The Real Reason You Feel Unsafe in Love

You weren’t born knowing how to regulate your emotions or feel safe in relationships. You learned what to do as a child from your parents.

Your ability to regulate your emotions is based on your parents' ability to regulate theirs. As kids, we have no idea how to regulate emotions unless we are taught. But if your parents told you to be quiet or shamed your expression, you didn’t develop a healthy ability to calm down your own nervous system and self-soothe, which can cause an inherent feeling of distrust in yourself and a sense of unsafety in your body.

The truth is, the vast majority of us didn't even have parents who could regulate their own emotions—let alone ours.

As kids, we often felt as though it was OUR JOB to regulate THEIR emotions, be it through people-pleasing, not speaking up, being silent and hiding, or giving up our own needs to keep them from getting mad. And of course, this manifests in a child's body by making emotions feel overwhelming, big, intense, and dangerous.

You learned that:

Big feelings = bad behavior

Staying quiet = staying safe

Peace came when they were happy

This gets wired into your nervous system, and that wiring doesn’t just disappear because you journaled about it or went to therapy once a week for a year. It follows you into adulthood (and especially into your relationships!) as:

• People-pleasing in romantic dynamics

• Freezing in conflict with your partner

• Dissociating when things get too loud or tense

• Rage that comes out like an exploding bottle of champagne when you’ve held it in for too long

• Coping mechanisms like drinking, numbing out, using food to calm yourself down, and scrolling social media

On the outside, you might look like the high-functioning woman who has it together, but underneath, your nervous system is exhausted from being in overdrive. You're desperately outsourcing nervous system regulation to your partner, your kids, your job, or your phone.

This is why you feel out of control in love, especially when your man pulls away, cancels plans, or doesn't respond fast enough.

The biggest problem with being emotionally dysregulated is that you feel like you have an inability to control how you feel based on the experience you're having with someone else. So, if someone says something mean to you, doesn’t validate you the way you want to be validated, or makes you feel a certain way, not only will it throw your whole day out, but you’ll also go into projection mode until you feel heard and seen by them.

It’s this emotional state of fight or flight that happens when you don’t have the ability to emotionally regulate yourself. So you constantly place your power into someone else with the hope that they’ll regulate you. But when you do this, it further disempowers you and creates co-dependency, where the other person is fully in charge of your emotional state.

As an adult (especially as a woman in relationship), the goal isn't to outsource your sense of safety—it’s to know that you can come home to yourself.

After all, your man isn't meant to be your therapist. He's the "cherry on top" of your already gluten-free, dairy-free, sugar-free cupcake.

There is nothing like knowing that you can regulate yourself and knowing the safety lies within you. Because when you learn to regulate yourself, you:

• Stop handing your power to other people.
• Stop begging to be heard.
• Feel safe in your romantic relationship without needing constant reassurance.
• Stop making your partner responsible for your emotional stability.
• Become the woman who can feel everything, without falling apart.

And that’s when you’re actually free.

For a deeper dive into how your childhood shows up in your relationships now as an adult, check out this juicy podcast episode!!