Uneasiness is a feeling of anxiety or discomfort. You might have a picture-perfect relationship or are meant to be together and yet feel a sense of discomfort, which might leave you feeling confused. There are many reasons a person might feel anxious in their relationship.
Understanding these reasons can help make us aware of what’s happening within us without overthinking relationship anxiety. This also paves the way to deal with anxiety with more empathy. So let’s dive into the reasons that you might be feeling tied down in a relationship.
# You are experiencing fear of abandonmentAbandonment issues in a relationship or fear of abandonment can seem like walking uphill with a heavy stone on your shoulders. It is when you are anxious that the people you care about might leave you or you may lose them. It can be a very isolating experience and it was for Joanna as well.
Research shows that lack of emotional and physical connection or parental emotional neglect may lead to developing a fear of abandonment. Childhood loss or a traumatic event related to divorce or death in the family can make you fear being abandoned too.
# Maybe because of your past experiencesPast experiences have made up our life until this point and it’s only natural that they affect every experience we have moving forward. It’s understandable then, that they influence our thoughts, beliefs, and how we see the world and navigate our relationships.
These experiences can include, but are not limited to, having had a tumultuous or an abusive relationship. Parental loss, child abuse and neglect, and a chaotic home environment are a few other factors that can cause feelings of uneasiness in a relationship.
# Depends on the attachment style formed in your childhood“Why do I feel uneasy in my relationship?” It may be because of the attachment style you formed in your childhood. The way we attach ourselves to other adults has its roots in how we were attached to our primary caregivers in our childhood.
As a child, it’s important to feel safe and secure, however, when that sense of safety is missing, it leads to the child forming anxious or insecure attachment styles.
Attachment styles dictate how we perceive and deal with closeness and emotional intimacy, our ability to communicate our needs, and the ways we respond to conflicts. Anxious or insecure attachment style is usually seen in individuals who feel restless in a relationship.
# You have a fear of commitmentFear of commitment is when you are scared of getting close to or serious about someone. This can keep you from enjoying meaningful relationships and may make you ponder, “Why do I feel uneasy in my relationship? Is it relationship anxiety or I’m not in love with my partner?”
The most prominent reason for feeling this way is when you have commitment issues where you keep questioning the relationship even when you’re happy in it.
This again has its roots in your past experiences such as a painful breakup, witnessing a difficult relationship between your parents, divorce, or abandonment during childhood or adulthood.
The core fear is that of getting hurt. This is a very real fear and has consequences for both the partners in a relationship and often leads to feelings of uneasiness.
# You are afraid of rejectionsAll of us dread rejections, especially in relationships. It is one of the deepest fears in a relationship a person has. If you are thinking, “Why do I feel uneasy in my relationship?”, it might be due to a fear of rejection. It also stems from a deeper fear of being left alone, hurt, and in pain.
This can keep us from experiencing intimate connections and leave us feeling tied down in a relationship. We tend to withdraw from people rather than risk reaching out and getting rejected. This also holds us back from expressing our authentic feelings.
# You have a low self-esteemSelf-esteem is made up of our sense of self and the opinions we carry about ourselves. It impacts how we feel about ourselves. Low self-esteem brings out our deeper insecurities and worries, which eventually lead to uneasiness or anxiety in relationships. This answers the long-pressing question: Why do I feel uneasy in my relationship?
# There’s history of an anxiety disorderAnxiety is a very normal and common emotion we experience and some amounts of it are bound to happen in a human’s life. However, anxiety disorder is a constant overwhelming sense of worry and fear.
If an individual already has any of the anxiety disorders, the chances that the anxiety can show up in relationships are high. It’s like a breeding ground for anxiety. Already-present anxiety gives way to more anxiety unless there’s timely intervention where you explore ways to deal with it.