Philophobia, the fear of love

By Cristiano Antonino On Jan 27, 2023

What is philophobia? Every human being is afraid of something, some are even afraid to love. Sometimes what the human mind perceives as a threat is the unpredictable, the unknown, because what is unknown is seen as uncontrollable

But sometimes it may be a scenario that apparently possesses nothing threatening that instils fear, and in these cases the subject has great difficulty in explaining the reasons for it.

Thus, many subjects experience a philophobia, i.e. fear of loving, fear of falling in love or fear of entering into a relationship in which there is real falling in love

We all tend to view love as something positive, something that benefits the person and not something to be avoided.

Yet various researches show that many individuals claim to be afraid of falling in love and afraid of truly loving another person, even though they actually seek closeness, affection and stability like everyone else.

In fact, there are many individuals who, when they fall in love, experience very intense emotions that they perceive as uncontrollable and dangerous, because they take over their usual way of doing and thinking.

We are all looking for love, but sometimes living in a serious relationship frightens us; sometimes against the desire to let go there are many mental resistances, which block and do not allow us to live a love story serenely.

One therefore speaks of philophobia or fear of falling in love, while others speak of sentimental anorexia, when one is unable to truly love for fear of suffering (or suffering again), hyper-controlling one’s feelings and exasperating one’s need for independence and invulnerability.

The philo-phobic may go so far as to manifest real symptoms of anxiety and a reckless and unreasonable fear, which drives him to avoid all those situations, or people, that could lead him to a sentimental involvement.

In some cases, the fear of love not only manifests itself with difficulty in approaching the other person, seen as a danger to one’s own emotional stability, but can also lead to the experience of actual panic attacks.

Causes of philophobia

There are many facets of the same dynamic, which prevents one from being serenely in a couple and building a future together with another person, as the fear of love leads to attitudes that make the partner feel unloved and unimportant.

There can be a fear of losing control of the situation, typical of very rational people or those who have suffered for love.

It is a kind of alert reaction that is triggered when you realise that the story is getting more serious and you begin to feel that you are emotionally dependent on the other person.

These feelings at the beginning of a relationship (but only at the beginning) are normal and even within certain limits functional, because falling in love necessarily involves a loss of control and a reliance on the other.

When, however, one is accustomed to always controlling everything, out of character or as a defence against potential suffering, one is not willing to live in function of the other and is therefore so afraid of loving that one moves away (and away from the other) when one would most like to move closer and let go.

Falling in love is considered a weakness, something that makes us vulnerable and dependent, and the other becomes a potential danger.

The very opposite of what should happen in love happens: instead of feeling secure around one’s partner, one feels fragile.

When strong feelings are understood as a source of insecurity and danger, philophobia takes over and one no longer lets go

When, on the other hand, past love has been a source of suffering, one fears to find oneself in the same feeling, of being abandoned, hurt, betrayed or humiliated, and one tries to rationalise and control, as far as possible, one’s involvement.

This is with the illusion that it is precisely this closed attitude that makes us immune to future suffering in love.

Moreover, we are sometimes afraid of commitment because the fear of love hides a fear of loss of freedom.

We often experience love as a constraint or limitation, involving commitment and responsibility.

Loving becomes an obligation, a constraint within a relationship, where adapting one’s life to the other’s needs and expectations is experienced as an effort instead of a pleasure and enrichment as it should be.

The effects of philophobia on the partner and the relationship

The person suffering from philo-phobia, sometimes, despite being aware of the groundlessness of his or her fear, cannot help but flee from relationships, torn, on the one hand, by the desire to let go of his or her own feelings and those of his or her partner, and driven, on the other, to escape, in order to quell the anxiety and strong state of tension that end up taking over.

Even when he manages to stay in a relationship, he alternates moments of closeness with others of detachment, he is always on the defensive, one step behind; this often also generates sexual difficulties, especially for women, whose pleasure comes through letting go, losing control, and thus implies total trust in their partner.

It also happens that these people who are very afraid of love deliberately choose to embark on difficult and impossible love affairs (married/married, long-distance, even ‘telematic’ partners, etc.), being very careful to pick up on every little signal that makes them realise when it is the right time to distance themselves and take cover.

More often than not, however, this extreme attention to abandonment threat signals, on the basis of their fear and distrust of the other, leads them to invest limitedly in the relationship, to distance themselves first and to belittle their partner’s importance, repeatedly hurting him/her and making him/her feel unloved, with the high risk that he/she will actually distance him/herself out of healthy self-protection.

How to deal with and overcome philophobia

Falling in love is undoubtedly an experience that brings into play deep aspects of our personality.

Sharing one’s life with the person one ‘chooses’ to love, in fact, means showing the other intimate aspects of one’s self, making oneself weak and vulnerable.

The couple’s relationship represents a delicate interplay of forces, within which it is necessary, in order to find a functional balance, on the one hand to adapt and modify certain behaviours or attitudes in order to feel closer to one’s partner and give him or her love, and on the other hand to remain oneself, maintaining one’s own spaces of intimacy and autonomy.

If love is synonymous with the couple, and this with limits, renunciations and responsibilities, as well as threats to our emotional stability and independence, it is normal to be afraid of love.

First of all, however, we must remember that a relationship is not an obligation, but a choice.

We are afraid of being disappointed by others, but the problem of disappointment is our own demands.

We are afraid to love because we are afraid of not receiving what we desire.

If we continue to delude ourselves that our happiness depends on what others do, we will always have too many outward demands, with a high possibility of being disappointed and suffering.

In this way, it is normal, inevitable, to be afraid of loving.

If we start from the idea that it is in others to make us feel bad, it is inevitable to keep them away when their behaviour is not as we would like.

The fear of loving prevents us from giving love, but also from receiving it in the long run.

Paradoxically, loving is the only remedy for the fear of loving

It becomes a vicious circle, because the more one is afraid to love, the less one loves and the more one suffers, thinking that the cause of everything is outside of us because others do not love us.

Thus are born the demands, the desire for others to be as we would like them to be, because we think that if they were, we would be fine.

The problem is that the fear of loving leads to demanding love (to feel safe) without giving it, with the result that the other, if he or she loves us, will in time stop doing so.

It is very important to become fully aware of one’s emotional experiences, to realise how much fear we have of surrendering to love, but demanding it.

Recognising this fear is not easy, because it can mask itself behind a thousand ‘justifications’ such as malaise, disinterest in serious relationships, practical and logistical difficulties, tiredness, difficult times, etc.

If the discomfort generated by the fear of loving gets the upper hand, it is advisable to seek the support of a psychotherapist, in order to find, within an appropriate listening context, a space useful for overcoming relational fears and learning to let go, to give for the pleasure of giving and loving without expecting to receive.

Asking for help is the first step to start facing the fear of loving, since through psychotherapy one experiences a relationship at the basis of which there is trust and the possibility of relying on oneself; understanding the origin of wounds and learning how to heal them can allow us to rediscover how positive it can be to live better, to open (or reopen) to affective relationships, allowing oneself the luxury of risking to be happy.

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