Relationship anxiety may stem from attachment difficulties in early childhood, emotional neglect, or from general anxiety that manifests as worry in your relationships. Although these feelings are difficult to experience, therapy and stress management techniques can help reduce them and improve relationships.
Relationship anxiety refers to feelings of doubt, insecurity, nonstop worry, and a need for constant reassurance that sometimes occurs during a relationship. Such anxiety may have roots in early childhood attachments and is often a sign of an insecure attachment style.
There are many reasons why someone might feel anxious about their relationships. They might fear being abandoned or rejected or worry that their feelings are not reciprocated. Some may worry that their partner will be unfaithful or that the relationship will not last.
Anxiety is a mental health disorder.
Symptoms of relationship anxiety may include self-silencing and excessive reassurance-seeking. People with relationship anxiety may also crave acceptance from their partner and fear rejection. These symptoms can negatively impact the relationship over time.
Childhood: The Root Cause of Relationship Anxiety
“Oftentimes, relationship anxiety stems from attachment patterns that develop in early childhood,” says Zayde. “A child will develop a prototype of what to expect from others based upon their early caregiving experiences.”
Stand up to it – the only way to overcome this kind of behaviour is to stop responding to it. Try to acknowledge what you're feeling and simply sit with it, without responding in the usual way. You'll notice that the anxiety dissipates in its own time.
Relationship OCD, or rOCD, is a newly recognized type of obsessive-compulsive disorder that is primarily concerned with fears and doubts about one's relationship, typically of an intimate or romantic nature.
Relationship insecurity can be caused by many different things, but it is often the result of feeling abandoned, neglected, or not good enough. There are signs that indicate your relationship is unhealthy and you may be feeling insecure for a reason.
Generally speaking, if you're constantly thinking about breaking up with your boyfriend, it's usually a sign that you're not fully happy or satisfied with the relationship.
Medications may include selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and selective noradrenaline reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs). You may also find that couples counseling may also help with reducing relationship-related anxiety.
The need for affection solidifies our desire to know we are compatible with another human being, even if the relationship is on the friendship or familial level. It creates a sense of harmony in a relationship, especially when it is an intimate one, according to about.com.
Your partner needs constant validation and reassurance
Dating a partner who needs constant validation and reassurance is a massive red flag.
Consistently seeking reassurance in relationships can stem from the anxieties that our partners do not care or love us in the way that we ideally expect them to. Going back to the anxious attachment style, people might feel insecurity about their relationships based on a worry that partners might leave.
Anxious-avoidant relationships can work, but sometimes couples are simply incompatible. Mismatched needs and values may not be deal breakers on their own, but they can be if you add attachment fears into the mix.
When you start thinking about someone else's desires and needs as much as your own, it's a pretty good sign that you are in love, Shaffer says. "You may not necessarily want the same things but when you are in love, you start thinking of the other person's perspective just as much as your own."
Symptoms of Philophobia
The symptoms of this fear are different for each person. However, many people with philophobia experience: Lack of intimate relationships. Always feeling anxious in relationships.
Someone with an anxious attachment style has an intense fear of rejection and abandonment. Because an anxious attacher feels unworthy of love, they may focus on what they perceive to be a threat to their relationship in an attempt to prevent what they see as the inevitable from occurring – their partner leaving them.
Overthinking Is Rooted In Insecurity
Overthinking in a relationship often has its roots in your past. There was most likely someone you deeply cared about but the relationship didn't work out the way you hoped. You may not have known why the relationship failed and you may have felt abandoned.