Growing up, I never really understood why I kept choosing partners who made me feel like I was asking for too much just by existing.
It wasn’t until my late twenties, when someone finally called me out on accepting behavior that would make most people run, that I realized something was broken in my relationship radar.
The thing is, when you grow up feeling unloved, your baseline for what’s acceptable gets seriously skewed.
You learn to survive on emotional crumbs. You become an expert at reading moods and walking on eggshells. And worst of all, you start believing that love is something you have to earn through perfect behavior rather than something you deserve just by being human.
I’ve spent years unlearning these patterns, both through therapy and through some pretty painful relationship lessons. If you recognize yourself in what I’m about to share, know that awareness is the first step toward breaking free from these destructive patterns.
1. You accept hot and cold behavior as normal
Remember that feeling as a kid when you never knew which version of your parent you’d get? The loving one or the distant one? Yeah, that feeling follows you into adult relationships.
I spent years dating people who would be incredibly affectionate one day and completely cold the next. And I’d tie myself in knots trying to figure out what I’d done wrong. Was it something I said? Did I text too much? Not enough?
Here’s what healthy looks like: consistency. People who genuinely care about you don’t make you guess where you stand. They don’t punish you with silence or withdrawal. Their affection doesn’t depend on their mood or whether you’ve been “good enough” that day.
If you find yourself constantly analyzing your partner’s behavior for clues about how they feel about you, that’s not normal. Love shouldn’t feel like a code you’re desperately trying to crack.
2. You apologize for everything, even when it’s not your fault
“Sorry” became my default response to literally everything. Partner had a bad day at work? Somehow I’d apologize. They forgot our plans? I’d apologize for being upset about it.
This goes deeper than just being polite. When you grow up feeling unloved, you internalize this belief that you’re fundamentally wrong or bad. So when anything goes sideways in a relationship, your brain immediately assumes it must be your fault.
I once apologized to someone for crying after they’d said something intentionally hurtful. Think about how messed up that is. They hurt me, and I apologized for having a human emotional response to being hurt.
In healthy relationships, apologies are reserved for when you’ve actually done something wrong. And even then, they’re followed by changed behavior, not just empty words.
3. You think jealousy equals love
For the longest time, I thought jealousy meant someone really cared about me. If they got upset about me hanging out with friends or talking to other people, that meant they couldn’t bear to lose me, right?
Wrong. So wrong.
What I was actually experiencing was control dressed up as care. When you’re starved for love as a kid, any intense emotion directed at you can feel like validation. But possessiveness isn’t love. Constant accusations aren’t passion. And isolation from your support system isn’t protection.
Real love trusts. It celebrates your friendships and encourages your independence. It doesn’t need to cage you to keep you.
4. You accept breadcrumbs and call them a feast
I once dated someone who would text me maybe once every few days, cancel plans regularly, and only wanted to see me when it was convenient for them. And I convinced myself this was fine because at least they were texting me at all.
When you grow up feeling unloved, you become an expert at surviving on minimal emotional nourishment. You learn to be grateful for whatever scraps of attention come your way. You tell yourself you’re “low maintenance” or “easy going,” but really you’ve just learned not to have needs.
Here’s the truth: wanting regular communication, quality time, and reliability doesn’t make you needy. It makes you a human being with completely reasonable relationship expectations.
5. You stay silent about your needs to avoid conflict
I used to be the king of pretending everything was fine when it absolutely wasn’t. Partner consistently showing up late? No problem! Never following through on plans? All good!
Growing up in an environment where expressing needs led to rejection or anger teaches you that your needs are dangerous. Better to swallow them down than risk losing what little connection you have.
But here’s what I learned the hard way: unexpressed needs don’t disappear. They turn into resentment, anxiety, and eventually, relationship breakdown.
In my first startup, I was in a serious relationship that ended because I was never actually present even when I was physically there. Part of that was because I’d never learned to communicate what I needed to feel supported while building a company.
Healthy relationships require honest communication about needs. And if expressing a legitimate need causes someone to leave, they were never the right person for you anyway.
6. You tolerate disrespect because “at least they’re not as bad as…”
The comparison game is dangerous when your baseline is dysfunction. I used to tell myself things like “at least they don’t yell at me” or “at least they don’t completely ignore me.”
But relationships aren’t supposed to be about what someone doesn’t do to you. They’re supposed to be about what they actively bring to your life. Joy, support, growth, safety, fun.
When you’ve grown up feeling unloved, the bar is set so low that anyone who clears it seems like a catch. But “better than terrible” still isn’t good. You deserve someone who treats you with active respect, not just an absence of obvious disrespect.
7. You ignore red flags because you’re afraid of being alone
The fear of abandonment runs deep when you’ve never felt truly loved. I stayed in relationships way past their expiration date because the thought of being alone felt worse than being with someone who didn’t treat me well.
I’d see the red flags. The controlling behavior, the emotional manipulation, the lack of respect for boundaries. But I’d rationalize them away because surely some connection was better than no connection, right?
It took a relationship ending because I was emotionally unavailable to force me to look at patterns I’d been ignoring. Being alone and working on yourself is infinitely better than being in a relationship that reinforces your childhood wounds.
8. You believe you have to earn love through perfectionism
Finally, this might be the most insidious pattern of all. When love felt conditional as a child, you learned that maybe if you were just good enough, smart enough, successful enough, you’d finally be worthy of it.
I threw myself into achievements, thinking each new success would finally make me loveable. But no amount of external validation could fill that internal void. I had a relationship in my late twenties with someone who called me out on my tendency to treat everything like a problem to be optimized, including myself.
Love isn’t a reward for good behavior. It’s not something you unlock by hitting certain milestones. In healthy relationships, you’re loved for who you are, not what you achieve.
The bottom line
Recognizing these patterns in yourself isn’t easy. It requires looking at some painful truths about your past and how it’s shaped your present. But awareness really is the first step toward change.
I’m currently in a serious relationship with someone who has zero interest in startups and finds my book recommendations “aggressively practical.” But more importantly, she’s someone who shows up consistently, communicates openly, and loves me without conditions. It took a lot of work to get to a place where I could accept that kind of love.
If you grew up feeling unloved, you’re not broken. You’re not doomed to repeat these patterns forever. You just learned some survival strategies that no longer serve you. With awareness, possibly therapy, and a commitment to believing you deserve better, you can break free from accepting less than you deserve.
Because here’s the ultimate truth: you were always worthy of love. You just need to start believing it.
