Relationship anxiety
Brace yourselves for my example of relationship anxiety and bear with me! I was sitting in a waiting room one day recently. On the tv, there was a talk show on, and they were analysing the new season of a tv programme called “You” that had hit the world by storm over the last few years. Although it was deeply concerning to me that the host was swooning over the main character (who is a bonafide psycho/stalker/murderer, severely damaged from his childhood), I found great insight from one of the short scenes they showed on the talk show, and of course, I did a bit of research into what this programme is about and why women were so obsessed with this barbarian.
For a bit of context, in his past, this man has stalked women, psychologically manipulating them to be in a relationship with him, and when they realise what he is and what he has done, he kills them. However, his mission continues in life for “the one” who will understand and accept him fully. He finally finds her. She is a murderer too. They get married and have a baby. He’s finally happy, but his temptations don’t go away. He finds another woman to stalk and can’t help himself. His wife finds out and wants to go to couples therapy because she thinks it is her fault for some bizarre reason. So, the therapist did her thing, they both eventually discovered that they were both creating a distance between each other because they both were living in fear that if the other saw them wholly for who they really are, they may run away. The therapist ended the session by saying that this fear was the critical inner voice sabotaging their relationship.
Full disclosure, I don’t watch this tv programme, nor would I recommend watching it, but it really made me think about relationships, emotional unavailability, emotional maturity and the fear of intimacy. A real common statement that is thrown around and never unpacked when a relationship or potential relationship ends is “he is just too intense”, “too interested”, “too clingy”, “too attentive”… and the list goes on. It wasn’t until two of my friends were in a relationship that ended, that I heard the statement “he was way too intense” and I couldn’t accept it. I knew him, and this just didn’t make sense. So when is the statement “he’s too intense” true, and when is it an excuse?
Am I Emotionally Mature?
Do we sometimes mistake emotional intensity for intimacy? We all can go through it in relationships, friendships and when seeking professional help. We become vulnerable when we trust someone. Someone emotionally immature will find it hard to effectively communicate or process their emotions and can often appear selfish. Some signs of emotional immaturity include:
It’s hard to go deeper in conversations about yourself, your past, or the future of the relationship.
Everything is about you and you do not want to give that person a chance to broach the topic of the future.
Becoming defensive in conversations rather than communicating, and pushing the person away, justifying why the relationship isn’t working for yourself.
Having commitment issues and not wanting to discuss labels or what they will mean going forward.
Not owning mistakes and rather blaming the other person, or just wanting to be right all the time.
Emotional maturity is defined by the ability to manage our emotions and take full responsibility for our actions. This works for both parties. No matter how hard we may try to communicate with someone, it’s up to them to recognise that their behaviour needs to change. Some things we can do to avoid emotional immaturity are to:
Initiate a straightforward conversation so that you can be honest about how you feel and how you feel the pace of the relationship would work for you.
Create healthy boundaries- be self-aware, communicate, and follow through on what you say.
Seek professional help if you think that it is too complex to pinpoint or figure out on your own.
Am I Emotionally Unavailable?
Emotional unavailability is very similar to emotional immaturity. However, this one is a choice and usually has very straightforward reasoning. It can crop up when you want to back out of commitments and become flakey. You might want to always keep your options open. You may worry about losing yourself in a relationship. You may not trust easily, or maybe you have been in relationships with emotionally unavailable people in the past. The roots of emotional unavailability may come from attachment issues we may have, break-up grief, or temporary circumstances like wanting to focus on our career, or a friend who is going through something, or some mental health issues. Change only happens when someone is willing to work at creating it, so you can’t make an emotionally unavailable partner more available. What you can do is bring up concerning behaviours and point out, compassionately, how they affect your relationship.
So although he may seem intense, (and at times he is and that is ok!), sometimes sticking it out may be the way we understand the elements of a healthy relationship. Spending time with people who are in healthy relationships might help rather than going to that cynical friend that will say “ugh he is just too intense, get out now!”
Relationship Anxiety
Relationship anxiety can come up at pretty much any stage of a relationship. When people do start dating, worries can arise such as: “Does he really like me?” “Will this work out?” “How serious is this?” And as things get closer between a couple, anxiety can get even more intense. Thoughts like “Do I really like him?” “Should we slow down?” “Am I really ready for this kind of commitment?” can consume us.
As a relationship blossoms, the “critical inner voice” feeds us bad advice and fuels our fear of intimacy. It’s the one that tells us: “You’re too ugly/fat/boring to keep his interest.” “You can’t trust him.” “He doesn’t really love you. Get out before you get hurt.” This critical inner voice makes us turn against ourselves and the people close to us. It can promote hostile, paranoid and suspicious thinking that lowers our self-esteem and drives unhealthy levels of distrust, defensiveness, jealousy and anxiety. Basically, it feeds us a consistent stream of thoughts that undermine our happiness and make us worry about our relationship, rather than just enjoying it.
However, we are much more resilient than we think. We can handle the hurt and rejections that we fear, and heal. Moreover, our critical inner voice can bring anxiety about dynamics that don’t exist and can completely distort reality and undermine our own strength and resilience.
In order to overcome, relationship anxiety, we have to look at what’s going on inside of us, separate from the relationship. What is my critical inner voice telling me? What am I defensive about that creates distance? This self-awareness and self-regulation can be a vital step in understanding the feelings that drive our behaviour in relationships. By looking into our past, we can gain better insight into where these feelings come from.
Some questions to ask yourself next time you feel he is “too intense” are:
Is he intense or does he just know what he wants?
Is he intense or do I not know what I want? Am I afraid of getting hurt?