When you feel insecure in your relationship, it creates fear and distress which may lead to self-sabotage. Strengthening your bond in a relationship is a constant effort and do you know how to effectively make this change?
Strengthen Your Bond Through Couples Counselling
These feelings of insecurity in your relationship can begin when you feel frustrated that you can’t openly share how you feel without being dismissed or diminished for having those feelings. You may even be made to feel like you’re going crazy or that it’s not okay for you to feel what you are feeling. This can be very isolating and make some people feel very alone.
This can also increase your fears of being abandoned, and cause you to withhold your emotions, which may create anger and resentment towards your partner and maybe even yourself. Especially when you don’t get a comforting response back from your partner or another person that you are wanting or expecting. When you feel like your partner isn’t there for you when you need them the most (ie. after serious illness, birth of a baby, or a death of a parent;etc.) this can reinforce that vulnerability, and fear of being alone, emotions of abandonment and rejection and loss can start to set in too for some. You may come to the conclusion as a result of this that your bond is insecure and your attachment.
So that feeling of being unsupported, disconnected, emotionally starved from your partner, may leave you hungry for connection, and support but you know you can’t turn to your relationship when you need too. Over time both partners begin to feel deprived of having their emotional needs met, and that need for support goes unresponded and unreacted too which negatively impacts the bond.
An insecure attachment is created leaving you distraught, emotionally dissatisfied, alone, and craving to have your needs met like a hungry lion starved of food. It starts to look for it any where it can get it.
The insecurity that each partner feels creates this fear and distress that is understandable but may cause feelings of hate, anger, hurt, sadness, shame, and/or guilt.
Lack of an Emotional Bond
An emotional bond is critical in a relationship for it to be healthy and thrive, and it requires continual and consistent effort which is developed over time, through intention. We sometimes assume that this emotional bond is automatic but it isn’t, nor does it happen by accident. Should you turn to your partner in need, requiring comforting, and care when you need them most and consistently they are unavailable and not responsive, it is not that surprising that you may feel angry, hurt, afraid, and frustrated. When this reaction to your needs happen repeatedly it just reinforces that fear of abandonment, insecurity, anticipatory grief and loss.
It’s not uncommon for some partners to feel rejected, like a failure, unworthy, and like they are being controlled possibly by that other person. That their needs don’t matter, that they are not valued, accepted or loved for who they are essentially feeling like they aren’t good enough for that person or possibly others. These emotions and fears are real for the person concerned and become easier to understand when they are considered in the light of his or her experiences in current or previous relationships.
Commonly Expressed Fears
“I feel invisible and like I don’t matter to my partner.”
“I feel like my partner isn’t there for me when I really need them to be.”
“No matter how hard I try, I feel like I can’t make my partner happy.” “Nothing I ever do is good enough for them.”
“My opinions don’t seem to matter and aren’t as important as theirs.”
“I feel afraid that when things do get really bad for me, that my partner isn’t going to be there for me or have my back.”
“I don’t feel like I’m wanted or needed.”
“I don’t feel like my partner finds me attractive anymore.”
“I feel like I don’t have a voice or that I’m being heard by my partner.”
“I don’t feel like I can impact my partner in anyway and that I’m powerless.”
“My needs don’t seem to matter to my partner, as much as his/hers do.”
Notice which statements above resignate with you, reading them again slowly pay attention to the ones that elicit some sort of feeling or reaction in you. Notice and write them down, and notice the impact of saying and feeling this has on you. Do you feel any distress in these statements and how would you describe it in your own words. What feelings, images or sensations do you notice in your body? After you’ve done this and if you feel safe doing so, maybe you share this with your partner. Share the impact that this has had on you with them. Allowing yourself to become real, and be vulnerable. This will help strengthen your bond with them.
Learn more by contacting us today at admin@ovcs.ca. Or check out our other blog posts on Couples now.
