405 - Are Relationship Doubts Normal?
Doubting your relationship?
Surprisingly, when searching relationship questions online, ones about whether or not doubting your relationship is normal are most prevalent. Clearly, most of us have had anxiety or doubts about a relationship at some point in our lives, but we want to explore the topic more.
From some of the research we've found in this area, some reasons you might experience relationship anxiety could be:
Emotional neglect or abuse, causing low self-esteem or low self-worth due to past trauma.
Attachment difficulties stemming from relationships with your parents or caregivers at a young age.
Having parents who were significantly intrusive or disengaged.
General anxiety that manifests as worry about relationships.
Imposter syndrome.
Relationship Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (rOCD).
Additionally, we must remember there are a lot of different factors that go into having a healthy mindset in a relationship, including healthy communication, learning to trust your intuition, understanding your inner world, and not fearing more challenging emotions. It’s vital to discuss what a healthy relationship looks like, and to understand when trauma and/or underlying mental health attributes can have an impact, as well as maintaining a sense of independence while coupled.
What to do about it?
Some of the tools and suggestions for dealing with relationship doubt we found are:
Hold individuality within a relationship. Learning healthy boundaries with your partner and how to hold space for each other without internalizing their emotions is important.
Remember that it’s normal and valid to have questions and be curious. We live in a society where there are high expectations set on most aspects of our lives - including relationships. Examine if you have unmet expectations or are being influenced by an external source to imagine how your relationship should look.
From an article by E.B. Johnsons:
Talk about what you both want for the future.
Understand each others personal values.
Consider the source of your doubt.
Take individual time to process your emotions.
Dr. Alisha Powell suggests:
Go to therapy, seek professional guidance.
Build deeper, trusting relationships with your community to help with security.
Address conflict or unresolved differences.
Remember that our feelings are valid, but not always fact.
“Healthy doubts tend to be questioning and evaluating the relationship itself. Whether it’s working, whether it’s the right one for you, whether you both want the same future.”
To summarize:
Examine your doubts by journaling, going to therapy, and asking questions.
Take a look at the reality of your relationship (i.e. are there situations or behaviors that cause doubt?).
Assess your inner world (i.e. mental health, insecurities, etc.), and allowing space for being human.
It’s ok to step out of the binary and develop a relationship that is unique and feels good to you and your partner.
Transcript
This document may contain small transcription errors. If you find one please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.
Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we're talking about relationship doubts. We just finished the holidays. It's the start of a new year and this is a time when it's not uncommon to be asking some questions about your relationship and wondering, "How do I feel about this?" "How do I want to proceed?" "What are my thoughts about another year in this relationship?"
Dedeker: Can I make it to Valentine's Day?
Jase: I recently--
Emily: Ooh, that's the next gauntlet to go through.
Jase: A lot of people ask this question, "Is it normal to be having doubts about my relationship?" "If I'm having doubts, does that mean that something's wrong?" I found out recently that this is one of the most searched relationship questions online in general and so today we're going to be exploring that topic of is it normal to have doubts, why do we have doubts in our relationships, and then importantly, how do we tell the difference between relationship doubts that are just coming from our own insecurities and relationship doubts that are signs that there is something more serious wrong here that either needs to be fixed or maybe this is not a relationship we should be in.
Let's start off with the first part of it, which is just what's the scope of what we're talking about today? Relationship doubts, I would just say first, anecdotally, before we even get into any statistics, that it feels pretty relatable to have some anxiety about relationships or some doubts sometimes, I'd say, especially in the first few years of a relationship. What do you two experience with that?
Dedeker: Well, it makes me think of on a meta-level something that I've noticed with the clients that I work with, particularly working with a lot of millennials who are now in their 30s, mid-30s, or approaching early 40s where entering into a new relationship at that life stage feels very different to a lot of people compared to when they're in their 20s. A lot of people when they're in their teen years, early 20s, it's like, "Whatever. You're hot. I'll toss myself into a relationship with you. Sure. Cool," and then we get burned and we develop those really important life lessons about relationships.
Then when you're trying to get back out there trying to date again, then people find themselves really plagued with doubt sometimes even before relationships even begin That's what it makes me think of. Sometimes I think this can be attached to life stage for some people or after you've been burned already a few times or have had your heart broken a few times, that that can cause a lot of doubts to come up.
Emily: This reminded me more of the monogamous-centric culture idea of if you have doubts about a relationship, it means maybe it's not the right one. I think that a lot of people will go there and say like, "Well, if I'm thinking about another person or I'm wondering if this person is really right for me, then it doesn't mean that this person is the one." I think right away I want to throw out there, no, it's normal to have doubts and it doesn't necessarily mean that your relationship is not a good one for you, but it's normal to have doubts in general just because we're all ever-changing and evolving. That's probably something that we're going to go through.
I know one of the people that I'm working with right now, she is constantly looking at audition notices for jobs that potentially would take her overseas for a while or on a cruise ship, for instance, for six months, and her relationship is pretty new. It only started last April. It's less than a year old. She's like, "Well, I don't know if my partner would be okay with me leaving for that amount of time." I think those types of doubts are really understandable as well. You have to weigh, do I want a big potential job opportunity versus maybe being away from a loved one for that amount of time.
Dedeker: Sure. All that sounds pretty normal and understandable to me. I do think that when we're early in relationship, it's pretty normal to have doubts around, ooh, do they feel the same as me? I feel like we've even read some research studies where that's how they've codified NRE. That a piece of NRE is anxiety about, do they feel the same? Do they reciprocate? Oh my gosh, I don't know yet because we're not close enough yet or I haven't talked to them about it yet.
I do think that's normal, but I think that that also can extend into an ongoing relationship. That you can go through periods of do they feel the same as I do? Are they as committed as I am? I don't know. Do they also think romantic thoughts about me? I still think about them. Do they still find me attractive? Do they still find me sexy? Are they always going to feel that same way? I think that's pretty normal to have that cross through your brain at least once or twice at the bare, bare minimum over the course of a relationship.
Emily: Sure. Of course.
Jase: Why are we talking about this? Let's actually look into some stits and stats about doubts and some ways to evaluate if these are normal or they're just fears. Let's start out by looking at some stits and stats about how common is this, how normal is it to experience these kinds of doubts?
Emily: We've looked at some studies to try to determine how normal all of this is, and according to a study conducted by Dr. Pauline Clance, she specifically studies high achieving women and their levels of anxiety, and she found that 7 out of 10 individuals experience relationship doubt at some point. I think if she's specifically looking at a high-achieving woman, that makes sense. There's a lot of potential anxiety and also just questioning involved in, "Am I doing everything exactly as correctly as I could be at this particular time including choosing a partner?"
Jase: The larger study as a whole was called the Imposter Phenomenon.
Dedeker: Oh, yes. It all makes sense.
Jase: We've talked about imposter syndrome before more generally, but that is interesting that it showed up too in these relationship doubts of, oh, maybe I'm not good enough, or I don't know what I'm doing enough, or I'm not a good enough partner, or I can't make relationship work, or all those sorts of questions that could come up so good to have her confirm that for us.
Emily: I would think with these high-achieving women, that they would be looking at their partners and saying, "Are they not good enough for me?," or, "Are they the person that I want to be spending time with?" That's an interesting-- to flip that on its head and say, "No, the imposter syndrome part of that might also be what people are potentially worried about or doubting.
Dedeker: It also makes sense that we have so many cultural stories around the man is the one who should be the high achiever and the woman is the one who should just pick up the rest of the slack or whatever. I could see that just being stuck in this really intense cultural stream that is trying to tell you, Oh, if your male partner, for instance, is just a house husband or a stay-at-home dad, or if he doesn't make as much money as you, that must mean there's something wrong with him. Even though maybe that works out perfectly fine in your relationship. I could see that causing doubt as well.
Emily: That's true.
Dedeker: I think that we can all agree that the majority of people have had some sort of anxiety, some sort of doubt about their relationships. It's natural to be asking questions about our partnerships, asking questions about the longevity of our relationship. I do think that this is often why many people seek marriage or the security of monogamy. That's not the only reason why by any means, but I do think that sometimes when we feel that relationship anxiety or feel that pressure or feel that sense of-- and sometimes this is pressure that is put on us of you got to get this person to commit. If you like it, you should have put a ring on it.
All these messages that are like, you need to find a way to nail this one down, even though, as we've seen time and time again, monogamy and marriage in and of itself are not these magic pills that just eliminate all relationship doubts or insecurities.
Emily: Absolutely. I think this can translate in a variety of ways also becoming pregnant, for instance. I have a friend who has been toying back and forth with, "Should I get pregnant for a second time or should I not? Is this really something that I want in my life or is it not?" Ultimately, I guess she decided yes because now she's pregnant again.
Dedeker: Well, congratulations to her.
Emily: It's really interesting. I think it's interesting these doubts can just extend in so many different areas of our lives, not just the who we're in relationships with, but then ultimately, what that relationship looks like and how it changes the trajectory and course of one's life as well in really big ways.
Jase: Another thing to consider with doubts is what might be going on in our lives? Another thing to look at is that these types of doubts can be more frequent or more common at certain times. When there are big relationship changes such as making the decision to get married or have a kid or move in together or move to a different city together, any big life change that-- and I think rightly so can spark this, "I'm going to really explore my doubts and make sure that I want to commit to this bigger commitment decision."
That's another thing to keep in mind too is that this can fluctuate based on what's going on in your life in the general circumstances, what decisions you're making, things you're thinking about doing. Then also that, as we always say on this show, there's not this clear, "Oh, this is common, so just don't worry about it," or, "Oh, this is always a bad sign." Our emotions, these feelings of doubt are indicators that there's something going on for us emotionally. What we have to do then is explore what's that coming from? What might this be telling us?
I do want to be clear that these relationship doubts are common, but that doesn't mean that they're a bad thing or that they should be ignored, that this is something worth exploring and getting to understand yourself a little bit better through it because it also might be a sign that something is wrong. There's whole range of things that can be caught up in these doubts. With that, let's transition into not just talking about is this common or not, but what causes it? What were we able to find about the things that can cause these doubts to come up and some of the research that's been done around that.
Emily: Dr. Alicia Powell discussed the underlying sources behind our doubts and insecurities in relationships, and they discuss things like emotional neglect or abuse, which might cause low self-esteem or low self-worth due to past trauma. I think, again, these are more on the extreme ends of why a person may be doubting a relationship or doubting their validity in a relationship. Perhaps also things like attachment difficulties stemming from relationships with your parents or your caregivers at a young age. We talk a lot about attachment theory on this show, and that can show up, I think, in our doubts as well and be the catalyst or the reasoning behind why we have some of these doubts.
Jase: Yes. I think the important thing to note with both of these is that she's pointing out that these come from experiences before our current relationship.
Emily: Yes. That's a good point.
Jase: Not emotional neglect or abuse in this relationship-
Emily: From our past.
Jase: -but from our past and then similarly our attachment to our parents or maybe other partners in the past. That can affect how our emotions are going to show up in this particular relationship, including
Emily: Yes. I've had many, many times in relationships where I felt as though what had happened in my past relationships would automatically mean that would happen again in my current relationship.
Dedeker: Oh, yes.
Emily: That doesn't necessarily always occur. I think it's always good for us to know that each relationship is going to be very unique and different and somebody's bad behavior in a last relationship is not necessarily going to translate into this one, which is great, but that's hard to remember in your body and in your mind in the moment, but along with what we just talked about, things like having parents who are significantly intrusive or disengaged, that can also cause doubt as well. Then just general anxiety that manifests as worry about relationships. We talked about anxiety before, but if you do have generalized anxiety, I think that causes potentially more anxiety about your relationship as well.
Jase: The note about parents being intrusive or being disengaged relates to attachment styles, and I think that's interesting, but it also made me think about something that she doesn't mention in this particular article, which is this question of what did you experience your parents' relationship with each other to be? Was it this like, "Gosh, they were always miserable together. Why didn't they see that that was so bad?" Or this, "Why did they always cause problems when there weren't any" whatever it was that we saw modeled for us.
Emily: Totally.
Jase: I think this can show up with our friends and things as well, but it's especially influential early in life like that of any kind of adult role models that we had when we were growing up.
In another article from Psychology Today by Dr. Gary W. Lewandowski Jr, he discusses relationship doubts there as well, and specifically mentions imposter syndrome again, which is interesting since we looked at that other study that was looking at imposter syndrome. In that, he talks about doubts may grow as our connection gets deeper I think because the stakes are getting higher. Like we talked about with moving or something like that. It's as we're making more commitment, we have this natural reaction to be like, "I want to really make sure that this is the right thing to be doing." Those doubts might actually increase over time.
Then he says, this is a quote. "However, it's important to realize that no relationship or relationship partner is perfect. Being more informed is a good thing because you get to know your real partner blemishes and all." The sentiment here being that we might have some relationship questions or doubts come up and that if those are encouraging us to then try to really explore our partner and be like, "What are you really like about these things?" Understanding that all the answers might not be perfect, but we do want to know them.
It's not just, "Oh, I should just brush that under the rug and just assume everything's fine." It's like, no, let those doubts encourage you to explore and actually find out more about your partner and make sure that you understand them as well as you can.
Dedeker: That's interesting. It reminds me of, I think, a lot of people can fall into this mindset again when dating. That's what I keep thinking of because I do think our culture really encourages a very perfectionistic approach to finding a partner, I think especially if you're very traditional coming from this, "I got to find my soulmate, got to find the long-term marriage partner."
Emily: Exactly.
Dedeker: This mindset that there is a lot more pressure on this person while maybe I can cognitively accept that no human being is perfect, but it's like they got to be perfect as far as checking every box that I have. If there's anything to the contrary, any hiccup, then that produces all these doubts, and then maybe I'm just like, "Ooh, put that one-- I was going to say, put that one in the trash. Not you're putting human beings in the trash, but from a metaphorical standpoint, you're swiping left.
Emily: I'm still shocked, especially with young people how they have this idea in their mind of exactly what their relationship is going to look like, what the person is going to look like, how they're going to meet them, all of those types of things. I've been around some younger people on my time in Hong Kong and some of the princesses and they, on the bus, will often talk about their perfect meet cute y’know, situations and scenarios.
Dedeker: Well, they're just ready for the prince charming. It makes sense.
Emily: I guess so. I guess so, but it's so fascinating.
Dedeker: Well, can we clarify though-
Emily: Yes.
Dedeker: -that you're around some Christian young people in
Emily: That's true.
Dedeker: Yes, because I think that tracks with what I grew up.
Emily: Yes. That adds a whole nother layer here, I think, but that's the question. If you're questioning that, if you have those moments of doubt with that layer on top of it, I think that can be really challenging for some people because-- and listen, I'm not Christian and never have been. I don't know if that narrative is something that's within people who are Christian, but if you have doubts, then does that mean like, Oh, this really isn't the one that you're supposed to be with? You really shouldn't have these doubts?
Dedeker: Well, let's take a two-hour tangent to talk all about that because I got some things to say. Yes, I do think, first of all, being raised as an evangelical Christian, there's this narrative, especially from purity culture where the cost is you don't have any sex, you keep yourself pure, right? No sex, no masturbation, no pornography, no impure thoughts, right? Just no physical affection before marriage and the payoff for that, always the big prize that they tempt you with is God is going to send you your perfect partner. If you live according to what God wants of you, and we're telling you what God wants of you is-
Emily: Baloney.
Dedeker: - extreme-- this purity, then He's going to send you your--
Emily: A crockpot full of baloney.
Dedeker: He's going to send you your perfect partner, right? Yes, there is this very, very high standard of God's got it all figured out, and so I can, in my mind, have this perfect fantasy of how it's going to go because God's orchestrating it, and that's exactly how it's going to be. Combined with what you're talking about, Emily, of if you are in a relationship as a Christian and are dating as a Christian and you have these doubts come in, I've often seen people that interpret that as, "I think God is just telling me that you're not the partner for me."
Emily: Yes, exactly.
Dedeker: It's very easy to interpret it as like, oh, maybe this is actually God trying to tell me that this relationship is not the one. Then I can be justified in breaking up with you because God told me to.
Jase: I will say I've actually seen this happen very often the other way, too.
Emily: Oh?
Jase: Where it's, I'm having doubts, but that's just a lack of faith or-
Dedeker: Now that too.
Jase: -a weakness on my part because of whatever's happened before was enough for me to think this is the one. Somehow I've seen whatever I interpreted as a sign to say this is the one, and so now any doubts I experience are my fault. They're my failure of faith in God or this relationship or whatever. What I want to say with all of this, though, because as we're talking about it, we're talking about Dedeker's and my Christian upbringings and the things we saw around us and did ourselves. I definitely did all those things a lot on all the sides of that, but these are not unique to Christians.
I think, in certain sects, I want to say. Certain denominations, certain areas of Christianity, those messages really get drilled home. It's not true in all of them, but also, these messages are all around us in other places. We mentioned the Disney Princesses and the Prince Charmings earlier. It's the same messaging, right? Of there's something magical and no matter what hardships come up along the way, even if they're a beast who's pretty abusive to us, eventually, if we just have faith and keep being nice, then we'll have our true love and Prince Charming.
Emily: Yes.
Jase: Right, right. Right, so it's like these messages are everywhere. This is not unique to Christianity at all, really. I think it can sometimes amplify it, but we all get inundated with these ideas about how relationships should work and what parts we actually are supposed to have an active role in versus what's supposed to happen to us and what parts should be magical versus what parts actually take work and effort. I think that's something that can definitely happen for younger people especially just because they haven't had enough experiences to start questioning that.
Unless they are someone hopefully like you listener of this show, who does think more critically about your relationships and understands that this is something important to think about and it doesn't just happen magically.
Dedeker: All you Disney Princesses listening out there, we see you, we're here for you. Let's get back to some research, shall we?
Emily: Right.
Jase: Yes.
Dedeker: This last note that we want to acknowledge is talking about the intersection of relationship anxiety, relationship doubts and obsessive thoughts, and maybe even obsessive-compulsive tendencies. The School of Psychology Interdisciplinary Center performed two separate studies to investigate whether-- They were specifically looking at the co-occurrence of attachment anxiety and an overreliance on intimate relationships for self-worth. They called that "double relationship vulnerability," which I'm just like, hoop gosh.
I don't know if I like thinking about it in that way, but I can see why they label it that way. They're basically seeing how that was linked with relationship-centered obsessions or obsessive-compulsive tendencies. Their first study showed that there is a correlation between codependency, avoidant or anxious attachment styles, and having relationship doubts that interfere with the relationship. Again, as a reminder, a correlation, not necessarily a causation. We don't know which of these factors is influencing the other, but they did find a correlation.
Then in the second study, they found that there was an increased amount of doubts when a partner is faced with uncertainty or a perceived threat in a relationship. Where that just makes sense. That's one of those where I'm like, why did you have to study that? That's okay. Now, in some cases, people can develop what's I think relatively newly termed as ROCD or relationship obsessive-compulsive disorder. The way that this shows up is, again, it overlaps with what we think of as "normal presentations of obsessive-compulsive disorder," but it's often through this filter of relationship needs, like an extreme need for reassurance.
What the researchers list is examples like needing reassurance but sometimes seeking it in unhealthy ways. Constantly testing your partner or testing your partner's intelligence. Constantly seeking external input from friends or family on the relationship. The person over monitoring their own feelings and this was interesting, or correcting their partner to fit their needs, which I thought was, yes, to me it sounds like I constantly need to be really maybe even perfectionistically hemming in my partner or adjusting their behavior or making all these maybe even criticisms or requests to make sure that they fit this very precise little box.
Emily: Yes.
Jase: I can see some of this behavior actually being glorified and showing up sometimes in relationship advice. Of that, advocating for your needs is a good thing. Sometimes calling something a need can be used in a manipulative way to say, well, this isn't on me to negotiate. This is my need, and so I need you to change your behavior or these various aspects to try to meet that, and it's that tough thing of right that isn't inherently wrong in itself. I do see that sometimes being relied on overly much, and could be varying into this area of being controlling or trying to correct your partner or turn them into what you think you want them to be.
Emily: You see that trope.
Jase: It just makes me--
Emily: Sorry. You see that trope a lot in media. The overbearing, I guess, wife potentially that is changing her husband or nagging her husband or even nagging the kids. Trying to make everyone into the mold of the perfect thing that they want.
Dedeker: That's a question, as far as media tropes go, do you think we mostly see this applied to women?
Emily: Yes.
Dedeker: As being the relationship OCD ones?
Emily: Absolutely.
Dedeker: That's interesting.
Jase: Absolutely.
Dedeker: Not surprised, and interesting.
Emily: Unfortunately.
Jase: It just makes me think of this song from Bye Bye Birdie, How Lovely to Be a Woman. You familiar with that one?
Emily: I don't know the show very well.
Jase: The main refrain is it's
how lovely to be a woman and have one job to do.
To find a boy and train him, and then when you are through,
you'll have the man you wanted--
Dedeker: Okay, I already hate where this is going.
Jase: The whole plot of that entire song is this high school girl singing about that's your job is to find a boy, but then you have to mold him into the actual man that you want him to be.
Emily: Subtly manipulate him.
Jase: It has been in our culture for a long time.
Emily: Yes.
Dedeker: Yes. Well, let me just put a button on this. As far as actual, I think, formally diagnosed relationship obsessive-compulsive disorder, this is something that can exist on its own or it can appear alongside regular OCD as well. The good news is that the similar treatments for OCD also work for relationship OCD. Things like cognitive behavioral therapy, group therapy can be beneficial. I just want to end off, of course, with the caveat that if we're just looking at behaviors, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's unhealthy or that it's OCD or things like that. Like so m any things in life, these all fall on a spectrum.
Jase: Absolutely. Before we go on to looking at some tools and some things to investigate to help us determine, are these relationship doubts something worth being concerned about? Or is this something that's okay to just process for ourselves? Before we get to that, we're going to take a quick break to talk about some of the ways that you can support this show.
If you value this content and love the fact that we're able to put this out there into the world for free, one of the ways that we can do that is by having some advertisers on this show. It really does help us a lot if you take the time to listen to them and if any seem interesting, if you like our promos, go check them out, it does directly financially support this show if you do, and we will see you after this break
Emily: We're back. With all of these things that we've talked about, as always, we want to provide you with some actionable takeaways and try to answer the question what can we do about this anxiety? What can we do about these doubts regarding our partners, ourselves, things along those lines. In our relationships, it's totally understandable to have doubts as we said, and it's really important to hold individuality within a relationship. You can do things like learn healthy boundaries, and try to negotiate those for yourself and for your partner.
It's great if you can talk to your partner about the emotions that you are having or that they may be having, even if they're difficult to hear, you can try to hold space for them but not necessarily internalize the emotions that are coming at you or vice versa. Well you may be the one in the situation of feeling like okay, I'm having a lot of anxiety about this relationship, but your partner may be the one doing that. That may be a little scary to you, but if you can get in a place where you don't necessarily sit there and internalize their anxiety, but rather just work through it together, I think that's the ideal place to be in, in this scenario.
Jase: I think that's such a good point, Emily, because we've been talking about yes, it's normal for you to have relationship doubts and we haven't really acknowledged that other half of it you just mentioned which is, it's also normal for your partner to have relationship doubts.
Emily: Yes, that's true.
Jase: Just because they're having them not internalizing that, it doesn't mean oh no something is wrong with me or oh they're going to break up with me or oh it means they don't love me. That it would be easy to go to that place if you also forget on the other side that it's normal for them too. That's a really good point. I'd also love to give a quick plug right there for our relationship check-in radar. One of the things I really appreciate about it is that it gives you that space.
We have this dedicated time set aside that's not in response to we just had a fight let's sit down and talk or I'm upset we need to talk right now, but it's because it's regular, there's more of that sense of okay yes, we're here to check in, good or bad, all the stuff in between. At least for me and from a lot of people I've heard from helps give a little bit more of that separation. It's not oh no we're talking so it must be a problem or something bad is going to happen. It's because we do it more regularly, it's okay yes, this is the time when we get to talk about these things in a more neutral way, I guess, than we would if it got sprung on us out of nowhere.
Dedeker: Remember that we live in a culture where there are pretty high expectations set on most aspects of our lives including our relationships. Our relationship to social media doesn't help this when we're just constantly bombarded with the curated perfectly manicured examples of everybody else's lives and relationships, being performed for us all the time. Examine if you have-- maybe you do have some unmet expectations or you could be influenced by some external source to imagine how your relationship should look.
It can be good to sit down and take a little bit of an inventory of when you think about your ideal relationship where does that idea come from? What or who in my life is reinforcing that that's a good thing or that that's a bad thing. When I think about an ideal relationship, who is the first image that comes into my mind? Is it my parents? Is it this particular friend? Is it this one social media influencer who's performing their relationship in this really perfect way all the time? That can be really valuable exercise.
Jase: Yes, that's a whoof boy.
Emily: It's a really interesting point, yes for sure.
Jase: There's an article on Medium called the Relationship Doubts You Should Never Ignore by E.B. Johnsons. She wrote a bunch of things but some of the ones that I actually thought were a really nice way to look at, I'm having these doubts how serious do I need to take these? What's really going on here? One she just mentions, talking about what you both want for the future. If the other person is totally unwilling to talk about that, maybe that's something worth considering, but having those conversations more regularly is good.
Similarly, understanding each other's personal values. What matters to them, what matters to you, similar to the future thing. It's what do we value? What's actually important to us? These aren't necessarily to say the person is bad if they think different things than you, but just to help avoid some of that mismatched expectations that can come up, but then the thing she hit on that I really liked was when you have these doubts come up to think about what is the source of the doubt?
One question is, was there an external situation that sparked this doubt or did it seemingly come out of nowhere? Was there actually something my partner did that made me start having this doubt or something I noticed or maybe there was something external that happened in my life like a friend got divorced and now it's making me think about these things.
Dedeker: Or they got married and now it's making me think about these things. I think that happens pretty commonly.
Emily: Totally.
Jase: Yes, that's probably even a more common one. It's like oh my friend got married what
Emily: Why am I not married?
Jase: Asking those questions of, was there an external source of this doubt, and then evaluating how might that have affected what I'm thinking about. Second is, is this related to some previous trauma. Did I have some traumatic experience in a previous relationship. That can be T trauma or t trauma. Just a bad breakup or getting your feelings hurt or something like that. Is this related to some other experience I've had and maybe that's influencing my thoughts here.
Again just asking questions it's not saying one or the other answer is the right or wrong one. Then this question of do you feel secure in the relationship? It's such a simple question but I do think it's one worth exploring of do I feel secure. That can look a lot of different ways of do I feel secure that this relationship will last forever, is where people go with it. I think the question is more than just that. It's do I feel secure in that my partner will be honest with me and not blindside me with stuff?
Do I feel secure that my partner will support me when I need them to, emotionally support me when I need them to. Do I feel secure in terms of just being safe and being listened to and not just interrupted all the time or my opinions being overridden all of the time in this relationship. I would say those are the bigger questions because you could have a great relationship that doesn't last forever, but that's very secure and that it was still a really healthy experience along the way. Just to twist that question a little bit and look at it a little differently from how I think we normally might go to.
Emily: Dr. Alicia Powell, and we spoke of her work earlier suggests trying the following steps to address relationship doubts. They are go to therapy, seek professional guidance. This one's huge because I think having that objective person that just is able to look at everything and give you advice or even just mirror back your own thoughts and emotions to you, I think that's really really helpful.
Also build deeper trusting relationships with your community to help with security. I love this one because I think so many people have doubts about their relationship and don't feel as though they can leave because it helps them financially in a lot of ways, or it helps them just overall feel secure as an individual and they feel trapped potentially in their relationship.
Jase: Well the self-worth thing we mentioned earlier that we can tie a lot of our self-worth to our relationship status, so even if it's not monetary it could be that.
Emily: Yes that too, absolutely. If you have a community around you and that can mean a chosen community, it can mean chosen family or even the actual family or blood relatives to you things along those lines, all of that can really help make you feel more secure in a variety of ways so that you're not just tied only to one person and that's your only sense of security. That's really really huge.
If you don't have that necessary feeling of like well this person is making me feel secure, maybe you can more objectively look at the situation in general. Like I love that idea. Also address conflict or unresolved differences. See if that helps address relationship doubts and then also know--
Jase: A plug for our work.
Emily: Oh, I love that.
Dedeker: Yes.
Jase: Resolving some unresolved differences and addressing past conflict to make sure those can get
Emily: Yes, and also checking out what things can't be resolved and what that means for the relationship as well, and then also know, finally, that our feelings are valid, but they're not always facts. That is a big one. Often we have really intense emotions and really intense feelings, but then maybe a day later we realize, you know what? I don't necessarily need to act upon those really intense emotions, and so give yourself some time to process and calm down physiologically.
Dedeker: I really like this distinction that was made by therapist, Dr. Sherry Jacobson. She creates this dividing line between healthy doubts and what she calls red flag doubts, and she says that healthy doubts tend to be questioning or evaluating the relationship itself so evaluating, is it working for me? Is this the right type of relationship for me? Do we want the same kind of future together?
If that's a conversation we're having in our relationship, do we share some of the same values? In contrast, red flag doubts tend to be more about the other person's actions and behaviors, and that these can be distinguished because they often will come with factual evidence if you consider them further, which I think is an interesting way of thinking about it so for some examples of these red flag doubts, she includes, my partner constantly refuses to communicate with me where they're going or communicate with me what their plans are.
Maybe my partner is not open and honest with me about them seeing other people, and I think that can apply whether you're in a monogamous or a non-monogamous relationship, or if you're just starting out or whatever, such as my partner's being dodgy in some way or dishonest consistently. Of course, maybe my partner has physically hurt me or my partner says negative things about me or about my family or about my friends or my partner disregards my boundaries so they show up when they're not invited, they touch me when I tell them not to. Things like that.
I think that's an interesting rubric to think about is like, are you having doubts actually based on a partner's behavior or are your doubts in this camp of just evaluating the relationship itself? I think with those healthy doubts, it doesn't necessarily mean that you disregard all those and they're not important, you may still have those healthy doubts and realize, actually, this isn't the relationship for me and then that enables you to then make a healthy choice of not being in the relationship. Right?
Emily: Yes.
Jase: Absolutely. To look at some of this and summarize, basically the first place to start is examining those doubts. We've talked about some of those tools of, is this a red flag doubt or is this a normal healthy doubt? Is this caused by some external factor or is it maybe related to something in my own past or something that's happened outside of my relationship that's bringing this up for me? Evaluating that, journaling is always a nice go-to of just kind of word dumping out all of that stuff to get the thoughts out of your head and onto paper, and also if you're able to, seeking some kind of professional support from a therapist or a counselor or a coach is really important.
One thing I did want to throw in there related to what Dedeker was talking about is when it comes to therapy or counseling or coaching, if it's in the camp of these healthy doubts, that would be something that's a good candidate for seeing someone together, some kind of a couple's counselor, couple's therapist or seeing a coach together as a couple to just help facilitate you two talking about those things and understanding how we feel about this relationship, is this right for both of us? If you think at all that this might be the red flag typed doubts, this is not the time for couples counseling.
This is, you need to see someone and evaluate this on your own because those kinds of red flag situations can actually be made worse by couple's therapy sometimes. It gives the person doing the red flag things more tools for justifying their behavior. That would be one little word of caution there. Is therapy and counseling and coaching is great, but evaluate which avenue is the best for that. Is this something you should do on your own to evaluate what you should do? Are these red flags real? Or is this just us together figuring out how best we make this relationship work?
Emily: From that evaluation, assess and take a look at the reality of your relationship. Just, like Jase said, are there behaviors that are causing that doubt? Or is it more of an internal thing within you that you need to address in a different way, like seeing a therapist or just going, doing some inner work in some way. I think that's really important, and then also assess your inner world, like your mental health, any insecurities, and allow space for being human for understanding yes, this is just me. This is who I am. Often I'm going to have moments of anxiety and doubt, and that's really okay.
Dedeker: This last note, I think is, a special note for our folks who are non-monogamous or relationship anarchist or maybe a little bit more relationship fluid, that it's okay to step outside the binary of, this is my soulmate or it's not my soulmate, this relationship is going to work or it's not going to work, and you can collaborate with your partner to develop a relationship that is unique and feels good to the both of you.
I think that's the one where if you found, oh, most of my doubts around this relationship are because of external expectations or because it doesn't quite fit the mainstream model, or someone is telling me, "Oh no, a real loving partner would be monogamous" or something like that. That it's okay for the two of you to define the terms of your relationship and realize the unique shape that will take that will help both of you feel happy and secure and that's a okay.
Jase: Thank you everybody for taking this journey with us, especially as you're beginning your year and you're thinking about your relationships and evaluating things, it's just so important to spend some time really thinking about this stuff. I hope that this was helpful for all of you. We would also like to hear from you. On our Instagram story, we will be posting our question of the week, which is, how do you know when to listen to relationship doubts and when to ignore them?