Relationship Confidence
Dating and relationships can bring up anxiety, overthinking and self-doubt, even when you feel confident in other areas of your life.
You might find yourself analysing messages, worrying whether someone likes you, struggling with rejection, people-pleasing, questioning your judgement or noticing the same relationship patterns happening again and again.
Using CBT, we can understand what is happening underneath these patterns, what may be keeping them going, and help you develop greater confidence in yourself, your relationships and your own judgement.
Common Experiences
Dating and relationships can bring up some of our strongest emotions. You may notice yourself becoming very invested very quickly, needing reassurance, analysing changes in someone's communication, people-pleasing or trying to find the “right” thing to say. Or perhaps you do the opposite, pulling away when someone gets close, finding reasons not to continue dating, or questioning whether anyone is quite right.
Previous experiences can play a part too. Difficult relationships, betrayal, criticism, rejection or painful break-ups can shape what we expect from new relationships. Sometimes the same patterns seem to repeat, even when we really want things to be different.
Dating apps can add another layer. Matches, messages, ghosting, comparison and having so many potential choices can make dating feel less exciting and more like something you are constantly evaluating or trying to get right.
How we could work together
Together, we might work on overthinking and uncertainty, including rumination, analysing messages, checking, reassurance seeking and mind-reading, whilst developing greater tolerance for not knowing yet. We can explore self-esteem and dating confidence, helping to separate your worth from matches, messages, dates or whether another person chooses to continue a relationship. We might also work with dating anxiety, identifying anxious predictions and gradually approaching situations you might otherwise avoid, alongside recognising safety behaviours such as over-rehearsing, excessive preparation, hiding aspects of yourself, monitoring the other person's reactions or playing it cool.
We can look at communication, boundaries and people-pleasing, using real situations or message exchanges to develop more authentic and assertive ways of expressing your preferences, needs and limits, even when somebody else might not agree with them. We can also explore rejection and disappointment, challenging personalisation so that one person's decision doesn't become evidence for a much bigger conclusion about you. Where the same difficulties seem to happen repeatedly, we can explore your relationship patterns, including what happens when somebody becomes more or less available and patterns of reassurance seeking, withdrawal, closeness or fear of abandonment.
We might also explore perfectionism and decision-making, particularly if you find yourself searching for certainty about the perfect person or relationship, or struggling with questions such as “Should I see them again?”, “Am I ignoring something important?” or “Is this anxiety or my instinct?” We can look at dating apps and burnout, developing healthier boundaries around checking and comparison so dating doesn't begin to take over your life. And when dating develops into a relationship, our work can move with you, exploring vulnerability, exclusivity, intimacy, disagreements, communicating your needs and maintaining your independence, with the wider aim of developing greater confidence and trust in your own judgement.
Please click below to book a free introductory call, or if you cannot find an availability to suit you please drop me a message and we can get something arranged that works for you.
