When the Patterns Finally Show Themselves

There comes a moment or maybe multiple moments leading up to when a woman finally admits to herself:

“This is who he is. Not who I hoped he would be.”

That moment is the catalyst for what’s to come.

It’s usually not triggered by something big. It’s not always betrayal or a dramatic fight. For me, it happened over trust being chipped away at every disappointment, every broken promise, the facade slowly fading away exposing Kevin and who he is. Most women break quietly like this. 

They reach a point where the emotional math no longer adds up. Where their effort outweighs his effort, feeling like a cup with a hole at the bottom. Constantly trying to pour in but always pouring out without being replenished. Where finally, hope fades, disappears and you’re left with who is right in front of you. Stripped of the flattery, bare naked with all the internal deeply rooted wounds that were hidden. 

Patterns don’t just show you who someone is presently but it’s a sneak peak into what your future will look like if nothing changes.

This is where Part 2 begins.

Why Patterns Matter More Than Promises

Just a quick recap. Promises sound beautiful, enticing, and we all want to believe in them.

“I’ll do better.”
“I’ll work on it.”
“Things will be different.”
“I’ll change.”

Remember, patterns are louder, not as graceful, hard to face and accept:

• He either shows up — or he doesn’t.
  
• He either listens with love — or he doesn’t.
  
• He either takes accountability — or he doesn’t.
  
• He either makes the effort — or he doesn’t.
  

Patterns are consistent.
Patterns are predictable.
Patterns are not emotional, think of them as data.

If a man has shown you who he is 50 times, you must stop holding onto the one time he did better or the one time he said he would do better. 

The New Rule Women Need to Learn

This is the rule that will save an entire generation of women:

Never build a relationship on potential. Only build on patterns. 

Now the rule sounds simple, and I agree with you, it’s not that simple. Patterns don’t show up until later or in my case, after I got married. Some patterns were evident but I chalked it up as “no one is perfect” and wanted to believe in the potential. 

Patterns show:

• consistency
• effort
• accountability
• emotional availability
• reliability
• respect
• communication
  

Potential shows:

• a dream
• a fantasy
• a hope
• a version of them that may never exist
• What you want them to be 
• Projection of your personal wants and needs
  

Imagine this. I express to Kevin that I feel disconnected since having the baby and he’s been working a lot. I give him a solution to work with me and plan a weekly date night. He tells me that’s a good idea and even bought date night cards to help with it. That box has been left unopened, collecting dust on my bedside table. A pattern of another broken promise. 

You deserve to choose someone based on who they are, not who you’re hoping they’ll become. Discernment is the keyword here. It isn’t as black and white as we’d hope. There is so much gray and we have to discern if it’s self sabotage or believing in potential. 

Something worth mentioning here is that if you don’t have a confident inner voice and you’re true to yourself, most of us aren’t. It can get confusing. If I could go back in time, I would tell young me to really center myself and be in tune with my core. This is completely different than having confidence in yourself, loving yourself, and knowing your worth. 

I had all those things and I’m convinced that’s what attracted Kevin to me. But having a strong voice you can trust, a clear voice of intuition, will make all the difference. It won’t be as confusing and you can trust your mind, body and soul with how someone is presenting and how they treat you. 

What Healthy Patterns Actually Look Like

Women often think “healthy relationships” are soft, magical, and dreamy. That’s what society says and that’s what disney portrayed. 

Truthfully, they are structured, stable, and shockingly simple. But how would we know that if it was not demonstrated for us? My experience and model for relationships was dysfunction, dysregulation, yelling, anger, resentment and avoidance. That’s what I saw growing up. On the outskirts of my nucleus family, I did see functional marriages and relationships where people are treated with respect, kindness and grace. 

So I knew that my model for relationships isn’t the best one. Could I control my subconscious? No, my blueprint was already created. Can my blueprint change? ABSOLUTELY. 

Healthy patterns look like:

1. Consistency

He doesn’t fluctuate based on mood, stress, or convenience.
You know what version of him you’re going to get.

2. Reliability

He keeps his word. He follows through without you reminding him. This might as well be another love language, unlocked. When your words don’t align with your actions, it creates a lot of distrust. This can be as simple as “I’ll do the dishes tonight” and the dishes aren’t done for the next 2 days. Or “I’ll be home at 5:30” and you don’t show up until 6:00 or 6:30 without communication. 

3. Accountability

He owns his mistakes and the impact he has on you without getting defensive, angry, or playing the victim. I will say this, accountability is important for both partners. It is also a very difficult skill to learn because our egos and pride tend to stand in the way of accountability. 

4. Emotional Regulation

Conflicts don’t become chaos. He pauses, processes, and communicates in a respectful and kind manner. Not everything turns into conflict and not conflict turns into chaos if there is emotional regulation. 

5. Initiative

He doesn’t wait for you to “manage” the relationship, especially all the time. He contributes to the planning, the prep and the execution. The mental and emotional load, split. 

6. Communication That Doesn’t Drain You

You’re not walking on eggshells, over-explaining, or fighting to be understood, heard and seen. Communication should bring people together, not further create a rift between them. In a marriage or long term relationship, communication is a way to exchange information and data in order to be on the same page. I mean you’re on the same team right? 

Let’s use the same example I used above on my request to spend more time with Kevin. A healthy pattern and response would be taking accountability without being defensive with a phrase similar to “you’re right. I haven’t made time for us, I see that this is important to you. Let’s get a babysitter next Friday and we can go out to eat. I’ll call and make a reservation.” 

That’s what it looks like to listen to your emotions, take accountability without getting defensive, and committing to do things differently. 

These patterns feel safe. Not thrilling, not dramatic, no fluttering butterflies, just safe.

If the relationship constantly gives you anxiety, dread, or confusion, that’s not a “phase.” It doesn’t just end or go away. That’s an established pattern. Trust in what you see, not what he says. 

The Pattern Traps Women Fall Into

Women who love deeply (guilty!) often fall into predictable emotional traps and each one keeps you tied to potential.

Trap 1: The Caretaker Role

Thinking you can support him into becoming better. I am severely guilty of this. My entire profession orbits around caretaking. Especially since I work with the geriatric population and now the pediatric population. It’s providing care, it’s problem solving to heal and fix. 

Trap 2: The “He Has Trauma” Excuse

Empathy is beautiful and much needed, especially now in our country. BUT trauma is not an excuse for harming someone and use to defend and explain someone’s hurtful actions. It can help to explain but it does not excuse. Behaviors and actions caused by past trauma shouldn’t be accepted. 

Trap 3: The Time Investment Trap

“I’ve already given so much… I don’t want to throw it away.” Staying only digs the hole deeper and it adds more time. I’ve heard this perspective from many of my unhappily married friends who have kids in high school and college. 10 + years married, unhappily. Can you imagine another 20 years being unhappy? 

Trap 4: The “He Could Be Amazing” Fantasy

You’re falling for a future version of him or in my case, a past version that may not even be real or can exist in the future. Everyone and anyone could be amazing. But just because you COULD be, doesn’t mean you strive to be or are working to be an amazing partner, amazing dad, amazing friend, amazing son, etc. 

Trap 5: The Mothering Instinct

Trying to nurture him into the man you need. I blame society on this one. We have been programmed as little girls to take care of people, their feelings, and give ourselves. We are taught to make ourselves smaller or quieter so others are more comfortable. But relationships aren’t built on parenting, they’re built on partnership.

How to Break Your Own Pattern: The 5-Step Shift

This is the part women wish they learned in their twenties:

1. Stop explaining the same issue more than once.

If he cared, he would’ve changed the behavior the first time. Now, I will briefly touch on this and my personal opinion. I think that if someone cares, they would take your feelings into consideration and then it is up to them to choose how to move forward. Either work on a solution or prevent that same hurtful thing from happening again. I do not believe that if someone wanted to, they simply would. This is a topic I will write on in detail. Stay tuned!

2. Take the behavior at face value.

Don’t interpret. Don’t justify. Don’t “read deeper.” Sit back, listen, observe and just accept it as is. Ask clarifying question to make sure you understand what they’re saying, but don’t add your own interpretation on it. 

3. Ask yourself: “If he stays exactly like this forever, can I accept it?”

Not tolerate, women can tolerate A LOT. I’m talking about acceptance. If the answer is no, you already know what to do. We cannot expect, ask or force change. We can only accept people as they are in the present. 

4. Match effort, don’t overextend.

If he gives 40%, don’t give 140%. If he gives 20%, you don’t have to stoop that low too if that doesn’t feel good for you. You can decide how much energy and effort you put into someone who puts in limited energy and effort into you. Just don’t give away too much while allowing them to keep taking without giving back. 

5. Stop giving too much credit for basic things.

A man shouldn’t earn praise for doing the bare minimum. Showing appreciation and for some, words of affirmation really go a long way is kind and we want to be kind. But if he takes out the trash once a month, there’s no need to throw him a party and continue to praise him over that ONE incident. A simple “thanks for taking out the trash” is kind, sufficient and enough. 

Why Choosing Patterns Feels Uncomfortable at First

Choosing patterns feels unusual in the beginning because:

• you’re used to chaos, used to a certain behavior. Change is uncertain and unclear. It doesn’t feel safe.
  
• you’re used to carrying everything so learning to let go of that is uncomfortable. I had to learn to let go of carrying all the household tasks. Sometimes that basket of clean laundry goes unfolded for a month.
  
• you’re used to over-functioning and operating at a specific speed. Slowing down and pausing will not feel safe.
  
• you’re used to settling but deep down you know there’s more, that this cannot be it.
  
• you’re used to calling dysfunction “normal” because maybe that’s all you knew, dysfunction and chaos.
  

Healthy love feels almost boring when your nervous system has been trained for survival mode.Boring isn’t “bad” even if it feels uncomfortable. 

Boring means : Peace, Safety, and Absence of Fear

Your body needs time to re-learn what calm feels like. That will take time and that will take constant exposure and space. 

The New Dating Standard for Women

This is the standard I want every woman to hold:

“I will no longer build a relationship on potential and my own projections.
I will choose based on real-time data and patterns every time.”

If a man’s patterns don’t align with the relationship you want, he is not your person.

If his words don’t match up with his actions, he has more going on than you think. There is a misalignment somewhere and he may end up blaming you for exposing it. 

Not because he’s a bad man. Not because you failed. Not because love isn’t real.

But because you deserve a partner, not a project. You deserve someone who chooses you and chooses to love you. I firmly believe and this is the mountain I will die on, love is a choice. It is a choice that requires action. It doesn’t just happen and it doesn’t just live without efforts poured in. 

The Moment You Choose Yourself

When you finally choose patterns over potential, something powerful happens:

You stop….

begging for change,
shrinking yourself,
carrying the emotional weight of two people,
betraying your own needs,
confusing hope with compatibility,
trying to love someone into becoming their best self.

You start reclaiming your…

peace,

energy,

power,

clarity,

standards,

self-respect,

freedom,

YOURSELF. 

This is the moment where women can turn it all around and win the war.

Because when you choose yourself, you no longer settle for men who won’t. 

We outgrow people when we outgrow the version of ourselves who tolerated what they offered.

That is evolution.