– How Anxiety in Relationships is Contagious

Last Updated on November 6, 2015 by Chris Roberts

HOW RELATIONSHIP COUNSELING CAN HELP BREAK A COUPLE’S CYCLE OF ANXIETY

References “Passionate Marriage: Keeping Love and Intimacy Alive in Committed Relationships,” by David Schnarch, PH.D.

There are so many reasons for a couple to enter relationship counseling in Nashville, TN, but none more predominantly so than: Contagious Anxiety.  Of course, most couples don’t know that’s why they are asking for help in relationship counseling.  Usually, contagious anxiety looks like fighting, or arguing, or “she’s always nagging,” or “he’s so distant and won’t communicate.”  Not that contagious anxiety is the sole reason and issue underlying each of the examples above, but it definitely plays a significant role.

Sometimes, the most important element in relationship counseling is helping couples put new and better words to the struggles they feel mired within.  Contagious anxiety is a helpful category many couples have found is helpful to understand how and why they keep having the same difficulties within their relationship.  In a seminal book on relationships entitled, “Passionate Marriage: Keeping Love and Intimacy Alive in Committed Relationships,” by Dr. David Schnarch, he states that one of the hallmarks of a healthy, functioning relationship is the ability of partners to maintain, “connection with the people you love without taking on their anxieties.” (p. 115)  This seems like a simple concept.  In a rational, unemotional moment of clarity, the thought is elementary: Why would I ever make someone else’s anxieties my own?   This thought is simple enough, until it’s put into an actual relationship.  Dr. Schnarch relays this example:

“I can’t handle Joan’s anxiety,” Bill complains in one of our early sessions.  “When she talks to me about her fears, I end up feeling like they are my responsibility to solve.”

Joan’s response is instantaneous.  “What good is a marriage if I can’t talk to my partner about what’s important to me?!  Sometimes I get nervous and I need to talk to someone—it calms me down.”

“I know,” [Dr. Schnarch says].  “That’s the problem.”

“That I get nervous?”

“No, everyone gets nervous.  The problem is that you need Bill to help you calm yourself down.  I know that women discuss their feelings more than men, but you’re describing something else.  You’re not just describing a desire to talk.  You want to use it to do what you can’t do for yourself.” (p. 115)

This is a pretty typical conversation that occurs amongst couples in relationship counseling.  In this example, the woman claims she has the right to vent her anxieties to her spouse, because “what good is a marriage if I can’t?”  The man, as typified by this example, wants to help and feels obligated/pressured to help, and so wants to do whatever he can to make the situation better for his spouse.  The most important missing piece in this drama is that the woman doesn’t want to just talk.  She wants her partner to help calm her down.  So, in essence, the man is right in feeling that he needs to help her calm down.  What’s the problem then?  Or, why does this type scenario usually end in conflict, and bitterness, and distance, and frustration?

The problem is that another person cannot continually resolve another person’s anxiety.  In this sense, relationship counseling becomes about informing each person that they have some individual work that needs to be done in order for the relationship to actually thrive.  And that is typically not what each partner wants to hear.  Usually in relationship counseling, each person wants the OTHER person to do some work to help/fix their issues.  Dr. Schnarch goes on to write, “Poorly differentiated people have difficulty handling anxiety.  As a result, they deal with it through their relationships because emotional fusion can temporarily reduce anxiety and restore a sense of identity and purpose.  That’s why poorly differentiated people often dive into fusion when they are highly anxious.  Consequently, they become increasingly dependent on their relationship and their partner—or avoid emotional contact altogether.” (p. 115)

Relationship counseling in Nashville, TN is especially concerned with this concept of separating each person’s anxieties, because in the south we are so accustomed to being helpful and hospitable to other people.   I believe most men want to listen to their relationship partner and they want to helpful to them.  And I would say typically, most men are well-trained at being helpful and compassionate to their partner…at least in the beginning of the relationship!  The problem is that intuitively, someone in the relationship begins to feel (usually on a subconscious level) that this type of listening and help is exhausting and can’t be maintained for life.  And because that person typically doesn’t have the language or patience at that point to describe what they are feeling (and believe what they are feeling is okay), they usually start to pull away, or selectively “not listen.”

At this point, relationship counseling can be extremely helpful, because it can put words and constructs to why and how their relationship got to this point without necessarily making it all one person’s fault.

If you are looking for relationship counseling in Nashville, tn, because you feel stuck in frustrating patterns, please feel free to give Chris Roberts a call at (615) 800-9260 at Two Trees Counseling Nashville to discuss how he could be of help.