Friends, Family & Carers Forum

[Marie2]

Hi there, 

I'm really new to the forum and have been looking everywhere for some help, support and guidance as my boyfriend suffers from severe anxiety and I just don't know if I can cope anymore. I'm really at the end of my rope and my own mental health is suffering quite significantly.

I don't know if this is the right place, but I've seen a few posts on a similar topic, so hopefully I am 🙂 

My partner and I have been together for 18 months and he suffers from severe anxiety - I think related to attachment and abandonment issues? The main issue is, from what I understand, is that he suffers from anxiety triggered by relationships and I'm the one who cops the end result of an anxiety attack. 

Day to day, he is the most amazing person in the world. He's loving, supportive and just an all round incredible person. Everyone loves him, he's a mental health worker himself, he's driven and has quite a lot of insight into depression and anxiety, but when it comes to his own... I feel like he has no insight whatsoever and hardly anyone else knows that he suffers from it.

His anxiety can be triggered by so many different things, and they're mainly all related to our relationship and his own insecurities. 

Here's a couple of examples; 
He'll get upset when we watch a movie that is set in London, becuase I met my ex boyfriend in London. Then out of no where, all of a sudden he'll be accusing me of being a $lut and previously being paid for $ex because I travelled to meet an ex boyfriend. That ex boyfriend (that I had been friends with for 6 years) had paid for my trip to visit him when we first met (we were together almost 2 years), and he will make me feel terrible about it, as if I was paid for $ex because I accepted him buying the ticket for me so we could go on a date. This all comes from watching a movie set in London.

Another example; He'll get upset when I cook a new meal I've never cooked him before and he assumes that I must have cooked it for all of my exes, and then when that happens he just goes further and further down the rabbit hole of his anxiety and he treats me badly and talks down to me as if I've cheated on him, when all I've done is try and cook a new meal.

When I spend time with my girlfriends he always has an anxiety attack and sends mean and hurtful messages. Just recently I spent 2 weeks away from him while he was overseas and I was at home with my family and it was a nightmare. His anxiety kept coming up, I went to a girlfriends 30th birthday and he was sending hurtful messages that night and the day after.

It makes me feel so empty, so hurt, and like I don't know what to do. I don't know what's going to trigger it. I'll eat something unhealthy for dinner one night (when every other night I eat healthy - I w3igh 60kg and I'm 170cm tall) and he'll assume I don't love him because I don't care about what I eat and he saw an instagram post from 3 years ago when I went for a run and will assume I loved my exes more than him because of that... and then again we go down the route of me being made to feel like $#it! Like I'm worthless and the rug gets ripped out from underneath me.

One minute I've got THE most amazing, beautiful human being on the planet. Really, he ticks every box I've ever had. But the anxiety is killing me and I'm getting so depressed about it. I cry hysterically 3 or 4 days a week.

Our most recent fight has come from the fact that we met a random person while travelling who had a female friend coming to visit them and then that turned into an issue because I'd travelled to meet an ex before. I then told him how much his anxiety attacks affect my interest in being intimate with him and he then because he was jealous of some guy we'd met randomly rips into me, "I'm not the most attractive person you wanted to get into bed with today" "You don't want to sleep with me because my biceps aren't big enough" 

I seriously can't stop him when he's like this. 

What doesn't help... is that I get angry and I yell! Which is not helpful in the slightest. I promised last week I wouldn't do it again, and we've fought again today and apparently I did it again. I really don't remember because I was so hurt. So I know I play a significant part in the post issue fighting. But I just can't deal with the attacks and the change in personality so suddenly and that I get made to feel so horrible. 

In the last week, when we've been fighitng I've left our apartment and he's broken my belongings, he's gotten upset that I've been talking to my girlfriend (and not giving him attention) so he's logged into my computer and my facebook account and read all of our private messages while I was out. There was nothing there to see, but he misread things and attacked me for them. 

He almost always apologises afterwards. And I know how hard anxiety is to deal with, for the person dealing with it. I've never understood it in the past, but after being with someone for 18 months and dealing with it, I've learnt along the way. 

But when is enough, enough? I want to marry this guy and have his babies. The guy without anxiety. But, the anxiety is getting too much to handle. If there wasn't so much attacking behaviour and making me feel horrible and controlled then I think I'm someone who can deal with pretty much anything anyone throws at me. I'm a pretty strong/resilient person. But I just don't think I've got anything left.

For the record, he's previously seen a psychologist for his anxiety, we were in couples therapy before we went travelling, but now he gets upset with me whenever I ask him to talk to someone, or whenever I suggest we do couples therapy. So I feel like nothing is going to change and I have no way out.

I serioulsy love this guy, I've never ever felt this way about anyone before and he can be amazing... but he can also be a massive jerk and I don't know what to do!

Any advice anyone? 🙂   

[soul]

@Marie2 - from someone who's walked in your shoes, I can tell you that if your boyfriend doesn't see the need to get professional assistance and voluntarily commit to getting better, the future for you two is only going to get worse. The reaction to those anxieties that he has exhibited - breaking your belongings, making false accusations, swearing at you, name calling are all unacceptable and it's only a matter of time before he gets physically violent. I have seen it all before, thought my situation would be different but ended up being another case of domestic violence.

You mentioned that he works in the mental care industry so he must have some awareness of his own condition. Not wanting to do anything about it is a worrying sign. He doesn't realise how damaging his attachment and abandonment anxiety is to your relationship and will eventually lead to its downfall if he doesn't deal with it. My partner once saw a photo of me from many years ago and got very upset wanting me to buy a similar outfit so I could wear it for him saying that other men had enjoyed looking at me  so why shouldn't he. If I mentioned I had been to a particular town before, he'd want to know who I was with, what I did there. Once he demanded to know the names of every boyfriend I ever had, his name, what he looked like, everything we did. He stalked my social media, deleted contacts. If I smiled at a neighbour or someone in a store, he thought I was having an affair. I have been called horrendous names and degraded terribly. All because of his insecurity and nothing I said would help. I never yelled or argued or fought back just tried to reason with him but it was to no avail. He would sometimes say he understood but would exhibit that behaviour again a short time later. All this was causing me a lot of stress and I was constantly having to watch everything I did or said. The slightest little thing would set him off.

I was isolated from my family and friends and withdrew from everything around me. He kept on needing reassurance, going so far as asking me to say something nice about him. It was like dealing with a little child. If I mentioned anything about breaking up, he would counter by saying "See, I knew you would leave me."

You cannot fix him. You can convey to him your concerns but ultimately just like an addict, he has to want to change his way of thinking and do something about it. In a calm and safe setting with the support of others, you need to give him an ultimatum. I know you love him but please believe me that without his co operation, it will end badly. I kept on making excuses in my mind as to why my partner acted that way and eventually realised it wasn't what I was doing but his unhealthy distorted mindset. Without that, he too was the most wonderful man I had ever known. The highs were amazingly high but when he was sucked into his dark moods, it was the worst times of my life. 

Please be careful and think with your head and not your heart. The lines became so blurred for me, I ended up with a very damaged body and mind. Keep writing on this forum. We are here to help.

[Marie2]

Hi @soul, thanks very much for your message of support and telling me more about your story! There are so many things that feel similar and along the same lines as what I'm going through. 

He definitely does know he has an issue and that he needs to seek help, but he says that he can only do that when he feels safe and supported and he says that he hasn't felt supported by me for months. And to be honest, that's probably somewhat true. I like to think I am but I'm just so broken and beaten down about it that I feel like I have no empathy. How do you have empathy for someone when they make you feel so shit and so horrible!? 

This morning we've had another huge fight, and I actually think this time our relationship is done, which absolutely breaks my heart. He says I don't understand his anxiety and what he says at all and that I'm not willing to understand or try to understand. I just can't do it.

I don't know how to get perspecitve on this particular situation which has now become our undoing...
This guy that we met two days ago travelling he became quite jealous of quickly. He caused us to have two fights on different occassions due to insecurity. He made the comments about me wanting to have $ex with him and then yesterday we spent the day apart because we fought and he'd seen this guy post photos on Facebook on the rooftop of our apartment building and said "enjoy your day hanging out with your friend?" he thought I'd spent the day on the rooftop which I hadn't and I hadn't even seen the guy at all.. and then this morning, we were supposed to be having breakfast with this guy and two other people from our apartment building (they were loose plans, and this guy had probably forgotten) and he wanted to contact him and tell him what was happening and I asked him not to and said to just leave it, and I said I would prefer not to go if he was going to be there and I didn't feel comfortable going if he was going to be there and he persisted on saying that I clearly didn't understand what the anxieties were and that it wasn't going to cause a problem. Then world war 3 broke out, he started hitting himself in the head, he broke an umbrella and he's looking for somewhere else to stay. 

I know I need to think with my head and not my heart... Is there anything I can do to save this at all, or should I be walking away? I know you can't really make that decision for me, I just don't know if this is salvagable... 

[soul]

@Marie2 - my heart really goes out to you. I'm going to tell you something I wish someone had told me as it would have saved me from so much pain. You are confused and hurt and at a loss about what to do. I know that every situation is different but there are many similarities here between your case and mine. 

As hard as it is - walk away. I didn't and should have. I became so invested in someone who failed to see that he was the problem. Yes, he suffered from a mental illness but that gave him no right to abuse me the way he did. He made me feel like I was to blame and I lost all sense of myself. My confidence plummeted and I became severely depressed and was suicidal. 

Again this morning, things turned to crap for you. If this was me back when, I would have excused his behaviour and thought that it wouldn't happen again. Guess what? It did again and again and again. And it will with you. It will destroy you. 

By telling you that he can only get help if you are there to support him is a cop out. He is putting the onus on you and that is neither fair nor advisable. That way he can blame you at any time if things aren't progressing well. He's not taking responsibility for his actions and this is vital if he is to change his behaviour. Look up the domestic violence cycle. He may say he is sorry and things may be okay for awhile but it will happen again. 

His need for power and his sense of entitlement is causing him to manipulate you. Belittling you gives him a boost when other things in his life are not under his control. 

You deserve to be treated better than that and he is not acting respectfully. Your relationship is not about love. There is a huge imbalance and it's not healthy. Sorry to say but I feel he doesn't show any signs of wanting to improve things and you are better off without him. As it stands, there will be no happy ending. 

[soul]

@Marie2 - and don't feel guilty about not being able to empathise. Being treated like that can have that effect. There are some things that you can ignore and put down to stress and being said in the heat of the moment but his actions point to it being a lot more than that.

There are some people on this forum who put up with a lot of flack from those that they care for and I take my hat off to them but in your situation, I feel that it could very quickly escalate to violence. He has again damaged property and is doing unsafe things to himself. His habit of blaming you will soon transfer to hurting you. He is imagining/inventing untruths about you so he can justify his rage. 

Of course your heart is feeling broken. He isn't always like that and I'm sure you didn't enter into this relationship thinking that he was going to treat you this way. Just don't get into the mentality that you can put up with it because he is so great to be with at times. Soon, the abuse will become the norm and all logical reasoning goes out the window. Surround ourself with positive happy people.

All the best to you. Keep me posted. I will be your sounding board. 

[soul]

Thinking of you @Marie2 and hope you're okay.

[Pebbles]

Hi @Marie2 and @soul

I love the power of the forums and how we can connect with others. Sometimes thorugh simialr experiences, feeelings, thoughts and so on. You guys sound as though you really connected 🙂

How are things @Marie2 you're being thought of.