Shawn Mendes is learning how to "Treat You Better."
The singer revealed he is afraid of being the bad guy in his relationship with Camila Cabello, after the pair recently had an argument.
As he recalled on the Man Enough podcast, "I raised my voice at her and she was like, ‘I don't like it when you raise your voice. Why did you raise your voice?' And I got so defensive."
Shawn went on, "I was like, ‘I wasn't raising my voice at you!' And I did raise my voice at her. And I felt her shrink and I felt me grow and I was like, ‘Oh god, this is the worst.' I'm so terrified of being evil. I'm so scared to be bad. I don't want to be bad."
The couple then "had to get in this massive conversation" about this deep-rooted fear, because he didn't want to be perceived negatively.
"Maybe there even is bad inside of me, and I have to just accept that," he admitted on the podcast. "And that other part of me, he's just got to be here and we've just got to work together until eventually he gets worked in all of the trauma and all of the kinks get rubbed out of him and he's OK. But I can't avoid the fact that there's a little bit of darkness inside of me and letting that darkness kind of be present is a horrible feeling."
After he opened up to Camila, she comforted him. This taught Shawn yet another lesson, as he realized that when you're "being vulnerable" after a fight, you're really "just defending yourself even better."
"I made it about my evil and my fear, and she comforted me," he reflected. "And then it took me like 20 minutes of us separately reading our books to be able to come back to her and be like, ‘God, that was a whole thing and I'm really sorry.'"
Clearly, love has a learning curve and they're trying to find their harmony.
Last week, the Canadian artist shared a different side of their relationship when he posted a silly video with his "Señorita" collaborator, writing on Instagram, "This is the type of content you signed up for."
Of course, fans haven't forgotten about their foot content from back in February. Shawn celebrated Valentine's Day with a picture of himself kissing her toes. "I kiss your foot cuz I love you @camila_cabello," he captioned it.
They reportedly met while performing on Austin Mahone's 2014 tour. E! News reported they were dating the following year, though stars didn't confirm their romance until 2019.