How to cope with relationship anxiety

[raina]

My boyfriend and I started dating in High school. And it probably goes without saying that I loved him so much to the point of being dependent on him after being together for four years. We never had any fights or problems in the first year. My anxiety started with just wanting to look at his phone. Not for any reason, I guess it just made me feel good to see nothing on there. And then one day, as it goes, I found something stupid. That a girl I didn't really like had hung out with him one night and he had not told me. And from there the anxiety started. He would lie about admittedly harmless things, but the lying just drove me crazy. I couldn't stand that he wouldn't stop and I kept catching him. It was annoying for the both of us, but bearable and we stayed very happy until the last year of our relationship. At that point he had failed out of college and had moved back to his bad neighborhood where all his friends were also not in school and wanted to drink all the time. I'm an honors student and my friends rarely ever drink. He would go out to the point where I wouldn't see him for a month at a time because every chance he had to spend with me he wanted to spend drinking with his friends. It just made my anxiety worse and worse to the point that I was in a very depressed state. not able to sleep or eat, always feeling panic, always fighting with him. Eventually, we broke up. We were broken up for 5 months and I dated a couple guys for a very short amount of time and went on dates, but never had anything with them or ever any anxiety. All the stress from school also dissipated with the breakup. I was really happy during that time broken up, found myself, found my independence, and felt the best I had in years. 5 months later, we are both happy single but comfortable with where we are - I was done going on random dates and he was done with his crazy parties. We've been back together for two months now. I have not looked at his phone once. I have not called him 20 times in the middle of the night. I can ask him questions without me sounding accusatory or him getting defensive and nasty about it. It all sounds great, but the anxiety is still there. I still worry that the girls he talked to before he's still talking to. That the drinking will get as bad as before. And I convince myself of this out of nowhere and think it's totally true even though I came up with it. But I'm better about handling it, now. Still, it happens pretty often. And he says I am better and he doesn't mind it as much, but it still does cause some tension with my very limited anxiety. The drinking is what does it to me the most, because I link him drinking to how he treated me around the breakup. Things are going better, but he is still an anxiety trigger, but I do really love him. I just don't know if he's the trigger and I need to let go of him, or if I will have this with any man I'm close to and I just need to make myself get over this.

 

I'm sorry this was so long, any advice would really help.

[Livingreal]

It sounds like he is definitely triggering you. Your anxiety will escalate until you get to the bottom of it. Are you able to see a therapist?

 

From your post, it sounds like you have taken full responsibility for the issues in the relationship. What is he actively doing to restore your trust?

 

I'm just out of a relationship with someone who was not honest so I can completely relate to his lying driving you crazy. If he cannot meet your need for honesty, then my advice would be to leave and tell him to come back when he is ready to be honest. He needs to know you will not accept being lied to!

 

Good job on not checking his phone.