Paul Brian
Being sensitive has many advantages, but it can also sink relationships.
That’s because when you’re highly sensitive you make mistakes that those with a thicker skin can easily avoid.
Here’s what to watch out for.
1) Trying to define the relationship too early
Sensitive people often try to define a relationship too early.
Sensitive people have trouble dealing with a relationship that may be undefined.
The result is that your partner may feel you are being insecure or needy.
There’s a time for having “the talk” about “what are we?”
But doing so too early is a big mistake.
2) Getting jealous easily
Jealousy is hard to completely avoid, but overly sensitive people are more prone to it.
The reason is that there are a lot of situations and things in a relationship that can make people a little bit jealous.
If you’re too sensitive then it only takes something small to set off your jealousy radar.
And once you’re feeling the tinge of envy and jealousy then trying to push it down only upsets your emotional state further making you touchy and irritable.
The problem is that getting jealous too easily is a big relationship mistake and can show a real lack of security and self-esteem.
3) Being clingy
When you have strong feelings for someone it makes sense you want to spend a lot of time around them!
But sensitive people can get so attached so quickly that they find it hard to spend time away from their partner.
This can lead to being clingy, which is a very unattractive quality.
The dividing line between being clingy and affectionate can be hard to understand for somebody who’s sensitive.
If your partner asks for a bit more emotional or physical space, you may feel hurt by the request itself, leading to a downward spiral.
4) Becoming overly needy
The counterpart to being overly clingy is neediness.
Neediness is the cousin to clinginess and can manifest in many different ways.
If you’re overly sensitive then you’ve likely had your share of struggles with neediness.
This is the desire to have more of someone in your life, to be reassured about how they feel toward you and to want more of their body, soul and mind.
Being overly needy doesn’t make you “bad” and some amount of neediness can be attractive.
But it can also ruin relationships in too large a quantity.
5) Overreacting to fights
Fights inevitably happen in almost every relationship.
They aren’t always loud and dramatic and they might even come down to one or both of you giving each other the “silent treatment” or awkward tension between the two of you.
But when there is a fight, sensitive people have a tendency to overreact.
If you’re very sensitive then you know exactly what I’m talking about.
There’s a fight and you feel awful and apologize over and over and try to keep talking about it make sure that it’s really over now and in the past.
You’re so worried the fight has ruined everything.
This ties into the next point…
6) Seeking frequent reassurance and validation
When you’re overly sensitive you seek a lot of reassurance.
This can be in a needy and clingy way like I mentioned earlier, but it can also be when you have done something to upset your partner or are worried you have.
You want to ensure you haven’t burned down the relationship and make sure everything is fine and they aren’t still upset.
Checking in on your partner and communicating is a must, obviously.
But being overly-apologetic and seeking reassurance everything is OK is deeply unattractive, especially when done by men.
If you are a man doing this please know that you are walking on extremely thin ice and that your girlfriend or wife is losing all respect and attraction for you.
7) Over-explaining and justifying everything you do
The next thing that overly sensitive people often fall prey to is too much explanation.
As part of checking all is well and their partner is fine, the sensitive individual often over-explains and over-justifies him or herself.
If you feel the urge to do this, I get it, because I’m the same way.
But doing this erases some of your mystery and confidence and makes you less attractive.
Relationships where partners exhaustively spell out everything they’re doing every day and why also have a tendency to become highly codependent and awful.
Explain what’s necessary but please don’t ever treat your partner as some kind of probation officer you have to report back to on the regular.
8) Stressing out over social media posts
Sensitive people also tend to be overly affected by social media posts from their partner.
Jealousy can definitely creep in when you see your partner posting hot photos online or seeming to flirt with others.
But at the most basic level, being too sensitive leads to social media monitoring.
This essentially means checking up on what your partner has been doing or is doing almost all the time.
Where is she?
What is he doing right now?
What was his last post?
What did she mean by that last flirtatious tweet on Twitter?
This kind of paranoid monitoring is relationship napalm. Rest assured, sooner or later it will end your relationship.
If you can’t trust your partner enough to ignore their social media sometimes or are too needy to do so, both are not great signs.
9) Pretending to agree in order to appeal to your partner
Have you ever pretended to agree about an important subject or even something as small as musical taste just to fit in?
I have.
I felt small, ashamed and fake afterwards.
When you do this in a relationship it’s even worse, because it lowers you to the level of a doormat and a people pleasing sidekick.
You’re no longer being you in the relationship if you fake agreement just to please your partner.
You’re much better off respectfully being honest about where you stand.
10) Faking a good mood in order not to get your partner down
On a related note we get to sensitive people who are so concerned with appealing to their partner that they fake a good mood.
If this is you, then trust me I’ve been there too.
But it’s not the way to go.
This can work on a short-term basis and defuse potentially awkward or tense situations, but in the long term it creates a veneer of fakeness and performance that many relationships can’t survive.
If you’re in a bad mood, don’t take it out on your partner or demand that they console and reassure you in a needy or clingy way!
But at the same time saying “I’m great” and smiling after you’ve just had one of the worst days of your life is horseshit.
Don’t do that. Respect your partner more than that. Respect yourself more than that.
11) Dragging your partner into your every up and down
At the same time as you shouldn’t fake how you’re doing to lessen the load on your partner, you also don’t need to overshare.
Oversharing is a big issue for sensitive people in relationships and in the lead-up to relationships.
This is when you share far too much of what’s going on in your life and especially your internal emotional state with your partner.
Even if it’s meant well or in the spirit of a deeper connection, doing this almost always causes the relationship to slide into a kind of codependency where your partner or you feel responsible for the other’s emotional state or desire to “fix” or “counterbalance” it.
The solution?
Communicate, but don’t drag your partner into your every up and down.
12) Hinging future plans on your partner
When you’re in love with someone and especially in a serious relationship, it’s natural that you want to make future plans together.
If you’re deciding on what to do with your life or career you will clearly check in with your partner to ee what they plan.
But one of the worst mistakes that sensitive people make in relationships is making their plans dependent or contingent on their partner’s plans.
In other words they won’t do anything unless it’s also approved of and in line with what their partner plans to do.
Communicating about future plans and even trying to think about how it would affect a relationship is one thing and is very necessary.
But hinging plans on somebody else is something different.
This can be really needy and clingy, especially if it happens too early in a relationship.
The bottom line
If you’re overly sensitive, don’t beat yourself up.
There are ways to toughen up and look at your relationship in new ways that are less emotional and reactive.
The bottom line is to watch out for the relationship mistakes I’ve mentioned above.
Being sensitive is great, but you need to be aware of your blind spots, especially when it comes to love.
