Dr. Don Wood explains why silence from your partner triggers anxiety: your brain hates uncertainty, so it assumes the worst. That reaction usually comes from past betrayal or dishonesty, not from anything your current partner actually did.
Chapters
Do you feel anxious when your partner has not messaged you back? Sometimes when a partner doesn't get a text back from their partner and they start to get anxious. Where is that coming from? That's coming from a previous experience. If you had somebody maybe be unfaithful to you in your relationship, could have even been high school relationship, or it could have been any kind of relationship where somebody was not honest with you and then something as simple as a text not coming through so starts to bring in doubt. The number one fear for the human mind is uncertainty. Our minds do not like uncertainty. So not getting a text may be interpreted through your mind and through your experiences as something's wrong. Why are they not texting me? They maybe don't want me to know what they're doing because they're doing something wrong. So that's where your mind would go and start to get anxious. Or your partner's mind would start to go and get anxious. It's coming from a previous experience, an experience where they got hurt before and now not getting a text is just a sign that something happening again.