When You Are Overly Sensitive To Your Partner’s Moods

ByJennifer Nurick
When You Are Overly Sensitive To Your Partner’s Moods You might be overly sensitive to your partner’s moods if you grew up in an emotionally unstable environment. You might feel anxious when you know they have had a hard day You might feel a compulsion to make their perceived pain go away You might wonder if they are feeling the way they are because of something you did When they change their expression, you wonder what YOU did If they pull away for any reason, you feel anxious and assume it is about you In all of these cases, your attention is not with YOU. It is with THEM. How would it feel to re-focus on caring for YOU in that moment of anxiety?


If you grew up in an emotionally unstable environment, you would have learned to watch for any little thing that might set them off. You learn to do things perfectly to avoid being shouted at or punished. You learn to watch facial expressions and subtle changes in the tone of voice. 

We learn these as children to stay safe. To stay safe, we became vigilant. 

As adults, there is still this little child within, part of our subconscious, terrified of being abandoned or hurt again. So the little child within will keep watch. Will be vigilant. Even when everything is safe, they will be keeping watch.

This is why as an adult, you might be overly sensitive to your partner’s moods. You might find yourself:

  • Assuming it is something that you did
  • Wanting to change their mood
  • Performing to make them happy
  • Feeling flooded with anxiety

These are some of the impacts of an insecure attachment style. Attachment styles are not a life sentence. They can be changed with time and focus. I teach you HOW in the Relationship Cycle Breakers course. It is a six week deep dive into healing unhelpful relationship patterns. To find out more click here

If attachment anxiety resonates with you, let me know in the comments.

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Jennifer Nurick is a Master's-qualified Clinical Psychotherapist, attachment and trauma therapist and couples therapist with over 20 years in private practice. She helps adults and couples heal anxious and avoidant attachment, childhood trauma and recurring relationship patterns, drawing on IFS, EMDR and Emotionally Focused Therapy. Jennifer is the author of Heal Your Anxious Attachment (New Harbinger), host of the Psychotherapy Central Podcast and founder of Psychotherapy Central.

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