Not feeling safe in a relationship

How Do You Build Emotional Security in a Relationship?

Developing a secure bond with your partner may allow both of you to share your true selves with confidence and safety.

Emotional security is the bedrock of a stable, healthy relationship. It contributes to true intimacy and trust.

In an emotionally secure relationship, you have a sense that your partner understands and accepts all of you. Because of this, you can feel confident opening up, being vulnerable, and sharing your hopes, fears, and pain.

Emotional safety in a relationship may also mean that even when you’re not physically together, you both feel assured in your connection.

You can go out into the world and live independent lives while being confident that your relationship is a safe place to return to.

There are two components to emotional security, both of which are important to consider.

There’s emotional well-being and security as it relates to your own mental health. This is about how you feel about yourself and how you relate to the world in general. Emotional security is influenced by your prior experiences and the type of attachment style you’ve developed.
There’s also emotional security as it refers to relationships. This type of emotional safety takes you and your partner to build and maintain it. Communication and trust are key to emotional security in relationships.

Even if you’re emotionally secure in general, that may not translate to your relationship if your partner isn’t on the same page or if you’re facing specific challenges that may require additional emotional resources.

Sometimes, your past experiences, emotional challenges, and poor communication skills can lead to behavior that may make it hard to build emotional safety in a relationship.

Every situation is different, but here are some behaviors that may represent challenges to achieving emotionally secure bonds.

1. Defensiveness

Defensiveness sometimes refers to feeling judged or attacked when someone gives us feedback. When you feel attacked, you’re more likely to react in defensive ways.

For example, if your partner tries to discuss a problem, you may deflect blame, become hostile, or make sweeping statements like, “I know you don’t really love me.”

This can get in the way of open conversations that make you both feel safe expressing how you feel.

2. Criticism

Sometimes, defensiveness comes from criticism or not feeling accepted as you are.

Criticism may mean focusing on what you think may be your partner’s faults, and expressing disapproval about something they’ve done or said.

Not all feedback is criticism, but a constant pattern of blaming, correcting, or nitpicking could create an emotionally unsafe dynamic.

3. Contempt

Contempt is a belief that someone or something may be unworthy of your acceptance or respect.

In a relationship, communicating with contempt can involve mocking, sarcasm, name-calling, hostile language, and nonverbal behavior like eye-rolling.

Acting with contempt could impact trust and how safe you and your partner feel with each other.

4. Stonewalling

Stonewalling is what many refer to as the “silent treatment.”

Sometimes this may also involve physically turning away during a conversation, appearing to be distracted on the phone, or leaving the room when the other person is still talking.

Attachment style theory: Change is possible

During the 1950s, British psychoanalyst John Bowlby developed attachment theory, which states that a child’s bond with their primary caregivers shapes how they navigate all other relationships throughout life.

Research published in 2019 suggests that a person’s attachment style can change over time.

If you feel you or your partner use an anxious or insecure attachment style, there are tools to work through it that can help develop more secure ways to relate to one another.

Everyone’s different, which makes all relationships unique. The bond you and your partner develop is a combination of both of your worlds, experiences, and expectations.

The main signs of emotional security in a relationship are that you both feel comfortable, safe, and confident about each other and the bond. This helps build a loving, lasting bond.

Here are another five things that can indicate you and your partner have developed emotional security:

Sign No. 1: You don’t dwell on your past

Dwelling on past relationships, experiences, and challenges can make it hard to enjoy the present. It can also be a way to avoid being open with your current partner or an excuse to avoid working on current roadblocks.

Being able to let go of the past and enjoy the moment can contribute to creating a strong bond.

Sign No. 2: You can be your true self

It can be difficult to be vulnerable and show your whole self to another person. In an emotionally secure dynamic, you can feel comfortable expressing yourself and showing different aspects of yourself to your partner. You may also feel safe if you opt to keep some of your private things for yourself.

Sign No. 3: You don’t seek constant validation

While can be natural to enjoy reassurance from your partner, constantly needing comfort from them could be a sign that you may be feeling insecure or fearful. For example, you may be experiencing abandonment anxiety.

When you’re emotionally secure in a relationship, you develop a constancy that can make you feel the bond will remain strong even when you’re upset with each other or physically apart.

Sign No. 4: You feel seen, heard, and understood

In an emotionally secure dynamic, you can feel comfortable in expressing yourself with complete honesty, knowing that your partner sees you clearly and will listen to you carefully. When conflicts do arise, you can approach them from this place of mutual understanding.

This is what some people refer to as emotional availability. Being emotionally present and willing with one another is a sign of emotional security in a relationship.

If you believe you and your partner may need to work a bit more on emotional security, here are some steps you can consider.

Step No. 1: Try not to disregard your own needs

Your partner suggests going out with friends, and even though you’re tired and don’t feel like socializing, you say “sure!”

It can be tempting to just go along with your partner’s wishes, especially if you have people-pleasing tendencies. Over time, though, constantly putting someone else’s needs before yours can create resentment and distance.

It’s important for both of you to try to become comfortable with sharing your needs and preferences, and expressing how you feel when these aren’t heard or honored.

Step No. 2: Paying attention to your body language can help

Nonverbal communication can be just as powerful as the words you use. You may want to consider working on creating consistency with one another when communicating with your partner.

Sometimes your body language may be at odds with what you’re saying. You say you’re not upset, but your fists are clenched, your tone of voice is dry, and your shoulders are tense.

This can make it hard for your partner to understand what you’re going through and develop a sense of safety that you mean what you say. You may also feel you can’t express your feelings.

Staying aware of how you feel and working on communication skills that allow you to express yourself in an assertive way may be a good idea.

Step No. 3: Consider approaching conflict as a team

Conflict can be a typical part of a healthy, long-term relationship, but ideally, an argument doesn’t feel like “me vs. you.” Instead, you may want to try to approach the situation from the “us vs. the problem.”

Trying not to focus on scoring points, or on being right, and instead considering viewing your partner as your teammate can be helpful when working on resolving the issue.

Step No. 4: Try to give your partner the benefit of the doubt

Let’s say your partner is running late for a date, forgets to do a chore, or in some other way doesn’t meet your expectations.

Before you assume the worst or generalize, maybe think about their track record and specific evidence.

If they’re generally reliable and respectful, consider giving them the benefit of the doubt — that is, start from the positive assumption that they’re doing what they can and they don’t mean to hurt you.

Step No. 5: You might want to maintain a life outside of your relationship

When you’re in a romantic relationship, it can be tempting to let everything else fall away. But an emotionally secure bond can provide you and your partners a safe base from which you can go out and live independent — but interconnected — lives.

It may be a good idea to nurture your own friendships, professional life, and hobbies, and encourage your partner to do the same.

Step No. 6: Consider professional support

If you feel you and your partner are still facing challenges when it comes to emotional security, you might consider reaching out for help.

A mental health professional can help you both determine what the main challenges are and how to approach them as a team.

Emotional security is about feeling confident navigating the world, including your relationships. This involves feeling at ease expressing your true self, being vulnerable, and feeling you don’t need constant reassurance from your partner.

Feeling emotionally safe depends on the type of attachment style you’ve developed but also on the relationship dynamics you’ve created with your partner.

Improving communication, avoiding hurtful behaviors like the silent treatment, and reaching out for professional support can be helpful steps toward developing emotional security.

How Do You Build Emotional Security in a Relationship?

Developing a secure bond with your partner may allow both of you to share your true selves with confidence and safety.

Emotional security is the bedrock of a stable, healthy relationship. It contributes to true intimacy and trust.

Emotional safety in a relationship may also mean that even when you’re not physically together, you both feel assured in your connection.

You can go out into the world and live independent lives while being confident that your relationship is a safe place to return to.

There are two components to emotional security, both of which are important to consider.

There’s emotional well-being and security as it relates to your own mental health. This is about how you feel about yourself and how you relate to the world in general. Emotional security is influenced by your prior experiences and the type of attachment style you’ve developed.
There’s also emotional security as it refers to relationships. This type of emotional safety takes you and your partner to build and maintain it. Communication and trust are key to emotional security in relationships.

Sometimes, your past experiences, emotional challenges, and poor communication skills can lead to behavior that may make it hard to build emotional safety in a relationship.

Every situation is different, but here are some behaviors that may represent challenges to achieving emotionally secure bonds.

1. Defensiveness

Defensiveness sometimes refers to feeling judged or attacked when someone gives us feedback. When you feel attacked, you’re more likely to react in defensive ways.

For example, if your partner tries to discuss a problem, you may deflect blame, become hostile, or make sweeping statements like, “I know you don’t really love me.”

This can get in the way of open conversations that make you both feel safe expressing how you feel.

2. Criticism

Sometimes, defensiveness comes from criticism or not feeling accepted as you are.

Criticism may mean focusing on what you think may be your partner’s faults, and expressing disapproval about something they’ve done or said.

Not all feedback is criticism, but a constant pattern of blaming, correcting, or nitpicking could create an emotionally unsafe dynamic.

3. Contempt

Contempt is a belief that someone or something may be unworthy of your acceptance or respect.

In a relationship, communicating with contempt can involve mocking, sarcasm, name-calling, hostile language, and nonverbal behavior like eye-rolling.

Acting with contempt could impact trust and how safe you and your partner feel with each other.

4. Stonewalling

Stonewalling is what many refer to as the “silent treatment.”

Sometimes this may also involve physically turning away during a conversation, appearing to be distracted on the phone, or leaving the room when the other person is still talking.

Attachment style theory: Change is possible

Research published in 2019 suggests that a person’s attachment style can change over time.

If you feel you or your partner use an anxious or insecure attachment style, there are tools to work through it that can help develop more secure ways to relate to one another.

Everyone’s different, which makes all relationships unique. The bond you and your partner develop is a combination of both of your worlds, experiences, and expectations.

The main signs of emotional security in a relationship are that you both feel comfortable, safe, and confident about each other and the bond. This helps build a loving, lasting bond.

Here are another five things that can indicate you and your partner have developed emotional security:

Sign No.

1: You don’t dwell on your past

Being able to let go of the past and enjoy the moment can contribute to creating a strong bond.

Sign No. 2: You can be your true self

Sign No. 3: You don’t seek constant validation

When you’re emotionally secure in a relationship, you develop a constancy that can make you feel the bond will remain strong even when you’re upset with each other or physically apart.

Sign No. 4: You feel seen, heard, and understood

This is what some people refer to as emotional availability. Being emotionally present and willing with one another is a sign of emotional security in a relationship.

If you believe you and your partner may need to work a bit more on emotional security, here are some steps you can consider.

Step No. 1: Try not to disregard your own needs

Your partner suggests going out with friends, and even though you’re tired and don’t feel like socializing, you say “sure!”

It’s important for both of you to try to become comfortable with sharing your needs and preferences, and expressing how you feel when these aren’t heard or honored.

Step No. 2: Paying attention to your body language can help

Nonverbal communication can be just as powerful as the words you use. You may want to consider working on creating consistency with one another when communicating with your partner.

Sometimes your body language may be at odds with what you’re saying. You say you’re not upset, but your fists are clenched, your tone of voice is dry, and your shoulders are tense.

This can make it hard for your partner to understand what you’re going through and develop a sense of safety that you mean what you say. You may also feel you can’t express your feelings.

Staying aware of how you feel and working on communication skills that allow you to express yourself in an assertive way may be a good idea.

Step No. 3: Consider approaching conflict as a team

Trying not to focus on scoring points, or on being right, and instead considering viewing your partner as your teammate can be helpful when working on resolving the issue.

Step No. 4: Try to give your partner the benefit of the doubt

Let’s say your partner is running late for a date, forgets to do a chore, or in some other way doesn’t meet your expectations.

Before you assume the worst or generalize, maybe think about their track record and specific evidence.

Step No. 5: You might want to maintain a life outside of your relationship

It may be a good idea to nurture your own friendships, professional life, and hobbies, and encourage your partner to do the same.

Step No. 6: Consider professional support

If you feel you and your partner are still facing challenges when it comes to emotional security, you might consider reaching out for help.

A mental health professional can help you both determine what the main challenges are and how to approach them as a team.

Feeling emotionally safe depends on the type of attachment style you’ve developed but also on the relationship dynamics you’ve created with your partner.

Improving communication, avoiding hurtful behaviors like the silent treatment, and reaching out for professional support can be helpful steps toward developing emotional security.

How can a couple avoid relationship problems? | Man and woman

There are three basic needs in a couple relationship.

1. Safety. Security in a relationship is, first of all, a sense of security, confidence that a partner will be there not only in joy, but also in difficult times. It is important for partners to feel stability in relations, the ability to confront threats together.

• For a woman, the main threat is competition in relationships, and not only with other women, but also with friends, the partner's parents. She turns on the fear caused by the instinct of self-preservation, because just 100 years ago, being left without a man was a significant threat to the survival of a woman and her children.

• For a man, the main threat in a relationship is to become insolvent in the eyes of his woman, not needed. It is important for a man to feel her support, approval, gratitude. If a woman constantly nags and devalues a partner, he loses interest in her, and with him love.

2. Energy supply. A woman is not as strong as a man. Men are stronger physically, more stable emotionally, able to concentrate on tasks, more effective in difficult and risky situations. Men draw energy from the outside world, they get an energy boost by implementing complex projects, achieving goals.

A woman needs more energy and strength than she has to fulfill her life tasks, mostly long-term and routine ones (birth and upbringing of children, maintenance of the house). She receives this energy in a relationship. It is important for a woman to feel her value for a man so that he notices the result of her routine housework, how well she takes care of children, what a warm atmosphere she creates in relationships.

If a man can convey why he loves his woman, if he feeds a woman's energy and self-esteem with attention, compliments, care, then a woman will always be filled with energy that she is able to transform into love. Receiving energy from a man, a woman gives it in the form of warmth, tenderness, care and support. Smart men know that it's easier to iron a wife than a shirt. It is impossible to "overlove" a woman, this is a myth. The more energy a man gives to a woman, the more energy she spends on caring for her loved ones. And she leaves a little for herself, for self-realization, in order to remain interesting and please her man.

3. Emotional connection with a partner. This need is more feminine. Men often consider emotional openness as a sign of weakness and try not to show their emotions once again. In an area of fierce male competition, this is true, but in a relationship with a woman, the exchange of emotions is the basis of intimacy.

Moreover, a woman's physical attraction directly depends on how much she feels the partner's emotional openness. In addition, men believe that sharing emotions with a woman is an expenditure of energy. He is so tired at work that he has neither the strength nor the desire to communicate. Men underestimate this energizing channel. The fact is that a woman is stronger in the field of emotions, so this is where a man can get help and support. A heart-to-heart talk with a woman can help clarify negative or conflicting feelings and emotional blocks, dispel doubts, a man can use a woman's natural insight and intuition to make decisions, especially in the field of relationships with colleagues.

If partners do not feel satisfied in these three areas, they do not receive enough support and energy from each other to function properly. A woman becomes eternally dissatisfied, annoyed, ceases to take care of herself, “nags” and scolds her man. The fact is that in such a strange way she tries to reach out to her partner, to inform him that something is wrong in the relationship. Often she herself does not understand what exactly, therefore, instead of constructive negotiations, she gives in to emotions and makes a scandal. The man, not hearing the arguments, does not understand what exactly the woman wants from him, decides that “she is phoning again”, and, instead of deciding and acting, removes himself from the battlefield. Problems multiply, relationships can collapse.

What to do?

• First of all, know your needs. From time to time, listen to yourself and your partner: how much do I feel full in a relationship, do I give everything necessary to my partner. Be sure to ask how your partner feels.

• If you feel there is a problem, be sure to talk. When discussing difficult relationship issues, proceed from the fact that you want to return love, and not to establish control over each other. As a rule, when a crisis in a relationship sets in, each of the partners feels a threat to their relationship, so they try to fill their needs and control the other. By such behavior, partners transfer relations into the plane of military operations. Remember the important rule : if you feel a crisis in a relationship, try to turn off your ego and take care of your partner. If you find yourself on the slippery road of a crisis in a love relationship, turn the steering wheel in the direction of a skid.

• Women, learn to be aware of your needs and convey them to a man, try to do it with words, not just emotions.

• Men, learn to understand the importance of women's emotionality, help her to translate the language of emotions into understandable words, tasks and joint actions.

Tags: relationship psychology, marriage relationship, Man and woman, understanding, love relationship

About trust and security in relationships: ru_psiholog — LiveJournal

The story is complex and confusing.

I divorced my husband about a year ago, before that we had not lived together for about a year, in the process of parting and trying to cope with it all, I became close to a young man. We had known each other for a long time, rotated in the same company, but we never communicated particularly closely.

And then it happened. He supported me, in a certain way helped me get out of the terrible apathy and self-loathing in the process of divorce. For a long time, we began to meet with him, and then completely live together.

It may seem that I was in a hurry with my life together, but my husband and I had a very close relationship for six years, we were constantly together and when we broke up, I panicked with the onset of the weekend, because I didn’t know what to do with myself and What can I do alone. So I think a completely single life after that would be too much of a test for me.

In general, we've been together for about two years, everything has more or less settled down, I regularly visit a psychotherapist - it's been a year now, sharp moments have been smoothed out, there is a lot of reflection in the relationship, etc.

But at some point I realize that I don't feel happy, that I lack mutual trust and a sense of security in relationships. I am trying to discuss the situation with a young man and am faced with a wall of
misunderstandings and resentment.

If I talk about my emotion (for example, "I am very sad that you decided to spend this evening with friends, although
we planned to spend it together during the week"), this is perceived as an attack on personal freedom, an insult and a manifestation dislike (if you loved me, you would not forbid me to communicate with your friends). But I’m not trying to forbid anything, I deeply respect him and I will never allow myself to communicate with a person in an orderly tone, I just try to talk about my feelings and not swallow it (I have already been treated for not saying my negative emotions and directing my aggression inward clinical depression and trying to learn how to act differently).

If I try to answer that I'm not forbidding you anything, I just want to share my emotion, he also starts saying in a raised voice that I'm inconsistent, I say first one thing, then another, I twist his words, etc. At some point, I can’t stand it any more and either withdraw into myself and stop communicating or get involved in this ridiculous quarrel and a scandal, hysteria, etc. occurs.

If I do not talk about my emotions and that something is unpleasant for me, swallowing them or sublimating them, he says that he feels that I have moved away from him, and there is no intimacy, and I do not love him.

As a result, I am under constant stress and pressure, afraid that whatever I do will be perceived as an insult, reproach or humiliation.

If we don’t discuss this situation in any way, releasing it on the brakes, my unexpressed emotions accumulate to a certain limit, after which a petty quarrel can plunge me into a terrifying state and then he starts to get angry with me because I get upset because - for nothing.

The fact that I had a career growth does not add to the optimism of the picture, and therefore I work from morning till night and come home completely exhausted and tired, incapable of anything. Therefore, it is very difficult for me, in response to some words that hurt me, to turn on the wise part of myself, carefully reflect everything and then answer.

Recently, the sphere of signs that I do not love and respect him began to include, for example, uncooked breakfasts and lunches on Saturday (when I just want to lie down like a dead stone after a terribly hard week), even though not before , now self-cooking was not a problem, and two years ago I clearly explained my position in relation to everyday life - that during the week I don’t have time for it, and the rest of the time - everything is collective. And this position was accepted and supported, and until recently caused no complaints.

Yesterday the conversation ended with his words: just if you want me to treat you well or that I marry you (the proposal came from him, in addition to regular repetition in words, do not proceed to any real actions), you must do some things. And if you don't do them, what makes you think that I will treat you well in return? In general, sorry for the footcloth text, but I'm really exhausted. I no longer have the strength or desire to do anything.

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