10 reasons you always think the worst in your relationships

Do you catastrophize in your relationships?

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Do you find yourself perpetually waiting for the worst-case scenario to unfold when it comes to your relationships?

If your partner is late, do you assume they must be cheating or lying dead in a ditch somewhere?

Although it may not be a rational response, there are several reasons why you might jump to this conclusion, and psychology can help you understand it.

Here we’ll explore some common explanations for why you think this way, and what you can do about it.

1. Previous experiences.

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If you’ve had crappy experiences in the past, it’s completely understandable you’d assume—or expect—the worst in your current relationship.

For instance, if past partners cheated on you, you may brace yourself for the ‘inevitable’ infidelity with your current partner and be hypervigilant for any possible signs that it’s happening again.

Similarly, if you were abandoned or ghosted by previous partners, you may assume your current lover has cut you out of their life if they take too long to call or text you back.

I refer to this as the ‘raccoon and candle’ scenario.

Let’s say a raccoon survives a forest fire. They experience immense fear and possibly physical pain from it. As such, if they see a lit candle flickering nearby, they panic and assume the worst.

Even though it’s just a small candle, which offers light and warmth instead of terror and anguish, it reminds them enough of what they went through to send them shrieking off into the distance.

2. Low self-esteem.

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Do you suffer from low self-esteem?

If you do, you might assume your partner thinks as poorly about you as you do.

After all, if you’re constantly berating yourself for being unattractive, stupid, incompetent, or worse, it’ll be difficult to believe that someone else thinks positively about you.

If they regularly try to reassure you with compliments, telling you how much they love and care about you, you brush this off as lying, rather than believing them.

When they exhibit a behavior that’s different from usual, you automatically assume they’ve finally figured out you aren’t worth their time.

If they don’t text you back quickly enough, or if they don’t seem as affectionate as usual, you think it’s because of your numerous assumed negative traits, rather than something they’re dealing with personally.

For example, if your partner isn’t feeling particularly amorous, you’ll believe they’re no longer attracted to you and are planning to leave you for someone ’better’.

Any behavior they exhibit will be chalked up to you not being enough.

As such, you may not even ask if anything’s going on with them because you’re convinced they’d just confirm your suspicions if you did.

3. Anxiety.

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People who experience generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) often feel anxious or worried about things without any logical basis.

This isn’t intentional paranoia but is often a result of genetic predisposition and environmental influences that cause a person to worry about everything around them.

As such, if you suffer from this type of anxiety, you may think the worst in your relationship even though everything is going well.

In fact, you may think the worst because things are going well.

You may constantly feel braced for the inevitable shoe to drop and thus be hypervigilant about the tiniest change in your relationship dynamic.

This often feels like a ‘too good to be true’ scenario.

Everything is going well and you’re in a happy partnership with someone who adores you. So you assume something must be wrong and find yourself fixating on things you feel need to be improved or addressed.

This often happens to people whose anxiety was caused by past experiences in dysfunctional family dynamics.

If you were the ‘golden child’ who had to be hypervigilant about your parent’s behavior for fear of them going ballistic, you may not know how to behave with someone who’s grounded, respectful, and kind towards you.

On a similar note, you may find your anxiety is ‘triggered’ by your partner’s actions.

For example, they may behave in a manner that reminds you of someone who hurt you in the past.

If they seem angry or emotionally distant, you may assume you’ve angered or upset them somehow, which can be exacerbated if your partner doesn’t want to talk about what’s bothering them.

Your mind may automatically fill in the blanks with past memories to cope with what’s in front of you.

4. Depression.

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Much like with anxiety, people who experience depression often interpret everyday interactions as negative rather than neutral.

For example, if your partner doesn’t smile when they say good morning to you, that may throw you into a spin in which you feel they don’t love you anymore.

In reality, they may be stressing about a work presentation or feel sad about their parent’s ill health, but your natural inclination to think the worst will have you assuming their behavior is about you, rather than them.

Depression can also contribute to low self-esteem, which we talked about earlier.

If you struggle with depression, you may feel you’re a burden to the one you love and that you don’t deserve this relationship.

You may feel overwhelmed by feelings of despair that have no basis in the reality of what’s going on around you.

When you feel like this, it can be very difficult to believe someone wants to be with you.

You might even try to push your partner away to protect yourself from the ‘inevitable’ heartbreak of them leaving you.

Should you succeed in this, you end up with a self-fulfilling prophecy. You assumed they’d break up with you because of your depression, and by pushing them to do so, you’ve proved yourself correct.

5. Societal influences.

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Even if you’ve had a relatively stable, happy life, you may assume the worst of people (including your partner) because of peer or social influence.

For example, if you follow popular influencers whose rhetoric is that all people of a certain group are out to get you, use you, cheat on you, etc., you may start to believe that—even if your partner has never exhibited that behavior before.

There’s also the possibility you witnessed these behaviors in others, and as a result, you’ve ended up thinking these things are the baseline standard for romantic relationships.

After all, if your parents cheated on each other, and your friends all cheated on their partners or were cheated on, the likelihood of your partner cheating on you must be pretty high, right?

6. Control issues.

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A lot of people are very uncomfortable with uncertainty.

They try to control as much of their own lives as possible to avoid any potential discomfort.

This works well when it comes to meal planning, but significantly less so when it comes to interpersonal relationships.

You may have tried to control partners in the past, only to learn how reprehensible that behavior is.

If so, you’ve probably learned to ease off on the controlling aspects of your personality, but this may have led to hypervigilance and overthinking instead.

For example, you may read far too much into the most insignificant things your partner says or does, looking for some clue that they’re either doing something negative behind your back or planning to leave you.

You might get interrogative if they speak to you in a different tone than usual, or if they use a word that you aren’t used to hearing from them.

Or you may start to encroach on their privacy by demanding to see their messages or trying to stop them from spending time with people you dislike, just in case that person speaks negatively about you.

You can get so focused on protecting yourself from potential hurt or harm that you don’t realize the damage you’re doing to your partner (and your relationship) in the process.

7. Fear of vulnerability.

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This often goes hand in hand with the control issues mentioned above.

People who don’t like to experience vulnerability often create mental scenarios that ensure they feel empowered, rather than at another’s mercy.

It’s a response that often occurs in those who have experienced hardship or cruelty and, understandably, don’t ever want to be in that situation again.

For instance, let’s say you grew up with parents who were horribly critical or otherwise psychologically abusive towards you during your formative years.

Since you were essentially a captive in their home until you were of legal age to leave, you had no choice but to tolerate and accept their criticism or abuse.

This might have made you incredibly sensitive to any criticism. As such, you overthink and read too much into things people say to you, to determine whether there’s any negativity there that may hurt you.

If you experienced this type of situation growing up, you may assume things your partner says or does are critical, when that isn’t their intention.

For example, let’s say you had a parent who regularly criticized your weight and made hurtful remarks every time you ate anything.

If your partner says something as simple as “I’m glad you’re enjoying the pasta I made”, you may construe it as a criticism—that you’re eating too much, that your body is too large, that you’re being gluttonous, etc.

In their mind, they went out of their way to cook for you and are happy that you’re appreciating their efforts. But you think the worst about what they’ve said because of how you’ve been conditioned.

8. Personality disorders.

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Certain personality disorders, such as narcissistic or borderline personality disorder, can cause cognitive distortions in a person.

These cognitive distortions can include catastrophizing, extreme black-and-white thinking, assumed ‘mind reading’, and negative assumptions you feel pushed to act upon.

As such, when the slightest change happens in your relationship, your go-to response is to think the absolute worst of the situation and then act upon your assumptions to protect yourself against potential, perceived harm.

For example, say your partner always comes home from work at 5:20 pm. It’s 5:40 pm now and they’re not back. You haven’t heard from them, can’t reach them on their cellphone, and you’re panicking.

Maybe you assume they’re having an affair with someone at the office, and not only are they purposely not picking up the phone, but they’re laughing at your attempt to contact them.

Or perhaps you assume they’ve gotten in an accident and are bleeding out on a country road nearby. Now you’ll be a single parent, and you’ll have to explain their death to your kid, and so on.

Meanwhile, when they get home a few minutes later, you’ll discover they broke their phone and picked up a new one en route home. End of.

If you’re prone to this type of catastrophizing, it’s vitally important to work with a good therapist who specializes in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).

They can help you learn to calm your thought spirals by focusing on the present moment, on things you can see, touch, hear, and affect firsthand, and deal with whatever occurs as it happens.

9. Trauma.

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If you experienced something traumatic in the past that resulted in you losing someone you loved dearly, you may spiral into catastrophizing at the slightest provocation.

Losing a loved one—either through death or abandonment—causes severe wounds that can take years or even decades to heal, if they ever heal at all.

Alternatively, if you grew up in a situation where your needs were continually unmet, you may now behave in a manner that ensures you’ll never go through that again.

These types of deep-set traumatic fears can contribute to you thinking the worst in every part of your life, including your relationship.

Essentially, the pain you experienced was so awful, that you’re terrified of ever experiencing it again. So anything that implies even a remote possibility of similar pain makes you assume the pattern is repeating.

For example, if one of your parents abandoned you when you were a small child, you may freak out and assume your partner is going to do the same if they act in any way out of character.

Alternatively, if you often went hungry as a child because your parents prioritized other items or had problems with food security, and you can’t find a particular item in the fridge, you may assume your partner ate it to keep you from being able to do so.

Ultimately, you assume the worst about those closest to you, because that was the baseline standard you grew up with.

It’s incredibly difficult to break free from the experiences that formed you. You may need to work through these in therapy if you want to be able to build a strong, trusting relationship.

10. Projection.

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Sometimes, the reason a person thinks the worst in their relationship is because they’re projecting their thoughts and insecurities onto the other person.

For example, if you aren’t feeling happy about your relationship and you’re considering a breakup, you might accuse your partner of wanting to end things with you.

Similarly, if you’ve developed romantic feelings for someone in your social circle and feel bad about it, you may accuse your partner of flirting or having an ‘emotional affair’ with one of their friends.

Essentially, you’re taking aspects of yourself you find difficult to deal with and clothing your partner in those traits because it’s easier to punish them than to punish yourself.

In cases like this, you aren’t catastrophizing: you’re just projecting worst-case scenarios onto them to avoid facing up to your own actions.

How To Stop Thinking The Worst In Your Relationship

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As with any other issue, the key is to figure out the source of your worries or insecurities.

Otherwise, you’ll be treating the symptoms instead of the cause.

Keep a journal of all the times you feel you’re spinning into worst-case scenario mode, and what else is going on in your life at that point. Then see if you can recognize a pattern.

For example, does it always happen after an altercation with a colleague or customer at work, and this is triggering your anxiety in your relationship?

Or, if you’re female, and find you repeatedly have catastrophizing or anxious thoughts at certain times in your menstrual cycle, hormones could be playing a role.

If you have no idea where your negative emotions and intrusive ‘worst-case’ thoughts are stemming from, or you identify with some of the items on this list but don’t know how to overcome them, booking some time with a therapist may be your best bet.

They can help you work through any issues that are manifesting as low self-esteem, anxiety, or mistrust about your relationship, and help identify whether other contributing factors may be playing a role.

For example, if your therapist feels you may be neurodivergent such as autistic, ADHD, or both, or that you have PTSD from past experiences, they can arrange to have you assessed to make sure you get the right support, tailored to your needs.

Once you have a firm diagnosis, they can work with you to develop coping mechanisms to help you adjust, either with or without medications to help with your emotional regulation.

None of us are issue-free, but addressing these issues in the healthiest way possible, with the help of trained professionals, can make a massive difference in your relationship.