Will My Insecurities Make My Worst Fears Come True?

Reader’s Question

My girlfriend is 20 and I am 21. We’ve been together about 7 months. My girlfriend tells me I am too insecure. I keep doubting our relationship and constantly fear that she will leave me or find someone better than me.

I don’t want my girlfriend to leave because I love her so very much — with all my heart and soul. I would do anything for her and even die for her. But I have this constant fear she is starting to love me less and somehow knows that I think she deserves better.

Sometimes I say things that lead her to complain that I’m being too insecure. That’s when we argue. I fear she is getting sick of these kinds of conversations. To make matters worse, when my insecurities get the better of me I end up saying things I don’t mean to say like “I guess you don’t love me as much anymore” or “I guess you feel like you don’t want to be with me as much as you used to” — which only makes matters worse.

I’ve had a pretty bad history with girlfriends. Almost all of them have left me within a period of at least 3-5 months and every one of them left me for someone else or cheated on me. I actually trust my current girlfriend which is why I am so afraid my insecurities will drive her away. I think my insecurities are driving us both crazy, but I don’t know how to overcome them. How can I stop thinking so insecurely?

Our Clinical Psychologist’s Reply

From all that you’ve said, it appears that you have fairly well defined what it’s like to engage in a “Self-Fulfilling Prophecy.” This term was coined by Merton to describe how sometimes our perceptions of reality and our interpretations of situations influence our behavior to such a degree that we actually change the original reality of a situation to conform to our worst fears and expectations. So, for example, by acting like we’re not desirable, strong, independent or capable, we change the initial perception someone might have had of us and eventually succeed in pushing them away, even though that’s not our original intent. Inadvertently bringing about the very things we fear is the very essence of the self-fulfilling prophecy.

Our perceptions and our interpretations greatly affect our actions, and those actions greatly impact the perceptions of others. The only way to break the negative cycle of a self-fulfilling prophecy is to confront and re-define the erroneous beliefs that feed our fears in the first place. So, when we start thinking things like “I know I’m not really as good as a lot of guys out there,” we can change the thought to something like “I’m as good as any other guy.” We don’t really have to believe the alternative, positive thoughts at first. We simply have to change the thoughts. Over time, positive thoughts lead to positive beliefs and positive beliefs to positive behaviors.

Of course none of this means that by thinking positively we’ll never experience disappointments in relationships. Finding just the right person involves a lot more than that. But you can break the vicious cycle of the “No girl in her right mind would ever pick me over other guys” self-fulfilling prophecy by changing that negative self-talk.