Loving Someone with Anxiety

by Kate N Thieda

  Feeling sad can also be a reality check. When you’re in a relationship with someone with a mental illness, it’s all too easy to become depressed because of your concern, and because of the demands on your time and energy. In addition, since anxiety and depression tend to co-occur, your partner may be depressed. As a result, you may feel sad for him, or his depression may create a subdued, joyless home environment that leaves you feeling down.

  If you find that you feel particularly sad, are unable to enjoy things that used to bring you pleasure, and lack energy or motivation, it would be a good idea to talk to a mental health professional to determine whether you’re experiencing depression yourself. The self-care suggestions in chapter 8 may also help alleviate your sadness.

  Exercise: Acknowledging Sadness

  In your journal, describe several times when you felt sad as a result of your partner’s anxiety. For each situation, write about potential solutions, starting with “Of course I feel sad about [the situation]. Something I can do the next time this happens is…”

  Guilt

  You may feel that it’s wrong to have negative emotions about your partner’s anxiety. After all, if you know your partner is struggling, you may think, What right do I have to feel angry [sad, frustrated, and so on]? He has it much worse than I do. Actually, you have every right to feel all those emotions and more. Your partner’s anxiety has had a negative impact on your life and your plans and dreams.

  If you feel guilty for withdrawing from your partner, leaving him out of discussions and decisions that will increase his anxiety, or going to social events while he stays at home alone, understand that this is natural—but not necessary. You can balance that feeling by remembering that you’re concerned about your partner and want to help. Reading this book is evidence that you’re invested in your partner’s wellness and recovery from anxiety. One way to relieve the guilt is to give yourself and your partner time for the suggestions in this book to work.

  You don’t have to feel guilty because of “negative” emotions about how your partner’s anxiety has disrupted your life. Like everyone, you want to be in a healthy relationship with a healthy partner. Talking with family and friends can help you get some perspective on your relationship with your partner. Getting therapy yourself is another strategy, as the therapist can educate you about your partner’s illness and offer suggestions about how to manage. Although you probably don’t want to tell your partner about all the feelings you’re having, keeping those feelings inside isn’t healthy either. Talking with others will help you realize that your feelings are normal and acceptable. This should help alleviate your guilt. Chapter 8 is specifically on self-care for you and offers more specific advice on seeking support from others.

  Exercise: Letting Go of Guilt

  Think about a situation when your thoughts and feelings about your partner’s anxiety made you feel guilty. What were some of the things you were saying to yourself about your guilt? For example, you may have told yourself, I shouldn’t be feeling this way or I’m a bad person for thinking this way about my partner. Now consider what options you have when you find yourself feeling guilty: Can you change your thoughts? Can you talk to someone who will give you a different perspective? Can you practice acceptance of what is, even though things may not be the way you want? In your journal, make a list of three to five options that are reasonable for you.

  Anxiety

  It’s not uncommon to have anxiety about a partner’s anxiety. So many questions come up when you’re in a relationship with someone who is anxious: Will he ever get better? Will the anxiety get worse? Will his anxiety reach the point where he can no longer live a normal life? What if he refuses treatment or the treatment doesn’t work? Am I going to develop an anxiety disorder as well, thanks to the ideas he’s putting in my head? Will our kids grow up to be anxious too? What if I get sick of dealing with this and want to leave?

  Again, all of these thoughts are completely normal. It’s hard to know what the future holds for you and your partner. However, you can reassure yourself by keeping in mind that effective treatments are available and that anxiety is one of the easiest psychiatric illnesses to treat. Treatment does require time and commitment, as well as a lot of support from loved ones, family, and friends—but recovery is possible.

  If your own anxiety reaches worrisome levels or you start experiencing symptoms similar to your partner’s, you need to seek treatment. It’s best to treat anxiety before it becomes severe enough to qualify for a diagnosis of an anxiety disorder. Also, bear in mind that it isn’t a good idea to suppress your feelings—including feelings of anxiety. As mentioned in chapter 2, denying feelings or pushing them away only increases their intensity.

  Exercise: Breaking the Cycle of Anxiety

  In your journal, describe a time when your partner’s anxieties made you feel anxious as well. What prevented you from feeling or acting calm? What could you have done that would have been more effective for reducing everyone’s anxiety in the situation? Make a list of five to seven actions you can take in the future to reduce your own anxiety so that you and your partner avoid feeding off each other’s energy. If you can’t think of that many strategies at this time, come back to this list later. After you’ve read chapters 5 and 6, you’ll have more techniques to draw from.

  Accommodation: How Your Behavior Might Be Making Things Worse

  Partners and family members of people with anxiety often try to do whatever they can to relieve the person’s anxious feelings. When you live with someone who has anxiety, this can be easier in the short run. As a result, you may find yourself taking on extra responsibilities, avoiding places that make your partner anxious, participating in safety behaviors or rituals with your partner, or handling issues that arise because of your partner’s anxiety, such as calling his employer and making up excuses about why he didn’t show up for work when the reality is that he’s too anxious to go.

  Of course, you engage in these accommodations because you care. You may be willing to go to great lengths to ease your partner’s anxiety, and this instinct is commendable. Unfortunately, this approach won’t improve your partner’s mental health in the long run. In fact, it’s actually counterproductive. While it can relieve your partner’s anxiety in the moment, and you may feel happy about that, ultimately this strategy will make your partner increasingly dependent on you and others who accommodate his anxiety. In essence, you are adjusting and adapting to your partner’s fears, which prevents him from learning that he can face and successfully overcome them. This is a key point and can’t be overstated, so let me reiterate: By “helping” your partner in this way, you’re actually making his anxiety worse, not better.

  This can be a tricky concept to understand, so let’s take a look at some examples of accommodating an anxious partner and how this backfires in the long run.

  Jill is a thirty-five-year-old woman who has been married to her husband, Brian, for ten years. When they first met, Jill had some anxiety about driving because of a car accident she was in as a teenager and especially disliked driving alone at night, so Brian did all of the driving after dark. Since she didn’t have to drive at night very often, Jill’s fears were heightened on the occasions when Brian wasn’t available to drive her. Jill even missed work some nights when Brian was out of town because of her fears of driving home after dark. Now she completely refuses to drive at night, even though she works as a shift nurse at the local hospital and is currently assigned to the second shift, which ends at 11:30 p.m. Brian, a manager at a local coffee shop, has to be at work at 4:30 a.m. Even though it means he only gets a few hours of sleep, Brian drives Jill to work in the afternoon and stays awake to pick her up and drive her home.

  Ben, who is forty-four, has been with his partner, Jim, for six years. Ben dislikes being in crowds and feels uneasy in social situations where he doesn’t know anyone. He has a history of panic attacks when around a lot of people. Jim is very outgoing and social. He works as a deejay on
the weekends and would love it if Ben would occasionally accompany him to his gigs, but that never happens. In fact, because Ben is so anxious, Jim comes straight home after work and watches television with him when he’d rather be out partying. He does this because he’s found that it prevents arguments and reduces the chance of Ben having a panic attack in public. Ben used to be willing to party with Jim every few months or so, but now he’s convinced that if he goes out to a club, a panic attack is inevitable. He often tells Jim that he’ll meet up with him, but he always ends up canceling at the last minute. When Jim decides to stay out late anyway, he feels guilty about leaving Ben at home alone.

  Anna is a fifty-six-year-old woman who has been married to her husband, Ken, for thirty years. Ken has OCD related to whether the oven has been turned off. He insists on checking the oven many times before he and Anna leave the house and sometimes he demands that they turn around and go home to check the oven again when they’re out running errands. Even though she loves to bake, Anna has started avoiding using the oven so she won’t exacerbate Ken’s anxiety. She used to be able to quell Ken’s fears by showing him that she was turning the oven off, but now Ken insists that he needs to check it at least ten times before they can go to bed or leave the house.

  These are just a few examples of the things people do to relieve their partner’s anxiety. As you can see, their intentions are good. But to break the cycle of accommodations and escalating anxiety, everyone involved needs to understand that making accommodations strengthens the anxiety in the long run. It sends the anxious person the message that the feared situation truly is dangerous and that he can’t handle it. As a result, the situation becomes even more anxiety provoking. Here are some of the accommodation behaviors typical with each type of anxiety disorder.

  GAD

  Offering frequent reassurance

  Checking in by phone, email, or text

  Avoiding upsetting conversations

  Hiding information that might trigger anxiety, such as overdue bills or upsetting news stories

  OCD

  Washing your hands a certain number of times, as prescribed by your partner

  Doing extra laundry

  Returning home to check whether the oven or iron is off

  Retracing your partner’s route to make sure he didn’t hit someone with his car

  Panic disorder

  Going shopping for your partner

  Taking care of all chores done outside of the house

  Accompanying your partner anytime he leaves the house

  Giving your partner frequent reassurances about safety

  Avoiding places where your partner fears having a panic attack

  PTSD

  Avoiding places where the traumatic event took place

  Avoiding discussing the traumatic event and telling others to not talk about it either

  Walking on eggshells to avoid upsetting your partner

  Social phobia or social anxiety disorder

  Declining invitations

  Making excuses about why your partner can’t go to work or attend a party

  Answering questions on your partner’s behalf in social situations

  Specific phobia

  Driving long distances when flying would be more convenient

  Checking for the presence of whatever your partner fears (dogs, insects, snakes, and so on) before your partner enters an area

  Monitoring the weather forecast and making sure your partner knows when a storm is coming so he can “protect” himself

  Telling your partner to close his eyes when you drive over a bridge

  Accommodations as Demotivators for Treatment

  Another downside of making accommodations for your partner’s anxiety is that it sends the message that there’s no need to pursue treatment. After all, your partner will expect that you’ll just step in and make everything okay. Therapy for anxiety takes a lot of hard work, determination, and courage. If your partner knows that you’ll make changes to relieve his distress, why should he make any efforts to change?

  This is especially important when the anxiety stems from trauma or fears that your partner must face in order to work through his anxieties. For example, if your partner is afraid to drive, it’s far easier for him to have you drive him everywhere than to talk to a therapist about the real reasons why he’s afraid to drive, which may bring up painful memories. Although you may want to alleviate your partner’s discomfort due to anxiety, that discomfort is exactly what will provide motivation to engage in the challenging work of treatment.

  Accommodations as Affection

  Sometimes accommodation behaviors become the main way a supportive partner shows affection and love for the anxious partner. It can become a comfortable role to be the hero, stepping in to save your partner from fearful situations. This can range from little things, like being the designated insect killer or buying extra cleaning products to accommodate cleaning rituals, to major accommodations, such as offering to drive two thousand miles to a family reunion instead of flying or taking a job that will allow you to come home at a moment’s notice if your partner is having a panic attack, even though you aren’t really interested in the job.

  While you might think these choices are simply a way of showing that you love and care about your partner, as you now know, they actually make things worse. Your partner will become increasingly dependent on you to step in and do whatever is necessary to prevent or relieve his anxiety. And when you aren’t willing or able to do so, your partner may feel abandoned and angry—not to mention extremely anxious!

  Accommodations as an Occasional Strategy

  It would be great if stopping accommodations were as easy as flipping a light switch, but these behaviors can be ingrained and hard to let go of. Plus, there will probably be some times and situations where accommodating your partner’s anxiety might make sense. For instance, if he has truly been making an effort to change but for some reason can’t do something that needs to be done today because it provokes anxiety, perhaps letting him off the hook would be validating and provide some positive reinforcement for the times when he has been successful in facing his fears. No one is perfect, and everyone needs a break every once in a while. Using accommodations judiciously can help strengthen your relationship and your partner’s commitment to changing.

  Exercise: Identifying Your Accommodations

  In your journal, or perhaps on a separate piece of paper, make a list of things you’ve been doing in an effort to alleviate your partner’s anxiety. Keep this list handy as you continue reading the book to serve as a reminder of what isn’t helpful, and add to it as you notice other accommodation behaviors. In upcoming chapters, I’ll provide a variety of techniques you can use to help your partner overcome his anxiety, rather than perpetuating the problem.

  Managing Your Resources

  The writing exercises you did in this chapter probably gave you new insights into how your partner’s anxiety affects you and may have inspired thoughts about what you’d like to do to improve your relationship. But before you start drafting the “perfect” solution, step back for a moment and consider how you and your partner got to where you are today. These issues didn’t develop overnight, and if there were an easy fix, you and your partner probably would have found it by now.

  Deciding how to approach your partner’s anxiety and the difficulties it causes isn’t like fixing a leaky toilet, where you can go to a hardware store, find the part you need, install it, and be done. Addressing anxiety and the relationship issues it can cause is more like long-term maintenance, similar to managing your finances: something you always need to be aware of, and something that can change quickly. If you and your partner both had full-time jobs and then one of you was laid off, your financial situation would change rapidly and dramatically. Together, you would adjust to the change in cash flow, and then, when things inevitably changed again in the future, you’d adjust again. Dealing with your partner’s anxiety is similar. Ideall
y, you’d be able to work together to find permanent solutions to the worries, perhaps through targeted treatment and the lifestyle changes discussed in chapter 7. However, the more realistic scenario is that your partner’s anxiety will be a factor in your relationship at least some of the time. Therefore, it’s best to focus on anxiety management, rather than hoping for a hard-and-fast solution.

  What’s Next?

  It’s natural to have negative feelings if your partner has an illness, no matter what kind of illness it is. Rather than feeling guilty about your feelings, use them as motivation to make changes. The remainder of the book will give you plenty of specific strategies to use, starting with communication skills in the next chapter, so you can talk with your partner about your concerns and your ideas about how you can work together effectively.

  Validation Isn’t the Same as Agreement or Accommodation

  You can validate your partner’s discomfort without agreeing that his anxiety is warranted or making accommodations. For example, you can say, “I hear you that you’re nervous about going to the party” (validation). Try stopping right there without going on to say, “And you may be right that you’ll make a fool of yourself”(agreement, even if you don’t believe it to be true), or “Why don’t you stay home tonight?” (accommodation). I’ll cover validation in depth in the next chapter and explain its benefits. For now, just understand that when I recommend not accommodating your partner’s anxieties, I’m not asking you to invalidate them. Those thoughts and feelings are real to your partner, even if they aren’t justified.

  Chapter 4