Dear Kylee:

The fact that you and him were friends for a year and were “open and joked around”- that is a good thing, it would have been nice if that openness and humor didn’t have to end because of the change of relationship status.

Clearly his “history he has had with in other relationships” is a concern of yours, as well as the fact that he is very friendly to other women while in relationship with you.

You were hesitant about being in a girlfriend/boyfriend relationship with him because “I become insecure whenever I get in a relationship. I have bad anxiety and over think everything. It stresses me out and prevents me from fully enjoying the relationship.”-

Bad anxiety is a condition that requires healing and/or adequate management. Anxiety predated this relationship, meaning he didn’t create it. He is also not going to solve it, or eliminate it for you. He can’t, no boyfriend can.

You wrote: “I have expressed to him how I have bad anxiety and its hard to deal with especially in a relationship. He listens and says he understands but I’m not so sure he does”- notice your motivation in telling him about your bad anxiety: is it so that he will help you with it? If so, how? Is it that he will be careful not to hurt you?

He told you that he “may come off miserable like or looking.. But that doesn’t mean he is… he’s not always the best communicator which leads to me overthinking things like oh he doesn’t care about me or I’m not enough for him..”- is it your tendency to think that when a person looks unhappy it means that you are not enough for him, that you did something wrong?

You asked: “Maybe I’m expecting to much? I just want to feel secure and confident when in a relationship and trust that things will work out how they are meant to”-

Of course you want “to feel secure and confident in a relationship”, that is, you wish you were not anxious. But you are. At times you may feel secure and confident but often enough, unfortunately, you don’t feel secure and confident. This is why my answer to whether you are expecting too much is: yes. Expecting “bad anxiety” which predated him to disappear in a relationship, is unrealistic.

Do your best to learn and evaluate the man you consider for a relationship: if his relationship history is realistically concerning and if he is flirtatious with other women while in relationship with you, maybe meeting different women alone for a drink after work, well, that is not a good candidate for any woman interested in a monogamous, long term, healthy relationship, anxious or not.

It will be helpful if you rely on logic to discern between his behaviors that distress you because of your anxiety alone (ex., him sometimes looking unhappy-  no boyfriend can look happy all the time), and what about his behavior is incongruent with a healthy, loving relationship (ex., if he gave you the “silent treatment” as a passive aggressive way to communicate with you his anger).

I hope you post again with your thoughts and feelings.

anita

Dear Kylee,

you have the opportunity to let your boyfriend show his caring and warmth. It takes a little courage, though. If you “play” and try with the thought that he does not want to judge you (like you don”t want to judge  him either) even though you let him see your insecurity and anxiety, you probably will get such proof! That will deepen the trust and closeness between you two and in time your anxiety will diminish and your feeling of worthiness will grow. It is possible to let the relationship heal you by itself without too much effort! 🙂

Hi everyone,

I can totally relate to what Kylee is going through, although for me this is my first relationship. So I tend to associate it with first/new relationship anxiety. We were quite casual for a while (a year or so) and decided to become exclusive a few months ago. I’m happy for the most part and it’s obvious we want to be with each other, care for each other, but we both have mentioned not worrying about marriage anytime soon (both in our mid-twenties) so not worrying too much about the future. I try my best to live in the moment and enjoy the relationship for what it is but find myself becoming insecure, anxious and feeling vulnerable often. Similarly to Kylee, I’m a very emotionally intense person and quite verbal about it, he on the other hand, isn’t the best communicator especially when it comes to emotions (probably because he’s been hurt in the past). I have a tendency to overthink things and feel like I’m becoming a burden if I talk about my problems all the time with him and want too much attention. I ask myself too, if I’m expecting too much. I’m glad I found this post and the responses as they’ve been helpful and make me realize I am not alone in how I feel. I’m working on myself, meditating and building up my self-esteem/confidence because I know it’s something only I have the power to “fix” and I don’t want to ruin something that has the potential to be great because of my own insecurities, anxieties and past.

Thanks!