I’m a 25 year old woman from Eastern Europe. I started dating at 17, that was when puberty transformed me into a seemingly attractive person, as men started noticing me. I had three relationships between the ages of 17 and 21, none of which lasted more than 1 year. I have now been married for a year and a half to my husband who I met at 22.
I started noticing a pattern in my mental and physical state during relationships. Every time I was single or meeting someone I was energetic, fit, working towards my goals and overall not stressed. I would then fall for someone and then I would start gaining weight, doing worse at school or university, and overall just be in a worse place. But it’s not that I was having a bad time with my partner. Those relationships ended for different reasons. I wasn’t letting anyone disrespect me or take advantage, or put me down in any way. However as soon as I would break up I would feel extremely relieved and quickly go back to being my motivated self.
Fast forward to my current relationship/marriage. It’s been three years in this relationship and I absolutely love my husband, and would be devastated to suddenly not have him in my life. He’s American and I moved to the US to be with him(not a very difficult choice as I had always wanted to leave my country). But I am in the worst shape I’ve ever been in and I can’t help but question what’s going on. 10 months ago I started getting extreme anxiety and panic attacks which were a total novelty for me(I’m better now). I am having so much trouble finishing university and staying motivated. I am in the worst shape physically I’ve ever been, and I have this stress stemming from every area of my life. My libido is also low, starting to affect my marriage.
I realize there are other factors to consider but boy is it weird. I haven’t been able to find a solution yet but I’d like to know if other women experience similar issues.
Edit: my replies are not showing up yet, I believe because this account I’m using as a throwaway is not old enough, sorry guys.
Comments
What is making you feel anxious? What are you scared of? Writing it down helps get a better idea of why you feel that way
Start walking. 10.000 steps a day, preferably in the morning. You’ll lose weight and it will help your mental health. You can also think and plan your life while you walk, listen to audiobooks or podcasts and set yourself on a path of improvement.
I think there must be patterns in your relationships that you are not acknowledging in this post. If you are demotivated & anxious inside relationships and considerably happy & motivated outside of them, you could be exhausted from invisible emotional labor and subsequent inevitable energy loss that women experience in inequitable relationships with men. There could also be other compounding reasons as well.
That could be a lot of things, but first thing first : are you on the pill, and were you on the pill outside relationships ?
Me too OP. To the point where my edges fall out, weight goes up and then severely down to the 90s when the relationship has finally run its course etc. Take note of all the ways you lose yourself in relationships. A lot of times this looks like over-giving and carrying too much of the domestic and emotional labor of relationships especially for hetero girls and women. Pull your energy back to you as often as possible, does not have to be a break up but can be if needed. I left my last relationship and sleeping improved, and I stopped weighing 95 lbs and being scratched by my tail bone when I wipe….
Women often tend to abandon their sense of self in relationships because it’s an unspoken expectation that women contribute to most of the emotional labor of a relationship. It happened to me and I was at my heaviest and most depressed when I left my relationship. I’m so much happier as a single woman.
It’s time to create time, energy, and attention for yourself in this marriage. Talk with your husband about how you’re feeling and a good partner should want to help you find a way to reconnect with yourself.
Are you using hormonal contraception when in a relationship? For some women it causes anxiety and/or depression and weight gain.
Do you have a life outside of your partner?
Do you spend time with friends without him there even if he has nothing planned for himself?
Do you engage in hobbies where you have to advocate for yourself and tell him that you need time to yourself?
Do you consider him in everything that you do and then make decisions on whether or not you think that thing is “fair” to him? (e.g. I’m stressed and I really want to go on a walk but my partner might want to go on a walk, too, so I’ll wait a few hours until they get home to see if they want to go, too, since they’re not answering my texts.)
Something that I’ve noticed that a lot of my gal friends do is they shrink themselves down in relationships. They put their needs last and they feel guilty about having needs in general.
They make themselves so small and so agreeable and such a convenience to have around that they crush their own spirits. They become codependent and lose who they are.
They’ll only hang out without their partner if their partner has already made plans without them. They will also cancel plans if their partner cancels their plans and then re-engage if their partner decides that their original plans were back on.
They won’t go to restaurants if their partner has shown even the slightest interest in going there (which means restaurants can be on a no-go list for girl night outings for years if the partner never scheduled a date there.)
They feel guilty engaging in any hobbies or having fun without their partner.
Of course, none of these self-imposed rules apply to the guy in the relationship. He’s free to be himself and be happy outside of the relationship. He can go golfing with friends and advocate for his free time. He can play videogames or go fishing or go to the gym whenever he feels like he needs to “blow off steam”.
But the women in my life feel like they need to schedule their lives around what their partner is doing and their partner should never have to make accommodations for their (the woman’s) needs.
I have watched many gal friends shine and blossom when single and then slowly become a shell of themselves when in relationships.
I would do a check in with yourself and see how much guilt you feel for doing things that make you happy. If you got a membership to a barre gym would you feel bad about going alone? If you signed up for a pottery class with some gal friends would you feel anxious and guilty leading up to and the entire time during the class? If you cooked what you wanted for dinner without taking into consideration what he wanted would you feel selfish?
Do you want to be in a nonplatonic relationship?
I ask because your description of why you started various relationships in the first place sounds like you’re doing it because it’s expected rather than because you want it. Some people do need to lack romantic relationships in order to be comfortable.
But it’s also possible that there’s something else going on for you, an unmet need or a subconscious fear that your partner is only with you because of your looks. Good therapy could help you untangle that.
This happens to me and I pin it down to neurodivergence. I also live with ocd and can have relationship themes.
Also in the past when I have gravitated to partners unfit for me. My health seemed to deteriorate.
I noticed this pattern too.
Turns out that I did so much unpaid labour for my exes that I became completely exhausted. And men see no problem with that. They take, take, take and afterwards even ask for more. Household labour including mental load, cooking, emotional labour, organizing “our” social life with his friends, the whole shebang. I was always stressed.
And I learnt that need quite a bit of alone time to stabilize myself emotionally. I never had enough alone time because these guys were always there. Either they wanted me to entertain them or they were always at home. My soul couldn’t get to rest because I was never alone.
With the amount of my time they consumed and the missing relaxation mechanisms, I didn’t have the time and energy for sports. They were annoyed of my hyperactivity and demanded I sit still when they wanted to be lazy. And all of these negative impacts are without the sexism and abuse that further took their toll on me. The amount of stress took its toll on my body too. I have a huge list of stress symptoms.
I have been voluntarily single for a year and it’s been the best year of my adult life for me. My life is peaceful and filled with positivity and selfcare. Cutting men out of my life was the best decision I ever made.
You probably subconsciously know the answer to this so I would suggest you do some honest free-flowing self talk and just see where it leads. But be brutally honest with yourself – do it where nobody can hear you or see you. Maybe drive your car somewhere and just sit and be honest with yourself And the answer may just come to you. Sometimes it helps to get angry with yourself and piss yourself off to the point where you just start shouting and then the answer comes.