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...

For those suggesting ADHD, I've seen a variety of therapists over the years and none have ever suggested this. The adult symptoms are:

carelessness and lack of attention to detail - absolutely not, I'm the exact opposite

continually starting new tasks before finishing old ones - again, exact opposite

poor organisational skills - total opposite

inability to focus or prioritise - total opposite

continually losing or misplacing things - nope

forgetfulness - nope, elephant memory here

restlessness and edginess - only inside my head. Externally very still

difficulty keeping quiet, and speaking out of turn - Hmm, possibly

blurting out responses and often interrupting others - Maybe when younger.

mood swings, irritability and a quick temper - yes, better with age

inability to deal with stress - yes

extreme impatience - marginal. Can be very patient eg with my kids and junior colleagues

taking risks in activities, often with little or no regard for personal safety or the safety of others – for example, driving dangerously - 100% not

So the few that do sound accurate could be equally applied to a lot of people or other behaviour issues to be honest. I don't think I have ADHD.

Couple of things-

People saying my DH is hugely fed up. Perhaps he is...but he's never said that's because of my anxiety (I still need to ask if he told the therapist that). The therapist came up with that.

We entered counselling because both of us feel we wind each other up. If anything within our relationship, it is DH who talks at me - he literally talks at me for hours about work (he's career obsessed) and very little else. I hardly talk to him at all, because I'm conscious of not being irritating bringing him my worries and because we just don't think the same way so I usually end up feeling dismissed when I do talk. So the reality is I'm rarely talking over the same thing over and over with him...it's mainly in my head. If anything, our communication problem is that we don't talk at all.

We came to this therapist largely about sexual issues as we don't talk there either. We don't say what we want, don't initiate. Because there isn't an environment of feeling safe, heard and validated. Is that related to my anxiety? Not sure. I don't feel it's just that.

In terms of being resistant to therapy and comments on this thread- as I've said, I've had so much personal therapy and honestly done all the things all the therapists have asked of me. I can't force myself to believe this is the sole root of our issues if I don't. And I can't make myself willing to medicate if I'm not - that's the one area I agree I am resistant, but I don't believe unreasonably so. Once upon a time, I might have been pushed down the route of a lobotomy and oddly I would have fought that too. I just quite like my brain in its natural state and would rather learn to work with it.

Interesting, thank you. This could definitely be the case in some instances and I will try to distinguish between the times when he does this for this reason, and when they are just actual lies.

It must be noted - DH's ex made a comment when they split that he's a liar. So it hasn't only been with me. He's lied about going for drinks with female colleagues. He's lied about gambling games on his phone that have racked up money from the family account. He's lied about paying out money to his family from our personal funds. At the start of our relationship, he lied about still being in love with and messaging his ex. All things that quite rightly would have made him worried about triggering an anxiety flare up....but I would have been equally rational to have one about!

Those last two posts change the situation somewhat. I don't think you have a communication problem, or an anxiety problem, I think you have a DH problem.

Those aren't white lies, those are flat out lies.

Your DH is a gambling addiction who lies about money, amoungst other things. Have you bought this up in counselling?

It's taken like 2 pages of messages for you to actually properly open up about some of your DHs behaviour traits that sound like they are some of the causes of the issue.
Which makes me wonder if you have been similarly reticent in counselling which is why you now feel like your behaviour is being unfairly targeted by the therapist?

Have you considered that your dh avoids the triggering situations that you say you have coping mechanisms for, because he cannot cope with your coping mechanisms?

Part of your joint communication issues could include you 'communicating' by (trauma) dumping your anxiety on him which you are using as a coping mechanism. It works for you, but obviously not for him. You want to verbalise your anxiety thoughts to get them out of your head, but what you're doing is passing them into his head. He's not involved in it as a human being, but a glass you pouring your anxious thoughts into - on repeat until you feel purged and better. But not considering that it might make him feel worse.

It's all 'I' cope. Not WE cope. You say you've always been like this and he knew this when you got together. But he was an empty glass back then. Now he's full and you keep pouring.

Good God what a dripfeed. You have a DH problem and he needs to sort out his lying before you sort out your anxiety. I would be anxious too in this situation.

6 pages to find out that your DH is a lying, potentially cheating gambler. No wonder you’re anxious.

Thats not a drip feed at all......more like the Niagra Falls of new information 🙄

I wouldn't say he's a gambler. He has an inclination to gambling...he likes the odd online poker game, or the sort where you build fantasy realms but then have to pay lots of money for add ons and things. And you chat to people in the chat rooms...not cheating at all but still weird stuff like talking about songs that remind them of each other etc. But yes those kinds of things make me anxious and yes I bring them up repeatedly and yes he doesn't like it.

He's not a cheat. He was still in love with his ex at the start and shouldn't really have got with someone else so soon. I think that then made me anxious from then on about how he is with women. But I've no real reason to believe he's ever cheated. The drinks with colleagues were friends...he didn't tell me because he thought it would trigger my anxiety. Which it would have.

Have you mentioned any of these behaviours of his to the therapist though?

In light of new info, it's no wonder you don't feel enough emotional safety to be intimate with your DH.

I've told the therapist this. I've also told him that DH drinks regularly. I'd like to state he's NOT an alcoholic, but he does consistently drink every night to a point I can tell he's had a drink (just slightly different way of talking/ looking, bit drowsy etc). And I'm pretty much tee total so that's not ideal for communication either.

But therapist has basically ignored all that and just honed in on me.

If there has never been a time in your relationship where you felt emotionally safe and number one in the eyes of your DH, you don't have a lot to build on. I have been in a similar relationship where DH still had feelings for an ex and it was very painful and of course I looked endlessly for reassurance which never really materialised. He is now my exDH!

I think you need a different therapist. This one sucks.

If he drinks every night then there is a fair chance he is a functioning alcoholic

And is he's lying about gambling games then he probably doesn't have an inclination for gambling he probably has a gambling addiction

And I do understand your frustration much more now that the therapist is honing in on your anxiety as the issue and ignoring your DHs behaviours.

Out of interest, are there good reasons why you want to stay with him? Because honestly he's not sounding like much of a catch at this point

Also I totally agree with this

!!

so I guess we can all bitch about her husband instead

It's never so black and white, is it. (Ironic as a poster earlier focused on my black and white thinking!)

He's actually really lovely. He's sweet, affectionate. The majority of the time he's very tolerant of me stressing about everything under the sun. He's a pretty calm person which is good when I'm not. He does loads for me and the kids, he helps around the house, he has a good job and provides for us all. He used to be really fun to be around although not so much since he got utterly obsessed with work.

But he's always had these 'quirks' in the same way that I've had mine.

I expected this to be about compromise. I don't want to villainise him anymore than I expected to end up the "bad guy" in this. I was looking for a therapist to help us find ways to improve together, how we communicate and behave together. Not it being all about one person.

It’s always disappointing when you engage with a thread, only for the the op to post a massive drip feed (always after the thread doesn’t go their way). It destroys any belief in the op.

Nothing to do with withholding information...nobody at any point asked me if there are any other factors the therapist should be considering that could be playing an issue, so I didn't think anything of it? My original post was that we'd gone for therapy for communication issues, everything has been pinned on my anxiety, I don't agree with that, not sure how to feel or what to do next...that's not a drip feed.

As I said below, my DH's quirks are not factors which, to me, make him solely accountable anymore than I am for having anxiety. I think marriage is a two way street and had expected a marriage counsellor to help us to navigate that but it seems I was wrong.

There have been some incredibly helpful responses on this thread which have challenged my thinking and given me some alternative perspectives to consider. But it's also shown me a lot how quick people are to settle on "this must be the one cause to rule them all" and it feels like exactly what the therapist has done too.

I think there's definitely some truth in this. As said, I don't just constantly dump on him all the time. If anything the issue is I'm very closed off and don't communicate because I don't feel heard or validated in our relationship. But absolutely accept he's probably made me feel that way only as a result of the situation you describe above. Thank you for your insight.

Just thinking about it, this thread in itself is a good example of the situation.

I guess I've used this thread to offload my concerns about the session. I've used you guys as my sounding board. Here I can speak in my authentic voice because you don't know me. Whilst a few people have very much tapped into what i was trying to say, I get the sense that a lot have found me draining just from this one thread. So if this is a microcosm of how I communicate when I'm thinking about, or worried about, something then this is what it like for DH.

Except that nowadays I could / would never have this conversation with him. I brought it here precisely because I CAN'T talk to him. I either feel he wouldn't respond well, or maybe something inside me knows i shouldn't put it on him. But where that leaves us is that these thoughts are still whizzing round in my head...I just can't talk to him about them. So I become progressively more closed off and he just talks at me about menial stuff like work because we never talk about anything that actually concerns us.

I totally get not wanted tp do more talking therapy as that rakes up things that will then go round and round in a brain-loop. And you're sick of it happening. But have you considered something like CBT to deflect the thoughts instead of the futile attempts to eliminate them?

My thoughts loop too. On and on none stop. Building up to an almost physical panic state of fight or flight. I'm having some success with counting backwards from a stupidly high numbers just to have something else to listen to. Make a mistake and I start again. Sounds ridiculous but it seems to help me knock the anxious thought off 1st place on the thoughts podium.

Anxiety is discomfort. It's an unhealthy state, and if you insist that you're fine with it and it's not a problem, that's a little like a drinker insisting that it's fine for them to drink so much it affects their relationship.

Ultimately, you have a decision to make: are you more attached to your anxiety, or to your relationship? Because they can't co-exist, so one has to go.

I used to have an eating disorder and had a ‘councillor’ to ‘help’ me. He was a complete waste of space and wanted to blame all my issues in my dp. Once I’d checked his qualifications, I decided that I was the only person qualified to sort myself out.

Just be very careful dealing with ppl who say they are qualified.

You do what you need to do OP to be safe and happy