my relationship anxiety story

Jan 12, 2022

I sometimes worry that I talk about my experience too much, and then am reminded time and time again as new members come into my online communities (be it on social media, or email) that not everyone knows my story with relationship anxiety or how You Love and You Learn came to be.

Today's blog post will be slightly different, as it will not answer a specific question, but rather dig into my own journey and some of the lessons, challenges, and moments of growth I have experienced along the path to shift out of fear and into more love within my relationship.

My goal is to do a few things:

help you get to know the person behind the blog and the social media posts a little better
provide you with hope that it's possible to move through your relationship anxiety
keeping it real that 'healing' doesn't happen overnight, and that the process isn't linear

In order to really do that, I am going to share a few background details that all relate to the story, as well as take you through my full experience with relationship anxiety.

While it's a longer article (the words just kept on flowin’!!!), I hope it helps you realize your experiences are not crazy, and help you feel less alone.

A few details to set the stage

There are some things about me that I anticipate will help you better understand my frame of reference and the lens in which I view the world:

I've always been someone who loves love.

Be it what I saw in the movies, or trying to catch the attention of my middle school and high school crushes in the hallways, I was definitely someone who's mind was focused on relationships and love.

Maybe I'm not unique in that way, but not only did I love love (or the idea of it), but I definitely took what I saw in the movies as truth, without question (or at least, subconsciously).

While I didn't quite manage to have serious relationships in my high school years, despite many of my friends having them, I still craved it.

This is one of the things that contributed to my relationship anxiety: expectations vs. reality (and unfair expectations, at that).

Fast forward to college and I still didn't quite find myself in a serious relationship until junior year, when I met my ex on a study abroad trip to Switzerland.

We ended up dating for two years, one of those years being long-distance after college ended.

It was my first love, my first time learning the ropes of what it takes to be in a relationship, and my first time being disappointed when something I was excited about didn't pan out exactly as I had envisioned it.

Two big lessons I learned from this relationship was it was important to me to be with someone who was equally invested in the relationship's growth as I was, and that if I ever became certain that something or someone no longer felt like they were adding to my life, I would be able to find the courage to end the relationship.

These two lessons are important in the context of my journey with relationship anxiety because I feel grateful for Nate's commitment to the relationship in comparison to the last relationship I was in, AND, I know to my core that if things ever got to the place that they were with my last relationship where I was 100% certain that I didn't want to move forward (and had given it my best shot), I have confidence I would find that same courage to either 1. make changes or 2. end the relationship.

In my relationship with Nate (which I'll get into shortly!), even during the hardest moments where my anxiety flared up the most, there was always a part of me (even if it felt like a tiny part) that wanted to move forward, or if nothing else, didn't want to leave.

Meeting Nate

There was roughly a year and a half in between the end of my first serious relationship (July 2015) and meeting Nate, which happened in December of 2016.

Within this time, I developed a passion for self-development and fitness (both of which I absolutely COULD HAVE developed in a relationship, had I chosen to prioritize them).

At the time when I met Nate (via mutual friends at a concert), I felt like I had just scratched the surface of learning more about mindset, wellbeing, and personal growth, which ended up being a core thing Nate and I had in common.

It's funny because I remember meeting him and thinking "oh he's super cute, but he's my height, so we probably wouldn't end up together..."

Talk about a relationship anxiety related thought, right?!

And I'm so glad I was wrong about that.

Once we met, we began talking right away - despite living two hours apart from one another.

After just being in a long-distance relationship and realizing it didn't work well, I was hesitant to get into another one but really excited about Nate and noticed his willingness to put effort into the relationship right away.

And pretty soon into us meeting one another, I felt excited about the relationship, about what I knew so far about Nate, and about our similarities.

I had a feeling this would be a relationship that I wanted to work out, but had no idea what I was in store for in order to try and make it work...

6-month mark

A couple of things happened right around the 6-month mark that I want to note because I think they're indicative of very real relationship dynamics and fears that come up, and they may help you feel less alone if you've ever been through something similar.

1 - His sister got married and he didn't invite me

We're 6 months into our "relationship" (even though we hadn't given it a title, it felt very much like a relationship at the time) and Nate's sister was getting married. He had mentioned it to me a few times, but never mentioned bringing a date.

At the time, I thought, “if he cares about me like he's saying, and putting in this effort, why wouldn't he want me to meet his family and be introduced as his girlfriend?”

His mindset at the time was, "I feel like it's too soon to bring her around my family and it feels like a wedding is not the right place for them to first meet her."

Of course, none of this was communicated at the time (I still had a LOT of learning to do around communication, as did Nate), and so there were some expectations left unfulfilled, and some resentment and disappointment building up on my end.

2 - We almost broke up. No, really.

6 months into our relationship and I was definitely in love with Nate at this point (and him with me, though I think he felt less willing to share).

He was in the early stages of running a small business at the time, and had a lot to focus on with work (which he was determined to prioritize).

We were doing long distance, which of course led to some extra effort on our parts.

He was worried about balancing a relationship with his business, though it was not something we'd discussed much.

I was getting antsy about being more committed to one another, and professing our love for each other (and having just been not invited to his sister’s wedding, these feelings were heightened).

Combine these two opposing ideas (him worrying about balancing work and our relationship + me wanting to continue deepening the relationship) with a night out drinking and you have what almost turned into a breakup.

All I can remember was feeling so broken, and that there were so many tears (on my side, not Nate's).

I remember thinking that the relationship was over, 100% no question, because of the fight we had gotten into paired with Nate's fears that he couldn't balance both work and our relationship.

After about 12 hours of hurt, more tears, and racing questions in my mind (think: "is this really it?" and "how can this be over?"), Nate and I talked things through in person and decided that we wanted to make this work, that he could find a way to make both his business and our relationship work, and that we both had left things unsaid for too long on our end.

These two experiences around the 6-month mark brought up an important lesson: when you keep things to yourself and don't share them with your partner, it may lead to unmet expectations, disappointment in one another, or result in a blow-up disagreement instead of the opportunity to understand each other in smaller discussions.

The start of my relationship anxiety (1-2 years in)

Once things grew more and more serious with Nate (I love you's were shared, we began traveling more together, we met each other's families), I slowly (and unconsciously) began putting more pressure on it to work out.

I wanted it to work out for my own reasons, but I won't deny that I also felt external pressure to know if we were going to work out, too.

When I'd talk with friends, they'd ask things like "do you think he's The One?" (something I used to ask them all the time, too - so this is not to blame anyone!) or "when do you think you two will move in together/to the same city?"

I'd reply with "I think so, but I don't know" or "we're not sure yet, I don't want to force anything" but inside, I started to question those answers.

"Why am I not more sure?"
"Why don't we want to move in together right away, does that mean we're not taking this seriously?"
"What if long distance eventually becomes too much of a burden, but neither of us want to leave where we're living - what will we do?!"

At the time, a few of my closest friends were engaged or getting engaged, which also stirred up my own desire to feel confident in my choice of life partner.

If not, why were we together, right? (or so I told myself at the time...I was desperate for the certainty I thought everyone else had).

I started noticing myself having fears come up about the future of our relationship:

"How can I be sure he IS The One, anyways? How do you know?"
"My parents recently got divorced...and I don't want that to happen to me...so I need to be sure I am analyzing this relationship to avoid that"
"People say "when you know you know" but how do they know?!"

And then bit by bit, I noticed myself hyper-fixating on Nate, and on our dynamic as a couple, looking for any sign of flaws and reasons we "shouldn't be together":

"He's drinking a little too much tonight, and I notice this happens every so often...does this mean he will be irresponsible when we're older if we have a family together?" (funny how we can jump that far ahead)
"I don't always feel excited to be laying next to him when we wake up in the mornings, and sometimes I feel anxious - this must mean something is wrong."
"We're the same height, and I've always found taller men to be attractive, is that bad?"

I was stuck up in the mind more often than I was present in my life.

Nate and I had a mix of joyful, happy, fulfilling moments, and some challenges in our early stages of our relationship (very normal things as we were continuing to learn more about one another).

And I tried so, so hard to cling onto those more joyful moments and shove down any anxious, fearful thoughts.

But no matter what, even if they disappeared for a few days or weeks (if I was lucky) at a time, they anxious thoughts always came back.

I'd hear someone give advice on a podcast that you should just instantly know if your partner is right for you and immediately be concerned that I was ignoring my intuition.
I'd see couples on social media looking "happier" than we were, and immediately get stuck in grass-is-greener mentality that somewhere out there, there would be someone else that made me happier than Nate would.
I'd try to seek advice from friends of mine, without giving them the full story, just to get them to say how good Nate and I were for one another, which would reassure me for the day, before I was back to anxious feelings and thoughts the next morning.

And I wish I could tell you that this only lasted for a few months, but it lasted for a few YEARS.

I kept trudging on with the relationship anxiety for years, knowing deep down that the love I had for Nate was deeper than the anxiety I was experiencing, and yet, not doing much to actually reduce the anxiety...

That is, until all the anxiety boiled over and became too much to manage at the beginning of the pandemic.

Peak relationship anxiety led me to finally seek answers (May 2020)

After doing long distance for almost 3.5 years, I went down to visit Nate after he'd gotten surgery in March 2020.

There were rumblings of a global pandemic at work, but of course I could have never predicted the magnitude of what would entail.

I packed my bags for a "week-long" stay with Nate, which really turned into the beginning of a handful of challenges being put out before us:

our first time living together (not for a week, but for months!)
in a global pandemic (which brought up it's own sets of fears)
with me losing my job
with my relationship anxiety peaking

One week visiting turned into "who knows how long I will be here" and at first, it was very exciting.

We got to spend a lot of quality time together, and we were both busy with work.

Come to find, I am put on furlough from work (unpaid leave, but still promised my job when it was over) and suddenly had a lot of free time and nothing to distract me.

Cue relationship anxiety coming in full force, with what felt like the most severe intrusive thoughts I'd ever experienced.

Instead of "how do I know he's the one?" I was thinking "I don't know if I even love him anymore"
Instead of "what if we get divorced" I was thinking "how can I continue living with this anxiety for even another day? I can't bear it any longer..."
Instead of "even though I'm anxious, I can still choose to move forward" I was thinking "I don't see a way forward"

It was really disheartening, scary, and exhausting.

I remember going on a walk one day and finally breaking down to Nate and laying it all out there.

Before the pandemic, I had definitely shared with him that I was afraid of marriage, that sometimes I felt anxious about our relationship, but couldn't quite pinpoint why.

This time, I was brutally honest (almost too honest).

I told him I wasn't sure if I loved him the same way anymore, that I wasn't sure I knew how to move forward, and that I hated myself for feeling this way, but it was the way I felt.

If he felt disappointed or hurt in that moment, I wouldn't have known it.

He said that he understood why I'd feel that way—that it always seems like humans have a "bigger better offer" out there in our life (grass-is-greener mentality) and how we are wired to crave more more, better better.

He seemed to be confident that this was where my anxiety was stemming from, and didn’t tie it back to himself.

He reassured me I was not crazy for feeling this way.

He said he would support me in whatever I decided, but that he of course hoped that I would not decide to end things.

And in that moment, through the tears and pain I was feeling, I realized how special Nate is to me, how lucky I am to have someone who is willing to help me see the light when I am in such a dark place, and that if he believed in me, so could I...

And that is where my quest to understand what the f*ck was going on in my mind began...

You Love and You Learn is formed (June 2020)

At first, I thought I was experiencing anxiety and doubt about my relationship because I was "bad at relationships."

And in order to be "better at relationships" I thought I would start a blog to learn more about what makes up a great relationship, and share my thoughts and experiences.

"Lessons in Love" was the name I had thought of, and was leaning towards.

Nate, funny enough, was the one who said "what about You Love and You Learn? You know, a play on the saying "you live and you learn?""

I LOVED it (no pun intended) and bought the website domain and made a logo right away.

From there, I became a sponge, soaking in anything and everything I could on relationships (mind you, I still didn't have a job and had a ton of free time at this stage).

I read books and blog posts, listened to podcasts and watched YouTube interviews, I signed up for webinars and invested in courses and coaches to deepen my knowledge.

Some of the most impactful people and resources I came across in that time period were:

The Gottman Institute (John and Julie Gottman)
Sheryl Paul (reading her book, The Wisdom of Anxiety, was a total light-bulb moment for me)
Esther Perel
Brené Brown (had always been a fan, but started focusing more in on how her work can be applied to relationships)
Kristin Neff (teaches self compassion)

Over time, through soaking in the wisdom of others and starting to compare it with my own experiences, I realized that:

Great relationships do not magically fall into our laps, we have to show up and cultivate them.
It's normal to have doubts in a loving, healthy relationship—and it doesn't automatically mean you have to leave that relationship.
I had rosy-colored glasses on when I thought about what it takes to be in a great relationship, and RomComs definitely did a number on me.

And so I began sharing these insights with anyone who'd listen (aka, anyone on social media or who would talk to me about it in person).

Doing "the work" to reduce my relationship anxiety (June 2020 - present day)

Looking back on the walk I took with Nate where I said "I'm not sure if I love you the same way anymore" feels like ages ago, and for that I am grateful.

I look back at that version of myself who said those words and see someone who was stuck up in her mind, filled with fears, and who's heart had been blocked as a result.
I look back at that version of myself who said those words and can still feel the heaviness she was carrying around with her, with seemingly no way out.
I look back at that version of myself who said those words and want to go back and give her the biggest hug to tell her "everything will be okay...even if you don't know exactly what your life and relationship will look like beyond this moment."

As I write this, I'm not 100% anxiety free, or living a perfect life with Nate without any fears (nor do I promise to help my clients get to that place), however, I have learned to detach the fears that come up from Nate.

I have learned that my fears are mine to carry, not his or our relationship’s.
I have learned that it's okay to have challenging moments or phases in a relationship, and if anything they can help you become stronger.
I have learned that it's okay not to be okay every moment, and honoring your feelings instead of pushing them away helps you move through them faster.

These lessons didn't come overnight, and some of them I anticipate will come up time and time again.

So how did I get there?

I wish there was a formula I could give you that guarantees to put you on the same path I did.

But of course, there is not.

There are, however, a handful of concepts that have been pivotal for me to really grasp in order to move forward.

This list isn't a fool-proof 'relationship anxiety guide' but rather a list that I think is worth understanding:

Beliefs: Take an inventory of your beliefs about yourself, about love, about what makes up a good and bad relationship, about your partner (or partners in general) and determine which beliefs are helping you, and which are holding you back. Work to release outdated beliefs and create new beliefs that aren't influenced by RomCom culture.
Body-based practices: We can't think our way out of anxiety, it causes more of an anxious spiral because much of the time, the questions we're trying to answer cannot be answered (ex: "do I love them enough?" — there is no way to quantify this). Instead, learn to get back into your body and find practices that help you interrupt anxious thinking and reconnect you to your body.
Deconstruct relationship myths and one-size-fits-all advice: If you scroll social media, you'll see phrases like "when you know you know," "trust your gut," "relationships should be effortless," "The One" and more. These statements do not apply to every person 100% of the time, and if we think that we need to take on this advice, we will feel anxious and upset if it doesn't match up with our experience. Luckily, this type of advice has many holes that can be poked in it (which I do all the time). Find people who are looking at the nuances of relationships, not outdated stereotypical advice.
Build up your levels of self-compassion, self-trust, self-worth, self-care, and self-soothing: While it's true that our partner can meet some of our needs, they're not responsible for meeting all of them, and we should not expect them to be. We must learn to provide ourself with compassion, trust, worthiness, care and soothing. Having compassion for our anxiety, not shaming it. Trusting that we know ourselves better than we think, and that we can handle whatever life throws our way. Believing we are worthy of giving and receiving love. Prioritizing our wellbeing because we know our anxiety goes awry when we don't. Learning to soothe during moments of overwhelm.
Understanding perpetual vs. solvable problems vs. what's a deal-breaker for me: I used to think that any relationship problem was a red flag (thanks, social media!) until I realized that it's normal to have recurring problems in a relationship, according to Gottman Institute research. When I realized how to decipher between recurring problems and solvable problems, and was able to determine that none of my perpetual problems were deal-breakers for me (at least, at this moment in time!)—I could find acceptance for my inevitable relationship challenges (because I'm human).
Projection: When I took my trauma-informed training, I learned more about the concept of projection (taking our inner stuff and projecting it onto our partner as a defense mechanism). I learned that we don't necessarily control when we project, and that the best we can do is begin gaining awareness of this pattern and instead of double-down, learn to own it and move forward. We project onto our partners all. the. time. — understanding projection is critical to reducing relationship doubts.
Expanding my definitions of and expectations around "love," "attraction," and "relationships": I was mistaking infatuation for love, desire for attraction, and RomCom flings for relationships. I had to expand my definition, many thanks to the wise voices and resources I listed earlier.
Communication: This one is vague, and I apologize for that. Everyone has different communication challenges, and I didn't want to get too specific. For me personally, I had to learn about asking for my needs to be met, conflict resolution, listening to your partner to actually hear them (not just think about your response), how curiosity helps you strengthen your connection, and more. If you struggle with communication, that can lead to anxiety—however, communication is a skill and a practice, so you can improve on it.

I'm sure I am leaving off some things, but these are the top concepts that come to mind that I've dove much more deeply into over the last 18+ months.

And every item on this list could honestly be it’s own blog post, as there is far too much information to try and cram into one article (I've already rambled!!!).

How to reduce relationship doubt

I laid out many concepts above that have been supportive for me as I reduce relationship doubt in my life and continue on the journey to find acceptance for myself, my partner, and my relationship.

There are countless resources on these topics out there—be it the names I listed in this blog post, topics I've covered in previous blog posts of mine, or people on social media, podcasts, and books—you name it.

It took me 18 months and counting (and really over 6 years in my personal development journey) to understand some of these things—and I still have a lot to learn (like, a lot).

I know I have only scratched the surface on many of these topics and look forward to always remaining a student, and not thinking I've learned all these is to learn.

If you want to strengthen your understanding of these topics, the world is your oyster my friend.

If you'd like support in deepening your understanding of these topics, and to learn from someone who's been in your shoes and feels much more peace and confidence—I have a couple ways I can support you in that:

Deconstruct the Doubts, my digital course where I walk you through why relationship anxiety happens and give you tools to reduce the doubts. You can learn more and sign up here.

Private Coaching, a 12-week personalized program where I support you in feeling more confident in your relationship. You can learn more and apply here.

This was a long article, and if you made it this far, I really appreciate you taking interest in my story and being curious about the challenges, lessons, and moments of growth I have had along the journey.

My intention is not to tell people they should stay or go from their relationship, but simply to show you that there are other ways to think about it.

I hope you found some nuggets of wisdom throughout the blog post that you can carry with you on your journey.

Rooting for you!

Sarah