Relationships can begin very smoothly and lovely until it gets to a point where one person starts to feel uncertain and not confident about themselves.

This feeling makes one think less of themselves such that they do not feel good enough for their partner.

However, this feeling does not just erupt from nowhere, it is mostly triggered by certain situations or people we have around us or our partners.

CEO of Hearts and Habits Foundation, Amos Kevin Annan speaking on Prime Morning on Thursday, shared common causes of these insecurities and how to handle them when the need be.

According to him, a lot of factors can breed insecurity in relationships:

1. Differences in personalities.

Sometimes when one party observes that the other is extremely better in certain areas of life such as financial, moral, intellectual and even health wise, it can begin to cultivate a level of inferiority within them. This easily makes them feel their partners would prefer someone else to them and they start feeling insecure.

• Abuse

Amos mentioned that any form of abuse such as physical, emotional, psychological or even spiritual abuse in relationships can breed insecurities. According to him, some people carry these traumatic experiences from their past relationship into their current relationships with the fear that it might repeat itself.  The moment one party abuses the other, it can dampen their spirit and even shatter their confidence. This eventually leads to insecurity in relationships.

• Being discreet in a relationship/marriage.

Relationship is about communication and so whenever one party senses that the other is being extremely secretive, it creates suspicion in the other partner which eventually breeds insecurity. It is true that not all information can be shared in a relationship due to professional and confidential reasons, but transparency is also a core value in every relationship.

• Selfishness

Mr. Annan shared that self-centeredness can lead to insecurity. “Unfortunately many of the conversations I hear about love yourself, it ends up being selfishness, selfishness is never love, its self-perpetuating, it’s you putting yourself above anything else”, he mentioned.

As humans, insecurities are normal to be felt, it only gets toxic when it is not well addressed and doubts are not cleared.

One important way to prevent insecurities in relationship is through constant reassurance.

People love to be appreciated and valued, however when at some point they feel like they do not mean as much to you as they used to, inferiority complex sets in.

Other ways to prevent insecurities in relationships are:

1. Setting and respecting boundaries
2. Having the difficult conversations
3. Building trust
4. Having open communication and creating transparency.

Amos advised that couples must observe and consider each other’s temperament to ensure effective communication.

He also mentioned that in a case of loss of trust, individuals should be reminded that trust cannot be gained overnight. Sometimes it requires a long time, people must learn to heal and forgive their partners and if that requires an amount of time, so should it be.