Ways That You Sabotage Yourself in Relationships

Dr. Natalie Jones PsyD, LPCC
3 min readSep 13, 2021
Sabotaging your relationships, by Dr. Natalie Jones, PsyD, LPCC

There are a lot of us out there in the world who desperately want love but are terrified by the thoughts of opening our hearts as well. Putting ourselves in a position to be vulnerable and open with someone leaves us raw and exposed. It can be especially difficult if we have experienced heartache or abuse in our relationships. Sometimes even when we want love so badly, we fantasize about it daily, we quietly self-destruct when we finally start to get a taste of it. You see, loving relationships are great when we fantasize about them, but when they become a reality, we become paralyzed with anxiety. This becomes an issue because you have never experienced pure, healthy love; or you haven’t been taught how to love properly. Here are ways in which you may be sabotaging yourself in relationships.

You invest a lot of emotions very quickly without getting to know a person’s character. If you are one who falls in love or loses yourself in someone else quickly, then this applies to you. This is a characteristic of emotional unavailability where we become so consumed and invested in the other person that we don’t take the time to get to know our partner, what their values are, and what their relationship history is. By investing so many emotions quickly, your partner hasn’t earned the right to be in a relationship with you and red flags are overlooked.

You don’t communicate your feelings or needs. Again, this is another characteristic of being emotionally unavailable where you hide parts of yourself by not sharing thoughts, feelings, and what you need from your partner. Hiding these parts of yourself is a result of not wanting to appear to be clingy, only wanting to present the best side of yourself, or fearing that if your partner knows the truth about you then they won’t want to be in a relationship with you.

Your boundaries are too loose or rigid. If your boundaries are loose, then most likely you are a people pleaser that seeks out validation and confirmation of your worthiness from the other person. You believe that your worth is determined by how the other person sees you. If your boundaries are too rigid, then you may struggle with fear of abandonment, or fears that your partner is getting too close to your vulnerable side. Thus, you constantly worry that your partner will leave, or that you…

Dr. Natalie Jones PsyD, LPCC
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Dr. Natalie Jones, PsyD, LPCC is a licensed therapist, and creator of A Date With Darkness Podcast. Visit: https://www.drnataliejones.com