The Self-Saboteur: Why You Push Love Away (Even When You Crave It)
You want connection. You want to feel safe in love. But every time it gets close, something in you pulls away - suddenly you're overthinking, shutting down, picking fights, or ghosting someone who was actually good for you. It happens in a flash, you don’t even really feel it, until you are left to deal with the aftermath.
Sound familiar?
This is the experience of the self-saboteur in relationships - a pattern rooted in past wounds, attachment disruptions, and nervous system responses that were once protective but are now preventing connection.
Understanding this paradox is the first step to healing. You're not broken. You're protecting yourself with strategies that once worked, but now keep love and intimacy at arm's length.
Paradox of Wanting Love But Avoiding It - What Is Relationship Self-Sabotage?
Self-sabotage in relationships isn't about not wanting love. It's about fearing it. These patterns often arise unconsciously, as a way to protect yourself from the pain of disappointment, rejection, or abandonment. Ironically, they often emerge just when things are starting to go well.
People caught in this pattern may:
Distrust emotional closeness, even when they long for it
Feel suffocated by intimacy
Push away safe, stable partners
Gravitate toward chaotic or emotionally unavailable relationships
Use perfectionism, criticism, or emotional withdrawal to create distance
You might crave love, but the moment it feels safe, your system sounds the alarm. Why? Because somewhere along the way, closeness became dangerous.
Why Do We Push Love Away?
When you've been hurt - especially in early, formative relationships, such as childhood - your nervous system learns to associate intimacy with danger. Love starts to feel like a risk you can’t afford to take. Vulnerability, while necessary for connection, feels like an open door to pain. Being open to love is being open to hurts, and like your hand pulling away from the fire, you pull your self away from those who try to love and connect.
Often, people don’t even realize they’re doing it. But the signs are clear: the sudden withdrawal, the irritation at small things, the chasing of people who won’t stay, and the discomfort around those who do. Beneath all of it is a core belief: If I get close, I’ll get hurt. So better to keep a distance.
Common Traits of a Self-Sabotaging Pattern
This self-sabotage can be so difficult to identify, because even if you do know you are doing it, it is likely that you can find a way to justify your actions and decisions in the moment. You might have at times called it ‘independence’ and it may serve you well in some places with some people. But it hampers true connection.
Here are a few common traits:
You distrust emotional intimacy: Even when you want closeness, it feels unsafe. You might second-guess people’s intentions or brace yourself for rejection.
You feel overwhelmed by consistency: Partners who show up regularly may feel “boring” or “too much”—because your nervous system equates calm with unfamiliarity.
You critique or nitpick your partner: Perfectionism becomes a shield. By focusing on flaws, you create emotional distance.
You chase emotional unavailability: You’re drawn to partners who don’t show up for you and leave you feeling lack, who confirm your deepest fear - that love isn’t safe or reliable.
You ghost, withdraw, or pick fights: Any communication skills you have go out the window. These are attempts to regain control and regulate rising anxiety.
Root Causes: Trauma, Attachment Styles & Emotional History
To understand why you sabotage love, you need to look back - again, not to blame, but to understand. Many self-sabotaging behaviors trace back to early emotional experiences that shaped you:
Caregivers who were hot-and-cold or emotionally unavailable: This teaches a child that love is inconsistent and unpredictable.
Environments where you had to become independent too early: You learned not to need others - because needing meant being let down.
Experiences of betrayal, neglect, or emotional dismissal: These create a template of abandonment and mistrust.
Having to suppress your authenticity to be accepted: You were too loud, a nuisance, silenced, or ignored. This led to you internalizing the belief that being fully seen equals rejection.
All of this wires your attachment system to favor self-protection over vulnerability. Here’s a breakdown of the four main attachment styles, with the last two more closely related to the self-saboteur:
1. Secure Attachment
People with a secure attachment style generally feel comfortable with closeness and independence. They trust others, express needs without fear, and can handle emotional ups and downs in relationships without panic. If this is your default style, love feels safe—not suffocating or terrifying.
Goal in healing: Move toward secure connection through self-trust, healthy boundaries, and emotionally safe relationships.
2. Anxious Attachment (Preoccupied)
People with this style often fear abandonment and seek constant reassurance. You may overthink texts, feel triggered by any perceived distance, and worry that you’re too much—or not enough. This style can lead to self-sabotage through clinging, people-pleasing, or chasing unavailable partners.
While anxious attachment isn't avoidant, it can still result in patterns that prevent healthy, grounded love.
3. Fearful-Avoidant Attachment (Disorganized)
This attachment style is marked by a deep desire for closeness and an intense fear of it at the same time. You may crave intimacy but panic when someone gets too close, leading to a confusing push-pull dynamic. Relationships feel like walking a tightrope: wanting love but expecting pain.
This often stems from trauma or inconsistent caregiving, where love was both a source of comfort and fear.
4. Avoidant Attachment (Dismissive-Avoidant)
If you have this style, you tend to downplay your emotional needs and distance yourself when things get too intimate. You might pride yourself on independence, feel uncomfortable with vulnerability, and struggle to ask for support—even when you need it.
This can lead to self-sabotage by pushing away good partners or feeling “bored” with emotionally available people.
How the Nervous System Reacts to Closeness
Self-sabotage isn’t just psychological—it’s physiological. When a safe connection begins to form, your nervous system might interpret it as danger. This is especially true if your past has taught your body that closeness leads to pain.
Here’s how it might show up:
Fight response: Picking arguments or blaming your partner
Flight response: Ghosting, avoiding messages, or canceling plans
Freeze response: Emotional shutdown, numbness, or disconnection
Fawn response: Over-accommodating while internally feeling unsafe
The first three, fight, flight, and freeze, is what we most commonly see in the self-saboteur. Picking arguments, running away, or shutting down in the face of closeness. The fawn response is more typically a people-pleaser.
Healing starts when you begin to notice what your body is doing and gently intervene. Co-regulation (feeling safe with another person) is possible, but it begins with learning how to bring your system back to safety.
How to Begin Healing the Self-Saboteur Pattern
Perhaps the most painful part of self-sabotage is the cycle it creates:
You crave connection deeply.
You meet someone who seems good for you.
Things get close, and discomfort rises.
You act out, shut down, or withdraw.
The relationship ruptures - and you're left feeling ashamed, confused, and alone.
You’ve proven your own point - love hurts, and so the cycle continues. Healing self-sabotage isn’t about forcing yourself into vulnerability or chasing love. It’s about building internal safety—slowly, consistently, and with compassion.
Here’s how to begin:
Name the Pattern: The first step is awareness. Start observing your behaviors in real time. When do you shut down, criticize, or disappear? Awareness opens the door to change.
Honor the Protector: Instead of hating the part of you that sabotages, get curious. That part developed to help you survive. It’s trying to keep you safe - even if the methods no longer serve you.
Differentiate Past from Present: Ask yourself: “Is this fear about what’s happening now, or is it a memory being reactivated?” This helps create space between old pain and current experiences.
Seek Safe Relationships with Safe People: Healing accelerates in safe, attuned connections. This could be with a therapist, a trusted friend, or a partner who respects your pace.
Practical Steps to Changing Self-Sabotage
When you recognize the pattern in real-time, you can begin to shift it. Here are some practical strategies:
Pause Before Reacting
When your nervous system gets activated, slow everything down. Take a few deep breaths. Delay that text, step outside, or journal for five minutes. This gives your brain time to come back online.
Name What You’re Feeling
Instead of reacting to discomfort, try naming it: “I feel overwhelmed,” or “I’m scared I’ll be rejected.” Putting words to emotions reduces their intensity and increases self-awareness.
Co-Regulate with Safe People
Healing happens in connection. Let someone support you through discomfort—whether that’s sharing how you feel or just sitting in silence. Safe presence is healing.
Challenge the Old Narrative
When the voice of fear arises, ask: “Is this 100% true?” Often, your old beliefs don’t match your present reality. Practice rewriting the script: “This feels hard, but I’m not in danger.”
Celebrate Small Wins
Every time you lean into closeness, express a feeling, or stay present through discomfort, that’s a win. Track these moments—they build new emotional muscle memory.
What Healthy Intimacy Actually Looks Like
When you're used to chaos, consistency can feel foreign. Healthy relationships can feel boring. They aren’t dramatic and loud, they are consistent and safe and reliable. And that has value.
Here’s what it really looks like:
You feel seen and accepted without having to perform
You can express needs and boundaries without fear of punishment
You disagree without fear of abandonment
You can be close without losing your sense of self
Healthy love won’t demand that you shrink, mask, or hide. It expands your sense of freedom because you're safe to be fully yourself.
Seeking Help
If love feels hard, you’re not failing. You’re learning how to navigate a landscape you were never taught to feel safe in. Therapy can help pick all this apart. You are not unlovable, you’re just fighting a wounded nervous system. Healing is a process that takes gentleness and connection.
If this is what you would like to work on, feel free to contact me and schedule a consult.