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When two people come together in a relationship, they bring with them personal issues they have developed throughout their lives. Some of these issues can be handled alone, while some others are deeper rooted and can cause the relationship a lot of problems. When one or both people have personal issues that they have yet to deal with themselves, often, arguments around it end up becoming a common occurrence. Couples will end up fighting about the same things over and over again with no real, actionable solution to it.
Sometimes problems that appear on the surface might not be the real problem at all. Take, for example, jealousy. Often time couples that have issues with jealousy only speak about the jealousy but fail to speak about the cause behind jealousy, which is - in most cases - the feeling of insecurity. A person might become jealous because he/she is harboring insecurities he/she might not even know about. Do you argue about something that is not actually the problem? Do you find yourself being jealous for no reason at all? Could you be harboring insecurities?
Here are a few pointers to identify if insecurity is the underlying issue.
1. You have certain rules that your partner must abide by. If you find yourself having to tell your partner not to be friends with people of the opposite sex, not to make comments about other girls or to always text you immediately – you are scratching the surface of the real problem, which is insecurity. Insecurity comes from fear – the fear of being rejected, neglected, left behind and/or getting hurt. Because we can never know how others treat us, we then build a need to 'control' what they do. You may think that the best way you can keep from getting hurt is to always know your partner's every move. You may also think that by controlling their behaviours, you are controlling the likelihood of them hurting you. But the truth is that the more you control someone the more your controlling behaviour backfires on you and the relationship. Learn to speak about your insecurities rather than telling your partner what he can or cannot do to make you feel better. No one wants to be in a relationship that feels like prison or probation after all.
2. The solutions you find do not help. Have you ever tried to fix an issue you and your partner are arguing about but they still continue to exist? When you harbor insecurities, your arguments will tend to revolve around the same topic. You may think that you are arguing about different things each time but when you look closer you will often find that they are of the same issue – just in different context. For example, you tell your boyfriend not to make comments about other girls and he stops doing it, the next time he does something different but having to do with other girls whether it's talking to them or looking at them – you will feel threatened yet again. The argument may be about him doing something else, but the topic is still about him and other girls. When you are insecure, the arguments often have nothing to do with what your boyfriend or other girls are doing, but about the deep-rooted insecurities you have developed from childhood or past relationships instead. No solutions will ever be good enough to make you feel more secure when the solutions has to do with your boyfriend doing something or you controlling the situation. It must be about you finding solutions to feel secure within yourself first.
3.You argue about the smallest things: Has something small ever triggered a humongous argument with your spouse? When you harbor insecurities, the smallest things can trigger and wake up the actual monster that is behind the problem. Your partner forgetting to put the toilet seat down or him chewing too loud can all of a sudden be about you feeling like your partner does not love you enough. If you find yourself going from 0 to 100 with your anger over something quite insignificant then there is clearly something bigger that you are not communicating either to yourself or to your spouse. Sometimes, what you argue over can have absolutely nothing to do with your insecurities but because you are already harboring it, it has manifested itself into resentment and anger. The problem with small things becoming triggers for your insecurities is that you and your partner end up focusing too much on a very irrelevant issue and neglecting to talk about the real one. If you want to preserve that energy of yours from spending time arguing about something that isn't even the problem – get straight to the root cause and talk about your true inner feelings. It will save the both of you from a lot of pain and misunderstandings.
If you find yourself experiencing one or all of these three things above, then you are most likely hiding behind other reasons because of your insecurity. Speaking about something that is actually the problem may not be an easy thing to do for some people, however, if you want to move forward and have productive arguments with your spouse, you must learn to talk about the actual problem itself instead of dancing around other topics.
Get straight to the point and do not tip toeing over the problem. No one is perfect, we all have issues and if insecurity is one of yours, that's OK. The key is to make sure you deal with it directly and allow your partner in on what's going on, as they may be able to help you with it as well. Be honest with yourself and with your spouse, and you will find yourself not arguing over something that has nothing to do with the real deal.
