7 Actionable Ways To Deal With Insecurities in Your Relationships
Security and trust are the most important things.
Relationships are supposed to be a source of happiness and comfort, but sometimes your sense of safety is shaken. Feelings of insecurity can show up when you’re feeling insecure in some or another way.
“Insecurity often causes negative thoughts about one’s ability to fit in with peers, reach goals, or find acceptance and support.” — Good Therapy
Such moments can be very stressful and even ruin your relationships. Insecurity is worse than a betrayal. While betrayal is a confident accident, insecurity isn’t.
Instead, insecurity feeling is teasing you all the time with doubts and you can’t do anything about it.
Most advice for dealing with this focuses on changing yourself, but the truth is no one else will ever be able to make you feel completely safe and sure of yourself all the time.
You can’t change who you are any more than your partner could change who they are. So how can you feel better about the relationship, yourself, and your concerns?
Focus on What You Have
This is the best approach to take when it comes to changing negative emotions that feel like they’re dragging you down. Insecurity stems from feeling like something is missing or not good enough as it is.
You might start to compare your relationships with your friends. They seemed to be confident and very happy while you have huge doubts. You want your relationships to be like someone else.
Comparing your relationships with others can create a problem in your mindest that your partner isn’t good enough for you because you actually have these doubts.
Instead, try focusing on all the things that are good about your relationship rather than ruminating about what isn’t there (or worse, what could be there).
Remember the reasons why you started your relationships. Find qualities that bring your attention to your partner. You couldn’t start to like someone because of sexual feelings only. There is way more than sex. Just try to remember what were these things.
Being picky can make you feel insecure about every aspect of your relationship and put you at a loss for what to do about it. Instead, focus on what you DO have: the love, fun, intimacy, and connection…the things that are in your partner.
Think About Insecurities
Insecurity often arises out of fear or pessimism without you realizing it. If you stop focusing on what makes you so worried, you realize that your feelings aren’t justified and you’re allowed to take power back over them.
“Understanding your personality type can often provide the key to recognising why you have tendencies to act or react in a certain way.” — University of Bristol
Instead of listening to what the other person is saying and working with those feelings, you can focus on yourself and retrain to feel better about your own insecurities.
Stop analyzing the actions and thoughts of your partner. There is a big chance that all these problems are just in your head, especially if there is no strong evidence.
So why are you think about unreal situations over and over again? Believe it or not, they probably are just in our minds.
What works great is when you talk about insecurities and start to analyze them. Yes, love and relationships are just feelings. This is why your brain might start to work worse or even stop at all (in a good meaning).
To go back to reality, you need to turn on your logic and think carefully for reasons of insecurity feelings, and evidence. Use your logic and if you can’t find strong evidence to feel insecure — it’s time to change your mindset and trust your partner.
This way, you give up the power over your own emotions.
Stop Transforming Your Partner
You are as perfect as you want to be — despite any previous experiences that brought you down. Your goals, fears, and insecurities are unique…and it’s okay to be who you want to be.
What isn’t OK is when you try to make your partner the same as you. Maybe you’re a vegetarian, but your partner isn’t and he refuses to become such. This is totally fine and you need to respect his solution.
Human logic is very interesting. If we don’t get what we want into the exact way we want, this is a sign of non-friend situations.
Instead of accepting that all people are different, you want to make someone like you. And if the mission is impossible, you start feeling that something is wrong, you feel insecure, you have doubts, and so on.
Instead of having insecure feelings because someone has a different point of view, transform your own mindset. Learn how to accept that all people are different and you must respect it.
When you understand this simple rule, your insecurity in the relationships will disappear.
Consider Your Partner’s Perspective
Don’t try to talk yourself out of fear or feel inferior by comparison, but try to listen from a place of compassion rather than judgment and take pride in being different when you’re with your partner.
“Someone’s novelty is someone else’s cliché. Someone’s revelation is someone else’s shrug.”
—John Nerst in Everything Studies
If they’re concerned about something specific, understand where they’re coming from, and don’t let them push you into feeling bad without letting them know their fears are unfounded.
I know how you can deal with all different perspectives in the best way. Use the next approach.
Put yourself in your partner’s place and think about the actions he’d do. Analyzing step by step what your partner did in some of the previous situations, follow the same steps.
If you do this correctly, you get a real-life experience by using your imagination.
It’s looks like you’re getting inside your partner’s brain and learning him or her deep. This technique allows you to predict similar situations in the future and remove insecurity feeling.
Talk Things Out
Don’t keep your partner guessing or making assumptions about your motives. If they ask you why you’re being so emotional, think about what they could be feeling on top of their own anxieties or fears.
It’s important to communicate when you have concerns and listen to each other without pushing them away without listening first and trying to talk yourself out of it!
Communication is key to everything. I remember myself when I had my first relationship and didn’t communicate enough. It was just a powerful flirt that transformed into a passion.
I was young and thought it would be enough. But in the reality, in order to feel stable and confident with your partner, you need to communicate way more than a kiss or having sex.
Even talking about your sex is fine. You need to listen to each other and understand what is important to each of you.
Maybe during your conversation, you find a problem and discuss a solution for it. By communicating more and more you gain trust in front of your eyes and if you had an insecure feeling before, now it’s gone.
Take the Time To Stop and Notice Your Own Emotions
Emotions. How deep do you love or feel happy? You’re a unique person as all we are, so you need to understand your feelings.
“Being human and having emotions is a package deal. And thank God! Would we really want to be robots, or efficient, non-feeling machines?”
— Rachael Morgan in PsychCentral
Let’s imaging a situation when you don’t have enough confidence to go on a date, but really want it. Think about what feeling is the reason for it. Maybe you’re afraid because you’re not confident in your look today?
Or maybe you just broke with your ex-partner and don’t trust anyone right now? Anyway depending on your current situation, you can analyze your feeling to find a real reason that makes you insecure to start or maintain relationships.
Being a great self-psychologist will help you to avoid many insecure situations that can break your plans or even ruin relationships.
This way helps you to develop the ability to observe yourself and connect with your emotions in a healthy way.
Give Your Partner the Benefit of the Doubt
If you feel like your partner isn’t as open and accepting as he could be, or think that he doesn’t understand all of your needs, it can be difficult to know how to respond.
Don’t assume that there is something wrong with your partner because it causes unnecessary anger and resentment. Give him the benefit of the doubt — remember, you can’t change the person you are dating, only who you are.
If you feel like getting into a relationship with someone who wasn’t always so accepting of others or so open-minded about your beliefs, this might not be what was originally intended for you two to experience together.
So to gain trust from you, your partner might need to feel insecure and be better first. His or her actions might assure that everything is serious between you two, so you can continue your lovely journey.
Final Thoughts
Just because one person is insecure doesn’t mean the whole relationship has to be insecure, too…and it doesn’t make you insecure if your partner feels insecure.
Everyone has fears and insecurities, so if one partner feels bad, it’s not because of them as a person — it’s because they feel something deeply about the relationship…or about themselves as a person.
The good news is that no matter how deeply you feel, your feelings are completely valid for the time being.
No one can hurt you through the way you feel on their own. By recognizing what you fear and working with those thoughts rather than following them blindly, you can take personal power back over your life.
Accept who you’re and be honest with yourself instead of submitting to your insecurities.
