Dear Sarah:

I read all your posts here. In your original post you asked: “What is happening?”

My answer: you are suffering from anxiety. Your anxiety is about fearing that he will stop loving you and end this wonderful, loving, healthy relationship that you have been experiencing.

Part of you is trying to protect yourself from him ending the relationship by motivating you to end it yourself. This part of you is trying to protect yourself from a broken heart by making you numb to him, so it doesn’t hurt when he break up with you.

In addition to this, the expectation of a woman to always feel attracted to a man, to feel weak at the knees, to always think positive thoughts about a man, all these are unrealistic. If a woman spends enough time with a man, there will be times of lack of attraction, and of negative thoughts about the man, annoyances and such.

The title of your thread is: “Anxiety or Gut?” Definitely anxiety. There is no indication in your posts that there is a problem with the man or the relationship. I think it is how wonderful the relationship has been that increased your anxiety- the more wonderful, the more  love, the more there is to lose and the scarier the thought of losing all that.

I don’t see you ending this relationship. You have to learn to manage and somewhat heal from this anxiety. The message in your fear is not that this is the wrong relationship for you. The message, I believe, is that it is the right relationship for you and that you are afraid to lose it.

anita