How I Learned to Reduce Stress and Anxiety When Dealing with Women in Relationships

A while ago, I lost a great girlfriend, “Julie”.

This wasn’t a perfect relationship, but this one felt “right”. She was short with blue eyes, dark brown hair, a great smile, and she was “top-heavy”. Julie was a bit crazy, but also kind, smart, and nurturing.

But I lost frame, got too serious, and things spiraled out of control. Over a week, her fearful-avoidant side took over and she stonewalled me.

I couldn’t figure out what was going on. Why was her communication with me suddenly sporadic and minimal?

When I look back, these are the three things that could have helped prevent or ease this stressful situation.

1. Don’t blame yourself for her behavior

Most, if not everyone, lives with some amount of self-blame. We’re our own worst critics, and we can be extreme about it.

Psychologists have studied a mental health condition called “magical thinking”. It plays a role in certain disorders, but it’s not always a “bad” thing, as it can help mitigate some stress.

Magical thinking is a coping mechanism that starts in early childhood development, in which an individual believes that their thoughts, ideas, actions, or words have a direct impact on the world around them.

…you can tell yourself it’s your fault. If you do that, you actually gain some power — at least in your mind… blaming yourself for your childhood traumas protects you from seeing how vulnerable you were and are…If it’s your fault, it’s under your control. But that comes at a cost. If you were responsible for being hurt, then at some level, you have to think you deserved it…

— Johann Hari, Lost Connections

Your actions have an influence, but not a 100% direct effect.

Unfortunately, the downsides of magical thinking don’t go away. They only leave if you become aware of them and let go of these habits and patterns.

When I met Julie, I quickly fell for her. She checked many of my boxes. Julie had very few “outside attachments.” No kids, and she lived nearby. She was my kind of “weird,” funny, and sexy.

This instant attraction presented a few problems:

I forgot about the halo effect. It’s how your first impression of someone influences your attitude towards them. In short, I became “mesmerized” by her attractiveness. I wanted to do everything for her, so I babied her. Supporting your partner is important. But, I spent too much time calming her, instead of letting her be an adult.
She said or did stupid things that seemed “out of place”. I took on the burden of her actions being my responsibility. Doing this ruined my mood. Even worse, we both feel deeply, and we feed off each other’s “vibes.” This is where our problems started to become noticeable, which I’ll get to soon.

2. Remember: She has wounds that influence her actions

“Getting triggered” isn’t exclusive to the “crazy” people who have outbursts in public or the people who go on political tirades at Thanksgiving dinners.

We all get triggered, and it can happen every day.

Some random thoughts can be enough to trigger an anxiety attack or a feeling of sadness.

Julie would get “worked up” over a lot of stuff. One of the first things I noticed was how nervous she was to meet my friends for a few hours. As I got to know her better, I realized she feared “new things” a lot.

Her reactions often didn’t fit reality.

Even when I reassured her several times and validated her feelings, she had difficulty coping.

I “babied” her when “adult” Julie had lost control. Instead, the fearful, wounded child side of her was present.

One afternoon, she came to hang out and said, “I should have canceled on you. I’m tired, but I wanted to see you before my trip.”

Her demeanor was not fun to be around that afternoon. She had been in a “funk” the previous day from work. She was a bit rude, crabby, and negative in my presence. I knew this, but something triggered my “flight” and “freeze” responses.

I shut down and got real quiet, and I was completely “in my head”.

“I think I should just go, I’m exhausted and you don’t seem talkative.”

She thought I wasn’t interested in spending time with her or opening up. So she left.

I never saw her again.

Trauma doesn’t excuse behavior like this for anyone.

But there’s room to be empathetic and compassionate. You’re dealing with a “child”, not a rational adult.

You have to see her for who she is in the moment. Is she the “adult” version, or the “child” side you’re dealing with?

3. Even if you lose a girlfriend, she can be replaced.

Girls Chase

Any other alternative is pretty much doomed to end up in you not liking women as much as you should, and being depressed about this.

I cared a lot about Julie. The sex was passionate, we had a lot in common, and we enjoyed our time together.

To my detriment, I “pedestaled” her — to me, her value was higher than mine. It happens so subtly. Your feelings for someone get wrapped up in the image you’ve made of them.

Before you know it, they’re the center of your life, and you can’t stop thinking about them, and all of your energy goes into the relationship.

This “pedestalling” of her exacerbated the stress and anxiety of losing her. Everything about Julie felt irreplaceable: her looks, her personality, and her energy.

When she left that afternoon, my childhood wounds activated, including feelings of abandonment, isolation, rejection, unworthiness, and self-blame.

This was magical thinking. It held that it was all my fault because she went home. My mind was too focused on a few offhand comments, and I blew the situation out of proportion.

Part of me knew after she hadn’t texted me that she got home safely, something was “off”.

Instead of remembering she felt weird and wanted to go home, I ruminated on my reactions. Over the next week, I tried to fix my mistakes with her through texting and phone calling.

I had pretty much created a huge problem out of nothing.

Communication had spiraled out of control and broken down. I was so afraid to lose her, that I manifested the outcome I feared the most.

This situation happened several years before, the difference was that I wasn’t afraid to lose my fiance until after we had started couples therapy.

I lived with my ex-fiance for years. She had custom posters made for our relationship. One was the “day we made it official” with the exact alignment of the stars. Another was a wooden plaque with the two different states we were from. Written on it: “Home is wherever I’m with you.”

Like most couples, we also had picture frames everywhere.

Every day I saw those decorations. As time went on, I never believed in soulmates. But by the time we’d split up, my ego had built an unshakable belief that she was the “one for me”.

To be without her was like death.

This is why the loss of a relationship can feel as painful as a physical injury.

I convinced myself that I’d never find love, sex, or connection again. In my head, if someone who knew and loved me for five years left me, why would a stranger take the chance to fall in love with me?

Despite this terrible belief, I bounced back into dating rather quickly and discovered that women liked me, and it wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be to re-experience intimacy.

What I realized was that I just needed positive experiences to counteract this limiting belief.

If you believe that you can’t replace that relationship, or you can’t find someone else better for you, of course, it will never happen, because if you are telling yourself you can’t, you will avoid or directly do things to live according to that belief.

Every time I feared the loss of a relationship, fear played a role in a relationship ending.

…

Final thoughts,

Stress and anxiety don’t have an easy fix.

Sometimes anxiety may be a warning that things aren’t right in your life, and there’s something you need to do to get back in alignment.

That “uneasy” feeling could be signaling a relationship in your life isn’t good for you. Or it could be old childhood traumas getting poked at by your partner.

That’s something you have to figure out on your own, or with a therapist. If you’re experiencing some kind of stress or anxiety from a relationship from old, emotional turmoil, there are three things you can do in the short term to tone down the severity.

See magical thinking for what it is: a faulty, dysfunctional mindset. NOT everything is YOUR fault.
Your partner might be emotionally activated: their logical, adult mind has taken a backseat to a chaotic, childish side.
People are replaceable: this sounds wrong, but any traits that you fell in love with or adore can be found in someone else.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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From The Good Men Project on Medium

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