Your Greatest Fear In A Relationship: They Will Leave You

What's your greatest relationship fear? Why are you always afraid to have deep conversations with your partner? Why do not enforce boundaries? Why do feel insecure? All of these are just masks of the same underlying fear: that your partner will leave you. Discover how this fear wreaks havoc on your relationships and what you can do to overcome it.

Your Greatest Fears

Recently I went on a 3 day silent meditation retreat in the rainforest on the Olympic coast of Washington. During the retreat, the facilitator gave talks in the evening. During one of these talks he mentioned that our mind is evolutionarily wired for two things:

‍Keeping you alive…

…long enough to reproduce.

This means your brain is hyper-focused on these two objectives like they are mission critical for humanity. However, the form that these two objectives take in your mind are not “I must survive today” or “I must reproduce today”. Rather, they show up wearing hundreds of different masks that keep you from seeing your greatest fears. Consequently, these fears hold you back from your greatest desires, both in life and your relationships. 

1. You’re going to die.

If you put your thoughts under observation and start questioning them, particularly asking “why” enough times, you’ll see that many of them lead to a fear of death.

Let’s look at some examples.

“I have to go to work today” Why? -> “Because if I don’t I won’t have money” Why is that important? -> “Because I need to pay for food, rent, ect?” Why? -> “Because if I don’t, I will die…”

“I don’t want to take that trip with my friend to a new city” Why? -> “Because I don’t know the area or people there” Why is that important? -> “Because they could be dangerous” -> Why is that important? -> “I could die…”

“I’ve not been consistent creating content” Why? -> “Because I hesitate publishing it” Why? -> “Because I’m afraid of what people will say about it” Why? -> “They might not like me” Why is that important? -> “If they don’t like me, maybe nobody will” Why is that important?” -> “Because if other people don’t like me I’ll be alone and have no one to support me when I’m in need” Why is that important? -> “Because if I need help, and no one is there, I might die…”

We could go on forever. Next time you have a fear, hesitation, or doubt come up, I’d invite you to ask yourself why several times and see what the answer is. Oftentimes these will hold you back from taking risks that could potentially have major positive consequences for your life. 

2. You’ll be alone (and never reproduce).

Now when it comes to relationships, you do so many things to avoid the possibility of ever being alone. In the scales of evolution, someone who is alone would be considered a “failure” because it’s impossible to reproduce by yourself. Of course, I don’t see you as a failure, but evolution doesn’t care what we think. 

This biological imperative pushes us to do so many things to ensure we get into or stay in a relationship… long enough to reproduce. Whether that’s a happy, healthy relationship or not is irrelevant. Just as long as you’re staying alive and continuing the species. As a consequence, you learn a ton of maladaptive behaviors that may work in the short term for your relationship, but over time they create suffering for you, your partner, and the longevity of the relationship.

What might this look like?

‍If you’re single and trying to get into a relationship:

• you people please
• you disregard your needs to fulfill theirs
• you ignore your boundaries and their red flags, 
• you lie about yourself to make yourself fit their ideal, 
• you manipulate their emotions, 
• you disregard your emotions, 
• you’re afraid of creating tension or having controversial opinions

‍If you’re already in a relationship and trying to stay in it:

• you let them cross your boundaries, 
• you do everything for them to keep them happy, 
• you’re afraid of having hard conversations, 
• you create covert contracts, 
• you hide and suppress parts of yourself, 
• you try to gain intel about them without them knowing, 
• you don’t share your true needs, desires, or feelings

In either scenario, you’re afraid they will leave you and you will be alone.

It’s ok. Most of us were not given very good models of healthy relationships and might have some behaviors from childhood that lead to insecurity. I most certainly used to fall in that camp. When I was married, I often tried to do things to make my wife happy. I never walked on eggshells but I did often consider her emotional reactions to what I would want to do. On the surface that seems noble, but in reality it was often at the expense of my own desires or boundaries. I had the toxic idea in my mind that as long as I made her happy, she wouldn’t leave. That’s not love, that’s insecurity. It took me a long time to realize that her emotions were not my responsibility or my business. It took me a long time to realize that I don’t get to control how she reacts. It took me even longer to realize that it was more detrimental to live out of integrity with myself.

I also suppressed much of my sexuality, fearing I was too sexual of a person for her. It eventually led to me being almost apathetic to sex. I lost vibrancy in myself, in my creativity, and in my zest for life. No wonder. I was shutting off an entire side of my personality, one that helps me feel connected to the beauty of life. And why did I do so? Because if I expressed my needs and desires, she might not like that part of me. Again, insecurity. Fear that if I share or want those things, she will leave and I’ll be left alone.

Turns out, we ended up getting divorced which we amicably decided on and we’re still great friends. Along that journey, I became more secure and didn't fear number 2 (I don’t fear number 1 either anymore, but that’s a topic for another post). 

Here’s how you can, too.

How to overcome the fear your partner will leave you

1. Become Secure in Yourself

Maybe it’s cliche, but I believe that if you truly want to learn to love another person, you must first love yourself. What I mean by this is that you need to become secure in yourself. Being secure in yourself means that you believe you are capable of meeting all your own needs. 

Truth is, none of us are 100% secure. The perfectly secure being has all their needs met or has no needs. No human being is that way. The closest we can get is finding more strategies to fulfill our needs ourselves. But we'll never fully get there. So, it's better to call out our own insecurities and express our own needs, because we can't hide them. A child thinks they are perfect. An adult knows their shortcomings, works to actively overcome them, and still asks for help from others when needed.

However, we can get pretty close. Here are some tools and modalities that helped me.

Working with your attachment style

We first recognize we are imperfect beings who have needs that must be fulfilled by others when we are a child. Depending on how our parents approached meeting those needs, we learned to be securely attached or insecurely attached. We then continue those behaviors into adulthood with our relationships. Many of us learned maladaptive behaviors and as a result are insecure and have maladaptive relationships. 

However you can learn to become secure, often by addressing the underlying beliefs you learned during childhood. The tools I recommend for doing so are:

• Attachment Styles: The education about attachment styles can help you to identify your maladaptive patterns and learn to rewire them for more beneficial ones.
• Ideal Parent Figure Protocol: I personally used the meditation associated with this model for a few months and it had a profound effect on helping me become secure.
• Internal Family Systems: I’ve not personally done IFS; however, many of close friends have and they swear by it.

Understand your needs and boundaries first.

How are you going to fulfill or ask for what you need, if you are not even aware of it?

How are you going to know if a boundary is crossed, if you never drew the line?

You need to take the time to identify these for yourself, before trying to meet others. The reason being, we are often the first ones to disregard our own needs and boundaries in service of other people. We are supposed to be the first line of defense for making sure these are attended to. Knowing that, and acting on our behalf, creates trust in ourselves. Trust in ourselves creates security.

So I recommend journaling and writing out your needs and boundaries. You can do so in the context of a specific relationship, or of your life in general, because our partners are not the only place we disregard ourselves.

Recognizing your connection with everyone.

Think about this for a minute. 

If you show care and concern for other people, you want their needs to be fulfilled, and you want them to be happy… Why does that goodwill not extend to YOU?  Are you not a being, who deserves these things, just like any other being?

At the heart of many of our insecurities is the belief that we are not good enough, we are not important, or we are somehow less worthy than our fellow human beings. 

You let your needs go unfulfilled and your boundaries crossed because you believe you are not worthy to have them met. 

I know. I was like that, too.

What helped me was to recognize that my inherent value as a human being, is different from my value of what I look like or what I do. That all beings have an inherent value for being alive, and I was one of those beings. A being that has needs, desires, fears, emotions, and a body, just like everyone else. And if I’m like everyone else, who deserves to have their needs met as a being, then I too deserved that.

Now I did not come to this conclusion on my own. I had a lot of influence studying Buddhism and Tantra, both of which hold a belief in the interconnectedness of beings. That we all come from the same source. That may sound too mystical to you. That's ok. What I would encourage you to try is a meditation called Metta or Loving Kindness in which you extend the same love and goodwill you do onto others, onto yourself. I personally did this for many months and it helped to move love inward as much as outward.

2. Become okay being alone.

You may have just had a visceral reaction in your body reading that sentence. That’s your biology telling you it’s not okay to be alone. But reality is, it is ok, and can be quite pleasurable. 

Trust me, I’m an introvert. Sometimes it’s even blissful.

You need to show your body there is little fear in being alone and give it positive reference points (memories) that it can recall so that if you do end up in a period where you are alone, it will tell you that everything is going to be okay.

Basically, you are going to do a form of exposure therapy, in which you're gradually exposed to the things, situations and activities you fear. In this case, the fear of being alone. The idea is you want to start small and gradually increase the level of exposure to your fear.

That might look something like this:

• Level 0: think about being alone and it being ok
• Level 1: take a 10 minute walk alone with no music, podcasts, dogs, or other items/companions
• Level 2: stay home alone one night
• Level 3: go to dinner and movie by yourself
• Level 4: take a weekend trip by yourself
• Level 5: take a entire trip by yourself to another country

As you progress, you are showing yourself that all the events or activities you think are only enjoyable with another person, can actually be enjoyed by yourself. Sure you might like someone there with you to share, but you can just as easily do it on your own. 

3. Practice being vulnerable.

Oftentimes we don’t share our true emotions, desires, or needs with others because if we do, and the other person doesn’t like them, then we fear that person will not want to be around us anymore.

So you need to also do exposure therapy around being vulnerable. You need to be vulnerable about small things to give yourself experiences showing your brain that you in fact, did not die and in fact, did not scare away your loved ones.

My recommendation is to do this in a close circle of friends who have made a specific container where it’s not only ok to do so, but valued and cherished. I’m a huge advocate for men’s groups and sisterhoods. I’ve personally led a men’s group for 5 years. What the group allowed me to do was practice being vulnerable, collect my thoughts and discern them from emotions, and then be able to do the same thing in my real life relationships. Additionally, because these were fellow men, they could empathize with my struggles as a man. I recommend the Evryman model - which I’ve used for both men’s and women’s circles.

4. Learn the skills necessary to attract other partners.

If you know how to grow food, hunt or fish, you’re less likely to fear starving to death because you know you have the skills to meet your needs.

Companionship is no different. If you know the skills of attraction and seduction, you’re less likely to fear being alone because you know you have the skills to meet your needs.

My favorite mentor for specifically learning dating skills was Andy from Kill Your Inner Loser (it’s a terrible name, but the content and advice is great). What resonated with me, that is different from other dating advice, was his approach to being upfront and honest instead of using manipulation or tactics. That extended to owning and being transparent about being into kink and BDSM. 

Once you’re confident in your abilities to attract other partners, you are more willing to take the risk of being vulnerable, speaking up, having tension with your partner, advocating for yourself, and speaking the truth. If the worst case scenario happens, they leave, you can find another person. I’m also a strong believer in non-monogamy because it also gives you the comfort of knowing you already have other partners. 

5. Let them leave.

That’s right.

Let your greatest fear become reality… and see that you’re okay.

This is probably the most important practice out of all of them. Every time I let a partner go, for whatever reason, I acknowledge that I am okay. I was okay before they came into my life. I was okay while they were in it. I will be okay when they are gone.

The more you practice this, the more you realize just how beautiful it can be to let them go. Oftentimes you both grow, find other wonderful people to be with, and may even still be companions to some degree. Although we’re no longer married, my ex-wife is still a close friend who I can confide in, ask a favor of, and enjoy her company from time to time.

There’s a Buddhist concept known as Non-attachment or better understood as letting go. If you grasp on to a flower, you often suffocate it of its life force: oxygen. Instead you let the flower be, appreciating its beauty for what it is, and recognizing it will one day change. 

Relationships are just the same. If you grasp and try to control or lock down your partner in some way, you often suffocate what makes them who they are. You suffocate what makes them beautiful. You suffocate what you love. Instead you let your partner be, appreciating them for who they are, and recognize they may one day change and leave the relationship. 

That’s okay. You’ll be okay.