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Separation Anxiety

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  • January 30, 2020 at 9:38 am #335852
    LinLin
    Participant

    Hi Everyone,

    Another opinion I am looking for here. I believe that I suffer from adult separation anxiety with my boyfriend. We have been together, happily for a year now. And this is without a doubt the most stable, happy, healthy relationship I have ever been in. There is a lot of love given both ways, a high amount of trust and security.

    Before we dated, we knew each other as friends. I have known him for over 7 years now but only officially been a couple for about a year. I always knew his hobby was travelling. It’s a strong passion of his and I support that. Since we have been a couple, he has taken 2 small trips on his own to see friends (each only about 4-5 days away) and we took a longer trip together just recently to Australia for 15 days and it was wonderful!

    I couldn’t help but notice when he was away on his little 4-5 day trips last summer, not only did I miss him terribly but noticed I also felt it emotionally and physically. I cried often whenever I thought of his face, got upset when I did not hear from him much in a day (sometimes unneccessarily angry at him assuming he was ignoring me or forgot about me when there really is no realistic reason to think this), worried about his plane crashing or him getting drunk and hurt, worried about him losing feelings or not missing me, etc. When he came back from these trips, he always looked happy to see me and none of my assumptions were true. I also noticed a lot of physical symptoms – shakiness, heart pounding, sweaty palms, crying, nightmares, panic attacks).

    A few days ago he left for another trip (this one is the longest – 10 days) but because of our schedules, I actually won’t see him for 16 days. This will be the longest we’ve spent apart as a couple and all of these emotional and physical symptoms have rushed back.

    Before he left for his trip, I really opened up to him about this and he really tried to understand the separation anxiety and told me not to worry, to keep busy, that he will of course miss me and be glad to see me when he returns, that he will keep in touch via video chats daily and showed he loved me. He even booked the night off work the night before he left to simply be with me, knowing I’d miss him a lot. We also took the 5 Love Languages Test for fun and turns out I am Words of Affirmation and he got tied with Quality Time/Physical Touch/Acts of Service. His lowest was Words of Affirmation which explains a lot.

    Earlier, I made a post about him not saying I love you to me. To this day, he still hasn’t but I have once. Once I told him, he informed me he feels strongly about me, cares about me a lot but has always had difficulty saying words like that to people he cares about and has never said it to a woman he’s been in a relationship with, nor has he said it ever to his friends or family. That calmed me a bit, knowing it was not just me. I know he loves me based on his actions and things he does for me like booking that night off work to be with me before his trip.

    But a part of me still wishes he would say things like, “i miss you/i love you/i really care about you”. Yes, he shows me all of those things but when he is away on a trip and we are separated, I guess I tend to want those words more.

    How do I stop crying so much, feel pain in my heart missing him, stop worrying about his safety and not come across as a crazy, needy girlfriend while he is away?

    January 30, 2020 at 9:56 am #335856
    LinLin
    Participant

    I also forgot to mention, a week before he left I had unintentionally been acting like a total ass. I was picking small arguments, blaming him for being angry/annoyed with me based on his facial expression, tone of voice or whatever and he of course, got defensive and a bit annoyed.

    This happened a few times in a row when he spoke up and said something along the lines of, “I think you are trying to make this “perfect” weekend but you are so focused on that, that any little thing that goes wrong or unexpected you see as a failure and get way more upset than usual and that basically you trying to make the week before I go perfect is making it…un-perfect”. And he was right I think I got so focused on making sure he would miss me, I tried too hard to make a flawless week that I ended up ruining some of it by over-reacting and over-analyzing his expressions.

    I sent him a long text one eve when he was at work apologizing for how I’d been and he told me he understood none was intentional and it was because of my anxiety and missing him. He said he was not mad and that next night was the night he chose to take off unpaid from work to spend it with me. He was very physically affectionate that night, we had lots of laughs, lots of conversation, a nice dinner and an overall really nice evening.

    I can’t help but feel bad for how I acted though.

    January 30, 2020 at 9:59 am #335858
    Inky
    Participant

    Hi LinLin,

    Well, you lived quite fine without seeing him everyday for the several years you were just friends. SOMETHING is triggering the over the top separation anxiety. Is it just him or have you always had trouble being alone? Do you need to hear “I love you”? Some people do, you know, and him not saying it and his explanation sounds like a cop-out to me, frankly.

    Well, what I would do is schedule events to go to when you’re not at home or work. And all your friends and family that you have? Schedule times to see all of them! In fact, sleep over at your friends’ house and vice versa. Go on your own overnight trip. Be so social you don’t have time to miss him! Be so busy you “can’t even”!

    Buy yourself things you’ve wanted, or go to the spa, as rewards for getting through this. Pick out new Netflix series to watch. Listen to books on tape. See movies in a theatre.

    Good Luck!

    Inky

    January 31, 2020 at 11:29 am #336048
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear LinLin:

    “a week before he left I had unintentionally been acting like a total ass. I was picking small arguments, blaming him for being angry/ annoyed with me based on his facial expressions, tone of voice”-

    -you are not really seeing his face, in your mind’s eye,  or hearing his voice, you are seeing and hearing the faces and voices of your parents.

    In 2018 you shared: “had both of my parents mad at me so it scared me into being a goody good. So that I would not get those angry  glares and passive aggressiveness from them. Even now, my Mom still looks at me constantly with an angry glare/ tone of voice or passive aggressive language”.

    It is your mother’s “angry glare/ tone of voice or passive aggressive language” that you see in your boyfriend’s face and hear in his voice and words. And when you see those things, you get scared and you get angry back. Only the man wasn’t angry with you.

    We keep re-living our childhood experience as adults, keep projecting our parents into the new people in our lives. You did the same thing with your previous boyfriend.

    We can peel off the past from the present; peel off our childhood experience from our current, adulthood experience if we examine and process the childhood experience that scarred us.

    anita

     

     

     

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