I have another thread on a breakup I am experiencing and it’s brought forward a lot of negative feelings towards myself that I don’t think are healthy, but I am anxious that I might be a common denominator in why I feel like a failure in life rn.
I have had a lot of therapy over a long period of time due to childhood trauma/abuse which caused anxiety and negative thoughts. I was not well cared for as a child and do not have close relationships with my parents. I have brought up my own children who seem to like me 🙂 and have a good job where I talk to people and need empathy.
I thought I had really made a lot of progress as after my last therapy I connected with someone I fell deeply in love with, as a friend and partner and really thought we would be together for ever. Well he has changed his mind on this and alluded on occasions that my emotional needs or my coping skills made him uncomfortable.
Can I give examples and anyone comment on whether these are undesirable faults I need to work on?
-catastrophising things. He said I had a negative glass half full mindset and always thought the worst scenario. Like if someone close to me didn’t text or call me back for a long time I might start to worry about them. For me, I just really love and care my loved ones and like to know they are ok. I don’t express anger to people if I am worried about them or want to intentionally make them feel bad. He would try to help me stop worrying by just saying ‘stop worrying’ and then get annoyed when I wasn’t able to just switch the worry off. I would tell him that I needed to mentally access my rational side of my brain and and not let anxiety take over, but this wasn’t an instant thing I could make happen and sometimes I was just sharing a feeling that it was bothering me but I couldn’t do anything about it.
-expressing my fears or concerns. If I did this, and it was a little bit ‘silly’ he would make me feel silly by telling me it was. I had major surgery and got upset before it of the risks but he got annoyed with me. If I ever expressed something like this he might try to ‘fix’ it instead of listen/hug me (which is probably all I wanted). I asked him not to make me feel silly but he said he didn’t understand the point of anxiety or worrying about something that hadn’t happened
-being quiet - if I was ever in deep thought or kind of working things out in my brain for whatever reason (money, or work related) he would worry that I was being passive aggressive and about to launch an aggressive stance towards him about something he had done wrong. So what he would do is completely ignore and avoid me. To clarify I never shouted at him and I am quite able to express myself without doing so, although perhaps I could do so in a sarcastic PA way if I was frustrated with him.
-his emotional well-being. I think I was encouraging and reassuring if he shared something with me
To clarify I think that over the course of 4 years these things happened rarely more than frequently but I became more anxious about sharing things with him because I didn’t want to get rejected for comfort and feel worse.
Is it wrong to want your partner to comfort you, is this something I need to work on so that I don’t need anyone to give me any reassurance and I just don’t burden anyone with anything? I am confused as I didn’t have good role models with my parents so I will admit I thought this was the point of sharing your life with someone so that you don’t bottle it all up alone.
this isn’t me looking to bash him can you give me examples of how couples do communicate and manage their feelings in a healthy way? Am I expecting the wrong things?