Difficulties in Relationships: Understanding the Barriers to Closeness’
You may long for deep, secure, emotionally satisfying relationships — with friendships, family members or romantic partners — yet find yourself repeating familiar dynamics that leave you hurt, disconnected or alone.
Perhaps you’re drawn to unavailable partners, lose interest once someone gets close or feel anxious when a relationship deepens. You might hide parts of yourself or avoid honesty, even though it works against the closeness you want. Outwardly, you may appear confident or independent, yet secretly feel unseen, misunderstood or emotionally separate.
These challenges can be confusing and painful. They often stem from unconscious protective strategies that once helped you feel safe but now block the connection and trust you crave.
Recognising the Patterns That Block Closeness
Relationship difficulties can take many forms. You may long for connection yet find yourself repeating behaviours that push people away — leaving you lonely, frustrated or stuck.
Frequent relationship challenges include;
Keeping people at a distance — appearing independent while feeling isolated
Choosing emotionally unavailable or unpredictable partners
Overanalysing interactions — worrying you’ve said or done the wrong thing
Feeling anxious, clingy or controlling when relationships deepen
Withdrawing or becoming prickly when conflict or emotion arises
Losing control in anger — shouting or breaking things which scares people away
Giving too much in order to feel valued, or holding back to avoid rejection
Feeling lonely even when you’re with others
Struggling to commit — always imagining life would be better with someone else
Over time, these patterns can trap you between wanting closeness and fearing it. Therapy helps uncover the emotional roots of these cycles — attachment wounds, learned survival strategies and unprocessed feelings — so you can build relationships that feel steady, nourishing and rewarding.
Why Difficulties in Relationships Occur
Many relational difficulties begin in childhood, when a child’s emotional needs weren’t consistently met. Even in loving families, children can develop habits that later make closeness feel risky or hard to sustain. In more challenging environments — neglect, abuse, parental conflict or emotional unavailability — children often have no safe adult to share or process their feelings with. To cope, they may suppress their emotions, detach from themselves, prioritise others’ needs or act out destructively. While these strategies were protective at the time, they can make intimacy, trust and vulnerability difficult in adulthood and increase the risk of harmful or traumatic relationships.
In therapy, we explore how these early patterns continue to shape your relationships paying attention to your thoughts, feelings and behaviours. You’ll learn to recognise your habits, understand their origins, see their impact on you and your relationships and gradually develop the capacity to stay present and connected even when closeness feels challenging. Over time, this supports healthier, more secure and emotionally fulfilling relationships.
How Therapy Can Help
My approach combines an experiential focus with an emphasis on emotional experience, depth and wholeness, helping you uncover unconscious patterns and transform the behaviours that block closeness. Rather than analysing relationships from a distance, we will work in real time — noticing, experiencing and shifting patterns with support and honesty.
Through therapy, you can:
Understand and work through the fears that keep you from closeness
Recognise and shift repetitive relational patterns
Build emotional resilience to stay present during conflict or intensity
Set boundaries that protect your wellbeing and foster mutual trust
Express your needs and feelings without fear of rejection or disconnection
Develop relationships that feel secure, intimate and fulfilling
Therapy helps you move beyond cycles of fear, frustration and disappointment, so you can relate to yourself and others with greater freedom, authenticity and ease.
FAQs for Relationship Difficulties
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Many people repeat relationship patterns without meaning to. We often feel drawn to something familiar — even if it creates distance, anxiety or emotional pain — because we recognise this from early attachment experiences.
In therapy we explore these patterns not only cognitively but emotionally, so change isn’t just an idea — it becomes embodied. As clarity and emotional freedom grow, choice replaces compulsion, and new types of relationships become possible.
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That’s completely okay. Many clients begin this work without ever having experienced safe, emotionally reciprocal connections. Therapy offers a steady and reliable space where honesty, vulnerability and trust can emerge at a pace that feels manageable.
Learning to feel safe with another person is often the first step towards allowing healthier relationships into your life — both romantic and otherwise.
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Yes. Relationship issues don’t begin with dating — they begin internally. Whether you’re single by choice, recently out of a relationship or unsure what you want, therapy can help you understand your relational patterns, strengthen self-worth and build emotional capacity.
This means that if and when you choose to date or enter a relationship, you’ll do so with more clarity, security and agency — rather than from old protective patterns or fear.
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Absolutely. Relationship difficulties don’t just appear in romantic partnerships — they often show up in friendships, family dynamics and professional settings.
You may notice patterns such as:
feeling drained because you give more than you receive
difficulty setting boundaries or saying no
avoiding conflict, feedback or emotional honesty
withdrawing when you feel misunderstood
feeling anxious, rejected or not good enough
remaining aloof and detached
These patterns come from the same emotional roots as romantic difficulties — attachment, self-worth and defensive responses. Therapy helps you understand what's driving these habits and supports you to build relationships that feel mutual, respectful and secure — without losing yourself.
Friendships and workplace relationships can become steadier, clearer and more fulfilling as you develop comfort with closeness, confidence, and emotional boundaries.
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Yes — ISTDP is particularly suited to working with relational difficulties. It helps uncover the unconscious emotional barriers, fear and protective strategies that interfere with closeness. Rather than only talking about relationships, we work experientially with the emotions that activate in real time.
This creates lasting internal change — not just insight — allowing for healthier, more secure connections.
Break Relationship Patterns and Build Closer, More Secure Connections
Struggling to form or maintain meaningful relationships? In a no-obligation 30-minute online consultation, we’ll clarify your challenges, set goals and explore how therapy can help you feel more connected, secure and confident in your relationships.