Interpersonal difficulties
Interpersonal difficulties are factors that make it difficult to create and maintain functional relationships with others. It’s often a matter of developing communication skills and different relational abilities. Examples of interpersonal difficulties include finding it hard to initiate contact, to understand and express feelings and needs in relationships, or being overly critical and demanding towards others so that disappointments or disagreements arise easily. It can also involve fear of conflict and fear of closeness, which can lead to avoidance and distance, so relationships don’t deepen and feel unsatisfying.
Everyone has interpersonal difficulties to some extent, but how much they get in the way of creating, maintaining or deepening relationships varies.
Feelings and needs
When interpersonal difficulties lead to loneliness, it helps to work out which feelings arise for you in relationships, what those feelings signal, and which needs you feel aren’t being met. Sometimes there are things you can start doing differently to increase the chances of satisfying your relationship needs; other times you and the other person may have different views or limits in the relationship, and you may need to adjust your expectations for the relationship.
Relationship behaviours
When it comes to what you can influence and do differently in your relationships, we’re talking about relationship behaviours. That means how you act in your relationships to express feelings and meet your needs for connection with others. Our relationship behaviours grow out of early experiences in close relationships, where we try to maximise safety and closeness. What worked at one point in life isn’t always what works best now.
For example, if parents showed a lack of emotional availability and response, a strategy might have been learned to protect oneself from pain by avoiding seeking support and comfort. In adulthood, this avoidance can lead to emotional distancing that gets in the way of the closeness you desire. Thus, it can be helpful to identify and start trying to change patterns in our relationship behaviours, so they become more appropriate. It’s very much about not letting past experiences get in the way of new relational possibilities.
Patterns
One way to spot patterns in your relationships is to reflect on current relationships as well as those that, for various reasons, have ended. Examples include withdrawing and stopping contact when you feel disappointed or critical of others; confronting others too aggressively when there are things to sort out; struggling to set boundaries and therefore saying yes to more than feels OK; or feeling so afraid of not being “good enough” in the eyes of others that you say no to many things to protect yourself from possible criticism.
Obstacles
What can make it hard to change patterns in relationship behaviours are feelings that get in the way when you try to act in a new way. For example, if you want to share more feelings with a friend to deepen a relationship, fear of being rejected or not understood can block you. Similarly, fear of closeness can become obstructive, so that behaviours that would be helpful to reduce loneliness feel uncomfortable and trigger a fear of losing autonomy. If you want more contact with someone but get irritated and find it difficult to hold back your anger whenever you disagree, that reaction may go against your aim of having more contact.
Now it’s time to reflect on the relationship behaviours that stand in the way of your needs in relationships. Use these questions to find situations or patterns that feel especially challenging.
- Are there behaviours that don’t work well for you in the long run and that contribute to your loneliness?
- What patterns can you see in how you communicate with others?
- What do you do when you feel uncertain in relationships?
- How do you act when you feel disappointed or angry with others?
- How do you act when others express disappointment or anger towards you?
- How do you think others perceive your needs?