![]() Our feelings toward someone are an ever-changing force. The truth is that love is often imbalanced, with one person feeling more or less from moment to moment. Love is often unequal. Many people I’ve talked to have expressed hesitation over getting involved with someone, because that person “likes them too much.” They worry that if they got involved with this person, their own feelings wouldn’t evolve, and the other person would wind up getting hurt or feeling rejected. When it comes to falling in love, we may be hesitant to go “all in,” for fear of the sadness it would stir up in us.ĥ. We cannot selectively numb ourselves to sadness without numbing ourselves to joy. Many of us shy away from the things that would make us happiest, because they also make us feel pain. With real joy comes real pain. Any time we fully experience true joy or feel the preciousness of life on an emotional level, we can expect to feel a great amount of sadness. When another person sees us differently from our voices, loving and appreciating us, we may actually start to feel uncomfortable and defensive, as it challenges these long-held points of identification.Ĥ. These critical thoughts or “inner voices” are often harmful and unpleasant, but they’re also comfortable in their familiarity. As adults, we may fail to see them as an enemy, instead accepting their destructive point of view as our own. While these attitudes can be hurtful, over time, they have become engrained in us. This coach is shaped from painful childhood experiences and critical attitudes we were exposed to early in life as well as feelings our parents had about themselves. ![]() We all have a “ critical inner voice,” which acts like a cruel coach inside our heads that tells us we are worthless or undeserving of happiness. We have trouble feeling our own value and believing anyone could really care for us. Love challenges an old identity. Many of us struggle with underlying feelings of being unlovable. Pat Love said in an interview with PsychAlive, “when you long for something, like love, it becomes associated with pain,” the pain you felt at not having it in the past.ģ. We may steer away from intimacy, because it stirs up old feelings of hurt, loss, anger or rejection. Old, negative dynamics may make us wary of opening ourselves up to someone new. ![]() The ways we were hurt in previous relationships, starting from our childhood, have a strong influence on how we perceive the people we get close to as well as how we act in our romantic relationships. New love stirs up past hurts. When we enter into a relationship, we are rarely fully aware of how we’ve been impacted by our history. We tend to believe that the more we care, the more we can get hurt.Ģ. Any habits we’ve long had that allow us to feel self-focused or self-contained start to fall by the wayside. We are placing a great amount of trust in another person, allowing them to affect us, which makes us feel exposed and vulnerable. Letting ourselves fall in love means taking a real risk. Real love makes us feel vulnerable. A new relationship is uncharted territory, and most of us have natural fears of the unknown. So what drives our fears of intimacy? What keeps us from finding and keeping the love we say we want?ġ. These defenses may offer us a false illusion of safety or security, but they keep us from attaining the closeness we most desire. While our fears may manifest themselves in different ways or show themselves at different stages of a relationship, we all harbor defenses that we believe on some level will protect us from getting hurt. Whether we know it or not, most of us are afraid of really being in love. ![]() The answer for many of us can be found within. This leaves the question “why do relationships fail?” to linger heavily in the back of our minds. No matter what the timeline, the story of lost love is one most of us can tell. You may even have heard it referred to as “ National Breakup Month.” In this so-called breakup season, we may be unfortunate enough to witness once-happy couples splitting up left and right, or we may recount our own painful parting from a partner we once loved. The beginning of the year is often said to see a spike in couple splits, with various sources claiming that January hosts most divorce filings and couple separations. 13 to be “National Breakup Day.” They did so after conducting a survey in which 59 percent of people said that if they were looking to end their relationship, they would hypothetically do so before Valentine’s Day to save money. What keeps us from finding and keeping the love we say we want?Īround this time last year, Virgin Mobile USA proclaimed Feb. Fear of Intimacy, Love, Relationship Problems, Relationshipsīy Lisa Firestone, Ph.D.
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