Relationships and anxiety

[ss_worrier]

Hi! I'm a 21 year old guy, and it's a bit embarrasing to admit, but I'm currently in my first-ever real relationship. I've been with my girlfriend for a little more than one and a half years, and just a few months after we got together, my anxiety started to get really serious. I've come to realize that I've probably suffered from anxiety for many years without realizing it, and it was actually when I got intouch with my university councellor about a completely different matter that I admitted to myself that I have a serious problem.

The thing is that the main part of my anxiety concerns my girlfriend. I worry about other things as well, very much, but for the most part, the worries surround her and our relationship. I keep worrying about her breaking up with me, about not being good enough for her, about her previous boyfriends (probably because I hadn't been with anyone in this serious way before her), about our future, about whether we can stay together on a long-term-basis, et cetera. Basically I worry about every possible thing to worry about even remotely related to us. I think part of the issue is that I'm five years younger than her, which on a general level makes me feel "small". The strange thing is that she was the one who fell in love with me first and who initiated the relationship, and in the beginning, I just felt great about the whole thing and felt like the luckiest guy in the world having a wonderful older girl loving me. But after only a few weeks, the worries started.

So, much question to you is whether I'm the only one in the world with worrying so focused on this one issue. Is it uncommon for anxiety sufferers to worry more about one particular thing in this way, and specifically so much about a relationship? Is there something fundamentally wrong with our relationship that my anxiety is trying to tell me about, or is my anxiety just preventing me from feeling good about a very good thing?

Thanks for any replies on this. I registered on the forum today, and just reading about other people suffering from the same thing as I do has already helped.

[ThePhoenix]

Hey worrier,

Your not alone on the relationship anxiety, personally its not something I have struggled with but there have been a good few users who have. As for the focusing on one issue, well anxiety is awesome for that!

I am great at fixating on something to the point of obsession on occasion!

Its great you started talking to your counsellor, the best advice I can give you is to just keep doing that and RELAX! :) Stressing about your relationship wont change anything, I know thats nearly impossible to do and I am not great at taking that advice myself when I need to but in all honesty its the best thing you can do! Enjoy your time together and just go with the flow!

[ss_worrier]

Hi Phoenix! Thanks for the reply. It's very comforting to hear that I'm not alone in dealing with this issue. I do my best to try to relax, and I do think I've made some progress with it -- hey, only realizing you have a problem with anxiety is a great victory, I suppose. Anyway, it was actually helpful to have someone put it as simply as you did advicing me to just relax and enjoy our relationship, sometimes just getting a different perspective on things helps.

[jusroc]

hey dude,

sorry to hear about your relationship anxiety.
In the past, i have had this. This was during a very stressful relationship with my ex-wife.

She was very demanding, psychologically abusive, as well as her family and friends (who were even more abusive once they found out that I had an anxiety disorder. ass holes! welcome to the "noughties!" ass holes!).

Well, at the beginning I was very insecure as my relationship with her was my first really serious relationship for years and there were complications with religious aspects that caused additional stressors.
i was at this time quiet nieve and over sensitive. I worried about everything, and went out my way to please only to be exploited and abused. Our relationship was especailly difficult as it was a long distance relationship that had extreme restrictions imposed on it due to religious rules (My ex-wife was a fanatacical Jehovah Witness, although it didn't stop her sleeping with her favorite "Elders!" behind my back...).

My relationship pretty much ended when my brother died and my wife, whom I had given up everything for, in order to be with her, violently assaulted me while I was still in shock shorty after finding about my brothers death.

She then got herself put into a home for domestically abused wives even though it was her who had been psychologically and violently abusive.

She then spread vicious slander that made me sound like the abusive party and unfortunately because I live in a very small island, I got crap off every one. In fact, it has been 3 years since the incidents happened and I am still getting crap.

Anyway, after going through all this crap I have realized that being in a relationship isn't everything. And that there are things in life that are worth more. Especially if you are someone who values your time and your own space.

Now, I am not suggesting that you should break up with your girl friend. However, what I am saying is that having a girl friend isn't everything and there are advantages of every situation.

So, try and put this into perspective. If you stay with this girl friend then cool. Just try and remember that breaking up isn't the end of the world.
As for feeling good enough, don't worry. We are all human beings, born as we are born and if someone wants to spend their time with you, then cool. If not. Then cool too.

There are billions of people on this planet so there are more than just one person that will compatible for each individual. In fact. For men, finding partners is actually easier than for woman, as men have a better sell by date and often date younger women.

So, no problem. Just try not to worry about these things.
I am sure everything will be cool.
Getting a bit of reassurance from your girl friend is always helpful though.
However, try not and be too desperate and demanding. As this is not so good for you, as a person as it will wreak your head.

To be honest. Now that I have been split up from my ex-wife for over 3 years. i now know that I am miles happier and miles less anxious.

This is not to say that this will be the same for you, however, relationships generally are stressful. I guess you just need to find method for stress management or some type of cbt stategy to put your circumstances into perspective with relation to the big picture.

And always remember, there are always more than one compatible party.
And not being in a relationship isn't that bad. In my opinion, it is miles better as I am able to spend more time on making music and am free as a bird to do what i want to when i want to!

Otherwise, good luck. Hope you find a solution! chow!

[ss_worrier]

jusroc -- thanks for sharing that story. Sounds like you've been through some really rough things, I'm really happy for you that you've managed to sort of put them behind you the way it sounds like you have. I think you're touching upon a tricky issue for us worriers, 'cause in my experience, it's really difficult to distinguish the "real" and justified worries from the ones caused by the anxiety. The things you went through would bother anyone, not only people suffering from anxiety, to say the least. But I guess the difference lies in how we tend to handle issues and how we look at them. Your reminder that relationships aren't everything is really comforting, and I think that for me, to finally realize that would be a key to coping with my relationship-related anxiety.

If I'd be able to just not see the whole as something defining for my entire reality and everyday-life -- to be able to not make my entire world and mood constantly circle around it -- that would solve a lot of problems. The maing anxiety right now is about deciding whether we can stay together or not, she's five years older than me which is kind of a big deal in our age (I'm 21), at least to her, since she wants to plan for the future and be with me on a long-term-basis. My worry at the moment concerns whether I'm prepared to do that or not.

Since she's my first real girlfriend, I feel like I have no way of knowing what to do or how to decide whether I think that's possible or not. BUT what I do know is that I love her and that I want to be with her right now, and that so far in my life, I've never met anyone I've felt like this for. If I was anxiety free, I think that would be all that would matter, which would be the reasonable line of thought, I think.

But I have this huge worry that never quite goes away all throughout the day about realizing in a few years that I've made a mistake and then end up hurting her and leaving her alone at a time in her life when she will want to be settled down and planning for the future. But then again, that's a risk that would always have been there, regardless of age difference or the fact that I've never been in a serious relationship before. I'm still struggling to find a reasonable way of coping, but if I'd manage to realize what you're saying, that relationships aren't everything, I think that would help me a great deal. I guess these are things that a lot of people think about sometimes, but to me, it's really turned into something else, my whole life for the past few weeks has pretty much been dominated by constantly struggling with this, taking my mood down to the floor and putting me into an anxious state almost 24/7.

Ouch, I just realized that this whole reply-post ended up being about myself when I really only wanted to thank you for your advice. Felt really good to get all this off my chest though. Thanks again!