That lands hard. I want to sit with that for a second, because what you just described is one of the most painful things that can happen in a relationship. The place where you were most honest, most open, most vulnerable gets used as ammunition. That’s a profound violation of trust.
When you share an insecurity with someone you love, you’re doing something incredibly brave. You’re reaching your hand out from the bottom of the well, saying “here is the most tender, scared part of me.” And when that gets weaponized, something in your nervous system learns a very specific lesson: opening up is dangerous. That lesson, once learned, is very hard to unlearn.
I want to offer you two things here, and I need to be clear that neither excuses what’s happening. Because it’s not okay.
First, when someone reaches for your insecurities in a fight, they’re not in their primary emotion. They’re deep in reactive, secondary territory. They’re swinging a weapon because they feel cornered or scared or like a failure themselves. It doesn’t make it acceptable, but it tells you something about what’s happening underneath.
Second, and more important for you right now: what’s happening is a direct violation of emotional safety. Your innermost wounds, your insecurities, the youngest parts of you deserve to be witnessed, not weaponized. Your partner’s job isn’t to fix your insecurities, but it is absolutely their job not to exploit them.
Every time they do this, they’re not just hurting you in the moment. They’re teaching the most vulnerable part of you to go back underground, to put the wall back up, to stop reaching out. And here’s the brutal truth about where that leads: you stop being honest. You start managing what you share. The relationship slowly hollows out.
You might still be together on the outside, but you’re both performing safety rather than feeling it. That’s a very lonely place to live.
So the question becomes: has your partner ever genuinely understood the impact of what they’re doing? Not been accused of it or attacked for it, but truly grasped that when they do this, they’re not just winning an argument? They’re chipping away at the foundation of your safety in this relationship.
That conversation needs to happen from a calm, undefended place. Not “you always use my insecurities against me,” which triggers defenses immediately. But something closer to: “When you bring up my insecurities in a fight, I shut down completely. I stop trusting you with the real me. And I don’t want that for us.”
That’s primary emotion. That’s the soft underbelly. And it’s much harder to weaponize someone’s sadness than their accusations.
Where Does Your Relationship Stand?
Which pattern is running your relationship?
Take the free three minute quiz and meet the creature behind the cycle you keep getting stuck in.
Take the free Empathi Wisdom Score assessment. In 5 minutes, get a personalized snapshot of your relationship patterns and what to do about them. Take the free attachment style quiz to learn more.
Figs is a licensed marriage and family therapist with 16+ years of experience working with couples. He’s the co-founder of Empathi, host of the “Come Here to Me” podcast, and author of an upcoming book on relationships and the systems that shape how we love.
Read more: Emotional Safety in Relationships: What It Means and How to Build It
Explore More Topics
Keep Reading
Every couple has a pattern they cannot see. Find yours.
In love, each of you is a Relentless or a Reluctant, which makes you one of three kinds of couple: Relentless and Reluctant, two Relentless, or two Reluctant. The free quiz reveals your creatures and the cycle they fall into together. About three minutes.
No signup needed to start.
The Relentless
The Reluctant
