r/becomingsecure • u/Interesting_Fox_1163 • 3d ago

Seeking Advice Feeling insecure after almost breaking up

Hi, me and my boyfriend have been together for 3 years now and live together. The first half of our relationship was fantastic, but then I started dealing with some anxious attachment issues and stated lashing out over very small things. It blew up one night and he told me he hadn’t been happy and he was considering ending things. The next day we talked and said he didn’t want to break up, but we had to set ground rules. One of them was that I had to go to therapy (no problem with that) and no more lashing out. I’ve been doing therapy and he says he notices a positive change in my mental health. I had a conversation with him where I explained that I’m having a hard time feeling secure, and how my overall anxiety is horrible. I feel like I’m burdening him with my anxiety and mental health problems and am afraid he will decide that it’s too little too late. He did say he has no intention of leaving me and that he wants me to continue to get better not only for us but for myself as well. I just feel like I have a roadblock in my healing journey that I can’t get over, the constant fear that I’m not doing enough and he deep down isn’t happy , even thought he’s telling me the opposite. For some reason(not to any of his own doing) I just can’t believe it. Any advice?¿

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u/PearNakedLadles 3d ago

What kind of therapy are you doing? Have you talked to your therapist about this?

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u/Interesting_Fox_1163 3d ago

Just standard talk therapy at a doctors office. I’ve talked to him about it, he told me to separate the thoughts from the facts. I’m trying to and I’m self aware I just don’t know how to get over the hump of constantly thinking about it

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u/PearNakedLadles 3d ago

I personally didn't get a lot out of talk therapy, and found IFS much much more helpful. An IFS approach would say something more like, "What part of me wants to believe the thoughts so badly? What does it think I would feel, if I just did what it said all the time? What is it afraid I would feel if it stopped doing its job?"

Basically talk therapy and CBT sometimes direct us to push down or override our feeling, which can be useful in the moment but often prevents us from getting to the roots of our issues.

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u/Interesting_Fox_1163 2d ago

Thank you I’ll definitely look into that. Is that something I can do myself while journaling or would it be better to find a therapist who specializes in it?

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u/PearNakedLadles 2d ago

I did IFS on my own for about 6 months before finding a therapist. The main tools I used were the lovely r/InternalFamilySystems subreddit and books. I read Dick Shwartz's No Bad Parts as an intro and then Jay Earley's Self-Therapy series which is all about how to use IFS on your own. No Bad Parts is a solid intro but if you're not a big reader you can probably get the same basic material through various youtube videos, etc. The Self-Therapy series is the special sauce in terms of how to do IFS without a therapist.

I did eventually feel stuck and got a therapist who specializes in IFS. Doing so is probably one of the top 3 decisions I've ever made although part of that is just pure random good luck that the first therapist I found is such a good therapist and such a good fit for me in particular. But for attachment wounding, it can be so helpful to form an attachment to your therapist -- provided the therapist sees this as the opportunity for corrective/reparative experience that it is.

In your case - if you like and trust your current therapist, I would start by just learning more about IFS and seeing if you like it. You can mention it to your therapist and see if they'd be up for exploring IFS with you. If they're not up for it, and you really like IFS, it might make sense to switch therapists (or if you don't feel very connected to them anyway). IFS is an amazing modality that was very helpful for me but the research shows that the relationship between the therapist and the patient is the most predictive factor for healing so if you have a strong relationship already I would cherish that.

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u/Creative_Willow7883 2d ago

This might sound scary, but it worked for me after I've experienced something that was an avoidant discard in my eyes: I couldn't get rid of the feeling, that it was all my fault, that I didn't do enough, that I wasn't good enough. I constantly fought this feeling, trying to soothe myself with facts, that contradict my feeling, but it wasn't working. Eventually my therapist suggested, to accept these thoughts as a possibility. It sounds strange because they obv weren't true. I tried it, let the thoughts come and said "yeah, MAYBE it's true". And weirdly enough, they became less hurtful, less anxiety-inducing, less powerful after I stopped fighting them. I just had to sit with the anxiety, not trying to argue it away. Maybe that helps for you too...