Fear of intimacy: overcome it and live happily ever after

June 28, 2018

Everyone knows the fairy tales where the prince and princess got married and lived happily ever after, but if you have a fear of intimacy, this is a fairy tale that is hard to live up to. Sure, you dare to enter into a relationship, but getting really intimate with the other person and sharing your deepest secrets or beliefs is a step too far

Confidence is formed early in your life

To share such a secret with someone, it’s important to trust your partner. The level of trust you have in your partner and in the people around you is something that’s formed early in life.

If your caregivers, such as your parents, regularly failed to keep appointments or were inconsistent or even betrayed your trust because information you told them in confidence they later used against you.

This can lead you to believe that if you open up in a relationship, this information will later be used against you. As a result, you may think that intimacy—such as sharing secrets—is self-destructive ( 1).

If your partner then tells you during a conversation how he/she sees you and hits the nail on the head with this, you can get quite upset about this, when there is absolutely no need. But yes, later he/she will somehow use this information against you. That is the fear.

Trust can be damaged

Intimacy requires trustand you may suffer from separation anxiety. You have been intimate before and that person has left you. This could be something from a previous (long-term) relationship, or a parent who suddenly left.

This doesn’t necessarily have to be about a divorce. A parent with a long-term illness or a parent who dies suddenly can also trigger these feelings.

Trust can be imposed

Did your parents have a bad childhood? If so, they may try to make up for it through your childhood. Unfortunately, this can sometimes come down to having to show more of yourself to your parent than you want or even having the nurturing role forced upon you. This made it difficult for you to develop your own identity, and it can also lead to beliefs that you shouldn't open yourself up, because then you can never be completely yourself( 2). Very difficult and unfortunate, because of course you have the right to be your own person.

Why fear of intimacy is a problem

On its own, society is set up so that you can get by just fine on your own. Therefore, you can get away with fear of intimacy and continue to feed yourself and have a roof over your head.

Yet here's a problem.

In every relationship, you encounter bumps in the road. So you get into your relationship and talk about things you are going through and your ups and downs and your partner always has a listening ear. However, sometimes your partner doesn't have his/her day. The understanding you had counted on doesn't come, the patience you had counted on doesn't come. In any case, something didn't go quite right and it hurt you.

Because of this, there is a temptation to then say nothing more. This is often the beginning of a slippery slope anyway. You tell no more, but then you also put less energy into making your partner feel good, then you also literally take distance and perhaps more me-time with yourself or your own friends.

Next, you start to see precisely everything that is wrong with your partner. Everything you liked about him/her is suddenly terribly irritating.

In the process, the step of breaking up your relationship yourself may also be closer, because in your mind you have already brought your partner down completely. Such a shame, because being honest and staying open could have prevented all this.

So it's very important to continue to protect intimacy and not to take every little mistake your partner makes as proof that that person all doesn't care how you are doing.

Solutions to fear of intimacy

Fortunately, there are many ways to get rid of your fear of intimacy. Some solutions are very practical and in others, hypnosis can offer a helping hand.

Socratic conversation

Socratic conversation is used to become aware of the underlying reason for why you are afraid of becoming intimate. Past causes may emerge as a result, as described at the beginning of this blog.

In addition, it can become clear what you are really doing. Namely, protecting yourself. Protecting yourself from the pain of rejection, abandonment or exploitation of your emotions.

By discovering why you are engaged in something, you can then work on the steps to improve your confidence in intimacy with your current partner.

You can have a socratic conversation with and without hypnosis. It is true that sometimes it is easier to get to subconscious beliefs if you have this conversation under hypnosis. During a socratic conversation, the why question is repeated several times to get to your deepest beliefs.

There are even cases when, during such a conversation, you find out precisely why you don't actually know very well why you are doing things the way you want to. You can then begin as a blank page to restore your confidence in intimacy.

Ask yourself what an intimate relationship should meet for you

And this question is also for your own intimacy with yourself. What do you need to strengthen in yourself to be more confident in others?

What do you desire from your partner in order to be intimate with him/her yourself?

Once you’ve answered this question, you can practice mindfulness and check in with yourself throughout the day to see how you feel about your partner and whether you’re behaving toward him or her in the way you’d like to see from them.

Evaluate your past experiences

By taking another close look at past experiences, you can already do a great deal to reduce your fear of intimacy or your urge to protect yourself. Hypnosis can be very helpful through regression. During regression, you can look at that past event with more emotional distance and compare the past with the present. You are no longer the same vulnerable person you were back then, nor are you the person against whom you are now (unnecessarily) protecting yourself.

Through regression, you can convert this fairly quickly to get rid of your anxiety.

Practice with vulnerability

Practice makes perfect and so it works with vulnerability. By showing a little more of yourself each time, you can practice vulnerability. You will find that your partner you have now is not the same person as the person who hurt you in the past. The information will not be used against you. In fact, chances are your partner will open up more to you as well.

Because intimacy comes from both sides, not just your partner's side, you strengthen the relationship you have with him/her.

If you find it difficult to take the first step in this, a hypnotherapist can help you with a guided visualization. During such a visualization, your imagination is stimulated, allowing you to see before you how you can open up to your partner. This will reduce your fear in real life and increase your chances of being intimate with your partner.

Write it down

In addition, you can also write things down for your partner. Then you can think longer about how you formulate it which makes it less scary than if you just tell it and it comes out wrong. You can give your partner the letter and say that you needed to get this off your chest but didn't want to just blurt it out. The letter can then be a trigger for a deeper conversation.

First, start with a letter about your love for your partner; it is always appreciated.

Repeat hypnotic suggestions during self-hypnosis

If you know why you are afraid of intimacy, a hypnotist can help you with hypnotic suggestions, these you can also repeat to yourself daily during self-hypnosis. This causes the beliefs you have about the danger of intimacy to recede into the background and, on the contrary, the positive beliefs about intimacy become more prevalent in your daily memory. This almost automatically causes you to open up more to your partner. These may include suggestions such as:

"My partner can be trusted with my successes and insecurities."

"I show behavior, what I want to receive."

"My partner is my partner and not my parent/ex/brother o.id."

"My partner is only human too, one time not answering the phone probably means there he/she is on the toilet."

These are just examples of suggestions. Depending on your beliefs, a hypnotherapist can help you with other suggestions.

Want to know how hypnosis can help with mental health issues? Then come to the workshop or check out the calendar of events at the Hypnosis Institute of the Netherlands.

Also pin this handy infographic as a reminder:

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