I’m a 26F with hectic relationship anxiety. My boyfriend (27) is wonderful and I’m in an extremely healthy relationship so these feelings are confusing to me. I know this has probably been posted countless times but I feel like writing my thoughts, whether I get advice or not, will really help me.
So for context about my past, I’ve had two (one not so serious) extremely toxic relationships. I’ve never been cheated on but I was treated horribly in both relationships in different ways, one where I was subjected to constant verbal abuse / taunting, with the other (about 4 years in length and my most recent) more a mixture of verbal and emotional abuse. I have an emotionally absent father who is a verbally abusive alcoholic and this presented in phases – a cycle of a few months of him being ok followed by a few months of verbal abuse – not sure if relevant but could be.
My current partner is incredible to me. Extremely patient and understanding of my need for reassurance and the door for communication is always open if I need to express my concerns or ask him about a situation for some reassurance because I tend to excessively overthink. (I also have ADHD which presents heavily with OCD tendencies that cause intrusive and obsessive thoughts & overthinking). I find I fixate on the most minute details or change in my partners energy and behaviour and convince myself there’s something going on. It’s almost as though I’m looking for clues and answers that don’t exist and I need those clues in order to validate my unnecessary overthinking so I don’t feel crazy about my thoughts.
I tend to push my partner away and want alone time when this happens and he picks up on my change in energy – I don’t want to sabotage my relationship. I also have an extremely difficult time differentiating between intuition and anxiety. I convince myself my anxiety is my intuition and by ignoring it I’m remaining in a situation where betrayal could be occurring. Then I get extremely overwhelmed and depressed.
I’m great at analysing my negative thought patterns and often try to approach this by telling myself without proof I shouldjust assume there’s nothing happening. It’s far easier and less crippling to enforce this mindset as opposed to expecting the worst to be happening. However just when I think I’ve put these feelings aside I get triggered by something else and will fixate on that and spiral again.
In terms of my past I think perhaps it’s coming from a place of feeling like I’m not good enough, or enough at all, and possibly a fear of abandonment. It could also be that my brain isn’t used to being treated so well by my partner leaving me with thoughts that it’s ‘too good to be true’ etc. due to previous poor treatment in past relationships.
I don’t want to have to rely on my partners reassurance to pull me out of these ruts I find myself in. I can only imagine it must be incredibly frustrating and exhausting to feel as though your partner doesn’t trust you and if the roles were reversed I know I’d feel hurt and annoyed that my partner doesn’t believe in my loyalty.
As I write this it seems obvious what I need to do, but I think I’d take comfort in hearing from people who have experienced similar feelings and how they changed their mindset.
Thanks for reading if you made it the whole way
Edit: my partner is aware of my fears as I’ve expressed my anxiety and obsessive thoughts to him / that it’s less an issue with HIM and more an issue with trusting a partner in a relationship in general
*** TLDR; I’m constantly in fear my partner is cheating on me and fixate on their tiniest behaviours/actions or shift in their energy which leads me to feel adamant there is something happening behind my back. ****
3 comments
You could REALLY benefit from therapy. It gets thrown around a lot, but you are dealing with a LOT of emotional trauma and it’s affecting both you, your partner, and your relationship.
No amount of reassurance from anyone is going to stop you from having those anxieties, cause it’s much deeper than that, which you already know. How’s, a therapist can help you navigate that and help you come up with ways to address them.
Look up CODA, codependent anonymous meetings, there’s like a thousand of them a week, free, online. Probably would be a big help in just reframing your state of mind and spending time with people that can relate to how you feel
Are you in the US? I found my current therapist on a site called Open Path that offers free or reduced-cost slots for low-income clients.
I have these issues hardcore (I’ve been cheated on in every relationship unfortunately) and am also with a great partner, and therapy helps a lot. In the meantime, I also recommend listening to an audiobook called Healing Your Attachment Wounds to start working on processing your childhood trauma.
And lastly, I know that telling yourself your issues aren’t real or that you’re being crazy seems like it helps diminish the anxiety, but it actually does the opposite and is probably making you spiral more! Try validating your feelings (“it makes sense these fears are coming up based on what I’ve been through”) while still challenging the belief itself (“but I know this is an anxious thought and my partner cares about me”) and then do something to care for yourself like eat, exercise, drink some water, deep breathing, etc. This kind of anxiety sucks but attachment issues are fixable!