Why do we keep choosing the wrong partners in? In this episode of the Breaking Point Podcast, dating and relationship coach Monica Wadwa joins us to break down the psychology behind modern dating, attachment styles, self-worth, and toxic relationship patterns — especially among high-achieving women and men.

Monica introduces her powerful framework of Queen Energy vs Princess Energy and King Energy vs Prince Energy, explaining how childhood conditioning, trauma, and insecurity are quietly shaping who we’re attracted to — and why healthy relationships often feel “boring” at first. In this conversation, we explore:

~ Why high-achieving people often feel lovable only for what they do

~ The difference between Queen / King energy and Princess / Prince energy ~ How attachment styles (secure, anxious, avoidant) affect dating choices

~ Why people are drawn to toxic relationships, bad boys, and chaos

~ The psychology behind narcissistic partners and trauma bonding

~ Responsibility vs self-blame and shame in healing relationships

~ Why healing naturally changes who you’re attracted to

~ How media and reality TV like Love Island can normalise unhealthy dating dynamics

~ Why healthy relationships lack drama — and why drama sells!

If it's a happy, healthy relationship, typically that stuff, you know, the storyline isn't exciting enough.

Typically high achieving people at some point have felt like they were only lovable based on what they do.

We're genetically wired to seek what's familiar.

So if from our childhood what was familiar was chaos, abuse, you know, unhealthy dynamics, then that is what we will seek in partnership.

Hello everyone.

Welcome back to an episode of the Breaking Bite podcast.

Today we're here with, with Monica.

Is it Wadhwa?

Yeah, Wadhwa, Yeah.

It's an Indian surname so it's quite hard to pronounce but yeah, you can.

What a name.

Monica.

Wadhwa.

Monica, take it away.

You, you tell everyone what there is to say before we start.

Hi everybody, my name is Monica Wadva.

I'm a dating and relationship coach and author and I also have my own podcast as well called With Love Monica.

And I'm also involved in a partnership where we're building.

Our aim is to build the largest relationship newsletter and online membership in the world.

So that's been an exciting new project that I've been invol with but my main focus has been coaching specifically single women to try to get them to, to embody more of their queen energy and how I describe it as your queen energy and then attract your king.

So that's been my main focus at the moment.

But really my, my mission in life is to, to help more people form healthy relationships with others by first forming a healthier relationship with themselves.

What's, what's queen energy?

I like that we got to start off with there.

Yeah.

So my book is called Queen Treatment and it' Queen energy is what I would describe.

Well, so I have this sort of signature framework which is that I kind of describe it as people dating from either their queen energy and their king energy or their prince energy, princess energy and their prince energy.

And basically those two attract each other.

So queens attract kings, kings attract queens and then vice versa for princesses and princes as well.

And what I basically mean by that is that princesses and princes, they haven't, you know, fully self actualized yet.

They don't really fully know who they are yet.

They don't know their purpose.

So they're still seeking and searching.

And so for a woman when she's dating, she's typically seeking validation in the form of, you know, those sorts of things.

And so her, her self worth is quite low and so she's dating from that place.

And a man and a prince, he also is seeking Validation, but that will often come in the form of, you know, seeking also attention from multiple different women and you know, perhaps wanting to do things just to make himself look good rather because his actions are grounded in integrity and those sorts of things.

And then when people have done the healing work on themselves to, to basically be operating from a place of wholeness and self attunement and self esteem, self worth, self love, then they operate very differently when it comes to dating.

So when a woman, for instance, is dating from her queen energy, I describe that as, you know, she's dating from a place of real self worth.

She knows who she is and yeah, she's, she's very connected to herself.

She's not desperately seeking validation from lots of different men.

You know, she's, she's whole and complete with or without a partner.

And that's a very different energy to be dating from than dating from your princess energy of seeking attention and all that kind of stuff.

And then, yeah, how I describe it is that the queen will then attract a king into her life who is a man who is grounded in integrity and wants to build a legacy rather than seeking short term hedonism.

Essentially kings and queens though, when they're coming from that place of a queen energy and king energy, then that's I believe, a very solid foundation for a long lasting partnership.

I like that idea.

That's actually really cool.

That's a good way of conceptualizing the different stages.

What's the prince?

What's prince energy again?

So prince energy again, it's basically dating from a place of insecurity.

But it comes up in a slightly different form to, to the princess that will be, you know.

Yeah, seeking short term hedonistic.

Hedonistic things like sleeping with lots of different women and you know, getting the ego boost from, you know, basically having like a doll by him side as opposed to wanting to seek a partner who he can build a legacy with and have an emotional connection to and things like that.

Basically kind of operating from his sex organs rather than from his heart or from, you know, with, with a long term vision in mind.

And you know, these are the type of guys who are, you know, using their money to basically give them an ego boost of the tables in the clubs and all of that kind of stuff.

But equally, you know, I do say that the prince can also be the prince charming.

You know, he can say all the right things.

This is the guy who uses his money to, to, to fly you out all these flashy places and things like that.

But it's not necessarily grounded in integrity.

Or grounded in what, sorry, he uses his words to.

Exactly.

And it's a way to kind of manipulate and control as opposed to, you know, genuinely wanting to provide for the well being of that person.

Yeah.

So does that mean that.

Well, first question, can some people start off in their king and queen energy and some people, can you have young people in the king and queen energy and can you have more older, older people, more sort of mature people in their prince and princess energy?

For sure, definitely, 100%.

Yeah, I think, I mean that's my framework of how I describe it.

But if we look at it from a slightly different angle, you could also see it under the framework of the attachment attachment theory that there is some people who, you know, because of the way that they were brought up, they have secure attachment.

Whereas other people, because of the way that they were brought up or things that happened in later relationships in life, then it causes them to be anxiously attached or avoidantly attached or.

Yeah, those are the two main ones, I guess.

But so, so yeah, you can be operating from a very secure attachment as soon as you start dating.

That doesn't necessarily need to be something that you heal your way into.

But I guess because of the work that I do, typically people do have some healing that they need to do.

And actually when I'm looking at specifically women, I actually kind of branch out a little bit further and I talk about women dating from their princess energy and also from their wounded queen energy which is typically actually the, you know, the very high achieving women who maybe they're doing incredibly in business or in work but they very much believe that love has to be earned and that they have to do things in order to achieve love rather than just knowing that they're enough just as they are.

So kind of have that within the females I have it branch out even further within the framework because I've you.

Mentioned the term hygiene women quite a lot and I've spoken to.

One of the first ever episodes I did was with a, a dating coach for specifically high achieving women and high achieving people.

And she said what I sort of assumed was the case is that the more difficult, the more high achieving you are, then the more difficult it probably becomes for you to find someone who matches or exceeds your expectations, desires and wants and sort of competency levels in life.

So it doesn't surprise me that that would be, that would be a cat, a subcategory of people that are coming to you.

So I guess what I am interested in is what do you classify As a high achieving woman, what are the aspects and the facets of that?

Yeah, I think the reason why I love working with high achieving women is because they are willing to do the work on themselves.

Because I think maybe when people hear dating coach.

Yeah.

They're also willing to face themselves.

You know, that takes a lot of courage to face your past wounds, to deal with your past childhood conditioning, which not everybody is willing to do.

And so what I love about working with high achieving women is that they, they're on their personal development journey.

You know, they're willing to grow and do the work that it takes to grow and evolve and become a better version of themselves.

And so yeah, when I say high achieving, I don't just mean in terms of, in a work type scenario, I mean also in terms of mentality that they know they want to grow and better themselves.

But I think the, the sort of shadow side of that sometimes.

And this is, yeah, as you said, for high achieving men as well, this isn't just for women, but feeling like typically high achieving people at some point have felt like they were only lovable based on what they do.

Yeah.

And so that, so there's this fine balance, I believe, between, you know, going for your goals and knowing that you, you know, you deserve to achieve it all.

And at the same time also knowing that you're lovable just as you are and that you're enough just as you are and you don't need to do these things in order to be lovable.

And if you have that mentality in life, you'll also see it coming into relationships as well that you feel like, I need to do all these things for this person so that they love me.

I need to look perfect, I need to behave in this certain way.

Yeah, that's, yeah, it's a, it involves deep inner work to be able to heal that.

Yeah.

So, yeah, that's why I love working with high achieving women.

And if you are successful, the likelihood is that you're high in personality trait industriousness, which is basically you, well, you enjoy working hard, but it's more you feel and you feel necessitated to work hard.

And if you're one of those people, then likelihood is you reflect everything back into yourself.

Not in a selfish way, but from a point of view.

So the best example would be if someone is a high industrious individual.

When someone breaks up with them, they'll spend all their time thinking about what did I do wrong?

So it's about not what that person did wrong.

They, they have a They're adapted well to put the emphasis on themselves and that will leak into their ability to work hard.

So a narcissistic person is likely to be low in industriousness.

So they'll think about, they won't think about what they did wrong, they'll think about what someone else did wrong.

Whereas a high industrious person will say, right, what did I do wrong?

How can I influence.

Yeah, and that's, that's linked to like disgust sensitivity, which is really.

God, who was I talking about disgust with?

Someone.

And we were talking about, we were talking about eating disorders with women and I was saying how a lot of women with eating disorders are likely very high industriousness, which means that they're high in disgust sensitivity, which means that they don't actually have an accurate view of the way that they look because their brain's so like hardwired to see, just to see flaws basically and to like hone in on them.

And then you combine that with like a, a societal influence of.

Well, not just societal, but also like biological women being judged more based on their physical appearance than men.

You combine those two facets, you can get a recipe for disaster.

But yeah, industriousness and all the positive that's come with that and being potentially successful obviously has its downfall.

Yes.

Well, I think also there's such a difference between placing blame on yourself and taking responsibility.

Because that's, for me, the difference with the work that I do is I by no means want to place blame on any of my clients for, because at the end of the day as well, even when they're behaving in unhealthy ways, that's typically not to do with them, that's to do with their childhood or things like that.

So they don't have control over what happened in their past.

But in order to take back their power, you do need to take some level of responsibility rather than viewing yourself as the victim of circumstance.

But that for me is very different to placing blame on yourself.

So again, it's that fine balance.

But, but yeah, high achieving women, sometimes I do need to rein them back in and be like, wait, this isn't putting blame on yourself, but let's just.

In order to take steps forward, we do need to now say, okay, we can't change other people, but all we can have control over is ourselves in this situation.

So what can we do to.

You know, even you mentioned about being in relationships with narcissistic people and they're very attracted to, yeah, high achieving people because they, you know, narcissistic people who don't take responsibility themselves.

And yeah, high achieving women take on a lot of responsibility themselves.

And so, but even in that situation you can look at, okay, it's not that you're to blame for their abusive behavior, but what responsibility can you take so that this doesn't happen again in the future?

And so we can look at things like having healthier boundaries and stuff like that.

Again, it's not placing blame on yourself, but saying, how can you keep yourself safer next time?

Essentially.

Yeah, boundaries are really important.

And use the word blame.

Blame can quickly become shame, can't it?

And shame is a really, really.

Well, shame.

Shame is there to like teach you and to serve you, providing you don't continually beat yourself around the head with it.

Because at that point it no longer becomes all, it becomes a vice.

So.

Yes, yeah, yeah.

And I think there obviously will be an element of healing because people have inevitably up by their childhood and that creates maladaptive patterns and behaviors and etc.

But I think there's also an element of integration.

So you've lived in the uk, haven't you at times in your life?

Yeah.

Cool.

So growing up my mum used to watch these films on Channel 5 that would come on after Home and Away and Neighbors every single day and they would follow the same pattern every single time.

And I used to say to him, and why do you watch these films?

You literally saw the exact same film three days ago.

She couldn't really understand why.

And it's because it plays out the female, the female narrative, the female.

I don't know if it's the.

It's not just a female romantic narrative.

Sometimes it is the female romantic narrative which is basically where young, innocent, attractive, unassuming women meets clearly bad news.

Guy doesn't see it, ends up in a load of trouble, then has to get herself out of it.

But there's another narrative, another plot which is where she interacts or encounters an awful woman who's out to get her and sabotage her and like ruin her life and she has to like overcome that situation.

And I was thinking, so what does that mean?

It means that not only do women have to integrate their relationship with men and the men that they should, that they could potentially build long lasting relationships with, they also have to integrate the toxic aspect of their own personality.

And that is what those sort of, that's what I think those narratives, those films are playing out.

There's a.

The main character, protagonist and the antagonist and it's like they're building a relationship between the two, I don't think.

I think healing's an aspect, but I think there's a process of integration and maturity that can.

That comes with.

As you mature and grow up as a woman.

And a part of that is maybe being drawn to the wrong sorts of men when you're younger.

But part of that is also watching how you.

What person do you become in those scenarios when you're put under that sort of pressure and influence?

And what does that say about yourself?

What do you.

What's your.

What's your opinion on that?

Because the healing idea is definitely accurate, but I think I used the word actualization earlier.

I think there's a process of actualization that is.

I haven't articulated it phenomenally well, but it's wrapped up in that literary, Literary narrative, like, plot that women are so drawn to.

Because, like, I mean, these films on every single day, and they have done, like, my.

My entire life.

So obviously people keep watching them and they're the same thing each time.

And then they go, okay, okay, maybe this isn't ideal, but I've grown as a person, and therefore my outlook on men and masculinity has grown as a.

As a result as well.

Yeah, complicated.

Maybe it's rubbish, but we'll go with it.

Yeah, no, I love the question.

Really interesting.

Yes, 100%.

I think lived experience is the best way to truly grow.

And that's why, honestly, when you get into relationship with somebody, you know, when you're single, you can do all this work on yourself, but then when you get into relationship, it's like.

It's like, that's level one, and now you're at level two, and there's a whole different set of things that you need to work through.

So, yes, 100%.

And that's why I say, like, every relationship can be viewed as a beautiful blessing in your life because it's still, if you can come away from even, like a breakup, learning from the experience of, you know, like, why was I attracted to somebody who maybe didn't treat me right or someone who embodied certain types of attributes, so why did I behave in this certain way?

And again, it's not to praise, blame, but it's just that then, you know, like, anything that happens in our life, if you can learn from the experience, then it's.

You're.

You're moving forward, you know.

And yeah, I think, honestly, what I've seen in the dating scenario is that the more that you heal, you don't even need to consciously choose Healthier partnerships.

It just happens, you know, that like we, we are very conditioned from a young age to.

I mean, it's in our biology, like how we do need to heal that stuff so that then we will attract and be attracted to different types of partnerships.

And yeah, it's so interesting how it's not something you even need to be consciously aware of.

Once you've done more of the healing, you will just be attracted to different sorts of people.

And so, you know, people talk about women being attracted to the bad boy and stuff.

And yes, I think there's an element of perhaps that women are attracted to men who they feel like could protect them.

So even if that would mean that they could be dangerous towards them, they're also dangerous towards other people.

And so perhaps there's like a subconscious wiring there of wanting to feel like, well, I'd rather be with someone who's dangerous than someone who is too feeble and weak to be able to defend me in a situation.

I think that's very subconscious, but there's perhaps an element of that there.

But also I do feel like when we're younger, and this is what I talk about with the princess energy of who you're seeking to date and when you're coming from an insecure place, when you're dating, then you're going to want the bad boy who you know is so hard to get because it makes you feel like, wow, I'm somebody.

Someone, this person who never dates anybody or who treats other women badly.

I can change him, I can make him treat me better because I.

And then I'll feel lovable enough.

But, you know, that's not what relationships should be about.

And so, yeah, I do feel like the older that women get, the more healing that they've done on themselves, then the less likely they are to want to go for that kind of man.

But then, you know, in terms of.

In the media and stuff like that, at the end of the day, like, like we, you know, drama sells basically.

And so that is the sort of stuff that would do better on a TV show even for any age audience, just because it's more exciting at the end of the day.

And yeah, if it's a happy, healthy relationship, typically that stuff, you know, the storyline isn't exciting enough.

So.

Yeah, well, that's, that's.

So when you say media, what do you mean?

Do you mean like television shows or do you just mean like new, like articles and publications or.

Yeah, I mean, even Love Island.

If you look at Love island, it's so toxic, the dynamics of the relationships and stuff.

And I mean, honestly, it does worry me a little bit because obviously, you know, at my age, then maybe less people are gonna be indoctrinated by that kind of thing.

But I do feel like we are influenced, especially when we're young, by the stuff that we're repetitively watching and taking in.

So, yeah, it's interesting.

It will be interesting to see, like, what kind of effect that has on dating younger, dating generations.

But, yeah, even with things like Love island, reality tv, you know, it's all.

There is a lot of things that are sort of promoted to us online with relationships are actually quite toxic dynamics, but it's sort of romanticized in some way.