It’s common for people to feel anxious in relationships from time to time. However, if chronic anxiety goes unchecked, it can start to negatively impact your romantic partnership. An anxious attachment style and uncontrolled anxiety can potentially push your partner away if left unaddressed.
How does anxiety affect relationships?
Anxiety can affect relationships in a variety of ways:
- Loss of intimacy – Anxiety can cause people to avoid intimacy and closeness with their partner.
- Withdrawal – Anxious individuals may withdraw from their partner and the relationship to avoid feeling vulnerable.
- Control issues – The desire to control situations and the partner may increase due to anxiety.
- Poor communication – Anxiety can interfere with effective communication in a relationship.
- Misinterpreting behaviors – Anxious partners often misinterpret their partner’s behaviors.
- Insecurity – Chronic insecurity about the relationship is common with anxiety.
- Obsessive thoughts – Anxious ruminating and obsessive thoughts about the partner and relationship.
- Tension – Anxiety creates a sense of tension that makes enjoying intimacy difficult.
- Conflict – Relationship conflicts may increase when anxiety runs high.
- Emotional volatility – Anxiety is linked to difficulties regulating emotions.
Overall, anxiety can create significant barriers to developing a sense of closeness and security in a relationship. Left unmanaged, relationship anxiety can start to push partners away over time.
How does an anxious attachment style affect relationships?
Individuals with an anxious attachment style tend to experience high levels of anxiety in romantic relationships. Anxious attachment develops early in life from inconsistent caregiving and develops into a relational anxiety in adulthood. Some key features of an anxious attachment style include:
- Intense fear of rejection or abandonment
- Difficulty trusting romantic partners
- Worrying partners don’t reciprocate feelings
- Excessive reassurance seeking from partners
- Jealousy and possessiveness towards partner
- Attempts to control closeness with partner
- High reactivity to conflicts and emotional volatility
- Preoccupation with relationship
- Negative internal working models of self and others
An anxious attachment drives persistent insecurity in relationships and chronic activation of the attachment system. This high anxiety and attempts to alleviate it through partner-seeking behaviors can eventually cause partners to feel smothered. Partners may start to withdraw from the relationship to regain their sense of independence and autonomy.
How does uncontrolled anxiety push partners away?
Let’s explore some of the key ways uncontrolled anxiety can push romantic partners away over time:
Excessive reassurance seeking
Partners with uncontrolled anxiety often seek excessive reassurance from their partner. This includes frequently asking things like “Do you really love me?”, needing constant validation, and requiring abundant physical affection. At first, partners may provide reassurance willingly. But over time, the constant need for validation can make partners start to feel drained. They may feel overwhelmed and withdraw from providing reassurance.
Controlling behaviors
The fear of losing a partner drives controlling behaviors like checking their phone, interrogating them, and insisting on knowing their whereabouts. While intended to provide a sense of security, this control erodes the partner’s independence. Partners start to feel suffocated and pull away in an attempt to regain freedom and autonomy in the relationship.
Jealousy and accusations
Anxiety often manifests as irrational jealousy and false accusations about a partner’s fidelity. While jealousy stems from insecurity, it destroys trust over time. Partners feel unfairly scrutinized and may distance themselves from the relationship to avoid the accusations.
Catastrophizing and obsessive thoughts
Anxious individuals are prone to catastrophizing and imagining worst case scenarios about their partner’s behaviors. Obsessive negative thoughts create distrust and conflict. Partners feel like they can’t do anything right and start to feel resentful.
Isolating behaviors
In an attempt to protect themselves, people with uncontrolled anxiety often start to isolate. They may avoid social events, cancel plans, and retreat from family activities. Their partner ends up feeling increasingly alone and resents the isolation.
Poor communication
Anxiety can interfere with effective communication skills. Criticism, contempt, and defensiveness may increase during conflicts. Poor communication leads to unresolved conflicts and emotional distance in the relationship.
Difficulty with intimacy
Opening up emotionally and being vulnerable with a partner can seem threatening for the anxious individual. But intimacy is key for relationship satisfaction. Partners start to feel lonely and disconnected when anxiety blocks intimacy.
High conflict
The combination of excessive reassurance seeking, jealousy, isolation, and poor communication creates high levels of relationship conflict. Frequent fighting damages closeness and partners start to see more costs than rewards in the relationship.
Emotional volatility
Chronic anxiety leads to difficulties regulating emotions. Anxious individuals may go from 0 to 100 quickly and have frequent emotional outbursts. Partners feel like they are walking on eggshells and may withdrawal from the relationship.
How can you overcome anxiety pushing your partner away?
If you see anxiety or an anxious attachment style pushing your partner away, know that there are effective strategies to overcome this:
See a mental health professional
Psychotherapy provides long-term anxiety reduction techniques. A counselor can help identify unhealthy patterns and give tools to enhance emotional regulation, challenge catastrophic thinking, and reduce anxiety.
Consider medication
Medications like SSRIs can be highly effective for managing chronic and severe anxiety, especially when combined with therapy. Consult a psychiatrist about medical treatment options.
Practice self-soothing techniques
When anxiety flares up, have healthy self-soothing techniques ready like mindfulness, exercise, relaxation strategies, and self-care activities. Don’t overly rely on your partner for reassurance.
Commit to building trust
Making genuine efforts to rebuild trust through honesty and reliability can reassure an insecure partner. But give your partner space and let trust build over time.
Respect boundaries
Respect your partner’s need for personal time, independence, and space. Pushing their boundaries will only drive them farther away.
Manage jealousy and control issues
Getting jealous feelings under control requires acknowledging they stem from internal insecurity, not your partner’s behaviors. Retrain your thoughts and let go of the need for control.
Improve communication skills
Practicing healthy communication during conflicts, like using “I feel…” statements, active listening, and compromising can minimize anxiety spikes during disagreements.
Seek support
Turn to trusted friends and family for additional support. Joining an anxiety support group can also help you realize you’re not alone.
Appreciate your partner
Focus on all the reasons you appreciate your partner. Make sure to verbalize your gratitude. Positivity can reduce anxiety’s hold.
The importance of relationship security
While it will take effort to overcome anxiety, the outcome is well worth it. A sense of security in your romantic relationship is absolutely essential for both partners to feel happy and fulfilled. Make consistent efforts to get anxiety under control, build trust, and foster intimacy. This will require patience, courage and commitment from both you and your partner. But with time, vulnerability gets easier and your relationship can thrive.
Conclusion
Left unchecked, anxiety has the potential to gradually push loving partners away. Both situational anxiety and chronic anxious attachment patterns can breed insecurity and control issues that drive partners to withdraw. Thankfully, mental health treatment combined with consistent relationship work can interrupt the pattern before it seriously damages the partnership. With vulnerability, communication, and anxious behaviors kept in check, relationships can ultimately survive – and even be strengthened by – the ups and downs.