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Anuptaphobia or fear of not having a partner: how to know if it is happening to you
Couple
The psychologist and couples therapist, Lidia Alvarado, explains what is behind the fear of not having a partner
La anuptaphobia It is the persistent fear or phobia of not having a partner or being alone that both women and men present. People who suffer from this problem, which is most common between the ages of 30 and 40 and among women, become obsessed with the idea of having a partner making this task practically his only objective. “They are desperately looking for her, investing a lot of energy and a lot of time in finding her,” says the psychologist and couples therapist, Lidia Alvarado.
However, the expert emphasizes the fact that when dealing with this question, it is not necessary to confuse the “Desire to have a partner” with the possibility of suffering from this phobia. “It is healthy to want to have a relationship when you live in a natural way and have the ability to enjoy other facets of life until that person arrives,” clarifies Alvarado.
But then, when could a person be considered to be suffering from this problem? As the psychologist indicates, the alarm signals should go off when the situation of not having a partner produces so much anguish and suffering that it contaminates all areas of life, and therefore, it becomes a necesidad.
Warning signs to identify phobias
It could be said, therefore, that people who suffer from this phobia focus their lives on finding a partner. “Everything they do aims to meet someone with whom to start a relationship, in such a way that their world is reduced to finding a partner, feeling great frustration when they do not succeed,” reveals Alvarado.
Other aspects that characterize people who could be suffering from this problem, as detailed by the couples therapist are:
1. If it is a priority and only objective. Anuptaphobia exists when you go from “letting it happen spontaneously” to planning your whole life so that it occurs by resorting to all kinds of strategies, tricks , tools y technologies. In short, we suffer from this disorder, the fact of having a partner becomes the priority and only objective of his life.
2. They envy other couples. People who suffer from it have a tendency to observe other couples filling their head with ruminant thoughts trying to find out how they have achieved it.
3. They feed back with negative thoughts. They have many negative and pessimistic beliefs about their situation, repeating recurring thoughts such as: “I will never find a partner”, “I will always be alone”, “No one will love me or I will never be happy.”
4. They constantly fear that everything will end. When they finally start a relationship, they feel a great fear of losing it and being alone again, so they live their relationships with high anxiety.
5. They accept anything as long as they are not alone. They cling to partners out of need and emotional dependence, not out of a feeling of authentic love, falling into toxic relationships or dysfunctional that they are unable to stop.
6. They can go on to stage dramas or accept humiliation. In some cases, they may have extreme behaviors to avoid abandonment or the breakdown of the relationship, being able to tolerate situations or behaviors that another person who did not have a dependency would never tolerate that type of fear.
7. They chain relationships, without spending time alone. Their need to always be in a relationship leads them to link one relationship with another or several relationships in a short time. For these people the phrase “better alone than in bad company” does not make sense.
What people suffer with loneliness?
The most characteristic features of people who suffer from anuptaphobia are, according to Lidia Alvarado, “the exaggerated fear of loneliness, low self-esteem and insecurity.”
In addition, people who suffer from this phobia of not having a partner associate loneliness to very negative emotions such as sadness, the rechazo, the abandonment or the melancholy. “They feel a great emotional emptiness that they cannot face, and consequently they neither know nor want to be alone,” she reveals.
These people are unable to connect with themselves because they fear facing their insecurities y fears. They do not enjoy life if they do not have a partner, so they obsessively seek to establish emotional and intimate bonds. This can cause, according to the couples therapist, that they frequently fall into toxic, complex or dependency relationships.
But there are also social factors that influence the development of this irrational fear, such as the importance given in our society to having a partner, the environmental pressure or the fact that all the people in the close circle are in pairs.
In the specific case of women there are also many negative stereotypes that can contribute to making them more vulnerable to developing this phobia, such as pressure of the biological clock to have children and other derogatory terms used when a woman does not have a partner, such as the word “spinster” or “you’re going to miss out on the rice” that have negative connotations.
In some cases of anuptaphobia there may be very negative previous experiences with other people or with important figures, such as a insecure attachment with the main caregiver in childhood, which makes, according to Alvarado, these people have difficulty establishing ties and that is why they are obsessively looking for a partner.
Anuptaphobia is, in short, a type of fear or phobia that prevents building healthy relationships, but there are also other traits that negatively influence people’s emotional well-being. Therefore, before starting a relationship, it is necessary to put all the phobias, fears, insecurities and fears on the table, in order to eliminate them.