Relationship Anxiety
The posts below are just a small sampling of the depth with which I write about relationship anxiety, but if you’re new to my work it will give you a sense of how I address this debilitating issue. Relationship anxiety is one of the great equalizers in that it transcends gender, sexual orientation, race, geography, age, and religion. It can show up on the first date or it can hit twenty years into a marriage.
The essential key to breaking free from relationship anxiety is to know that as long as you’re in a healthy, loving relationship (keeping in mind that every relationship has challenges) the source of the fear lives in you, and your symptoms – intrusive thoughts, difficulty functioning, pervasive doubt – are a profound invitation to heal a lifetime of anxiety. Once you break through the compelling but false projection that the problem is your partner, you’re well on your way to freedom.
Relationship Anxiety: Intuition or Fear?
A subset topic of the million-dollar question - is my anxiety/doubt evidence that my truth is that I’m with the wrong partner or does it mean something else? - is the issue of intuition versus anxiety. In other words, embedded inside every question of the mind...
The Critical Moment to Break Free From Relationship Anxiety
"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom." - Viktor E. Frankl If we could slow life down to micro-moments, if we could literally alter time like a movie turning...
Can I Make It Work With Anyone?
After reading through my site, many people are left with the question: If I can grow love and cultivate attraction, can I make a relationship work with any good and loving partner with whom I share values and vision? My short answer is: no. Let me explain. There's a...
The Initiation of Relationship Anxiety
We're tested in many ways in this life. At each transition, each tenuous juncture where the familiar lifestyle, identity, thought processes or feelings fall away, we're offered an opportunity to face our small mind - our ego, programmed, fear-based self - and learn...
Flags Versus Red Flags
One of the most common questions I'm asked during a coaching session is, "What are red flags? You say that if I'm suffering from relationship anxiety and I'm in a healthy and secure relationship without red flags then the anxiety is a manifestation of pain that needs...
Relationship Anxiety: Fear Eyes or Clear Eyes?
The power of fear never ceases to amaze me. When I initially entered the fear forest after my first panic attack at age 21 (three months before graduating from college), I prostrated myself at fear's feet. I handed over my thought processes and became a complete...
A Root of Anxiety
One of the spokes of the relationship anxiety wheel - or any type of anxiety, for that matter - is the question of where were we hurt. Psychology has done an excellent job of attributing the majority of this hurt to our primary caregivers (usually parents), but it's...
What Should Love Feel Like?
At least once a week, a client asks, "I know that love isn't all butterflies and fireworks, but what should it feel like? Since I've never seen a healthy relationship and I've never been in one, I have no idea what it should be like." I usually balk at the word...
When Love Makes You Flinch
One of the common fear-lines that arises when the ego is trying to deconstruct the idea of relationship anxiety and convince you that your truth is that you're just with the wrong person is: "If what Sheryl says is true, why don't more people talk about it?" It's an...
When You Feel Irritated with Your Partner
"He irritates me all the time. How can he be a good match if I'm constantly annoyed?" "At first things were great with my girlfriend and everything flowed smoothly between us. But now all she has to do is laugh and I want to jump out of my skin. I guess she's not the...
Is My Partner the One for Me?
I feel like I'm settling. This doesn't feel right. I often feel irritated with my partner. Doesn't that mean I'm with the wrong person? When I think about leaving, I don't feel anything at all. How do I know that I'm with the person that God has chosen for me? There...
Is There a Better Match for Me?
Alongside the thoughts, "Maybe I'm just trying to convince myself to stay", "I don't know if I love my partner enough", and "Do we have a strong enough connection?", the question of finding a "better match" is at the top of the relationship anxiety list of questions....
When You’re Irritated With Your Partner
A client told me a few weeks ago that she's been feeling irritated with her husband. Then, in the hushed tones I've come to identify immediately as shame, she asked, "Is that normal?" At which point I told her that my post entitled "When You Feel Irritated with Your...
Does Relationship Anxiety Ever End?
Among the many questions that dart through the mind plagued by relationship anxiety, the one that can cause either hope or despair is, "Will this anxiety ever end? The short answer is yes: the acute anxiety that you're experiencing - the one that wakes you in the...
Am I Only With My Partner Because S/he Makes Me Feel Safe?
There are so many ways the ego tries to dismantle real love, and it's favorite is to perseverate on a single question until it tires itself out, then jump to the next story. I've dissected many of these questions on this blog and in my courses, approaching each in the...
The One Essential Question that Lives Inside Relationship Anxiety
One of the most challenging elements of anxiety is to understand is that the anxiety is projection. This means that the parade of intrusive thoughts that tortures the anxious mind and sensitive soul are actually pointing to areas inside of you that are crying out for...
Relationship Anxiety and the Million-Dollar Question
It's the question that wakes you up on the middle of the night. It's the question that gnaws at your gut and makes your stomach drop with roller-coaster fear. It's the question that Googled you to many sites and articles that confirmed your biggest fear, and...
Am I Just Convincing Myself That I Love My Partner?
Note: I first published this post in 2011 and it remains one of my most popular blog posts. I'm updating it now to include more relevant language and also concepts that have evolved in the last twelve years about relationship anxiety. *** One of the most common...