In intimate relationships, and especially in their early phases when people are still settling into each other’s worlds, they could find themselves surprised by how jealous, possessive, and “needy” they feel about their partner. Men and women may become equally sensitive to how their partner talks about others that interest and excite them. They may be startled by how competitive and easily angered they are by anyone who presents a perceived threat to our relationship. These strong emotions can be confusing and so hard to share that we’d rather mask them with humor or focus our criticism on the threatening person. When we reach out for a solution, the self-help literature is quick to tell us that we are not evolved sufficiently, that we need to be above these feelings and hide our fears. This presents us with a dilemma of how we should behave.
We may choose to be cool and maybe even a little revengeful and try to make our partner feel the pain of longing that we experience and return from their perceived departure to us. In working with couples, however, I have observed the power of an alternative and much simpler exchange. From attachment theory, we know that our need for a secure bond is primal and central. To have fears of losing it, especially early on in the relationship, is natural. We need reassurance from our partner that they are not going away and that we are the only one. When those fears overwhelm us, instead of blaming ourselves for being needy and possessive and trying to pretend we aren’t, we could tell our partner that this event or that person has triggered a fear in us that we might lose them, which means that we really care about them and don’t want to lose them.
The key to deciding whether to do this or not is how secure you feel in the relationship, what your past experiences around revealing your feelings have been, and what you know about your partner’s ability to appropriately respond. Even in the best relationship, however, revealing our deepest fears is difficult. The fear of getting rejected is very real and powerful and explains why we don’t tread lightly in these territories. Yet, these brief moments of honesty and vulnerability hold a great potential for deepening intimacy. When this is shared in the right moment, we are likely to get a reaction of surprise and a wave of warmth and reassurance. Our partner may even venture into a disclosure of their own.
An important distinction needs to be made between sharing our vulnerability and asking for a change in our partner’s behavior. We are not asking for a change. We are telling them we care about them and that makes us vulnerable and fearful. However, we also hold in ourselves the impermanence of love and the possibility of losing it. This will give our partner the space to find out how they feel about us and the freedom to respond from an honest place. We cannot force desire or commitment in another but we can invite them to find out where they stand.