Living with anxiety can be difficult. It can affect our work life balance, our moods, our goals, and our relationships. Maintaining healthy communication with your partner in the face of your anxiety is key to nurturing intimacy and growing together.

Anxiety affects our bodies physically. Higher cortisol levels will disrupt your body’s processes and anxiety can cause increased heart rate, panic attacks, muscle tension, and trouble sleeping. But anxiety can also influence your emotions, which will affect your partner as well. Emotional signs of anxiety can include:

• Worrying about the worse-case scenario

• Feelings of dread

• Hypervigilance

• Irritability

You may end up obsessing over questions that can sabotage your relationship. These can include:

• What if she doesn’t love me as much as I love her?

• What if they’re cheating on me?

• What if we break up?

• What if something terrible happens to them?

How Anxiety Affects Relationships

Avoidance

Men tend to shy away from talking openly about their feelings. They’re less likely to seek help. When anxiety leads to shutting down, emotional coldness, edginess, and a lack of empathy, the negative energy begins to sabotage the relationship.

Your partner may feel that they’re not being heard, taken care of, or wanted. When you don’t speak to them honestly about the fact that you’re experiencing anxiety, they might be left confused and hurt.

Co-dependance

On the opposite of end of the spectrum, those with anxiety can develop unhealthy co-dependent behaviors with their partner. Being overly reliant on your partner to take care of your emotions can kill desire.

This doom-and-gloom overthinking can be exhausting for your partner. It might also make them feel like there’s no room for their own emotions in your relationship.

Tips for Managing Your Anxiety in Relationships

Be vulnerable

It can be hard for men to talk openly about their feelings. But it’s important to be honest and vulnerable with your partner. Let them know what you’re going through instead of bottling them up.

Give them the space to be there for you. But be careful: asking for reassurance too often might exhaust your partner. Neediness from one party can be frustrating and tiresome. Try to strike a balance between being open and not voicing every doubt that creeps in.

Have hard conversations

Similarly, don’t avoid the difficult conversations that will inevitably come up. Part of being in a relationship is tackling hard or stressful scenarios. Don’t withdraw and bottle up your emotions.

When dealt with in a healthy way, these moments can actually bring you closer together. Your partner will start to understand how anxiety affects you.

Set boundaries

Part of co-dependency and neediness involves crossing personal boundaries. While being honest and talking things through is important, continuing to have the same conversations and worries over and over is harmful.

Don’t be offended when your partner articulates the ways that they need to feel safe and loved in the context of your anxiety. Having healthy boundaries is normal. They can actually make you feel more connected, as they will help you each maintain your own identities.

Practice mindfulness

Learn to be aware of your feelings and what triggers them. If a particular situation always leads to anxiety, don’t be afraid to analyze it and come up with a plan to avoid or confront it.

Paying attention to your surroundings, your bodily responses, and your sensory experiences can help calm anxiety. Get into a daily practice of deep breathing and meditation.

Seek therapy

Specific techniques, such as cognitive-behavioral therapy, can help you develop healthy coping skills. A professional can work with you to rethink how you see the world and your relationship with your partner. Both of you may also benefit from couples counseling to learn ways of dealing with anxieties that arise.

If you’re looking for more resources on tackling your anxiety and helping your relationship grow, reach out to us for marriage counseling.