Why You Can't Stop Overthinking Your Relationship (and How to Finally Stop)
When you can’t stop overthinking your relationship, you end up feeling disconnected from your parter and doubting the relationship over and over again. I know just how distress this can be, because I experienced it for years.
But overthinking never got me anywhere.
In this post, I’m breaking down the four reasons why you can’t stop overthinking your relationship.
4 Answers to the Question “Why Do I Overthink My Relationship?”
Anxiety targets what is most important to us
Relationships are the most important thing in our lives — they hold the most value to us as humans. And intimate relationships are also where we’re most vulnerable, because of the risk of getting hurt or suffering from loss.
Anxiety has a way of attacking anything that might threaten what’s important to you. It’s a protective mechanism — anxiety and fear don’t want you to get hurt.
When a thought or a question about your relationship comes into your mind, it starts the cycle of overthinking because your relationship is so important to you. Your mind says, “Oh, this is something important!” An alarm in your brain goes off and your fear-response system kicks in. When we overthink, we’re scanning for potential threats to the thing we value most.
2. You think you need all the answers NOW
The urgency of needing to figure things out right now perpetuates the need to keep thinking. There’s this surge of energy that runs through your body when an anxious thought comes in that says, “Oh my gosh, this is so uncomfortable and scary! I have to figure this out right now! I need to solve this problem right now! I need to find the answer to this question right now!”
Since the urgency is there, you’re going to keep thinking about it until you find an answer. But finding absolute certainty within a relationship is impossible, so the answer never comes, and the thoughts continue.
3. You think doubts and anxiety are dangerous
If you can’t stop overthinking your relationship, your body’s fear response might be convincing you that your uncertain or doubtful thoughts are dangerous.
We have something called a “bidirectional feedback loop” between the brain and body, meaning they are in constant communication with one another. The brain sends signals to the body, and the body sends signals up to the brain. When an anxious thought enters your mind, it sends a fear response to your body. Then, your body begins to experience the symptoms of anxiety. Uh oh… Now your body is sending signals to the brain, letting you know that it’s feeling anxious. This triggers more anxious thoughts in the brain, which then sends more signals to the body, and so on and so forth…
This feedback loop of fear perpetuates your sense of urgency to solve or fight the problem (or what your brain believes to be the problem). But since there is no physical problem right in front of you in the present moment, that fear energy can’t go anywhere. The fight/flight energy is meant to help us fight something physical in front of us or run from physical danger. Because the “danger” is a thought — we can’t physically fight or run from it. This continuous feedback loop of fear tells you that you must continue to fight or “solve” these thoughts.
4. Neurons that fire together wire together
Every time you have a particular anxious thought that triggers a fear response in your body, this forms a unique neural pathway in your brain. When the thought and fear response fire simultaneously in the brain/body multiple times, it becomes a wired pattern. Your brain and body are literally wearing a path in your brain, making it more and more likely that you will experience fear and anxiety whenever you have that particular thought.
The more you think about and doubt your relationship, and the more you feel that fear response, the more entrenched the pattern becomes. It becomes harder and harder to stop overthinking and feeling anxious about your relationship, because this pattern has become so strong. Once this happens, it can feel almost impossible to stop thinking and feeling anxious about your relationship. But all hope is not lost…
How to Stop Overthinking in a Relationship
I’ve been there. It sucks.
It’s so difficult to be present with your partner. You feel so confused, and your body perpetually feels afraid, exhausted, drained, and tense.
But the key to breaking free from overthinking is to stop trying to solve things with your mind.
The mind thinks it can find a specific answer to these questions and doubts. The mind keeps spinning and spinning, believing it can “get to the bottom of it.” But there is no one answer — there is no bottom.
Instead of trying to solve your relationship anxiety by thinking and thinking and thinking… the key is to focus your attention on the body so that you can rewire your fear response. This will allow you to get a place of nervous system regulation, which is where you need to be to make an informed decision about how you feel about your relationship and your partner.
Becoming Present With the Body: Moving Through Anxiety
When you notice a thought coming up and you feel that surge of fear in your body, you must do something to release and dispel that fear so that your body can regulate and return to a state of safety.
When your body and nervous system feel safe and you are present, your anxious thoughts will slow down and naturally dissolve. And the more you practice moving out of the body’s fear response and rewiring your response, the less power those anxious thoughts will have, and the less urgent and significant they will feel.
When you know how to tune into your body and feel safe, the more you’ll notice that these thoughts don’t affect you as much. You’ll find yourself saying, “Hey, I had that anxious thought today but I didn’t respond like I normally do. I didn’t buy into it and think about it for hours and hours.” Maybe it hits you for a moment, but you’re able to effectively release the fear before it becomes too overwhelming. You’ll be able to remain present, calm, and safe, rather than going into the mental stories.
The mental stories will never end. The mind always finds something new to think about or a new problem that you “have to solve." What is so important is learning to tune into your body and understanding what’s really happening in your nervous system. That way, you’ll focus on feeling the feelings and shifting them rather than focusing on the content of the thoughts.
When you learn how to do this, you can be calm, present, and connected in your relationship.
You’ll no longer be overthinking and overanalyzing every little thing. You’ll be able to have a deeper connection, more laughter, more intimacy, and more enjoyment of one another.
Get Help With Relationship Anxiety From Healing Embodied
If you can’t stop overthinking your relationship, apply for a free clarity call to find out how our trained embodiment practitioners can help. You can also check out our programs and courses to learn more about what we offer. We look forward to helping you move from constant questioning and doubt to confidence, presence, and love!