He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not
By Erinn Williams, LCPC
Last week I wrote about how happy couples edit. I talked about this concept as it applies to people who want to spew every last complaint about their partner to their partner in the name of intimacy. The concept of editing also applies when it comes to people who experience anxiety about the state of their relationship. Let’s explore this further.
If you’ve ever found yourself feeling overly concerned about the strength of your relationship, worrying about how much your partner loves you, or feeling on edge that you are not enough for your partner, then you might have relationship anxiety. This fairly common experience can be tricky to pick apart. It is often difficult to determine if your concerns are simply stories you’re blowing up in your own mind or actually based on actions your partner has taken. When it goes unchecked, this anxiety has the capacity to wreak havoc on even the best suited pairs.
Relationship anxiety usually presents itself in a couple different ways. Generally, it is the experience of being preoccupied with the state of the relationship. When you sense that your partner is displeased with you or something is “off” in the relationship, the anxiety worsens. When anyone feels anxiety or fear, the natural response is fight or flight and relationship anxiety is no different.
The fight response doesn’t necessarily mean arguing with your partner, but more so that you will fight to keep your relationship. You may find yourself incessantly calling or texting your partner to repair an argument. “Chasing” your partner when they are trying to get healthy space is also common because space feels like a threat to the security of the relationship. You may also bring up every single concern that crosses their mind such as “Why do you love me?” “Are you mad at me?” “Is everything alright?”
On the other hand you may experience a flight response. For example, after not getting a text back from your partner for several hours you may internally determine that the relationship isn’t worth it, that you don’t like them anyway, and that you will ultimately begin to distance yourself and withdraw from the relationship.
Though this type of anxiety gets a bad rap, it’s not all bad. It is helpful in that it guarantees that someone is looking out for the relationship and has a pulse on how it is functioning. A partner with relationship anxiety is highly attuned (though at times perhaps too attuned) to the health of the relationship. It is only when the anxiety is not carefully dealt with that it becomes a problem.
So how do you deal with this type of anxiety? The first step is to try to date and partner/marry people who have a relaxed posture to love and connection. What this means is that you’ll want to find a partner who enjoys being in relationships rather than finds them scary and threatening. If you date or are in a relationship with someone who runs from commitment, this will only exacerbate the anxiety and create a chasing dynamic (the more they run away from commitment, the more you pursue them).
It is important to check the facts of each situation where your anxiety rears its head. To go back to the example of not receiving a text back for several hours, your anxiety might jump to conclusions: they are mad at me, I’m not important to them, they are with someone else right now, they’re cheating on me. Recognize these thoughts as assumptions or interpretations, not facts. Then, list the facts of the situation. If the facts indicate that something is truly off or wrong, then check in with your partner. If there are no facts to support the assumptions in your mind, try to manage your anxiety.
It is okay to ask for reassurance from your partner, but don’t overdo it. We all are susceptible to feeling insecure at times and asking your partner to reassure you that they love and care about you can be really effective in decreasing your worry about the relationship. However, don’t make this your go-to strategy every time you feel a spark of insecurity. This will lead to your partner’s burnout (“I’ve told you a million times I love you, why don’t you believe me?”) and will likely become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Ultimately, if managing your anxiety rather than acting on it is a tall order, therapy can help. You can begin to unpack where these fears originate and help you build your arsenal of coping strategies. The goal is to gain mastery over the art of knowing when to problem solve because the relationship is truly at risk, when to ask for reassurance because you’re feeling insecure, and when to sit with the fear and anxiety because it’s not based on the facts.