Being strong is not as easy as it sounds. Strong women tend to forget that they can also be vulnerable, which is why they are used to giving too much to people who are unwilling or unable to give anything back.

A strong woman is independent, confident, emotionally intelligent and self-aware and she knows that she has a lot to offer. But she is no less human for it. She can easily get blinded by love, so the people she cares about often take advantage of her strong yet kind nature.

There are some reasons why sometimes even strong women end up in difficult and painful relationships, in spite of all their toughness, or better said, because of it:

1. Being a strong woman doesn’t mean that you are shielded from all the toxic and narcissistic people.

It means that they are even more overpowering to you. Toxic people need others who have emotional intelligence, confidence, toughness, and inner strength, so that they can drain them. They rely on a person’s compassionate heart that will always help and be there for them. Toxic and narcissistic people have everything to gain from strong women but they have nothing to offer.

2. Traumas from the past can resurface while they are in a relationship.

They were born strong and life made them stronger. Strong women usually go through a lot of difficulties and hardship in life. They are so good at being on their own and entering a relationship can turn their world upside down. Psychologists even indicate that they might have been through a substantial trauma and they often come across partners who trigger that trauma. In a way, that’s their way of confronting their past.

3. They are used to being the ones who give more and receive almost nothing.

They are used to giving until they have nothing left, which is why they attract needy people—the ones who have no problem taking all the love, understanding and support without giving anything in return. This happens because they are used to being independent, they are used to taking care of themselves, so they don’t see the lack of reciprocity until they are emotionally drained.

4. They think they can influence or change a person they love.

They stay in bad relationships longer than necessary because they feel like they have the power to change somebody. Their compassionate nature makes them think that they need to stick with any difficulty they may encounter in order to help the person they care about. They can waste a lot of time until they realize that they can’t change anybody or influence somebody who doesn’t want change in their life.

5. They subconsciously choose more challenging and difficult relationships.

Whether they realize it or not, they tend to find ‘normal’ relationships boring. They like a challenge, a sort of project of fixing somebody or fixing a relationship they are in. They fail to realize that not everybody wants their help and there are people out there who are toxic by nature and there is no fixing them. The bad thing for strong women here is that they are so focused on the other person that they lose sight of themselves. They put all the effort in and end up being in a one-sided relationship.

In order to overcome difficult relationships, these strong women have to stop putting up that tough exterior all the time and allow themselves to be vulnerable. Sadness and hardship are inevitable parts of anyone’s life and that’s something that they need to accept. They are prone to building up walls after a bad experience and while that might help in the short-term, it pushes the good people (who are worthy of a strong woman’s attention) away from them in the long-term.
They have to stop thinking that the weight of the world is on their shoulders and that they have a duty to fix everything. They aren’t the ones who have to put up with everything all the time just because they can handle it. They can’t be the ones giving more all the time. They need a partner who will help them in finding a balance between being strong and leaning on somebody else at times.

The upside of all the difficulties they endure is that those wrong relationships they go through only make them stronger. They know what not to do in their next relationships. Experience teaches them that by choosing the same man again and again, they can’t expect a different outcome. They help them discover themselves, renew their strength and get out of a bad experience with the most valuable lesson of self-love.