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Therapy for Relationship Anxiety in San Diego, CA

Is Relationship Anxiety Taking Over Your Life?

You might find yourself preoccupied with what your partner is or isn't doing, questioning whether you're in the right relationship, or worrying that you'll never find "the one." You may long for deep connection while feeling anxious about commitment, uncertainty, or vulnerability. You have meaningful friendships and a rich inner life, and you want a partnership that feels just as nourishing. You hold yourself to high standards and sometimes wonder whether you're being wise and intuitive, or simply too picky. Together, we'll explore the roots of these patterns, strengthen your trust in yourself, and help you build relationships from a place of clarity rather than fear.

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What is Relationship Anxiety?

Relationship anxiety is a pattern of fear, uncertainty, and hypervigilance centered on a romantic relationship of any kind (dating prospects, spouse, poly partners, etc.). It can involve worrying about whether your partner likes/loves you, whether you like/love your partner enough, whether you're compatible, or whether you're making a terrible mistake by staying or leaving.

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What makes it particularly difficult psychologically is that relationship anxiety can persist even when a relationship is objectively stable, loving, and reasonably healthy.

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Sometimes the anxiety is about losing relationship, and sometimes it's about being in the relationship.

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Anxiety about losing the relationship might sound like:  "What if they don't really love me? What if they leave? Why haven't they texted?"

 

Anxiety about being in the relationship might sound like: "What if I don't really love them? What if we're incompatible? What if I'm settling? What if there's someone better?"

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If you're familiar with attachment styles, which I believe exist more on a continuum than a neat category, you might resonate with anxious attachment style, "disorganized" attachment style, or anxious-avoidant attachment style. 

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How Relationship Anxiety Can Manifest in Your
Mind, Body, Soul, and Actions

You might have anxiety if you feel and act in ways that don't align with your values, intentions, desired outcomes, or integrity.

Mind

  • ​Persistent rumination and overanalysis

  • Intrusive, unwanted thoughts or images

  • Imagine worst-case scenarios

  • ​Difficulty concentrating or staying present

  • Decision paralysis without another's approval or validation

  • Black-and-white thinking

  • Difficulty tolerating uncertainty

  • Excessive self-doubt

  • Feeling an urgent need to figure everything out

  • Fear of abandonment, rejection, or entrapment

  • ​Hypervigilance toward a partner's behavior

  • Heightened awareness of a partner's perceived flaws

  • Mistake uncertainty for danger

  • Compare the relationship to idealized relationships

  • Idealize potential partners without knowing them

  • Interpret a change in tone, facial expression, or texting frequency as abandonment

  • ​Use romantic fantasies to escape boredom, conflict, grief, or dissatisfaction

  • Confuse being needed with being loved

  • Lose interest once romantic attention becomes consistent and secure, label as "boring"

  • Mistake intense chemistry, longing, or obsession for compatibility

  • Ignore red flags

  • Struggle to believe one could survive heartbreak or separation

Soul

  • Reduced vitality

  • Disconnection from authentic self

  • Losing confidence in your own wisdom

  • Difficulty identifying authentic wants and needs

  • Unable to tolerate being alone/single-- to be connected to oneself is never enough

  • ​Make a romantic relationship the primary source of identity and meaning

  • Experience romantic love as something necessary for survival rather than freely chosen

  • Belief that another person will finally make life feel complete

  • Treat romantic validation as proof of personal worth

  • Expect a relationship to heal longstanding emotional wounds

  • Stay in situations that repeatedly undermine one's dignity

  • Confuse intense chemistry with destiny or a spiritual connection

  • Belief that peaceful, stable love is somehow less meaningful

  • Struggle to accept uncertainty, impermanence, and change (the non-negotiables of life)

  • Miss beautiful moments because of obsessive mental activity

  • Loss of faith in one's capacity to adapt, grieve, and recover

  • Feel unable to appreciate the non-romantic love you already have 

  • Loss of access to wonder, awe, gratitude, and simple pleasures

  • Become so preoccupied with receiving love that giving love freely becomes difficult

  • ​Loss of connection with nature, creativity, service, or something larger than oneself

Body

  • Racing heart or palpitations

  • Chest tightness, pressure, or discomfort

  • Feeling unable to take a satisfying deep breath

  • Restlessness or inability to sit still

  • Nausea or feeling sick to your stomach

  • Loss of appetite

  • Digestive issues

  • Heightened sensitivity in senses

  • Difficulty falling or staying asleep

  • Waking with a racing heart or dread

  • Stress-related hives

  • Muscle tension

  • Headaches or migraines

  • Feeling physically braced or guarded

  • Brain fog and/or fatigue

  • Reduced libido

  • Difficulty reaching orgasm 

  • Increased discomfort during sex

  • Menstrual irregularities during significant or prolonged stress

  • Unintentional weight changes

  • Intentional body changes to attract a partner

Actions

  • Seek excessive reassurance from partner, or trusted others 

  • Repeatedly check dating apps, compulsively matching with prospects

  • Make future plans to gain security

  • Stay in and return to painful, destructive relationships

  • Stay in relationships that consistently violate your needs or values

  • ​Compulsively pursue and get involved in one relationship after another, sometimes behaving unethically by overlapping without the others' agreement

  • Unable to identify or act on healthy boundaries

  • Over-give, self-sacrifice 

  • Repeatedly break up and reconcile

  • Use or avoid sex to feel better 

  • Engage in sexual behaviors that feel difficult to stop despite negative consequences 

  • Get attached to people who are emotionally unavailable

  • Send multiple texts or call repeatedly when a partner doesn't respond

  • Demand immediate resolution when a partner requests space

  • Excessively apologize after minor conflict

  • Compulsively check partner's location and/or social media activity

  • Withdraw affection, become cold, or give the silent treatment when hurt

  • Make dramatic statements that you regret later

  • "Pile on" past grievances during an unrelated disagreement

  • Neglect friendships, hobbies, or responsibilities to maintain closeness

  • Excessively accommodate a partner to avoid rejection or loss

  • Make impulsive decisions to leave, block, or cut off a partner during emotional distress

  • Monitor a partner's mood and adjust behavior to prevent conflict

  • Seek flirtation or attention to feel desirable

  • Keep secrets about parter/relationship from trusted loved ones

Why choose Kyleigh as your therapist for relationship anxiety?
My name is Kyleigh Baker, LMFT 115535
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I know from personal experience just how overwhelming relationship anxiety can be. That's what drove me to therapy as a client about twenty years ago. Therapy was so transformative to my life and relationships that I've spent the last ten years working with adults who feel trapped in similar cycles of fear, self-doubt, overreacting, self-sacrificing, and discontentment in their relationships. Whether you're terrified of losing your relationship or constantly questioning whether it's the right one, I understand how exhausting it can be to feel trapped in your own mind. 

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I also know what it's like to get unstuck and fundamentally change my way of relating to others, which meant deep healing in my mind, body, and soul. I help others do the same. I help adults overcome their anxiety in San Diego, and online across California, using an approach grounded in mindfulness, nervous system regulation, and depth, without the over-analysis.​

 

My style can be compassionate, as well as direct and practical. Therapy with me is about action and transformation. I am eager to help you feel more connected and safe within your mind, body, and soul, while making meaningful changes in your everyday life.

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As a licensed therapist with specialized training in Organic Intelligence (somatic therapy) and Exposure & Response Prevention (ERP), I also integrate spirituality when it's meaningful to you. With an approach that goes beyond just listening and validation, I will offer specific tools to help you feel better, and together, we'll develop a holistic plan for relationship anxiety recovery.

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Image by Casey Olsen
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