The Date with Confidence Podcast - Blindsided By Red Flags In Your 30s? Here's How To Remove The Shame

Episode Date: June 2, 2025

EPISODE 65: Blindsided By Red Flags In Your 30s? Here's How To Remove The ShameIf you’ve ever thought, “How did I miss that?” “I should’ve known better” “I can’t believe I didn’t recognise that sooner” or “After everything I’ve worked on… how the fuck did I fall for this?” this is the episode for you.In this episode of The Date with Confidence Podcast, I’m diving into something I don’t think we talk about enough: the shame that creeps in when you get blindsided by red flags, even after your healing era. You’ve done the work. You’ve been to therapy. You’ve raised your standards. So how tf did you still fall for someone who wasn’t good for you? I’ve been there, and I know how disheartening it feels when you realise you ignored signs you swore you’d never overlook again. Listen now for your permission slip to forgive yourself, stop spiralling, and shift back into your confident, take-no-shit energy.Here’s a sneak peek into what we discuss:1. The shame spiral after ignoring red flags, even post-healing2. Why subtle red flags are often the most damaging3. How to stop blaming yourself and rewrite your narrative4. The simple 4-step “Switch Your Story” process to release shame5. Why they don’t deserve access to you (including your social media)6. How to affirm your way back into an empowered mindset7. Revisiting your standards, even if you’re not looking for “The One”Mentioned:Confident AF: The MembershipThe Confidence CourseAm I Actually Delusional?! The Rollercoaster of Modern DatingBurned Haystack Dating Method Facebook GroupGet Involved!You can contribute your stories to the Date with Confidence Podcast here. Share your best or worst dating stories, your biggest icks, dating tips you think everyone should know or ask me anything about my dating life or a burning question you need an answer for.  Support The Date with Confidence PodcastIf you'd like to show your support for the podcast, you can do so in these ways:1) Share the podcast with your friends2) Leave me a review on iTunes stating what you love most about the podcast so more people can find it3) Buy me a coffee to express your gratitude for the episodes if you found them helpful, inspiring or entertainingVisit The Date with Confidence website here. Follow your host Rebecca Hawkes on Instagram. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you've ever thought, how did I miss that? I should have known better. I can't believe I didn't recognise that sooner, or after everything I've worked on, how the fuck did I fall for this? This is the episode for you. Welcome to the Date with Confidence podcast, a place to come for dating advice, support,

and stories that'll either fill you with hope or relief that your dating experience wasn't as bad as it could have been. With practical episodes that'll provide you with easy to implement tips to help you feel confident AF on your next date, alongside lighthearted catch ups where your host, Rebecca, that's me by the way, shares her own experience dating after four years

of the single life, you are guaranteed to end each episode feeling less alone in your date and struggles, empowered to never settle again, and confident that the best is yet to come. And if it all falls to shit there's a special first season dedicated to breakups, you are welcome my friend. Subscribe, review and share with your single friends. Nobody talks about the shame that comes with being blindsided by a red flag after your healing era, but I'm about to. So after all your personal

growth, all your therapy, all your journaling, all the high standards you thought you had, all the coaching, the time spent solo, etc. Nobody talks about how much shame you experience when you then get blindsided by one or multiple red flags by someone that up until that point you assumed were a green flag person. And honestly, I think it's worse when you're older and you have worked on yourself for so long because you no longer feel like you can put it down to being young and ignorant to these things. When I look back on my early 20s, walking red flags were my favourite type of man, and I can reassure myself that that was because I was young, I didn't know any better, and

that I needed those lessons to get me to this place in my life right now. You live, you learn, right? But when I dated someone last year, it was the first extended period of dating someone, or dating the same person since my breakup in 2019. I missed so many red flags that now looking back seem so obvious and it has taken a good year to actually feel for the most part okay about that. So if you can relate and you currently feel ashamed of missing the red flags, this episode is for you. I'm going to share exactly how to remove the shame, rewrite in the narrative

that you should have known better, and rebuild your confidence so that you can continue dating from an empowered, take no shit, refuse to settle energy again. So let's talk about the shame spiral. When you're caught up in dating someone new, especially if it's been a while and they start off seemingly much better than your ex, it's natural to feel excited, to future fake a little, and get caught in the thinking that this could be it. Especially in those early dates. And it's completely normal to miss or overlook red flags, particularly subtle ones like perhaps the way that they talk about an X or the language they use around women in general, or the subtle nagging that seems like it might be a compliment but is

actually trying to control you. For example, you don't need makeup, I prefer my women natural who don't wear makeup. That might seem like a compliment, like you don't need makeup because you're so beautiful, but the subtle way that's worded, I prefer my women natural, you don't need it, it's quite a commanding, you don't need to have this, I don't want you to have this, I want to control how you look kind of thing. Or the micro push against your boundaries that can come across as them being really interested in you, but is actually super disrespectful. Like, for example, repeatedly asking you to do something when you've already said no once, revisiting that, asking you again, or trying

to do whatever it is again when you've said no once, that is so disrespectful, even if it's the tiniest little thing. And I'll give you an example here because I feel like this is such a small thing that I wouldn't have seen as a red flag. A guy I was dating had a massage gun. You know one of those that's for really intense muscular pain or for after workouts. It's one of those handheld massage guns and it was his dad's massage gun and he wanted to put it on my bum like not I don't think it was a sexual way but he wanted to put it on my body and I didn't want it on my body for a start I didn't want to feel anyone's massage gun like

it's not for me didn't want to try it. And I also, the way in which it happened, I was like, I don't want your dad's massage gun on my body. I feel weird about it. Some people might not be weird about it. I felt weird about it. I said no. And then another time I went around there and he got it out and he went to put it on my body and I'm like, what are you doing? Because it was done in a playful laughing and joking, oh like feel how this feels on you, it wouldn't be seen as a glaringly obvious red flag like someone assaulting you for example, that's the complete other extreme. But micro moments like that, when your boundaries are crossed, or when someone repeatedly tries to push your boundaries, it can be really hard to notice those things, especially when you're caught up in, oh they're a really

nice person and treating me nicer than my ex. But then there comes this moment where you feel completely blindsided by a red flag so big, you had no idea where it came from. And in that moment, because it's typically after you've formed some kind of connection with that person, it can leave you feeling humiliated, disgusted with them, and disgusted with yourself for not seeing it, and almost like a bit of a failure after all the work you've done on yourself. And that was very much how I felt last year. And it's only when you look back at the previous date that you may even recognize the tiny little red flags like the massage gun story that I just shared with you that seemed so insignificant because they weren't glaringly obvious

and from there the shame spiral starts. You start thinking I should have seen it before. That feeling must have been my gut warning me, not the butterflies I thought it was. What does this say about me? How could I be so stupid? How could I have missed this after everything I learned after my ex? It's like all the work you did on yourself before evaporated and you suddenly feel like you're back at square one. You might feel like you need to take a break from dating again, you might want to delete your apps and stay single forever, you might get trapped in the belief that all men are trash and you're destined to be alone. It can be so disheartening and I don't think people understand or appreciate just how much

this can impact your self-esteem and your self-confidence. And I want you to know it's okay if you feel this way. It's okay to be angry with the situation and with yourself. It's okay to spiral into shame. It's okay to feel disappointed. And it's okay if you temporarily feel hopeless around dating. Your feelings are valid. Your experience is valid.

Don't let anyone tell you that you're overthinking things or being ridiculous or making an issue out of something that is such a small thing. I would consider myself someone who is extremely self-aware and someone who'd easily be able to pinpoint red flags no matter how subtle, yet I was still blindsided last year. And when I reflect back, I can see the moments where my body was communicating with me, but I misinterpreted what those signals meant and I attached a different meaning to them. It also wasn't until recently when I spoke with my coach about it that I realized just how bad

the red flags were and the reason they were so damaging was the subtlety of them. The micro-negging, the tiny moments of control, the subtle put-downs, master's compliments, the repeated overstepping of boundaries. I wasn't aware of just how serious they were because they weren't glaring in your face red flags like some of the men that I have dated in the past. So I really want to reassure you that you're not alone, you're not the problem and however much it feels like it, their behaviour towards you isn't a reflection of you. It's not a reflection on how you should value yourself, how you should treat yourself or think about yourself. Right now the first step is to accept

it's happened. Accept where you are right now, forgive yourself for the way you feel and trust yourself to bounce back, rebuild your confidence and get back to a place of belief in the relationship of your dreams. It sucks, we know, but the quicker you can accept it's happened, the quicker you'll be able to move on. And before we move into the six steps to take to actually remove the shame, I want to encourage you to stop blaming yourself. It's a natural instinct for us to immediately blame ourselves and buy it into the inner mean girl, but honestly it's really not helpful. You want to shift back into that empowered, confident as fuck mindset. The bold, fierce, take no shit version of you. You don't let the inner mean girl win. You don't let those negative thoughts

take the reins. You don't let the self-blame consume you. We can't control someone else's actions, but we can control how we respond to them. You get to be in charge of this situation. You get to be in charge of how you handle this situation. So drop the blame, it's not your fault. And in your next dating experience, situation, relationship, you'll know better because of this experience. Okay, so let's get into how to actually remove the shame of being blindsided by red flags in your 30s. We all knew that I'd slap this, but you've got to change your inner narrative. Notice the things you're telling yourself, recognize what's on repeat, and challenge those thoughts, questioning whether they're a fact or not. If they're true for everyone in the world, it's a fact.

If it's not true for everyone in the world, it's a belief and beliefs can be changed. Notice specifically how you speak to yourself about the situation. Are you saying things like, I'm so stupid, I'm such an idiot for falling for it, how could I have let this happen? Or are you reassuring yourself that it wasn't your fault, looking for the lessons you can learn and practicing self-compassion by accepting what happened and choosing not to blame yourself? If it is the former, start to work on those reframes. I have a process in the confidence course called the switch your story process that can be applied to any negative narrative you've got on repeat. It is a four-step process where you uncover, rewrite, prevent and

reprogram the beliefs that you have on repeat. So in this instance you'd uncover the belief, let's use I'm so stupid for letting this happen, and then step two would be to rewrite it, which could look something like, being blindsided by these red flags was out of my control. The third step is to prevent this negative belief from taking over your mind. So this is where you'd prioritize feeling you're most confident every day, because the more confident you feel, the harder it is for the shameful beliefs to sink in. When it comes to feeling you're most confident, there may be certain confidence anchors you reach for such as wearing red lipstick, a song you have on repeat, a perfume you spritz

each morning, or a piece of clothing that makes you feel like your most empowered fierce self who wouldn't dream of shaming themselves for the way someone else treated them. And then the final step is to reprogram the belief, and I like to do this with affirmations personally. So take the written belief, in this case, being blindsided by these red flags was out of my control, and create an affirmation that feels good to you, that you can repeat every single day, not just when the negative thoughts pop up. For example, the affirmation could be, I'm choosing to release all shame around my past. Or, I refuse to let the past control me. I'm in control of what I choose to think about myself. It can literally be anything you want that

instantly helps you to shift out of the shame. The aim with your affirmation is to make it something so powerful that you can feel the energetic shift within you. You instantly stand up taller, take up more space, shift into that empowered as fuck energy. And then to actually reprogram your mind, you need to repeat that affirmation daily. Set it as your phone background, stick post-its on your mirrors, set an alarm to go off multiple times a day, constantly bring yourself back to that empowering belief. Next up, get support from someone safe. And what I mean by safe is someone who's going to listen to you without judgement and who

will empathise with you and your situation. It's good to talk things through with someone who can offer you different perspectives too so that you can start to see the situation in a different light. Seeing it from different viewpoints can help you remove the shame as opposed to only viewing it from the shameful headspace you're in. Whether it's close friends, a therapist or a space like the confident AF membership, sharing your thoughts and feelings out loud can stop you feeling so alone and isolated. Shame thrives in silence so the more you keep quiet about what you're going through, the longer you're going to be stuck in the shame spiral. As soon as you speak about it, it begins to

lose its power. And it may be the kind of thing you need to repeatedly talk about with multiple people over an extended period of time. It might require multiple conversations, multiple perspectives, the space to process more than once. As I think I've mentioned before, my experience with this happened a year ago, yet I was still talking about it with my coach a few weeks ago, because dating someone new meant that new things had surfaced about last year's experience. That's why a space like the Confident AF membership can be beneficial because you're in there for a minimum of six months,

so you have plenty of time and space to process, to work through new layers of shame, to rebuild your confidence, and to help with new challenges that come up when you're ready to get back to dating. I'll leave the info in the show notes for you to check out, and if you have any questions, I'm on Instagram at yourconfident30s. Okay, the third step, find the lessons hidden within the experience. I am a big believer

in everything happens for a reason, and I also believe that some people come into our lives to help us grow, even if we don't want them to, like the guy from the delusional episode which I've linked in the show notes. At the time I thought he was going to be something significant in my life but ultimately he was there to teach me some lessons about myself, my dating standards and what my intuition is trying to tell me when I experience certain feelings. So grab your journal or a quiet moment with your favourite drink and ask yourself, what did this experience show me? What positive lessons can I gain from this negative experience? How can I take this knowledge into my future in an empowering way? Maybe you confused your intuition

with butterflies and now you know what those feelings mean in the future. Maybe you sacrificed your needs and desires to please them and now you refuse to sacrifice yourself in future relationships. Maybe you needed the reminder that just because someone claims to want or need you, doesn't mean they actually deserve to have you in their life. When you can find the lessons, you're taking your power back. You're removing the shame, disconnecting from the idea that it's your fault, and choosing to make the most out of the worst situation.

The fourth way to remove the shame when you've been blindsided by red flags is obviously my favorite topic, rebuilding your self-confidence. Of course, there are many steps to this, and the best place to start is challenging your inner narrative, which we covered in step one.

And then there's the practical ways to feel confident in yourself again. Things like blocking them so they no longer have access to you and your life. It might seem like a really small thing, but the power behind that action is huge. You don't need closure. You don't need to allow them to crawl their way back in. You don't need to explain to them how much they hurt you or give them a reason if you ended it. They don't deserve to be in your energy in any way, shape or form, including the ability to view your social media

profiles. You don't need to show them what they're missing or slip into that, it's their lost energy. Block. Them. And from a spiritual perspective, I believe if you allow this person to somehow stay in your orbit after they've shown you who they are, you're signalling to the universe that it is okay for a person like that to be in your life and therefore you'll continue to meet people on that same level. For mindset strategies, practical techniques and energetic tools that will help you build a solid foundation of self-confidence, check out the confidence course, which you can also receive instant access to when you join the Confident AF membership

or you can purchase the instant access to when you join the Confident AF membership, or you can purchase the course as a standalone course. If you want to buy it by yourself, enter the code DWC for a special little discount. Your penultimate step. Honestly, I don't get to use this word enough. It's one of my favourite words. Your penultimate step is to revisit your dating and relationship standards, which again is something we cover in the confidence course, but I also want to work through something specific with you now.

One of the things that I've noticed about myself, clients and friends who have this issue of being blindsided, is that they're a little bit too flexible in their standards. So even though you have your non-negotiables, you make adjustments based on having a connection with someone.

And when you're flexible in your standards, you're not respecting your standards, therefore you're not respecting yourself. Now, might there be times where compromise is required? Perhaps a fucking lately. But when you're sacrificing the things that are important to you, you're signalling to yourself that the other person or the other person's needs, desires, requirements are more important than your own. That self abandonment is something that can be worked on and this is the perfect opportunity for you to revisit your standards and reconnect with what's important to you again. If you've listened to any episodes of the Date of Confidence podcast before, you will know that I am not a believer in giving people

chances. If you've shown me who you are, if you're not my type, if there's no connection, if there are things that bother me, I'm not continuing things. That is a standard that I have for myself. That is how I ensure I don't self-abandon and I stay connected with myself and my desires and what I believe I'm worthy of receiving when it comes to a romantic relationship. And I don't think it is fair to continue dating someone if you are not all the way in with them. I don't think it's fair on you, and I don't think it's fair on the other person. Imagine someone dating you and then you finding out that they feel like they're settling with

you. Or you have things missing from what they truly desire. Imagine how shit that would make you feel. You wouldn't like it, so I wouldn't like to do that to anyone else. When you create your standards list, or revisit your standards list, you do this for a reason. To protect yourself from red flags, to keep you connected with your vision of a dream relationship, and to ensure you're not settling for less than you desire or deserve. I like to have two lists, my standards which my non-negotiables and my expectations which are the things I'd like to have in a partner but aren't deal breakers. Again I talk through this in so much more detail inside module six of the confidence course.

Once you have your standards list or lists keep them somewhere you can refer back to. There is literally no point in writing these lists if you're not gonna reflect on them and revisit them. Remind yourself of them when you are swapping on the apps. Check in with them if something doesn't feel right on a day, use them as your guidelines if you're choosing to date intentionally. I feel like if you're dating for Mr. Right Now,

these things aren't as important, but I would still have a standards list for my Rista Right Now. I would have a standards list for my future husband and a standards list for Mr. Right Now, because on occasion Mr. Right Now could become your husband and if there are certain things that you desire in a relationship, I don't see why you would neglect those things in a situation ship or if you're just hooking up with someone personally. It is okay for you to have high standards and expectations of what you want in a partner. Do not let anyone else tell you any different. Lastly to actually remove the shame of being

blindsided by red flags you've got to take control of how you date in the future by being stricter when you're matching on dating apps. If that requires you writing some rules for yourself, do it. If you get the gut feeling of, hmm, I'm not really sure, that's your answer. Uncertainty is your answer. Don't try to convince yourself with logic or reasoning when your intuition is telling you no. Your body always knows the answer, and your intuition is always right. I would also really recommend being a part of the Burnt Haystack dating method Facebook group as this is going to help you spot so many red flags from their profiles alone.

This has been an absolute game changer for me and has made me feel even more confident when I'm dating. When I'm feeling uncertain or worried that I'm walking away too early, I ask myself what is more important to me, settling with someone so I'm not alone or believing that my dream relationship is out there and trusting that it will find me. If it doesn't feel like my dream, I'm not afraid to walk away because I would rather be single and happy on my own than in the wrong relationship. When it comes to dating again, take your time, recognise the green flags and don't try to

hunt for the red flags because they're going to reveal themselves to you. Not everyone will have a red flag so try not to fall into the trap of being so hypersensitive to the idea of red flags that you end up not being able to connect with anyone else. It's a fresh start, a blank slate. Just because the last experience ended in you being blindsided doesn't mean the next one will. And here's what I want you to know. Getting blindsided doesn't mean you've gone backwards. It doesn't mean there's something wrong with you. It doesn't mean you can't trust yourself. And it doesn't mean it will happen to you again in the future. You have learned valuable lessons. You're more confident

now than you were and you have your standards to date by. And the fact that you're reflecting on this proves how self-aware you are and how open to growth you are. Don't let this experience keep you from your dream relationship. It was a blip, a chapter. It was not the end it. So remove the shame, don't give up on the love you deserve, and get back on that horse. You are worthy and deserving of the love that you desire. Never forget that. Thanks so much for listening to this my love. If you have enjoyed it and you have found it helpful slide into my DMs on Instagram at yourconfident30s. Tell me that this episode was helpful for you.

Tell me that you enjoyed it. Tell me your key takeaway. Share with me how it's going to change your dating life and if you want to contribute to future episodes of the Date with Confidence podcast go to datewithconfidencepodcast.com slash contribute. Any of the resources or episodes I mentioned in this episode will be in the show notes. Thanks so much for listening and I will see you in the next one. Thanks so much for listening to the Date with Confidence podcast. I hope you've enjoyed this episode.

Subscribe, rate and review and share it with your single friends. Thanks for watching!