Maintaining a romantic relationship requires serious work. Having gone past the courtship stage, the challenge of keeping the bond between you and your beau strong necessitates continuously sharing yourselves mutually, while staying true to yourselves individually. Tested through time, the hurdles involved are challenging enough to strain both of you. Surpassing them would mean growing together as a couple. But when your beau has any specific anxiety disorder or GAD (general anxiety disorder), expect the impact of his personal challenges to extend to your relationship. To give you an overview of how these changes can affect your relationship and how you can deal with them, ponder on the helpful information below:
His anxiety issue can lead him to become suspicious.
Being riddled with anxiety can make your beau develop a suspicious nature. And if being suspicious is already part of his natural character without the anxiety, then it is likely to get aggravated. His suspiciousness can manifest in a variety of ways. When it does, expect issues concerning your faithfulness, his feelings for you, or how both of you treat each other to be raised. Since his anxiety distorts his intuition and normal perception of matters, it is very difficult for him to tell the difference between trusting his feelings and being rattled by his anxiousness.
What you can do:
As relationships are based on a foundation of trust, his suspiciousness could strain you emotionally. But no matter what happens, bear in mind that his reactions are due to his paranoia as brought on by his anxiety. At best, you would be better off guiding him to reason in a relaxed and pragmatic way. As soon as he has calmed down a bit, have him point out hard facts that would support his claims or fears. With patience and understanding, help him realize how baseless his worries are. It would also help decrease or dispel his suspicions if you constantly reassure him of your unwavering love and support.
He could become emotionally needy.
The kind of differentiated neediness that could plague a partner with anxiety disorder can be evident in two ways: He may be led to think that he is demanding too much from you or he may become more emotionally demanding which ups the mental stress for both of you.
What you can do:
In this case, the best way you can help your beau is to guide and support him in finding ways to help him deal with his anxiety. In doing so, he learns how to depend on himself so as not to overburden you with his neediness.
He can become impulsive.
Take heart: Anxiety can lead your beau to suffer from unendurable states compelling him to think and act impulsively. The manner whereby this could manifest in your relationship varies greatly. Likewise, the adverse repercussions this would have would be indeterminable, depending on a case to case basis. His impulsiveness can prompt him to behave disastrously in a way that it would hurt both of you. Or he could conclude matters without reasonable basis and make irrational decisions without consulting you.
What you can do:
When things happen too fast, slow down and take a breather. Reasoning out with him while he is at the height of his emotions is futile. Let him calm down first by helping him relieve his anxiety. At this point, staying quiet and not reacting would work best, for your every word or reaction could be taken negatively, hence, worsening your situation. Only when he has relaxed can you open up your concerns—one issue at a time. Remembering how vulnerable he is, keep up with the calm and pragmatic approach in guiding him to realize how these matters have affected your relationship and how both of you can resolve it.