Affection in relationships: why is it difficult to feel?

He loves me, He Loves Me Not... this childish or almost adolescent game becomes an unconscious routine over the years and can become part of your day to day in your adult life.

In relationships, especially sentimental or couple relationships (the closest and in which we feel the most vulnerability) we frequently find this source of insecurity. We doubt the affection of the other, we analyze it, and we try to verify it as if we were emotional and sentimental detectives.

This difficulty does not actually indicate that we are validating a specific relationship (since this occurs with any type of relationship) but we are trying to validate our own emotions and security personal. Since relationships are such an important part of our lives, the problem ends up becoming entrenched and affecting all areas. Why is it produced? How to solve it?

• Related article: "The 14 most common problems in relationships"

Why is it difficult for you to feel affection and insecurity conquers you?

Although when thinking about a change process we usually imagine anxiety, sadness, discouragement, or perhaps a more focused approach practical or professional, the vast majority of difficulties we have in our day to day are emotional and sentimental. This, above all, is what moves us the most, makes us learn, violates us and also scares us. For that reason,

a change in the way you deal with relationships changes your whole life. Living relationships with constant doubts, insecurities, conflicts and even coercion ends up being exhausting.

The first step in solving a difficulty is to recognize it. Yes, the vast majority of difficulties we have in relation to our personal development are associated with how you relate to yourself and to others. In personal and sentimental relationships we find many of the greatest benefits of our life, but, in turn, the greatest difficulties. Why does this happen?

In an intimate relationship we experience a special dissolution in the encounter with the other. Later, a struggle of egos arises, in which we try to coerce the other and accommodate him to our particular vision of life. That is where reluctance appears, expectations are not met, we value the affection of the other and we always end up feeling that there is no such affection (even though we will never have a real way of know... so much just trust it).

The origin of the problem, the emotions that are involved, and above all how to take the first steps to solve it, I'll tell you in this video where we go much deeper and take a first step towards solution. Hit play!

The emotional root of the problem

In relationships, sentimental or not, we experience affection, unity, understanding. This benefit and learning is so essential to us that, over time, we try to control and validate it. That is when conflicts, disappointments and the desire to control or, if we do not succeed, break with the dissatisfaction that this relationship produces in us appear.

The origin of the problem is always the afraid. We think that our well-being depends on an external factor that we cannot control. Trying to investigate the affection that the other has for us is a form of expectation that we always build in relation to fear. Why does this happen like this?

An expectation, in short, implies that you want things to happen in a certain way (it can be in relation to you or the behavior of the other). Through expectation we try to check if these external factors are according to your needs.

However, expectations are often not met. Why? Because if we want things to happen in a certain way (instead of trusting that what happens is the right thing to do, just as we trust the affection of the most important attachment figures in our life, such as the father or mother) is because we are actually afraid that they will not occur. Expectation is built on the basis of fear, and that implies that we are living our relationship conditioned by fear and insecurity.

The vast majority of people who have this difficulty (all people have ever experienced it) believe that the problem is in the other or in the way they face the relationship. However, there is a deeper origin, which is the way you understand and manage your emotions, which is in turn the biggest conditioner to build your relationships in one way or another.

It is about making a decision: having your emotions against you or in your favor. Choose between fear and trust. This is the most complex and at the same time most transformative learning that we can do in our lives.

In the last 10 years I have accompanied people as a psychologist and coach in their change processes, and This problem was very common (not only in one relationship, but in several relationships and throughout the years). The solution is in your own personal learning. In empoderamientohumano.com you have options to take the first steps in your personal change process, with expert and constant company (not only with sessions but in a daily and totally personalized way).

Your relationships change when you change the way you conceive them. Everything changes through your own change. That is the most important decision you can make.