Are you an insecure girlfriend? Discover seven bad habits that could be harming your relationship and learn how to overcome them with practical tips in this insightful article.
Let’s be honest: Nobody wants to be in an unhealthy and messy relationship. We all want to have great and satisfying relationships.
Although, it’s logically impossible to be in a perfect relationship because there’s nothing as such, but we can at least hope for relationships where deep understanding and mutual respect for each other’s individuality exist.
Yet, we are the ones making things difficult for ourselves and our partners by adopting and displaying habits that are nothing but pointless, energy-depleting, and even unproductive.
And the worst part?
These habits only make us terrible partners and hinder our dreams of having great and satisfying relationships.
There are a lot of such habits but today, I’ll only be talking about habits fueled by insecurities. And specifically, insecure habits that make my ex-girlfriend and a lot of other women terrible and even toxic partners.
So if you have one, few, or any of these habits of an insecure girlfriend, eliminating such habits might change your entire love life for good.
1. You abandon and avoid talking about your own hobbies.
How happy will you be if you give up your own interests and hobbies for that of your boyfriend?
The odds are high that you won’t be truly happy.
The bad news is you’ll end up losing yourself and your identity which means you’ll be losing your self-image and worth and it’s quite unfriendly to your entire well-being. But the good news, however, is you don’t have to give up things you enjoyed doing when you’re single for any reason. Only an insecure girlfriend will do that!
You’ve got only one life and it’ll be a shame to lose yourself and identity simply because you want to mold yourself into what your boyfriend(s) might like.
How to change this:
The importance of having a separate life and your own identity can’t be overstated. Because it makes your love life float freely and stabilizes your wellbeing.
Don’t give up your own hobbies and passions. You might even want to discover new ones. Talk about your hobbies as he talks about his. Because concealing yours is one of the most terrible habits of an insecure girlfriend that means your interests and hobbies aren’t good enough.
What’s sexier than a relationship where the woman does things she enjoys while the man does his own and they share their experiences while chilling together?
Recommended reading: 9 Habits That Will Help You Attract The Right Men Into Your Life
2. You abandon your friends for him.
It makes no sense for someone to completely ditch their friends to stick to their new partner 24/7. Yet, some women end up turning their back on people who care about them the most.
We all know that being in a relationship cuts down the time we spend with our pals.
But abandoning your friends like they were never there in the first place is not just a terrible mistake, but one of the most counterproductive habits of an insecure girlfriend.
Life itself isn’t a stable playground. Things might go bad at any point and you might end up being single again. That’s why you shouldn’t let go of people who will stand by you at such times.
How to change this:
Set out time to hang out with your girlfriends. Don’t expect them to be friends with him because they don’t have to. Try to keep off from gossiping about your man with your friends or about your friends with your man. And lastly try to keep up with the traditions like keeping up with mutual hobbies, occasional outings, etc.
Your friends are most likely to have been a part of your life long before any boyfriend could be. Nurturing your relationship with them will be the best thing to do instead of just ditching them.
Also read: 5 Types of Men You’ll Regret Falling For
3. You freak out if he doesn’t text or call back.
The surest way to be miserable and unhappy in any relationship is by expecting your partner to make you a #1 priority always.
If you want to be happy and comfortable, you need to understand that your priorities mustn’t and won’t always align.
Instead of freaking out when your man doesn’t reply to your text or pick up your call, just bear in mind that we men are humans. We do miss calls and fail to reply to texts maybe because we are busy and might end up forgetting to text or call back.
Besides, no man will be able to think about you 24/7 and you wouldn’t either which is quite okay.
How to change this:
Don’t let your insecurities and emotions get the best part of you because failure to text or call back doesn’t necessarily mean he’s ignoring you or doesn’t love you.
Unless it seems as if he’s doing it on purpose for some reason either because he’s mad or something. But if that’s not the case, chill and don’t get yourself freaked out because your man doesn’t love you any less.
Recommended: 7 Genuine Tips to Make a Guy Fall for You
4. You can’t take honest criticisms.
Imagine your man showing up late for a meet-up with you for the umpteenth time. This ticks you off and you decide to use a gentle, honest, and constructive critique. But he gets defensive and began telling you things like:
“Why are you making such a big deal out of this?”
“You’re being so cruel.”
“Do you even care about how I feel?”
Would you be happy with such reactions of your boyfriend to your honesty?
You probably wouldn’t.
Yet, too often, we react even worse than that to honest and constructive criticisms from our partners. Most people are experts in taking constructive feedbacks way too hard.
But a relationship is a thing of giving and take which means it ain’t bad to propose some areas of improvement in one another. As there will most likely be something in our partners that’ll tick us off.
Often, constructive feedback or criticism is aimed at building up your relationship and not tearing you down.
So try not to make things complicated for your man by letting your insecurities make you react way too hard to well-intentioned critiques.
How to change this:
According to author Alain de Botton,mothers and friends don’t care enough to give us vital feedbacks a lover in a deep relationship or marriage would give us since they don’t have to deal with us all the time.
This proves that constructive feedbacks from a lover aren’t always aimed at tearing you down.
So you’ll have to lower your defenses, listen abruptly to such feedbacks and try to empathize with your man. But this doesn’t mean that all criticisms from a lover are constructive and healthy. However, you should be able to differentiate a toxic criticism from a constructive one.
Check out: 7 Reasons Why It’s Hard to Find A Good Man
5. You’re easily pained and vexed by small things.
How often do you find yourself getting paranoid about small and insignificant things?
Sure, ordinary and annoying things do occur every day. But if you find yourself getting overly pissed off over little things like losing just a game of cards with your partner and ruin the entire night for the both of you, the problem might likely be your insecurities.
If your anger seems overwhelming, uncontrollable, and violent especially over small things, you will make things difficult and unbearable for your man and yourself thanks to such habits of an insecure girlfriend.
How to change this:
Try to take a few moments to breathe and calm your nerves and ask yourself how significant is what you’re about to get angry over and what you would gain from an angry outburst over something that’s most likely insignificant.
Feeling anger isn’t completely bad. It’s even healthy and productive but it becomes a huge problem if you always get angry over nothing.
Suggested Reading: Maternal Envy: 5 Reasons Why Moms Jealous Their Daughters
6. You always over-apologize.
So many people can’t resist the urge to apologize even when they don’t need to.
This is particularly done by codependent people — people obsessed with pleasing others and are overly concerned with what people think. People with low self-esteem that think poorly of themselves and are afraid of doing something wrong. People who constantly feel inadequate due to the high standards they set for themselves as a result of their perfectionism… I could go on and on. But I just want you to know that all these people have one thing in common — insecurity. They’re all insecure.
The truth is, over-apologizing makes you appear less confident. It affects your mental well being making you feel sorry for everything even things that got nothing to do with you. Worse, it somehow makes people around you feel bad.
I usually feel somehow bad whenever my ex-girlfriend apologizes for things that got nothing to do with her. Sometimes she apologizes even for my own mistakes and this makes me uncomfortable.
How to change this:
There’s no point apologizing when you obviously haven’t done anything wrong. And like you must have already known, it’s one of the habits of an insecure girlfriend. That’s why you should only apologize when you’ve hurt someone’s feelings, said or done something offensive, violated someone’s boundaries, or been disrespectful.
You don’t have to apologize for your feelings, for things you can’t control, for not responding immediately, for things your man does (of course, he’s an adult), or for needing something, etc.
Related Reading: 10 Subtle Signs You Are A Great Girlfriend
7. You often remind him of his mistakes.
Do you think you can deal with a conversation that seems confrontational by pointing out the other person’s past mistakes?
I don’t think such a strategy is anywhere near effective. It’s even counterproductive. And at worst, it’s one of the most terrible habits of insecure girlfriends.
The truth is, the “Well, you did X, Y, Z” game is a short-term fix that’ll certainly fail in the long run. It will only make you feel right or justified for your own mistakes at the expense of your relationship.
How to change this:
Keeping a score will only hurt your relationship. Why not face the situation head-on? Why not take responsibility for your transgressions?
Why not try to apologize and make amends? Reminding your man of something he did wrong in the past is just a defense mechanism for avoiding a reality you don’t want to face. And you’ll end up bringing up a past mistake he might have likely apologized and made amends for.
The worst part is, this will loudly tell him that you are unforgiving and will forever hold onto whatever wrong he does. Who would appreciate such terrible behavior from his woman? Neither will I.
