Scarleteen

Hello, this is my first time posting on here. I've been with my partner for a little over a year now, but in the past couple of months or so it has been really stressful. Both them and I have our own individual issues (we both have anxiety) and they seem to have been spiraling a lot, especially in the past couple of months, and I find myself to be the person they run to when they're stressed. I don't mind because I always try to be there for people but the problem lays in how I feel towards this. I find myself to be a people pleaser, along with being the designated "therapist friend", and I feel so stressed when I'm there for them especially because when they are not in a good state of mind they ignore everything I say and it turns into a cycle of them making incredibly irrational decisions and then apologizing to me. I tried to speak my mind on how I feel about them, but because they have a low self-esteem, they begin to blame everything on themselves when I just wanted to fix the problem and the cycle of me having to comfort them all over again continues. I want to help them to the best of my ability, I really do, and I know that they are in therapy which is helpful, but I feel like I'm slowly losing myself, and I'm always on edge because I feel as if I have to anticipate the next time they start to have another episode. I also feel like I have no one to talk to about my feelings and I just feel overall so lonely sometimes in this relationship. I don't know what to do because I feel like they've been getting better this month but it seems like they're going back into the state they were in around two months ago and I'm getting so anxious at the thought of me trying to uplift them knowing I can't really fix them. I feel so stuck and I don't know what to do in this relationship because I really do love them but I don't know how I'm supposed to set boundaries and communicating with them about how I feel without them immediately blaming themself and blowing everything out of proportion.

Hey Tonyy0504, and welcome to the boards <3

I’m so sorry to hear that you’ve been feeling so alone in this dynamic, but I am glad you’re here to talk about it. Being the therapist friend in friendships and relationships can be a big ask of one person, and you deserve a space to talk about how this all makes you feel. It sounds like you’ve been doing a lot of comforting and reassuring for your partner recently which is a kind thing to do for them, but I hear you that it’s getting more intense and stressful when you’re the primary person they go to in moments of crisis, and when talking to them about it results in them blaming themself. In relationships, it’s okay to find that it’s not 50/50 every moment of the day, but sometimes it’ll be 60/40 in someone’s direction who needs more help that day. But, as you’re describing, when it gets to the point where one partner is doing the majority of the emotional lifting on a more routine basis, it can result in some pretty bad feelings and the development of an unhealthy dynamic.

I have a couple questions first to get a better sense of the situation. How does you and your partners external support system look like apart from each other? Specifically, does your partner have friends or people to go to in times or crisis that are not you, that you could encourage them to reach out to as well?

I also want to send this article we have, How To Clash With Love: Some Conflict Resolution Basics, it offers a great how-to for conflict resolution and talking about tough stuff with a partner. Does going through that article give you some ideas about talking to your partner about this where they might react less defensively? Just to be clear, I’m not saying you have a problem with communication at all, but sometimes when a partner gets reactive to what we say, it can be really helpful to approach things with all the good communication tools we have available. How does that sound to you to start?