Anxiety is ruining my marriage, help! With all of the stress that is going on in the world and in the news coupled with managing work, the family, and all of your day to day responsibilities it’s no wonder that so many of you feel anxious! The effects of anxiety can ruin romantic relationships, marriages, friendships, and careers.
Our fast-paced lives can be quite stressful.
And when we don’t have the tools to calm ourselves down and function efficiently, that anxiety can downright ruin our relationships.
How Anxiety Ruins Marriages
When we are anxious, we can’t really “receive” our spouse with openness and patience.
An example: You’re on the computer reading the news about the latest terrorist attack or car accident or political episode and you’re feeling quite anxious. Your spouse comes into the room and starts sharing an annoyance with you. You’re so anxious and wrapped up in your own re-activity that you can’t even process this as constructive feedback or their own issue.
What’s the best thing you can do for your anxiety?
One of the most important things to do is to become self-aware.
Notice, when are you acting out of anxiety. When you are anxious, you aren’t able to make conscious and informed decisions. You will react out of fight/flight mode.
If you do this, you will provoke your partner to feel unsafe and react accordingly. When you feel anxious, do you yell? Shut down? Give the silent treatment? Leave? Your spouse has their own fight/flight reaction to protect themselves from your fight/flight reaction.
You might be experiencing the Maximizer/Minimizer relationship dynamic too if you both react differently to anxiety. Take this relationship quiz to understand more if that’s what’s been going on.
Learning how to calm ourselves down is crucial to achieving a safe and connected relationship with our spouse, or with any of our relationships.
If you’re the spouse that “dumps” on your partner in the moment of your anxiety, while that may provide you with some temporary relief, it will usually create more disconnect, by catching your spouse off guard and making him/her feel unsafe. In turn, your spouse will be unable to respond to your needs in an effective way.
So, the next time you feel anxiety, try to take a few moments and allow yourself to calm down before you let it all out.
Begin to self regulate by checking with your partner if now is a good time to talk or not. That will help them be more readily available to listen to you.
Similarly, when you are listening to something that your spouse is sharing with you that you notice is leaving you feeling anxious, instead of reacting, do your best to take a deep breath and find inner quiet. Mirroring back by repeating back what your spouse is saying, as opposed to reacting, will help you calm your brain, so that you can hear what they are saying, instead of getting wrapped up in your reactions.
When we become calm, we become empowered, and we can choose how we react. And that is the ultimate power.
If you would like to experience relief from your anxiety and a calm marriage, contact us to experience Imago therapy. The Imago dialogue process will give you inner calm and the absolute best way to achieve that stability is through our private 2 day Marriage Restoration Retreat. We find that due to the structure of the Imago dialogue, couples even with a lot of anxiety are able to calm down and access their full brain- making many of the issues you’re dealing with melt away. Talk with us today about our 2 Day Marriage Restoration Retreat. You owe it to your family!
More inspiration for you if you feel, “Anxiety is ruining my marriage”:
- A calm marriage
- The danger of diagnosis
- What should you do if you think your spouse has a personality disorder?
- Narcissistic Personality Disorder
- Danger of Diagnosis Part II
- Downloadable Anxiety Journal
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