All people have some type of insecurity at some point in our lives. However, there are some who are more likely than others to experience all kinds of insecurities more intensely than others. Especially when it comes to a love relationship.
Insecure people have trouble differentiating reality from their paranoia, and all their relationships are characterized by a strong sense that things will go terribly wrong from one moment to the next.
When you are insecure, you constantly worry about losing the person you love, and that worry leads you to act in ways that are the ones that really end up damaging the relationship for real, such as being extremely jealous.
Why are we insecure?
There are many reasons why a person can become insecure.
The first one almost always has to do with low self-esteem, since a person who values and loves himself is not always worried about being valued and loved by others.
It can also be the case that someone becomes very insecure in their relationships since they have been hurt in previous relationships.
When we have been hurt too much, no matter how much we find a person who truly respects and loves us, if we do not overcome insecurity, we will always think that at any moment they will betray us.
There are many attitudes that are linked to insecurity. The common denominator, however, has to do with interpreting everything in the worst possible way.
For example, an insecure person in the car with their partner may start to panic after they have been silent for more than five minutes.
You are probably thinking that your partner is angry, feeling bad things or hiding something.
A person who is not insecure will probably not even notice these lapses of silence, or will not link them to the possibility that there is something wrong in the relationship.
Either way, insecurity always ends up wearing down emotional relationships.
Paradoxically, it arises from the need not to lose the person, but it is the same insecurity that makes us act in ways that end up driving them away, such as becoming very jealous and possessive.
Insecure people also tend to be much more demanding than people who are not, and this ends up emotionally draining the people around.
Is it possible to avoid insecurity?
When we start an intimate relationship, in addition to feeling excited and in love, we do not feel emotionally vulnerable, especially if we have had bad experiences or disappointments before.
Although many of us try to ignore them, doubts frequently appear, such as what if he does not love me as much as I love him or her? What if he is just playing? What if he is seeing other people? you don’t like me anymore?
All of these insecurities, to some extent, are normal. We could even say that they are part of the charm and adrenaline of meeting someone in a romantic context.
But the ideal is that the two people quickly reach a level of trust in which these questions no longer have a place.
When something makes us anxious, it is normal for us to start looking for signs that something is wrong. Although this is a mechanism that allows us to detect problems and solve them in time, sometimes it also makes us create the illusion that there are problems where in reality there are none.
We all automatically assess the status of our relationships, and when we detect that something is wrong, we try to find out where the problem is so we can fix it.
But insecure people do not have the objectivity necessary to determine if what they are seeing is a symptom or a fortuitous circumstance.
Let’s take a simple example. Let’s imagine two different airplane pilots. One of them has been flying for years and the other is a rookie. The novice, still not feeling adept enough, will interpret many of the signals on the aircraft’s dash with alarm.
Whereas the veteran pilot will know exactly which ones represent problems, and will ignore all the others.
Well, insecure people have a hard time going from being new to their relationship to being experts, and it all creates anxiety all the time.
There are levels of insecurity so extreme that people even end up ending relationships that are perfectly fine on the grounds that they know something will go terribly wrong anyway.
How to stop being insecure?
There are many things you can do to keep your insecurity at bay. Expert emotional relationship therapists indicate that these are the seven strategies that you should implement as soon as possible to prevent your insecurity from fracturing your relationship and your peace of mind.
1.- Don’t let the real and the imaginary mix
Many times when we feel anxious, we think of the worst scenario that could be happening.
Although we do it to be prepared, what ends up happening is that what began as a tragic fantasy ends up taking up so much space in our heads that there comes a point where we can no longer decide whether it is real or imaginary.
Suggestion is one of the most powerful forces in the human mind, and autosuggestion is too. It is proven that when people are suggested, they find evidence of what worries them even when the environment is full of exactly the opposite signals.
For example, you may be concerned about your partner’s loyalty. If you are trying to look for signs that you are being cheated on everywhere, even if you have a perfect day with your partner where he is giving you his full attention, you will find a way to turn that positive attitude into a reason for suspicion.
Overly insecure people tend to interpret the acts of love and concern of others as acts of guilt, teasing, or deception.
The next time you feel insecure, ask yourself what it is you are imagining. Then write it down on a list titled “things I’m imagining.”
Being able to distinguish between what we are imagining and what is reality is one of the most important steps to leave insecurity behind.
2.- Avoid being a controller
People think they will stop being controlling when they stop being insecure, but in reality, the right way to do that is to keep our need to be controlling so that we can become more confident.
When we are obsessed with the relationship being exactly how we want it to be, we have a great symptom of insecurity in front of us.
The need to have absolute certainty about our partner’s feelings, activities and location at all times, also responds to an unhealthy need for control and implies a high emotional exhaustion.
If you think about it objectively, you could be spending all that time on something more productive for yourself.
The solution is not to find a way to be certain about everything, but to learn to live with a certain degree of uncertainty, since it is virtually impossible to have absolute control over our partner without becoming criminals.
Remember that, even if you could, the absolute control of your partner would not make you a less insecure person because you would always be afraid of losing it.
In order to live with a certain level of uncertainty, we all need an equivalent level of confidence in ourselves, as it is the tool with which we will face whatever that uncertainty implies.
Although people who love us can give us a certain degree of confidence in ourselves, the main source of this has to be, you guessed it! yourself.
But this confidence does not build itself overnight, it is part of cultivating all your abilities as an integral and independent human being.
3.- Let the relationship breathe
When you plant a seed in the ground, you need to give it access to sunlight, water, and air. In order for a plant to grow, you also need to give it room to develop. Your relationship also needs some room to breathe.
That both have some space on their own and activities independently, does not mean that they do not like each other or that they are losing interest, simply that they are being human beings with their own interests.
This space also allows the members of a couple to miss each other and have news to tell, otherwise everything would be very monotonous.
4.- Stop trying to read minds
There is virtually no person in the world who can read another’s mind.
As much as you are convinced that you know your partner perfectly, if you are insecure, your deductions about what someone else is thinking are most likely far from reality, because insecure people are prone to see problems where they are not. there are.
Many people are perfectly comfortable in silence with others. Insecure people, on the other hand, feel that silence is a form of punishment or of hiding things.
Usually insecure people will make one or two tries trying to figure out what the other person has, but after they get the answer of “nothing, I’m fine” once or twice, they will start looking for imaginary clues that something is wrong, they can make up an unlikely story about it.
5.- Stop comparing your current relationship with your past relationships
All relationships are different, and in each case different challenges, attitudes and opportunities will appear. What worked or did not work in another relationship does not have to apply in your current relationship.
Insecure people are constantly looking for recipes or formulas that they can generalize to all relationships, and since they have a hard time overcoming disappointments in past relationships, it is as if they will transport absolutely all the problems they had with their previous partner to the new one.
Insecure people frequently blame their partners for attitudes or behaviors that really have absolutely nothing to do with them, but that appeared in past relationships, for example, infidelity.
This lack of trust will make the other party in the relationship feel as though nothing they have done well matters, and eventually lead them to consider that there is little point in being with a person who is incapable of trust.
6.- Reaffirm yourself as a person
People who are busy pursuing their goals, honing their talents, and achieving life goals generally don’t have much time to be insecure, because they are working to be better for themselves and for others every day.
Security has nothing to do with egotism.
Rather, it is a healthy feeling that we are people worthy of love and respect, and that we have the necessary skills and tools to perform well in all aspects of life, including emotionally.
If the center of your life is your partner and your main concern is not to lose it, you will not have the space you need to build your own confidence in yourself. It sounds counterintuitive, but the best way to keep a person by your side is to focus on being good with yourself.
7.- Focus on the good things
Being an insecure person is very exhausting, but so is being in a relationship with someone insecure.
Someone who has to deal with the claims and demands of care from a mistrust partner all the time will eventually feel that all the good they have done for the relationship counts for nothing.
When we get carried away by our insecurity, and, for example, we tell someone who has always been faithful to us that they are being unfair to us, we are also hurting them a lot.
Remember that no true relationship is going to be perfect all the time; what matters is the big picture.
Never make decisions or express hurtful words motivated by your insecurity. If you are in a time of crisis, it is best to take a moment away to reflect on all the good objectively.
If this article was of great help to you, recommend it to your friends on your social networks so that more people like you can overcome insecurities in their relationship.
