Are your Insecurities Sabotaging your Relationship?

Last October, I published a free personality quiz, Who are you at your Core?​

Since then, nearly 250 people have taken the time to respond, and learned about their Essential Motivator™ patterns in the process.

The last question of the quiz is, 

“If you could magically fix one thing about your relationship, what would it be?”

and the top 3 answers were not what I expected:

17% said, “Nothing, everything’s pretty great.”

32% said, “We need to learn how to communicate more effectively.”

35% said, “Honestly, I wonder sometimes if my own insecurities and baggage are getting in the way and sabotaging a generally good thing.”

First of all, I love the accountability and vulnerability in that response. And I’m really glad it resonated with so many respondents! Honestly, I just added it on a whim, because let me tell you, I’ve been there!

As the response also implies, it’s a tough pattern to break - even though we may be aware that our behavior probably isn’t in our best interest.

Before we dive into the deep end: not all insecurities are type-related, so you might start by taking better care of yourself in general. Your partner is not responsible for your happiness, you are. Get enough rest, nurture your body well, take a bath, take a walk, limit your time on social media - you already know what’s good for you.

But let’s look at how some insecurities might sabotage your relationship, and how we can use Type knowledge to get a better handle on them.

When Harmony Hurts

60% of all respondents resonated with the Catalyst™ pattern. In Type lingo, that correlates with xNFx preferences.

The Intuiting function (N) can show up as interpreting information by seeing patterns and possibilities (extraverted Intuiting, or Ne, for xNxP types), or foreseeing implications by dipping into the collective unconscious and having insights (introverted Intuiting, or Ni, for xNxJ types).

In other words, what the N tells me is that we’re comfortable spending a lot of time thinking, and would rather spend time playing with ideas than attending to the factual, detailed reality of any given situation. For me, this looks like imagining situations many times over and from many different angles (usually in the shower, where I come up with the best arguments), à la “if I say this, he’ll say that.” Or if it already happened, “ugh, why didn’t I do this other thing?”

The Feeling function (F) can show up as weighing importance and evaluating decisions according to personally held values and beliefs (introverted Feeling, or Fi, for xxFP types), or connecting with and accommodating others to maintain harmony according to acceptable group or societal values and beliefs (extraverted Feeling, or Fe, for xxFJ types).

My Fe shows up in that other people’s needs always seem to be a little bit more important than my own. Fitting in is important, and maintaining harmony is often more important than getting my way. Of course, this only works until something is really important to me, and then it can get tricky.

Disagreeing with you, telling you “no,” standing up for my needs - those all feel scary, because they might endanger our relationship. I’ve learned how to do all those things over the years, but my initial instinct is still a faint “is it really worth it? I don’t know if I want to rock the boat.” And for some things it may feel like “well, it’s too late to bring it up now.”

The problem contains the solution

Overthinking interactions, not communicating your needs, and not setting effective boundaries creates a layer of unspoken expectations to the relationship.

You know you’re not really in it 100%, because you know you’re not telling your partner your whole truth. So you’re creating situations where you’re testing them to get the reassurance you need that really everything is ok, and they love you and accept you. Only you’re always going to be left wondering if they’d still love and accept you if they knew all those things you’re not actually agreeing but just going along with. Because you know you’re holding back.

Part of you probably hopes they’ll just read your mind, “if they really loved me, they’d get it.” Sadly, that’s an outdated, misleading fantasy, perpetuated by romanticism and the media. That’s not how real life works.

Before you start wailing in agony, hear me out: I know you’re not doing this on purpose or with bad intentions. You’re not lying, you’re not manipulating, you’re not some evil Machiavelli - your Feeling preferences are simply trying to safeguard the relationship.

I hope you can see now though that by keeping the peace and not rocking the boat, we’re actually achieving the contrary: every “sure, no problem” that should have been a “no, that doesn’t work for me” drills a hole into that boat (and that will sink the relationship… geddit?).

Start by not drilling any more new holes.

Check in with yourself the next time something happens that doesn’t sit well with you. This might be a sensation, an image, it might be a little bell going off, it might be a tingle in your throat indicating there’s something you want to say, but you’re not saying it. If you’re an Fi user, you’re probably well aware of those moments when someone steps on your toes.

If you need to gather courage to speak your truth, ask for a time-out to give your N time to figure out options (Ne), and envision how you’d want the ideal conversation to go (Ni). If you and your partner have Type language you can use, even better. This is just you trying to use your brain tools, after all.

With time, as you’re setting your relationship on a more solid foundation of more and more of your actual truth, you might even consider revisiting those old holes, and start plugging them. This will probably be uncomfortable at first, because your partner got used to doing things a certain way thinking you’re ok with it. But everyone is allowed to change their mind! Together, you can build a ship that will carry you both, and adjust the sails as necessary.

If this resonated with you, I’d love to hop on a call and chat about it. 

If this reminded you of a friend, please share and encourage them to get in touch.

It’s these kinds of insights that have kept Type so interesting to me over the last 12+ years, and I can’t wait to share more of them with more of you.