Relationships can be the most enjoyable, amazing things we have in this world, but they can also be the most terrifying especially if your worst fears keep being realised in them.

Often I find with people that they are afraid of one of three things:  being abandoned by their partner, being rejected by their partner or being betrayed by their partner.  Sometimes unfortunately people also have a combination of one or more of these things as well usually abandonment being combined with one of the others.

Each one in itself can be absolutely debilitating to experience in a relationship as they hit right at the core.  Feeling someone will leave you takes you right back to that state of being a tiny baby and having to rely on someone else for nourishment, so the thought of being abandoned keeps a person very young and helpless in a relationship and forever fearful and anxious that their worst fears will one day become a reality.  Even if the partner doesn’t leave, often the person’s relentless anxiety and questioning about leaving drives the partner out the door.

Feeling you will be rejected also brings up very painful feelings of not being good enough, being criticised or being judged by the person we love.  When you are rejected your heart is what feels rejected so what happens is you end up hiding your heart from others so it is not broken further.  Their relationships then become very unfulfilling as it is just a head or sex relationship.  These unfulfilling relationships often result in them ending which confirms the rejection.

Being betrayed is equally as painful.  Expecting your partner may be cheating on you, often when they actually aren’t, is very anxiety and paranoia provoking.  What is often worse is that you can be very trusting of the wrong people and so you are very heartbroken when it inevitably happens.  It usually ends up reversed in that the innocent person gets questioned and suspected or cheating when they aren’t but the person who is likely to cheat is trusted wholeheartedly.  This mix up is very painful and causes a lot of heartbreak.  If it doesn’t happen the relationship is often hard as the constant accusation of infidelity can be too much for some partners to bear.

The worst thing about these fears is that they always end up happening without help.  As I’ve said even if the person doesn’t cheat, doesn’t leave or does reject you the relationship can end anyway due to all the questioning and anxiety that comes out of that fear.

These painful things I am talking about have their origins in childhood and then experiences to support them often happened through adolescence and early adulthood, and sometimes longer.  Sometimes they are so ingrained that the person cannot imagine what a normal relationship without these feelings is like or relegate themselves to the “I’m just not right for relationships category”.

The first step out of this vicious cycle is to acknowledge that something is going on in your relationships, that you are in a cycle where the same type of partner or same type of feelings within you keep emerging.  Once you do that you have started the journey into finding out where they came from and concentrate on attracting partners that give you exactly what you want and where you can be relaxed and fulfilled.  And when you start confronting the part of you that gets anxious and worries about abandonment, rejection or betrayal then you can start to feel more empowered and in control.