The One Question That Changed How I Date Forever

I was sitting on my bathroom floor at 3am, mascara running down my face, when the question hit me.

Another relationship had just ended. Another man who seemed so promising had revealed himself to be emotionally unavailable. Another chapter of my love story closed without the ending I'd hoped for.

And in that moment of raw, ugly heartbreak, I stopped asking the question I'd been asking for years.

I stopped asking, "Why do men keep leaving me?"

And I started asking something else entirely.

The Question That Kept Me Stuck

For most of my adult life, I asked some version of the same question:

What's wrong with me?

Why am I too much? Why can't I make this work? Why do I keep attracting the same patterns? What do I need to fix, heal, or change to finally be chosen?

These questions kept me busy. They sent me to therapy, to coaching, to self-help books, to matchmakers. They made me an expert at self-improvement.

But they never led me to love.

Because they were the wrong questions.

They assumed the problem was me—that if I could just become better, more healed, less intense, more feminine, less ambitious, more something... then love would finally work.

But that night on my bathroom floor, something shifted.

The Question That Changed Everything

The new question wasn't about what was wrong with me.

It was this:

What if I've been building love on the wrong foundation?

Not—what's broken in me that I need to fix?

But—what if the entire framework I've been using to approach love is flawed?

What if everything I was taught about how to find, attract, and keep love was incomplete at best and wrong at worst?

What if the problem isn't me... but the paradigm?

That question cracked me open.

The Foundation I'd Been Building On

When I examined the foundation I'd been building love on, I realized it was made of inherited beliefs I'd never questioned:

Chemistry means compatibility. It doesn't. Chemistry is the spark—not the structure. I'd built entire relationships on sparks that burned bright and fast, then left me in ashes.

Love rewards effort. It doesn't. I'd worked so hard to be chosen—performing, proving, over-functioning—and it had attracted men who were happy to let me carry the weight of the relationship alone.

The right person will complete you. They won't. I'd been looking for someone to fill a void in me, which meant I kept attracting people who had voids of their own they wanted me to fill.

If you're struggling in love, you need more healing. Not necessarily. I'd healed and healed and healed—and still repeated the same patterns. Because healing without a blueprint just leads to deeper confusion.

Every belief I'd built my love life on was borrowed. Inherited. Absorbed from movies, magazines, my mother, my culture—none of it actually mine.

No wonder the structure kept collapsing.

What I Built Instead

Once I realized I'd been building on broken ground, I had to ask a new question:

What would a solid foundation actually look like?

That question led me to Human Design.

I discovered that I have a specific energetic blueprint—a design that determines how I'm meant to make decisions, what I need to feel safe in love, and how I naturally attract partnership.

I learned that as a Projector, my strategy is to wait for recognition and invitation. For years, I'd been initiating, chasing, convincing—going against my very nature and wondering why it felt so exhausting.

I learned that my Splenic Authority means I have instant knowing in my body—a hit of intuition that tells me immediately whether something is right or wrong for me. But I'd been overriding that knowing with logic, with hope, with "but he has potential."

I learned that my specific Love Gates—the energetic themes through which I experience love—had never been honored in my past relationships. I'd been giving love in ways that depleted me and trying to receive love in ways that didn't match my design.

For the first time, my relationship history made sense. Not as a series of failures, but as a curriculum. Every relationship had been teaching me what happens when you date against your design.

The Foundation That Holds

Now I teach women to build love on a different foundation—one based on three layers:

First: Know your design. Understand your energetic blueprint. How are you meant to make decisions? What do you need to feel safe? What are your fixed love themes versus what you experience through others?

Second: Clear the conditioning. Identify the inherited beliefs, cultural programming, and past experiences that have been running your love life on autopilot. You can't build new patterns on top of old programming.

Third: Align before you attract. Stop trying to find the right person and start becoming the aligned version of yourself. Because you don't attract what you want—you attract what you BE.

This is what I call becoming The Aligned One.

It's not about being perfect. It's not about being more healed. It's not about becoming someone you're not.

It's about finally building love on a foundation that can actually hold it.

The Question I Want You To Ask

If love hasn't been working for you, I want you to try something.

Stop asking what's wrong with you.

Start asking: What if I've been building on the wrong foundation?

What beliefs about love did you inherit that you've never questioned?

What patterns keep repeating that might be pointing to something deeper than "bad luck" or "poor choices"?

What would it look like to stop trying to fix yourself and start understanding your design instead?

These questions won't give you instant answers. But they'll point you in a direction that actually leads somewhere.

Because the path to aligned love doesn't start with finding the right person.

It starts with asking the right question.

Going Deeper

This month on the Love By Design podcast, I'm exploring what it actually means to build love on a solid foundation.

Episode 2 drops this week: "Why High-Achieving Women Are Quietly Quitting Modern Dating."

It's about the exhaustion that comes from dating inside a broken paradigm—and what becomes possible when you finally step outside of it.

If that question is starting to stir something in you, this episode will take you deeper.

Because the foundation matters. And it's time to build differently.

Joan Nwosu is a Human Design Dating Expert and creator of Become The Aligned One™. After eight engagements and one divorce, she discovered that the problem wasn't her—it was the paradigm she'd been taught to build love inside of. Now she helps high-achieving women decode their design, clear their conditioning, and build the foundation that conscious partnership requires.

🎙️ Listen: Love By Design Podcast — "Why High-Achieving Women Are Quietly Quitting Modern Dating"

💎 Discover your Dating Archetype HERE