Fear of intimacy is more than a commitment phobia, a dating famine, or fear of women. It's a fear of losing yourself that suffocates your ability to love.

Defining fear of intimacy may be different from person to person, but there is an underlying theme. Fear of intimacy involves caring about another person as much as you care about yourself, which leaves you vulnerable and open to rejection, hurt and betrayal.

Fear of Intimacy Is about Self-protection

When you fear intimacy, you may be afraid of being consumed by another person, or being submersed in their personality or world. Fear of intimacy often involves a struggle to keep yourself separate from another person. You don’t want to lose yourself, so you hold back. Fear of intimacy can be physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual. In fact, it can involve all four levels of being, though it may be more prominent in one area or another. It can be commitment phobia or a general distance from other human beings.

You can struggle with a fear of intimacy or emotional distance even if you’re married or in a long-term relationship. You can fear intimacy and be emotionally distant or mentally isolated even if you have children and grandchildren.

Fear of intimacy is about protecting yourself.

How to Move Past Fears of Intimacy

Be realistic. There’s no doubt about it: you’re gonna get hurt. You’re vulnerable at every stage of the game: dating, engagement, marriage, children, second marriages, and senior citizen love triangles. Even if you love someone who loves you back wholeheartedly and vows to never hurt you, you’re taking a risk. Your partner could get hurt, develop cancer, or be stolen by alien cousins. If you have 10 healthy children, someone will break a leg or get dumped – and you’ll be hurt.

But as potentially risky as loving is, not loving is worse.

Feel your feelings. If you figure out the root cause of your fear of intimacy and let yourself feel your feelings, you may be more open to letting yourself love. For instance, just knowing that you fear intimacy because your mom died when you were five years old gives you options: working through your feelings through writing or painting, seeking counseling, or joining a bereavement support group (it’s never too late). Confessing your feelings to friends, family, the bartender or your pastor can make them less scary and more manageable – and someone will be able to relate, which will help you feel less alone.

Martha Beck says, “If you fall into intimacy without resistance, despite your alarm, either you will fall into love, which is exquisite, or love will fall into you, which is more exquisite. Do it enough, and you may just lose your fear of falling.” (from an article called “Lover’s Leap” in Oprah Magazine, June 2007).

As important as intimacy is, guard against intimacy overload by keeping a sense of yourself through your own friends, hobbies, and interests.

If you found Defining Fear of Intimacy helpful, try:

• Relationship Fears
• Fear of Intimacy
• Body Image & Fear of Intimacy
• Overcoming Fear of Intimacy
• Emotional Distance & Separation

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