You can change the person you’re dating and still end up in a familiar emotional place: monitoring every message, avoiding a difficult conversation, or working hard to win reassurance. When that happens, it is tempting to conclude that you are simply “bad at relationships.” Dating and relationship coach Sabrina Zohar offers a more useful starting point: ask what the pattern is trying to protect you from.
In a conversation with Oprah Daily about her book Why Am I Like This?, Zohar discusses how earlier experiences can influence adult relationships, and why noticing our reactions matters. Her approach is not to scold yourself for feeling anxious, guarded or upset. It is to get curious about the feeling—and the situation that brought it on.
A strong reaction is information, not a verdict
Online, “triggered” can become shorthand for any annoyance, while “narcissist” is sometimes used as a catch-all for someone behaving badly. Those labels may feel clarifying, but used loosely they can flatten complicated situations. A strong emotional response is worth noticing; it does not, on its own, establish a diagnosis or prove what another person intended.
Zohar’s framing offers a different lens: our protective responses are designed to keep us safe, not necessarily to help us take an emotional risk or try a new way of relating. If a delayed reply brings a rush of panic, for instance, the useful question may be bigger than “Why am I overreacting?” You might ask what the silence seems to mean to you, and whether that meaning comes from this moment alone.
That distinction creates room between feeling something and acting on it. You can acknowledge the urge to send another message, withdraw, or start an argument without deciding that the urge is the only sensible response. Curiosity is not a demand to talk yourself out of your feelings; it is a way to understand them before they steer the whole exchange.
Old learning can show up in new relationships
Early relationships help teach us what closeness, conflict and reassurance look like. Those lessons are not always explicit. Someone who grew up around unpredictable moods, for example, might become especially alert to shifts in tone; someone used to handling things alone may find it hard to ask for support. These are possibilities, not diagnoses, and the same childhood experience can shape people differently.
Zohar notes that the ways we are shaped in childhood and adolescence can follow us into adult relationships. That does not mean the past dictates the future, or that every difficult pattern can be traced to one event. It means a recurring reaction may have made sense once, even if it is no longer helping you get the connection you want.
A practical first step is to notice the sequence rather than judge the ending. What happened? What did you feel in your body or thoughts? What story did you tell yourself, and what did you do next? A person might discover that a partner’s request for space quickly becomes, in their mind, a prediction of abandonment. Naming that leap does not make the fear disappear, but it can make a more direct conversation possible.
Why “if they wanted to, they would” can mislead
The popular dating maxim “if they wanted to, they would” can offer a welcome reminder to look at actions, not just promises. But as a universal rule, it leaves little room for context, communication or different ways of expressing care. A missed plan may reflect a lack of consideration—or a misunderstanding that needs to be discussed. The slogan cannot tell you which.
That nuance should not become an excuse for repeatedly unreliable or hurtful behaviour. Instead, it can help separate a single ambiguous moment from a pattern. Ask what you need, say it plainly where it feels safe to do so, and pay attention to how the other person responds over time. Understanding someone’s reasons is not the same as accepting treatment that does not work for you.
Boundaries, too, are more useful as clear statements about what you will do than as tools for controlling another person. “I’m willing to talk when we can both stay respectful” describes a limit; it does not guarantee the other person will meet it. Their response gives you information about whether the relationship can support the kind of communication you need.
Breaking a pattern rarely means never feeling triggered again. It may mean catching the familiar story a little sooner, choosing a response with more intention, or deciding that a repeated dynamic is not one you want to keep participating in. The question is not whether you can become someone who never feels afraid. It is whether fear has to keep writing the same ending.