Hi all, this is a throwaway, any help is appreciated. Some context: my partner has fairly severe anxiety, she is medicated but in the process of switching to a new med for reasons, it’s a hard process because she has to wean off the old one and then slowly introduce the new one so she’s having extra anxiety right now. I have Asperger‘s and have been in therapy to help me work with it for years. She also goes to therapy regularly.
Standard disclaimer: we really love each other. We have been been together almost two and a half years. We live together. I recently purchased a ring. We have a good relationship and historically have communicated well but lately that seems to be taking a hit. I’m not looking to break up, at all. I believe the problem is certainly solvable, I just need help finding how to do that. I struggle to express emotion so I need advice.
The problem: I will explain this in the “less nice” way. I won’t mince my words here. My girlfriend’s anxiety makes her very needy. I might be sitting and reading a book and she asks me out of nowhere what’s wrong and if I’m mad at her, that I seem off. Normally, I just say I’m fine and try to move on. Lately, it happens so often that I find it incredibly irritating, like it shrouds the whole day. We can be having a lovely time and then she decides I’m mad and everything is ruined.
Furthermore, her “recovery time” for conflicts has become dramatic. We might have a chat about keeping the house cleaner (literally a chat, we don’t fight or snap, just “hey, can you try to hang up your coat when you get home?”) and it will ruin her day. She becomes so stressed and anxious and just sits in silence brooding about it and I usually just leave her to it because when I try to ask what’s wrong she insists that it’s nothing. She’ll only tell me what is wrong hours later.
She’s also (and this is the biggest problem, and related to everything) decided that I’m going to leave her. At least once a day I get asked in this small, wounded voice: “you’re not going to leave me, are you?” Literally out of nowhere, or as a result of me being slightly cranky because I have a headache or something.
Again, at one time, I would say “of course not, I love you” but it has become so exhausting that now I want to snap. I want to just drop a sharp “nope” and leave it. Everything triggers it now. I can’t even be in a bad mood because I have diarrhea without her thinking I’m going to leave. I’ve come to bristle at that tone of voice, like ugh not this again. It’s disrupting our sex life because I don’t feel very sexy about her right now, and it’s disrupting my personal life outside the relationship because I feel like I’m on eggshells and the last time I made plans with my buddies she asked if I was going to talk to them to ask for advice about leaving her. No, we were going to sit in the sun and drink beer and build stuff. I know I’m rambling but I’m very frustrated.
I feel that it’s really unfair for the burden of reassurance to fall on me, as it constantly makes me feel like I did something to cause her insecurity. She admits that I didn’t, and she knows it’s her mind making the problems, and openly owns up to this. Why, then, do I still have to interrupt my day, several times, to have an exhausting emotional conversation about my love for her?
Emotions are exhausting for me. I have worked really hard on that. I tell her at least a few times a day that I love her, unprompted. I’ll send her a sweet text while at work. I worked really hard to get better at expressing emotions because I know that’s her “love language” or whatever. But telling someone in words what they mean to me is not easy. So I feel hurt that it’s not good enough, when I know I’ve been giving a lot of attention. She also increasingly needs to be touched and I certainly give her physical affection, but I need breaks (if you know any autistic people, you get this) and she used to be very okay and supportive of that but now she isn’t as much. (She will stop touching me if I ask but I know it makes her anxious).
I feel like she needs to learn to self soothe. When she starts to feel insecure, I feel like it needs to be on her a little more. I can’t always fix it. Because it’s wearing on me, and so I get annoyed, and then she feels that and feels even worse, and it spirals. But she doesn’t seem able to self soothe. I love her so much but I’m exhausted from being the support.
Questions:
Should I wait until her new med has levelled things out before bringing this up?
How do I bring it up? Maybe if I talk to my therapist she can help me with a script? I can barely initiate small talk, let alone an emotional conversation.
I know I have problems as well. Should I start by owning up to my own issues and segue into this?
Can I suggest that she talk to her therapist about this or is that a faux pas?
I feel like this was super incoherent, but any help is very appreciated. I’m practically crying typing this because I hate to see her hurting and I’m scared of this hurting us irreparably. I just miss my girlfriend so much, when we did things together and had fun. It’s like she’s been taken over by this shadow that just sits on the couch and worries. And I want to help her too, and I think a big step would be fixing this problem so I can be a positive feature in her life instead of irritated.
/TLDR (or didn’t understand because I’m rambling): how can I talk to my girlfriend about her dependence on me as she works on her anxiety? Her needs for reassurance is damaging our relationship and my autistic self needs help having a talk./
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