483 - Why Do We Lead With Fear?
What does it mean to lead with fear?
Fear (n.) - Fear is a defense mechanism and a survival response. Fear is experienced in your mind, but it triggers a strong physical reaction in your body. As soon as you recognize fear, your amygdala (small organ in the middle of your brain) goes to work. It alerts your nervous system, which sets your body’s fear response into motion. Stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline are released. Your blood pressure and heart rate increase. You start breathing faster. Even your blood flow changes — blood actually flows away from your heart and into your limbs, making it easier for you to start throwing punches, or run for your life. Your body is preparing for fight-or-flight. If you are feeling this often in a relationship, you can see how it may really cause a lot of unhappiness, trepidation, and discomfort at the very least.
Fear triggers our fight, flight, freeze, or fawn responses. If someone experiences chronic fear, it could lead to problems such as:
Immune system dysfunction.
Endocrine system dysfunction.
Autonomic nervous system alterations.
Sleep cycle disruptions.
Eating disorders.
Mood swings.
Anxiety.
Obsessive compulsive thoughts.
Fear can manifest in many different ways. Often, what we fear in a relationship sense is one of the following:
Fear of intimacy.
Fear of commitment.
Fear of everything going wrong in the relationship.
Fear of your partner’s reaction to something.
Fear of infidelity.
Fear of abandonment.
Fear of a partner’s (or your) emotional outbursts.
Fear of being overwhelmed by a partner or losing oneself in a relationship.
Fear that the relationship isn’t perfect, doesn’t live up to your expectations, or not as impressive as other people’s relationships.
Bigger existential fears about the relationship or your partner (like a fear of dying alone).
When we feel these kinds of fears in relationships, we may have an instinct to protect ourselves from anything that feels scary or “off.” This does not include fear of violence; that is a serious matter that needs to be dealt with accordingly.
Why is fear harmful to relationships?
There are a few reasons why we feel fear in our relationships. It’s not uncommon to feel fear in a new or existing relationship because you felt unsafe in a past relationship. Another reason could be trauma from platonic and parental relationships from childhood causing fear in a current romantic one. Your relationships may also challenge an old identity or long-held idea about yourself, and suddenly having love in your life could make you feel like you’re losing part of your identity.
Cultural or societal pressure may also be causing some of the fear. Some cultures expect people to marry very young, and those who do not are seen as “less than.”
Some of the negative effects fear can have on relationships could be:
Fear may limit growth in a relationship or internally. It can cause us to stay in our comfort zones and not move forward.
A behavior of fear might be trying to limit or control a partner’s life in various ways (money, other relationships, time spent apart, etc.).
Feeling excessively low self-worth or self-esteem.
Incessant Insecurity.
The feeling of “walking on eggshells” around your partner.
Feeling very anxious, careful or tentative around the other person.
Excessive apologizing and diminishing oneself.
The need for constant reassurance and approval from a partner.
Destructive or counterproductive conflict resolution.
So, how do we move away from fear?
Our goal is to move away from fear and towards courage and love. Some actionable tips to help us do this are:
Do a journaling exercise to try to understand why fear is coming up in your relationships. Ask yourself the following questions and write down the answers in your journal:
What is it that I really want in a relationship and what would I like an ideal relationship to look like?
What are my goals and what are my values when it comes to relationships?
What behaviors or situations caused me to have fears in my past relationships?
Do those same fears come up in this current relationship?
Are my fears justified because similar situations are happening in this relationship? Or are old habits and patterns causing me to feel fear when I really shouldn’t be afraid?
If your fears are not justified: Employ self soothing techniques like deep breathing, baths, massage, touch, talking with a trusted friend or even a therapist so that you can work through your fears and move past them.
If your fears are justified: Write out some observations about the behaviors you see in yourself and in your partner. Use these observations to create talking points to bring to your partner during a RADAR or another neutral discussion time. Identify the behaviors and use “I feel” statements to discuss how you feel and what you fear might happen in the relationship. Finally, try to collaborate with your partner about ways that each of you change the pattern of behavior and work towards moving past these fears.
Try to think of overcoming fears as a team effort that both you and your partner can work on together.
There is always a possibility that you or your partner may not be open to change or unsure of how to even go about it. In that case it may be important to employ the help of a trusted counselor, friend or therapist for more individualized tips and tactics.
If those things don’t work, and you find the fear to be overwhelming or if it is plaguing you in multiple areas of your life, it is ok to break up.
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 how leading with fear can impact romantic relationships. Some people say that the opposite of love is fear. If that's true, it may also be true that fear can be one of the main factors that ultimately drives a relationship to destruction but fear not because today we are here to discuss how to move away from fear and towards a healthier, happier love life.
If you're interested in getting some more tips about our fundamental communication tools that we reference all the time on this show, check out our book, Multiamory Essential Tools for Modern Relationships, which covers some of our most used communication tools for all types of relationships. You can find links to buy it at multiamory.com/book, or go to your local bookstore and ask them to stock it if they don't already.
Emily: Alrighty, we're going to talk about fear today. Upon reflection, I think fear has definitely been a driving factor to my romantic relationship's ending. I think it can be fear of a lot of things. Fear of speaking up for oneself, for myself, fear of somebody else's partner is better for them if I was in a non-monogamous relationship, and so, I fear that they're just going to end up with that person so I should cut and run, for instance, while I can. A lot of different things. I think that it was very much a driver in my last relationship, and therefore, I didn't speak up about my wants and needs.
I felt as though I was walking on eggshells a lot of the time. I felt like I was pushing my experience under the rug just in the hopes of making the situation better or not rocking the boat or the hope that, one day, everything would just be easier. I think the sad part of doing that is that it just generally is not ever going to get better necessarily. I don't know if there's some magic formula to make a relationship better when you can't really truly communicate, when you're too fearful of something happening to communicate about that thing. It's not going to just magically go away.
Jase: Now, here's a question for you. If there's fear that makes you feel like you can't bring up concerns or advocate for yourself or things like that, I feel like I could also see a situation where fear is also the thing that could keep you in a relationship where you're not having a good time. Like, not being treated well enough, not really appreciating the relationship for longer, because there's also fear of leaving it, that it's almost like the fear keeps you trapped-
Emily: Definitely.
Jase: - in not making it the relationship you want and also not getting out as soon as you could.
Emily: Absolutely. I think, in terms of our episode that we just did on discomfort, it's the fear of the discomfort as well. It's the fear of, well, I don't know if I can find anything necessarily better than this. I don't know if I'm worthy of anything better than this. I'm just going to, kind of, stay in it because it's better than nothing, and I fear the unknown. That's a big one too, is this fear of the unknown. Basically, what I'm saying is there are so many things to fear when you get in a relationship because relationships are vulnerable.
I think you have to face your fears to be in a healthy relationship and you're doing that all the time. There are going to be things that come up that are scary and you got to figure it out. You got to face it together, hopefully. I just wanted the two of you to maybe reflect and look back on things that you have been fearful of in your relationships or maybe even a relationship where you felt a lot of fear. Have you also ever felt fear in a new relationship because of something that happened to you in a past relationship?
Dedeker: I can relate to that one super hard. The journaling app that I use, I've been using it for maybe seven or eight years now, and it will regularly serve up, hey, this was your entry from five years ago, six years ago, seven years ago. It's really interesting to go look back at those entries, particularly the journaling that I was doing at a time when I was in NRE with someone several years ago, and I feel so sad reading them because I was so scared. It's like everything--
Emily: What were you scared of?
Dedeker: Oh, my goodness. I was just scared of being rejected, mostly. It was going really well and I was really excited about this person. I was just so afraid that it's not going to turn out. He's not going to understand. Specifically, it was about the non-monogamy piece because I think I've been rejected so many times because of that. That even when I was getting markers or signals of, no, it's okay, no, it's okay, no, it's okay, I really was so afraid that I was going to be rejected, that I was going to explode at any moment, that I was going to be misunderstood.
When I look back on that now, that particular relationship did end and it wasn't the most painful, devastating relationship ending I've ever experienced. It was painful, but it ended in this whole unique way that my fears did not predict. Sort of the sad irony is that I think I spent so much energy feeling afraid that, oh, this is the way this person is going to hurt me, or this is the way I'm going to have to go through pain in this relationship and then it was something entirely different, really.
I feel a little sad for my younger self where I'm just like you should have just enjoyed it. It's probably impossible to completely scrub out any fears or anxieties when entering a new relationship, but also-- I don't know. I really think that I really let my fears have a very dominant voice. At least that's what comes through in my journal entries. It's the fears were definitely the loudest voice.
Jase: You bring up an interesting point with that thing of I couldn't eliminate all fear completely. I do think there's a certain value to having some fear or anxiety, right? Because it makes us take some things seriously. It maybe makes us be cautious. It maybe makes us change our choices a little bit, but it's finding that balance of I don't want it to be too much that it's then not letting me enjoy things or holding me back from experiences.
I think that, honestly, that's a place that I've been in for a while now when it comes to dating. Sure, I've been busy and I've really been enjoying cultivating my friendships too, and really being proactive in how I maintain those. I've really enjoyed that. I do think there's also a part that's held me back from really seeking out new dating experiences and it's fear--
Kind of related to what Dedeker was saying, but like a fear of, well, I worry that I'm not going to have enough time and I'm going to end up disappointing them. Then I'm going to feel bad and I'm going to hurt somebody, or that just I don't really know what I want right now, and so I'm afraid that I'm just going to be too whishy-washy or no one's going to want that so it's just going to be worse. I should just not. It'd be better if I just don't. That's something I've been kind of going back and forth on for quite a while now. Maybe this is a good episode for me too.
Emily: There you go. Yes, there are so many fears and it's okay. I mean, it's understandable for us to have fears, but I think when fears are dominating the relationship and causing us to not move forward, that's potentially when it can be a thing that we really need to look at. I think that they can be beneficial, just like you said, in a lot of ways. If nothing else, it's a data point and it's a thing that can teach us, hey, maybe this is something that you should look at very specifically and maybe address because if you don't, then perhaps there's something bigger going on there that really needs some attention.
Jase: Let's get into this with just starting off by what do we even mean by fear, right? What is this? I think we all have a sense of experiencing it, but what does it really mean? A lot of this comes from northwesternmedicine.org and this is that fear is a defense mechanism. Like I was saying, it is there for a reason. It is there to help keep you safe, and it's a survival response.
Fear is experienced in your mind, but it has a strong physical reaction in your body. As soon as you start to feel fear, or your body or your mind recognizes something to be afraid of, your amygdala, which is a small organ in the middle of your brain, goes to work turning on your nervous system, putting you into this heightened awareness so you're extra vigilant, extra aware for threats. Stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline are released. Your blood pressure and your heart rate increase. You breathe faster, even your blood flow changes so blood flow will actually flow into your limbs more, making it so you're more ready to run or to fight or to climb or something like that.
The important thing to take away from all of this is that these physical responses are for a very physical type of fear. We evolved for a long time where the threats in the world were largely physical. Something's going to eat you or attack you or something like that. It's turning on all of this activation where in our modern day, a lot of our fears are more of these fear of abandonment or fear of being left or fear of rejection but our bodies are still responding in a very physical way, which is where we can get into a lot of the problems like having too much cortisol in our system all the time can cause, which is stress-related, heart disease, and various things like that because it's doing a lot of stuff to our bodies to prepare for a thing that we're not actually going to do.
Emily: Fear can also trigger those flight, fight, freeze, and fawn responses. We talked about this all the way back in Episode 316 where we talked about all four of those. They're essentially just defense mechanisms, survival responses. They happen because of all the reasons that Jase just talked about. If you want a more in-depth look on those, check out 316. That chronic fear, that continued feeling of fear for a long period of time, it can really lead to some not great things.
It can lead to immune system dysfunction or endocrine system dysfunction. Also autonomic nervous system alterations, sleep cycle disruptions, eating disorders, mood swings, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive thoughts. All of those things are really difficult on your system. Again, if you're being flooded with cortisol constantly, it makes sense that these bigger issues in the body can occur and in your brain as well and in your mood.
Also in my research, I found this interesting term, it just in terms of relationships, which I think fear sometimes stems not only in our relationships but a fear of getting into relationships. There is a term for the fear of falling in love, which is philophobia. That's the term for fear of getting in a relationship, falling in love, or even maintaining a relationship. It's not in the current DSM, but somebody made this, I'm not sure who.
Dedeker: That is so interesting because I think that it's become quite normalized this concept of being afraid of getting into a relationship or afraid of maintaining a relationship. I don't think it's bad to normalize that necessarily, but this is interesting to think about it reaching the level of a phobia, right?
Emily: Yes.
Jase: Yes. Actually that's an interesting question for another episode or just our own research is what is the thing that distinguishes something as a phobia and not just a fear? I'm actually curious what kind of actual scientific metrics--
Emily: Where is the tipping point?
Jase: -- are. Right. How do you make that distinction? Arachnophobia versus just, I'm scared of spiders because they're horrible creatures from hell, which is it, right?
Emily: Oh, yes.
Dedeker: Yes. What are the things that we can fear in a relationship? Well, let me count the ways. How many horrible anxious fantasies have I had about the nightmare scenarios that a relationship may bring about?
Emily: There's way more than just this list by the way that we compiled.
Dedeker: Yes. We can have a fear of intimacy. Be afraid that if someone gets too close to us, then they're going to see something that they don't like. Then maybe they're going to reject us. Really common to have a fear of commitment or a fear of being trapped, or a fear that I'm not going to be able to live up to what this relationship needs in order to be maintained. There's the fear of everything going wrong in the relationship. That's one that sits with me a lot.
Emily: I'm sorry.
Dedeker: I think for me, those seeds get planted because of the work that I do, honestly. Sometimes I think I get a little bit of some secondary trauma from spending a lot of time sitting with people's relationships falling apart that sometimes it can instill a little bit of paranoia of all the things that can go wrong, which sometimes is helpful because it helps me to not take my relationships for granted, but also sometimes produces just a lot of unnecessary anxiety. You can have fear of your partner's reaction to something.
Emily: I felt that a lot.
Dedeker: I hate this. Oh my god. The feeling of having some kind of news or something you need to disclose to your partner and you're afraid of how they're going to react and it's hanging over you and you don't know when to talk, that is the worst feeling. A lot of people have a fear of infidelity, a fear that their partner's going to cheat on them in some way. A fear of abandonment is something that all of us carry, a fear of a partner's emotional outburst that one can be very closely tied to fear of a partner's reaction, or a fear of your own emotional outbursts within the context of a relationship.
There can be a fear of being overwhelmed by a partner, or losing oneself in a relationship. That's one that's come up with a lot of people that I've worked with, especially on the precipice of a new relationship being afraid that they're going to abandon themselves in some way or abandon the things that they love or the person that they are in order to be in this new relationship.
Jase: A lot of us when we're younger do exactly that.
Dedeker: Exactly.
Jase: We do lose ourselves in those relationships.
Emily: Yes. We don't know any better.
Jase: Right. That's understandable to have that fear. A lot of us don't grow out of that. It takes some learning to do. I think that's a reasonable fear to show up sometimes.
Dedeker: There can be a fear that the relationship isn't perfect or that it's not going to live up to your expectations or it's not going to be as impressive or as solid as other people's relationships. There could be some intersections here with relationship OCD, which is a relatively unstudied, relatively new flavor of OCD that we're still trying to get to the bottom of. There seems to be something here related to that or just your good old-fashioned garden variety existential fears about a partner dying, about you dying, or about the relationship coming to an end in general. There's a lot. Do I need to go on? There's so much. There's so much we can be afraid of.
Emily: Those are all great ones. Yes, those are all great ones.
Dedeker: Yes. Whenever we feel this fear, of course, we're going to have an instinct to protect ourselves from anything that feels scary or that feels off, especially because in our standard cultural package of messaging about romantic relationships, I don't think we tend to get a lot of education about the fact that relationships just are scary sometimes and are uncertain sometimes and there is a certain amount of emotional risk. At least that was not in my starter packet of materials about how to conduct human relationships. I don't know if you all--
Jase: That wasn't in your onboarding template?
Emily: No, that wasn't in mine either.
Dedeker: That was missing.
Jase: You’re sure, huh.
Emily: You bring up a good point that it is really unfortunate that we're not really taught how to deal with one another well in school. We just have to figure it out and our teachers are like, "Don't hit Tommy," and stuff like that. That's basically all that we get in terms of learning how to deal and react with one another.
Dedeker: If anything, I think we get more taught that, oh, the relationship is going to be the thing that solves your fears. That's the solution to all of this.
Emily: How wrong they were.
Dedeker: This may solve some, but it's going to introduce other anxieties--
Jase: All the others.
Emily: Exactly.
Dedeker: Of course, we have to drop in the caveat that when we're talking about a relationship where there's fear, we want to make that distinct from a relationship where there's fear of violence or abuse or fear about your life. That's a very serious matter that needs to be dealt with differently. That's a very literal survival fear. Today, we're talking about less of these survival fears, but we want to determine where these more normal, everyday existential fears in a relationship might be coming from and also what can we do about it. Can we do anything about it or do we need to just learn to accept it?
Jase: There's an interesting concept that Emily found this article from psychcentral.com, from Dr. Katarzyna Peoples, I think is how you say her name. She did a comparison of attachment styles and fears of what kinds of fears might we encounter more in our relationships based on our attachment styles. It's just interesting thing to explore. No one should take this too much to be like, aha, if this, then definitely this other thing but more just something to to think about. Starting with secure attachment.
She says, "Secure attachment, they trust their partner's intentions and jealousy is often not an issue for them. Securely attached people feel that they're worthy of love and don't need external reassurance." I think that's all well and good to say. I think that it's--
Emily: They don't need anything no external reassurance, right?
Dedeker: Yes.
Jase: I get what she's saying. That it's not a dominant thought. That there is a certain amount of confidence there. Avoidant, which is also known as dismissive or anxious avoidant is defined by failures to build long-term relationships with others due to an inability to engage in physical and emotional intimacy. It seems that's more of that fear of getting close, fear of intimacy, and that's why it's avoidant because if someone gets close, then they can hurt me, right?
Dedeker: Yes.
Jase: That's that avoidant attachment. Next, we have anxious attachment also known as preoccupied or anxious ambivalent. They often blame themselves for challenges in the relationship and can exhibit frequent and intense jealousy or distrust due to poor self-esteem. There's a deep rooted fear of abandonment, of being rejected or being alone, and that those fears show up more in those, like fear of someone leaving, fear of them being with somebody else, fear of infidelity, those sorts of fears.
Then the last one here is the disorganized attachment style also known as fearful avoidant. This is, while they desperately seek love, they also push partners away because of the fear of love. They believe they'll always be rejected, but they don't avoid emotional intimacy. They fear it and also seek it out only to reject it again. It's that worst of both worlds.
Dedeker: It's kind of that, Dedeker kind of way of being in the world sometimes.
Emily: Would you call yourself disorganized at times?
Dedeker: I think I have disorganized tendencies, yes.
Emily: Interesting, yes.
Dedeker: Yes. I think I had that gas/brake situation. Based on what the research says about what sort of upbringing tends to produce children that are more disorganized attachment, it tracks with what my upbringing was.
Emily: Got it, yes.
Jase: Again, the point of this is not to say, "Ah, you need to identify that, and then you'll know what your fears are, and then you're always stuck with them forever." We tend to fall on this show on the line that attachment styles are not going to be universal through your whole life and they're also not going to be the same in every relationship. Also, your fears might be slightly different from these. The point here is just to give you some things to explore and think about, like Dedeker just said where she's like, "Oh, I see myself in that one," gives you a starting place to go, "Okay. Maybe we can start looking at those fears first."
Emily: There was a 2023 study in the International Journal of Psychology and Educational studies called Attachment Growth, Fear, and Conflict Resolution in Close Relationships by Banu Yildiz. This study aimed to examine the predictive role of attachment styles and the growth fear in close relationships on constructive and destructive conflict resolution strategies. When they were talking about growth fear, they basically mean Peter Pan syndrome, so this fear of growing up which I know that people joke the millennials tend to have that, but I think that can strike anyone for sure.
If you're looking at attachment styles, at growth, fear, and then also conflict resolution in close relationships, they're trying to examine the predictive role of attachment styles specifically anxiety and avoidance, and then growth fear in close relationships on constructive and destructive conflict resolution strategies. This was conducted on 492 individuals between the ages of 18 and 38 who were romantically involved and married. There were 411 single people, and then 81 married people. Everyone was romantically involved with someone, and 81 of them were married, and 411 of them were not married.
Jase: This study is using single in the old school demographic sense of not married.
Emily: Not married, but they were in relationship with one another. The findings were, people who feel anxious avoid conflicts or are afraid of growing apart from their partner are more likely to abandon or exit the relationship when conflicts arise.
Jase: Is that kind of like, "Oh, there's a conflict, I'm out."?
Emily: Yes.
Jase: We've talked about that before.
Emily: People who are anxious attached, it seems like is what they're seeing here.
Jase: It's also that kind of, as you come out of NRE and you start to have those first conflicts that some people it's like, "Oh, I wasn't here for this. I'm out," and they can just leave then, yes.
Emily: Then people who feel anxious or are afraid of growing apart are more likely to ignore conflicts instead of dealing with them. That's interesting as well. I feel like that is something that I definitely dealt with, that I was afraid that if I face the conflict head on, that it would either tear the relationship apart or it would just lead to something that would really not be good for the relationship, and therefore, I just brushed it under the rug. I absolutely felt like that was me.
I tend to think of myself as more on the anxious attachment style as well. They also found people who avoid conflicts or are afraid of growing apart are less likely to discuss and resolve conflicts through open dialogue definitely.
Jase: I think that's their distinction between constructive and destructive conflict resolution strategies where constructive would be an open dialogue, but that people who had more of a fear of growing apart and were more conflict avoidant, were less likely to want to do a more constructive type of conflict resolution, and instead might do a more destructive like ending the relationship or stonewalling or something like that.
Emily: Yes. Or just not talking about it. Then also, people who are anxiously attached are more likely to stay loyal and wait hoping the conflict will go away on its own. However, people who avoid conflicts are less likely to do this.
Dedeker: That sounds like people who avoid conflicts are more likely to bail instead of sticking around and waiting.
Emily: There you go but then people who are anxiously attached are more likely to stay loyal and wait, which again absolutely is something that I have done in my relationships. I'm like, "Well, we'll just wait and see. We'll see if it's going to get better." I don't want to just cut and run because I may be doing that too quickly. I felt like this study validated my reactions and responses to relationships that I've had where I've probably stayed in far longer than maybe was appropriate just because I didn't want to do the wrong thing.
I was fearful of making the wrong decision in addition to so many other things.
Jase: Then also fearful of the conflict so not making things better either, and ending up in that worst of both worlds we were talking. Yes.
Emily: Unfortunate loop.
Jase: Yes. Absolutely. We're going to get into a little bit more of how this affects our relationships. We're going to take a quick break before that to talk about how you can support this show by, first of all, go to multiamory.com/join. Join our Patreon there. We have these really amazing monthly video processing groups. They're not like a discussion group, but it's more a place where you can come and bring whatever's on your mind or just show up to help support other people. It's a really, really amazing group of people that show up to those.
It's actually live over video, so you get to see people's faces and hear their voices and not just be writing to them online. There's just something really special and intimate and personal about it. It's just a really, really cool thing. You can go check out our different tiers at patreon.com/multiamory or multiamory.com/join to get there. Of course, take a moment and check out our advertisers on this show. We hope that you like them. If you do, use the promo codes, use the links in our show description that does directly help support our show and keep this content coming to all of y'all for free every week.
Dedeker: We'll try to cover a little bit of ground about why these fears show up. It's hard to cover every single possible origin because our fears are multifaceted and quite complex sometimes. As far as some of the common reasons why people will find themselves maybe dominated by fear in a relationship is still carrying baggage from a past relationship. I find myself having a lot of conversations with clients these days who may express, "Yes, years ago when I was young and when I was going on dates, it felt so fun and so free, and I felt so alive. Now, I just feel so scared and feel so paranoid and feel like it's not as fun as it once was."
Some of this is just the fundamental reality of having more life experience and having more relationship experience. For a lot of my clients, it's the difference in what it was like to date in your 20s versus in your 30s, your 40s, your 50s, that these life lessons accumulate and they're good to accumulate. It's not necessarily a bad thing to go through these painful experiences in order to learn, but also it accumulates in such a way that it can really hold us back from being able to have that same sense of freedom and joy and fun like we once did.
As we've been talking about attachment styles, often those are linked to some kind of developmental trauma that took place often in a parental relationship or a caregiver relationship, something from childhood. So many of our fears really stem from a very, very early place. Now, we're not going to go super deep into that right now. You can go check out our first episode that we did with Jessica Fern, go listen to Multiamory Episode 291 about attachment theory and polyamory. That can be at the root of many of these things.
Also, when you're entering a new relationship, sometimes a new partner or a new type of relationship can challenge an old identity that you had or an idea that you had of yourself. Maybe if you've identified as the longtime bachelor or the unlovable cat lady or something that I've been having to help people work through sometimes is someone who's been non-monogamous for a long time who's choosing to be monogamous in a particular relationship or choosing to be monogamous for a particular period of time, and then really struggling with the fact that does this mean I'm giving up my identity? I don't know, or the flip side that when people are coming to non-monogamy for the first time, there can be that unlearning of how you present yourself in the world as a potential mate.
Suddenly, having a particular relationship or falling in love with someone can coincide with feeling like maybe you're losing a part of your identity or there's a sense of yourself that is changing, or you may be surprising yourself by the parts of you that are coming out as you're entering this new relationship. Sometimes that can be very exciting and exhilarating and it can also be unsettling for sure.
Jase: I think this could honestly be a whole episode in itself. I think this whole concept is so fascinating about how we identify ourselves, what identities we connect with and feel like define ourselves. I think that there's a whole range of places this shows up in terms of our relationship status, but also things like our own sexual preference or even gender identity, or these things that it's like changing your identity is a really challenging, difficult thing to go through.
I think sometimes we don't acknowledge how much even something like just getting into a relationship or getting into a different type of relationship can really trigger a lot of this fear and resistance to that, even if you're not consciously aware of the fact that it's your identity that's the thing that's being challenged, that is reacting out of fear. Super interesting as a thing to introspect for ourselves.
Emily: Absolutely.
Dedeker: That really intersects with so much pressure that we get from our culture and society at large around relationships in general, and it comes from all sides. That, of course, on this show, we talk a lot about non-monogamy and there's just a lot of this normative demonization of any sort of "weird" type of relationship or non-traditional relationship that can cause people to really have a very strong fear reaction to the possibilities of that, or if someone is single but not dating, there can be this fear that, oh, you're wasting your time, or you're going to die alone, or if you're a woman especially, you got a biological clock or you got to get yourself on the market while you're still attractive.
All these really toxic things, or I've seen people feel afraid when they are getting into a new relationship, feeling this fear of, well, I don't love myself enough yet. I'm too broken actually. I haven't done enough or I haven't fixed myself enough. I haven't recovered enough. I haven't done X, Y, or Z enough so I'm not going to be ready for this relationship. It really just comes from all directions.
Jase: Years ago, I attended this talk, I could not even tell you the rest of the context of it, but one piece that stuck with me was about this identity of if you really identify with being a person trying to fix a problem, that it can be hard to ever fix it because your identity is tied up in being the person working on it.
Emily: Wow.
Dedeker: Dang. Did they have examples?
Jase: Well, his example was, I'm remembering now, his example was about physical pain. That he'd had a back injury that he was trying to recover from. This is a long, long time ago, so I don't remember a lot of the details but was talking about how he, at some point, had this shift mentally from realizing, wait, what if, instead of identifying as a person who's in pain trying to figure out a way to fix it, to being someone who is figuring it out and then being someone who has figured it out. That for him, that helped influence the way that he went about, like feeling more hopeful, I guess, and trying to actually repair this.
Dedeker: Interesting.
Jase: Obviously, that's just his one experience but that idea of if your identity can be too stuck in, well, I'm someone who's always working on my fears, it might even make it harder to get over some of them because it's part of your identity. I think it goes along with a lot of the stuff of like, oh, I'm the single friend who hangs out with all the people who have good relationships, or I'm the funny one but not the one that has a relationship, or different forms of holding on to one relationship too tightly can hold us back from maybe moving on from it, even if that's what we want.
Emily: I want to point out that a lot of these things that we just talked about are fears that happen to us that aren't necessarily relationship-specific. They may be happening internally within us but fears may also happen because we actually have a relationship that isn't going well and isn't good for us and because we're feeling things that are happening within the relationship that are really not healthy, that are toxic.
I do want to just take a moment to acknowledge that that is also a reason potentially why fear may be happening in a relationship. So often, it's difficult to maybe go there first. At least for myself, I want to look internally and look at, okay, what are the things that I'm doing that are causing this to happen? Not necessarily, wait a minute, what's the landscape of the relationship, and should I be actually looking at that to discover why I'm feeling fear in this moment?
Dedeker: I think I'm the opposite. I'm ready to blame it on the other person first right off the gate. I'm ready to find out what they're doing wrong.
Emily: Amazing. That's fine. It's great if we are able to look at either. Ideally, we should be looking at both because, again, those are data points and if the fear is coming from within, then maybe that's something that you yourself can address with the help of various people and we're going to get into actionable ways in which to do that. Then also, don't forget to look outward as well and see, wait a minute, is the fear coming from outside of me? Is it coming from within the relationship itself?
Jase: I think that one's worth noting with that fear of conflict we were talking about before, is it's possible that's just a conflict avoidant personality, that's a fear that you have, that's something you could work on, but it's also possible that you have a very legitimate fear based on how your partner does respond to you bringing something up. There is something to be said for evaluating where is this actually coming from and trying to get honest on that because it may not just be you.
Emily: Exactly. It may not. If you have fear in a relationship, what can it actually do to a relationship over time? I think a lot of these are something that probably we've all felt in a relationship or that we've all seen deteriorate a relationship over time but a thing that can happen is that it just may limit growth in a relationship, or it may limit your own personal growth internally. Fear can really cause us to stay in our comfort zones and not choose to move forward, and that can be decision-making in terms of a relationship.
It can cause us to hold ourselves back from moving forward or moving to the next step in a relationship, whatever that may be. I'm not necessarily just talking about the relationship escalator but even being more vulnerable in a relationship in a specific way, it can cause us to not do that, for instance. It can also cause specific behaviors. You may feel like you want to limit or control a partner's life in various ways. Money or other relationships or time spent apart, that's something that if you're looking internally at, wait a minute, what things am I placing upon the other person because of this fear that I'm feeling?
That's really something to be aware of and to try to caution yourself from doing. You may also feel excessive low self-worth or self-esteem because of the fears that you're having, especially if it's fears of being abandoned or fears that your partner is going to go off with someone else or fears that your partner is also dating non monogamously and they're going to find somebody that's better for them in some way. You may feel super insecure over time.
In certain instances, you may also feel like you need to walk on eggshells around your partner again to not rock the boat or to not provide more conflicts in the relationship, instead of facing the issue head on. You may internally feel very anxious or careful or tentative around the other person. I definitely have felt that in relationships and it's really, really limiting. It's really difficult to constantly feel that and then wonder, wait a minute, why don't I ever feel really settled in this relationship? Why don't I ever feel really good, really at ease? I think that's extremely telling.
Dedeker: It's interesting as we're going through this laundry list, I know that at the top, we said that there can be this very reductive way of looking at life that really it all boils down to either fear or love. We can argue against that in a very Donny Darko kind of way but then when I look at this list of results of fear in a relationship, I really do start to think of like, God does all dysfunctional relationship stuff just stem from fear? Is that really all it is at the end of the day?
Emily: Well, I know that that is reductive but it does boil down to it. I think so much of it does come from fear. When I was thinking about this episode, I just kept going back to but I was just scared. So many of the things that kept coming up in my relationship were because I was scared. It's not necessarily a question of, was I scared of my partner? Maybe at times I was, but it was also, what was I so afraid of losing? What was I so afraid of feeling? What was I so afraid of coming out with and being honest about?
There were so many different fears that kept me from, I think, having a good relationship. I don't know if that was possible necessarily with that particular person but it is really telling that if fear is holding you back in all of these different ways and causing all of these different emotional feelings to come up, well, shit, that's not good.
Jase: I think that's an interesting question, Dedeker, about fear. Is fear underneath all of it? It's interesting because it's something that comes up a lot when I'm talking to people, usually on other podcasts, talking to people or having conversations about masculinity and some of the problems that show up there that I think a lot of it's really fear is where a lot of that comes from. A lot of things like homophobia or just overly aggressiveness or inability to access emotions. A lot of it comes from fear at some point that was instilled in us.
I do think that there's something very fundamental about fear. It's a thing that makes sense. It's what keeps alive from being killed out in the wild. It makes sense that some of our more, I don't know, modern emotions, I guess you could say, were built on that as a foundation because that will have been there for a longer time.
Emily: Yes, absolutely. Just to round out this list, and again, there are many, many more than just these behaviors or what fear can do to a relationship. You may excessively apologize and diminish yourself. You may feel the need for constant reassurance and approval from a partner, and it may also lead to destructive or counterproductive conflict resolution, or just feeling as though I never really get things solved. We just talk at each other and nothing really moves forward. That's really difficult as well if fear is constantly driving the relationship.
Jase: One of my favorite quotes from Shambhala, Sacred Path of the Warrior, is talking about the concept of fearlessness, and that fearlessness is not a lack of having fear, but a willingness to face it. That, to me, was something that really stuck with me in terms of willingness to be a little uncomfortable with your own emotions and your thoughts and things, but also, I think it applies to a lot of this here. That it's not to say the cure is to not feel any of these fears anymore, but rather to say, okay, how can I acknowledge those and then face those and not let those hold me from having the life that I want to have.
Emily: A hundred percent yes because we're all going to feel fear, and that's okay. I think it can be a really productive and helpful tool for all of us, and yet, if it is holding you back and if you're not willing or able to face it, then that, I think, is where the problems come in.
Jase: Now, it's time for us to talk about what are some things that we could start doing now to improve our relationship to these fears. We're going to take a quick break before that to talk about some sponsors for this show. If you would rather not have ads in your episodes, you can become one of our patrons at patreon.com/multiamery. At some of our tiers there, we have ad-free episodes that also come out a little bit early. Of course, even if you are in those tiers and you just want to go the extra mile supporting us, if you do, check out our sponsors, if any seem interesting to you.
Don't do them if they don't sound interesting but if they do, use our promo codes and our links, and that does directly contribute to them helping to fund this show so that we can make this available to everybody in the world for free every week. How do we move away from fear and move toward courage and love? I might even phrase this differently to say, How do we move through fear toward courage and love? As we were saying before, it's not really about not feeling fear anymore. Although, hopefully, those feelings will be less strong, will become less of an intense force on you. It's not about removing all fear completely. I think that path just isn't going to lead you anywhere good.
What are some things that we can do? The first thing here is we want to propose a little journaling exercise. Everyone knows that I love these.
Emily: Your favorite.
Jase: I don't love keeping a journal, but I love writing stuff down on paper. For me, there's something about the handwriting of it that's important to me. In a pinch, writing something down on my phone or typing, it's okay but if I can handwrite it, even if that's digital an iPad or something, that's fine. For me, that helps, something about the tactileness of it.
The idea is you've listened to this episode, you've identified there's maybe some fear playing a role in my relationship, holding me back from positive conflict resolution or holding me back from bringing up conflict at all, or maybe holding me back from leaving a relationship that isn't serving me, whatever it is. Here's some question prompts to write down answers to in your journal. First is, what is it that I really want in a relationship, and what would I like an ideal relationship to look like? Sometimes, especially if you've been holding yourself back from your feelings, this can actually be a really difficult question to answer.
Just like, what is it that I actually want? Sometimes we can get really focused on what we don't want or maybe what we think in general we should want. It's like, what do you really want? It can be a challenging question. It's a really good one to take a little time with.
Emily: It's scary, too, just because if you realize, wait a minute, my existing partnership is not these things, that's scary.
Jase: Take a little bit of time and explore that. Then related to that is, what are my goals and what are my values when it comes to relationships? The goal thing, I would advise you to stay away from external goals. Like a goal to get married or a goal to buy a house with a partner or something that's a little bit of an external marker and more what's a goal in terms of going back to the first question of what type of relationship do I want to have?
Dedeker: I just want to clarify. I think it's okay for people to have those goals, but for the purpose of this exercise put something different.
Jase: Sure.
Emily: By goals, I meant what kind of feelings do I want to achieve in my relationship? What kind of vulnerability? What kind of maybe projects do I want to have with my partner over time? What kind of emotions do I want to be able to talk about easily with them? Things like that. These goals, I think, can be really simple and really specific. Again, they don't need to be big life term goals, but how do they represent your values? I think goal could be like, I want to be with a partner who's okay with the fact that I want to be non-monogamous. I have a goal of being with a partner who's okay with me being in a deep friendship with my exes, for example.
Dedeker: Oh, relevant.
Emily: Yes, something like that. That, I think, is absolutely a prerequisite and a goal for me, for instance, in a relationship that I have.
Jase: Something I would suggest exploring when you're writing down these goals, too, is to think is the thing I wrote down really the goal, or is that actually on my way to a goal? To challenge some of yours a little bit, Emily, I want someone who's okay with me being non-monogamous. What if my goal is to be in a relationship with someone who's enthusiastic about the fact that I want to be non-monogamous or that I have good relationships with my exes or whatever? It's that question, is there a step further here besides just the bare minimum that I used to be trying to get to? What's the goal, really? What do I really want?
Emily: There you go.
Jase: Then ask yourself some questions like, what behaviors or situations caused me to have fears related to these things in my past relationships? Maybe also in your childhood or past friendships, maybe even in the past of this current relationship. Do these fears come up in this current relationship? Are they based on anything that has happened, or are they fears that I've brought into this relationship? Are my fears justified because similar situations are happening here, or are these just patterns? Are these just fears that I'm used to or things that I've brought with me from the past?
Just getting some clarity on those can help you understand how to approach those about how justified is the current fear I'm feeling in this current relationship.
Emily: If you look at all of this journaling that you just did and you realize, you know what? I don't know if my fears are necessarily justified. Maybe my partner and I aren't hitting absolutely everything that I'm looking at here, but we're doing a pretty good job. I think overall, we are on the right track and a lot of these fears that I'm feeling are probably internal, are probably coming from my past, and probably things that I need to work on then there are some things you can do.
Really just at a base level, employing self-soothing techniques, deep breathing, baths when you're feeling down. Massage or touch that is platonic or that is just non-romantic. Even if that's just cuddling with a partner or cuddling with a friend, or hugs or sweet, gentle touch, talking with a trusted friend or even a therapist so that you can work through your fears and move past them, or just move through them like Jase said, work on them. Figure out ways in which to pick them apart a bit and see why is this happening, where is this coming from, what can I do about it.
Then if your fears are justified, maybe write out some observations about the behaviors that you are seeing in yourself and in your partner. You can use these observations to create talking points to bring to your partner during something like a radar or another neutral discussion time where the two of you aren't necessarily really emotionally charged. I think that that's just going to add to the fear, that's just going to add to the potential of it being more explosive and not going to a good place or not being received well. Try to identify those behaviors and use things like I feel statements to discuss what's happening in the relationship and maybe what the fear is bringing out within you in the relationship.
Then if you can, try to collaborate with your partner about ways that each of you can, alter that pattern of behavior and work towards moving past those fears together collaboratively. Now, this is a big ask, by the way. All of this I think is really difficult and something that I did not achieve in my last relationship. Godspeed to all of you out there. This is my ideal of what I wish I could have done.
Dedeker: Again, because this speaks to something so deep that is within all of us, again, this could be such a fantastic opportunity to really supercharge your relationship. Having the willingness to sit there and be vulnerable and having a partner who can hold that is huge. This is how we heal. This is how we create corrective experiences for ourselves that help to undo those patterns of fear, that help to inject different messages about relationships and about love that can help us undo some of the really silly messages that we picked up when we were children.
Your fears and fixing your fears is not like directly your partner's responsibility. It's not like you come to them and then that's their laundry list of stuff that they need to fix and adjust. Again, like Emily said, this is a collaboration. This is a team effort. I will say that every time I've been able to bring a fear to a partner and it's been held and received, or maybe even my partner has disclosed a similar fear, I've always felt closer and safer on the other side of that.
Jase: I think that part of that is just the naming it. I think honestly, this can apply in a lot more situations than just our romantic relationships. I remember years ago I had to go to court. Someone had hit me with their car, but they were denying that they did it so I had to just go to court with them. I was nervous going into it being like, "I'm not sure if I know what to say." The advice that the lawyer who was coaching me on it, he said, "Just say that. Just go up there and say, I'm sorry, I'm a little bit nervous. I'm afraid I won't know what to say."
Emily: Oh wow.
Jase: You can acknowledge that and put that out there and then go forward with it. Don't hide behind that because it's okay to acknowledge how you're feeling. It's maybe something you couldn't do in every situation. Maybe it's going to derail your public speaking if you talk too much about how afraid you are to be up on stage, but it also could humanize you to the audience a little bit even in work situations. I think especially with our romantic relationships, if you come in with this like, "Hey, I'm afraid to talk about this thing, or I'm afraid of this and even clarify if this is true. I'm not afraid of this because I think I have a good reason to necessarily.
It's not something that you're doing, it's not something that you've done, but I have this fear and it's making it hard for me to even talk about this." That just starting with that opens up that opportunity for them to be on your team for then it to be a collaboration like Dedeker was saying. There's always a possibility that they're going to be open to change.
It's like, "Yes, let's do this. There's also a chance where it's going to be difficult, and that's where you might want to get the help of someone else like a counselor or a friend or a therapist to help both of you do this.
It has to start from that. We both want to work together on making this better. If you don't have that piece, then a therapist can't do it for you. Your friend can't do that for you. You do have to first establish that we are on a team trying to work toward this thing. Maybe that's still hard. Maybe we're both scared, but we need to be on a team about it. One thing I wanted to come back to also with this how to face these fears, especially if the fear is what's holding you back from even having this first conversation, is that something, which again might be great to do with a therapist or a coach or something, but is to actually go the opposite way and say, "What is it that I'm afraid of?
What's the worst possible outcome that could happen here?" Then say what that is. Then the next question is, "Okay, great. Let's assume that that happens. Then what?" Instead of doing what a lot of us naturally want to do, which is avoid even the thought of the thing that we're afraid of. Instead to go face it and just look at it and say, "Okay, what if the absolute worst thing that could happen did happen? Then what would I do? What would happen? What would be the consequences of that?" To then work backward from that can actually be more helpful than just doing a lot of the acrobatics that social media might teach us to do about just avoiding it or wishful thinking it away, or writing positive affirmations or something that involve never thinking about the thing you're afraid of.
Emily: Yes. Finally, if all of those things don't work, then it's okay to break up. I think that if you find the sphere to be really overwhelming or if it's plaguing you in multiple areas of your life, or if after many, many years you realize, "Wait a minute, I can't talk about these things. I am not figuring out a way to be able to do so, and that is going to ultimately make me less happy in the rest of my life than to really continue in this relationship and the way that it is going," maybe the best option is just to go to leave. That is sometimes the scariest thing of all, but it can also sometimes be the most rewarding. I do think that ideally, if you get to a place where that's occurring and where you're like, yes, that's definitely what I'm seeing is happening here, then try to find the courage to break up.
Dedeker: I hope people never get sick of us saying that. I know we say it so often.
Emily: It's important.
Dedeker: Every time, I know someone needs to hear it.
Jase: That's the thing.
Dedeker: Somebody out there needs to hear it right now.
Jase: It's like maybe most of you don't but there's going to be at least one person out there that's like, "Yes, that's what I needed."
Emily: Oh yes.
Jase: To just have someone affirm that that is also a choice.