How To Stop Overthinking In A Relationship And Start Living Freely
by John Santana
When you think you’ve finally found “the one” in a relationship, you are instantly ready to give it all to make it work. You can’t stop overthinking about your lover. You spend your day thinking about how they held your hand and kissed your lips, what they must be doing tomorrow and what they must be doing today, right now.
Slowly, your obsession with your lover leads you to overthink, and steadily, the overthinking changes its patterns. Now, it doesn’t involve repeating the loving moments. Instead, it starts creating non-existent scenarios.
The bad news is – Most of these scenarios are negative and involve a lot of “What if”.
- “What if they leave me?”
- “What if their friends start getting jealous of me?”
- “What if their mother hates me?”
And the overthinking just wait for something bad to happen and bam! All your thoughts are insecure, negative, and ready to give you anxiety bouts. But by applying a few tips in your day-to-day life, you can get out of this loop.
5 Ways to How to stop overthinking in a relationship
1. Find the root cause of your Overthinking
First things first. If you want to fully pull a problem out of your life, you have to go to its roots. It’s the same with overthinking in relationships. You have to acknowledge the reasons that are leading you to overthink. Is it something your partner said or did? Or is it something that’s totally in your mind?
To warn you, finding the exact reasons behind your overthinking can lead you to overthink over and over again. The best you can do to go to the roots is to pause for a while and give your running mind a little break. Instead of creating and over-analyzing situations in your mind, take out a notepad and journal.
Journaling on a daily basis is proven to reduce anxiety levels. It is the best way to release negative emotions.
Not only it improves your problem-solving skills, but also shatters the brain fog and makes things clear for you. Evaluating the root cause of your fast running and foggy brain will help you put a full stop to your overthinking.
2. Accept that your partner’s moods and attitudes are totally their own
The world has a lot of crowds, but it’s lonely. In such times, when you find someone special, you cross boundaries to let them know how much you love them.
It’s often seen that partners are not able to maintain healthy boundaries and cross all of them to become overly dependent on each other sometimes. This leads to a lot of overthinking, as one of the partner’s entire world becomes entirely limited to the other.
Their moods and attitudes are hugely affected by them. As a consequence, they start thinking that the other person’s life and life problems are limited to them too. So, when their partner is not feeling well due to some work problems, is upset or not in a jolly mood because of some family issues, the other takes the blame on themselves.
The other partner thinks –
“It is because of me (something that I said or did) that is making him behave as such!” The solution to this problem is simple – Realise that the world doesn’t revolve around you. Thankfully, your partner has a life of their own. So, if your partner behaves badly, shows tantrums, or is mentally or physically abusive, it’s totally their own issues.
They may have childhood trauma, work-related anxiety, self-sabotaging thoughts, family issues or that person may be a jerk on his own. It’s important to realize that if your partner didn’t sound happy on the phone, it’s because of some of these issues.
Now I warn you again! Don’t fall into the loophole of Overthinking to find out what is causing your partner to behave as such! Neither take the blame on yourself nor try to carve out conclusions. Instead, ask your partner what is causing them to behave in such a way. This brings us to the next point, which is:
3. Talk it out
First of all, instead of wasting hours banging your head on the wall, make a decision to sit and talk with your partner. Sometimes, overthinking creates such illusions that they start to seem like reality. To wipe it out, you have to wear a calm, patient demeanor and say the words to your partner. The way you convey your feelings to your partner also holds a lot of importance. Overthinking also leads to stretching of topics that were very trivial and tiny in the first case.
This can cause the overthinker to experience emotions of anger, extreme pain, trauma, and anxiety. On the other hand, while the overthinker is going through such intense phases of emotions, the other partner is totally clueless about the whole event. So, when the overthinker decides to confront the partner, the built-up emotions explode like a volcano.
They burst out in anger and resentment which scares the other partner. It makes them defensive and they are often left offended by the sudden attack.
The point is, when you ask or talk to your partner about your circumstances, don’t go into an attacking mode. Rather, make an easy environment where your partner is able to communicate freely.
4. Don’t try to dig so-called hidden meanings behind what they say
Regardless of what your partner says, once you start overthinking, everything they say will seem to have hidden meanings. You are trapped in such a situation where you over analyze everything. For an overthinker, it feels like the words that their partner spoke was not the actual reality.
It feels like there was something more to what they said or what they said was a lie. The best you can do in such a situation is to lend belief to what your partner says and accept it as a final reality for once and all. Trusting your partner with their words will come with practice. If it seems too much for you, start practicing this with your friends and family before moving on to your partner.
In the process, don’t make a fool out of you. It is hard to believe your partner if they cheated on you in the past or has a long history of lying on trivial topics. In this matter, it’s up to you to decide if the relationship is worth it or not.
If you’ve decided to spend your life with a cheater, it’s wise to re-evaluate your decision. If it’s difficult for you to reach conclusions and your mind is bombarded with too much information and distraction, don’t hesitate to take the help of a therapist.
5. Do things that improve your relationship with yourself
Okay, I know you love your partner. That doesn’t justify the fact that loving your partner requires you to forget loving yourself. Learn to distinguish between your love life and real life. Your love life is very much a part of your real life. Yet, it doesn’t make the whole of it.
You have other things that matter other than thinking about your partner – job, career, health, family, friends, and so on. Your overthinking is making you forget about the other necessary aspects of life.
The best solution?
HAVE A LIFE!!
Improve the relationship that you have with yourself.
Improve your mind-body relationship
Exercising of any sort will help you achieve this. You can choose from anything – Yoga, weight lifting, sports, cardiovascular exercises. Having some rigorous workout will help you to feel in control of your body and improve focus and attention span. The hormones released from physical activity will make you happy and save you from distractions.
All you have to do is to make it a point to be consistent and persistent.
Improve your soul-body relationship
I’m sure you’ve heard of meditation before. It’s time now to try it out yourself. Meditation will make you calm. The calmness will make you feel at peace with yourself. This in turn will provide you a clearer and different perspective to see things the way they are.
Improve the relationship with your friends and family
How many days have passed since you laughed until there was pain in your stomach? If you were neglecting your other relationships because of your romantic relationship, it’s high time that you work on mending them. Spending time with your friends and family will keep you distracted. It will also make you feel loved and wanted.
I know you are fed up of overthinking yourself. I know you want your way out of it. So please, go ahead and love yourself for the sake of you and your partner.
Conclusion
If you find yourself overthinking even after following all these steps, stop beating yourself. We all tend to overthink from time to time. The human mind is made to think and it overdoes its work sometimes. You just have to distinguish whether it’s a one-time thing or a habit in progress.
When it’s the latter, give yourself some rest. Apply the tips mentioned here and remember, you are worthy of all the happiness and peace, no matter what.
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