Relationship Anxiety and Religion: 4 Ways Strict Religion Can Contribute to Anxiety in Relationships

What does strict, fundamental religion have to do with relationships?

For me, it had everything to do with how I chose partners, navigated relationships, and understood love.

I was raised in a fundamentalist Christian family that had LOTS to say about romantic relationships. These beliefs and "rules" were mostly fear-driven and led me to experience immense anxiety when I started dating my now husband.

In this article, we’re talking about how strict religion can influence the development of relationship anxiety.

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4 Ways Your Religious Background May Be Affecting Your Relationship

1. Black-and-white thinking

   In rigid religious cultures, there’s a lot of black-and-white thinking. The beliefs taught in these cultures tend to be extreme and leave little room for grey areas or the messiness of the human experience.

   We’re told what is right and what is wrong, good and bad, holy and sinful. We’re not taught to think for ourselves or to see nuance. (Of course, this isn’t everyone’s experience with religion, but most people who have experienced fundamentalist religious communities can relate.)

   The thing is… relationships are not black and white.

   There is a lot of grey area in navigating a relationship with another human. But when your mind has been programmed to see everything as cut and dry, all good or all good, this can cause immense anxiety when you encounter the inevitable imperfections of a relationship.

   You might begin to question and doubt your relationship if it doesn't look exactly how you were told it "should" look. You might feel triggered by conflict or uncertainty, because you never learned how to sit with the uncertainty and messiness of human relationships.

2. Differences of belief

   Strict religion often teaches that you cannot be with someone of a different religion or belief system. Anyone who is a "non-believer" is an outsider, and you couldn't possibly have a healthy relationship with someone who holds different spiritual beliefs.

   For me, when I started dating a "non-believer" (my now husband), I experienced intense anxiety for the first two years of our relationship. The experience of falling in love with someone who didn’t share my belief system and faith challenged all the beliefs that had been drilled into my mind from a young age.

   I constantly obsessed over the question… Is this the wrong relationship?

   This caused a lot of problems in our relationship — not because we had different beliefs, but because of the fear-based beliefs that were controlling me.

3. Lack of self-trust

   In rigid and controlling religions, you're not taught to trust yourself. You're taught to trust the higher power, god, the elders of the church, the sacred text, etc. You're taught to look outside of yourself for answers.

   In my upbringing, I was taught that my desires were evil. I was taught to avoid turning inward to my own inner truth.

   If you've never been taught how to make a decision for yourself and see what feels good for you, then it can bring up so much anxiety when you start encountering the natural uncertainties and questions of a relationship.

   You look outside yourself for the answers to what you "should" do or if you "should" be with this person. You begin to question if your choice in a partner is "right" or "wrong." And because you don't trust your own judgment, you constantly try to seek reassurance and certainty from friends, the internet, parents, etc., which leads to more confusion and anxiety.

4. Perfectionism

   in fundamentalist religions, there is such an emphasis on doing everything "right" and avoiding doing what is "wrong,” which promotes perfectionism. When a thought enters your mind that doubts the “rightness” of your relationship, the anxiety and fear latch on, trying to obsessively figure out the answer. Your mind becomes obsessed with getting it "right" and avoiding failure.

   But life and relationships are not about rights and wrongs. We can never have 100% certainty if something is "right." The majority of life is grey. Love is not about having certainty — It's simply about making the choice to be with someone you love.

   Strict religion takes away our ability to choose and our confidence in being able to create our own path. It makes us anxious about uncertainty and decision-making, especially when it comes to relationships.

   Relationships require vulnerability and risk, and when we don't have 100% certainty, the risk feels even scarier. But we can't have 100% certainty in life. We can't predict the future or how things will turn out. We can't know all things. Life is vulnerable, messy, and fragile. There is no one perfect person that you must find. So we must learn to sit with the unknowns of life and build a relationship with uncertainty. We must learn to move beyond black-and-white thinking and the fears of being "wrong." We must embrace our humanness.

Unlearn Rigidity and Embrace Your Humanness

If you have anxiety in your relationship because you were raised in a rigid religious culture, you might benefit from working with us. Healing Embodied specializes in helping people who experience relationship anxiety, and I know from personal experience what it takes to overcome the anxiety that comes from fundamentalist religion.

To work with us, schedule a free clarity call, or check out our courses and programs.