Home→Forums→Relationships→Long term relationship anxiety/confusion
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coconut.
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March 14, 2019 at 3:48 pm #284663
coconutParticipantHello.
Me and my boyfriend have been together for 4 years. We also have been broken up for almost 5 months. I am an anxious person. We finally moved in together now but now I feel kind of confused because I feel anxiety when I’m with him and like something is not right. I don’t want to break up with him or be with someone else. What made him get over the fear of moving in together was the fear of losing me, because at some point 2 months ago I felt like I had no feelings for him anymore, I was tired of a long-distance relationship and seeing each other only one day a week. Also in that period of time I felt attracted to one of my co-workers ( I didn’t do anything about it, I knew that attraction is temporary, I knew I still wanted to be with my bf and I just waited to get over it and I didn’t act on it at all. I got over it.). Also, my confusion and “numbness” is not only with him, but with everyone around me, I just don’t feel “connected” to people at all and have low self-esteem and social anxiety/awkwardness.
All I want right now is to heal from all the hurt I felt in our relationship before moving in and not feel anxious towards him anymore (my confusion is caused by the anxiety that I sometimes feel when I’m with him). How can I heal? Any opinions?
March 15, 2019 at 12:22 am #284699coconutParticipantI feel scared/anxious/hurt just thinking of breaking up with him and being without him. I don’t want to be without him, it scares me very much. That makes me confused. I don’t have to break up with him if I don’t want to, but I feel like the reason I’m staying is because I couldn’t ever heal from this break up or be with someone else the same way we are now. What’s happening with me?
The thought of breaking up scares me very much, I don’t want that. But at the same time I feel anxious now, while being together.. Maybe it’s the thought that I have to break up that makes me feel like this… I don’t know, I really want some opinions on this…
March 15, 2019 at 12:45 am #284701coconutParticipantI don’t want to start all over again with someone else. Me and him have come this far, we finally moved in together.. He knows me, he is very kind, loving, cares for my happiness. I had very bad anxiety attacks throughout our relationship and I felt extremely hurt when he was so mad at me that he wouldn’t talk to me or when he said to break up because he doesnt feel anything anymore. Can I heal? Can I get over this anxiety? Or is it everything lost and we can’t be together anymore?
March 15, 2019 at 6:43 am #284719
AnonymousGuestDear coconut:
My understanding of your story (please correct me where I misunderstood):
You have been in a relationship for 4 years. It started as a long distance relationship where you saw him about once a week. You expressed to him dissatisfaction about seeing him only once per week. At one point he was very angry at you and broke up with you, telling you that “he doesn’t feel anything anymore”, and you felt “extremely hurt”. The breakup lasted 5 months.
The relationship resumed, long distance. You pressured him to move in together but he refused, until you communicated to him that you “had no feelings for him anymore”, that you were “tired of a log-distance relationship”, and that you were “attracted to one of (your) co-workers”, and so, finally moved in with you.
Now that you are living with him, you are still anxious, confused and numb, not only with him but with everyone else around you, “just don’t feel ‘connected’ to people at all”.
You want to break up with him because you are anxious while with him and you want to be calm, figuring you might be calm if you separate from him, but on the other hand, you don’t want to break up with him because you are afraid of the pain that you will feel if you break up.
Did I understand correctly?
anita
March 15, 2019 at 8:40 am #284759coconutParticipantHello anita, thank you for replying.
We met in college. For the first year and a half we saw each other daily, except for the weekends when he would go home in his town, and except for the summer when it was also like a ldr.
At one point after constant disagreements and fights because of my insecurities he broke up with me and said he doesn’t feel anything anymore and that we’ll never get back together, which caused me very much pain, shock, anxiety, panic attacks.
I was constantly telling him that I don’t want a ldr anymore I just can’t do it anymore and it’s not normal to be in a ldr after all of this time and what we experienced together. He said he’s afraid to move because of the past when I hurt him with my behavior (being mean, feeling jealous for no reason, picking fights etc) and that he needs time to see that I have really changed.
I told him I don’t think I feel anything anymore. This made him rethink his way of thinking and realized he really doesn’t want to lose me. After a couple of weeks I finally told him about that co-worker, because I still felt confused and anxious and he brought it up that maybe I found someone else.
I don’t want to break up with him. I already feel a lot of pain thinking of being without him, thinking of a break-up, thinking of hurting both of us. I also feel really anxious and I cry when I think that maybe I don’t love him anymore. I don’t want anybody else. I just want to understand why I feel anxious and stop feeling anxious about him.
March 15, 2019 at 8:49 am #284761coconutParticipantAnd I always think about the fact that if he was feeling for me what I feel for him now (confusion) or if he would tell me to breakup or that he doesnt feel anything and all of that, it would really hurt me. And that doubles my anxiety.
March 15, 2019 at 9:07 am #284767AnonymousGuestDear coconut:
If I was you, I would focus on one thing only, in context of the relationship with him and that is to not fight anymore, “being mean.. picking fights”.
No matter how anxious you feel, do not fight. Decide to not display any aggression toward him. Your anxiety does not excuse your aggression against him, it is wrong.
Now, about your anxiety: it happens when you were in a long distance relationship with him, seeing him once a week or so and it happens when you live with him, and you expect it to happen if you break up with him.. in other words, you are suffering from significant anxiety that is not about him.
Did you attend psychotherapy, so to examine the origin of your significant anxiety, looking into your childhood experience with your parents and such?
anita
March 15, 2019 at 12:03 pm #284799coconutParticipantI don’t pick fights anymore and he is more understanding and didnt get mad at me like when we were texting in ldr.
My anxiety doesn’t make me agressive anymore.. it makes me feel hurt, guilty, I have no reason to get mad at him anymore.
I haven’t attended psychotherapy because I can’t afford it. I feel like my anxiety with him right now is because I feel we are too different in some ways. Like he has jokes that I don’t like and kind of make me anxious even though he’s not being mean he is just joking and also the fact that I feel that he doesn’t really understands how I feel and see things because he sees them differently. And also the fact that most of the time we don’t agree on things and have different opinions on trivial things, not the important ones. But it still makes me anxious. Me and my father have a similar relationship, he most of the time disagrees with me.
Being understood and having someone that feels/thinks the same and agrees with me for real, makes me feel close to that person.
Maybe here lies the problem. But I think that it’s not worth to give up on him especially because I am very emotionally attached to him and he is a really great guy for me.
March 15, 2019 at 12:39 pm #284801AnonymousGuestDear coconut:
It is a good thing that you are no longer aggressive toward him (and he is not toward you). Note that the feeling of anger itself is not an act of aggression, as anger is natural and like any other feeling, we don’t choose what we feel. It is only what we say and do that is a matter of choice, not what we feel. So even when you feel anger toward him, choose what you say and do so to not be aggressive. The same goes for him.
“having someone that feels/thinks the same and agrees with me for real, makes me feel close to that person”- as you know, it is not possible to find someone who thinks and feels the same as you do. I suppose you mean that your partner should be someone who thinks and feels about things close enough to how you think and feel, correct?
The jokes he tells, that you don’t like, can you give a couple of examples of those and what you don’t like about them?
anita
March 15, 2019 at 1:00 pm #284805coconutParticipant“I suppose you mean that your partner should be someone who thinks and feels about things close enough to how you think and feel, correct?” – Yes, that’s what I meant.
I can’t think of any joke specifically, they sound like attacks or judging but they are not like that, I just don’t receive them in the way he meant them if that makes sense. For example, if I say I want to try to cook something he’s like “what’s plan b?? i don’t want to die” but he says it jokingly and I don’t find it funny. Or with his mother he says jokes like “can’t you see how fat you are?? how much are you gonna eat??” the way I say it seems mean but he is really joking and his mother seems to get his jokes.
Or sometimes when I want to talk serious he makes jokes and it’s annoying. On the other hand I like that he doesn’t take things so seriously and he really doesn’t get upset if I make a mean joke.
Another thing that I don’t like is that he doesn’t find funny the things I find funny and viceversa. Although, there is sometimes a middle point where we both laugh at the same things and he makes me laugh.
March 15, 2019 at 1:15 pm #284809coconutParticipantI know in my first post I said I don’t feel close with anyone and that is right, but tonight I spend some time with my mother who gets me and I didn’t feel anxiety spending time with her.
March 15, 2019 at 1:30 pm #284813AnonymousGuestDear coconut:
“if I say I want to try to cook something he’s like ‘what’s plan b?? I don’t want to die”-
– in this communication, you offered him a gift of love, to cook something he likes. His response: you are a bad cook and your cooking will kill me!
That is very rude.
“Can’t you see how fat you are? how much are you gonna eat??”, he said to his mother. Again, very rude. When you hear that you know that if you gain weight, he will say the same thing to you.
You wrote: “I like that he doesn’t take things so seriously and he really does get upset if I make a mean joke”- what mean or rude jokes do you make?
anita
March 15, 2019 at 2:34 pm #284817coconutParticipantHello. I checked now and actually he didn’t use the words I said about me cooking, he said “will i get a last wish?”.
Even if he makes rude comments he never means them like that.. maybe that’s the way he related to his parents and they accepted it and maybe even encouraged it by laughing or never get offended and from this he learnt it’s fine to relate like this to others.
I don’t really make rude jokes only if he starts and I usually say something about his nose for example. Other times he says something and I know he may joke but I take it seriously and try to explain to him how it is and he’s like “I was just joking baby, you re so easy to fool”. Sometimes I can’t tell when he’s joking or not and I have to ask because he doesn’t clarify it by himself. Maybe he jokes too much and I’m too serious. I don’t get some of the things he finds funny… for example he finds funny memes (I can’t think of something specific) where the woman is serious and mad/angry and the man doesn’t take her seriously and continue to joke with her and annoy her. That’s not okay.
March 16, 2019 at 6:36 am #284857AnonymousGuestDear coconut:
You wrote about your boyfriend making rude comments: “maybe that’s the way he related to his parents and they accepted it and maybe even encouraged it by laughing or never get offended and from this he learnt its fine to relate like this to others”-
– this may very well be the case, but will he be willing to relearn what he learned, and understand that his rude comments hurt you? Will he care to understand it and stop making those rude comments to you?
You “tr(ied) to explain to him how it is and he’s like “I was joking baby, you’re so easy to fool'”- so to not be a fool you have to always be on guard with him: is he joking, is he not? Does he mean what he just said or is he fooling me?
Really, there is no way to know for anyone when fooled or not, at least not all the time. A person can say anything, how is one to know what the person is thinking (no one can read someone else’s thoughts)!
You need a boyfriend who is not going to try to fool his girlfriend, to joke and then “continue to joke with her and annoy her”.
To live with a boyfriend who does this does cause anxiety. If you have children with him and he jokes this way with his children, they too will be anxious. No one likes to be a fool and live under a constant threat of being made to be a fool. Life is difficult enough as it is, without this unnecessary daily threat.
I think he has to stop this behavior and if he doesn’t, it is definitely reason enough to end your relationship with him.
anita
March 16, 2019 at 8:28 am #284873
InkyParticipantHi coconut,
Forgive me for saying so, but I think you’ve been together with your boyfriend for too long. Let me get this straight… if another guy (co-worker) didn’t have chemistry with you (or vice-versa) he would never have moved in with you? Moving in with him (or anyone) is, in my opinion, a mistake! Then he makes passive aggressive digs at you?
He’s not worth the panic attacks.
Best,
Inky
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