Confessional: How My Boyfriend and I Deal with Stress

One constant in life that remains true is the fact that there will always be things outside of our control. There will always be ups and downs—again, sometimes outside of our control, other times within it. Life doesn’t discriminate; sometimes things happen to all of us for reasons that we can’t quite fathom or even begin to understand (yet). We’ve all dealt with money problems, sickness, loss, stress, and more, at one time or another. We all have highs and lows, and it is in times of uncertainty where we tend to lash out at those around us, the ones closest to us. This is natural human behavior. And though this is something that we should all work at (because, you know, it’s not fair to everyone else), it’s easy to let this behavior slip into our relationships—more specifically, our romantic ones.

And why is that? Why is it that we tend to put all of our stress onto our partners, that we tend to take on our partners’ worries and fears? Why do we do that, and how do we stop it from damaging our relationship?

This is what I’ve been thinking about for the past couple of weeks, because my boyfriend managed to get both of us sick, give himself pink eye, and tear his pec—leaving no one able to lift anything in our household—all within the span of one week. Yes, one week. When it rains, it pours, right? (Don’t roll your eyes or shake your head, we’ve all been through it, and you know it!)

But that week was just a small blip in the history of our nearly 8 year relationship. We’ve managed to weather many storms—some big, some small—together and, somehow, we’ve managed to stay intact. In fact, all of those rough patches only brought us closer together. If I’m being honest, I wouldn’t trade any of the highs and lows for anything in the world, because they’ve made us into the people we are today, and have only helped strengthen our bond and improve our relationship.

That still begs the question: how do my boyfriend and I handle life’s rough patches, and how we do handle them so well as a couple? After all, like I said in the beginning, it’s natural to take out stress on those closest to us.

I think one thing that’s really helped my boyfriend and I is the fact that we don’t internalize things. Instead of holding everything in, we openly talk about and discuss what’s going on, why we’re feeling the way that we do, and what we’re worried about. Now, that doesn’t mean that neither one of us never holds anything in; although I tend not to hold anything back and inside (I tend to keep things from the outside world until they’ve actually happened, and I prefer to do things in silence, but my boyfriend is the one who I confide in), my boyfriend is a different story. There are certain things he won’t hold back on, and others where he has a predisposed tendency to. He’ll hold things in for a couple of reasons—mainly because he doesn’t want to speak about them until they’ve actually come to fruition—and during those times that he’s holding back, he’s conscious of what he’s doing, and will make an effort not to be short and snappy with me. The times that he does withhold anything from me are rare, but the fact that he’s conscious of what he’s doing stops him from taking out his stress and/or worries out on me. I feel like with everything in life, you can only hold things in for so long; eventually they’ll have no place else to go, and then they’ll come out one way or another. This is usually when we’ll tend to lash out, or sicknesses and health problems will manifest. It’s a very interesting thing, what stress does to the body and mind, and it’s most definitely not healthy to hold all that in.

Another thing that’s helped my boyfriend and I navigate life’s rough patches is the fact that we confide in one another. It’s so refreshing having someone you can talk to about absolutely everything—and I mean everything. There isn’t a topic off the table between him and I. Having that open line of communication is so important in times of uncertainty, and so is having someone to rely on. It’s nice to have one stable constant during ups and downs. We both believe that you have to be able to rely on yourself when it comes to staying grounded, but if your partner can’t be that extra stability for you, who can?

We’re also not afraid to ask for help when we need it. We each know ourselves well enough to understand when we’re struggling, when we need to lean on the other one a little more than usual. We rely onto our relationship and each other in times of uncertainty, when we feel like we’re spinning out of control. We don’t look at our relationship as the problem, at our partner as a punching bag.

The second half of 2017 and onward was the biggest storm we’ve weathered to date. Money was tight for both of us, we were going through the biggest rough patch in our relationship, I was dealing with the aftermath of my accident and feeling my body get weaker and weaker day in and day out, on top of dealing with worsening neck and shoulder injuries, and we were both mourning loss—loss of dreams and people. It was a very dark time, both for our relationship, and for each of us as individuals.

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But from that dark place we both picked ourselves up again. We had a choice: we could stay there forever—in relationship limbo, filled with anger, hurt, and resentment—or we could move on. We chose the latter. Was it hard? Yes. 1,000x over, yes. Of course it was hard—we both were struggling with major loss, stress, our relationship issues, injuries, and the unknown of what came next. We were lashing out at each other; we were struggling to move forward. We were scared of what was ahead, of the uncertainty in it all. Until one day we’d had enough. We were done wih carrying the weight of so many heavy emotions, of taking things out on each other, of holding on to the past. We made a decision that our relationship was worth fighting for, that we both were worth fighting for. We decided to weather the storm together, rather than take it out on each other. From there, we we were able to move forward, and come to a happier, healthier, and stronger place.

The craziest thing is that now, looking back on that time, we both agree it needed to happen, because it forced us to grow as both individuals and as a couple. We learned from that time. We learned how to lean on each other in times of need, rather than push the other away or lash out at them. We learned how to ask for help when we need it; how to identify and talk through our [deepest] emotions so they don’t infiltrate and damage our relationship. We learned that we’re a team, through thick and thin; that no matter what, we’ll always have each other’s back. It’s because of these lessons, and how we learned to navigate the ups and downs in life, that we now know that we’re equipped to handle anything that comes our way. In fact, we’ve managed to get through all of life’s rough patches that have come up since then as a team; we haven’t let them come in and negatively affect our relationship.

Sometimes you have to go through the bad to experience the good; you have to hit rock bottom before you can climb your way back up again. Someone said to me the other day that we often don’t make a decision to stop our suffering until it’s gotten to a point where it’s become too much for us to take and handle anymore. We oftentimes wait until we’re at the point of living with so much pain that we throw our hands up and say, “enough is enough.” Interesting, right? But so true. So, so, so true.

My boyfriend and I have chosen to find comfort in life’s rough patches. We’ve chosen to not let outside factors affect our relationship and the way we treat one another. I’m eternally grateful for our relationship, and all the ups and downs we’ve shared together. We’ve grown together as individuals and as a couple. I wouldn’t change our rough patches for anything.