Dear GC:

Taking information from your previous thread, this is my input today:

Life is easier for you, much easier, when you are not involved in a relationship. Because currently you are “dealing with a lot of outside stressors”, it may not be the right time for you to be in a relationship. Too much stress, too much distress. The right time will be a time with way less outside stressors.

The anxiety and distress you are experiencing in this relationship (and the ones before it) is, in my understanding, pretty much the same experience you had in your early relationships with your parents. It is the same experience, activated.

You wrote: “I spent MANY years doing things on my own, since others did not want to help. I’m not used to accepting help from others, or not being fully autonomous”

You are used to, that is, you feel comfortable, the least stressed being on your own, autonomous. You feel most distressed being in a relationship, being together with another person.

You wrote: “my anxiety keeps finding reasons to leave the relationship and find incompatibilities”. More accurately, I believe, is that the thinking part of your brain is trying to find a solution to the ongoing fear (the anxiety), and the solution is what I suggested to you myself: to end the relationship. Ending the relationship will resolve the anxiety, at least a whole lot of it.

No need to look for incompatibilities, for reasons other than the true one: to not feel so anxious so that your experience of life is comfortable, not so difficult, and so that you can function better in other areas of life.

Would you like to elaborate on the over responsibilities handed to you, as a child, by your parents, and how they did not help you with what you needed help?

anita