If yes, trust and self-belief may hold the key to surviving the odds

When Chandrima and Devdip Sengupta* got married, it was the second time for her and the first for him. Three years on, the marriage is as good as over and Chandrima admits her insecurities have a lot to do with it. “I would get upset about little things. I wanted this marriage to be perfect because my first one was so bitter; so I was extra-sensitive about the minor hitches,” says the 36-year-old public relations professional.

Is your insecurity killing your relationship?

Relationship counsellors and psychologists across the board agree that insecurity is the biggest threat to a healthy relationship. The irony is that those who are insecure know where they are going wrong yet are powerless to do anything about it.

Psychologist Rima Ghosh cites the example of one of her clients: he is a 31-year-old man in a senior position in an MNC with an excellent career ahead of him, who is nevertheless frustrated by a string of failed relationships, largely owing to his low self-esteem. “He rose from a humble background but today, when he is earning so well, he thinks the women in his life like him only for his money; he is sure he is too ugly for women to find him attractive,” says Ghosh.
What would you call that? Lack of confidence? The trauma of an unhappy childhood? Probably both, because both give rise to long-term insecurities that hamper an individual’s day-to-day functioning. “What happens to you as a child really has far-reaching implications,” says Ghosh. “For instance, surveys have found that children who are handed capital punishments too frequently tend to physically abuse their partners as adults.”

For Chandrima, an earlier bad relationship proved the biggest stumbling block to her second marriage. For 29-year-old sales professional Anand S, his commitment phobia is slowly threatening to take over his life. According to relationship counsellor Kanika Sharma, such an attitude is fairly common in a majority of men until a particular age when they either decide to get rid of their phobia or meet someone they perceive as so perfect that the problem takes care of itself.

“The trouble begins when they simply can’t overcome their fear of being tied down,” says Sharma, who claims that of all the couples who visit her, at least 25 per cent comprise women whose partners regret having settled down with them.

Therefore, insecurity is a monster that should be slain as soon as it rears its head. Whether it’s you who is insecure or your partner, the consequences are equally damaging. Of course, not all insecurities are traceable to your past. As Ghosh says, “Some people are naturally jealous and they need a different kind of approach.”

But the point here is that insecurity also breeds jealousy as well as a host of other negative emotions that will invariably endanger a relationship. Chandrima, for instance, obsesses with the idea that Devdip, two years her junior, is seeing someone behind her back though she has no proof. “I wouldn’t let him go out alone. We even took the same route to work,” she says.

“In many such cases, we see two people carrying on a relationship that seems to be working on the face of it but is actually dead,” says Sharma. “And typically, when such a relationship ends the person who is insecure will blame himself or herself.”

The unanimous consensus among experts is that insecurity can only be eliminated when the person in question acknowledges that a relationship is a two-way street in which trust, confidence and self-belief are paramount. Unless this happens, a relationship will only go from bad to worse.

* Name changed

Source: Femina