8 Things You Need To Figure Out Before You Can Find True Love

You may have heard it said that love finds you when you least expect it. Though that might feel true, another explanation is more likely: We make ourselves more lovable for others by falling in love with ourselves first. It's not that people who find partners do so because they aren't looking for love. It's just that people are at their most lovable and attractive when they're fully enjoying their lives.

Attachment theory tells us that (to some degree) we're all at the mercy of the way we received love before the age of 5. Our relationship with attachment and feelings of love is formed during those important early years, but it's not necessarily permanent. "Our relationship with our parents or caregiver creates an 'attachment style'—a blueprint for how we handle close relationships later," psychologist Debra Campbell, Ph.D., tells mbg (learn more about your attachment style and how to rewire it here). "Understanding how they are formed, and how they manifest in our adult relationships, is vitally important if you want to grow as a person and in your relationships."

Our attachment styles can affect how we engage with our partners in numerous ways. For instance, one 2019 study found that a fearful-avoidant attachment1 style is "predictive of more sexual partners in individuals during [a person's] lifetime and [of] greater sexual compliance." If your parents were hot and cold with you as you grew up, you may find yourself anxious in relationships as an adult. If they consistently withheld affection from you and even neglected your needs, you may have an issue with boundaries now. These scenarios are understandable; if we didn't get something as children, we often chase what we missed out on as adults. There's no sense in beating yourself up about it, but becoming conscious of your childhood-era hang-ups can only help you when you finally fall in love.

We each have a "type," and sometimes that type draws us toward people who aren't healthy potential partners. It doesn't matter so much whether you prefer dating people with light or dark hair; we're talking about patterns of behavior. Are you attracted to people who find themselves enmeshed in conflict a lot, or do you develop crushes on the emotionally unavailable? Are you drawn to people who seem troubled, pained, or like they're perpetually "going through something"?

Negotiable when it comes to relationships might include which side of the bed you prefer to sleep on, what you like to do for fun, or how many nights a week you stay out versus watching Netflix at home. Nonnegotiable, on the other hand, tend to be the bigger things like tenets of your core values. Regardless, "healthy boundaries are the ultimate guide to successful relationships. Without healthy boundaries, relationships do not thrive—they result in feelings of resentment, disappointment, or violation," therapist Elizabeth Earnshaw, LMFT, tells mbg. "Boundaries are what happen when you can sense yourself and what you need and want and access your voice to speak to those things. We all have 'limits,' and we all experience violations of our limits." According to her, every relationship should have boundaries surrounding these themes: physical, emotional, time, sexual, intellectual, and material.

Unless you're asexual, falling in love with someone will probably involve physical intimacy. And sex with a long-term partner whom you love is very different from a one-night stand, meaning the two of you need to talk about what you're doing. A lot. If you're uncomfortable with existing in your own body and staking a claim in your pleasure, those conversations are going to feel stilted and strange.

Once you're deep in love with a new person, conversations between the two of you will naturally move toward discussing a future. You don't want the "What are we?" talk to be the first time in your life that you've mulled over marriage, where you want to live, or the possibility of having children.

You know that adage that says if you run into nonstop jerks all day long, you're probably the jerk? That's applicable when it comes to romantic relationships too. If, for instance, you believe that every single one of your exes was "crazy," it may be time to take responsibility for your part in those interactions. You're either attracted to partners who are emotionally volatile, or you may have been consciously or unconsciously riling them up for reasons you need to unpack. Sure, one 2017 study found that negatively reappraising your ex-partners is actually a very effective tool in getting over them2, but the thing is—if you're still spending energy speaking negatively of a past partner, you're on the right track, but you're still not recovered.