u/i_fancy_spiderman

Everything you think a man can give you is what you can give yourself. Even more and better. Dating men is just not that great. You don't need them.

My anxiety and ROCD often clouds my judgement regarding my relationship. I have often gotten lost into the spiral of whether my partner truly loves me or not or whether this is the right relationship for me or not. I have come to the point where I find it hard to trust my own judgement because of my anxiety. Especially ever since my partner and I had to become long distance and be restricted only to texting as our form of communication, I had filled every moment of silence with negative assumptions regarding him. The problem is that I didn't even let him show me whether my assumptions are false or what he truly feels about me because I kept filling every gap with my anxious feelings or reassurance seeking questions. My constant micromanaging and trying to control him left no space for him to show me his authentic self.

I am not afraid of losing him. I am more afraid of making a wrong decision of staying OR breaking up because of my anxiety/ROCD when everything was fine.

So, I have decided to let go from now. I will hold myself back from constantly bombarding him with reassurance seeking questions and trying to get him to do certain things for me to feel a sense of safety. I will not overcommunicate, overgive, or overdo anything in attempts to control how he feels about me or save our relationship. I will allow him to show me his true self. I will let myself sit with uncertainity and let go of the need for clarity. I will let the silence speak for itself instead of rushing to fill it. I will focus on what I feel because of the relationship. I have promised myself that I will only make a judgement on my relationship when I feel secure, calm, and detached. I will evaluate whether the relationship adds any value to my life or not once I don't feel like I need it to be fulfilled.

Is this a secure way of handling this?

My anxiety and ROCD often clouds my judgement regarding my relationship. I have often gotten lost into the spiral of whether my partner truly loves me or not or whether this is the right relationship for me or not. I have come to the point where I find it hard to trust my own judgement because of my anxiety. Especially ever since my partner and I had to become long distance and be restricted only to texting as our form of communication, I had filled every moment of silence with negative assumptions regarding him. The problem is that I didn't even let him show me whether my assumptions are false or what he truly feels about me because I kept filling every gap with my anxious feelings or reassurance seeking questions. My constant micromanaging and trying to control him left no space for him to show me his authentic self.

I am not afraid of losing him. I am more afraid of making a wrong decision of staying OR breaking up because of my anxiety/ROCD when everything was fine.

So, I have decided to let go from now. I will hold myself back from constantly bombarding him with reassurance seeking questions and trying to get him to do certain things for me to feel a sense of safety. I will not overcommunicate, overgive, or overdo anything in attempts to control how he feels about me or save our relationship. I will allow him to show me his true self. I will let myself sit with uncertainity and let go of the need for clarity. I will let the silence speak for itself instead of rushing to fill it. I will focus on what I feel because of the relationship. I have promised myself that I will only make a judgement on my relationship when I feel secure, calm, and detached. I will evaluate whether the relationship adds any value to my life or not once I don't feel like I need it to be fulfilled.

Is this a secure way of handling this?

I know the media we consume affects us a lot. We are what we consume. I had grown up to center romantic love because of the romance media I consumed. But now that I am aware of it, can I watch it without my subconscious being affected by it? Formerly, I had been trying to consume media centered around other things to alter my subconcious beliefs. But today I was just craving the idea of romantic affection and instead of trying to find it in my reality...I thought of quenching that thirst by consuming romance media. Is that an unhealthy method? Will it start making me seek romantic validation to feel whole again or is this a normal innocous way to give myself temporary gratification?

An important thing to note is that I am bisexual and can consume sapphic/wlw romantic media...yet I only feel the urge to consume heterosexual romance media.

I know the media we consume affects us a lot. We are what we consume. I had grown up to center romantic love because of the romance media I consumed. But now that I am aware of it, can I watch it without my subconscious being affected by it? Formerly, I had been trying to consume media centered around other things to alter my subconcious beliefs. But today I was just craving the idea of romantic affection and instead of trying to find it in my reality...I thought of quenching that thirst by consuming romance media. Is that an unhealthy method? Will it start making me seek romantic validation to feel whole again or is this a normal innocous way to give myself temporary gratification?

An important thing to note is that I am bisexual and can consume sapphic/wlw romantic media...yet I only feel the urge to consume heterosexual romance media.

I had stopped overthinking at all. My anxiety had magically vanished. It was so peaceful being in the moment and so present. My thoughts felt blank and I felt detached. When I did have thoughts, I could observe them without being affected by them. I never understood how it happened. It just happened randomly after I started going to uni and my enviroment completely changed. I just want that back. My anxiety seems to be back and I want to be free again.

Because I don't understand this well, I want advice. How can I achieve this state conciously?

I am grateful to be able to study when so many women before me (especially in my family and country) couldn't complete their education and were married off at a very early age. My grandmother herself could only study till highschool and was married off at the age I am today. What a privilege it is to get to study at my country's top university. I am beyond grateful that I can educate myself and build a life for myself.

Growing up in a country dominated by a very patriarchal culture and consuming media that all centered around a woman finding a man, I grew up thinking marriage was my dream in life. I never realized how much romance media shaped my subconcious desires and perspectives. Every disney movie, every rom-com, every kdrama, and literally every movie with a female protagonist I consumed had romance as a major plot line where a man would come save the day.

Naturally, I started believing that romantic love would fix all my issues and save me. Whenever I would be distraught, I would daydream of a man providing me comfort and healing my emotional wounds. Overtime, it became something I made my goal, something I couldn't imagine my future without. I romanticized the idea of marriages and proposals, dreaming of the day a man would fall for me enough to want to legalize our partnership. But now it feels like I have been thrust with the callous reality of marriage.

Marriage is a scam. It does not benefit women in anyway. The marriage customs and traditions of my culture in specific are even more toxic to women. I am shocked by the fact that I romanticized something that horrible.

I am currently in a healthy relationship with a man, and realizing this has been hard. I still feel hesitant to let go of my old fantasies of a man proposing to me and marrying me, but I know it is important to fully decenter it in my life. It feels isolating to realize this, because I don't have enough female communities in my life that have or at least try to decenter marriage and men.

7 months in, my partner and I are having difficulty resolving conflicts.

l feel as if some of my emotional needs are not met sometimes. Often when I bring up how I feel, he focuses more on his intentions or being defensive rather than actually listening or understanding. That makes me feel unheard and makes me persist on how I feel to make him feel compassion for me, but the cycle continues. I've tried asking him how I can communicate better or not make him feel bad about him failing to meet my needs once, but he said he doesn't know.

Example: I communicated that I felt hurt because of his lack of enthusiasm at me getting really excited to share something with him. I expected to receive understanding words and comfort, but he focused more on explaining how he wasn't ignoring me and that my mood shouldn't depend on him. I had never said he ignored me, so I felt more frustrated that he did not understand why I was hurt. I told him that I wasn't attacking him or blaming him, and just needed sweet words. He said that he knows I'll feel resentful if he doesn't give me words and that demotivates him. His refusal to do so after I ask him makes me feel abandoned. I understand why it demotivates him, but I find it hard to accept it because I've always found comfort easy to give to someone I love. While I know not expecting him to do it will make him feel less burdened or make it feel less like a chore, the fear of settling for less than what I deserve holds me back from doing so. I am afraid of him always relying on his motivation to show up for me. I try to reassure him that he's still perfect and that i do understand him, but then it feels unfair because I'm giving him the comfort I don't get from him.

This has not always been the case. We go to the same college and things are always perfect in person. At the start, conflict was always easily resolved and I always felt loved while expressing myself. He always took accountability and action to follow through my needs. He has always been the best boyfriend ever. I always felt like my feelings were prioritized, cherished, and important whenever we had to communicate. Infact, he always avoided fighting with me because he hated the idea of us fighting. Ever since summer vacations began, conflicts started arising and I do feel like a huge part of it stems from the fact that we can only communicate through text. He's also amazing at comforting me through touch and acts of service, but finds it hard to comfort through words. Now our conflicts feel like we are fighting against each other and not the issue.

A while ago, I had become anxiously attached and emotionally dependent on him, which undeniably led me to have unfair expectations from him and caused him to develop compassion fatigue towards my feelings. I was expecting him to fix emotional issues and wounds that I was responsible for. I have been trying my best to become more emotionally independent and be more responsible for my own needs for our relationship. I've deeply researched nervous system healing, taken therapy sessions, journaling, and targeting anxiety through workout and healthy diets. I feel like I've made enormous progress. We took a 2 week break for me to work on this too. I know it will take time for him to stop feeling burnt out because of how overwhelming my anxiety had been, but I am finding it hard to be patient and wait for him to show up for me. I feel as if him showing support through empathetic and comforting words will rebuild my trust in him, but maybe I'm just falling into the reassurance seeking loop of anxiety again.

I can't determine whether this is a conflict that can be resolved or if we are just fundamentally incompatible and will need to part ways for both of our mental health. Can this conflict even be resolved or do we need to part ways? If so, what do we need to do to resolve this conflict and make communication more productive? What work do I need to do indvidually for my relationship?

TLDR: I often feel emotionally unheard while he feels pressured by my need for verbal reassurance. I'm unsure whether this is fixable or a sign of incompatibility.

My life changed when I realized my worth is not defined by the external validation and love I recieve. The external reality (people, situations, titles, etc) is unpredictable, temporary, and outside our control. Tying our self-worth to what is not stable keeps our self-esteem unstable, too. Self-worth should come from within you, something that is completely under your control. It all bowls down to the belief that attachment is the root of all suffering. Attaching your self-worth to the external will cause you to suffer because everything external eventually fades away.

I am defined by the love I put out in this world. And that includes the love I give myself too! I am a product of everything I love. I am every action I take. I am every emotion I feel. I am what I make myself.

Once you understand this, you will never need anyone else to feel worthy. You will know you are worthy for simply existing the way you are. You won't always be treated kindly and get what you deserve, but because you will know that is not a reflection of your worth...you will be okay.