The wall we build to keep love out will also keep fear in. Most of us have early and recent histories of danger and abandonment associated with our giving and receiving of love. We may have erected walls to keep ourselves safe, walls that also keep us from being loved. The fear of being loved can be rationalized as the fear of rejection or engulfment. Actually, very profound and unhealed wounds in our psyches luck behind our fears of closeness. Acceptance and love from someone toward us involve an engaged focus on us that may be terrifying. Without a history of safety in being loved, we many never have learned how to receive such affection-bearing attention…We fear love when we run from commitment, refuse to state that we want to be loved, refuse to hear it said to us, refuse to receive it. David Richo

It is very difficult to admit to oneself or others that we fear love, commitment, or deeper intimacy with others...but...if one has been wounded, and we all have to various degrees than it stands to reason that we have or continue to put up walls to protect ourselves from getting hurt again. While it may be understandable and I suppose needed in some cases to put walls between ourselves and others to protect us from further hurt, to "continue" to do so with our partners on a regular basis seems counterproductive in the long run. I think it is also important to explore and consider that the level of fear that triggers us to build walls between us and our loved ones may be, in part, the projection of past wounds. This is important to consider because if we want to mindful about the present we need to be mindful about "how" the past may be effecting the present. On a personal note...Abandonment, neglect, and rejection and the fear associated with these ghosts haunt my past and thus effect my present. These ghosts have wreaked havoc for years on my ability to feel comfortable accepting love from others, asking what I need or want in a relationship, avoiding conflict,almost at all cost, appeasing and deferring to others, putting up with emotional abuse, and a host of other problems which are too many to name. The nature of all relationships is a dance but if one or both partners are afraid to dance than maybe it is time to both explore the source of the fear and search for ways to nurture ourselves when the ghosts of our past come to haunt us in the present.