Self-sabotage in love, how to avoid it?

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Some people think that loving another person causes suffering and that this is unmanageable. This leads them to self-sabotage in love, that is, to boycott their romantic relationships, in order to avoid the possibility of experiencing pain.

Self-sabotage in love occurs when, without realizing it, you assume certain attitudes and behaviors that hinder the good progress of a relationship. It’s not that you want to end or damage the bond, but quite the opposite: you would love for it to prosper. Even so, many times you act as if you are looking for it to end.

Another form of self-sabotage in love occurs when, also without realizing it, you begin to look for or invent reasons to devalue the relationship or find defects that it does not have. You experience it as an indefinite non-conformity that does not cease. You feel love for the other person and you want everything to go well, but you also incubate ideas of rejection or inconvenience towards the relationship.

“Self-sabotage makes us believe, without realizing it, that it is better not to move forward and not make changes to stay in the position we already know and in which we have a sense of control fallacy.”.

-Silvia Sanz-

The point is that the same thing happens over and over again. The relationships you get involved in fail to move towards true commitment. and you regret that it is so. You don’t quite understand why all this is happening. Because? How to avoid it?

Self-sabotage in love prevents you from evolving as a couple and evolving towards a more stable bond.

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Self-sabotage in love

Self-sabotage in love occurs when a relationship is going well, the other person gives their best and despite this, you annoy her or begin to adopt behaviors and attitudes that generate distance or conflict. In this way, you boycott your own well-being and happiness and those of others. Without it being your goal, you end up deteriorating the relationship.

This happens because self-sabotage operates as a defense mechanism.. Defend yourself from what? You don’t want to leave your comfort zone. Love is a wonderfully disturbing presence and you feel comfortable when there is no change.

If we look deeper, what is there is fear and insecurity. In love there is always some component of pain, because among human beings nothing is perfect. You miss the other. Or that other one doesn’t always respond to what you need. You may also be afraid that he will abandon you at any moment or that he won’t value you enough.

For all this, unconsciously, you defend yourself from the possibility of suffering, changing and demanding yourself. There is an ambiguous desire in you: you want with all your soul for the relationship to grow and bear fruit; at the same time, you are terrified by the idea that it is not like that. The risk and uncertainty seem very high to you. Self-sabotage in love is a way to protect yourself.

Other causes

To understand self-sabotage in love and overcome it, it is important to look at its causes.. As we already indicated, the main one is fear, which is expressed as a feeling of threat and translates into defensive behaviors. It is very common, in these cases, for there to be happiness and anxiety at the same time, within the framework of the relationship.

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Other possible reasons for self-sabotage in love are the following:

Anxiety due to uncertainty about the future.Feeling of lack of control over the situation.Low self-esteem.Discomfort in the face of news.Desire for self-punishmentdue to feelings of unconscious guilt.

The main drawback of people who self-sabotage in love is that they do not accept that they are afraid.

How to solve it?

When self-sabotage is present in love, you cannot enjoy the relationship, even if it gives you what you were looking for. Suddenly, you feel more vulnerable than usual and this causes a seed of restlessness to grow within you that transforms into fear. The problem is that you don’t admit that you feel afraid.

To solve this situation, The first thing is precisely to admit and tolerate that feeling of vulnerability and fear.. No reasonable person wants to suffer and therefore it is normal to feel some apprehension. The important thing is not to allow this to invade your emotions and lead you to sabotage a relationship that you value.

It is very common for this type of behavior to appear in people who They have had a childhood with emotional deficiencies, they are part of a dysfunctional family or they have had previous negative love experiences. that left a mark on them. In all cases, the way out is not in denying love, but in resolving and working through that past.

Love enriches life and it is true that it causes some margin of pain, but it contributes much more to growth. You are capable of experiencing pain and processing it. If you haven’t achieved it until now, perhaps it’s because you haven’t found the right way to do it. In any case, depriving yourself of a partner also leads to suffering. If the fear is very great, a psychotherapist can help you.

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