- Date posted
- 1y
Emotional regulation
How do I not shut down and go quiet and cry when my partner is trying to have an uncomfortable conversation with me is anyone else dealing or dealt with this ?
How do I not shut down and go quiet and cry when my partner is trying to have an uncomfortable conversation with me is anyone else dealing or dealt with this ?
I’ve dealt with this and the things that have helped me most are practice and space. At first when I would get emotional during these conversations with a partner, I was ask to pause the conversation and do something relaxing until I felt better. Then we could come back to the conversation later. After doing this for a few different conversations, I noticed that my anxiety and shutting down was getting less intense. So basically, don’t be too hard on yourself! Give yourself time and remember you’ll only get better with practice.
@madelynt1129 Thank you so much this was very helpful!
Im dealing with this 💔
@Feraro You’re not alone💞
i totally get how tough it can be to stay present during those hard convos with your partner, especially when all you wanna do is shut down. it's super common to feel overwhelmed and just want to escape the discomfort. you're definitely not alone in feeling this way, and it's okay to have moments where things feel too much. 💔 by the way, have you heard about this new ai-powered ocd therapy tool called 'unstuck?' when i was dealing with similar feelings, my nocd therapist recommended this free ai ocd therapy tool called 'unstuck' (unstuckmyocd.com/try), and it was a game-changer. i think it'll be especially helpful for you because it provides personalized, step-by-step support for managing those overwhelming emotions and thoughts during tough times, just like an ocd therapist would. i hate when people promote stuff, but i really think it can help you because it's changed my life. lmk if you have qs or just want to talk more! <3
My boyfriend told me that he feels like he’s losing me, that I’ve changed, and that I don’t seem happy to see him anymore. I know that this should hurt me deeply, but when he said it, I didn’t feel anything. And now I’m terrified. Why didn’t I react? Why didn’t I feel instant sadness or guilt? It’s like I was emotionally blocked, like I didn’t care at all—and that thought is destroying me. What if this means I don’t love him? What if I’ve just been lying to myself and I don’t want to accept the truth? I feel so disconnected and numb. My brain keeps telling me: “If you really cared, you would feel something.” But instead, I feel nothing. And the fact that I feel nothing makes me panic even more. I don’t know what’s happening to me. I used to feel so much, and now it’s like I can’t access my emotions at all. I don’t want to lose him. I don’t want to feel like this forever. I just want to feel normal again
My boyfriend and I started dating a little over a month ago. We’ve now started discussing the next step in our relationship: intimacy. It feels quick, but we’ve known each other well over a year and we were really close friends before dating. I don’t feel ready for sex yet but we’ve started with baby steps. While kissing, my mind started to wander and he started kissing my chest (he asked first, I gave consent, and I was comfortable with him), but frankly I was bored. There were parts that were good and parts that could use some work. I didn’t tell him what felt good and what didn’t like I should have and when he asked my mind went blank. The other night he came over for dinner and we began to talk about it. He started crying and saying how he didn’t want to disappoint me. I felt so shut down because I felt like I was the one in a vulnerable situation and I was the one that wanted to talk but there I was, taking care of him. I ended up communicating what I wanted and I appreciated that he cared enough to ask and listen but at the same time he didn’t really listen because he was caught up in his own emotions. All day long I cannot get it off my mind, seriously. I looked down midway through the day to see I had dug my fingernails into the pad of my pointer finger to the point where there was a deep mark. I have felt extremely anxious and like an awful girlfriend. I do not want to have sex with him if the thought of not doing well kissing my chest upsets him to the point of tears. I just felt bad for not enjoying myself and not telling him that, but I got frustrated that he almost… victimized himself? I feel like I’m manipulating him someway and I just don’t know how. I also feel bad for not being attracted to what he was doing and I’m scared it will lead to losing all attraction. Please help, am I awful for feeling frustrated that he cried?
Posting here for the first time, please be gentle, not sure if this is applicable! I definitely struggle with reassurance-seeking especially when it comes to real events, but over time have found ways to self regulate and use self-guided therapy apps and worksheets to help fight any challenging thoughts as they come up throughout the day. There are a few times when I’m unable to do the work myself and don’t feel as emotionally strong, which I feel is reasonable considering how exhausting my symptoms can be (for clarification, I am diagnosed with anxiety but not OCD, although I fear all signs lead me here). Only on the extremely difficult days, I’ll ask my partner for reassurance (he is aware of my tendencies and is quite patient) but he has his own baggage, and having a partner asking for reassurance can be triggering for him, as he was accused of several negative things in his last relationship. He quickly gets overwhelmed with me and feels that I don’t trust him. He is convinced that is the motive of my reassurance seeking. Today in particular, I woke up from a nightmare that reminded me of a past event. After struggling with it myself all day I brought it up in the evening to try and get some help, and did bring it up three times after that. I am always soft and gentle when I ask for help, and even asked for a lighthearted “pinky promise”, which actually seemed to bother him. I understand that it’s not his position to emotionally support me whatsoever and that reassurance seeking can become harmful to the both of us, but for the one-off days where I am having a really difficult time, I feel extremely unsupported by him. For context, my partner has broken my trust before. My thoughts took off during that time. It’s been a few months since then, and me openly seeking reassurance from him is not a frequent occurrence, since I’ve started my self-help. I actually feel I’ve come a long way but I do have days like today that set me back. I love and trust him with all my heart, but man does my inner monologue make me work for it. I just don’t know how to get him to understand that it’s me having to work for it, not him. Unfortunately from the way he reacts, I’ve grown to feel unsupported by him, and am now rarely emotionally vulnerable with him. I am curious if there are any suggestions on helping him help me in a sense.. I don’t know how to get him to understand that it has nothing to do with a lack of trust. I have briefly opened up to him about my strong intrusive thoughts and figured it would help him understand a bit better but I don’t know what to do. I want to add: I have tried talking to him about how I felt unsupported. He just tells me he feels accused and would be supporting me at his own expense. He has even told me that I shouldn’t talk to him about these things, even though the thoughts I struggle with are directly related to events in our relationship. I really can’t seem to get through to him.
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