HEALING YOUR PAST TO FIND HEALTHY LOVE

Stop making this common mistake: Praying for a husband — while your unhealed wounds are still choosing for you.

Hi, I’m Marvel — a trauma-informed therapist and faith-led Women’s Coach

And today, I want to talk to the woman who loves God… but keeps ending up in relationships that hurt.

You’re not crazy. You’re not cursed.

But maybe… you haven’t yet asked yourself this question: “Am I choosing love from my healing… or from my wounds?”

The Invisible Battle: When Your Wounds Choose for You

Here’s what I see over and over in my work with amazing, high-achieving Christian women:

• Choosing partners who trigger their anxiety.
• Justifying red flags as “God’s testing me.”
• Staying in situations that don’t feel safe… because the fear of being alone feels worse than the pain of being mistreated.

Does any of this sound familiar?

Here’s the truth no one tells you: Unhealed trauma doesn’t just make you tolerate dysfunction — it teaches you to crave it.

It whispers insidious messages:

• “This is what love feels like.”
• “You have to earn affection.”
• “Don’t ask for too much.”

These are the silent battles, the unconscious patterns that keep you stuck, even when you’re praying for a different outcome.

Her Story: A Life Built on Survival, Not Safety

Let me tell you a real story – shared with permission – of a woman who knows this invisible battle all too well.

She was beautiful. Kind. Intelligent. A university graduate with so much potential. But somewhere along the way… life chipped away at her confidence.

Her parents divorced when she was just 10 years old. Her father moved on quickly, remarried, and became a committed member of his new church — and his new family. But not hers.

Her mother never remarried. She worked two jobs, exhausted, holding the family together. There was little time for affection or emotional warmth. This was her earliest experience of maternal trauma – the subtle, cumulative impact of unmet emotional needs.

So this young girl learned a powerful, yet painful, lesson:

• Don’t need too much.
• Don’t make noise.
• Be strong, always.
• Be helpful, even when you’re hurting.

By the time she graduated, she looked “together” on the outside. But inside? She was carrying decades of unprocessed grief.

She had just ended an engagement — to a pastor, no less. What began in prayer ended in deep betrayal. And instead of healing, she buried it and kept going. Meanwhile, her friends were all getting married. She smiled in their photos. But each wedding reminded her of the one she didn’t have, fueling her fear of being alone and her guilt about unfulfilled romantic desires.

When Pain Starts Choosing for You

Driven by these unhealed wounds, she took a job far below her qualifications. Why? Because some part of her didn’t believe she deserved better. She dressed simply. Didn’t speak up in meetings. Avoided attention — and avoided her own dreams. She was shrinking, just as she’d learned to do as a child.

And then… men started noticing her.

Not the respectful, emotionally safe colleague she secretly admired — the Christian man who kept his boundaries and honored women. No.

The ones who showed up were:

• A married coworker who boldly asked her on a date.
• A man who smoked, drank, and openly used drugs — who began calling her, visiting after work, showering her with attention.

She let him in.

Not because she didn’t know better.

But because something in her still believed: “This is the best I can get.” Her unhealed inner child was leading, mistaking attention for true worth.

Until one weekend… she called his phone. And a friend picked up and said: “He can’t talk. He’s at his traditional wedding.”

Her heart cracked open. She had known — somewhere, deep down. But her loneliness was louder than her gut. When she confronted him, he said: “I was dating you both. I just went with whoever was ready to marry first.”

That moment changed everything.

The Turning Point: Why Healing Matters

She sat down and asked herself: “What is it about how I show up… that makes emotionally unavailable men feel so at home with me?”

And the answer?

She hadn’t done anything “wrong.”

But she had never healed.

• Never grieved her father’s distance.
• Never named the hurt of her mother’s silence.
• Never processed the shame from the failed engagement.
• Never asked if her body had been trained to confuse anxiety for chemistry.

These unaddressed developmental wounds and the impact of parental divorce were subtly dictating her choices, leaving her feeling unseen and unheard in every relationship, despite her outward success.

Why Emotional Healing Matters Before You Date

So I want to ask you again: Are you choosing love from your healing… or from your wounds?

Because when you haven’t healed:

• You settle for crumbs and call it attention.
• You ignore red flags and call it “patience.”
• You spiritualize confusion and call it “God’s process.”
• You want love — but you pick chaos. Because chaos is what your nervous system, shaped by past experiences, calls “home.”

But healing? Healing changes what feels like home. It rewires your nervous system to recognize and crave peace, not instability.

What to Pray for First: Beyond the Husband

So before you pray for a husband…

Pray for this:

• God, heal the part of me that thinks love has to hurt.
• Heal the part of me that calls inconsistency “God testing me.”
• Heal the part of me that fears loneliness more than emotional safety.
• Heal the version of me that settles, because I don’t believe I’m enough.

Because who you are before the relationship… shapes how you show up in it.

And when you heal?

• You don’t just wait better.
• You choose better.
• You don’t settle.
• You don’t chase.
• And you don’t mislabel pain as purpose.

You are not damaged.

You are not too much.

And you are not too late.

You’re just healing.

And healing will change who you choose, what you tolerate, and how peacefully you walk into the love God always intended for you.

Ready to Embrace Your Healing Journey?

If this message spoke to you:

• Download my book Beyond the Hurt — it’s full of stories like this one, and step-by-step tools for healing trauma, rebuilding self-worth, and choosing love from peace, not pain.
• Book a 1:1 session with me. I’d be honored to walk with you through the grief, the patterns, and those inner voices that still whisper “not enough.”

You are worthy of love that doesn’t hurt. You don’t have to earn it. You only have to heal what made you believe you didn’t deserve it.

Connect with me, Marvel, online for Christian counseling and coaching. I support high-achieving Christian women in Ballarat, Melbourne Victoria- Australia, and globally who are ready to transform their relationships through inner child healing and faith-led wisdom.

With love, stay beautiful, stay confident.

Marvel 💛