Overcoming Fears in Your Relationships

by Amy Ensminger

Dan Dean talked about this topic recently and it was great! I have taken some liberties and adapted it to couples.

So often we don’t acknowledge to our mate what we “need” because of fear. Quite frankly, we are afraid our mate will reject us, our imperfections will be exposed or we will get hurt again. For all of us, there is something in our human nature that causes us to want to hide vs. being real with our mate (or any relationship). Not being real surfaces through our sabotaging behaviors (actions, reactions, emotions, thoughts) and spills right into our relationship.

Roadblocks that cause sabotaging behaviors

►Fear of Exposure. We fear that our mate will know we aren’t perfect. We are convinced and afraid they will see or hear that we make mistakes, have failures & weaknesses. We wear masks; tell lies; or cover up what is really going on. We focus on being right instead of happy. Cost to your relationship: Intimacy & Respect

►Fear of rejection. We fear that our mate will not love or accept us for what or who we are. That our mate (or someone else) will believe we aren’t good enough. We wear masks, are image driven and give the “10 o’clock news” when we share our feelings. We avoid intimacy all together. Cost to your relationship: Intimacy & Respect

►Fear of being hurt again. We stop trusting our mate and close our hearts off with them because of past hurts. We justify to them and ourselves why we have the walls that we’ve built up. We remind ourselves of all the reasons why we can’t trust them because we just won’t go through that kind of hurt or pain again. We are determined to NEVERRRRRRR let anyone do that to us again. We tell half truths, crawl in our custom made caves and hide and don’t share how we really feel with our mate. Cost to your relationship: Intimacy

The key to overcoming all these roadblocks is to be transparent, authentic and real with your mate, especially in the tough times. The worst possible thing you can do in your relationship is to hide or stuff your true feelings of – hurt; pain; feeling unworthy, unloved or not good enough. Feeling stupid or like a failure. We need to get below the anger or rage and share with them why we feel hurt and pain.

CHALLENGE: 

Every single one of us need a safe place in our relationship to fall. To create that YOU have to take the first step of being transparent and real with your mate.

HOMEWORK: 

The biggest tool David & I use for sharing our feelings and having a voice is an elephant. When one of us is happy, glad, sad or mad, we put out the elephant on the dining table. If I put out the elephant, that means I need to talk with David and his job is to listen (not defend, justify or fix what I’m talking about). When he puts out the elephant, my job is to listen as well. Remember, if just put out the elephant on the mad stuff vs. the happy, glad & sad stuff – they will avoid the elephant!

SUGGESTION: 

Learn how to use the elephant in a safe way that works - along with over 50+ tools in our next couples training . Seating is limited and available to committed & engaged couples; married couples who are stuck or want to enhance their relationship, couples who are separated or divorced and both willing to attend OR couples who have already attended our training and want to refresh the tools and training. For info or to register go to www.creatingintimacyandrespect

About the Author

David & Amy Ensminger are founders of Creating Intimacy & Respect which provides a 2.5-Day Couples Training and 1-Day Relationship Workshop's for Singles & Couples.  For more information go to www.creatingintimacyandrespect.com