Need Some Reassurance in your Relationship?
It can sometimes be hard to admit, but many of us find that even when we have a committed partner we still find ourselves wanting and needing lots of reassurance. Being willing to honestly look at this with kindness, compassion and a willingness to take care of the causes can be a really valuable investment in your own well being and the vitality of your partnership. Here is an article I wrote recently that I hope will support you with this challenge. Blessings on your love, for yourself, for each other and for your relationship.
Why Do I Need Constant Reassurance in a Relationship?
Is It Me? Is It Them? Is It Us?
What a heartbreaking dilemma. You have found someone wonderful to connect with, perhaps a romantic relationship or even a deep friendship. You have invested your heart in this bond and now you find that you are anxious and always wanting MORE, more reassurance, more validation, more safety and comfort that is supposed to be the reward of connecting with another.
Let's focus on romantic relationships as this is where this issue happens the most. You have found each other, the spark has been lit and now you are "in a relationship."
The challenge is you don't feel at ease, confident or joyfully relaxed in your connection and partnership.
There are pretty much only three reasons that this happens.
1. You are not solidly grounded in your relationship with yourself. It is a self connection, self support and self esteem issue. There are beliefs and probably wounds of not being worthy, wanted, deserving and quite likely, love has never been a place where you felt safe and able to relax.
Thus, there is an "inside job" that needs to be done. Finding a support person who can help you heal and learn wonderful self care and self affirming practices, will lead you to a place where you are filled up from the inside. You have the love and reassurance you need already and you know how to give it to yourself and you also know how to take care of the part of you who tends to hang out in wounded land, so when they surface you are ready to care for them and help them climb down from their fear based ledge.
2. You are with someone who does not know how or does not choose to be fully engaged in the relationship. This can show up in many ways. One of the most anxiety producing kinds of connection is one in which there is intermittent reinforcement. There are such sweet, beautiful love and connection filled moments, followed by distance, avoidance and sometimes down right aggression or conflict.
THIS IS CRAZY MAKING!!!
It is impossible to feel safe and assured in this kind of relationship dynamic.
And guess what... if you have reassurance issues and your partner has avoidance issues you are a match made in relationship hell.
The resolution is for both you and your partner to do the inner healing work to resolve what makes you need an unhealthy level of reassurance and them to need an unhealthy level of space.
In a healthy relationship both these needs are honored in both people and you learn the dance of who needs what when and it becomes the way you love yourselves and each other. It is no longer a problem to be fixed but a beautiful honoring of the two seemingly opposite needs in our human nature...space for individuation and lots of affirming connection and appreciation that builds safety and reassurance.
3. The third possible reason for your ongoing need for reassurance is that the relationship is not really a good match. Sometimes we get stuck in trying to make it work with someone who is not a good match for us. We may not be at the same level of relationship skill or personal development. We may be connected through chemistry but not true intimacy based on vulnerability, mutual respect and commitment to building trust and safety.
If this is the case, you can try to feel ok but deep down inside some part of you knows you are forcing a fit that would not continue if you faced the truth and let go.
We all deserve to feel good about ourselves and that is mostly something we need to learn to develop in our relationship with our self. We also deserve and actually need to feel safe if we are to thrive with another, especially in an intimate relationship. Learning how to grow together and discover the balance between space and togetherness, honoring each other's ways of feeling loved, and providing the behaviors that help you and your partner deeply relax are the skills and practices of conscious relationship. With a mutual dedication to learning and applying these gifts of growth and loving to yourself and each other, you are well on your way to a deeply fulfilling relationship experience.