Why Don't I Know Who I Am? Identity Before Dating

Dennis, identity coach and life coach, puts it plainly: for years he led a life that was not his own. From childhood, we are handed roles by parents, schools, and culture. By the time we reach adulthood, most of us have never stopped to ask the most basic question: who am I, actually? That absence of self-knowledge does not stay neutral. It actively pulls men toward the wrong people. When you do not know your own values, your own needs, your own patterns, you cannot evaluate whether someone genuinely fits you. You are essentially choosing a partner while flying blind. Dennis learned this the hard way. His early adult years were entirely externally focused. Validation came from women, from Instagram likes, from anything outside himself, because on the inside he did not feel good enough. That low self-image, confirmed since childhood, drove his choices. The women he attracted reflected the image he projected, not the person he actually was. The result is predictable: you get a few months into a relationship and realize the person in front of you is not who you thought they were. Or worse, you are not who you presented yourself to be. Dennis calls this the gap between identity and image, and closing that gap starts with one honest question: have you actually examined yourself?

Dennis puts it plainly: identity is on the inside, image is on the outside. Identity is who you are without effort. Image is the version you perform when you want to make a good first impression. On a date, most men default to image. They dress up, soften their edges, say the right things. Nothing wrong with that until it becomes a costume you wear for six months straight. The problem is not that you tried to present well. The problem is that the other person falls for the costume, not the person inside it. A few months in, when life gets ordinary and Sunday mornings mean a jogging suit on the couch, the mask slips. That is the moment your partner says, quietly or loudly: this is not who I thought you were. Dennis lived this himself for years. His external markers were his tattoos, his height, the likes on Instagram. He thought that was authenticity. It was not. It was performance dressed up as personality. What actually formed his identity was his story, where he came from, and what he now stands for. The tattoos said nothing about him as a person. The story said everything. This gap between identity and image does not just cause awkward conversations. It causes you to attract the wrong people entirely. When your image leads, you attract someone who is responding to a version of you that is not sustainable. You end up in a relationship built on a foundation that was never real to begin with.

Dennis uses one exercise with every client, and it is disarmingly simple: write down the ten core values you believe you stand for. No coaching jargon, no personality tests. Just a pen, paper, and honesty. What happens next is where it gets interesting. Once the list is on paper, Dennis asks one follow-up question: which of these values do you want to embody but have not actually been living? That gap, the distance between the person you claim to be and the person you are in practice, is where the real work begins. He has used this with clients in their forties who have been with a partner for 24 or 30 years and are quietly asking themselves whether this is all there is. He has used it with men who have been unfaithful and cannot explain why. The list cuts through all of it. Honesty shows up on nearly everyone's values list. It also shows up most often as the value people are not actually living. According to research by Brené Brown published in "Daring Greatly" (2012), most people can only genuinely live by one or two core values at a time, yet they list far more when asked. That discrepancy is not hypocrisy. It is a signal that identity has not been examined closely enough. Once the gap is visible, the next step is practical: what can you do today to move toward that value? Dennis frames this as a choice that is always available. You can decide today to create something different for tomorrow. That reframe matters, because it shifts the conversation away from shame about the past and toward agency in the present. Forgiveness, recognition, and acceptance all follow naturally once a man can see clearly where he actually stands. This is the foundation of what Charmaine calls "Zelfkennis eerst, dan de partner": self-knowledge first, then the partner. You cannot choose the right person for who you are now if you have never sat down and figured out what that actually means.

Dennis sees this pattern constantly in his coaching practice: one partner, often the woman, gets on the self-development train first. She starts reading, reflecting, attending workshops. And her partner watches from the couch, confused, maybe a little threatened. What she gains in self-awareness, she starts to notice is missing in the relationship. The distance is not loud. It creeps in slowly, until two people who used to finish each other's sentences are suddenly having conversations no deeper than "how was your day?" This is not a female problem or a male problem. It is a timing problem. And timing is fixable, if you catch it early enough. The solution Dennis recommends is disarmingly simple: take thirty minutes once a week to actually talk to each other. Not about logistics. Not about the kids or the grocery list. About how you are both doing. What is working. What is not. According to research from the Gottman Institute, couples who maintain regular, meaningful check-ins report significantly higher relationship satisfaction than those who wait for problems to surface before talking. Quality beats quantity every time. Dennis puts it plainly: you can sit next to someone on the couch for three hours watching Netflix and feel completely alone. Or you can have one focused hour with phones off, full attention, and actually feel connected. The hour wins. Every time. One more thing Dennis insists on: stay playful. Couples treat dates like a luxury reserved for single people. They are not. Playfulness, surprise, and a little creativity keep the foundation strong. Take turns planning something, alternate who picks the activity, and stop treating every Sunday like a to-do list. The couples who stay together are not the ones who never have problems. They are the ones who never stopped making each other laugh.

Ask a man what he wants in a partner and the answer comes back fast: caring, loyal, fun to be around. Dennis has heard it hundreds of times, and his read is blunt. Loyalty and honesty are baseline expectations. You are not describing a partner when you say those things; you are describing the minimum requirement for any functional relationship. Nobody walks into a first date announcing they plan to cheat. The 'caring woman' part is where it gets revealing. Dennis puts it plainly: a man who leads with that as his primary wish is usually not describing a partner at all. He is describing his mother. And there is nothing wrong with wanting warmth and emotional support in a relationship. The problem is when that wish comes from a place of not being able to take care of yourself, of wanting to be looked after rather than to build something together. As Dennis frames it, if that is genuinely your top criterion, you might as well move back in with your parents. His test is almost comedic in how effectively it cuts through the noise. When a client says he wants a caring, slim woman, Dennis asks whether his mother is slim. Whatever the answer, the point lands: you are not describing a partner, you are describing a template that was built for you decades ago, and you have never stopped to question it. This pattern often comes from two opposite directions. Some men grew up with a mother who did everything, which created an unconscious expectation that a woman's role is to manage the household and absorb emotional weight. Others grew up with an emotionally unavailable parent, which left a gap they are now trying to fill through a romantic relationship. Either way, the 'caring woman' on the checklist is not really about the future partner. It is about unresolved history. Zelfkennis eerst, dan de partner: until a man understands where that wish is coming from, he will keep selecting for it and keep wondering why the relationship feels off.

Dennis puts it plainly: go to yourself first, and let everything else follow from there. Not after a few dates. Before the first one. His own story makes this concrete. For years, he believed his authenticity lived in his tattoos and his physical presence. It took him a long time to realize that his real identity sat in his personal history, the values he stood for, and the work he had done on himself. Until he understood that distinction, he kept attracting the wrong situations and couldn't figure out why. The practical starting point he uses with every client is deceptively simple: write down your ten most important core values. Not the values you think sound good, the ones you actually live by. Then compare the two lists. The gap between who you want to be and who you currently are is exactly where the real work begins. That gap does not close by itself, and it certainly does not close by meeting more people. Skipping this step has a predictable cost. As Dennis frames it directly: the longer you stay in the same role without examining it, the higher the probability that you end up alone, become a people-pleaser, or attract entirely the wrong partner. Those are not random outcomes. They are the natural result of entering the dating world without knowing which pot you are. Investing in a coach accelerates this process significantly, but the direction matters more than the method. Whether you work with someone or build a structured self-reflection practice on your own, the sequence stays the same: identity first, image second. Zelfkennis eerst, dan de partner - the order of self-awareness before attraction is not optional, it is the mechanism.