3 Ways Your Insecurity Hurts Your Relationship + What To Do About It

It's understandable to be apprehensive or even anxious at the start of a new relationship. Perhaps we had several relationships that started out promising only to deteriorate over time, or maybe our former partners blamed our flaws for the eventual breakup. Our past experiences (or even our lack of experience) can make us feel insecure about our intrinsic value and lovability.

More fundamentally, our insecurities may be related to our experiences growing up and may have little to do with the person we are currently in a relationship with. Insecure feelings can arise from a deep—likely injured—place within and need our compassionate attention. And until we learn to provide a secure base for ourselves, our insecurities will hurt the relationships we try to form with others.

If we don't attend to our insecurities, they often incite fears of inadequacy and abandonment, which can wear down both people in the relationship. No matter how supportive and reassuring our partners are, they will not resolve our deep-seated feelings about ourselves. As a result, they will likely become frustrated at their inability to help alleviate our suffering, which will place a great deal of stress on the relationship.

For this reason, we need to become aware of how our insecurities manifest and learn ways to calm and center ourselves in the face of such powerful and potentially misleading feelings.

Our insecurities about our lovability make us think that our partner might abandon us at any point. As a result, we may vigilantly watch and listen for any sign that our relationship with our partner is over. This constant scrutiny, common in those with an anxious attachment style, is exhausting for both parties and can drive us to seek our partner's reassurance regularly.

If the other person does offer reassurance, we need to accept their word and refrain from asking for it again. The next time we feel our insecurities resurface, we can remind ourselves of our previous conversation. We might also notice all the things that indicate that we are not about to be rejected: our partner's kind words, their actions, and the fun times we have together.

When we always go along with the other person's suggestions or points of view, we deny our own voice. Perhaps we don't tell our partner that we don't like the same music he is interested in because we are worried that we'll lose a significant common interest. Or maybe we don't challenge her restaurant choice because we don't want to seem disagreeable. Insecurity overtakes our will to speak up because we fear that our partner will not like who we really are.

If we notice that we are stifling our voice to keep our partner happy, we need to remind ourselves that doing so creates a relationship based on illusion. A healthy relationship happens when two people are honest and genuine with each other. In this kind of union, each partner is eager to know what the other feels, thinks, and wants. But if we deprive our partner of this honesty, we prevent the relationship from deepening and maturing.

When we are insecure, it is easy to misinterpret what our partner says or does. And while most of us can occasionally take something personal that is not, frequently doing this can become a problem. If we see the other person's behaviors through our lens of anticipated rejection, we will likely misinterpret them. Perhaps we think he doesn't want to see us anymore if he reschedules dinner with us (when really, he just had an unexpected deadline to meet). Or maybe if she insists on taking her own car, we assume she doesn't like the way we drive (when actually she just wanted to run a few errands before picking us up).

As we bring our insecurities into our romantic relationships, we create strain by speaking and acting out of our doubts, which often results in exhausting conversations and unnecessary arguments. But all of this is fixable.