Why Do I Feel Self Conscious Around My Boyfriend

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Even if you feel comfortable and close to your boyfriend, you may be surprised to find that you are often self-conscious around them. This can show itself in many different ways. 

Some examples of feeling self-conscious are constantly questioning your boyfriend, always wanting to spend time together, or feeling like they don’t love you or is lying to you about what they are doing and who they are hanging out with. 

Unfortunately, this can lead to your relationship having problems and even you two breaking up if you aren’t careful. That’s why it is important to understand why you feel self-conscious and what you can do to fix it. To learn more, continue reading below. 

Is This Common?

Feeling self-conscious around your boyfriend is fairly common. It often happens when someone isn’t confident in their relationship or when they question their partner’s reason for being in a relationship with them. 

This tends to happen most often with women, though men can also experience feeling self-conscious in their relationship. 

It isn’t always easy to recognize when you are self-conscious, and you may end up showing negative emotions and traits to your partner without even realizing it. 

Some examples of how feeling self-conscious in your relationship can change your behavior include:

 

• Always being jealous
• Constantly needing reassurance from your partner
• Being nosy about where they are, who they are talking to, and what they are doing
• Never wanting to be alone
• Always needing more attention and feeling abandoned when they can’t provide it
• Constant arguing
• Feeling that your partner is always lying, doesn’t love you, or is planning to leave you soon
• Worried that you must constantly dress up and look nice or your boyfriend won’t love you anymore? 

 

Why Does it Happen?

Becoming self-conscious often occurs in past relationships. Sometimes that is a parent or adult figure in your life when you were young or a previous partner. 

Perhaps when you were little, you saw your dad cheat on your mom and lie a lot. Maybe your dad or mom put you down, telling you that you weren’t lovable or wanted. These can leave lasting negative effects that harm your relationships in the future. 

Previous partners or crushes can also impact your feeling of self-worth. For example, if you have been cheated on, lied to, criticized, or gaslit in the past, you may now start to question your current partner.  

Even smaller relationships like friends, siblings, and teachers can influence how you see yourself and your future relationships. So you see, most of the time, feeling self-conscious or worried about your partner is directly related to how much you love yourself. 

 

How Can You Fix it?

To feel less self-conscious, you must learn to love yourself and appreciate your abilities and body. This isn’t an easy or quick process, but it is well worth the effort. Not only are you able to strengthen your current relationship, but your relationship with yourself. 

To fix it, you have to learn to be open and communicative. Your partner, even if patient, will get frustrated with you if they don’t understand what is going on. Try to explain why you have these feelings and see if you can work together to come up with solutions. 

You also have to leave your past behind you. While the traumatic situations you experienced will always be a part of your life, and you may not be able to forget them, you can differentiate between people in your past and your current boyfriend. 

 

Where Do You Start?

To start, the most important step is to take steps to love yourself. You have to practice cutting out negative self-talk, such as thinking you are stupid, you always mess everything up, or you are dragging your partner down. 

To do this, you have to learn to replace negative thoughts with positive ones. For example, maybe instead of thinking about how you drag your partner down, remember that your boyfriend wouldn’t have tried that restaurant you suggested if you hadn’t been together. 

It is very difficult to work on self-love, especially after years or decades of hating yourself based on your body, personality, or thoughts. But it is important to learn how to grow and become better for yourself and your boyfriend. 

 

How Long Does it Take?

To learn to fully love yourself and push all the self-doubt and hate away can take years. However, you can start noticing benefits within a year if you work hard. For example, if you can learn to trust your partner more, you may end up less jealous. 

This can reduce tension between you and make your partner more excited to return home and be with you. 

You will progress and slide back a little throughout the process, but with a loving partner supporting you and your dedication to learning to trust yourself and your boyfriend, you will notice a huge difference. 

 

Final Thoughts on Why Do You Feel Self-Conscious Around Your Boyfriend

It’s not easy to remove years of being beaten down and even beating yourself down. Even one simple thing, like a previous boyfriend or partner cheating on you, can ruin your self-esteem. 

But with enough work and constant work to try and love yourself, you will notice a change. 

Not only will your relationship likely have less fighting and tension and be happier overall, but you will also notice that you are happier with yourself and feel better outside of the relationship. It’s a long road, but one that will have a lot of positives at the end. 

 

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