My boyfriend and I are going through quite a rough patch. We are both 28. Our entire relationship, I have been addressing and trying to solve my relationship anxiety/anxious attachment caused by a plethora of trauma that I won’t bore you with. He tends to skew more avoidant, but he’s definitely made progress with this.
It’s hard to understand why, but we are going through quite a rough patch. My anxiety pushes him away, we’ve been having trouble communicating, and I’ve become really reactive and angry. I’m in therapy and am still trying to figure out what medications I need to be on (anyone who has been on that journey knows that it takes time, currently feeling like Prozac isn’t the right fit and working with my psychiatrist to figure it out). I feel so defeated. We truly love each other so much. When things are good they are SO good. But we definitely challenge each other by who we inherently are. I tend to be very emotional and he tends to be more steady. I am reactive and he is not. I over communicate and he under communicates. We look at things differently, see the world through different lenses.
I’d love to hear from other people who have experienced a big rough patch and advice for
how they got through it. Honestly, my mind is telling me that maybe a little space would be good, but then I question if that’s even an “okay” thing to do in a long term relationship. I can imagine people telling me at that point we should just break up. But we don’t want to breakup. We love each other and can picture a future together. In so many ways we compliment each other. I think if we can work through these things we’d have a really beautiful life together.
Sorry that this is a little long and rambly. I’m so sad that things aren’t going better. I really want them to be. I’m trying so hard and it just feels like we can’t climb our way out of this rut right now.
TL;DR going through a rough patch with my boyfriend of 1.5 years, we are both 28. We love each other and want this to work, but need to get through this rough patch that we can’t seem to climb out of. How can we get through it?