7 Ways To Cope With Anxiety in Your Relationship

Anxiety is extremely common, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t debilitating and challenging at times. This is especially true when you’re in a relationship and sharing your life with someone else. Love is a powerful and complex emotion on its own, and coupled with the feelings of stress and fear anxiety can bring? Forget about it.

Admittedly, anxiety is sneaky. Some common ways it can manifest in a relationship include avoidance, passive aggressive behavior, and irritability. And when broken down like this, it’s unsurprising that if it’s not addressed, anxiety can take a toll on a couple.

The good news, though, is that it doesn’t have to. With the right tips and tricks, you can easily address and deal anxiety that’s affecting your relationship, so it doesn’t tear you and your S.O apart. Keep scrolling to learn the 7 ways to cope with anxiety in your relationship.

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How to cope with anxiety in your relationship:

1. Address the anxiety in your personal life

Before you can work through anxiety that’s affecting your relationship, you must first address the anxiety in your personal life. Take the time to sit with yourself and your thoughts in a quiet space; do some deep breathing, meditation, or journaling. Try your best to take note of and work through any anxiety-related feelings that come up. Becoming more self-aware will also be helpful too.

2. Challenge and sit with your thoughts

Anxiety makes you overthink, and anxious thoughts are self-perpetuating—they lead to more anxious thoughts, which then leads to more worry and doubt. In turn, this creates a vicious cycle of overthinking, worrying, and doubting.

That said, feelings that are repeatedly popping up are often trying to tell us something. So the next time an anxious thought comes up, try to sit with and challenge it. Do you have any evidence that this is true? Why do you think you’re feeling this way? Could something else have caused this? Practicing becoming a witness to these types of thoughts—rather than reacting to them—will help you calm yourself and manage your anxiety.

3. Conduct an honest emotional inventory

Prioritize making time to sit in a quiet, safe space and conduct and honest, emotional inventory with yourself regularly. Think about what tends to trigger you, what your needs are, and how you can make sure they’re met and you feel secure in yourself and the relationship—alone or with the help of your S.O. Don’t worry about coming up with a solution for your anxiety just yet; this is simply a time to get to the root causes of your anxiety and gain insight into yourself.

Although having a supportive partner who wants to help you work through your anxiety is huge, it’s a good idea to try and tackle this independently in the beginning. You want to make sure that you know you can take care of yourself and are responsible for your own happiness and meeting your own needs. Once you’ve done that, bringing your S.O in is a good idea.

4. Get moving regularly

Despite the fact that it is good and necessary to sit with and challenge your thoughts, doing so for too long can drive you wild. If you’re having difficulty sitting with your thoughts, get moving. It can be through a workout, a walk outside, cooking, cleaning, etc. Whatever it is, the important thing is that you simply stop thinking and start doing.

5. Practice being mindful

Everything in life comes back to being present, and becoming more mindful is going to help you tremendously if you’re struggling with anxiety. Deep breathing, journaling, reading self-help books like The Book of Awakening are some examples of mindfulness practices. Likewise, going for long walks on the beach barefoot and meditating are also great. Implementing these sorts of practices into your daily life will help you stay more grounded in general—not just in the moment you’re practicing. Plus, this will also help slow your mind down and rein in those anxious thoughts.

If you’re unsure of where to start, try simply taking a few long, deep breaths throughout the day intermittently. This will help slow your heart rate down, decrease your stress and anxiety, and ground you in the present moment.

6. Communicate with your partner

There’s a very real temptation to retreat into yourself when you’re struggling with anxiety, but doing so can be detrimental to the relationship. However, communicating with your S.O is so vital. As hard as it may be, try your best to be open and vulnerable with your partner. If they ask you what’s wrong, tell them; practicing open up in moments you’re struggling. Even if you think you’re being over dramatic or silly, it’s important to let your partner in. Opening up to your partner is going to lift a weight off your shoulders, and you’ll be able to tackle your anxiety better.

Talking when you’re feeling calm is more likely going to steer the conversation in a positive direction. In addition, be mindful of your words. Remember: It’s not what you say, but how you say it—don’t come right out of the gate and blame your partner for your anxiety. If you need some tips for healthy communication, check out this article here.

7. Seek professional help

Couples counseling or individual therapy will help you tap into the root causes of your anxiety and the healthiest ways to deal with it. Find what best suits your needs. You’ll be amazed at how much you can uncover with the help of a professional, and remember that there’s absolutely no shame in doing so. In fact, asking for help is a sign of strength—not weakness.