RELATIONSHIP INSECURITY MAKES MATTERS WORSE

Relationships are perhaps one of the most important aspects of any individual’s life. Without relationships, life seems to be listless. Research shows that one of the most important causes of a healthy and satisfied life is having good and healthy relationships.

This explains why people are, generally, desirous of having good and healthy relationships. For some people this desire becomes too strong and develops into a fear of losing their relationship (friendship, romantic relationship, etc.).

Some people, due to various reasons, have had a history of not having satisfying relationships or their relationships not turning out as expected. These continuous experiences become extremely hurtful and distressing. After a while a certain kind of fearfulness towards relationships starts to creep in within such individuals. They develop a fear of losing a relationship, which has a potential to become highly satisfying.

Such people begin to experience a certain kind of conflict within them. Their previous experiences, regarding relationships, on the one hand increases their desire to have at least one highly satisfying relationship and at the same time they develop a feeling to avoid people in order to not to get hurt again. They feel that if they become close to another person then sooner or later that relationship will suffer the same fate of their previous relationships.

Although there is the presence of the feeling of avoidance towards relationships, the desire of having a good relationship keeps pushing them towards the person with whom they feel close to and have a certain comforting feeling.

When such an individual initially gets to know a person whom he/she thinks to be a potentially satisfying relationship, he/she first keeps a distance. But when the individual develops a sense of comfort level with that person, then that feeling of avoidance gradually begins to diminish. However, this is also accompanied with a fear of perhaps one day losing that person and getting hurt once again.

Despite this constant fear, the comfort level and the liking that the individual has towards the other person, draws him/her more and more towards that person. This gives rise to another conflict in which the individual wants to be closer to the person but also thinks that he/she might get hurt again.

All this becomes too complicated for the individual, which leads the person to think that no matter what happens, he/she will not lose that person and will develop a relationship that has a lot of depth and has many emotions involved. This is where everything begins to go wrong.

The individual becomes completely insecure and wants to do everything to not only sustain the relationship for a longer period of time, but also to make it more and more intimate. For instance, the individual might begin to develop unreasonable expectations from the other person and act according to those expectations. Obviously, most of the times those expectations are not fulfilled which leads the person to complain about them with the other person.

Apart from developing unreasonable expectations, the individual also begins to make unreasonable demands. As the expectations become unfulfilled, similarly these demands are unable to be fulfilled. Due to all this, the individual becomes upset and gradually the fear of losing that person begins to increase. This increasing of fear makes the individual extremely desperate in order to make the relationship better and to make it continue for a longer period.

The expectations, complaints, and demands begin to make the other person a little uncomfortable. While all this is going on, the other person continuously begins to feel uncomfortable and in order to stay away from that discomfort he/she begins to distance himself/herself from that individual. The person, initially may not want to do that, but is perhaps not left with any other option. The desperation of the individual also does not do any good for all this. Gradually the discomfort felt by the other person turns into annoyance, which further may develop into disliking the individual.

The behavior of both of these people begins to resemble that of like poles. Like poles repel and similarly, on the one hand, the individual is getting desperate to be closer and closer to the other person and on the other hand, the person disliking this behavior begins to move farther away. The more desperate the individual gets the farther the other person moves away.

When this keeps on happening, there comes a time when the person cannot take it anymore. The other person perhaps gets fed up and thinks that the only way to feel better is to end the budding relationship. Eventually, this is exactly what happens and a relationship that had a potential to be highly intimate and satisfying ends without anybody’s fault. The relationship insecurity of the individual makes him/her desperate and continuous annoyance caused by that desperation makes the other person end the relationship. In this way all the fears of losing the person comes true.

Thus, the condition of the individual gets back to square one. The individual gets hurt again and in a way his/her fear of losing a relationship increases even more. He/she ends up being in the same position from where he/she started. The only change is that the intensity of the fear of losing a relationship might have increased a lot more. The initial conflict between avoidance and a desire of being close to someone remerges with an increased amount of intensity.

The insecurity in relationships that the individual had been carrying on makes matters worse. A relationship that has all the potential to develop into one that he/she desires does not flourish as expected only because of the insecurities that the individual may have. There is a complete irony. The desire of wanting more leads to getting nothing at all.

Although it is easier said than done, people with relationship insecurity should learn that nothing can be made to happen. A relationship should take its natural course into developing into an intimate and highly satisfying one. The more an individual forces things to happen the worse it gets.

Also, people at the receiving end should try to be a little understanding towards the person who has been carrying such insecurities throughout his/her life. This of course is not at all easy, because everyone requires their space and need their own time to develop a certain level of trust. The other person wanting things to develop naturally may misinterpret the intentions of the individual. But, if the person has a certain understanding about the individual then things can quite possibly be handled in a slightly different manner.

As mentioned above, things are not as easy as they may seem to be. The whole situation becomes too complicated for both. The individual unintentionally becomes desperate. The desire of getting closer to the other person actually drives the person away. Relationship insecurity, thus, becomes the cause of ending the relationship itself.