Why We Struggle to Feel Safe in Relationships
- jessicajepsoncounselling
- Jan 17
- 6 min read
Feeling emotionally safe in a relationship seems like it should come naturally. After all, close relationships are meant to be places of comfort, connection, and support. Yet for many people, intimacy brings anxiety, shutdown, conflict, or a persistent sense of threat. You may long for closeness while simultaneously fearing it. You may find yourself overthinking, withdrawing, people-pleasing, becoming reactive, or feeling easily hurt by your partner’s words or actions.
If this resonates, you are not broken — and you are not alone. Struggling to feel safe in relationships is incredibly common, and it makes sense when we understand how our nervous system, early attachment experiences, and past relational wounds shape the way we connect with others.
In this article, we explore why emotional safety can feel so hard in relationships, how attachment patterns and trauma play a role, what happens in the body when safety is threatened, and — most importantly — how safety can be rebuilt.
What Does “Feeling Safe” in a Relationship Actually Mean?
Emotional safety in a relationship does not mean the absence of conflict, discomfort, or difficult emotions. Rather, it means:
Feeling secure enough to express your needs, feelings, and boundaries
Trusting that you will be responded to with care, respect, and curiosity
Knowing that conflict can be repaired rather than leading to abandonment or punishment
Feeling accepted for who you are, not just who you need to be to keep the peace
When safety is present, your nervous system can relax. You are more able to be yourself, stay emotionally open, and engage in healthy communication. When safety feels absent, your body and mind shift into protection mode.
One of the most important things to understand is that safety is not a logical decision. It is a physiological state.
Our nervous system is constantly scanning for danger through a process known as neuroception. This happens automatically and outside of conscious awareness. Your body decides whether a situation — or a person — feels safe or threatening long before your rational mind catches up.
If your nervous system has learned that closeness equals danger, rejection, or unpredictability, it will respond accordingly, even if your current partner is kind and well-intentioned.
Common nervous system responses in relationships include:
Fight: becoming reactive, defensive, critical, or argumentative
Flight: withdrawing, avoiding conversations, staying busy, or emotionally checking out
Freeze: feeling stuck, numb, shut down, or unable to express yourself
Fawn: people-pleasing, over-accommodating, suppressing your own needs to keep connection
These are not character flaws — they are survival strategies.
Attachment theory helps explain why some people feel relatively secure in relationships while others struggle with anxiety, avoidance, or disconnection.
As children, we learn whether relationships are safe based on how our caregivers respond to our emotional needs. These early experiences shape internal working models — beliefs about ourselves, others, and relationships.
Secure Attachment
People with secure attachment generally learned that:
Their needs would be met consistently
Emotions were welcomed and soothed
Connection was safe and reliable
As adults, they tend to feel comfortable with intimacy and autonomy, trust their partners, and recover more easily from conflict.
Anxious Attachment
Those with anxious attachment often grew up with inconsistent caregiving — sometimes attuned, sometimes unavailable. As adults, they may:
Fear abandonment or rejection
Seek reassurance frequently
Feel hypervigilant to changes in their partner’s mood or behaviour
Struggle to feel secure even when loved
Safety feels fragile, easily lost, and dependent on constant connection.
Avoidant Attachment
Avoidantly attached individuals often learned that emotional needs were dismissed, minimised, or overwhelming to caregivers. As adults, they may:
Value independence over closeness
Feel uncomfortable with emotional vulnerability
Shut down or withdraw during conflict
Experience intimacy as intrusive or suffocating
Safety is found through distance rather than closeness.
Disorganised Attachment
Disorganised attachment develops when caregivers were both a source of comfort and fear. This can occur in environments involving trauma, neglect, or unpredictability. Adults may:
Experience intense push–pull dynamics
Crave closeness while fearing it
Feel easily overwhelmed in relationships
Struggle with trust and emotional regulation
For many people, relationships activate deep nervous system confusion about what safety actually is.
Trauma and Relational Wounds
Beyond early attachment, later relational trauma can profoundly impact our ability to feel safe.
Experiences such as:
Emotional neglect
Criticism or contempt
Betrayal or infidelity
Emotional or psychological abuse
Sudden loss or abandonment
can teach the nervous system that relationships are dangerous.
Trauma lives in the body, not just the mind. Even when we know our current partner is different, our body may react as if the past is happening again. A raised voice, delayed text reply, or perceived withdrawal can trigger old wounds and survival responses.
Why We Recreate Familiar Dynamics
A painful paradox is that we often feel drawn to relationships that mirror our early experiences — even when those experiences were unsafe.
This happens because:
The nervous system seeks familiarity, not necessarily health
Old patterns feel predictable, even if painful
Part of us hopes for a different ending this time
For example, someone with anxious attachment may be drawn to emotionally unavailable partners, while someone avoidant may partner with someone who pursues closeness intensely.
These dynamics can create cycles of conflict, misunderstanding, and disconnection — reinforcing the belief that relationships are unsafe.
What Happens During Conflict When Safety Is Low
When emotional safety is compromised, conflict stops being about the present issue and becomes about survival.
You may notice:
Difficulty listening or staying present
Strong emotional reactions that feel disproportionate
Defensiveness, blame, or shutdown
Feeling unseen, unheard, or misunderstood
In these moments, the nervous system is prioritising protection over connection. Without safety, repair becomes incredibly difficult.
Rebuilding Safety in Relationships
The good news is that emotional safety can be learned and strengthened — even if it was absent early in life.
1. Developing Nervous System Awareness
Learning to notice your body’s responses is a powerful first step. Ask yourself:
What happens in my body when I feel triggered?
Do I tend to fight, flee, freeze, or fawn?
What helps me feel grounded again?
Practices such as slow breathing, mindfulness, and gentle movement can help regulate the nervous system.
2. Understanding Your Attachment Pattern
Gaining insight into your attachment style helps reduce shame and increase self-compassion. It allows you to say, “This is a pattern I learned — not who I am.”
3. Learning Safe Communication
Safety grows when communication includes:
Expressing needs without blame
Validating each other’s emotional experience
Taking breaks when overwhelmed
Returning to repair after conflict
Approaches such as Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) and the Gottman Method are evidence-based models that support safer connection.
4. Building Self-Safety
While relationships are co-created, your sense of safety also begins within. Developing self-trust, boundaries, and emotional regulation reduces reliance on external reassurance.
5. Healing in Relationship
Importantly, many attachment wounds can only be healed in relationship. Safe, consistent connection over time allows the nervous system to learn new experiences of closeness.
This may occur with a partner — or within the therapeutic relationship.
How Therapy Can Help
Counselling and psychotherapy provide a safe, attuned space to explore relational patterns, attachment wounds, and nervous system responses.
In therapy, you can:
Understand why relationships feel unsafe
Learn tools to regulate emotions and communicate effectively
Process past relational trauma
Build a more secure sense of self and connection
At Secure Connections Counselling, we work from a trauma-informed, attachment-based approach to support individuals and couples in creating safer, more fulfilling relationships.
Final Thoughts
Struggling to feel safe in relationships is not a personal failure — it is an understandable response to lived experience.
With awareness, compassion, and the right support, it is possible to move from survival-based connection to secure, meaningful intimacy.
Safety is not something you have to earn. It is something that can be cultivated, repaired, and learned — one relationship at a time.
If you are ready to explore your relationship patterns and build deeper emotional safety, support is available.
