Anxiety in relationships can leave you overthinking, doubting yourself, or feeling drawn to partners who don’t fully meet your needs. Many people don’t realise that these patterns often begin in childhood, shaped by early emotional experiences that taught them how to connect, attach, and stay safe.
What Are Childhood Wounds?
Childhood wounds don’t always come from obvious trauma. Many adults who struggle with anxiety in relationships grew up in environments where their emotional needs were inconsistently met, minimised, or overlooked. This can include experiences such as:
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Caregivers who were emotionally unavailable, stressed, or unpredictable
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Feeling responsible for others’ emotions from a young age
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Learning that love depended on being “good,” easy, or successful
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Not feeling soothed, protected, or emotionally understood
As children, we adapt to survive and stay connected. These adaptations are intelligent and necessary at the time but they can become limiting when carried into adult relationships.
How Childhood Wounds Create Anxiety in Adult Relationships
If emotional safety wasn’t consistent growing up, your nervous system may have learned to stay alert in close relationships. As an adult, this can show up as:
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Fear of abandonment or being replaced
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Constantly analysing texts, tone, or behaviour
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Difficulty trusting reassurance
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Feeling anxious when closeness increases, or when distance appears
This anxiety is not a flaw. It’s a learned survival response designed to protect you from emotional pain you experienced earlier in life.
Why You May Choose Partners Who Don’t Meet Your Needs
One of the most painful patterns people notice is repeatedly choosing partners who feel familiar but emotionally unsatisfying. When love in childhood involved inconsistency, emotional distance, or self-sacrifice, your nervous system may associate emotional uncertainty with connection. As a result, emotionally unavailable or unpredictable partners can feel compelling, even when the relationship triggers anxiety, self-doubt, or longing. You may find yourself:
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Giving more than you receive
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Hoping the relationship will eventually change
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Minimising your own needs to keep the connection
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Feeling responsible for the other person’s emotions
This isn’t because you’re choosing “wrong.” It’s because your system is trying to resolve an old emotional pattern with new people.
Relationship Anxiety Is Not a Personal Failure
Many people feel ashamed of their relationship anxiety, especially if they appear confident or high-functioning in other areas of life. But anxiety in relationships isn’t about weakness, it’s about how your nervous system learned to stay safe in early life. When present-day relationships resemble early emotional dynamics, old responses can automatically switch on. Even healthy closeness can feel unfamiliar or unsettling at first if your system is used to emotional unpredictability.
Addressing this attachment difficulty doesn’t start by forcing yourself to stop feeling anxious or by “choosing better” through willpower alone. It starts with understanding the origin of your patterns. With awareness, you can begin to:
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Notice when childhood wounds are being activated
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Separate past emotional experiences from present relationships
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Respond to yourself with compassion instead of self-criticism
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Clarify what you truly need from a partner
Over time, this creates more choice, rather than repeating the same dynamics unconsciously.
How EMDR Therapy Can Help Address Relationship Anxiety
While insight is important, early emotional wounds are often stored in the nervous system, not just in conscious memory. This is why understanding your patterns doesn’t always stop anxiety from showing up. EMDR therapy (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) works by helping the brain reprocess emotional memories that are still influencing how you feel, attach, and relate. Instead of repeatedly reliving old emotional reactions, your nervous system can begin to recognise that the past is no longer happening.
For many people, EMDR therapy can support:
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Reduced emotional reactivity in relationships
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Less fear of abandonment or rejection
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Clearer boundaries and decision-making
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Less pull toward emotionally unavailable partners
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A more stable sense of self-worth
The goal isn’t to erase the past, but to help it stop defining how you experience relationships in the present.
Moving Toward Healthier, More Secure Relationships
If you feel anxious in relationships or notice patterns of choosing partners who don’t meet your needs, it doesn’t mean something is wrong with you. It means there is a part of you shaped by early experiences that may require attention and care. With the right support, it’s possible to move toward relationships that feel more secure, balanced, and aligned with who you are today.
About the Author
Dr. Pauline Chiarizia is a Counselling Psychologist specialising in trauma. She offers online therapy and EMDR for individuals who are ready to explore themselves more deeply, break free from unhelpful patterns, and address challenges like anxiety, depression, trauma, low self-esteem, and burnout.
Dr. Chiarizia helps you develop resilience, strengthen self-trust, and build the confidence to navigate life’s challenges: personally and professionally. Her approach empowers clients to cope with adversity while also being fully present for moments of joy, love, and connection.