How to Stop Being Insecure in a Relationship

22.04.2020

Lack of self-confidence can easily destroy not only your mental health but also relationships with others. To be a human being means to reflect on everything in this world and doubt oneself and others. Sometimes we don’t notice how other people’s opinion affect our self-perception and becomes a prism through which we look at the world. These irrational thoughts can lead to the fact that you begin to behave inappropriately, lose confidence in others, feel insecure in a relationship, and can even move from jealousy to accusations. However, the truth is that you begin to project your fears onto your partner, worsening your relationships.

Thus, fear of losing a partner makes a person anxious and always on guard. You experience these feelings when you put all your efforts and emotions into a specific person. In addition, you are in doubt from time to time. And when self-doubt and jealousy in relationships become chronic, they begin to damage the relationship, which, on the contrary, you are trying to save by all means. Over time, your constant suspicions and weird behavior can only alienate your partner, and they may start using a website to meet women or men. How to get rid of this behavioral model? How to stop feeling insecure and make your relationship healthy and happy? Let’s find out.

Being Insecure in a Relationship: What Does It Mean?

When you start dating a new partner, you may feel insecure, and it’s a pretty natural thing since usually, at first, we want to attract a person we have a crush on and show ourselves from the best angles, hiding our drawbacks. Usually, both partners suffer from the same fears and doubts at the early stage of communication. Thus, insecurity in a relationship is a result of fear. The “funny” thing is that this is usually a fear that you will not be loved and accepted the way you are. When it is difficult for a person to open up and be themselves in front of the partner, this inevitably leads to serious stress. The relationship suffers because a person imagines numerous scenarios of what may happen when the partner sees their drawbacks.

What does insecure mean? It is when a man is afraid that his partner will find out who he really is and will see him “emotionally naked,” he hides his true self and pretends to be someone else, feeling insecure in a relationship and suffering from the constant stress that she doesn’t text back. Besides, feeling insecure in a relationship, a person may constantly doubt themselves whether their significant other is the right partner for them, whether they are their soulmate or just a passerby. Usually, insecurity issues are much deeper than trust ones due to the lack of emotional confidence. Thus, you might be 200% sure that your girlfriend is the most loyal person in this universe, but you can still be an insecure man in a relationship. Psychologists say that the main root cause of this phenomenon is not a digital era with all its apps and social networks but attachment wounds and received betrayal trauma in the previous relationships. So, they are not sure whether they should let a partner too close and whether this is the right person to live with. It can be about a defensive mechanism, subconscious self-protection from potential bad experiences. You cannot understand whether it’s the influence of your self-doubts and projections or you are really incompatible with that person, and your subconsciousness sends you alarming signals and makes you feel insecure. Of course, insecurity can be useful to some extent when it makes you pay efforts and work harder in relationships, so you don’t take your partner for granted. However, when there too many insecurity issues, you can find yourself in a toxic relationship and with extremely low self-esteem. It can become a reason for breakup even if you love each other and are a perfect match.

Main Reasons People Feel Insecure in Relationships

One should admit that even the most confident people have their personal insecurities of different scales. It’s not always easy to determine them and work out, even though it is of crucial importance if you want to have a happy and healthy lifestyle since they can seriously affect and even damage different spheres of your life, and love relationships are no exception. That’s why it is so important to analyze your past relationships and life as the whole to understand whether there is a reason for the appearance of insecurity in relationships. Yes, sometimes we all become somehow jealous and little insecure with or without an obvious reason, and such moments don’t necessarily affect our decisions and relationships. However, if your insecurities become a part of your everyday life, they cause negative thoughts that lead to negative actions. Thus, you may start feeling insecure in a relationship for no reason and get depressed. You should know your enemy to be able to deal with this problem.

1. You have betrayal trauma

If your former partner was cheating on you, then chances are high that you have got betrayal trauma. Your ex-relationships seemed to be perfect, you loved each other and care, but they still betrayed you and left high and dry. So, even though you have started a new relationship with a person who doesn’t have anything in common with your ex, you doubt their sincerity and loyalty. So, you are afraid that your current relationships will lead to the same scenario and end up in a breakup. You know that a new relationship is a risk, and you are not sure that it is justified. So, you try to protect yourself against new pain, dooming yourself to suffering, and feeling insecure.

2. You have low self-esteem

Your new girlfriend is smart, beautiful and really hot. The only question that bothers you is, “How could such a perfection choose me?” This fear overtakes many guys at the early stages of relationships when a cocktail of hormones in your veins does not allow you to take a realistic look at the partner. Another reason for such fears is low self-esteem, which makes it difficult to believe that such a person could choose such a person as you are. In this case, you may have doubts about many other things and always expect worse since you don’t believe that you deserve anything better. You direct your energy to empty worries and constant doubts, making your partner prove their affection and attachment all the time.

3. You are afraid to not meet their expectations

When we start dating a new partner, we subconsciously strive to show our best sides, but this game cannot last long. Fear that a person will see how unperfect you are doesn’t allow you to relax and stay yourself. Each of us wants the partner to see more than a set of specific individual qualities: appearance, social status, convenience. So, you might be afraid to be vulnerable. Relationships definitely change over time, and you worry that you lose this chemistry between you if you open up and become yourself. You know that your partner has certain requirements, and you are afraid to not meet their expectations.

Signs You Are Insecure in a Relationship

Most mistakes in relationships are made not out of spite but because of fear. Everyone understands that serious relationships with another person are still a gamble. Attempts to protect oneself and “do the best” often make it difficult to be a good partner and enjoy a relationship. Fear of making a mistake with a choice, being disappointed in a relationship, taking a partner for who they are not, may appear both at the very beginning of your acquaintance and years later. And the most frightening feeling is to realize that you’ve spent so much time and energy in vain. This fear is as destructive as the fear of losing a partner. These fears are a result of negative thoughts and insecurities. Let’s learn about 5 signs you have issues that may affect your relationships.

1. You have trust issues

Trust is one of the most important components of healthy relationships. When you suffer from insecurities, you start doubting every trifle and check all their statements to make sure they are telling the truth. Even though your partner didn’t betray you in any way, you cannot relax and believe. You may stalk their social networks and check their phone while they are taking a shower. Any deviance from the initial plan makes you come up with numerous scenarios of their betrayal. The main problem is that these insecurities don’t allow you to open up, so you remain at a certain distance. However, you cannot move on and grow as a couple without emotional intimacy.

2. Your negative thoughts get a continuation

Everyone has good and bad days that are full of negative thoughts, but they shouldn’t become a part of your routine. It may happen that negative reflections take over your way of thinking and get a continuation in your actions. Inevitably, they will start affecting your relationships negatively as well. Our relationships consist of words and deeds, and if both these components have a negative connotation, don’t expect that everything will be fine. You program your subconscious for a certain scenario, repeating the same things every day, and sooner or later your affirmations become your reality.

3. You compare yourself to your partner's ex

We all know that questions about our partners’ exes are taboo at the early stages of relationships, however, it doesn’t mean that we are not curious about this chapter of our partners’ life story. So, when we get closer enough to ask uncomfortable questions about their past, we try to find out about their ex beloved ones. However, it’s one thing to just find out, and it is a different story to start comparing yourself with them and worry that you are not good enough. If you continue to ask questions over and over again, making them compare you, it can damage your relationship especially if it turns out that their ex was better at certain things.

4. You make your partner reassure you all the time

You have huge self-doubt and cannot believe that your partner loves you the way you are, so you make them reassure you all the time that you are enough for them in all the aspects. You want to get confirmations that you are smart enough, attractive or funny. Low self-esteem is a terrible thing that leads to unpleasant consequences, thus, it can easily turn a normal relationship into a toxic one because one of the partners doesn’t feel happy without all these proofs, while another one may get tired of reassuring the partner here and there.

5. You take everything too personally

When your partner starts telling you a story about someone or a situation in general, you take it personally even though the story is not about you. Nonetheless, you catch yourself reflecting on what the partner is thinking of you here and there, and each of the given scenarios is negative because you assume only the worst. You start reading between the lines, and your insecurities become only stronger. You are trying hard to “reveal the truth” and get them to confess that they don’t love you or anything like that. It looks as if you hope that all your insecurities will be confirmed.

Ways to Solve Insecurities in a Relationship

If you are prone to stress and constant doubt, then any relationship can make you feel vulnerable and emotionally unstable. It isn’t a rare phenomenon for people who have gained unpleasant experiences or were dealing with a toxic partner. How to stop being insecure? If you have already found the answer to the question, “Why am I so insecure in my relationship?” it’s time to proceed to solutions to the problem. Of course, you should avoid hasty conclusions and exaggerations, this can be the key to overcoming the uncertainty and anxiety in your relationship. And here are some other tips on how to be less insecure or even cope with that issue completely.

1. Find value in yourself

To get rid of insecurities, stop dwelling on what you think you don’t have. You are your worst critic in any situation. People tend to exaggerate their drawbacks and understate advantages. We compliment other people, but we forget to praise ourselves. In healthy relationships, partners realize their pros and cons and accept them. So, remind yourself of your unique features that, most likely, attracted your significant other to you. And instead of concentrating on your flaws, think about your advantages. The more often you will do that, the more confident you will be. Jealousy and insecurity in relationships arise precisely from self-doubt, so you should deal with that first.

2. Stay independent

You might believe that your life will lose all its bright colors without your significant other. However, this is not a reason to enter a co-dependent relationship. The reason they have fallen in love with your personality, in the first place, is your uniqueness, self-satisfaction, and independence. It may be hard for you to maintain your previous level of independence, but you should do your best. An amazing way to maintain your independence and not be insecure in a relationship is to have your own hobbies, interests, a circle of friends, and a source of inspiration.

3. Stop reading between lines

The root cause of social anxiety that appears in relationships is a lack of open communication, which, in turn, leads to attempts to read each other's minds. And even though telepathy remains unconfirmed by official science, many people still try to read the minds of other people, mainly assuming they know what they think, even if it is not the case. And this process of inventing and guessing someone else's thoughts lead to a feeling of insecurity in yourself and your partner. If someone tells you one thing, you should not immediately read between the lines. And do not make other people try to guess your thoughts. Say what you think and think about what to say.

4. Stop trying to find the perfect partner

You may spend the rest of your life searching for the right partner if you expect them to be perfect and flawless. Moreover, such searches are quite capable of leading you to half-madness since you will feel greater self-doubt with every next unsuccessful relationship that does not correspond to your fantasies of a perfect union. Everyone is looking for those very special, unique people who would become an ideal match for them, but over time, we begin to understand that ideal people do not exist, and all of them are at least somewhat imperfect. By the way, you are not an exception, and therefore, you should not look for a perfect partner but those who can complement your imperfection.

5. Stop focusing on the negative

Perfect relationships are like unicorns in fairy fairies. And even if your relationship seems perfect to you right now, it won’t always stay that way. But imperfect relationships are beautiful in their own way. The more two close people accept each other as they are, and the less intolerance and excessive expectations they show, and the happier they are. Everything is simple. The way how two people accept each other’s imperfections and deal with them makes a relationship perfect. Despite the difficulties that arise from time to time in your relationship, you should not immediately conclude that the relationship is bad. After all, this may have such a negative impact on your relationships that it will lead to a breakup, or to the fact that your partner will begin to doubt your intentions.

When Should I Contact a Psychotherapist?

Most people are insecure because of what they have experienced with their previous partners. Have you tried hard to recover from the betrayal trauma? Do you project past negative experiences on the current relationships? Or have you got a childhood trauma that affects your adult life? You should realize your psychological issues. Having understood yourself, you will be able to start everything from scratch.

Each of us is unique and manifests their feelings and emotions in different ways. If you have noticed problems in your relationship, the root causes of which are your self-doubt and anxiety, then you should work on your problems to meet this challenge. If you understand that your emotions are too strong, and you cannot deal with all the problems on your own, you should visit a specialist, especially if you have betrayal or alike traumas. A psychotherapist will help you deal with trust issues and build a harmonious relationship.

You Are Worthy of Love

It is natural for a person to doubt themself and their abilities. And it can become perfect stimuli for self-development and improvement. You can change only yourself, so why not use this opportunity to become your best version? However, when these doubts get out of control, they can hurt your self-esteem and lead to unpleasant and undesirable consequences.

When you dwell on the advantages of a partner, you forget about yourself and begin to feel unworthy. Sincerity is appreciated by all. Be yourself. Accept your uniqueness. Work on what you want to change and try to see yourself through the eyes of your partner to see in yourself a person worthy of love!