Do you have a guarded heart?  Do you have a wall around your heart that prohibits genuine intimacy, even with the people you love and feel closest to?

Take this quiz to find out:

• Do you get angry a lot with your mate, even over small things?
• Do you tend to be mistrusting, only to discover that your mistrust is largely groundless?
• Are you frequently sarcastic?
• Are having an affair, or do you have a history of affairs?
• Do you tend to focus on your mate’s shortcomings or bad traits more than his/her good traits?
• Do you berate your spouse for making mistakes, and do you use mistakes as leverage against him/her?
• Do you have the tendency of pushing away intimacy and closeness when it’s offered to you, but then wanting it when it’s not offered?
• Have you been accused by your partner—or by a previous partner—of being emotionally unavailable or remote?

• Are you insecure?
• Do you have a difficult time trusting?
• Do you tend to be emotionally hidden in your relationships, fearing that you’ll be discovered as somehow inadequate or fraudulent?
• Do you not have close friends other than your spouse or family?
• Do you have a fear of being controlled, of losing your identify or your “selfhood”?
• Do you have a fear of getting rejected, abandoned or betrayed in a relationship?
• Do you tend to put your mate in second or third position a lot?
• Are you very critical or judgmental?
• Do you take constructive criticism from your mate poorly?
• Do you have a strong fear of being negatively judged or criticized?
• Do you have a fear of being too vulnerable in a relationship?
• Has your mate ever described you as emotionally standoffish, armored or hard to be close to?
• Do you have a history of repeatedly getting involved with emotionally standoffish, disapproving or angry people?
• Do you tend to get mean, punitive or vindictive when you’re upset?
• Do you tend to give money or sex to show your love, instead of compassion, friendship or emotional closeness?
• Do you have a pattern of not emotionally risking a lot or of not giving your intimate relationships a whole lot of effort?
• Do you have a pattern of withdrawing or emotionally withholding yourself a lot?
• Do you tend to put work above all else?
• Do you drink too much, watch too much TV, worry too much or have an addiction to any substances, including food?
• Do you sometimes push your partner away because you don’t wish to be dependent or beholden?
• Do you have the vague sense that you repeatedly sabotage love?

If you answered “yes” to 10 or more of these questions, you are emotionally walled off.  If you answered “yes” to more than 15 of these questions, your wall is so thick and impenetrable that the chances of you having a close loving relationship are dramatically diminished.

Relationships die of emotional malnutrition. Make sure you are not being safe at the expense of being happy.