Fear is often viewed as a damaging response to situations in a relationship. When a person experiences fear in a relationship, it often brings about insecure thoughts, such as:
"What if I'm not doing enough?"
"Do they really mean that?"
"Am I good enough for them?"
I'm here to conclude that fear is actually a normal and healthy response in relationships even though it is not often perceived as such. Whether or not we intend to, we often have unrealistic expectations of our partner to satisfy our needs. When we perceive our partner to not be satisfying these needs, we begin to experience fearful thoughts and anxious feelings. Let me be very clear in defining exactly what "needs" are and what they are often confused with.
"Needs" are NOT the same thing as insecurities.
We are naturally inclined as human beings to attempt to mask an insecurity by labeling it as a "need." In doing so, we feel better about ourselves and continue to justify our stream of thoughts and behavior even though they might be more than questionable.
For example, a woman may demand that her partner keep in contact with her while he's out at a bar with his friends, but she grows to be upset and fearful when he takes more than a few minutes to respond each time. She defines this as "a need for communication."
While this might be a more extreme example, similar scenarios are extremely common in relationships. The woman in this example has established a very unreasonable expectation for her partner where he obviously will not be able to satisfy her wishes. As a result, the woman becomes distrusting of her partner and grows more insecure in the relationship.
She blames him for her feelings of insecurity, and the relationship continues to regress. Eventually, either she or her partner decide to break up — but the problem doesn't stop there.
In order to keep this pattern from destroying future relationships in her life, she must develop the awareness that this expectation is an insecurity of hers and not a need that a man must satisfy. This process is how people go on to be in other relationships where the same problems emerge even though they are dating entirely different people. In other words, they are patterns that form because of an insecurity that has never been confronted and dealt with.
Identifying "needs" and "insecurities" as separate entities is essential to understand the fear you have in a relationship. Once you develop insight as to your own insecurities, you may develop healthy and reasonable expectations for your partner. From this, you can much more easily determine when your fear is healthy and when it is not.
Having some fear is important for a healthy, functional relationship. If we never feared losing our partner, we would stop putting in the necessary effort it takes to sustain the relationship and keep our partner happy.
It's important to note that the process of confronting and resolving your insecurities is not an easy one, and takes time and practice. We are not complete packages when we enter relationships. We have flaws, baggage, and lessons that have yet to be learned. But through self-awareness, we can become the best versions of ourselves and learn to be better partners in the future.
