Someone with anxiety can react to relationship stress with a fight-or-flight response as if the stress were a physical attack. Sometimes anxious thoughts motivate your partner to act in ways that stress you out and strain the relationship.
Anxiety Disorders and Co-Dependency in Relationships
Many individuals with anxiety disorders have an intense desire for closeness to their romantic partners depending on them regularly for support and reassurance, which often leads to overdependence and co-dependent behaviors.
Being in a committed relationship with someone who is dealing with anxiety isn't easy. Your partner's anxiety may bring up intense emotions, either from your past or about your current relationship. This is completely normal but may lead to unfavorable reactions toward your partner.
Anxiety can impact your relationships in a number of different ways depending on the symptoms that you are experiencing. For some, it might cause them to become overly dependent on their loved ones while others might isolate themselves for fear of embarrassment or becoming a burden.
Relationship anxiety doesn't necessarily mean that you're in an unhealthy relationship or your partner is a walking red flag. “Often it's caused by our own insecurities and past experiences,” says Klesman.
With patience, empathy, and open communication, dating someone with anxiety can be a fulfilling and loving experience. Remember to educate yourself about anxiety, offer support and encouragement, and avoid dismissiveness, criticism, and avoidance.
While it can be difficult at times to navigate a relationship with someone who has anxiety, putting in the effort to do so has many rewards. In fact, learning how to understand and more effectively communicate with someone with anxiety can deepen your bond, and make for a more fulfilling and more intimate relationship.
Some people with relationship anxiety go even further than looking for reasons to break up, and actually sabotage the relationship. This stems from a fear that “things won't work out anyway.” If this is the case, reflect on what is motivating you to do so.
Many people find that having an untreated anxiety disorder can affect their romantic life. People with a social anxiety disorder may constantly worry about how they are being judged by others, so they may avoid romantic relationships or dating in general due to the fear of embarrassment.
Supporting Your Partner
Here are some tips that might help: Learn about the anxiety disorder. Encourage treatment. Show positive reinforcement of healthy behavior, rather than criticizing irrational fear, avoidance, or rituals.
Someone with anxiety can react to relationship stress with a fight-or-flight response as if the stress were a physical attack. Sometimes anxious thoughts motivate your partner to act in ways that stress you out and strain the relationship.
Different sources of anxiety can be at the root of clingy or needy behavior. Developing new coping skills, such as meditation or cognitive behavioral techniques, can reduce this behavior. In some cases, there may be a real relationship problem to address, such as an affair or undiscussed mental health condition.
People with anxiety disorders feel a need to control everything around them in order to feel at peace. They may not trust anyone else to handle things the way they will.
It can come about in thoughts, feelings, and actions and affect many parts of a person's life—including their sex life. Anxious feelings can keep you from talking with your partner about your desires or prevent you from being confident about your body during sex.
Having trust issues as a singular issue isn't a mental illness. However, it can be indicative of an actual mental health condition, particularly: Anxiety disorders, especially PTSD. Borderline personality disorder (BPD)
Don't let anxiety cause selfishness
One of the biggest problems with anxiety is that it can cause a person to become pretty self-absorbed or even selfish. They can understandably get wrapped up in their own fears, worries, and stress and tend to forget about everything else and everyone else around them.
The real issue arises when natural worry evolves into debilitating stress or results in self-sabotage that negatively affects your relationship. Relationship anxiety can cause people to engage in behaviors that end up pushing their partner away.
It can be 100% normal to experience anxiety after a breakup. If you feel anxious after ending a relationship, you might try spending time alone to get back in touch with yourself or practice deep breathing to soothe your nervous system. If you struggle to sleep due to anxiety, consider guided sleep meditations.
Mental illness alone is no excuse to break up with someone. Loads of people with mental health conditions are able to enjoy long lasting, fulfilling, happy relationships. Just because someone is depressed, has anxiety, or [insert mental illness here], doesn't mean you should write them off.
Inviting the person to engage in another activity with you is very helpful. Distraction is a great coping skill for people with anxiety. It's also helpful to remember that simply spending time with someone who is feeling anxious can be a great comfort. It's supportive even if the anxiety doesn't go away.
Don't constantly talk about their anxiety
When you are with the person, or when you are talking to them over the phone, avoid constantly bringing up their anxiety or asking questions about it. Instead, keep the conversation flowing and let them talk about it if they want to.
Finding Love While Battling Anxiety Will Never Be Easy, But It Will Happen. Dating is a complicated game as it is without throwing anxiety into the mix. Anxiety is a pretty natural human response, and it's completely normal for people to experience it while getting to know someone.