Choosing for Company, Not Compatibility: The Expat Relationship Pattern Nobody Talks About

A client said it plainly, in the way that takes courage: 'I knew something was off by month three. But I was so lonely. Going home to an empty flat after work — I just couldn't do it. So I kept going.' She was not describing weakness. She was describing one of the most human responses imaginable to one of the most difficult features of expat life: the absence of the people who knew her.

The expat experience — for all its opportunity and vitality — frequently involves a sustained period of genuine social deprivation. Established friendships are thousands of miles away. Family is unavailable for the ordinary rhythms of shared life. A new social circle takes years to develop any real depth. You can fill the hours. The absence of people who know you, and who you know, is harder to fill.

What loneliness does to partner selection

Research by Cacioppo and colleagues (2008) established that chronic loneliness produces measurable changes in social cognition: a heightened sensitivity to social threat, increased vigilance toward rejection, and a stronger drive toward connection. Put plainly, loneliness narrows our criteria for what counts as adequate company — and it elevates the urgency with which we seek it.

In a rich social environment — surrounded by long-term friends, close family, a layered network of connections — a romantic partner fills a specific role. They are chosen for the qualities that romantic partnership specifically requires: compatibility, shared values, mutual understanding, the kind of intimacy that no other relationship quite replicates. The broader social network handles the rest.

When that broader social network is absent, a romantic partner is asked to carry everything. They become the primary source of social connection, emotional support, shared experience, and a sense of home. The selection criteria shift to reflect this: the most pressing question is no longer 'are we genuinely suited for each other?' but 'will you be here?'

These are very different questions. And they produce very different choices.

The pattern over time

Clinically, I see this unfold in a recognisable sequence. A period of relief, in which the relationship resolves the acute loneliness and that resolution feels very like love — because in the neurological sense, it produces many of the same effects. A period of adaptation, as life in the new city becomes more established, other sources of connection gradually develop, and the relationship is no longer carrying quite the same weight. And then a period of reckoning, as the incompatibilities that loneliness had obscured become more visible, and the question of whether this partnership would have been chosen under different circumstances becomes harder to set aside.

This progression tends to produce a particular kind of guilt. People feel they should have known better, or that they were somehow unfair to their partner by staying in something they had doubts about. Neither is quite right. They made a human decision under genuinely difficult conditions, with the resources available to them at the time. That deserves understanding, not self-punishment.

The practical implication

If loneliness was a significant factor in how a relationship began — or in how long it continued beyond the point where doubt had set in — the work of recovery is not only about processing the relationship itself. It is also about building the broader infrastructure of connection that was never adequately established: the friendships that go beyond the surface, the routines that provide a sense of belonging independent of any one person, the social life that can hold you when a relationship does not.

That is slower, quieter work than the more dramatic recovery from heartbreak. It is also, in my experience, the work that most reliably changes the pattern in the next relationship. When the loneliness is no longer being managed through romantic partnership, the next choice can be made with considerably clearer eyes.

About the Author

Ms. Sarah El Nabulsi is a DHA-Licensed Clinical Psychologist (License No. DHA-75083705) based in Dubai, specialising in individual therapy, relationships, anxiety, and identity. She works with clients from across the world and offers sessions in English, Arabic, and French, in person in Dubai and online internationally. Her clinical work sits at the intersection of evidence-based psychology and the particular challenges of modern expatriate life.

Book a Consultation

If you are navigating a breakup or processing the end of a difficult relationship and would like structured clinical support, Ms. El Nabulsi offers individual therapy in Dubai and online. You can learn more and book a consultation at sarahelnabulsi.com/breakup-therapy-dubai.

References

Cacioppo, J. T., & Patrick, W. (2008). Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection. W. W. Norton & Company.