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“Am I tired of him?”, “Is she bored with me?” — these anxieties are familiar to everyone. Doubts are not always groundless, but is there any point in tormenting yourself if experiences do not eliminate the problem? Overcoming unnecessary fears will help the program of seven steps, which is recommended by a cognitive psychologist.
“Have you started dating your loved one or are you already living together, but you can’t get rid of the thought that you will get bored with your partner and he will leave you? Do you constantly smooth out conflicts, try to always look your best, take any changes in his mood personally, and even jealously study his acquaintances, trying to find out which one he considers sexy? Does it bother you that he doesn’t share his feelings «too often?» asks cognitive psychologist Robert Leahy.
Perhaps you act differently: demand assurances of love, blame your partner for forgetting about you, and stir up scandals yourself that, ironically, put at risk the relationship you are afraid of losing. It’s like you “test” your partner again and again: “If you really love me, then …”
The fear of being abandoned can also lead you to desperately hold on to an unsuccessful or unnecessary union. In some cases, the fear of a breakup, on the contrary, can lead to a reluctance to enter into a relationship: “If you don’t get attached to anyone, then there’s no one to lose.”
Robert Leahy notes 10 inappropriate ways to deal with breakup fear:
- Look for signs that your partner has lost interest or is infatuated with someone else.
- Check partner for infidelity.
- Focus on looking and acting perfect.
- Devalue «rivals».
- Never contradict your partner.
- Refuse your own needs to please him.
- Choose as partners those who are less desirable and more «need» in a relationship.
- Provoke quarrels to end relationships.
- “Insure” by starting another relationship on the side.
- Avoid loss by consciously choosing «dead end» relationships.
In fact, these factors increase the anxiety of being rejected. Therefore, the psychologist recommends managing anxiety with the help of a seven-step program.
1. Determine How Worrying Is Productive
You believe that anxiety will help you notice the problem in advance, smooth out sharp corners and prevent a breakup. But is the possible benefit of anxiety commensurate with its price — the constant feeling of jealousy, insecurity? Is there any evidence that your worries actually helped?
Usually, jealousy and the search for confirmation lead to a violent showdown, which deprives you of the last vestiges of confidence.
2. Accept the relationship for what it is.
Describe what is in front of you. Stop thinking out thoughts and feelings for your partner. Describe his behavior that you observe — without any assumptions about motives and thoughts: “He sits and watches TV. He’s going to football with his friends.» Drop interpretations and don’t be in a hurry to hang up the labels «selfish» or «he is indifferent to me.» Often, anxiety is caused by beliefs about how the partner “must act”: he “should” call more often, give more compliments, pay more attention to the family …
Remove yourself from the situation. Imagine how an outsider describes the actions of a partner without regard to you. This will help to understand that the partner exists separately from you, his behavior is not always «directed» at you, and you should be less engaged in the search for such confirmations.
Stop looking for confirmation. When we are too dependent in a relationship, we are endlessly looking for evidence of love, a partner’s interest in us. Such exactingness will sooner or later annoy any person. Challenge: Try to go through a week without asking your partner what they think of you and whether they find you attractive. It may be difficult. But the less pressure you exert, the less your partner will need to demonstrate their independence.
Find out the limits of your ignorance. You cannot know for sure if your relationship with your partner will ever end. And you will have to accept it. Practice by repeating for twenty minutes every day, «I don’t know if he’ll leave me.» This helps to muffle intrusive thoughts about parting, as such reflections soon get bored.
Practice emotional images of independent living. Do you hate the idea of being on your own?
Exercise. Make a plan for life «after Him.» Make a list of goals that you would achieve if you lived alone: see your friends more often, exercise, start a new project, go to a dance, travel, walk in the park, dine out … Then look at your schedule — do you like to spend spend most of your life waiting for a phone call?
3. Challenge disturbing thoughts
Determine where you fall into extremes when thinking about a breakup. Here are examples of cognitive biases:
- Mind reading: «He is angry, so he will leave me.»
- Self-attribution: «He works hard, it’s a sign that he’s bored with me.»
- Molehill bloat: “How will I be without him? I won’t be able to live.»
- Labeling: «I act like a complete idiot in this relationship.»
- Devaluing the Good: «Nothing I do matters.»
- Overgeneralization: «We’re arguing all the time, so we’ll soon part.»
Do you have any evidence to support these ideas? For example, your partner has been angry before, but you are still together. He used to work hard and take work home, but did not go anywhere. Does he not give you as much attention as you ask? But doesn’t your constant need for attention from your husband say more about your insecurities than about the inevitable breakup?
4. Focus on the biggest danger
You are afraid that breaking up a relationship will “reveal your true nature”, showing everyone that you are a failure and unworthy of love. You are afraid that you will never find another partner and that you will not be able to be happy on your own.
How to refute these beliefs? Think about who you were before you met. Remember your previous relationships with men and friends, colleagues. Look through childhood and youth photos. Recall events that will remind you that you were quite happy and knew how to cope with life.
Try to imagine what you can do if the relationship ends: new romances, a career, self-development, more frequent meetings with friends.
Challenge your negative belief. Study the stories of lonely people you know — do they live in poverty and suffer from their inferiority? Calculate your income in the present and future, evaluate the support group. You will see that the consequences of divorce are not so catastrophic, and you will worry less about the possibility of being abandoned.
5. Turn failures into opportunities
Sometimes it can be helpful to face the fear of failing in a relationship and turn that “failure” into an opportunity.
Remember that your value does not depend on other people.
Many people have a similar thought: “He left me because I can’t be loved.”
- When he became interested in you, he thought that you were attractive (charming, interesting, worthy of attention).
- «Attractiveness» is always in the (loving) eye of the beholder — what pleases you may not necessarily please someone else.
- Having attractiveness is not about “a person”, but about how this person behaves: attractive behavior really exists. Attractiveness means that you act in a friendly manner, listen with warmth and understanding, reward your partner, show generosity and accept the person along with their shortcomings. Almost anyone can do it if they want to. There are no unattractive people, there are unattractive behaviors.
Focus on what you can control
List all the roles that you play in life that are not related to your partner: daughter, sister, cousin, friend, manager, employee, volunteer … Then make a list of activities, interests and qualities that also have nothing to do with partner: smart, funny, honest, caring, reliable, curious, well-read, artistic, forgiving… Are you interested in reading, music, art, conversation, dancing, nature, animals…
Turn yourself into your own friend
As a rule, we treat other people much better than ourselves. Try to talk to yourself like a friend — warmly, with understanding and sympathy. Defy the statement that you are nothing without a partner. This role-playing game will allow you to step back from your own experiences and look at yourself the way a good friend can. Seeing a smart, attractive, understanding woman who has friends and a job feels important.
6. Use emotions instead of worrying about them
Try to come to terms with anxiety and allow yourself to experience discomfort. Trying to suppress emotions, we only increase them. And by recognizing and accepting them, we stop being afraid of them, worry less about them — and they become less intense.
Think about the fact that almost everyone experiences something similar in their life — insecurity, despair, jealousy, feelings of loneliness. But this does not prevent your friends and acquaintances from continuing to be in a relationship.
7. Take control of your time
Take a break from the urgency. You feel like you need an answer «right now.» You want to immediately dispel (or confirm) doubts about your partner’s feelings. What happens if you don’t receive confirmations? You think, «He’s moving away from me.»
Task: Try to stretch for an hour after you notice that you feel anxious about this. Get distracted by something else. Make a to-do list ahead of time, such as taking a bath, listening to classical music, reading poetry, watching a movie, going for a walk, and exercising. As soon as you tune in to a pleasant activity and start enjoying the current moment, your anxiety will decrease.
Take a look at the timeline. You are concerned about a shared future. Include in your time frame the past and the future without these anxieties.
Task: make a selection of photographs of your life before your current relationship. Write down everything you and your partner are likely to do in the next three months. Consider photos of your family, childhood friends and college buddies, photos from trips you took before you met, and portraits of previous boyfriends. This will help you place your partner in the context of a long and important life that they once didn’t have.
These time-broadening exercises will relieve you of worries, teach you to look at what is happening from a different angle, noticing important moments of the past and future beyond the current worries.
A fragment of the book by R. Leahy “The Cure for Nerves. How to stop worrying and enjoy life” (Peter, 2018).