Unlucky in Love: When Anxiety Interferes in Relationships

Anxiety has a way of interfering in relationships, making us feel unlucky in love. As anyone who has ever had a relationship involving two people and an annoying third wheel—anxiety—knows, love can be hard to feel and enjoy when anxiety gets in the way. Take heart: there are things you can do to keep anxiety from interfering in your relationship.

How Anxiety Interferes in Relationships

When someone lives with anxiety, relationships can be tough, and love can feel unlucky. Anxiety, fears, worries, and what-ifs can become a barrier between both people, creating unwelcome distance (Is Anxiety Poisoning Your Personal Relationships?). Among other things, someone living with anxiety might

• question his/her own competence in the relationship
• excessively fear doing something wrong to drive the other person away (Anxiety, Criticism, and Conquering Self-Doubt)
• struggle with feelings of fear and doubt in his/her ability to be a worthy partner, in the other partner’s love and tolerance, and in the nature of the relationship itself
• overthink and overanalyze his/her partner’s words, expressions, actions, and lack thereof
•  project his/her worries and fears onto his/her partner and the relationship (Mind-Reading and Projecting in Social Anxiety)

It’s challenging, too, to know how to communicate. For both partners, anxiety can make it hard to know what to say and what to do. Anxiety as a third wheel in a relationship zaps enjoyment and makes it difficult to do things outside the home.

Without a doubt, anxiety interferes in relationships and makes people feel unlucky in love. If anxiety is messing with your relationship, you can take away its power and create the type of relationship that make you and your partner lucky in love (Ways to Manage Anxiety in Love Relationships).

Keep Anxiety from Interfering in Your Relationship

Tips for healthy relationships apply to all relationships, including ones with anxiety as an annoying ball-and-chain. Communication, honesty, sharing common interests and activities, and mutual support are all essential characteristics of a healthy relationship. Unfortunately, anxiety can complicate any of these.

That doesn’t mean that anxiety has to forever interfere in, and ruin, relationships. You don’t have to let anxiety make you unlucky in love. You just might have to take a creative approach. Whether it’s you or your partner who experiences anxiety, you can side-step it.

The following ideas can help you move forward in your relationship without anxiety constantly interfering.

• Know who you are. What traits and strengths are you proud of? What are your hopes, dreams, interests, abilities, and more? Keep anxiety completely out of the description.
•  Know your partner. The same criteria apply.
•  Share your descriptions with each other as a way to exchange positive visions, thoughts, and more.
• Know what both you and your partner value so you’re on the same page for moving forward.
•  Create a reassurance box or jar. Write notes of encouragements to each other, and read them when you are feeling especially doubtful or anxious.
• Say I do. Commit to moving forward toward what you value in your relationship. Do things together that are mutually agreeable. Action beats anxiety every time (How To Turn Anxiety into Action).

Anxiety does interfere in relationships, but it doesn’t have to make you forever unlucky in love. Know yourself, your partner, and your values, and do things as a couple to move forward. Anxiety might still run in the background, but it won’t run between you.

I invite you to tune into the below video for another tip on keeping your relationship healthy despite anxiety.

 

Let’s connect. I blog here. Find me on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Pinterest. My self-help book and four mental health novels, including one about severe anxiety disorders, are here.

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