Why Am I So Scared In My Relationship

Relationship Fears: Why You Have Them & How To Overcome Them

There are numerous reasons why you might be experiencing fear in your relationship and having difficulties controlling your negative emotions. Sometimes, the reason can be underlying unresolved anger issues in your relationship, or your fear might be stemming from the emotional abandonment you could be experiencing.

Depending on the reason behind your fear, there are ways to resolve the matters and begin the process of healing and finding lost trust that will help you feel safe and secure in your relationship. That is why it is important to take a closer look at the potential reasons why you’re feeling scared, and what you can do to potentially overcome those fears before giving a relationship building skills workshop a chance. 

Why Am I So Scared In My Relationship?

What Is It Called When You Have A Fear Of Relationships

Being scared in a relationship doesn’t always have anything to do with negative treatment or feelings within a relationship. It could just mean that you’re actually scared of being in love, opening completely, and everything else being in a committed relationship can bring. Let’s take a look at the most common reasons people feel scared in relationships:

  1. You’re afraid of feeling vulnerable: New relationships are often uncharted territories, and allowing yourself to fall in love can feel risky. This challenges your core defenses, making you feel scared of becoming exposed and vulnerable.
  2. You’re afraid of past hurts: Your past relationship history and old family of origin wounds could be affecting your current relationship experience. The hurt you might have felt in your previous close relationships could be affecting your ability to commit, for fear of getting hurt again.
  3. You’re afraid of love challenging your identity: Being in a loving and committed relationship can make some people feel afraid of losing their own identity. They are scared of their partner influencing and changing their own notions of themselves as individuals.
  4. You’re afraid of pain accompanying love: You could be fearing that your complete joy of being in a relationship could be upended by an equal amount of inevitable sadness that follows.
  5. You’re afraid of the inequality of love: This can work both ways – you feeling your love remains unequally reciprocated, and you fearing you won’t give your partner the amount of love and devotion they instill upon you.
  6. You’re afraid of losing connection to your family: Some people perceive long-lasting relationships as the beginning of breaking up your family connections and starting a new life further away from them than they’d like.

What Is It Called When You Have A Fear Of Relationships?

Love, no matter how beautiful and uplifting, can also be frightening, and some apprehension is quite normal and expected. However, extreme fear of relationships can also exhibit itself in certain individuals, and it is called philophobia, or the fear of loving and connecting with another person.

Philophobia is a completely overwhelming fear of allowing yourself to fall in love. Symptoms can vary from one individual to another and, even if you don’t have this condition,you may have symptoms that would be important for you to address and heal.   There are some common symptoms that most people suffering from philophobia identify with:

  • You’re unable to let go of the past.
  • You’re scared of having your heart broken.
  • You’re not opening up to others.
  • You have constant trust issues.
  • You’re overly focused on your single life.
  • You feel like in a cage when in a relationship.
  • You’re only enjoying the physical aspects of a relationship.

How Do You Overcome Your Fears?

Learning how to overcome your fear of relationships is paramount when trying to be part of a loving, supportive, and nurturing relationship. There are three initial phases of first realizing your fear, before actually attempting to take steps to overcome it. As naive as they may sound, they are, nonetheless, vital for the starting efforts:

  • Attempt to realize that you’re experiencing relationship fear and anxiety.
  • Try to detect the underlying reason behind your relationship fears. 
  • Make the decision to endeavor to overcome your relationship fears.

Also, do not refrain from contacting experienced and educated relationship coaches to help you determine and overcome your fear of relationships. If you’re struggling to resolve your problems alone, you can always turn to professionals. 

Steps To Face Your Fears

Once you do become aware of your relationship fears, you can try to work them out. Although there are many methods and many steps to actually overcoming them, you can always try the following five steps that are simple, but exhaustive and effective:

  1. History

    Take a look at your relationship history, the reasons behind your relationships ending, the biggest hurdles and stumbling blocks, and try to draw conclusions.

  2. Inner critic

    Do not allow your own unfounded feelings of inadequacy affect your potential for being in a fulfilling relationship.

  3. Defenses

    Take a look at your potentially defensive attitude, try to determine the reasons behind it, and challenge them if they are unsubstantiated. 

  4. Feelings

    Allow yourself to truly feel and experience all the incredible feelings a committed relationship can offer. Do not close yourself to the beauty of a loving relationship.

  5. Vulnerability

    Finally, allow yourself to become open, and embrace the innate vulnerability that follows without trying to protect yourself by closing up. 

Choose PIVOT Relationship Building Skills Workshop To Deal With Your Fears

How Do You Overcome Your Fears?

Feeling scared in your relationship is an issue you can work through and resolve. However, sometimes, you are not able to do so on your own, and you might need some help from trained and educated professional coaches. When you find yourself unable to advance all alone, you can turn to qualified and experienced advocates from PIVOT to build or rebuild trust in your relationship at one of our workshops. PIVOT is a relationship retreat that offers love, care, and understanding. We are proud of our team of professional relationship advocates who offer both individual emotional intimacy coaching sessions, as well as relationship workshops and retreats for you and your partner. We want to help you feel safe and brave in your relationship once again. Contact PIVOT today!

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