Anxiety is a signal that’s really good at letting you know something isn’t working – the only thing is, it’s not so good at pointing out exactly what that thing is. Diving into today’s question about anxiety in a relationship brings us to unpacking just what anxiety is, attachment styles, culture and epigenetics, and a whole lot more. We also talk about what it means to stop fighting your anxiety and begin to change your relationship to it, and how that can have results that resonate far wider than you might think.

Quotes:

“It’s contagious. It's really hard to be with someone who's anxious and not either feel anxious also or have a desire to turn away...or get them to stop it...or try to fix it, or fix them.”

"When anxiety is coming at you, it's really, really overwhelming, and you either join it, or you try to change it, or you try to leave it."

This episode is brought to you by our amazing sponsor, The Academy of Therapy Wisdom. Jules is one of their many educators, and because you listen to us, the Therapy Wisdom team is offering a secret code to give you free access to one of Jules' 1 hour Wise Conversations. Just visit therapywisdom.com and use the discount code "WDMP."

Jules' new book is out now! Buy Setting Boundaries that Stick: How Neurobiology Can Help You Rewire Your Brain to Feel Safe, Connected, and Empowered wherever books are sold.

Share your questions with us at whydoesmypartner.com/contact

If you want to dive in deeper, consider attending our upcoming workshops. Learn more at whydoesmypartner.com/events

Welcome to the Why Does My Partner podcast.

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I'm

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Vickey: Jules.

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I'm Vicki.

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Rebecca: And I'm Rebecca.

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We're your hosts.

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We're also couples therapists

and messy humans bumbling

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through our own relationships

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Vickey: every day.

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We met at a training, and our

secret sauce is that we, and our

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partners, became fast friends.

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Between us, we have more than 40

years of experience holding hard

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relational questions with our clients.

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We're going to bring those questions here.

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And together, we're going

to take a stab at answering

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Jules: those questions.

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This podcast is not a

substitute for couples

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Vickey: therapy.

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If something you hear in this podcast

stirs something deep within you

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about your relationship, reach out

to a couples therapist in your area.

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Rebecca: We also love to hear

your questions, so don't forget

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to go over to whydoesmypartner.

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com to leave a question of your own.

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Here's today's question.

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Vickey: Welcome back.

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This is Jules.

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Rebecca: This is Vicki.

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And this is Rebecca.

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Today's question is, why does

my partner give me anxiety?

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And friends, This is me.

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Like, it's not my question.

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That's not what I'm saying here.

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But like, I am the partner

who gives my partner anxiety.

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I have this superpower.

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I am like a sorceress.

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I can cast these spells.

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Jules: You are

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Vickey: amazing.

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You're like magic.

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You're like, put anxiety in a package

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Jules: and hand

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Vickey: it on over.

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I am so good at this.

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Jules: Why on earth and

how does this happen?

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Rebecca: Well, it's contagious.

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Jules: Mm.

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Oh.

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Mm hmm.

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Mm hmm.

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That

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Vickey: is a good

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Rebecca: way to phrase it.

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Yeah.

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Mm hmm.

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Yes.

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Yeah.

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It's really hard to be with someone

who's anxious and not either feel anxious

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also or have a desire to turn away.

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Vickey: Yeah, because

I think I do it to you.

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Or get them to stop it.

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Rebecca: Yeah, or get them to, or try to

fix it, or try to fix them, or, yes, yeah,

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because, because when anxiety is coming

at you, I don't know, I probably picked

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it up in a lot of places growing up,

but, um, when anxiety is coming at you,

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Vickey: it's really, really

overwhelming, and you either join it,

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Rebecca: or you

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Vickey: try to change it,

or you try to leave it.

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I was going to say run

away, but just leave it.

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So yeah.

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Yeah.

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Jules: So you join it,

change it, or leave it.

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So if you, Collar, are the person

who is joining, then your partner

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gave you anxiety, you picked up that

package and ate it like ice cream,

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nom, nom, nom, nom, nom, nom, nom.

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And you probably can't even

help it, is what you're saying.

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Am I getting it?

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Rebecca: Yeah.

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Well, it's, it's.

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It's in the air.

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So like you're responding to

something that's in the air.

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Yeah.

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It makes complete sense that

your partner's giving you anxiety

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if you have an anxious partner.

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Yeah, yeah.

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That makes sense.

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But also, like I think, I think like

we need to figure out like what,

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can we back up at like 12 steps?

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What

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Vickey: is

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Jules: anxiety?

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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What

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Rebecca: is anxiety?

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Yeah.

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I think, I think even like the

three of us might have slightly

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different definitions of what anxiety

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Jules: is.

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Probably.

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Slightly.

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I mean, the first thing that comes

to me is just how many clients I've

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had in my own system, my partner,

all, all the people, friends.

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And they say, well, I have

really bad anxiety right now.

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And if I stop and ask,

what does that mean?

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I get a different answer every time.

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What I'm catching is that we use that

word to mean a lot of different things.

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So that's my like knee

jerk response to it.

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Mm hmm.

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Yeah.

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Rebecca: So, for the purpose

of this episode, I think we're

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kind of categorizing anxiety in

like a worry category, right?

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But I, I also want to share with, with our

listeners that in my own system, as I have

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moved into greater and greater wellness

and into a deeper relationship with my

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anxiety, I have come to learn that my

anxiety is actually high degrees of care.

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It's like, I'm super caring.

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I'm caring so freaking much.

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Yeah.

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Vickey: Mm hmm.

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You care about things going well.

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You care

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Jules: about your loved ones.

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You care.

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You

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Rebecca: care so much.

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I care

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Vickey: so much.

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What happens?

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What does like your anxiety

look like because you care

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Rebecca: so much?

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No, it looks like anxiety

because I care so much.

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Oh, okay.

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Vickey: Okay.

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Well, and

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Jules: so it could be anything.

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It could be like you're

getting on a plane.

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And by the way, I'm

really anxious about you.

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We're going to get to the airport in time.

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Do we pack everything we need?

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And also what's going

to happen to the plane?

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What happens if the plane isn't on time?

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Are we going to make our connection?

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It could be that kind of,

am I getting it, Rebecca?

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You're getting it.

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Okay.

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Rebecca: You're getting it.

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Okay.

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I have to like my, my I don't, I

don't want to like make this all about

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anxiety, but like my trick in here is

actually to shift what I care about.

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Nice.

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Right?

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So like, do I care about getting

to the plane on time or do I care

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about having an awesome journey

with the people that I'm with?

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Ah, okay.

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Vickey: Right?

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So you shift your focus.

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That's what you're saying.

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I

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Rebecca: shift what I care about.

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Yeah.

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Okay.

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Vickey: That's right.

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Yeah.

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Jules: But yeah, cause you can't

actually turn off the care.

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So then,

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Vickey: okay, wait, wait, wait, this

is, this is so genius and this is like

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bonus for all the listeners out there.

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I cannot turn off the care.

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Not even a little bit.

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That reaction was awesome.

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Jules: By the way.

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I'm sorry.

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Okay, I love this, because by

the way, if you push down that

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anxiety, then you're pushing down

your big, heart caring, loving

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Vickey: self,

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Jules: and it goes,

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Vickey: No!

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And makes it worse,

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Rebecca: because it doesn't

want you to push the care away.

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I'm going to do one of three things

if I have to push my anxiety away.

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I'm either going to totally freeze.

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Because I don't know what the

heck to do if I can't care, and

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my heart's going to go cold.

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I'm going to get really big and loud

and lash out at myself, at you, at

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the world, at the person that gave

me a ticket to the airplane, right?

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Like, I'm going to lash out everywhere, or

I'm going to run the heck away because I'm

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rejected and the world doesn't want me.

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Aww.

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Sweetie.

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Because I care too much.

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Yeah.

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And nobody else cares.

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You know, so it's like.

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Yeah.

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It's the care.

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And for me, it's care, but this

is also like really been like an

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earned way of seeing my own anxiety.

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It's not, it's certainly

not a place I started.

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And if I, um, when I think

about this question, why does

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my partner give me anxiety?

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Um, this was me.

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I don't think my partner and I are

in the same place now because we

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understand my anxiety differently.

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Because I understand my, because my

relationship to it is different, right?

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So it doesn't do the

same thing in my partner

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Jules: anymore.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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So you shifted your relationship

with your anxiety first.

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Yes.

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Then you started talking to

him more about it as you're

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Rebecca: shifting.

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No, I shifted my

relationship to my anxiety.

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And then he shifted his

relationship to your anxiety.

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And then it shifted.

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Oh, and then it shifted.

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Jules: Mm hmm.

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Mm hmm.

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Yeah.

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That makes a lot of sense.

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And so then you're not giving

him your anxiety so much.

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Mm hmm.

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Rebecca: Mm hmm.

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Because my relationship is different.

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It's not something to give.

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It's something to understand.

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It's something to process.

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Jules: That makes total sense.

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Yeah.

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It's a great way

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Vickey: to phrase it, too.

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It's something to

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Jules: understand.

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Totally.

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So that's possibly what's happening.

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But there are other things that

are possibly happening too.

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So if your partner is not anxious and

you are on the receiving end of their

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behavior and you are getting anxiety,

there's a, there's not another option.

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So it could be that there's something

in their behavior that is pulling

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on the implicit threads Of your own

history and, and the, the neural

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networks that are coming to answer

that little tug are full of anxiety,

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maybe over care, maybe worry right?

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Not over care.

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I don't mean it like that.

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It's like a, the high degree of care.

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I wanna say it the way you say it.

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'cause I like it.

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'cause I don't think it's actually

over that, that doesn't feel right.

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But it's that high degree of care.

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So it could be that.

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So it could be that, whoo, there's some

fear or some worry, it's kind of energy

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attached to whatever they're reminding you

of from your own history, and you don't

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even know what it is, because it's totally

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Vickey: subconscious.

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Subconscious.

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That's what I was going to say.

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It's that it's reminding

you subconsciously of

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something from your past.

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Yes.

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You can poetically say

it better than that.

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Well, that's a quick way.

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But implicit thread, right, well,

implicit threads is beautiful and poetic.

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And then there's like just subconscious

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Jules: reminders.

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You, you're getting subconscious

reminders, but the thing is, is that

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you don't get to get to know that

you're living in memory in that moment.

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It just feels like

they're making you crazy.

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Rebecca: Can I, can I add a piece in here?

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Because I think, um, culture

plays a big piece in this, not

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just culture, but epigenetics.

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And depending on where

our peoples come from.

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Mm hmm.

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I think some cultures run more

hot, run more anxious than others.

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Absolutely.

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And, um, Oh, no, there's proven.

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Yeah.

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So, so there are some, some groups of

peoples who are going to like, it's, it's,

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it's going to come through the line and

you won't have like memory memories, but

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you'll have some kind of cellular memory.

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Jules: Yeah, it's a genetic, uh

mm-Hmm, , it's a shift in the way

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the histones on your DNA are making

your DNA fire in a particular way.

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And so actually you could be in that way,

wired for a little bit more anxiety, and

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that would be common if you have ancestry

that was, um, in, in any way, uh, the

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target of systemic oppression, genocide.

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Any, any, any horrible attacks.

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Also, uh, famine.

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That's a common one.

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So if you come, if you come from spaces

where maybe there was a lot of life

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threat for one reason or another, um,

it, you, you might have more anxiety.

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So that's normal.

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Yeah.

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The other thought I was having

was, if you're in that, um,

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Vickey: if you,

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Jules: uh, I've, I've

talked a little bit on

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Vickey: our podcast about

attachment theory, you know, as a

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Jules: brief reminder, brief reminder,

I think of attachment quilts.

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Rather than attachment types, which

is just the way I think about it.

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When I look at the more complex

research in adult attachments, and I

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look at Crittenden's work, I read a

lot about this stuff, and I tend to

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not be overly categorical about it.

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So I think of it as like

you have an attachment quilt

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Vickey: and it has four colors in it

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Jules: and they're secure and then

these three types of insecure and you

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may have little squares of all the

colors, or you may be more dominant

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in one color or another color.

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So if you have more on the anxious end,

What that means is you're going to be a

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little bit preoccupied with worrying about

what's happening in the other person,

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if you can't figure it out, if you can't

manage how they're feeling or how they're

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thinking, because that's part of it.

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If you have anxious attachment, basically

what that means is you got exposed to a

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lot of stuff early on in your life where

you needed to manage the other person or

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take care of them in some way to get care.

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Vickey: And so you get really good.

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So

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Jules: that would create a habit.

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of trying to guess what's happening

in other people and trying to

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Vickey: manage what's

happening in other people.

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If you're a therapist listening

to this podcast, lots of us have

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a ton of this color in our quilt.

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We like to mind read

others and stuff like that.

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So,

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Jules: so we, we have a

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Vickey: lot of this kind of energy

where we're, we're really worried

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Jules: about how the other

person is thinking and feeling

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and being and da, da, da.

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And so, especially.

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One, that's just a nerve

wracking and anxious position.

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That's part of why it's called

anxious attachment because there's

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a lot of anxiety involved, but also

because you're trying to do something

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impossible, which is to manage the

internal experience of another human.

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And in

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Vickey: addition to that,

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Jules: um, if you have somebody who's

a little bit harder to read that lost,

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Ooh, that feeling can feel really scary.

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Yes, I can.

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But that may be part of where

your anxiety is coming from too.

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Rebecca: Yeah, that, that your,

your typical reading the other

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person's skills aren't working.

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Vickey: Right!

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That's a

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Jules: possibility.

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Or that, you know, when something's going

wrong, or like, I, I have clients who

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Vickey: do this, I've done

this in my own history,

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Jules: where you will have said a thing.

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And you think you set it a little bit

off and you just like ruminate on it.

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Like how did that land for them?

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Oh no, I hurt them.

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Oh no, I harmed them.

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And you just go

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Vickey: down an anxiety swim, down

your anxiety river, just get swept away

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Jules: in the worry about

how you're affecting people.

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So that's another possibility.

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And then the other one I was thinking

about was, well, you could be catching

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intuitive Yeah, your own intuition

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Rebecca: and reading it as anxiety

because you're, you're caring about

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or worried about or preoccupied with.

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And there, there might

even subconsciously, yeah,

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even subconsciously, right.

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There might be some confusion about what

your, the senses that you're picking up.

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If you're not, if you're not

in relationship with like, oh,

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what's happening right now,

what's happening inside of me,

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what information am I getting?

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How, how am I digesting that?

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What's, if you're not there,

you're just going to read it

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Jules: as Yeah, and I don't want

listeners of this podcast to get carried

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away with what I'm about to say, but

I do want to give it as an example,

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just in case this is happening to you.

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And most people, this is not what's

happening, but for some people it will be.

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And so I want to mention it sometimes

when I've, um, uh, done work with a

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couple, the one partner is feeling

lots of anxiety and it turns out

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the other one is having an affair.

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And there was tons of little

implicit scraps of information that

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their subconscious was catching.

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Remember that medulla oblongata

is taking in millions of bits

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of information per second.

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You're not catching all of that.

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Your lower brain, your

subconscious is catching it.

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So there are times when my

partner's giving me anxiety

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because something's really wrong.

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Or there

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Vickey: was this one

time where somebody was

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Jules: squirreling away money.

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Mm hmm.

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And planning on leaving.

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It wasn't an affair thing, but

they were planning on leaving.

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There were some weird, like, lying stuff

happening, and the other partner's super

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anxious and feels like they are missing

something and they can't, they're just

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Vickey: feeling

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Jules: icky and overwhelmed and

kind of anxious all the time.

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Well, they were actually

catching that something was off.

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Yeah.

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So it could be that.

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It could be you're having a real worry

that's attached to something real.

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Mm hmm.

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Oof, so that's all sorts of things

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Rebecca: that could be going on.

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It's all kind of mixed up in there, right?

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Yeah.

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It's tough.

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Yeah.

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And I want to just kind of like give

one more like piece in here for our

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listeners because we're talking about

this like quilt of anxious attachment.

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I just want to name that there's this

other thing also that we call like earned

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secure attachment that a lot of folks can

like work towards and that's like another

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color that can be added to the quilt.

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Vickey: You know what I think of?

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I think of it as like my secure

thread and I threaded new patterns

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in all of my insecure quilt colors.

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Jules: And so, so I think of, I don't know

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Vickey: why, but I call my secure,

I call my secure, um, attachment

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Jules: squares green.

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And so I imagine that I

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Vickey: have a quilt with lots

of different colors, but a bunch

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of my colors that are not green

have green thread embroidery

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Jules: all over them.

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Right.

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Because I've helped greet them well, and

so there is, don't worry if you have a,

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a quilt that has a lot of insecure colors

in it, that does not mean all is lost.

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That's not a thing.

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Rebecca: Right.

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And, and I kind of want to just like hold

gently the, this piece I introduced at the

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top of this podcast about the way that I

now see it and relate to my anxiety around

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it being this kind of super care power.

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Because that, that's my green thread.

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Mm hmm.

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Mm hmm.

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Right?

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Yeah.

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I understand it now.

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Yeah.

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I think it's possible for all of us, for

everybody to kind of get to know these,

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these parts that are harder to be with

and to build relationship with them.

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And in doing that, we

create those green threads.

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Yeah.

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Vickey: Well said.

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Mm hmm.

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So let's I'll leave it there for today.

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Yeah.

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Mm hmm.

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Rebecca: Take care, y'all.

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Vickey: Thanks for being with us.

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Bye.

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Bye.

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That wraps up this week's episode.

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Join us again next week

for another, why does my

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Rebecca: partner?

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We hope that you continue to listen

wherever you get your audio and

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that you'll follow the show to

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Vickey: go deeper.

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Join us at one of our workshops.

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You'll find our next date

at white as my partner.

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com.

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Did you know you can

ask us your questions?

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Your questions are relational

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Rebecca: gold.

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Go to whydoesmypartner.

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com to either write in

or record your question

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Vickey: for a future

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Jules: episode.

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And here's some

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Vickey: gratitudes.

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Thanks to Al Hoberman, our sound editor

and podcast production magic maker.

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Thanks to every one of you who has

joined us for our workshops in the past.

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We've learned so much from all of you.

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And

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Rebecca: thanks to everyone who's

reviewed the show on Apple Podcasts.

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Your reviews help others to find the show.

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Take care of

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Vickey: each other best you can.

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See you next time.

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Transcribed