Does your heart rate spike when your partner’s phone buzzes? Have you rehearsed what you’ll say if they leave you, even though they’ve given you no reason to think they will? Trust issues in romantic relationships can take many forms, but no matter how they play out, they put a serious strain on both your relationship and your own mental health.
The good news is that therapy can help you rewrite those patterns. But first, you need to understand what you’re actually dealing with—and find the language to talk about it.
Below, we’ll explore five common trust issues that often arise in romantic relationships, their origins, and how to bring them up with your therapist so you can finally do the deeper work your relationship needs.
1. Hypervigilance and Constant Surveillance of Your Partner
You know their passcode. You’ve memorized their patterns, such as when they’re most likely to check their phone, who texts them most often, and how long it takes them to respond. Maybe you’ve even scrolled through their messages when they’re in the shower.
This typically isn’t about being controlling or possessive. Hypervigilance is your nervous system’s way of managing the unbearable uncertainty of whether someone will hurt you.
Research shows that when people with anxious attachment experience distrust, their brains essentially go into threat-detection mode, which means scanning for danger, misinterpreting neutral behaviors as suspicious, and needing constant proof that everything’s okay.
The compulsion to check, monitor, and verify often stems from past betrayal, attachment trauma, or growing up in an environment where love was unpredictable. Your system learned that the only way to feel safe was to stay one step ahead of the inevitable hurt.
How to bring up hypervigilance and surveillance in therapy: “I notice I’m checking my partner’s phone, and I hate that I do this. Can we explore where this compulsion comes from and how to work through it without just white-knuckling my way through?”
2. Difficulty Being Vulnerable or Emotionally Open
Your partner asks how you’re really doing, and you freeze. The honest answer is right there—you’re stressed, overwhelmed, scared about something—but the words won’t come. Instead, you deflect and say, “I’m fine. Just tired.” The door to deeper connection opens, and you walk past it every single time.
Vulnerability requires the belief that your emotions will be met with care, not criticism or indifference. When you’ve learned that sharing your inner world leads to shame, dismissal, or being used against you later, your brain builds walls.
Those walls may have kept you safe in a past situation, but they’re isolating you now.
Studies confirm that individuals with anxious attachment—often rooted in childhood experiences where emotional needs went unmet—carry significantly lower trust levels into adult relationships. This is a completely natural adaptation to an environment where being open felt dangerous.
How to bring up vulnerability struggles in therapy: “I want to be more open with my partner, but I freeze when I try. I’m realizing I don’t actually know how to share what I’m feeling without being afraid of mockery.”
3. Projecting Past Hurts Onto Your Current Partner
When your partner says they’re going out with friends, does your stomach drop? Suddenly you’re convinced they’re lying, even if they’ve never given you reason to doubt them.
This is your nervous system trying to protect you by pattern-matching. If a past scenario led to pain before, your brain assumes a similar scenario will lead to pain again. It doesn’t matter that this is a different person in a different relationship—your implicit memory doesn’t make that distinction.
Unprocessed betrayal doesn’t just live in your conscious thoughts. It lives in your body, in the way your chest tightens when certain scenarios arise. Studies have repeatedly found that trauma physically impacts our bodies, from elevating our heart rate to making calm conversations more difficult.
How to bring up projection issues in therapy: “I know my partner hasn’t done anything wrong, but I keep waiting for them to hurt me like someone in my past did. How do I stop punishing them for someone else’s mistakes?”
4. Sabotaging the Relationship When It Gets Too Close
Things are going well, maybe the best they’ve ever been, and that’s when you find yourself picking fights. Or suddenly finding flaws in your partner that you never noticed before. The moment intimacy deepens, a part of you hits the brakes.
This often comes from a protective part of you that believes closeness equals danger. If your early experiences in life with parents or loved ones taught you that love is conditional, unpredictable, or comes with a cost, getting too close with a romantic partner can trigger a deep, primal fear of loss.
One part of you craves connection, while another part believes that the closer you get, the more devastating it will be when it ends. So you create distance—not because you don’t care, but because you care too much to risk the pain.
How to bring up self-sabotage in therapy: “Every time my relationship gets really good, I find myself wanting to run or push them away. Can we explore this pattern and why I’m so afraid of things actually working out?”
5. Inability to Trust Your Own Judgment in Relationships
You can’t help but second-guess everything. Did they really mean what they said, or were they being passive-aggressive? Are you overreacting, or are your concerns valid?
You used to trust your instincts, but now you can’t tell the difference between intuition and paranoia.
This often comes from experiences of gaslighting or manipulation, where someone repeatedly convinced you that your reality was wrong. Over time, you stopped trusting your own perspective on situations. Now, even in a healthy relationship, you can’t be sure what’s real.
When your internal compass has been scrambled by someone who distorted your perception, rebuilding trust in yourself becomes just as important as rebuilding trust in your partner.
How to bring up lack of self-trust in therapy: “I don’t trust my own judgment anymore. I’m constantly asking others if my feelings are valid or if I’m being unfair. How do I rebuild trust in myself?”
You Have the Power to Heal and Feel Secure in Your Relationship
Trust issues aren’t a life sentence. They’re your nervous system’s way of saying, “Something hurt me once, and I’m trying to make sure it doesn’t happen again.” That protective instinct makes sense, but it doesn’t have to run your life.
At Hawkins Counseling Center in Boynton Beach, we work with individuals using evidence-based approaches like EMDR, Brainspotting, Internal Family Systems, and Somatic Experiencing to help you process old wounds and build new patterns.
If you’re ready to stop letting past hurts dictate your present relationship, call us at (561) 316-6553 to explore trust issues in romantic relationships to discuss with your therapist. You can heal, and you deserve to feel secure in your relationship. Take the first step today.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I stop comparing my current partner to people who hurt me?
Start by recognizing that your brain is doing exactly what it’s supposed to—trying to protect you by identifying patterns. The work involves processing the original wound through therapy approaches like EMDR or Brainspotting, which help your nervous system differentiate past danger from present safety. Over time, you can build new neural pathways that don’t automatically associate closeness with pain.
What work do I need to do to build trust?
Building self-trust starts with learning to regulate your nervous system, understand your attachment patterns, and process past trauma so it doesn’t bleed into your present relationship. Individual therapy helps you identify your triggers, develop somatic awareness, and practice tolerating vulnerability in small doses. Building self-trust is one of the top reasons to seek a therapist, and doing so will benefit you in all areas of your life—not just your relationship.
Should we go to couples therapy for trust issues?
Couples therapy has its place—it helps partners communicate better, understand each other’s attachment needs, and navigate conflict more effectively. But if your trust issues stem from your own past trauma or attachment wounds, individual therapy is essential first. Your couples therapist can help you see each other more clearly, but they can’t heal the wounds that create trust issues in the first place. Once you’ve done that deeper healing, couples therapy becomes much more effective.
