How to stop looking for certainty in relationships

[AwayFairies]

Anyone experienced this?!

It makes me sabotage a good thing. I want to be certain about someone’s feelings all the time and it’s impossible.

It’s called insecurity

You don’t give any examples to be able to judge
For instance do you pick emotionally unavailable men? Do you find there is a lot of drama? What do you do to get the certainty?

Being on the receiving end of this quite recently I couldn’t stand it. The only way I can explain it is like someone is handing over to you something very valuable and expensive to look after and then constantly worrying you have lost it even though I have told them I am responsible and will look after it. I end up feeling like I don’t want to be responsible for it at all, I want to give it back to them and let them deal with it

Examples would be wondering why they’ve not text back and automatically assuming that means they’re no longer interested. Wanting to know at early stages how invested they are even though I’d never ask directly. Not being able to accept that I can’t know for sure that someone wants to be with me always, even if married you don’t know that. But I like to test it out, see if they still care, by suggesting things like maybe we should take a break.

All really stupid shit that basically ruins a relationship.

Look it’s not stupid you are not stupid but you will never build anything good from playing games. A decent partner will run away from push pulling games as fast as they can.

I’ve said this to a few people now - you have a phone problem. You look at it too much and rely on it for validation. You need to learn to be away from the phone and occupy your mind with other, normal, distracting things than waiting for that phone. The phone is running your life and making it all worse

Turn off your read receipts immediately, especially on WA turn off your last seen so that you cannot see theirs and you need to work hard on breaking these bad habits. You may need to start by sitting in a room away from your phone (on silent) for short periods, turning it off at night and going places without it

Once you have learnt not to rely on your phone you will have gained more confidence in yourself and healthier outlook on relationships because it doesn’t matter if they didn’t text back - you were busy anyway

Rejection is hard, and fear of rejection is also hard on your love interest. Try to put yourself in their shoes every time you are considering doing something attention seeking - how does this reflect on you but also how am I making the other person feel? Perhaps trapped, confused, overwhelmed? Love interests are not and never will be responsible for your feelings of insecurity. No one is going to come along and be the perfect man to fill all of those worries and doubts - they are yours. I would probably not be dating and work on building your self esteem. Counselling?

I’m in counselling. I like your approach a lot asking how what I’m doing is going to make the other person feel.

I have an overwhelming fear of rejection. I don’t know how to get rid of it.

Are you in a relationship?

Being single and happy about it helps you realise that even if you get rejected, life will be good anyway. It takes the sting out of it.

You get stuck in a cycle of thinking the next man will be the one who makes me feel less awful about myself, but by going into it like this, you set yourself up to fail because you already have unrealistic expectations of them

Yes like I said, in the same situation I could see this happening gradually. Lots of changing WA photos, lots of trying to get my attention and asking me questions. Dropping hints all the time this then graduated to outright asking for reassurance. I got so annoyed because I was already clearly dating and available, and was frustrated that this didn’t seem to be enough for him. It’s that feeling it invokes in someone else thinking they don’t want to deal with someone else’s ‘baggage’ because the fear is, no matter what you do it will not be enough for them

You need to work on what is causing the fears and also reduce the triggers - your phone!

@AwayFairies that is such a good description!

Sorry, I meant the looking after something precious description in the first response!

Yes, I lived my life like this due to insecurity and low self esteem. I don’t feel like this at all now. I had therapy and did lots of personal development stuff.
There are lots of books on the self help section of a bookshop, ( like Women Who Love Too Much) and there are courses and workshops you can do.
There is something called The Presence Process, which helps you develop emotional resilience. Look it up on YouTube, there’s a short introduction. Also check out the reviews for it on A Good Read, you’ll really get a flavour of what it’s about. It’s a simple process, and it really does make your life much easier.

Nobody needs to go through the constant pain of insecurity, I really hope you find a way through.

Get Comfortable with being single, I really recommend the book 'How to be Single and Happy'.

I've been like you describe in the past. I found reminding myself 'we are two/three/five dates in, I'm not sure how invested I am in him' really helpful. Often we become hung up on does he want me, rather than do I really want to be with him, do I even know enough to come a conclusion.

I'd also read up on attachment theory, you are more than likely of an anxious attachment going for avoidant men. There's a book called 'Attached' that I found very useful.

Basically do the work on yourself and maybe stop dating whilst doing it.

Good luck!

Oh and another thing that helped me was realising that it's ok to want a certain level of contact. Obviously you can't be expecting constant contact for reassurance, but the flakey types that take days to reply or are happy to only contact to arrange dates, they're probably not for you. They will send you're anxiety into overdrive.

So what I'm trying to say is once you've done a bit of work on yourself, be mindful of who you invest in and be honest about what you are looking for.