Overcome fear in love

Some enter into relationships on tiptoe, others live under the yoke of jealousy, others hardly breathe so as not to frighten off their lover. There are strong fears that cover us like water or flames, sometimes they are almost imperceptible. But they are always there and inseparable from love.

“Our fears show how important relationships are to us,” emphasizes systemic family therapist Tatyana Potemkina. “Intimacy with a significant other is vital to us.

We enter into a love relationship with a set of expectations, fantasies and hopes directed towards a partner. We are waiting for acceptance and understanding, intimacy and appreciation, love and care. It is important for us to confirm our value and uniqueness in the eyes of those whom we consider close. And to the same extent we are afraid of not getting what we so passionately desire.

Therefore, the fear of being rejected or abandoned, unnecessary or insignificant, unloved or controlled, not meeting the aspirations of a partner or being a failure in his eyes always goes hand in hand with our expectations.

Take the risk

“Many young people come to me for counseling,” says psychoanalyst Catherine Odiber, “and most of them are afraid of suffering because of the wrong choice of partner. Patients of mature age have other fears: to be alone, to be manipulated, dominated, betrayed … We forget that love is always a risk, because love contains the possibility of loss. You have to accept it in order to be able to love.”

There are many stories of deception in psychologists’ offices with the bitter conclusion: “I won’t fall for that bait again.” To them are added stories about how two people did not open up to each other, fearing betrayal, about illusions that allow us not to meet face to face with our reality and the reality of the other, about the rejection of love for fear that it will not be eternal.

Delve into childhood

“A relationship of love can rightfully be called an adult attachment, to which a person strives all his life,” emphasizes Tatyana Potemkina. How successful our search will be depends on the history of adult relationships, but primarily on early experience with the mother.

A child’s ability to feel safe in moments of loneliness determines how he will love in the future. “Without this security, the fear of being alone will force you to build relationships with another person based on need rather than desire,” said child psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott, author of The Ability to Be Alone.

“If the primary adult was unavailable, or dangerous, or unpredictable when the child needed him, then fear is born that the close relationship itself can be insecure and fraught with pain and disappointment,” the therapist continues. – Insecure attachment – eternal doubt about whether I need another, whether I have the right to care, or whether I must tirelessly do something to deserve love. Or should I always be on my guard to run from suffocating relationships where there is no place for my needs.

The perception of relationships distorted by fears creates an unsafe world, where even neutral actions of a partner are perceived as rejecting or threatening. And the threat makes us defend or attack, so conflicts and frustration are inevitable.

see repetitions

In insecure attachment, we are constantly revisiting childhood experiences. At the same time, the fear of attachment is extremely rarely fully realized by us, Tatyana Potemkina emphasizes: “We react to the danger of rejection with protective feelings – shame, anger or resentment directed at a partner. The familiar mechanism gives a feeling, albeit painful, but predictable. Hence the repeated cycles of mutual misunderstanding in couples.

“I spent whole days taking care of the house and children,” recalls Yevgenia, 42, whose situation Tatyana Potemkina considers quite common. – And when my husband returned, I wanted to talk to him. He sat down at the computer. It seemed to me that they did not appreciate me, it was insulting, and I showered him with reproaches until he exploded.

Only after psychotherapy did Evgenia realize that she was driven by a fear of rejection that originated in her childhood family: her parents were stingy with praise and were often absent. Her husband, 42-year-old Yuri, also made a discovery for himself: “I realized that I can’t say that I’m tired and I need time to recover. After all, it’s like becoming the very weakling that my father despised.”

“There are overt and covert elements in every encounter,” says Gestalt therapist Yves Meresse. “It is in that which is hidden that unresolved attachment issues will play out again. The need to pay attention to how we were loved in order to notice what is repeated in our affective present.

Become an actor

When we recognize our fears, we are empowered to resist them. Mindfulness is the grain of sand that can jam the gears of a machine that repeats negative scenarios.

What type of partner am I looking for, what type of partner am I running from? What in my behavior creates a problem for me or for the relationship?

What is repeated: excessive jealousy, emotional or sexual dependence, breaks on my initiative or on the initiative of a partner?

These questions require us to become actors in our story. 39-year-old Bella, who called herself a “serial brooch”, decided to “pump up” her independence, the way we pump up muscles.

“Instead of looking for another friend to heal my wounds, I thought about what I love to do, who I like to hang out with, and put together a program to feel good being alone. I practiced it for a year. At first it was difficult, as if I had weaned myself from addiction, and then it became nice to do something good for myself. For a year now I have been dating an amazing person, we continue to live separately, and so far it suits me very well.

It is useful to identify what we lack and what we need, and without shame or guilt to admit these needs – first of all to ourselves, and then, perhaps, to a partner. Some dare to share their fears. “If we dare to express them, realizing that we have trust in a partner, this strengthens the feeling of closeness, and therefore security,” says Yves Meresse.

Build a bond together

It is possible to change the style of attachment and strengthen trust in a couple, Tatiana Potemkina is convinced: “Most of us are able to recognize our emotional reactions and act deliberately. We learn to understand ourselves and others, to be sympathetic to the fact that we may have different views, we try to accept differences. We learn to help each other not only with activity, but also with empathy — that is, understanding the emotional state of a partner.”

Relationships are a two-way process. By changing the attitude towards a partner to a more open and sincere one, we change ourselves. A partner becomes for us a living person with his own strengths and weaknesses, and not an all-powerful parental figure, to whom there is always a reason to make demands or claims.

Sometimes we manage to do this in an already existing pair. But sometimes we go through a long search before we find someone who really suits us.

Here is the story of 53-year-old Nina: “Love for me has always been, if not a war, then something like a tug of war. Until I met Vitaly, who became my third husband. His kindness and generosity disarmed me. For the first time I feel trust. Not to him or to ourselves individually, but to us as a whole, and that’s the whole difference.

Indeed, remembering that we create a connection together and learning to take an active position are the surest means available to rid yourself and your partner of fear.