Shelley Lewin is a personal and professional relationship development specialist on a mission to elevate the quality of all relationships—both at home and in the workplace. She is the founder and lead coach of The Relationship Architect Coaching and Education. As the author of “Uncomplicated Love,” Shelley is dedicated to ‘uncomplicating’ relationships by empowering growth-minded individuals to build thriving connections. Her expertise, which includes working with Fortune 100 executives and conscious couples, has been featured in prominent media outlets across print, digital, TV, and radio.
This anxiety shows up as feeling overwhelmed by your responsibilities while resenting your partner for not sharing the load. You may have difficulty relaxing or allowing for rest and enjoyment until your to-do list is completed. You likely have standards for how you want things to be done, and struggle to let go of how they get done, which leads to feeling you must do it yourself. You likely resent your partner, while they feel criticized and not trusted. When you live with persistent anxiety, it affects more than just how you feel on the inside.
This desire for control can manifest in behaviors like monitoring your partner’s activities or making excessive demands, which can create tension and strain. This type of anxiety often stems from past experiences or personal insecurities, which may have led you to have concerns about trust and commitment. The good news is that by identifying the signs, implementing strategies, and exploring Couples Therapy, you could create a more balanced and fulfilling relationship. Work with a BetterUp Coach to manage your relationship anxiety and foster stronger, more resilient interpersonal relationships. While it’s normal to experience some anxiety in a relationship, true relationship anxiety often comes with negative consequences. It may cause you to end the relationship prematurely out of fear that the other person will abandon you.
She suggests walking your dog, meditating, taking a bath, journaling, or any other self-care activity you resonate with that will help boost confidence. “Doing the self-care work will help with controlling your impulses to seek validation. You’ll build a stronger sense of self and anxiety decreases,” she explains. Anxiety often looks like worrying about the health of your relationship. That worry can grow into harmful stress as you imagine all the ways your relationship can fall apart, says Sommerfeldt, that keep you from being present. Doubt may lead to your checking up on your partner more than you have normally would have, snooping through their things, and distrusting them even when they haven’t given you a reason to do so. Once your partner catches on to your suspicion, they’ll likely grow resentful or frustrated at having to prove themselves again and again.
Relationship Anxiety Vs Dating Someone With Anxiety
“Prior research found both negative and non-significant associations between social anxiety and relationship satisfaction,” say the researchers. “Results of the present study show a stable and negative correlation between social anxiety and relationship satisfaction that mirrors the results of some past research.” The researchers found that both social anxiety and depression were indicative of lower relationship satisfaction, social support, and dyadic trust. Having your partner join a session or two of therapy with you can help them understand your experience and how to best support you.
If your household was an unstable one, for example, you might have grown up feeling unsure in your relationships, worried your partner will abandon, reject or hurt you, says Sommerfeldt. No matter how long you’ve been with your partner, anxiety can creep in at any point in the relationship. Feeling unsure about your relationship is a totally normal thing (usually).
Relationship Anxiety Vs Separation Anxiety Disorder
Identifying what’s behind your anxiety can take time and dedicated self-exploration since there isn’t a single clear cause. You might even have a hard time identifying potential causes on your own. But it’s more likely that they have sweaty hands or just really love that living room set. This anxiety can become problematic when you adjust your behavior in order to secure their continued affection. Lisa Firestone, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist, an author, and the Director of Research and Education for the Glendon Association. For tips on how to help your partner pick the right type of therapy, check out this guide from the Anxiety and Depression Association of America.
While all relationship dynamics are different, being honest about your feelings, and letting your partner open up to you, enables both parties to understand and support each other better, and overcome conflict. Identifying what is driving your anxiety is the first step to overcoming it. Depending on the root cause, effective treatments include self-care and self-soothing techniques, improving communication with your partner, therapy, or medication.
- Her expertise, which includes working with Fortune 100 executives and conscious couples, has been featured in prominent media outlets across print, digital, TV, and radio.
- This need could stem from insecurities or past experiences that lead you to doubt the stability of your relationship.
- When the weight of relationship anxiety becomes too heavy to carry alone, professional support can offer a path forward.
- Seeking professional guidance can provide insights, tools, and strategies to implement in the relationship that can help enable growth and healing.
What Is Relationship Anxiety?
Relationship anxiety is a term psychiatrists, counselors, or doctors may use to describe when you or a partner have persistent fears, worries, or doubts about your relationship. You can work on relationship anxiety by working on skills like mindfulness, uncertainty tolerance, and open communication. CBT teaches us how to recognize and challenge negative thoughts, understand how our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors influence each other, and choose more helpful behaviors in the future.
Do you find yourself thinking about the worst-case scenario all the time? Wondering things like, “Does my partner love me as much as I do?” is a clear sign of overthinking and looking way too much into your partner’s words and body language. Overthinking the security of your relationship can cause you to act out or even feel jealous of your partner’s relationships with other people. “It’s when someone experiences doubts, worries, and second-guesses their relationship or partner,” says Sommerfeldt. You might catch yourself stewing over whether your partner is still in love with you, whether they’ll find someone they love more than you, or insecure about whether they https://catherinepass.wordpress.com/2026/03/20/7-mistakes-to-avoid-wingtalks-review/ still find you attractive. The Calm app puts the tools to feel better in your back pocket, with personalized content to manage stress and anxiety, get better sleep, and feel more present in your life.
Journaling is proven to help reduce symptoms of anxiety by helping with emotional regulation. This can help you know yourself better and calmly gather your thoughts before talking with your partner. Whatever the case may be, here are a few coping strategies you can try to help you overcome relationship anxiety. Attachment styles are formed during youth and teach you what to expect from those who love you. If your example of love and how you deserve to be loved is insecure during childhood, then how you expect to be loved as an adult will typically mirror that. When you’re anxious in romance, it’s usually because you didn’t receive stable or consistent affection growing up which manifested into worry that the people who claim to love you will withdraw their affection.
So when you’re in a tense relationship and you feel tense all the time, it’s not uncommon to show symptoms of anxiety not only in your relationship but out of it as well. Knowing our attachment style is beneficial because it can help us to realize ways we may be recreating a dynamic from our past. It can help us to choose better partners and form healthier relationships, which can actually, in turn, change our attachment style. Finally, it can make us more aware of how our feelings of insecurity may be misplaced, based on something old as opposed to our current situation. For example, someone with ROCD might obsess over the fear that their partner will leave them, leading them to repeatedly seeking reassurance. Research has shown that being a non-anxious partner in a relationship with an anxious individual can be challenging.
