Sleeping in the same bed with her partner Damien at night could be ‘heavenly’ or ‘beastly’ for thirty-seven-year-old florist, Annabel. Sometimes she wanted to mold her body around his, but at other times she felt suffocated by his very presence in the bed. At those times turning her back on him was the only way she could doze off.
Do you often wonder if your partner finds you exciting enough or good enough? Are you constantly worrying about proving your love, commitment and loyalty? Are you living with the fear that they will find someone better and then going overboard to try and make yourself indispensable? Then you are probably insecure and have an unconscious rule about how to feel more secure. That rule may be that you have to fulfill all your partner's needs so that they become dependent on you, and that way they will never leave. Unfortunately it is a fear based rule which only adds stress and conflict to the relationship, making it more likely to end. You are probably experiencing a never ending cycle of fighting and making up and then fighting again.
You had a fight with your partner and they aren't speaking to you. Your spouse leaves to stay to with a friend or family member. You start to worry about whether you should just give it a little time or whether it means that your marriage is going to break up. After a day or so of not seeing one another, you send a ton of text messages and calls to your partner and get no response for several hours or even a whole day. You get anxious and start thinking about who your spouse is with, and what they are doing. You start imagining your partner cheating, or forgetting about you You find yourself looking back over the last few weeks and months for signs that your partner was lying and cheating that you ignored at the time
Saying good things about yourself to yourself each day can make you feel better and more confident in the short term. But soon you need to up the ante and make the statements even more elaborate, comparing yourself to others in a superior way. If that comes across to friends and loved ones, and it does whether you say it openly or not, you are destroying your relationships. Learn how to work with your poor self-esteem in ways that bring you closer to people so that they provide the foundation on which you can feel good for ever, naturally, never needing these artificial self-affirmations again.
