question💕

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.

What did I do if I really want reassurance

If I stop seeking reassurance will the thoughts become less?