anxiety caused relationship breakdown, or breakdown caused my anxiety?

[allypally1986]

Hi,

I've recently split up from my long term partner and I am a mess. I have been experiencing anxiety like never before and have been prescribed some beta blockers and therapy. The beta blockers work like a charm for the first few hours after I take one, unfortunately they seem to wear off very quickly.

I'm lost though. I feel so different now I am addressing the problem but what if my mental health was what caused my relationship to break down, instead of the anxiety being caused by my failing relationship (which is what I assumed). I was miserable and so was he so I called it a day, but now I can't stop wondering if my behaviour was caused by mental health and if I'd got help sooner I could have saved it :(

The reason I am confused is because I deeply love him still, and don't have a bad word to say about him. So I don't know why I began to withdraw. How do you know????

And just for background, he has drawn a pretty firm line under the relationship now and won't be listening to any excuses such as 'I had anxiety' so I don't even know why I'm asking really... I guess I just want to stop blaming myself :(

I'm going through a very similar situation although my DP has moved out and we haven't actually split up yet.

Although I can't really offer any advice, please don't blame yourself OP, you cannot help the way you feel and by the sounds of things you have been trying your best to get some help.

Hope things get better for you real soon

I guess the help is just too little too late though... why didn't I get help sooner? I'll never get him back now. I really thought I felt so shit and anxious all the time BECAUSE of the relationship, but now I see it was probably what caused the relationship to go wrong.

Why didn't I take action sooner? I've been horrible to him. So horrible

Thank you by the way, I hope you manage to work things out with your DP. me and my ex are a week into no contact, he's ignoring my calls and texts, and I would do anything to have a chance to fight for us :(

I'm the same, should have got help way sooner, I guess we just don't want to admit that there's something wrong.

The relationship probably didn't help your anxiety, I know my DP living here definitely added to mine. I think others have a hard time understanding when they don't feel the true horror of what anxiety really is, but you really shouldn't blame yourself, these feelings are strong and so hard to overcome alone. Do you have others for support in RL?

Maybe give him a chance to cool down and focus on getting better? Once you're feeling better in yourself maybe try and talk things through then?

Yes I've got lots of support. Unfortunately I had no idea I even suffered from anxiety (I didn't know what name to put to what was happening to me) so he's out there thinking I just turned into a massive bitch that hated him.

I don't think he'll listen to me if I try and talk to him about it. He's pretty clearly said the time for talking is over. But I suppose he can't have really loved me that much if he's so ready to write me off (although this does follow 5 solid months of rows)

It's good that you have lots of support and that you can begin getting some real help now you have a diagnosis.

Five months of solid rows sounds awful and if he doesn't have the time to listen to you now, he really doesn't sound worth the effort and pain of trying to explain yourself (though I'm sure you haven't done anything that bad that warrants explaining) don't be so hard on yourself!