Fear of commitment is well-known for preventing a relationship from even getting off the ground, but these 4 underlying fears stifle any relationship:

1. Fear of Losing Control
You’ve been in control of your life up to that point when you met your SO; now, there is someone else that you must contend with and run your plans by, and that can be a very scary prospect. Your life is not yours alone, and this fear manifests itself through overly controlling behaviours that damage the relationship. You start micro-managing the household, your plans together, and even your intimacy amongst other things. Your partner then starts feeling the total loss of control and starts reacting with anger, frustration, or plain indifference. Not a healthy way of being, and it starts to chip at the relationship until it breaks.

2. Fear of Change
Everyone fears change in any form, that’s why so many people get stuck in the wrong relationships or life situations. The problem is that when you fear the change happening in your relationship or because of it, you start acting out, lashing out at the partner. On the other side of the coin, if the relationship is not working or healthy, your fear of change could make you complacent and numb. All these behaviours lead to further strife in the relationship.

Everyone fears change, that’s why so many people get stuck in the wrong relationships or life situations

3. Fear of Responsibility
When you believe that it’s someone else’s job to make you happy, secure, or satisfied, you’re fearing taking that responsibility upon yourself and just throwing it on someone else. The problem is that no one can ever fill up your inner tanks of good feelings but yourself. And, when your partner comes short of making you happy, etc, you start resenting them for what should’ve been your job in the first place.

4. Fear of Facing Reality
Like fear of responsibility, when you don’t own up to your flaws and role in the relationship, you’re fearing facing reality. As the age-old saying goes, “it takes two to tango,” and it really does. You might be quick to judge your partner for his anger, clutter, behaviour, but what have you done to enable all this? Did you clean up every time he made a mess and let it go unchecked for so long? Did you give in every time to his anger till he learnt that with anger he gets his way? There are many ways we enable other people’s behaviour, not always, but we must own up to it to fix it.

Fears are detrimental to relationships, and the only way is to acknowledge the fears and move past them. Take responsibility for your role in the equation and work on fixing it together.