I don't want to change myself? Anxiety and therapy related.

[OddSocksAndHollyhocks]

OK, odd one.

DH and I have been having marriage counselling, mostly to address our poor communication. Our relationship isn't terrible, in many ways it's good. But we have very different communication styles and both feel unvalidated and argue a lot.

Anyway. Therapist seems to have struggled to find a solution for us or to "solve" us as a couple. He's tried all the standards - finding shared passions, looking at our childhood and saying we're repeating parental patterns, suggesting mindfulness. In the last session, he seems to have settled on my anxiety and is now saying it's the cause of everything. He wanted me to name my anxiety and give it a colour and see it as separate to me...presumably so I could banish it.

The thing is, I've lived with my anxiety forever. I'm a very high functioning anxious person. I'm anxious about pretty much everything, have constant voices in my head BUT it doesn't stop me. I have a great career, friends. If I want to do something, i do it. It just often takes me a lot of self reasoning or finding a way I feel more comfortable with to achieve the same result. Its only when DH is in the equation that it gets more complicated as he thinks he's protecting me by just saying we won't do things that could make me anxious. When in reality, that's making me feel like I'm in a cage where I never get to actually live.

I don't feel like I need to get rid of my anxiety. But therapist has pinned it as the cause of all our problems. I feel like that's just an easy cop out. Not sure what to do next...

Expect, or ask?

I function on little to no sleep. I am an absolute perfectionist and overachiever without ever burning out.

Sounds like a health catastrophe waiting to happen. You’re not super human. Everyone needs quality sleep for the body to rest and repair.

It sounds like you are doing a great job of managing your life in a way that functions well for you. It also sounds like it’s not functioning that well for your DH. You appear to have rejected every avenue for changing your behaviours to make it easier for him, but expect him to modify his behaviour to make your life easier. Your posts are all about you and your problems and the response you require, while minimising or not acknowledging his concerns and desires.

Which is your right - you absolutely don’t have to do anything for anyone if you choose not to. But in that case you may have to accept that there is no way forward for this relationship. Perhaps the therapist can’t come up with a solution because there IS no solution which is acceptable to both of you?

In the kindest possible way @OddSocksAndHollyhocks my DS was diagnosed with GAD and as a person who feels responsible for that person it is utterly exhausting. It can put the other person in the relationship into a state of high stress themselves as they try to maintain constant vigilance around not triggering any anxiety or waiting to soothe as soon as any signs of anxiety present themselves. I felt unable to present anything other than a totally calm and accepting persona, not because that's how I felt but because I was worried about triggering his anxiety.

While he has largely recovered thanks to medication (which he was also very reluctant to try) and years of therapy I've remained in a state of high alert and have struggled to return to feeling anything like myself. Your husbands experience may be different to mine as I'm sure is your experience of anxiety different to my son's but I don't think you should necessarily dismiss him not talking to you about it as him being ok, this may well be a coping mechanism like it was for me.

Thank you for sharing. This is why I am keen, when I have processed all this, to speak to DH and find out directly if the concept of anxiety being a key issue came from him or only from the therapist.

Hmm yes @carefulcalculator, I take your point. Expecting your partner to soak up your anxieties when you are pursuing a high stress lifestyle is not reasonable unless that was the deal on the table and both agreed

This.

Also don't understand your stance in relation to medication AT ALL.

There’s a lot of people who play a supporting role to an alpha or high maintenance partner, but it has to be a choice

No judgement from me at all OP and sorry if it came across that way. You sound like you've been incredibly brave doing the work you've already done in therapy. Ironically I now understand how it feels to not want to confront difficult things as 7 years in and I've not spoken to anyone professional about my feelings when I know I should.

One final thought, and with the caveat that I obviously don't know you or your anxiety but could you just be a massively kick ass person anyway? I mean that could literally just be you, who you are, and not the anxiety, like you're just giving it far too much credit?

So bottom line you want to communicate better with Dh?
Sounds fair.
Shouting is not acceptable
Lies are not acceptable
What he doing to address this?
Your therapist doesn't sound very good.
Men and women are different and do have different communication styles.
A lot of your personality sounds amazing.
Sounds like you have a lot going for you.
And I'm not a fan of medication either. Know people who have taken it.
The million voices does sound a bit more problematic.
Are you ever able to relax enough , to be so 'chilled' that you can switch the voices off , or at least change the narrative ?
Remember your subconscious believes what ever you tell it - may as well tell it something useful.
And lots of people don't like flying - do you need to fly a lot?
Many people don't like crowds or motorway driving , or night driving
These things don't seem that usual.

I think it's quite selfish to not want to sort your anxiety, it doesn't just affect you, it affects everyone you love.

Similar experience with DD. I had to be the calm one always. Yes your DH should not shout but I have done that more than once.

My anxious friend is also super brilliant high achieving and in a stressful career. She won't do anything to treat her health anxiety, fear of flying, fear of hospitals, fear of the Tube, fear of swimming, fear of almost everything. I used to have her over to stay and on holiday with her, but I then realised I can't take care of yet another person, so I drew my boundaries. Meet for coffee or lunch but nothing more. Her DH also has a hard time. I think if a person is afraid of just one thing- say spiders- it's doable. Otherwise, exhausting.

That makes it sound more like you want a therapist to tell your husband he has to do even more to please you.

'I can't do x because...and...and...and maybe if...and...and...'

'Don't do it, then'

'How can you neglect my needs like that, you're putting me in a cage, you should listen to the same things a hundred times and coax and coddle me because I'm the Special One'

'Sigh.'

Er, ask but expect if I'm honest. I agree that is something in me that needs to change. Although have to say of all my issues, the motorway driving is the hardest. With everything else, I battle through and just get a grip and generally either do it (if the gain outweighs the stress - e.g. flying) or find an alternative / don't do it. With the driving, I took charge of this and had a lot of motorway-specific driving lessons etc but the instructor said I'm just not safe. Once my mind starts racing it's like someone with no brain being in charge of the wheel and in a motorway environment, it's not only myself I'm endangering but other people. I tried breathing, meditation, positive affirmations. I could try hypnotherapy but whereas another poster claimed you don't need top ups for that, my experience has been that you do. It really helped me with flying but wore off quite quickly. And it would be very expensive to constantly keep topped up.

Perhaps. I just find it a little odd that there can be absolutely no approaches to helping a couple communicate better together in partnership other than just one.

Thank you. I don't think most of my triggers are unusual either. They are pretty much all things that lots of people worry about, just perhaps I plan for them and stress internally about them more than others do. In terms of do I ever completely chill out...er, on holiday a bit. I'm just not a naturally laid back or chilled person. But when DH first got with me I remember him saying he fell for me because I'm fiery and high energy. I really have always been this way. And even though loads of posters on this thread find it mind blowing, I'm happy in my own skin and with who I am. I love my DH and want to be able to communicate together better. But I dont want to have to completely change myself to do that...definitely don't want to drug myself to do that!, and I don't want him to have to totally change himself for me either. If in actual fact he's been changing himself since Day 1 (because this is how it's always been) then that's very sad and no, we probably shouldn't be together but he swears blind he wants to be with me 🤷‍♀️

So the therapists advice makes sense I think, because it feels like you are stuck in a loop:

You and/or your DH want to do something

It's new/involves travel etc and triggers you talking about it because of your anxiety

Your DH decideds not to do it because its triggered your anxiety

You get frustrated because you feel like he's making your world smaller

If you can't talk about your anxiety communication between the two of you shuts down

Meanwhile he is stuck inbetween a rock and a hard place of either you talking through your anxieties, which may frustrate him and be draining, or being accused of making your world smaller.

I don't see how your therapist can help you resolve your communication issues without this being confronted as its seems to be one of the root causes of the problems

Given you have tried exhaustive therapy, I am struggling a bit that you won’t even consider medication. You refer to trying migraine meds previously and disliking the effect as it slowed you down mentally. There is nothing to say that would happen with anxiety medication. Your husband seems fed up and who can blame him. You seem to defining yourself by the very behaviour that makes you difficult to live with

I am always pretty sceptical of people who say "my anxiety", like it's a pet that comforts them or is an intrinsic and unchangeable part of them. That's a high level of commitment to being anxious, and doesn't sound healthy.

You are also saying "I function on little to no sleep" as though it's a badge of honour. It's actually very bad for your health. Something is going to come crashing down for you.

You are right to question whether your husband has issues that also need addressing in the therapy, but you appear to see anxiety as some integral part of yourself, and are not open to questioning it or seeking ways to reduce it.

I lived with a neurotic person once. They were pretty wedded to their anxiety, and expected everyone around them to make allowances. It was draining and depressing.

Agreed - I wonder if your DH is suggesting you don’t do something that makes you anxious, not to ‘protect’ you from your anxiety, but to protect himself from having to listen to you talking through your anxiety, which must be very draining for him.

Also, I hate to be that poster on a MN thread, but your description of your anxiety symptoms sounds quite like descriptions of ADHD that I have read about (no expert of course; have just been looking at symptoms as my child may be ND). Has this ever been suggested to you?

You sound like me in a lot of ways OP, so I sympathise, but I wanted to pull you up on something you keep saying - that you've always been like this, so you haven't changed from the person he fell in love with and married.

My question is, so what? Long term relationships do change and go through phases and develop over time. Something that was no problem in the beginning could become wearying later on. Constant stress takes a toll, and I personally don't believe that "whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger".

All that said, I don't like the sound of this therapist's solution, if it is as you say. To be honest, you've been very resistant in this thread to all suggestions, and it wouldn't surprise me if you're the same in therapy.

The black and white mindset is quite interesting.

OP, I've read all your replies but not the entire thread, but was just wondering if you were ever investigated for ADHD? My mum is diagnosed with GADS and everything you says sounds just like her, but since I was diagnosed with ADHD, I see more and more of my ADHD traits in her. She is thinking about trying to seek a diagnosis. And my own anxiety has reduced massively since diagnosis and medication, having previously been described by various people throughout my life as "scared of absolutely everything".

I'm pretty sure I've read that there's a high rate of misdiagnosis between the two, too, although I can't seem to put my hand on it at the moment.

I'm also going to put in a mitigating word for your DH's white lies. I know various people on the thread have agreed that lying is wrong and it is.

On the other hand I said white lies to my mum a lot. Because actually it's either to avoid a trigger and a series of conversations that might go on weeks or its to soothe her current anxiety.

For example it cold currently so she is obsessed that someone's pipes may freeze and burst. Now that's a reasonable anxiety. But it takes the form of her wanting us to check frequently (say 4-5 times within a phone call of an hour) that they haven't frozen up. I will check the first time, but the next few times I will tell her I've checked and they are fine but actually I haven't moved. Is it a white lie, yes, but does it reassure her, yes.

Now I could go and check each time, and then its not a lie. But I also have covid and I feel like crap and just because her frozen pipe anxiety is overriding her health anxiety doesn't mean I am going to make myself feel worse by getting up every 10 minutes or so.

If she asks me which hotel I'm staying at on a holiday I have planned I will often tell her my DH booked it and I can't remember the name. Because if I tell her the name she will google it, read the reviews, find any tiny negative point she can and obsess over how its going to wreck my holiday for weeks in the lead up, making me feel anxious and spoiling my enjoyment up to the holiday. So I lie.

Now I have said the OP only sounds a little like my mum so I am in no way implying that these are the sort of scenarios the DH is ruling to deal with. Nevertheless I sympathise with him if he is telling white lies because he is trying to avoid a situation because he's too tired to cope with the outcome, or it will spoil his enjoyment of something etc

A coping mechanism that requires the close involvement of another party in listening to endlessly-repeated concerns and following a set of precise prescribed rules of how they are allowed to behave and react is not, imo, an effective or healthy coping mechanism.