What is relationship anxiety?
I don’t think any human being who’s attracted to fellow human beings can claim that they’ve never felt anxious in a relationship, but relationship anxiety takes things to a whole other level.
What is it, exactly?
It’s the direct result of feeling insecure in your relationship. You worry about all kinds of things that could negatively impact or end your relationship.
If you’ve had bad experiences in the past, your brain will have learned to respond to them in a certain way and expect patterns to repeat themselves.
You might live with constant levels of underlying anxiety about your relationship, or small, seemingly insignificant things might trigger waves of it. You doubt yourself and you doubt your partner’s feelings toward you.
If you think that what you’re experiencing might be relationship anxiety, these telltale signs should help you to identify if this is truly a problem for you.
1. You believe the end is nigh.
No matter how well your relationship is going, you can’t shift the nagging feeling that it’s all about to go a bit “Titanic” and hit an iceberg before sinking with you on board.
Even the most insignificant disagreement between you and your partner has your stomach churning with fear that your chances of a happily-ever-after have well and truly bitten the dust.
2. You’re jealous.
Jealousy is a pretty standard emotion, but no relationship can survive if it gets out of hand.
You showing signs of jealousy won’t necessarily mean that your partner will change their behavior, and it may well push them away. But if there’s one thing for sure, it’s that it will definitely make you miserable.
If you’ve been betrayed in the past, it’s no wonder that you get jealous, but it will definitely make you anxious.
3. You’re controlling.
Your anxiety means that you’re desperate to control your relationship to stop yourself from getting hurt. You feel that if you’ve got a handle on exactly what’s going on then everything will be okay.
4. You’re too accommodating.
It might sound counterintuitive, but one way in which you control things is by always going the extra mile to please your partner and be the person you think they want you to be.
That way, they can have no good reasons to bail on the relationship. After all, they get what they want every time, so what is there to complain about?
5. You’re reluctant to commit.
This one is all about self-preservation. While it might not seem all that logical, you may be reluctant to lower your protective walls and take steps toward a more serious relationship.
This might be because you’re scared that the relationship will end and you don’t want to risk getting hurt.
Perhaps you’ve been burned when you’ve committed to someone in the past, and this is feeding your anxiety now.
6. You question your compatibility.
Relating closely to your commitment phobia, you try to find reasons why you and your partner are simply not compatible.
Sometimes, the things you come up with are so small that they could easily be overcome, but you don’t see them that way. You see them as landmines just waiting to be stepped on.
(Of course, your anxiety may also be based on genuine differences that could prove too big to reconcile, such as beliefs around marriage or children or where you want to live in the long run. These anxieties are slightly different to the more general and vague ones this article mainly discusses.)
7. You get angry.
You’re constantly on edge, which means it’s easy for you to lose your temper when something happens that really triggers your anxiety. You’re always expecting something to go wrong, so when it does, it’s difficult not to explode.
Because you’re insecure in the relationship, however, after you’ve lost your temper, you probably worry that your outburst is going to change how they feel about you.
8. You ask a lot of questions.
You’re never content to accept an explanation. You ask question after question and analyze the answers, turning over their words in your head to try to find hidden meaning in them.
9. You don’t enjoy physical intimacy as much.
Your anxiety about the relationship makes it difficult for you to truly relax in the bedroom. If you’re a woman, you struggle to achieve satisfaction as often (if at all), and if you’re a man, you might struggle to perform in the first place.
Your desire for physical intimacy might dwindle because of these bedroom disappointments, and the intimacy in your relationship might suffer as a result.
10. You come across as cold.
Your relationship anxiety might mean that your partner thinks you’re cold, stand-offish, or distant. You’re defensive, and don’t like to show cracks in your armor in case they manage to penetrate through, and then hurt you.
11. Or you’re too clingy.
On the flip side, your relationship anxiety might mean you go entirely the other way. You might need constant physical and verbal affection and reassurances that they still love you, and haven’t changed their mind since they last said it 5 minutes ago.
12.You’re afraid that your partner wants to break up with you.
You find it hard to trust your partner, so you constantly think that they’re going to leave you. When they’re away, you think that they’re cheating on you. Even if they’re not having an affair, what’s stopping them from breaking your heart any moment now?
You drive yourself crazy with these thoughts and always assume that your partner doesn’t care about you enough to stay. Even when they tell you that they love you, you can’t believe them.
13. You overanalyze everything that they do and say.
There are probably no hidden messages in the way your partner behaves and in what they say. Yet you still analyze everything that they do and say until you find a hidden message. Searching for hidden meaning means that you don’t really trust your partner. You doubt their feelings for you, so you constantly search for proof of your doubts.
14. You think that you’re not good enough.
The reason you don’t believe that your partner loves you might be because you don’t consider yourself good enough to be loved. You don’t love yourself, so you don’t believe that anyone else could love you either. Your self-esteem issues are standing in the way of you experiencing love.
15. You need constant reassurance.
Your partner always has to reassure you that you’re lovable and that they care about you. You still find it hard to believe them even when they do. Maybe you sometimes wonder what they see in you. They try to explain that you’re an amazing person, but you just don’t see yourself that way. So, you doubt that it’s true and this won’t stop until you work on yourself and overcome your anxiety.
