Anxiety is making me question my relationship.

Mental health
1

Hi Everyone!

I am posting this to see whether or not anyone else has gone through this or similar and if anyone has any advice for me :slight_smile: I am sorry that this is long!

This all stems from back in December 2018. I went to my Christmas work party and had a great time celebrating with friends. The evening went on, everyone became more drunk and before I knew it, I had drunk way too much to the point where I don’t quite remember everything - Obviously I take full responsibility for this and have scared myself off of alcohol since! With that said, parts of the night were a little patchy and I have this memory of talking to someone at the party about my relationship. Me and my partner have a 9 year age gap between us, I am 27 and he is 36. I remember saying to my friend how much I love my partner but I also remember saying that I didn’t think he was as outgoing as me and maybe it was due to the age gap and because I was under the influence of alcohol, a lot of the rest of that conversation was a bit fuzzy.
So, this was the trigger… A few weeks after the party I spent most of my time trying to remember what else I had said and before I knew it, I started questioning everything. What if we’re not compatible? What if I said some really negative stuff about him and I don’t feel as strong about him as I once thought? 8 months later and I am still struggling with it. It’s something I have not been able to budge and now it has escalated somewhat. I am literally overthinking and analysing absolutely everything and have more or less convinced myself that my partner no longer wants to be with me and I am scared if I do not get this under control I am going to ruin my relationship. To give you an insight on the way my mind is analysing things at the moment…

  • I noticed back even before the party that there was a lack of sex life between us. I have spoken to my partner about this and we both agreed that most of the time it comes down to us both being lazy and we are comfortable (we live together). Also he works days and nights shifts so there is times when we are not together and also sometimes we are sleeping at opposite times. However when my anxiety kicks in and I start overthinking, I don’t see it that way. I see it as he is going off of me and doesn’t find me attractive anymore.

  • My partner also likes to stay up later than me at times as sometimes I have work the next day and he doesn’t due to shift work. Instead of me seeing it as him wanting chill for the evening, I see it as him being distant with me.

  • Sometimes after work we sit on the sofa and relax and we don’t have a lot to talk about because I guess we have spoken throughout the day and in the evening we are just unwinding from the working day. However my mind makes me question whether we are growing apart because we have nothing to talk about.

  • My partner is on his phone browsing a lot just like me. Due to lack of sex life and affection, it has even crossed my mind he is cheating on me. I went through a stage of being paranoid of when he was on his phone although he uses his phone around me quite comfortably and I know his phone password and everything. I know deep down I don’t have to worry about that but it’s my mind playing tricks.

  • We’ve been together for almost 5 years and we are engaged. I want to get married next year and when I mention it to him he seems very hesitant and not excited by the idea which recently, has heightened my anxiety further because now I don’t think he wants to get married. We had words over this yesterday and he has told me that he does really want to get married but he wants us to be financially stable before we commit to a date (which yes I know, is reasonable) and he also admitted to me that the idea of a speech scares him and he’s worried who he would have as his best man and ushers because he doesn’t have a lot of close friends. He’s reassured me that he does want to get married but the stress of the day just makes him really nervous right now and booking a date makes it all very real but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to marry me.

I have spoken to him about my whole anxiety thing and he tries to understand but he has never suffered with anxiety and it’s hard for him to get it which I also find quite tough. He doesn’t know I am obsessing over these things on a daily basis because I am scared it will push him away so I keep a lot of my thoughts to myself.

Our relationship was perfectly fine before the Christmas party, I had no worries at all.

It scares me how powerful anxiety can be and how it can take over your thoughts and make you question whether what you’re feeling or thinking is real or not.

Has anyone been through anything similar or have any coping advice for me? I have been in touch with my GP and I start CBT at the end of this month.

Thanks!

2

Hello Swan, I know what you mean about anxiety and your thoughts. Have you seen a doctor about this. I have been in therapy for years and yes it can affect your thoughts and cause worry. I see that in you over thinking what you said that night but the rest seems just like just normal thinking and concerns . As sad as it would be maybe something is off in your relationship. But then again maybe it’s not. As ling as your boy friend is supportive of you when you are having anxiety it’s ok. but you shouldn’t have to feel less or different because of it. Be open tell him your struggle lean on him but do get resources for therapy and be active in seeking treatment if you need it. I think you are being to hard on yourself for having had to much to drink and talking about your relationship. This happens to the best of people. Its ok nobody I’m sure is thinking anything bad about you or him or your relationship. if they are then they have no life have not lived enough to understand people in general and so on. If you live this man work on your sex life being more frequent . Ask him to take time to make it happen unless you two are good not having sex. You are going through some doubts just try to look for a nagging feeling inside of you in the back of your mind and once you find whats bothering you if anything you’ll know the reason for questioning of tour relationship. Then face it deal with it . If its sex then work on it , if its porn for him then find out. look at his browsing history but delete it after so he wont know you checked it. Or ask him or you get a copy of his phone records and see what hes been looking st on his phone. Dont be afraid to seek the truth. you can do this. Good luck hope there is no issues . Sometimes good men get addicted to porn or look at it. its tempting they can change and it doesnt mean they dont live their partners. but it is not right and does alot if damage. If he is pretty healthy he should be wanting sex pretty frequently at his age. And if he was having sex with you more often it wouldnt mean he isnt looking at porn. Feel confident in your guy before you marry him. You deserve 100 percent happiness, trust, support ,and SEX from your partner . I just wanted to touch base on that because you mentioned it. If he was cheating I would say break everything off. Relax chill and do a little investigating and see a dr for the over thinking .

3

Hi Tam, thanks for your reply.
I haven’t seen a doctor about this yet no, I am starting CBT at the end of this month. My doctor would be made aware of this but I self referred myself and have had to wait a little while for the appointments to start.
I agree with you, I do think I am being too hard on myself over the whole Christmas party thing. I don’t think anyone even remembers that conversation like I do and I have learned over the months how to accept that that night happened and I wasn’t in my normal frame of mind. The Christmas party night isn’t what is bothering me anymore, it’s everything else now!
My partner is supportive, he notices when I am deep in thought and always asks if I’m ok and wants me to tell him what’s wrong. The thing is, all days are different. One day I am worrying about our sex life and not necessarily the other stuff, another day I will be worrying about us growing apart because we don’t have anything to talk about and not necessarily the other stuff. My anxiety pinpoints just one area at a time so when I become overwhelmed by my thoughts and speak to my partner, it probably feels to him as though I am upset by one thing after another. He doesn’t really understand how anxiety can process thoughts so to him at times, I think he thinks I am giving him a hard time over several things and that’s what I worry about too I think… I don’t want to keep on as I don’t want to push him away or put a downer on things because our relationship has always been great. I know he loves me and I love him. I have always been one to bottle up my feelings which in this case, is not helpful. I think I try and bottle it up and block it out hoping it will just go away.
I honestly don’t think he is cheating. I don’t feel like I need to check his phone plus I wouldn’t want to intrude on his personal stuff, that would feel very wrong of me.
The lack of sex however does bother me. I have been thinking about this a little more and I don’t think I really initiate things as much as I could do either so I think I should be putting in a little more effort too. I guess because of all of the little doubts I am having I just want him to make the first move.