How can I communicate better with my boyfriend who has anxiety and stress problems?

Does he get stressed because you are arguing? Is he mostly a stressed person?
Perhaps you could do your best to stay calm as and when he becomes anxious. Don’t join in any arguments. Walk away from him until he calms down.
If this doesn’t work, then suggest, gently, that perhaps he could seek counselling,
I wish you well.

How are you acting during those times that are “brutal” as you put it? Are you staying calm or are you yelling and screaming? How do the two of you fight? Do you try to remain respectful of each other or is it a free for all and you say and do whatever you want without regard for the other person? Has your boyfriend ever been diagnosed with having an anxiety problem? I like @partyparty‘s suggestion to just walk away when he starts getting really anxious. I would just tell him that you need a time out for the two of you to calm down and that you can discuss the issue once you are both calmer. Does his anxiety cause problems in other areas of his life as well or is it just within your relationship?

As a high-strung husband myself, let me tell you that you have to be really careful about your tone of voice and body language. For instance, if you try to say things are fine but are scowling and/or sound the least bit sarcastic or insincere, you can forget about any meaningful communication at all for at least 20–30 minutes.

As for just walking away, he might take that as him doing something wrong, and that will only make him more anxious, so be careful how you disengage.

I don’t think you have to cater to anyone else’s bad behavior. Explain to him how badly it makes you feel, and tell him either to go get some cognitive-behavioral assistance or that you will have to rethink your relationship.

Firstly, thanks to all for your input.

When I said brutal, I guess I just meant that we hate that there is any riff whatsoever between us, we both take it really seriously and so, we hurt. We don’t have a freeforall, no holds barred fight. We don’t take cheap blows—we “fight,” I think, because we’re both tremendously frustrated that we’re actually having a difference of perspective—which is stupid, I admit, but that’s definitely our predicament.

He has been diagnosed with anxiety and (very seldom) suffers panic attacks.
My take is that, our disagreements, etc., are within the boundaries of normal communication for couples—that is to say, I don’t believe they are symptomatic of any great, fundamental flaw in our relationship. My concern is that things can get blown out of proportion during these times because of his anxiety—i.e., he takes small arguments to mean that we have huge problems in our relationship. Also, his stress is easily augmented.

If we’re having a disagreement, it’s a small stress for me (I simply have a high threshold) and a big one for him, then we try to speak about things and that adds to his stress. It’s a really fast-acting agent and I think we always find ourselves arguing about the WAY we’re arguing instead of just discussing what we disagreed with in the first place. Dig? His anxiety seems to cloud his responses and his thought processes. His mind filters what I say and does not allow him to hear me as he normally would in a calm state. Meanwhile, I want to resolve things but I have to wait until he’s calmed down and **if I misjudge** whether he’s totally calm or not I just end up re-instigating an argument and things escalate yet again.

My dilemma is that if I walk away from the situation for a while, take a breather or whatever, I end up feeling like I haven’t stuck up for myself and I’m worried that I will always be pandering to his stress and be at the mercy of his moods. And I know it’s not HIM, it’s just his neurons firing in an inconvenient way. I’m feeling so stuck.

@jerv—That seems very helpful. I don’t think I have been very aware of my tone and body language and I will definitely take that on board.

You both need need counseling. If you want to get to the bottom of it and want a happy less stress life.

It does sound like he will be a happier, more functional person for himself if he gets some therapeutic help with managing his anxiety and that the relationship will be much better for it too. I would talk to him about your concerns for his well-being and for the relationship. If the anxiety is very debilitating, there is medication that can help him manage it too.

I recommend that you encourage him to see a physician, who might be able to help reduce his anxiety. Medications are available.

Neither of us would be interested in medication as an option—we’re both confident in our ability to adjust behaviors without meds. Also, I think I would like to kindly ask potential responders at this point to refrain unless they have had and direct experience with anxiety management. Thanks very much for your interest and insights.

You both need to learn to stop and breathe. If you do find that you have to walk away, openly state that you are only going out to get some air and clear your head, not just in a huff without communicating. Another person can’t read your mind, and if he already assumes he knows what’s in your head, you have to make it clear to him as to what’s actually going on. He also has to learn to stop catastrophising and making assumptions and fortune-telling. This is adding to his anxiety and stress. He’s doing it to himself.

Also, it sounds like you both need to adjust your thinking about what arguments really mean. They don’t mean that someone hates you or disapproves of you as a person. An argument means that there is only a disagreement about beliefs. And that’s it. Somehow, you must consciously remind yourselves of this fact. Write it on easily visible note cards if you must. Two different and separate people will always end up disagreeing about something, and that’s OK.

Perhaps you both grew up in environments where you were not allowed to disagree with someone in authority in your home and they reacted with extreme displeasure, anger or emotional withdrawal when others disagreed with them. Well, frankly, you don’t live there anymore and you can’t let the past corrupt the present. You’ll have to monitor your reactions and consciously change your thoughts, because at this point, your current mechanisms are on autopilot. That has to change.

CBT. Look into Albert Ellis’ or David Burns’ books to get a better idea of what I’m talking about. I also had to learn that if someone was upset with me, that didn’t mean they hated me and wanted me to disappear, or if I disagreed with someone that meant the relationship was irreparably damaged. Believing such things has lost me more relationships in my life, and only a very few of those truly had to be dissolved.

If he’s suffering from clinical anxiety disorder, then nothing but medication and therapy will help. You can’t fix him in that case. He can’t fix himself in that case.

Exercise and meditation help, but they will not fix what may ultimately be a chemical imbalance in the brain.

GA to @jerv ! My lady and I were both like this. Over the years we worked out how to deal withthis. Think gentle, don’t raise any issues. If the other person is busy while stressing out, just quietly leave the room; if not, provide quiet, physical, nonverbal support.

Basically, if he doesn’t want to get help, then you should respect that. You also best respect his responses in the way of not trying to change then. I refer to you mentioning that you fight about how you fight and not about the issue that has come up. He responds the way he does, and if you want to be with him, you are with a person that responds in that way, don’t try to change that because you are fighting with reality – which you cannot change. This is him. Try to remain calm yourself, and respond the way that you do, without changing his response.

You’ve not specified enough about how the fighting goes and what causes the escallation, so the best advice, and example, I can give you is to check out the work of Byron Katie and question the thought “he should not respond the way he does”
The following is just an example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQcfEuoOMbc&feature=related

Good luck!

You have to both give and take. You need to develop a system of calming him down during high anxiety periods but you also must communicate to him (during calmer moments) that sometimes this takes a toll on you and your relationship and that it’d be healthy for you to have time to yourself or walk away sometimes…with a promise to always come back, of course.

Hi cbbq, this is kinda late and abrupt, and I’m sorry for not providing an answer but seeking your help (and everyone here) rather. I am in a similar relationship, except that my bf now blames his panic attacks and anxiety on me. He thinks I caused them all and I have made his conditions worse every time we have a fight that he thinks he’s right and I’m wrong. The strange thing is that he still agrees with me to work it out and try to get better, but he’s become very distant and angry at me randomly. Recently he can’t even sleep in the same bed with me without waking up having anxiety and requested me to sleep separately. It’s killing me right not, yet I don’t want to walk away from it because I love my bf very much. We are both attending weekly couple therapy sessions but he seems to get worse only.