained, and low-key resentful.
Before you get into a relationship, ask yourself:
What do I value?
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What are my boundaries?
What does love look like for me?
Because if you haven’t defined that for yourself, you’ll end up shape-shifting to please someone else—and calling it “compromise”. Spoiler: it’s not.
Know who you are outside of love, so you don’t lose yourself inside of it.
5. 🎙️ Toxic Communication Habits
Let’s be real: ghosting, stonewalling, guilt-tripping, or turning every conversation into an argument isn’t quirky—it’s toxic. And if you grew up in an environment where healthy communication wasn’t modelled, you might not even realise you’re doing it.
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But a relationship without proper communication is just a situationship with matching outfits.
Learn how to express your needs. Learn how to listen without preparing your defence. Learn how to say “this hurt me” without blaming someone for your every emotion.
Because love needs words—not just kisses, memes, and vibes.
A relationship won’t save you from yourself. It won’t fix your fears or fill your emotional gaps. That’s your job.
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So if you want something real—something soft, healthy, peaceful—start with you. Grow. Heal. Mature.
That way, when love does come knocking, you’ll be ready to build, not just survive.
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