Have you ever thought ‘Love’ is just stupid and you don’t need a romantic partner in your life because you’re doing alright in other aspects of your life, anyway? Have you ever wondered ‘why can’t I fall in love?’ Or you simply haven’t found ‘The One’ for you? Or are you just pretending to be in love when you’re actually distant in your relationship? Fear of love or avoiding love altogether is known as Philophobia. It is the fear of connecting with someone emotionally. Sometimes fear of falling in love can be so unreasonably overwhelming that it starts interfering with day-to-day life.
To be honest, for our psychological wellbeing, we do need love, and if you’re reluctant to fall in love or simply afraid of it, then you need to be aware of the psychological blockages in your life.
Most people find love as the ultimate good. Love is something people long for. Simply put, they want to experience love in their life over and over. Because finding love and being loved makes them feel special. However, not everyone is willing to open their hearts and face all that love offers. Why is that? Why are some of us have a fear of falling in love?
How to know if you’re afraid of love?
- You are scared when you think about emotional intimacy.
- You show signs of avoiding love.
- You sweat a lot in close encounters.
- You experience your heart beating rapidly, and you’re out of breath.
- You remember your old wounds from past experiences.
- You face problems in your daily life because of these fears.
12 Psychological Reasons Why Can’t You Fall In Love?
For those of you who are constantly running away from love but can’t figure out why, here we are pointing out some of the most common reasons for fear of love.
1. You have fear of intimacy.
Do you feel nervous when you get close to someone? Both physically and mentally? Do you face problems in letting your guards down? Is it easier for you to just leave the connection and ghost them out of nowhere when you feel threatened by their intimate and caring attitude towards you?
It doesn’t matter if you appear confident and friendly on the outside, you can still suffer from fear of intimacy. Fear of intimacy is the fear of being seen as imperfect and vulnerable to the other. Love cannot grow unless we trust others enough to show them our weak side and our worries.
Related read: How Can You Overcome The Fear Of Intimacy?
2. Childhood emotional wounds.
Our childhood shapes us become the person we are today. What we have experienced in our childhood, how we received love, and felt other great things set the tone for how we find love later in our lives. Any form of trauma, no matter how great or small, can make it difficult for us to accept love from our loved ones. And the important part is we may not always be aware these kinds of emotional wounds present within us when we begin to engage with others emotionally and intimately. People who were abandoned by any or both of their parents or were victims of domestic violence may also end up in an unhealthy relationship. Parental abuse and neglect play a vital role in any person’s life which can lead to attachment issues later in life.
If we could successfully identify these traumas and work through them, we will be able to learn how to accept love from others without feeling overwhelmed and how to maintain healthy relationships. If we do not resolve our childhood emotional wounds, we might end up choosing partners who are abusive, neglectful, or unavailable, repeating the same pattern we learned as a child.
3. You have low self-esteem.
Another reason why you can’t fall in love is because you suffer from low self-esteem. Do you have thoughts like, ‘I am not worthy of love”, or, “I don’t have anything lovable in me”? If you often feel flawed, ugly, or useless then you have low self-esteem. It means you don’t think and feel good about yourself. You find yourself worthless and you don’t see anything good in yourself. You are worried that others see you in a bad and negative shadow.
4. You have the Runner syndrome.
If you’re a part of the twin flame journey, then you must be aware of the runner-chaser dynamic. Between the two twins, the one who runs away from this twin flame connection is called away as the runner. Why people do this? The primary fear for a runner is, this intense love and relationship will consume them and smother them until there will be no freedom left for them. They feel love and relationship will only bring them obligations and chain them down in a closed space. They are afraid to fall in love because they don’t want to get trapped by love and reciprocate certain level of affection.
More or less, everyone changes to a certain degree after committing to a relationship. People can’t remain same as they were before. Some people fear this change in their life so they run away from any kind of love and attachment. They fear their unique identity being challenged, or simply do not like it. It completely depends on the relationship whether this fear is justifiable. If you partner gives you enough space, then this fear is a problem on your end. But if your partner is controlling and forcing decisions on you, you must take actions instead of tolerating this with a closed mouth.
5. You have issues with dependency/co-dependency
If you get too needy and clingy in a relationship, then it must scare your partner away. If you get too dependent on your partner and have this core belief that you cannot manage your life on your own, that you need someone who can make decisions for you, then you have problems being independent. You don’t see your inner strength and always look for other’s validation. If you have been taught since your childhood that if you play the role of a good girl, and take care of others, then only you’ll receive love, then you’ve acquired the quality of people pleasing and co-dependency.
If this is the case with you, then the problem is you always want to keep your relationship no matter how unhappy and drained you, your partner and the situation is. You feel you are madly in love then suddenly you find your partner acting different from usual and you start to panic.
6. You fear you’ll be taken advantage of.
You always fear you’ll be taken advantage of. Maybe it has come from your past experiences. You have seen the same pattern in other relationships. It could also come from how you were taken advantage of in your childhood due to your people pleasing quality. So, you’ve learned to stay away from love in order to safeguard yourself. The main point here is, you don’t want to get hurt because of love, and although this will protect you in one way, it also prevents you from experiencing the joys of love.
7. Abandonment issues.
Why can’t you fall in love? It is because you are afraid that if you get too attached to someone and then they’ll leave you suddenly. If you are constantly worried that your partner is cheating on you or going to cheat on you or they are simply not happy with you, then you might have abandonment issues. The abandonment issues come from childhood, when you were neglected and abandoned (maybe because it was a family death or divorce). You don’t want to get your heart break because of the same abandonment issues.
8. You have trust issues.
Maybe you were in a draining and unfaithful previous relationship, where you were held back by force, guilt, or threats. You have unknowingly accepted those behaviors are the actual patterns of every relationship. Because of those abusive and negative experiences from the past relationships, now you have developed a trust-issues regarding love and affection. You fear to fall in love because you don’t want to experience the same negative patterns all over again.
9. You have attachment issues.
You’re just terrified to feel needy and being dependent on someone because if you are too attached to someone, you’ll be dependent on them one way or the other. You can’t fall in love because whenever you try to like someone, fear and anxiety attacks you out of nowhere and you feel it’s completely impossible to trust and get attached to anyone and do what they say.
8. You’re more focused on your work life.
You can’t fall in love because you simply have no time for love and relationship.
Does it sound relatable? Yes, it does. You can’t find love yet, because your work is more important than any relationship at this point. Or maybe you’re more inclined to focus on yourself rather than someone else who’d need your attention in a particular way. Maybe you prefer going to the gym or writing your new novel at the end of the night, when your partner need your attention specifically. You can’t fall in love because you’re addicted to your work and focused on your own wellbeing rather than looking for someone else to seek pleasure in them. You prefer work over love, and there is no room in your life for love. Perhaps, you have bigger responsibilities on your shoulder and deeper issues at hand, that you cannot but send love to the back track and focus on your love.
9. You can’t find a perfect partner.
Are you obsessed with the idea of finding a perfect partner but can’t find them anywhere?
Having a certain set of values and expectations is one thing, but acquiring perfectionism to block love and keep the absurd view of finding the perfect love ultimately keeps you alone. Perfectionism becomes a psychological problem when it is used to hide the fear of intimacy and low self-esteem and the concept of black and white thinking.
You believe in the book boyfriends too much that you forget the real life is very much different from that of fiction. You cannot expect violins to play or sudden rain when you first see your partner. These kinds of perfect love-story only happen in fiction and you must be very aware of it. You can’t always find absurd signs when you are looking for love.
People have flaws, and they are nothing like the perfect boyfriends on the books, or people cannot be this bad boy with a good heart trope in real life. You cannot fix a bad boy and expect your love to change him, if he’s an abusive jerk in reality. You cannot have the false faith, that everything will be alright in the end, if you just keep on looking for a better match.
10. You have some kind of personality disorders.
Do you ever feel completely confused as to why you cannot have a good relationship, or do you not understand why it seems easy to others but when you try, you just fail?
You may have a personality disorder, and you tend to follow a specific pattern of thinking and behavior that you may have had from a very young age. You think and feel different from others, and others find it difficult to understand and be in a relationship with you. Sometimes, as in the case of schizoid personality disorders, you might not feel attractive to others in the first place. Whereas borderline personality disorder (BPD) is especially known for making healthy relationships a challenge, because most sufferers want to be loved but are very emotionally sensitive and are afraid of being rejected.
11. Fear of being trapped by obligation
You are afraid of falling in love because you don’t want to feel obligated by your relationship. You have developed a fear of love because you fear you’ll be trapped in your relationship and cannot break free, and you’ll have no control over your freedom and life.
12. Past bad experience
After experiencing an unhealthy relationship in your past, your mind now registers “love” as dangerous and harmful and thus has created the fear of love around you. It happens with the intention of protecting you from further harm. As a result, you will find it hard to trust another partner and feel afraid of love.
Related read: How To Overcome Your Fear Of Falling In Love?
In conclusion
According to Marisa Peer, a world-renowned speaker and therapist, no one is born with phobias. We develop them gradually and find ourselves in painful experiences like this. These experiences may be related to past relationships or ideas that you built up with “love” as a child. If your ex-partner had cheated on you in the past, you could conclude that “everyone cheats.” In time, this idea could turn into a belief. Such beliefs can be superficial, including the fear of love to protect you from future pain.