When you first start dating someone, it’s easy to get swept away in the romance of the moment. Everything feels perfect, and you can’t stop thinking about your new partner. But as time goes on, things can get a little more challenging. Following an initial period of euphoria after meeting someone special, it’s natural to experience some stress and anxiety as the relationship moves forward. That’s because numerous factors impact a relationship from day one but become even more pronounced once things get serious.
Every relationship has problems, but how does anxiety affect relationships? It can affect relationships in general and be even worse when one or both partners have an anxiety disorder. Anxiety can add significant stress and resentment in relationships. Additionally, anxiety can lead you to put up emotional walls, create co-dependence issues, and prevent you from finding happiness — to name a few problems.
As anyone who has ever been in love can attest, any relationship requires a lot of time and effort to be successful. Dealing with excessive worry or anxiety in a relationship magnifies this fact, but there are ways you can manage your anxiety to help improve your relationship.
Read on to learn more about how anxiety affects relationships in general, how anxiety disorders affect relationships, why anxiety can increase in relationships, and how to stop anxiety from ruining your relationship.
How Anxiety Affects Relationships In General
In general, anxiety is a normal response to stress that helps us stay safe and avoid potential risks. It often shows up in the form of worry because your brain is trying to perceive potential dangers that can harm you. Because of this, it’s normal to experience anxiety in a relationship, and it often shows up in three ways.
1. Anxiety can create uncertainty about the future of the relationship.
People who are anxious about their relationships tend to worry that their partner will leave them. This can happen for several reasons like self-doubt, past relationship failures, and fear of losing someone you care deeply about.
Conversely, you or your partner may have a fear of being vulnerable, and no successful relationship can progress without vulnerability.
2. Anxiety can cause communication issues between partners.
When you’re anxious, you may feel like you’re always on the defensive and not in control of your actions. You might find yourself putting your partner on the defensive, too. This often happens because of the stories our minds tell us.
For example, when your partner’s phone keeps dinging you may worry that they’re talking to someone else. Or maybe they forgot to say, “I love you,” when they hung up the phone and you think “they don’t want to be with me anymore.”
When these stories persist, they can make you feel like you’re not on the same page, and this can lead to fights and communication problems. While you’ve been stewing about a perceived worry that may be unfounded, your partner has just been going about their day and suddenly they’re confronted with a problem they knew nothing about. When this happens walls go up, and it can be hard to work through it if you don’t have the tools to communicate clearly.
3. Anxiety can make it difficult to enjoy time spent with your partner.
When you’re anxious, it can be hard to relax and enjoy yourself. Because you’re so overwhelmed with fear and worry, it’s challenging to be in the moment. When this happens, it can create distance between you and your partner. The more this distance grows, the more strained your relationship will become.
Anxiety in a relationship is like gravity, it can pull it down. All the fear and worry you have about losing the relationship can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It creates uncertainty and communication issues, and it gets in the way of you being present with your partner.
The good news is that it’s common to experience most of this anxiety in a relationship, and it can often resolve itself. However, when anxiety becomes excessive it can be harmful. If this is something you’re concerned about, keep reading to find out how to stop anxiety from ruining your relationship.
Why Does Anxiety Get Worse When You’re In A Relationship?
There are many reasons why anxiety can get worse when you’re in a relationship. The types of relationships you have been in, your family history, and your personality traits can all play a part.
Depending on your past experiences, you may have developed certain expectations about relationships. When your partner doesn’t conform to your expectations it can cause anxiety.
Perhaps you had parents who fought all the time but found that your relationships have been much more stable. This may cause you to wonder if it’s normal not to fight.
Or, if you’re an introvert and your partner is an extrovert it may cause strain when neither person can agree on how to spend time together. Opposites indeed attract, but sometimes a personality mismatch can cause a lot of problems.
Generally, anxiety can get worse in any relationship because you’re no longer just worried about your issues, there’s someone else in the mix. Until you learn to manage these problems together, your anxiety will increase.
How Having An Anxiety Disorder Affects Relationships
It’s bad enough that general anxiety can create very real challenges for relationships, but when one or both partners have an anxiety disorder it’s like dating in hard mode.
In addition to the anxiety issues that affect every relationship, anxiety disorders can cause more problems. Depending on the type of anxiety disorder you have, it can affect your relationship in different ways.
In my experience with a general anxiety disorder (GAD), my anxiety about money, the state of the house, minor problems that occurred outside of the relationship, work, or any potential struggle or perceived problem created a lot of issues for my wife and me. She felt all my anxiety, and it added to her emotional burden. It also showed up in the form of a short angry fuse, and I would take out my frustrations on her, even though it was rarely her fault. I was generally a difficult person to be around because I didn’t have my anxiety under control. This put a major strain on our relationship, and if she wasn’t such a strong person, we wouldn’t still be together. To learn more about how we overcame my anxiety disorder, listen to the podcast episode at the top of the page.
If you have a social anxiety disorder (SAD), your insecurity or self-consciousness might cause you to avoid social situations with your partner. If you have specific fears when it comes to being in public, you may try to avoid going out as much as possible. You may also find yourself becoming overly sensitive to criticism. Critical comments from your partner can be painful for anyone, but if you have SAD, you may take these comments much too personally. Additionally, if you have a social anxiety disorder, it can be especially challenging to communicate your feelings and needs to your partner.
If you have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), then it can create barriers to closeness. You may feel detached from your partner and angry much of the time. You may have a lack of interest in social activities, and it could be difficult for you or your partner to initiate intimacy.
People with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) often feel anxious due to the need to have everything in order and under control. If your partner is messy by nature, you may feel that you need to control the mess or you will become anxious.
There are too many anxiety disorders for me to cover fully in this article, but the consensus on how having an anxiety disorder affects relationships is that they add a unique layer of complexity. Both partners will have to learn how to work through this complexity to be successful.
Can Anxiety Ruin Your Relationship?
If you’ve been struggling with anxiety, you’ll likely be curious as to whether it could ruin your relationship. The unfortunate truth is that yes, anxiety can ruin your relationship if left unchecked. Luckily, there are many ways to manage anxiety and prevent it from interfering with your relationship.
Stay Healthy:
Eating well, exercising regularly, and getting plenty of sleep can help you manage your anxiety.
Don’t Self-Medicate:
While it can feel like a good way to get some temporary relief, drugs, and alcohol often exacerbate relationship problems.
Get Support:
Finding a therapist, joining a support group, or engaging in self-help activities like breathing exercises, and journaling can all help you manage your anxiety.
Let Go of Perfection:
No one is perfect; everyone has their issues. Instead of focusing on what is wrong with your partner and your relationship, focus on what is right. Having gratitude for the good aspects of your relationship can significantly reduce any negative feelings you have.
All these tips can help you manage your anxiety, but when it comes to stopping anxiety from ruining a relationship there are some additional steps you need to consider.
How To Stop Anxiety From Ruining Your Relationship
Specific to the question of how anxiety affects relationships, some key factors can mean the difference between a successful relationship and a failed one. These are true whether you have an anxiety disorder or not.
1. Have patience.
Patience is key to any positive relationship. It’s unreasonable to expect your partner to live up to your expectations all the time. If you can practice being calm and having patience when anxiety shows up, then it can make it a lot easier to work through the issues.
Patience is especially important for the loved ones of those who suffer from anxiety disorders. Someone with an anxiety disorder may act a certain way because their anxiety is high at the moment. Oftentimes they can take it out on you. Do your best to try and observe their behavior detached from your feelings. This is easier said than done, but if you can do this it may be easier to see when a fight is caused by an external issue rather than a problem in the relationship. When you recognize this, pointing it out to your partner can help them notice it too. Just make sure you bring it up in a calm safe environment.
2. Honest and open communication.
You must be willing to have tough conversations. It is important to be honest with your partner about your anxiety and let them know when it is getting worse and when it is getting better. When your partner understands what you’re going through, they’re less likely to take your anxiety personally and become defensive. This can help ease your worry and strengthen the relationship.
3. Willingness to put in the work.
If you’re someone who suffers from an anxiety disorder, it’s not fair to use that as a cop-out when you experience problems in a relationship. You must be willing to get help and persist in trying to get better.
I was never sure if therapy would actually work, but I never gave up because of how much I cared for my wife. Eventually, it did work, I got a lot better, and so did our relationship.
Even if you don’t have an anxiety disorder, it’s important to reflect on the issues you bring to the relationship and what you can do to address them. If there’s an issue your partner has a lot of anxiety about, perhaps there’s something you can do to ease that burden. It takes effort from both parties to make a relationship work.
4. Be mindful and present.
It’s normal for anxiety to show up in relationships, but it shouldn’t overtake them. Even if you have anxiety, it’s important to learn how to set it aside and be present with your partner. This is not to say that you should avoid these issues, you need to talk about them, but do so when the timing is right.
When you’re spending time together be present and try to enjoy the experience. To learn how to do this, read my posts “How To Enjoy Life’s Little Moments” and “15 Ways To Be Mindful Without Meditation.”
5. Maintain your identity
When you love someone, it’s easy to want to spend all your time with them, especially at the beginning of a relationship. However, this can cause problems as time goes on. When you expect your partner to fulfill all your needs it can create stress and burden relationships. Maintaining a sense of self will increase your confidence and independence, which can decrease anxiety in relationships.
So, while it’s important to spend time together, don’t give up on your interests. Watch TV shows you like, go out with friends, and continue with your hobbies. Being in a relationship doesn’t mean giving up your sense of self. In my experience, as my wife gained more independence it strengthened our relationship. The same can be true for you.
When you’re feeling anxious or stressed, it can be difficult to think clearly and make good decisions. By treating your anxiety and following these tips, you can reduce your anxiety and improve your relationship. There’s no avoiding how anxiety affects relationships, but if you work both independently and together you can overcome it and your love can flourish.
