I have been in my current relationship for almost a year, and for the most part, it has been great. It is by far the most mature, healthy relationship I have been in. However, we have very different communication styles and needs in the relationship. He is an introvert and needs someone who is very independent; I am independent, but also need to feel connected to my partner to feel secure. As we are settling into things, I am getting extremely anxious if we don’t connect in some way daily or don’t have plans to see each other. I find that it’s driving \[probably\] very inaccurate assumptions about where we stand in my head, and I end up withdrawing to protect myself. This then causes me to not act like myself around him, and I struggle to keep conversations interesting when we do connect.
Everything else outside of this is basically perfect, so I’m scared that I’m going to ruin it because I can’t get out of my head. I also obsess over keeping conversations interesting between us and worry it will get boring if it’s not.
Anyone who has had similar experiences, please share how you have coped/overcome something like this. I am normally a very social person and generally do not have social anxiety around people I’m comfortable with, so this is eating at me and I can’t seem to snap out of it. Also, for background – my last relationship was very traumatic and caused me to have trust issues, so this anxiety is probably me anticipating something going wrong. Thanks for the help!
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I am in a relationship just over 7 years long so far, and we had a similar issue in the past. I felt lot of anxiety over a need of his that was different from mine. The solution, (and this is gonna sound like the same advice for every relationship issue ever) was to talk about it truthfully and find a compromise. Ask him how he feels about you checking in and talking to him a bit every day and doing a brief activity together. His answer may surprise you. Idk about him specifically, but I know often times when it comes to introverts, how much time they can handle spending with someone they are in love with is completely different to how much time they can spend around other people. So, he may not mind you needing to see him every day, at all. That being said, introverts definitely need _some_ regularly scheduled alone time.