My (28F) fiance (28M) has severe anxiety and has been dealing with it since he was an early teen. He never told anyone growing up and didn’t see help for it until college. In college he didn’t like his first therapist and determined from that therapy wasn’t helpful and it was hopeless to try.
Fast foward, we met when he was 24 and he opened up to me about the anxiety about 6 months into our relationship. He has his ups and downs, but for the most part it seemed like he was doing better the last year or so since he’s been on medication. He has massive social anxiety and dreads the ideas of going to weddings and other large group social events. I on the other hand, am very outgoing, and we have a million weddings this year for all our friends that I love attending thinking about our special day coming up. The thing is, you would never be able to tell if you didn’t know. He appears outgoing, is social in groups, plays games at parties, introduces himself to new people. All our close friends and family would have no idea he is struggling inside.
He told me yesterday that things have been particularly bad lately and the thought of “real adulthood” aka us getting married next year and looking to the future of buying a house and starting a familly is terrifying to him. When he said that I empathised with him, but also felt extremely hurt. It is hard to hear that the person you are looking forward to spending your life with isn’t looking forward to the future that you are so excited for. I think he saw the look on my face because he said it doesn’t have anything to do with you I’m excited for life with you, but internally I’m not looking forward to these new anxieties. We continued to discuss how he’s been feeling and he made a comment that he doesn’t enjoy his life, and he feels like most of the time he is “surviving and not thriving.” That also stung. I thought we were so happy, we have a dog we love, we both like our jobs, we have a great friend group and great family, and we have so much fun together and truly love eachother.
I cried all night, privately, as not to hurt his feelings. I don’t want him to feel like he can’t tell me these feelings he’s having, but it breaks my heart to hear how much he is suffering on a daily basis. Now I’ve been upset the whole day unable to sleep or work thinking about how the person I’m going to marry next year isn’t excited for the future. I know he says it doesn’t have to do with me, but I can’t help but feel hurt that he doesn’t enjoy daily life when I’m the person he spends that daily life with.
My mom is a therapist and I have my Masters in psychology, so I know that anxiety is internalized and that it may have absolutely nothing to do with me. I’ve tried to get him into talk therapy and he is slowly entertaining the idea of it, but is a little hesitant because of finances and worrying it wont’ work. I don’t know the best way to support him. I listen attentively, I offer support, love, and attempted understanding the best I can with no judgement or unsolicited advice. But I can’t shake this hurt feeling thinking about how can he truly love me if he doesn’t love the daily life we have together?
I contacted some therapists to seek both individual therapy for myself and him, as well as couples counseling to work on how I can best support him. But I’m lost. Just here to vent it out so I don’t bother him with these thoughts and make things worse. Do I share these hurt feelings with him or will it just make it worse?
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Tl;dr: I don’t know how to support the love of my life with anxiety while protecting my own feelings.
2 comments
It sounds like you have a handle of the situation and steps for working towards it. My only concern is that he doesn’t seem proactive in setting up his own appointments and working towards feeling better. Therapy won’t work unless the person is willing and open to change their thoughts. It takes determination as well, reading self-help books and actively practicing outside of therapy.
You’ve done your best in terms of being understanding, open, non-judgmental, etc.
So why can’t you trust him to be the same? You can also express your feelings.
He has an anxiety disorder. That sucks for him. If I could delete my anxiety disorder from my mind, I would. It blows. And good for him for identifying something that triggers an anxiety response. The step he’s missing is following better thought paths. Instead of identifying these triggers (marriage/house/baby) and using tools to address them without anxiety getting in the way, he’s just dumping it on you. That’s not fair.
If the kind of life you want is a reasonable life and he’s not doing what he can to take part in that life, he’s got some work to do.