Relationships can provide some of the greatest joys, profound love, and comforting securities. Yet relationships also trigger anxiety and bring some of our heaviest fears and scariest longings to the surface.
It’s typical to worry about your relationship or your partner at times. This concern shows how much you value love, family, connection, and partnership. The things you worry about the most are often what you desire or value most in your relationship.
Yet when anxiety becomes persistent and overwhelming, it may hinder authentic engagement and growth within the relationship. Unmanaged relationship anxiety can lead to more distance, unresolved conflict, and built-up resentment or insecurity.
There are healthy and helpful forms of anxiety, especially if you embrace your vulnerabilities and communicate your worries, desires, and needs to your partner. Communicating with your partner is critical so they can get to know you, know how to care for you, and strengthen your bond overall. When you understand the roots of relationship anxiety you can move towards healing and build a more secure bond with your partner.
What is relationship anxiety?
Suppose you’re noticing that your relationship anxiety is persistent, feels overwhelming, or is limiting you from engaging authentically or taking steps forward in healthy and secure ways. In that case, it’s best to slow down and be curious about where your relationship anxiety is coming from and what it needs.
Relationship anxiety is different for everyone, so it’s best not to try to compare. There are some signs that your relationship anxiety might be linked to something deeper:
Relationship anxiety signs may include:
- Frequent intrusive thoughts like “Do they still love me?”
- Overanalyzing interactions to decipher hidden meanings
- Constantly scanning for threats to the relationship
- Seeking evidence to confirm fears of incompatibility
- Withdrawing instead of expressing vulnerability
Anxiety patterns like this are rooted in various insecurities and past relationship wounds or traumas. The key isn’t just to get rid of these patterns but to get to their root. From there, you can work to understand what you most need to heal these old wounds, gain confidence and comfort, build trust, and work to get your needs met more consistently.
Top 5 reasons for relationship anxiety
1. Past relationship experience
Think about your past romantic relationships and the ways that they shaped you. If you’ve had positive relationships, you are more likely to feel confident in yourself and your ability to have successful relationships in the future.
But if you’ve been in relationships in the past that made you question your value or distrust others, you are much more likely to carry anxiety into your future relationships. For example, if you’ve experienced rejection or have been cheated on by a previous partner. In that case, it’s natural for you to be more sensitive and anxious in response to any signs that rejection or betrayal may be happening again.
💡For more on healing from infidelity and betrayal, check out our Betrayal resources.
2. Attachment style
So many of the ways we engage in relationships are because of how our primary caregiver engaged us and what resulted in our attachment style. This one relationship shapes our developing brain in significant ways. Our primary caregiver relationship shapes our ability to be aware of and regulate our emotions, our resilience to distress and adversity, and how we attach to others as adults. Perhaps your primary caregiver sometimes provided comfort and reassurance when you were distressed. And yet, other times, your caregiver fell short when they were caught up in their own needs and couldn’t meet yours.
You may have developed an insecure anxious attachment style. As an adult, this may look like higher levels of anxiety and emotion about your relationship, your partner’s reliability, and your ability to be enough for your partner. This insecure anxious attachment style often translates into you feeling that the only way to get your needs met by your partner is to express your pain or anxiety in dramatic and persistent ways.
💡For more on attachment, check out our Attachment 101.
3. Limiting beliefs or low self-worth
Belief systems help us create stories about who we are and how we should navigate the world around us. A limiting belief is a conviction or belief about ourselves or others that is typically negative and holds us back in different aspects of our lives. A limiting belief in a relationship might sound like, “I have to be perfect to deserve love,” “I’ll never be loved the way I really want,” or “If I’m vulnerable with my partner, they won’t accept or love me anymore.”
Beliefs like these will only heighten your anxiety whenever you think about taking a risk in your relationship to grow deeper with your partner and rely on them more emotionally. These limiting beliefs take an even deeper root when we only look for evidence to support them and never look for evidence to disprove them.
💡For more on self-worth, check out our therapists’ guide to building your self-confidence.
4. Overthinking and catastrophic thinking
If you are prone to anxiety, you will also notice anxiety patterns in your relationship. Anxiety may cause you to overthink small interactions, worry about the big consequences, and dwell on imagined worst-case scenarios. You may frequently ask yourself questions like, “What does it mean that they turned away from me at that moment?”, “Does my partner still love me?”, or “Can I be with someone like this forever?”
Overthinking patterns like this are perpetuated when you keep these fears and thoughts in your head instead of sharing them with trusted others to be processed, comforted, or challenged.
💡For more on processing your emotions, try this free exercise: Embrace Your Emotions: A Worksheet for Mindful Acceptance.
5. Doubting long-term compatibility or relationship sustainability
It’s important to note that not all relationship anxiety patterns are irrational or unhelpful. Your relationship anxiety might be trying to alert you to legitimate concerns in your relationship that need to be validated, explored, and even communicated to your partner.
Keep yourself open to the possibility that your anxiety could be trying to help you better understand the important traits you’re looking for in a long-term partner. Your anxiety can also reveal unmet needs in your relationship. When you can communicate through conflict and share your unmet needs, you can build deeper intimacy with your partner and strengthen your relationship.
💡For more on conscious dating and relationship sustainability, check out our Conscious Dating Series: Part 1 and Part 2.
How to move forward if you have relationship anxiety
Stay curious! You may feel your anxiety is working against you and your relationship, but your anxiety is a part of you. Instead of ignoring or stuffing it down, try making space for it. Even the anxiety patterns that feel the least helpful can give you essential information about your past, the relationships that have shaped you, and all the parts of you that need compassion, comfort, and healing.
Ask more questions to understand what your real fear is at the moment. Then decide if the fear is true or helpful to you in the moment. How much evidence do you have for and against the fear? Is believing the fear keeping you safe, or is it just limiting you from growing in your relationship? What would be more helpful for you to believe in this moment?
Once you’ve decided whether to believe the fear, choose how you want to respond to it. Would you like to explore ways to move forward in your relationship while you’re feeling anxious? Here are some things you can try:
- Use a coping skill to soothe your anxiety and interrupt the anxiety cycle.
- Challenge the thought and weigh the evidence for or against the thought using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.
- Reflect on what your relationship might need to give you more confidence in its long-term success.
- Practice vulnerable communication with your partner about your real worries and needs.
Need more help?
Reach out to us at In Session Psych to explore your relationship anxiety and find new ways to soothe your anxiety, validate your legitimate fears, and challenge the fears that are limiting you from feeling secure in yourself and your relationships.
If you’re interested in individual therapy, we have availability for in-person sessions at our Charlotte, NC office or virtually for residents of NC and SC.