15 Traits of Insecure Men to Look Out For

Being in a relationship with an insecure man can be draining and painful. These relationships tend to be immediately intense and end in drawn-out heartache for both parties. Seeing the warning signs of a person who is insecure can help you to avoid committing to a relationship with someone who will cling to you and try to control you. These are all signs that a man is insecure. Use these to avoid getting involved with an insecure man. If you these sound familiar, like the man you are already with, consider your options. These behaviors are very common but are ultimately unhealthy. They lead to problems in relationships that might not be fixable.

An insecure man will always show a lot of signs of jealousy. This is one of the most common traits of insecurity. Even if you do not notice them right away, these signs are often there from the very beginning of a relationship.

A man may become angry when you spend time with male friends or if another man behaves a certain way around you. This may seem joking or sweet and protective at first but could be the first sign of a very serious issue. This jealousy may lead to a controlling relationship dynamic and a lot of unhappiness down the road. Jealousy can lead to an unwarranted lack of trust in a relationship. An insecure man will feel jealous and as a result not trust you, creating a cycle that will continue to get worse.

In relationships, it can seem innocuous when a partner wants to know where you are. This is normal to communicate your schedules to each other, especially if you live together. On the other hand, when a boyfriend always insists on knowing exactly where you are, this could be a serious problem.

If he needs always to check to see if you are where you said you would be this is a sign of a controlling and insecure partner. This characteristic may only show itself slightly at first, by simply calling to see where you are more often than not. If checking up on you starts to mean that your partner is asking to speak to people you are with to confirm your location or shows up where you say you are, this is an insecure man that you should leave immediately.

Privacy is still important in serious relationships. Just because you are in a committed and open relationship does not mean that your boyfriend can go through your texts, emails, and social media accounts. It can be tempting to want to see what a person you’re in a relationship with says to other people, but this is an important boundary that should not be crossed.

One insecurity is you might be talking negatively about your partner when he isn’t around or that you might be talking to another man may motivate this inappropriate behavior. Trust is integral to healthy relationships, and the need to go through your interactions with other people is a sign that there is not enough trust in your relationship. Often this trait, lack of trust, stems from insecurity in a partner. They do not believe that you tell them the truth when you talk and seek out answers themselves. They fear that if you have even a small amount of interest in anyone else that you will decide you do not love them anymore and leave them.

An inflated personality is an obvious characteristic of insecurity in a man. An insecure man will have to one-up anyone who is around him. When someone tells a story, he will have to tell one that is more exciting. He has to let everyone know that he is better, bigger, faster and stronger. Bragging is a way to try to establish dominance in a situation where an insecure man feels that he is being threatened. Often this feeling is entirely imagined because of internal feelings of inferiority. This feeling “small” comes out the opposite. Everything becomes inflated. Bragging can be anything from talking about places he has gone, people he has been with, things he does or can do, height, strength or anything you can imagine. Sometimes when he has run out of true things to brag about, he will bend the truth or flat out lie to try to maintain a facade of being the best in the room.

He will try to control everyone’s actions around him. Everything from people’s decisions to how people speak and dress. He will use as many manipulative maneuvers as he can to get everything to be just as he thinks is right.

He doesn’t understand that it is not his place to try to bend people to his will. Trying to push everyone into the roles he sees fit is part of this trait. He will do anything he can to get people to do what he wants. He is interested in making sure everything goes the way he is anticipating. If he feels like he is losing control of a situation, like a relationship, this behavior will become for intense and more frequent. This is an attempt to maintain a perceived feeling of power. His insecurity means that he needs to have definite control to remain comfortable in a relationship. The need to control is a common characteristic that comes out in many ways from an insecure partner.

Even when it is obvious that he is at fault, an insecure man will always try to blame someone else. He is unable to accept his downfalls and tries to make them someone else’s problem. To him, accepting blame means accepting defeat. His fragile ego cannot handle this kind of loss. He is desperately afraid of not being loved. This characteristic shows how self-interested he can be.

This trait is meant to try to maintain control when he feels like he is losing it. In a relationship, rather than admit fault, he will blame you. This keeps him in a perceived position of power. It will feel like you have done something wrong even when you know you were in the right. He will use these perceived wins as fuel in arguments. An insecure man will take any opportunity to use blame to manipulate you into doing what he wants. This will only work if you are unable to identify this behavior when it is happening.

An insecure man will do anything to make you believe he is right. He needs to be right to help defend himself from his insecurity. He will bend the truth to make himself seem right. He might even lie just to try to prove you wrong. It will be more important to him than you are wrong than the outcome of the argument. The truth is not what is important to him, just that you believe him. This is similar to why he wants to pass blame on everyone else. It keeps him in a position of power in a relationship. It is a roundabout way of trying to control you. He believes that you will leave him otherwise. The idea that you might see through his facade fuels the fear that you will not love him if you see him for himself.

In a relationship, he is so afraid you will leave him that he needs constant attention to believe you still love him. He will need to be constantly told that you still want him and need him. If he is not the center of attention even for a short time, he will start to feel insecure in a relationship. He will not be able to handle that you have other friends and needs that do not involve him. This characteristic may seem cute at first because he is incredibly interested in spending time with you but could spiral out of control as the relationship progresses. He may try to get the way of your career, your hobbies, your family or anything else that draws your attention away from him. His fear that something else will become more important to you than him will cause him to do things that will ultimately ruin your relationship. He may not be able to tell what he is doing or why. He will insist that it is you who is doing him wrong, by not paying enough attention to him. He will likely try to convince you that you do not care enough about him. This kind of attention seeking is usually so intense that it becomes unsustainable to be in a relationship with.

To make him feel better about himself, he will put others around him down. He will use insults and try whenever possible to make himself seem better than everyone else in the room. He might try bragging and try to one-up whoever seems to be leading the conversations. He will try to take the helm of the discussion whenever he can. Whoever tries to regain control of the conversation or butt in while he is speaking will always be the butt of the joke.

Any time he feels threatened, this will be one of his first lines of attack. He will try to shut down anyone who diverts attention away from him. He could go from loving and kind to angry and mean on a dime. In a relationship, if he feels that you are drifting from him, he may try to make you feel small by insulting you. Often this will come out as passive aggression so he can avoid being called out for this behavior.

He may put himself down to try to encourage those around him to compliment him. He needs this constant reinforcement to feel alright about himself. This trait might not be easy to spot at first but will become a crutch whenever he is feeling bad about himself. This characteristic will be obvious after an argument because he will need to feel sure that you still love and care for him. He will need you to tell him over and over again and still may not believe you. In a relationship, he may also compliment you to receive compliments in return. He could become angry if you do not reciprocate with as much intensity as he insists that he loves and adores you. He will perceive this as an intentional attempt to make him feel bad.

Boundaries are extremely challenging for insecure men. They think that when you try to distance yourself from them in a healthy way that it is because you do not care for them. You might want some alone time or choose not to share everything about yourself right away in a relationship. This is normal to leave space for yourself when you are with someone, but to an insecure man, this is a sign that you are not interested in them. They will want you to commit all of your time and energy to the relationship without leaving any for your own life. They may expect you to drop whatever you are doing to hang out with them or be on the phone.

When something goes wrong, an insecure man will be incredibly hard on himself. He could be doing this for several reasons. He might be entirely sincere. He already thinks so poorly of himself that anything he thinks that is proof of this crushes him. This could be part of the compliment fishing we talked about before. He wants to be told over and over again he’s good enough. If this happens after an argument, he may be trying to push you into backing down from whatever you may have been angry about. He is trying to invalidate a disagreement by making you feel bad for him. When you try to console him, he is hoping that the content of the discussion will be forgotten.

Any feedback will be taken as a criticism by an insecure man. He will think that even gentle; constructive feedback is an attack and proof that you do not love him. This characteristic is one that is meant to protect him from having to change. Changing means accepting that he has faults, and these faults are fuel for the low self-esteem fire that is burning in his head at all times. He might become angry or overly sad when you bring up issues with him that need to be resolved. He will try any method to avoid having a discussion. It may become impossible to talk to him about your relationship in a constructive way.

Your feelings in a relationship are challenging for an insecure partner to deal with. They desperately want to fix whatever is wrong, but often do not understand that they are unable to. They constantly worry when you are upset, that it is with them. Their self-interest in a relationship often clouds the reality that your life has its pieces that do not involve them. Their discomfort with your feelings will not be reciprocated in a relationship, though. They will try to fix you to make you stop showing feelings that they are uncomfortable with, but will expect you to deal with their feelings head-on.

He will always try to do too much. He will go overboard to show his affection for you. This will also come with the expectation that you will do the same for him. An insecure man will always seem to be trying too hard. Everything he does will seem to be over the top or sorely lack. He lives in a world of extremes. He is either trying to prove himself or wallowing in self-pity. This is one of the more obvious signs to see right away. Trying too hard can be normal at the beginning of relationships or early on in dating, but the extent will be the giveaway. What's more, is that this will continue through past the beginning of relationships and will likely be visible in platonic friendships as well. He will commit an immense amount of energy to being seen as he would like to be seen instead of being himself.

Make sure to look for these signs when you start to see someone. This will make it easier to identify a man who needs to spend time working on himself, maybe not one that you want to get involved in a relationship with. These signs are not only important in relationships. Friends can also exhibit many of these behaviors, making friendships with them difficult and dramatic. Save yourself a headache and be on the watch out for any of these signs!