Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with relationships and anxiety

How should I move forward?

Anonymous — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 20:13:04 -0800

The New Year is approaching and I need some guidance on how to move forward with my life. I’m 27, male, straight, and British. I’ve only ever been in one relationship, kissed one person, and had one sexual partner. That relationship lasted from age 14 to 23 and included some long-distance time, and several years of living together and studying at the same university. Since then I’ve been completely single (no dates, no kisses etc), and I’ve also been socially isolated (no friends, unstable employment). I’ve also been depressed at varying levels of severity for who knows how long (the first serious episode being around 2004). I’m currently studying part-time, employed part-time, am trying anti-depressants, and am living with my parents.

Recently I’ve been feeling somewhat less depressed (though still moderately so), much more capable, and somewhat less socially anxious. I also have a few regular acquaintances through my studies (not friends by any means, but nice acquaintances). Also, I’ve gradually been becoming more interested in girls again. Specifically, I’ve been missing the intimacy (emotional and physical) of being in a relationship and have been feeling romantically wistful, lonely even. I rarely, if ever, receive any flirtatious signals from women and it’s clear that if I’m ever to meet someone I’ll have to take a more active approach than I ever have before. Things being as they are, I’d like to do this as gradually and tentatively as possible (in order to take care of myself as well as possible, and to work through my anxieties). My previous relationship taught me a lot of things, but I’ve changed so much in the last few years that in many ways I’m a very different person now. There’s little from that time in my life that can tell me how to move forward now.

In terms of my personal qualities, I’m essentially a good and kind person, quiet-natured, soft-hearted, and shy. Obviously, I have some problems, but I have a lot of good qualities as well. I’m a little arty, a little literary, a little pop-culturey, a little geeky, have a really good sense of humour, and people tell me I’m very intelligent. In person I think I come across as a fairly confident and capable, if rather quiet, man. I tend to keep people at a distance and I find it difficult to open up to others, perhaps for fear of rejection or negative judgement. I tend to crush easily on girls but have difficulty interacting with people whom I’m attracted towards.

Anyway, I’m sorry for writing so much and if my writing voice annoys you (as it does me), but if you have anything to say that might help me I’d be very grateful. It’s hard to boil this down to a specific question, so maybe we could start with these. Please try to read between them as much as possible.

- How should I begin working towards meeting women?
- How should I cope with my anxiety when interacting with women?
- How should I deal with my sexual and social inexperience?
- If you have been in a similar position to me, what has happened since?
- How do people make friends?
- How is it possible to open up to someone when talking, writing, or any form of personal expression feels like a distorted compression of the inner consciousness? (That sounds so pretentious – I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry! If you know what I mean, you know what I mean.)
- If you’ve been depressed or anxious for some time, tell me about the steps you took socially and romantically as you moved towards wellness.

Thank you so much.
(disposable: itoocannotthinkofausername@googlemail.com)

PS: I know - therapy, therapy, therapy! Maybe in the Spring.

Avoidance therapy

Anonymous — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 07:20:46 -0800

I frequently want to avoid the girlfriend, even though I always have a great time with her. This has happened with every girlfriend I've ever had. Is this an issue for you? How do you deal? I'm a mid-20s male in a committed, long-term relationship of about 9 months now. We're really a perfect match in many, many ways from taste in food, recreation, great sex life, similarly extroverted, outgoing, sense of humor, etc, etc, etc. I mean, things are stellar. She's insanely in love with me and wants to spend tons of time together, which is fine, since I have a great time with her and I'm in love with her and I'm pretty sure she's it for me.

Except that I often find myself "relieved" in a way when I get to just go home and do my own thing.

I'm a typically extroverted person who is socially active, has many friends, etc. I always have a great time when we do hang out, but damn if I'm not fighting myself mentally up until we actually make plans and go through with them, in this weird reluctant kind of way.

Stranger still, it's been like this with every. single. girl. I've ever dated, from introverts to extroverts, all across the gamut, at the beginning, middle, and end of the relationships, no matter how crazy I was about them at the time.

I know everyone digs on their alone time, but the issue is omnipresent. I don't voice it and I usually just ignore it while I make plans and then go and have a great time with her, but I really can't understand why there's such a draw to avoid the girlfriend in that way.

I'm frustrated because it feels self destructive in that I really have something great here. And I'm confident that it's not a downside to this particular girl because again, it's happened every time I've dated someone. I'm not typically someone who feels much anxiety, and I'm never nervous around her or anything like that--we've known each other for years and we're extraordinarily close. But I still get pensive about spending time with her in general, and I feel like my alone-time-to-partner-time balance is way off for someone as otherwise extroverted as myself.

What gives? Are you an extrovert who finds this nagging trouble even in the best of relationships? Do you just grin and push through? It's not like I'm having a rough time here; once we do go out or hang out or spend the weekend together, I absolutely love it and have a wonderful time. But I can spend several hours nearly convincing myself I'd rather be by myself than go be with her, which seems so strange to me.

Moreover, she's a nurse, so she'll work 2 12s right in a row, meaning I legitimately have plenty of alone time already. She's not "smothering" me or anything of that nature, so I'm truly at a loss. She doesn't nag at all either. There's a bit of stress at work and I've always got a lot on my mind, but that's not going to change and I don't want to sabotage myself just because I'm insane.

Insight? Thoughts? Your experience or advice? (We live separately, by the way.)

How do I fix me?

Anonymous — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:33:36 -0800

I feel like my life is over and I'm only 35. I feel completely stagnant and stuck, relationshipwise and jobwise. Do I need to change things or do I need to learn how to deal? Help me figure out how to be a happier person. Is there some Grand Unified Theory that explains all my problems? How do I fix me?

I'm a 35-year-old male who has dealt with lifelong anxiety. Two major things in my life right now have me in despair: my relationship and my job. Neither of these is awful; they are just blah. I can't see either of them improving. I feel like I'm too young to have a midlife crisis, but I feel like I have nothing left to look forward to. My life feels over. I feel like even if I change things, I'll become anxious and unhappy about something else. There are good things about my life, but I just do not know how to be content. Maybe deep down I feel like I don't deserve it.

I have been in therapy with different therapists on and off since I was 17. I've been seeing my current therapist for nearly 9 years, and I like her, and I have insights regularly, and she claims that I've changed for the better, but I still feel unhappy. I am a compulsive self-analyzer, but I can't seem to translate insights into actual change. Isn't the goal of therapy supposed to be to get to a point where you don't need therapy anymore?

I took meds (Celexa) for about 4 1/2 years. I never really felt like it solved things. I don't think I have depression -- I can function fine, I don't confine myself to bed, there are things I enjoy, I have genuine passion for life. It's just that life weighs heavily on me, and it always has.

I get frustrated and stressed out easily by little things in life. I have always worried about death, worried about wasting my life, worried about getting older (even when I was 21). Now I worry about middle age, old age. I'm gay, and I feel like I wasted my youth because I didn't come out of the closet until I was 24. I worry about long-term stress making me ill, which causes me more stress.

My relationship: I've posted a few AskMe's about this before (see here -- I changed details like numbers and dates in that first post because I wanted to be extra-safe about being anonymous), and I hate the idea of being a broken record, and I can see how people who have read my previous AskMe's might shake their heads at me for not having changed anything. But the thing is, I'm just terrified.

In short: my partner and I have been together for six years, and we've been in couples therapy for the last two. We truly love and care about each other and have a cozy, very boring, oxytocin-filled relationship, but we have never had a very sexual relationship, and after discussing it repeatedly in therapy, I'm pretty much convinced we never will. He has practically zero sex drive, and I'm just not sexually attracted to him. We have fooled around together twice -- twice -- in the last four years, and never did much before that. We have an open, don't ask/don't tell arrangement, which means that all my sex is with other people, which means that I can never have sex that includes intimacy, which means a big part of my life is very unfulfilled. Whenever I do start to feel some sort of intimacy with someone, I feel really guilty about it.

I guess the difference between this AskMe and my previous ones is that while I used to think there was a possibility we could eventually have a sexually fulfilling relationship, I've since realized we never will.

He also very much likes having a routine, likes being a homebody except for going to the theater alot (we live in Manhattan) and going to our favorite restaurant. He isn't big on excitement. Me, I need to shake things up every once in a while. That might sound odd, given that I tend to be pretty anxious, but I do like to expand my comfort zone sometimes, while he doesn't.

There are some days when I obsess about breaking up with him. But when it comes down to it, I just can't seem to do it. We have talked in our couples therapy about breaking up, and I would just miss him terribly -- having him next to me at night, talking with him, being with him. Plus, since I'm a very emotional person and I get stressed out easily, I just can't see how I could handle being alone and missing him. Our relationship has major flaws, but I do feel calmer knowing he is there whenever I get totally anxious about something. I cannot imagine being stressed out and having nobody to turn to, especially because I live in Manhattan, which can be a difficult, isolating place sometimes. Would I move into some small crappy studio by myself somewhere? I don't have very many friends, so I don't have much of a support system. (My partner and I are both in a social organization, so there are friends/acquaintances there, and people do like me, but it's hard sometimes because I worry about what people think of me.)

What if I wind up being single for the rest of my life? What if nobody else comes along? What if someone else does come along but that relationship is majorly flawed as well? What if my punishment for breaking up with my partner is that I never find anyone else again? Because, odd as this sounds, I do feel like I would be punished for it. That I am not allowed to change my situation, that I should be thankful for what I have, that I want too much.

Maybe I could keep him in my life, and we could be best friends?

And... what if I end the relationship and I'm still unhappy?

Now for the job situation: this is another thing entirely. My job is not very stressful and is sometimes decent, and I'm thankful for that, especially in this economy. But it's just a boring paycheck for me and isn't at all meaningful. Worst of all, over the summer, my office moved into a sterile office park in the New Jersey suburbs. Now I go to the office two days a week, which is a 1 hour 40 minute commute each way, and on the other three days I work from home, which feels so isolating and makes me feel like I'm not doing anything. I despair of ever getting out of this situation.

I have never known what I wanted to do with my life. I have seen career counselors, I have read career books -- at times I have been hopeful but I eventually despair. I have wanted to be a writer, a therapist, a journalist, a professor. I went to law school, but I didn't really enjoy being a lawyer. Now my job is related to the law, but it doesn't thrill me either. What I *do* like to do is read nonfiction and learn about things. I love learning and I love writing, but I don't think I have the expertise or ability to write nonfiction, and I have little interest in writing fiction. I am good at writing about myself, but who wants to read about me?

See how hard on myself I am?

I am also very fickle -- I can never be sure that what interests me now will interest me a few months from now. The only constant is history, particularly American history.

I feel hopeless at 35, and if the next 50 years are like the last 10, I don't know what I'm going to do, and I am only getting older. I am stuck, stuck, stuck, and I hate it.

I've created a MeFi account that I can't post from yet, but you can email me there if you want.

Relationship emotional hangover is getting in the way of new fun

Anonymous — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 08:10:13 -0800

I've been hanging out with a girl for a while, just as friends because she's had a boyfriend for as long as I've known her. I am, of course, into her. She's intelligent and beautiful and laughs at my jokes--all that good stuff. So, I was honestly quite pleased when she started having problems with her boyfriend. Every couple of days, we'd see each other and she'd tell me about some other dick thing he'd said. She'd also started sitting closer to me, touching me on the arm when we talked, and holding on a little too long when we hugged. My experience with women is somewhat limited (I've had two serious girlfriends), but I could see that she liked me. The last girl I dated had been a friend for six years and then we spent the last two years being involved romantically on an on again off again basis. The last time we split was in June and she said some things about my body that have had me a little messed up. In particular, she mentioned that she was unimpressed with my penis, which is a bit small (5 inches, but not very thick), and thought that I could stand to lose some weight. Anyway, I was obviously very hurt by all of this, and have been feeling a bit unmanned by the whole thing.

About a week ago, the new girl was taking some time off from her boyfriend when she invited me over to hang out with her and some friends. When I got there, she was alone and told me that everyone had already left. We sat around and drank for a while and we both got a little drunk. She got drunk enough to admit that she liked me and things went from there. Unfortunately, I couldn't stop thinking about my body and the things my old girlfriend had said. Thus, I wasn't able to get hard that night or in the morning. It was embarrassing and made me feel further unmanned. We went to breakfast the next morning and she seemed happy--I had managed to bring her to orgasm several times--but I was feeling pathetic. I walked her back to her place and she told me she needed to think about things.

She told me last week that she'd broken up with her boyfriend, but that was only after I contacted her. She hasn't made an effort to get in touch with me since the night we got together. But I have seen her around town a few times and she's been really friendly. I guess my question is: what should I do? Give her some time? Run away after the bad performance in bed? Talk to her about my bad performance? I really like this girl--a lot. But I feel embarrassed and I don't know if another roll in the hay would go any better right now. I don't know how to get my confidence back, but I really would like to make things happen with this young lass.

Success stories from or about people in a relationship with someone who appears to struggle with loneliness, anxiety and introversion?

ninotchka — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 18:55:44 -0800

I'm looking for some success stories from or about people in a relationship with someone who appears to struggle with loneliness, anxiety and introversion. Can it be done? The intro: I've been in a relationship for some time with a man whom I believe I love, and who I believe loves me. However, I’m about to set off on something of a long trip (nine months), and am concerned that this may be a make-it-or-break-it-point (prior separations haven’t gone so well).

The pros of our relationship: He’s brilliant and funny. When we have good banter, it glows; and I feel that we have each other’s confidence. He is fair-minded and overwhelmingly just: I’ve often been as delighted by his innate sense of what’s right as I have by his wit and wisdom. He’s handsome, he’s savvy, he’s ferociously disciplined. He’s a good man.

The rough patches: Of course, there’s the usual stress of any relationship – but what I refer to here is something more – something different. He rarely touches me (unless I reach out to him first), and appears anxious a great deal of the time. I take on faith that he’s attracted to me, but…it’s mostly on faith at this point. Generally (and in past relationships) I feel fairly good about my appearance and attractiveness - but lately, that seems to crumble with him. He seems delighted, really thrilled when I touch him or reach out to him – but increasingly, it feels one-sided, and I feel more and more distant as a result. I often resent the “expectation” that I should be the one to reach out – resentment that is neither warranted nor helpful. You can see, here, the makings of an unfortunate cycle.

Calling Grandma: He sometimes shows real trouble with a few kinds of basic “human interactions.” Speaking about everyday topics is fine for him, but speaking about anything close to his heart can render him silence for four to five minutes at a time as he clearly struggles to have something to say (usually this will end in “I don’t know.”) Making a routine phone call to a family member, for example - where there’s no reason to expect that anything bad will come of it - can bring him to tears. On the whole, it seems like the “tap” is closed most of the time, and occasionally, when it opens, it is a torrential flow.

Self-consciousness?: In rare moments, he’ll let on what sound like fears of being criticized or rejected - and I think he sees himself as being very lonely. I’ve seen him endure what I’m reluctant to label “panic attacks” on numerous occasions – which by his description appear to be brought on by something akin to an extreme form of self-consciousness. Indeed, he seems tremendously self-conscious much of the time, to the point of being self-involved. I mean this with all candor and no recrimination – and I swear, I don’t take it personally anymore - but I no longer expect or hope for him to ask me about my feelings, thoughts or reactions, particularly within the context of the relationship.

A caveat: Having been in several relationships, I'm positive this isn't just a classic gender breakdown (and I do acknowledge that gender can and probably does play a role). And I freely acknowledge that I have all the foibles you can imagine – I am more often than not proud, willful and hot-tempered (to name a few). My pride, particularly, has led me to be stung by his words and actions at times when my energies would have been much better spent mending fences. If this were about blame, I'd have more than my fair share. But, I promise, what I describe here isn’t at all about blame – it’s about a real concern that there’s no way to make this work in the long-term.

The wrap-up: I want very much to make him happy, but I worry that not only can I not make him happy, I can’t make myself happy in this relationship either. In a nutshell: he shows great restraint with me, and me, I push him. I worry that my behavior makes him feel like he’s under attack, and I know that his hands-off approach (both literally and figuratively) makes me feel desperately lonely.

Dear reader: Have you been in a relationship with someone who sounds a bit like this - or do you know someone who has? How do you make it work? I'm willing to put in the effort - but I need help. And at some level - petty as this may sound - I suppose that I need to know I'm not the only one out there.

How can I tell if I really want to date somebody, or I just want their attention?

Anonymous — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 15:29:00 -0800

How can I tell if I really want to date somebody, or I just want their attention? [i apologize for rambling, inside] Seems like a simple question. "If you wanted to date them, you would." My last relationship was all getting together-breaking up, repeat, because when I started dating that girl, I'm pretty sure I didn't really want to. I was just extremely lonely from having not had anyone in my life for so long. In the end, I still felt awful breaking up with her... surely we must have had some kind of bond by then, but 2 months after the last break up, I was pretty much ok.

Now I feel like I'm in a similar situation - I do like this girl, but for the first couple months I knew her, wasn't really attracted to her. Purposely tried to not spend a whole lot of time with her, and did not do one thing to mislead her into thinking I wanted anything but platonic stuff. No touchy feely, not lots of solo dates. After about 3 months of seeing her on and off at social things, mostly in groups, she told me she had a crush on me. I waved her off and stuck with the 'just friends for now' thing. However, about 3 months after that, I started spending more and more time with her when my health took a dive. I had been depressed from the health stuff, and umotivated to do alot on my own, proactively, so she kept contacting me saying "let's do this or that", and it was way preferable to hang out with her and do stuff than to sit at home and not want to do solo things.

My health stuff has been scanned and gone over with a lot of detail, and I'm getting that taken care of as best I can. Apparently this stuff going on for so many months and not getting a decent diagnosis has been taking a toll, since my sleep started getting erratic for the first time in my life, ever. Bad enough that I went to do a sleep study, and seek psychiatric assistance. I am not currently on any medication and don't have a history of needing much in that arena, although I come from a typically nervous line of folks in my family. : )

But a few weeks ago, after we hung out again, we finally did some light physical stuff, after which we both just went home to our respective beds. In the middle of the night I woke up super anxious and feeling extremely guilty that I had even alllowed that to occur.

Now while I realize I probably need therapy (been on the hunt for decent therapist for a while now, seen a few) about health stuff and whatnot, to me that was a clear sign that some part of me does not want to date her because it does not feel 'right'.

Since that occurred, and we talked about this, it is clear she is finally starting to reduce attention she gives me and not proactively contact me so much, even though she clearly still wants to be friends. I don't see how it can be easy for her, having given me so many chances to take the reigns, so to speak, and finally this.

Anyway, now that her spotlight on me, so to speak, is receding, I am having that awful anxious feeling you get like when somebody breaks up with you, and you don't want them to date somebody else - even though we have never actually 'dated'.

I want to say I feel like the problem is that I am in a bad place emotionally right now, and that I need SOMebody, and not her in particular, but I am not certain. The two of us discussed this and I told her (maybe stupidly?) that I really wanted to be able to say I wanted to date HER, and not just her because she is around and available.

I realize there's a ton of people that would say "stop overanalyzing, dumbass, and give it a shot", but I am wary of repeating the last dating experience I had. I have dated someone before where I felt really certain of it and good from the get go, and while that did not last, it did last 6 years! So, it seems like a bad idea to start something when you don't even feel right about a person to start with, no?

Vote yea or nay in the comments, please, MeFites, and why. Yeah I know I have to decide for myself, but I really seem stuck here.

fear of intimacy with friendships

Anonymous — Mon, 11 May 2009 12:16:38 -0800

How do i get over my fear of intimacy in friendships, and actually let myself get into close friendships and not push people away? Help me sort out my problems with intimacy and social anxiety, and fix it. Usually this question comes up in the context of romantic relationships. I've read through the series of MeFi questions, but I can't find anything on this - so here goes.

I am a male in my late twenties, and live in an east coast city (ECC). For work, I have been temporarily sent out to a west coast city (WCC). My time here so far (just a few months) has been helpful in giving me perspective to a problem that I have been ignoring for years.

I have been here a few months in WCC, and have a few months left before i go back to ECC. I don't know that many people here, and the loneliness has hit me pretty hard. When I talk to people from back here, they expect me to be having a lot more fun than i am, and I'm just miserable.

What i've realized here is that I have deep intimacy problems. I realized that back in ECC, I do know a lot of people - I just don't let them very close at all. I have a lot of casual acquaintances, and sort of have a busy enough social life, but I don't have lots of close friends. Living in WCC, since i'm alone a lot more, has given me a lot of perspective on this...

I had moved a lot in my early twenties, and I kept on trying different places - and I've finalyl realized that it wasn't the place - it was me! It was my fear of letting people get close that pushed people away.

Part of this problem comes from a fear of intimacy, and part of it comes this fear that people think that I'm a socially awkward friendless loser, so I try to build up my life in a way that seems more active and social that it is. And most people think I have a far more active social life and romantic life than I do.

So, you know how some guys have a number of girls in their life, and the presence of other (available) girls in their life makes them more desired by other girls? (which isn't healthy, i know).

I have that mentality when it comes to relationships as well, even though (obviously) that doesnt work at all. I think what it is, is that i am afraid to let people close to me know how vulnerable I am, so I hang out with different people and hold them at arm's length, even when they want to get closer.

So I'm always 'looking' for new friends, even though I have people in my life already.

I think I'm worried that I will get into a friendship with someone, and that we won't click - and that i won't be able to extricate myself (I feel like this happened before to me in college - i got in with a group of friends that i found myself very different from, and leaving was awkward and painful for all involved)

(Romantically, this has not worked well at all either - I have slept with many girls but i won't let them get close emotionally to me either)

I have a lot of individual relationships, all with different groups of people. Some of them are very, very different from each other. I have this fear of them not getting along, so I never bring different groups together, and I think people seem slightly off-put by that fact. But bringing them together generates such huge amounts of anxiety for me that I get scared and won't do it. For instance, I went out about four times last week with different people - but I never brought them together or invited one from one outing to another.

Or another example - i haven't done anything for my last couple birthdays - everyone always expects me to do something and have a big gettogether, and people always ask me when i'm planning to gettogether or the party for (the answer? i get so stressed out about it that i hunker down, and dont do anything, and mumble some answer about how i was too busy to plan anything)

But again, I think it's the fear that people will see a vulnerable me - so i put up a false facade that everything is great and there's nothing to worry about and that i have a super exciting life.

Otherwise, things are good in my life, there is no reason for me to struggle. I have a well-paying, very stable job making in the high five figures, no outstanding debt, very well educated, and no real struggle on that side of life. In this economy, I know this is worth a lot and I am thankful for that each and every single day.

What i just want is to be happy and not be lonely and have CLOSE friends. I need to change, and I need to figure out the best way to fix things and get things on track before I leave WCC and go back to ECC.

I do have kinda bad bouts of depression (medical, not situational), and social anxiety as well.

Thoughts on the best way to approach therapy (to find one), good books to read, and any way you have pulled yourself out of a situation like this would be appreciaetd. I have been like this for too long.

How can I comfort myself instead of leaning on my stressed-out boyfriend?

bubukaba — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 11:58:00 -0800

Help! My boyfriend/roommate has less time for me than he used to, and now I feel like I'm sabotaging my relationship with insecurity and anxiety. Help me deal with this without being crazy and treating my already-stressed boyfriend badly. I met my fella last summer, when he moved into my commune-like apartment (we're mostly college students, and there are several of us living here full time, plus assorted friends and vagabonds sleeping on the couches every so often). He moved in because he'd lived here in the past, was part of our social group, and because he was starting up a little business nearby and had been crashing at our place more or less every night for a month or so anyway after staying at the store late working on the space. I was already seeing someone else, but he was overseas for the summer and though I didn't really notice current-fella at first, I eventually found myself feeling uncontrollably drawn to cuddle up with him. And so it started.

After a week or two of cuddling and sleeping together in the evenings, we started actually sleeping together - and it was great! He was sufficiently rough and adventurous and it was just lovely. We had lots of great sex, snuggled up together almost every night, and didn't talk too much about where things were going. It was around this time that he formally moved in - which meant putting a bunch of bookshelves of his belongings in a corner of the living room and calling one of the couches his bed - but at this point he always slept with me, so that didn't seem to matter.

It wasn't all rosy - even though we spent lots of time together (aside from evening cuddles, mostly in the form of long trips to the hardware store for building supplies) - I was kind of anxious about the fact that we rarely talked. I joke these days that our early dates consisted of "going to the hardware store and not talking to each other". Basically, I felt like I was getting to know him and falling in love with him - or something - without any real exchange of words or confirmation that he felt anything similar (aside from the fact that he kept asking me to go to the hardware store with him!) I always felt like I was chasing him - waiting around for him, hoping he'd come home, heart jumping a little bit when I heard the front door open because it might be him, and so on. I still feel this way, most of the time. But I've historically tended toward anxiety and obsession in my relationships, and at the time it generally seemed less consuming in this one than in others.

He also made things clear at the beginning that he wasn't going to be monogamous. I was basically fine with that, though I've historically been pretty vanilla in that respect - but I've slept around more than he has since our thing started (he's only slept with other people in my company). Our place is the center of a large and pretty bohemian social group, so this wasn't that unusual. I've actually found the whole non-monogamy thing pretty liberating - I used to spend a lot of time worrying about being attracted to other people or falling in love with other people, and now I don't. But I do get a little jealous when he's affectionate with his ex, who's part of our social group and who I felt awkward around even before I knew she'd dated him.

So for the first five or six months, I was maybe a little uneasy but basically happy. And I was particularly happy because I wasn't being faced with any weird co-dependent relationship drama - I'd had some trouble with that kind of thing in the past (both on my end and from my partners). But me and current-fella would cook each other dinner, wash each other's dishes, and generally co-exist happily and without too much blazing intensity. Nice quiet domestic romance, from my perspective.

Now things are completely different. I seem to have become a completely insecure wreck, and I'm worried that I'm going to ruin things. And while I know that things will probably turn out for the best even if we break up, etc. I still want to see if I can just stop acting like a nut and keep things afloat.

Here's how this phase began:

At a certain point, some time in mid-January, he started seeming a little agitated about being "stuck". He'd tease me occasionally about being his girlfriend (and I'd always say, "I'm not your girlfriend!" - though eventually I agreed that I guessed I was his girlfriend - I don't know why I had such a thing about it), and he made some remark at some point along the lines of, "how'd things get so serious with us?" And he'd talk about being stuck with me, and more importantly stuck with the store (which at this point was beginning to take up much more of his time and was a considerable source of financial stress). We weren't sure if our lease on the apartment was going to be renewed, and he talked apparently half-alarmedly, half-pleasedly about us looking for an apartment together and moving there with some of the other roommates.

(Historical note: he grew up traveling a good deal and since college has traveled a lot himself - and he's definitely missing the freedom of movement he's lost as a result of his business debt).

By February, the store was stressing him out even more. He even broke out in a rash at a certain point, which we theorized was stress related. He stopped taking care of household stuff in the apartment, like washing dishes (though he'd traditionally been my ally in harassing the other roommates to wash their dishes). And he started sleeping with me (in either sense) less and less.

(Historical note: he's told me that he's long had problems getting up in the morning, and that it's much harder for him to get up if he's sleeping with someone - so he wants to sleep alone ostensibly because it'll make it easier for him to get up in the morning. But back when we were always sleeping together, in the early days of the store, he'd often have to get up even earlier - around 5am sometimes - and though he did often oversleep, he still slept with me...)

For some reason, not going to sleep with him completely freaks me out. At first I'd cry myself to sleep, and then avoid talking about it with him, hoping things would straighten themselves out on their own. But they didn't - currently he sleeps with me maybe two nights a week. He works at the store 5-13 hours a day 5-7 days a week, and often ends up working on store stuff or doing freelance work on the side - or just reading to destress - until late at night. When he does this, he's completely inaccessible - in another world, basically. We rarely go anywhere or do anything together, he seems to dread going to work, and I feel wrenchingly lonely, neglected, and as if talking to him about it will only make everything worse because it'll stress him out more.

But unfortunately, I talk to him anyway. It started one night when I decided that I couldn't stand being so sad when I tried to go to sleep alone. I went to him - he was on the couch in his "room" - and told him I was sad about being alone and asked if he'd come sleep with me. He refused, but I persisted and cried a bit and eventually he semi-reluctantly came and slept with me. The next evening was Valentine's Day. He apologized for "being an asshole" over dinner. I told him he hadn't been an asshole.

If this had been a one-time thing, it probably would have been just fine - but I've started going in and bugging him - in what I know is his only free time, in what I know is his only semi-private space - more or less every night! It's compulsive, and very hard to stop myself from doing if I'm in that mood. When I do this, I'm usually feeling lonely and worrying that "he doesn't really like me" and feeling resentful about not having spent any time with him that day or about him "never paying any attention to me" and things like that. I have no real idea of how rational or reasonable any of these feelings are (he legitimately has very little free time these days - but I legitimately hardly see him most days, too). I've never lived with a partner before, and I suspect that's part of the problem - particularly since this one doesn't have any real space of his own. But regardless of rationality, I continue to have these episodes of intense unhappiness - though most of the time I wake up in the morning alone and feel fine, like a different person, not insecure or worried at all, except about the consequences of my complaints and vague threats to break up with him and things like that. And I don't know what to do. I don't want to torment him when he's stressed and depressed (and I really do feel like I'm being at least partially unreasonable) - but I don't want to be sad and preoccupied so much of the time. But I do like him a lot, he's wonderful and not like anyone I've ever met. I miss how things used to be.

I wish he'd comfort and reassure me, but he doesn't seem very good at that - and this seems like something I should be able to do myself, anyway, and really more my job than his (even if I think otherwise when I'm at my worst). But I haven't had much success, and simply waiting for it to go away takes a long time - and I'm trying to finish my bachelor's thesis and need to be able to focus on work!

So, what's worked for you? What might work for me?

How do I overcome my fear of disapproval?

richar4 — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 14:34:15 -0800

I'd like advice on how to overcome my fear of disapproval from others. It manifests itself as lack of confidence/assertiveness, self-consciousness, anxiety and fear of not being good enough. Looking for all kinds of techniques, suggestions. I'm 32, emotionally and reasonably socially aware, if not necessarily emotionally/socially intelligent. I have a small group of friends. I have a lot of fear and anxiety around the issue of being 'good enough'.

Some symptoms of this are: I feel self-conscious walking down the street, sometimes even when driving(I know!). It feels almost impossible to get a 2nd/3rd date - mainly due to the confidence aspects I suspect. Emotions are contagious and I really need to crack this, and become better balanced. I need to stop betting the world on and being so emotionally effected by small interactions whether its a date, interview, ordering food from a takeaway, whatever..

I'm looking at some form of talking-therapy although finances are a bit of an issue there as I'm hoping to implement a career change, pay course fees and so on. Any kind of suggestions no matter how small are welcomed. Thank you.

RelationshipFilter: How do I convince her I'm not scared?

Anonymous — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 06:19:04 -0800

RelationshipFilter: How can I convince this girl that her issues don't scare me and I really do want to be with her? Rambling details and soul-baring inside. Earlier this month I started seeing a girl that I've become very fond of (background info: I'm a 19yo hetero male, she's an 18yo bisexual female, both students at the same uni). We hit it off on our first date and found that we've got an incredible amount in common in terms of tastes, opinions and attitudes. I've gone out with her a couple times since and both occasions went very well: long, personal conversations, lots of flirting, "marry me already!" jokes, etc. going both ways, though the physical element hasn't gone any further than a goodnight kiss.

This past weekend she invited me to brunch with her and her housemates, but when I got there she was a little distant and quiet. I spent a couple hours there and tried to get her to come for a walk with me afterwards, but she said she couldn't, she had too much work to do. When I got home she texted me and apologized for "being a jerk" and promised to explain herself later.

That night we had an IM conversation that led to her confiding in me about her personal issues - she is struggling with anxiety, depression and an eating disorder (all of which I'm also dealing with, and she knows this) and was recently diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and she claims to have never had a "successful" relationship with either sex because of her myriad insecurities. Her phrasing made it seem like she was trying to say, "You don't want to get involved with me, I've got way too many issues." I told her that her issues weren't going to scare me off and that I think she's wonderful, she didn't respond, and I haven't seen her or really spoken to her in about five days. She hasn't been online and I haven't been able to find her on campus. I did send her one text that said "i miss you" and she responded by telling me how busy she's going to be all week. I've got a creeping fear that she's cooled off on me, which my close friends assure me probably isn't the case (though they've yet to meet the girl in question), but I can't convince myself of that. Mysterious cooling-off is a recurring theme in my relationship history and I admit I'm fairly insecure about it.

Can I convince this girl that I adore her and want to be with her, that I'm not scared of helping her through all of her issues and that I'll stand by her no matter what? This girl is unlike anyone I've ever met, I've never felt this strongly about anyone and I want her to know that I sincerely do want to start a real relationship with her. Do I just need to give her space and let her come to me or should I try to talk to her face-to-face about it?

Can love without infatuation still be "real love"?

Anonymous — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 14:25:06 -0800

I read this question about how to tell the difference between love and infatuation. Most of the answers seem to say that love and infatuation feel the same in the beginning but love is what lasts in the long run. My question is, is it possible to fall in love with someone with out really experiencing true infatuation with them? I have a wonderful boyfriend. He has all of the things that I have ever wanted in a significant other. This is not to say that I think he's perfect, but so far none of his imperfections are in anyway close to dealbreakers. I find them endearing. I do think we are perfect for each other. We don't just enjoy each other, we are truly good for each other and challenge each other to be the best we can and grow.

We've been together several months, but less than a year. I feel as though I love him, and am in love with him. Especially when we are together. We have great physical chemistry. Possibly the best sex I've ever had. I can't get enough of his kisses and cuddles and hugs.

The problem (?) being, I have never really felt infatuated with him. I mean, I want to be with him as much as possible, and think about him all the time when we are not together, but I never really experienced the "blissful infatuation high" where you go kind of crazy and you are stupidly excited all the time and your head gets all light and airy and you are obsessed.

What I do feel is quite happy when we are together, I feel a warmth in my heart when I think of him, I miss him when I can't be with him, I get excited to see him if we've gone too long apart. I am comfortable being myself around him all the time, and I love kissing him and touching him.

There is nothing about this man or our relationship that makes me doubt that we should be together, for not just now, but for a long while, except this nagging that because I never fell "head over heals" in infatuation that my love might not be "the real thing". As a result I am terrified that it won't work out, or that I'll never love him "enough". My love for him is most intense in the times when I can really keep these fears at bay. I'm concerned it may be a endless cycle of I'm scared I don't love him enough, but because I'm scared, the fear itself keeps me from being able to love him enough.

I am a very talented over thinker, and I think that is a huge part of this problem.

So.

Is it possible to be in love without having been ga-ga infatuated?

If so, how do I stop over thinking this and just enjoy the ride?

Also, we are in our late 20s... does maturity & past relationships play into the amount of infatuation you are able to feel as you get older? Maybe total infatuation is more of an immature feeling?

Please help me sort out my anxiety-related relationship problems and help me to have an open heart.

Anonymous — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 16:06:39 -0800

Please help me sort out my anxiety-related relationship problems and help me to have an open heart. I am really struggling a lot with seemingly intractable problems with some of the relationships in my life. When it comes to dating, I have a deep mistrust of men that is hard to overcome. I don't know where it really comes from--maybe from bad experiences or from my anxiety, which is almost crippling--but I am so distrustful and "closed off" that it's hard to let someone in. I'll meet someone who seems nice but in the back of my mind "maybe he only wants one thing" and I don’t allow myself to trust him. This, I think, make me say things that come across the wrong way or act rejecting without meaning to.

As I mentioned, I seem to have a knack for either saying things the wrong way or being misunderstood. I wasn’t allowed to be around other kids much when I was little, and my family a very poor role model for communication. So although I have improved a lot, my relationships sometimes turn sour without my having a clear understanding of why.

I also seem to misunderstand others quite a lot, and perhaps my reading of people and situations is a little “off.”

All of this has lead to a high-intensity anxiety situation! Since so many relationships did not work out in the past, I always expect and predict that the next one won’t work out too. It seems to be like a self fulfilling prophecy because sometimes I see drama/conflict/rejection when it isn’t really there. A lot of this I think is due to my anxiety, but unfortunately even with long-term psychotherapy my progress is very slow. Sometimes I literally *cannot* relax and I have physical symptoms like aches, pains, and irritability.

I have tried pharmaceuticals. Only one antidepressant (Celexa) was of any value, and my response to it was extremely positive. I was calm, relaxed and easygoing…the complete opposite of the nervous wreck that I am without it. However, I had numerous and side effects (weight gain, sexual problems, extreme tiredness, lack of motivation, etc.) and just decided that I would have to work on fixing my insides rather than hoping for a medication to fix all of my problems. (I do take benzos when I have an anxiety attack, but I can’t take them all of the time.)

Anyway, this is a long question, but I guess I’m wondering is how can I learn to open up to others and let go of my fear of rejection and my high-strung, anxious nature? I spend a lot of time analyzing “what went wrong” in various situations but I’m not sure it’s really getting me anywhere. As I said, I’m in therapy (and very pleased with it) but these are really complex problems and I’m discouraged by my slow progress. I will mention that I have some trauma in my past (not sexual trauma, but general trauma) that probably contributed to all of these problems.

What's a gifter to do with unwanted gifts?

UtterlyDrained — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 08:41:55 -0800

My wife's battled depression for a while, and though she rallied and had a decent few months, she plunged back into the depths of it for the few weeks around her recent birthday (which seems to happen every year, but this year was the worst yet). She had us cancel any birthday plans, cake, etc -- didn't even want anybody to say "happy birthday". After asking a few times and receiving this same answer, I went along with it; it was her birthday, after all. Her mood has lifted since then, but she still doesn't want her presents -- says to return everything, and shuts down when I bring up the subject. Fine, I can return them, except for one, a custom order meant as a present from our four-year-old (call her "Olivia"): a set of coasters printed with Olivia's scanned artwork. What do I do with them? Ideas:
A) Trash them.
B) Give them to her anyway, wrapped, and say "open or trash this, it's up to you". Seems blatantly disrespectful of her explicit request, though.
C) Unwrap them and then give them to my wife, saying "would you, uh, like some coasters?"
D) Save them for another holiday
E) Use them myself, in my own space.
F) Olivia was excited about them, and would love having her very own special set of coasters. I could give them to her instead. They would be a reminder of this episode to my wife, which could be bad (always reminding her of the ongoing depression that caused her to turn them down in the first place, and of the fact that she refused to accept a gift from her daughter because of her own issues), or -- in a way -- good (reminding her that her depression and actions affect those around her). (There's a small chance this could backfire if Olivia insists on presenting them to my wife as a gift; she's been, for instance, occasionally wrapping up her toys in packing paper and giving them to my wife since the non-birthday, though my wife hasn't connected the two as far as I know).

Fizzled Out on Passion

divabat — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 02:36:41 -0800

Depression has knocked my passion (for everything) out. Gwargh. What do I do while I get therapy sorted? I've been diagnosed with depression and anxiety for about six years, and have been on and off treatment for that time. Last year (after about 3 years of being treatment-free) I had a bad relapse and went back on medication (Effexor XR) and counseling. They helped, and I was getting better, but recently I had a big setback and never managed to recover properly.

I've found that this wave of depression has robbed me of the ability to feel passionate about everything. I was once really passionate about changing the world (in various ways), and was invited to an exclusive summit last week for 100 other young passionate people. I felt like a dullard next to them - I didn't feel like I had anything of substance, and at one point I sat alone in a room crying and declaring that "I'm done". Surprisingly, even though my only contribution was wise-cracks in lectures and a Thank-You card for the organizers, the rest of the group accepted me wholeheartedly and felt that I was one of the most memorable people in the whole summit.

After I came back from that summit, my boyfriend and I went on a weekend vacation, but I couldn't muster any sort of enjoyment whatsoever. My boyfriend's showing me so much affection and love and care, and all I could do is go "meh". This got worse in the following week, and I felt really guilty that I couldn't feel as much love for him as he obviously does for me. (According to the Triangular Theory of Love, the companionship and intimacy is strong, but the passion's gone missing).

For a while I felt like I was holding him back, that I wasn't the best person for him, even offered to find him someone else that could treat him better. In all other respects, our relationship is actually going great - we communicate well, we deal with ups and downs maturely, we respect and care for each other deeply. I just am an emotional wreck, and I didn't want him to suffer because of that. Nonetheless, he still insists that he loves me, and that he doesn't mind the lack of emotional passion. (For example, I like cuddles and embraces, but felt guilty that I was being selfish and not bursting out with love for him. He told me not to worry because he didn't find it selfish at all.) It's good, I guess, but I still can't help but feel guilty that the only emotional response I can muster to anything is "blaaaaaaah".

I went to see a GP (my regular one was away) and made appointments with my usual counselor. It's two weeks away though, so I have some down time. I have work placements this uni semester (my last!!) and I'm still waiting for those to be sorted out so I've got nothing to do for a while. I'm already wallowing away in sorrow and despair, and find it hard to do stuff - I'd rather nap all day (and indeed do sleep a lot) and it takes a lot of effort to make myself shower or prepare a meal. I have things I could do, but I'm too lethargic and bored to do anything other than think about them. My boyfriend and I are also looking at relationship counselling to see how else we can deal with my depression - we're talked out and we're out of ideas.

How can I cope with the lack of passion and energy? Should I feel guilty for not being as romantically inclined towards my boyfriend? What about my current apathy towards making a difference, when I once was such a passionate worldchanger? What can I do in these two weeks (until my counselor appointment) so that I don't drag myself down into further despair and actually feel better?

(I'm doing a little better now as I write this, but my moods change so quickly and intensely that I'd rather have some practical ideas for when I get another "sad attack". Also, I've found lots of relationship questions about dealing with a depressed partner, but not much about being the depressed partner itself.)

No TV, no beer make Homer something something...

sunshinesky — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 20:44:11 -0800

Borderline Personality Disorder: What's next? I just went through my first real, in depth, psychiatric assessment, and it looks like I have a diagnosis. I've never read about BPD, believing all this time that I was just depressed. I'm in the process of being referred for DBT, but I'd like suggestions on what to do in the meantime. It's going to be at least a couple weeks until I get into therapy, and I'm just starting new prescriptions of Wellbutrin and a low dose of Seroquel for my depression/anxiety.

What can I expect in the days, weeks, months and years to come? How can I help my boyfriend, and others around me, to cope? In the past you mefites haven't sounded so hopfeul, so share some more positive experiences, please! By all means, total horror shows will be just as helpful.

I feel like it's a big step just knowing what the hell it is that's been wrong with me all this time. I knew I wasn't 'just depressed'.

Anecdotes, resources, tips, anything!

data: 23, female, and I've had symptoms for upwards of 14 years. No, YANMD.

How do I learn to live with his tics?

Anonymous — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 08:50:13 -0800

My boyfriend has developed some tics that are driving me up the wall. What can I do? I've been with my boyfriend for a few years, and we live together. We're in our early-mid-twenties, and we have a great relationship. Things were rough a while ago when he fell into a depression due to unemployment, but he's pulling out of it and slowly getting his life back on track.

The problem: his tics are driving me nuts. He's always had a few (not particularly noticeable) muscular tics, but over the past few months they've gotten worse and vocal tics have been thrown into the mix. First he was loudly closing his jaw, and then after a couple of months that was replaced with tongue clicks. I'm pretty sure he doesn't know he's doing it. The vocal tics are what pushed it over the edge for me -- I'm pretty anxious and high-strung by nature, and hearing a constant string of clicks and clunks emanating from his vicinity at all hours of the day is doing bad things to my blood pressure and my ability to concentrate. It's like having a neighbor who makes too much noise, except in this case the neighbor lives in my house, the noise is something he has no control over, and I love him dearly.

He's mentioned having OCD and Tourette's as a child, so there's obviously a precedent for the tics. He didn't take medication for it; he overcame his compulsions and tics through sheer willpower. He doesn't tic when he's in social situations (it's worst when he's reading or messing around on his computer), so this isn't something that's going to impact his vocational or social life. So I'm well aware that the problem here is mine, not his. I shouldn't be as bothered by the tics as I am; they're not particularly loud, and there are spans of time when I don't even notice them -- but as soon as I do notice them, they're all I can think about. I fixate on the tics, and on an imagined lifetime of listening to them stretching out before me. And I worry that something is seriously wrong with him and that the tics will only continue to get worse.

The medications for Tourette's have bad side effects, and like I said the tics don't affect his quality of life at all, so it would be ridiculous for him to go on meds. As I said, I don't think he's aware of his tics, and from what I've read, telling him about them wouldn't help (and might make them worse, because I think if he knew he was ticcing he'd go crazy trying to stop). (And what could I say? "Honey, this thing you're doing completely involuntarily that isn't your fault at all is making me miserable. I know you have no control over it, so I just wanted to let you know!"?) But I also hate feeling like I have to lie to him and avoid him whenever I have work to do (which is pretty much all the time). For example, last night he was reading on his laptop in bed while I was trying to fall asleep, and I couldn't fall asleep because I could hear his tongue-clicking through my earplugs and his muscular tics were shaking the bed. I had to lie to him and tell him the light from the computer was bothering me so that he'd either go to sleep or leave the room.

So I guess my question is twofold. First, for those who have some experience with Tourette's or other tic disorders: am I correct in my assumption that I shouldn't tell him about the tics? (Is it ridiculous of me to think he isn't aware of them? Maybe he's ashamed of them and is hoping I don't notice.) Is there any kind of behavior I can gently encourage that would improve the tics? (He recently began going to the gym, which I was hoping would help, but it's had no effect that I can notice.) Am I wrong to hope that this could improve on its own without any intervention? (Like I said, he's been depressed and stressed out lately, but there's an end in sight -- he's starting grad school in a few months, which I know is not normally equated with happiness and relaxation, but I've known him when he's been in school and dealing with insane workloads and he wasn't NEARLY as stressed out as he is now. And his tics were barely noticeable.)

Second, and more important, for those who have some experience with anxious and obsessive temperaments: how can I learn to control my reaction to his tics so I don't get crazed and anxious and unable to concentrate on anything? I suppose isolating myself in another room and putting on headphones helps, but I'm not happy with that solution -- I obviously can't avoid my boyfriend forever, nor do I want to, because I love spending time with him. So what do I do? Meditate? See a therapist? Take Xanax? My anxiety levels have reached a fevered pitch the past few months, and it's affecting my quality of life.

I feel like I'm being forced to decide between his happiness and mine -- if I tell him about the tics, he'll be angry at himself (both because he places an extremely high value on self-control and because he'll hate that he's been making my life worse). And since his life sucks much more than mine does right now, my inclination is to just suck it up and learn to tolerate this.

If you've made it this far, thanks for reading all of this. It kills me that the one person I can always talk to is the one person I can't ask about this.

Throwaway e-mail: ticsaplenty@gmail.com

Is it right to divorce a depressed spouse?

UtterlyDrained — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 14:17:30 -0800

Is it right to divorce a depressed spouse? My wife hasn't been the happiest person as long as I've known her, and during our seven years of our marriage she's gradually spiraled into increasing depression and anxiety, to the point that she's been fighting back suicidal thoughts on and off over the last year or so. She dearly loves our two daughters (one four years, one nine months) but often has trouble dealing with them by herself for more than an hour without turning into an emotional wreck. This is all rooted in an incredibly poor self-image; she sees every moment of every day as proof that she's fat / stupid / a bad parent / universally disliked / a failure / etc. She has a great life by all objective measures but nonetheless she's miserable. Sometimes she's, well, functional for an afternoon or so, but this is the exception rather than the rule -- for instance, she has too much anxiety to talk on the phone, and can't put our older daughter to bed or finish eating a meal with the family because otherwise she'd end up yelling at the top of her lungs and stressed to the point of tears. She finally sought treatment this year, but after six months, two (well-recommended) therapists, and at least a half-dozen different combinations of medications for depression and anxiety, she felt nothing was working, quit both medication and therapy and is very unlikely to try either again for quite a long time. I'm really the one stable thing for her to lean on, the one healthy thing in her life. But after years of this, I'm drained and miserable. I'd love nothing more than to be able to help her to lead a happy life, but so far have had no success, and what once seemed a limitless future now looks grey and bleak. Would it ever be fair to leave her, or do I have a moral duty to continue to devote myself to supporting my wife and the mother of my children, regardless of what effect that has on my own life (and, possibly, our children's)?

I'm particularly interested in hearing from any of you who've been in a long-term relationship with a depressed person; what did you do, and in hindsight, was it the right decision?

I am not looking on advise for helping my wife out of her depression -- that's an entirely different question, and one for which I'd need to provide a lot more background, and what we've tried and what she's likely to be willing to try.

(More details in the first comment. Apologies for the length -- I want to provide some context, but I've already trimmed any kinds of details or examples. Feel free to skip the rest, or to ask for particular examples to determine if I'm a complete loon or jerk with a biased perspective).

How do I stop worrying in the beginning of a relationship?

Anonymous — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 16:40:28 -0800

How do I stop worrying in the beginning of a relationship? (example provided) First thing is that I have A LOT of anxiety about relationships!! I take things too seriously, and it is very hard for me to "wait and see" or to just let things happen. I guess this becomes a neurotic pattern where my fear of the relationship failing sometimes causes things to go south. I think this has to do with the fact that I never had a father. Without any positive male role models on my life, I get very nervous in relationships with men.

Here's a typical example. I have been seeing this guy for several weeks. In the beginning he came on really strong--saying that he had no question about wanting to be with me and seeing me 3 days in a row during the first week! We were basically inseparable from day one. Because things were moving so fast (i.e. going so well) I got really nervous and was afraid to disappoint him or to have it crash and burn. So I told him that I liked him a lot but that I wanted to get to know him more slowly--to see each other a couple times a week and slow it down a bit.......Since then I'm feeling mixed signals and wonder if he's less interested in me. He's been a lot less consistent--a couple of times he canceled plans with me at the last minute but we are still seeing each other maybe once every week or two although he doesn't really call me.

Long story short, I ALWAYS feel that people are rejecting me. So this may just be a pattern for how I interpret things. At the same time, I feel like this guy has pulled back so much that I'm not getting as much attention as I would like to get,

How do I figure this out? I don't want to be unreasonable or demanding, and realistically I know I'm a very anxious person, yet it drives me crazy when someone cancels on me for flaky reasons more than once because it’s disappointing and makes me feel like my time isn’t valued. I am blaming myself because I feel like my worries early on steered the relationship off course--I was just too scared that things would crash and burn if they moved too quickly...but now I'm wondering if I made a mistake by putting the brakes on. How do I know if I'm seeing the situation accurately (or feeling "rejected" when it's not really happening?). What do you think about this guy's behavior toward me? How can I chill out and not scare people away with my relationship anxiety?

Helping your partner's sexual anxieties

Anonymous — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 22:13:55 -0800

How do I help relieve my boyfriend's sexual performance anxieties? I am almost a year into a long, happy relationships with a great guy. We are wonderfully compatible and overall things are going amazing. However, our sticking point is sex. It's not a huge issue. In general, the sex is great and frequent. But occasionally, and especially in the past couple of months, he's been dealing with performance anxiety.

I am a person who likes sex. I like it a lot. He likes it too, but not as much as I do, not as kinky as I do, and not as often as I do. He finds it awkward to be in the position of the person with the lower libido, he's not used to someone so sexually aggressive, exploratory in ways he's not initially comfortable with (though he defines Good, Giving, Game), and on top of all this he knows he's not the type I usually date. These things have combined to worry him that he can't "handle" me, or he's not enough for me, or I'll leave him for a "better match". This causes serious problems in the bedroom when these things start bouncing around in his head. He starts thinking I'm faking it, or I'd prefer to be somewhere else, and bam, it's all over--which of course causes him even more anxiety.

I've tried everything I can think of. I assure him I love him and I want him. I assure him he is a great sexual match for me. I've tried roleplaying to keep his mind off the worries. I've tried restricting our activity to cuddling and makeouts and teasing so he goes crazy for the act. When it happens in the middle of the act, I've tried asking him to talk about it (which he will do so readily), and I've tried pretending nothing's wrong and continuing to play in other ways so he knows the performance issues don't bother me (and they don't). Some of these things work, some don't, but even the solutions are temporary.

He's open and communicative, and intellectually he knows he's being silly. But the worries persist. Is there anything I can do that I'm not doing to help him?