Anxiety in Relationship

When you are caught in an unhealthy relationship, the one involving physical violence is the easiest to spot and to decide to leave. You know immediately who is the perpetrator and that you need to get help to avoid becoming a victim by getting a protective retraining court order or call 113 for resources or shelters. Another one involving emotional abuse is a harder one to figure out and to decide to leave because there is no evident wound and you are usually trapped in feelings of fear, guilt, shame or self-doubt. In addition, you don’t know if you should leave the relationship because you are taught to sacrifice individual happiness for the greater good of the family or you are told not to be over sensitive. Usually you realize that you are in an unhealthy relationship only when you develop serious somatic symptoms and need help. The last one that makes you feel stuck is as difficult to learn when anxiety develops over time in a relationship.

Anxiety or insecurity in a relationship develops over time as a result of the following:

1. Anxiety from pressure in real life: In everyday life, one often encounters pressure from work, from raising the children or from having problems with in-laws. When under pressure, one naturally looks to the partner for comfort, relief or understanding. However, when the partner is not ready to offer such comfort, relief or understanding, one gets frustrated and starts feeling anxious over the relationship. For example, in a traditional family setting, the husband is under pressure from work, while the wife is under pressure from raising the children. Both partners need comfort, relief or understanding and thus are not in a good position to offer the same for each other. It is at this time, both partners starts to feel insecure and anxious about the relationship.
2. Anxiety from internal working model: One develops an internal working model from childhood experiences with parents. Either from observing the conflicts or frustration between parents or from having conflicts or frustration with parents, one decides since childhood whether to trust others or not and whether to trust oneself or not.  This trust carries over into a relationship when one grows up. If your internal working model is one of little trust in yourself, you will feel anxious easily in a relationship when under pressure and often seek assurance from your partner. And if your internal working model is one of little trust in others, you will become avoidant easily in a relationship when under pressure and decide to keep a distance from your partner. Both internal working models will contribute to more anxiety and insecurity in the relationship for each other.

The above two causes destroy the security in the relationship and the chances for encounter between the partners.  There becomes a lot of misreading of each other’s responses.  To recover from such anxiety in relationship over time, you and your partner can seek counseling for assistance in the following aspects:

1. Identify the cause for anxiety: if the anxiety is from pressure in real life, you will learn to comfort yourself first instead of putting unrealistic expectations on your partner. You and your partner will discuss and decide together with each other the order of sharing the anxiety and insecurity. Remember the sharing itself is more important than the order of sharing.
2. Identify the internal working model: if the anxiety is from the internal working models, you will first learn if you are of an anxious one or of an avoidant one. You will also want to learn which model your partner has. To learn both’s internal working models is only to understand how they interact to harm the relationship by creating more distance between you two. With that understanding, you will have stronger motivation to stop any strategy you took to harm the relationship, such as overly seeking assurance or overly hiding and keeping distance from your partner.

The above ideas about anxiety in relationship should give you a good start to turn the relationship around.