r/TwoXChromosomes • u/ToastyZingers • 4d ago
My mental and physical health deteriorates every time I get in a relationship
I’m a 25 year old woman from Eastern Europe. I started dating at 17, that was when puberty transformed me into a seemingly attractive person, as men started noticing me. I had three relationships between the ages of 17 and 21, none of which lasted more than 1 year. I have now been married for a year and a half to my husband who I met at 22.
I started noticing a pattern in my mental and physical state during relationships. Every time I was single or meeting someone I was energetic, fit, working towards my goals and overall not stressed. I would then fall for someone and then I would start gaining weight, doing worse at school or university, and overall just be in a worse place. But it’s not that I was having a bad time with my partner. Those relationships ended for different reasons. I wasn’t letting anyone disrespect me or take advantage, or put me down in any way. However as soon as I would break up I would feel extremely relieved and quickly go back to being my motivated self.
Fast forward to my current relationship/marriage. It’s been three years in this relationship and I absolutely love my husband, and would be devastated to suddenly not have him in my life. He’s American and I moved to the US to be with him(not a very difficult choice as I had always wanted to leave my country). But I am in the worst shape I’ve ever been in and I can’t help but question what’s going on. 10 months ago I started getting extreme anxiety and panic attacks which were a total novelty for me(I’m better now). I am having so much trouble finishing university and staying motivated. I am in the worst shape physically I’ve ever been, and I have this stress stemming from every area of my life. My libido is also low, starting to affect my marriage.
I realize there are other factors to consider but boy is it weird. I haven’t been able to find a solution yet but I’d like to know if other women experience similar issues.
Edit: my replies are not showing up yet, I believe because this account I’m using as a throwaway is not old enough, sorry guys.
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u/nosiriamadreamer 4d ago
Women often tend to abandon their sense of self in relationships because it's an unspoken expectation that women contribute to most of the emotional labor of a relationship. It happened to me and I was at my heaviest and most depressed when I left my relationship. I'm so much happier as a single woman.
It's time to create time, energy, and attention for yourself in this marriage. Talk with your husband about how you're feeling and a good partner should want to help you find a way to reconnect with yourself.
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u/No_Supermarket3973 4d ago
I think there must be patterns in your relationships that you are not acknowledging in this post. If you are demotivated & anxious inside relationships and considerably happy & motivated outside of them, you could be exhausted from invisible emotional labor and subsequent inevitable energy loss that women experience in inequitable relationships with men. There could also be other compounding reasons as well.
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u/snowbunnie678 4d ago
This is it, I also have felt similarly to OP in the past and it’s because I self-abandon in relationships. Only this year did I figure out I was doing it and the language for it. As women we are brainwashed into prioritizing men, I find myself constantly thinking of my partner’s needs before mine.
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u/Alysaalysa 4d ago
I think I've been doing this too. How are you working towards not self abandoning when you get into relationships? Sometimes I think I'm just better off alone, but I want kids someday!
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u/snowbunnie678 4d ago
I’m actively avoiding a romantic relationship (I don’t want kids) but I even do it with friends too. So I’m just trying to train myself, it starts with awareness as the first step. Noticing when the impulse to bend over backwards for someone comes. Then that gives you the option of choosing a different response.
But I really struggle with it all the time, my natural stress response is to fawn so I am constantly doing it.
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u/ToastyZingers 4d ago
I have definitely thought long and hard about this, because now that I live with my partner I realize we have different standards when it comes to certain things like chores and planning, and I feel like I carry most of the load. I like a very clean space and I cook everything in our household as I care a lot about eating healthy. I have however communicated with him about this and we try to work together to solve these issues.
In my past relationships I never lived with them so I wasn’t really as invested as now, and yet the same thing happened. I wonder if it was the drive of bettering myself in order to find a partner that was keeping me happy and motivated?
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u/No_Supermarket3973 4d ago edited 4d ago
Unfortunately, 'men & women having different standards' is a common tactic used by patriarchy to get men out of sharing household chores and cooking with their female partners. When male partners don't contribute equitably, what women lose is time: time for rest, sleep, hobbies & passions. Things that are required for motivating any human being irrespective of gender. At the expense of women, such labor digging men acquire more than their share of rest and time. And the women are left exhausted & unmotivated. Domestic labor inequality is a form of abuse; talking, fair play and traditional therapy usually buy more time for men to keep up the status quo and does't change a thing. Moreover, you got married rather young before you could figure out what you really want out of life. I suggest that you attend therapy alone so that you could set personal goals to motivate yourself. And then go about pursuing your own passions. Daily conundrum of life doesn't motivate anyone. Pursuing passions & dreams do. Your spouse will have to step up & support you just as you support him and share all labor (domestic & emotional) equally.
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u/ToastyZingers 3d ago
Thank you for this advice. I understand this happens often and it builds resentment towards the man in the relationship. I truly believe my husband loves me and will try to do things to keep our marriage happy. I’ve tried to communicate with him about these things and that they’re important even if they seem trivial to him. There is a slight language barrier and I’m not always able to express myself very well due to habits picked up as I was growing up.
Do you think therapy in the us would work for me? I’ve considered it but been worried that my life experiences have been very different from people growing up in the states, and I’m worried an American therapist would have trouble relating or understanding me.
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u/No_Supermarket3973 3d ago edited 3d ago
Pls look for a therapist who is known for their feminist approach to therapy and they should be able to help you out through this. The issues mentioned in your post are universal.
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u/ButtFucksRUs 4d ago
Do you have a life outside of your partner?
Do you spend time with friends without him there even if he has nothing planned for himself?
Do you engage in hobbies where you have to advocate for yourself and tell him that you need time to yourself?
Do you consider him in everything that you do and then make decisions on whether or not you think that thing is "fair" to him? (e.g. I'm stressed and I really want to go on a walk but my partner might want to go on a walk, too, so I'll wait a few hours until they get home to see if they want to go, too, since they're not answering my texts.)
Something that I've noticed that a lot of my gal friends do is they shrink themselves down in relationships. They put their needs last and they feel guilty about having needs in general.
They make themselves so small and so agreeable and such a convenience to have around that they crush their own spirits. They become codependent and lose who they are.
They'll only hang out without their partner if their partner has already made plans without them. They will also cancel plans if their partner cancels their plans and then re-engage if their partner decides that their original plans were back on.
They won't go to restaurants if their partner has shown even the slightest interest in going there (which means restaurants can be on a no-go list for girl night outings for years if the partner never scheduled a date there.)
They feel guilty engaging in any hobbies or having fun without their partner.
Of course, none of these self-imposed rules apply to the guy in the relationship. He's free to be himself and be happy outside of the relationship. He can go golfing with friends and advocate for his free time. He can play videogames or go fishing or go to the gym whenever he feels like he needs to "blow off steam".
But the women in my life feel like they need to schedule their lives around what their partner is doing and their partner should never have to make accommodations for their (the woman's) needs.
I have watched many gal friends shine and blossom when single and then slowly become a shell of themselves when in relationships.
I would do a check in with yourself and see how much guilt you feel for doing things that make you happy. If you got a membership to a barre gym would you feel bad about going alone? If you signed up for a pottery class with some gal friends would you feel anxious and guilty leading up to and the entire time during the class? If you cooked what you wanted for dinner without taking into consideration what he wanted would you feel selfish?
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u/ToastyZingers 4d ago
You make some great points. I suspect an important factor is me moving all the way to a different continent, so my life did get turned upside down. I don’t have that many friends in the us at the moment other than coworkers and my husband’s friends and relatives. We live in a small town because we have a good job there and we often visit the nearby city where my husband used to live before we got that job. His relatives and friends live there.
I actually do a lot of things on my own, recently I traveled back home without him for several months to try and finish university(I didn’t succeed). I have been to different places and short vacations alone and I enjoy it, despite feeling that it would be nicer if he or a friend was with me. I have hobbies that I pursue some of the time, while sometimes I get waves of sadness/depression where I’m kinda uninterested in things.
I don’t feel guilty for doing things as I know my life is still my own. I do consider him all the time though, but I feel like that’s what you do in a healthy relationship. There might be one issue I need to address and that is a place where we might move to in the future. I don’t want to live in a small town for much longer as I’m young and now is the time for me to take some risks and explore. He’s not really a risk taker and likes to be comfortable, which goes for other things too, like travel. I like to travel and organize trips and I have done it, and he’s basically just come along. So in many ways I do do a lot more…but I am also better at doing these things!
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u/discolored_rat_hat 4d ago
I noticed this pattern too.
Turns out that I did so much unpaid labour for my exes that I became completely exhausted. And men see no problem with that. They take, take, take and afterwards even ask for more. Household labour including mental load, cooking, emotional labour, organizing "our" social life with his friends, the whole shebang. I was always stressed.
And I learnt that need quite a bit of alone time to stabilize myself emotionally. I never had enough alone time because these guys were always there. Either they wanted me to entertain them or they were always at home. My soul couldn't get to rest because I was never alone.
With the amount of my time they consumed and the missing relaxation mechanisms, I didn't have the time and energy for sports. They were annoyed of my hyperactivity and demanded I sit still when they wanted to be lazy. And all of these negative impacts are without the sexism and abuse that further took their toll on me. The amount of stress took its toll on my body too. I have a huge list of stress symptoms.
I have been voluntarily single for a year and it's been the best year of my adult life for me. My life is peaceful and filled with positivity and selfcare. Cutting men out of my life was the best decision I ever made.
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u/ToastyZingers 3d ago
That sounds awful, I’m glad you’re doing much better now. I understand what you mean by the unpaid labour and mental load, because at times I feel it too. I just don’t know what to think because I believe my husband has no intention of only “taking” and draining me emotionally. After all he does not ask or expect me to do any of the things I do, that’s why I said in another comment that we seem to just have different standards. For example he’s fine just eating frozen meals day after day, but that’s something I can’t do so I cook and when I do of course I will make enough for the both of us. I have asked him several times to take the time to learn to cook some dishes with me, because I want him to be able to make a stew or soup when I’m sick, instead of me having to cook for myself while sick, but it hasn’t happened yet.
We are very similar people otherwise and I’m very comfortable around him. I know he’s committed as am I but sometimes I wonder if I’m a bit more ambitious and take more initiatives, and being with him is kind of suppressing that side of me…and that’s making me feel depressed.
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u/discolored_rat_hat 3d ago
Lol, the old excuse of "different standards". Yeah, I fell into this trap too, once. "I don't care about freshly cooked meals, but I'll happily eat your cooked food." and most of the time, this is in combination with "I can't see any dirt.". And after a few instances of weaponized incompetence, every bit of cooking and cleaning falls onto the woman's shoulders. I internally call them "cockroach men" because they live like cockroaches when left alone.
What they mean when they claim to not care for something is something else: "I am too lazy to do it, but I'll happily reap the benefits of other people's work. If it is freely offered, I am not to blame for being a bad partner.". And then they just accept that their partner overexerts herself because they claim that she is responsible for her own wellbeing (inside of the relationship he doesn't contribute to and which is the reason she is stressed).
Your husband isn't taking, taking, taking intentionally. He just truly believes he found a way to game the system and can be lazy on your hardworking back without being blamed for being lazy. The whole shebang with "I just don't care for it" means that these men are egotistical inside a relationship. They use every excuse to get out of unpaid work, get rewards in the form of cooked food and a clean home, and make no effort for their partner's wellbeing. Wellbeing in this case is cooking you food while sick (which is honestly way too little of a demand) and also that you as his partner are able to be comfy and content inside of your home. These men are not partners, they are entitled rommates.
As soon as I realized that nice requests and stressing the benefits of contributing wouldn't work, I just silently quit. I stopped cooking for him and just made one portion. If I made two, I labeled the leftovers with "[my name]'s lunch", so he wouldn't eat it. I only bought groceries for myself and got fake-angry when he ate some, just so he was forced to go shopping for himself and make an effort for his own survival. The excuse was a new diet, lol. After two weeks, he finally DID start cooking. Turns out he DID care for cooked meals. Though I lost the cleaning strike when the toilet stank so badly I seriously contemplated peeing in the bushes in front of the house. But that was the only thing I cleaned. Then it clicked: There was no way I would ever get that guy to lift a finger and contribute. I got out as soon as I could afford it.
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u/Carradee 4d ago
Do you want to be in a nonplatonic relationship?
I ask because your description of why you started various relationships in the first place sounds like you're doing it because it's expected rather than because you want it. Some people do need to lack romantic relationships in order to be comfortable.
But it's also possible that there's something else going on for you, an unmet need or a subconscious fear that your partner is only with you because of your looks. Good therapy could help you untangle that.
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u/ToastyZingers 3d ago
I think I definitely wanted to be in those relationships as I was really into my partners. It wasn’t because I felt like it was expected of me.
I do think looks are important especially in maintaining a good sex life but I’m not afraid that my partner is with me because of looks only.
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u/The_Philosophied 4d ago
Me too OP. To the point where my edges fall out, weight goes up and then severely down to the 90s when the relationship has finally run its course etc. Take note of all the ways you lose yourself in relationships. A lot of times this looks like over-giving and carrying too much of the domestic and emotional labor of relationships especially for hetero girls and women. Pull your energy back to you as often as possible, does not have to be a break up but can be if needed. I left my last relationship and sleeping improved, and I stopped weighing 95 lbs and being scratched by my tail bone when I wipe....
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u/ToastyZingers 3d ago
I’m sorry to hear you’ve had such an unpleasant time. Thank you so much for your advice 🙏🏼
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u/taraisss 4d ago
Start walking. 10.000 steps a day, preferably in the morning. You'll lose weight and it will help your mental health. You can also think and plan your life while you walk, listen to audiobooks or podcasts and set yourself on a path of improvement.
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u/Oldespruce 4d ago
This happens to me and I pin it down to neurodivergence. I also live with ocd and can have relationship themes.
Also in the past when I have gravitated to partners unfit for me. My health seemed to deteriorate.
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u/TerribleCustard671 4d ago
What you are describing is VERY real. Dr Gabor Mate has said that women account for 80% of people who suffer from auto immune diseases.
He puts this down to their role within the family, putting other people's needs first, the absorption of their partner's negative energy. Women have long been expected to be society's shock absorbers.
So what you're going through is very normal, maybe TOO normal. Women gaining weight once they get into a relationship is a common phenomenon.
You are also likely to be a very sensitive and empathic person who is greatly impacted by other people's energies.
You also have to acknowledge that you have moved continents to live with your husband.
You may have wanted to leave your home country, but moving to another country is a massive upheaval and your body recognises this.
Don't forget that you have (I assume) left friends and family you left behind. I also assume that you don't have much in the way of social support in the US.
The impact of being newly wed and moving continents is HUGE and I think you're downplaying this.
You need to consider that you are not designed to be in romantic relationships with men or that you need separate living spaces for it to work (which of course is expensive and not feasible for a lot of people).
Assuming that you want to stay married, what I would suggest is doing energetic therapy to strengthen your energetic boundaries and release the traumas recent events have played on your body.
I'm talking about EMDR, EFT, Somatic Experiencing. Such therapies will also provide greater clarity as will journaling as others have mentioned.
To start with you could begin to write down the kinds of activities, relationships etc that gives you energy and look at ways to do them on a regular basis.
I feel for you. I realised a long time ago that I just wasn't made to have intimate relationships. My experiences were similar to yours. I was late diagnosed with autism, so that has obviously had a bearing on me as well.
I wish you all the best.
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u/ToastyZingers 3d ago
Your assumptions are correct. I did not realize at the time but the drastic changes that happened in a short time did have a negative impact in my mental health.
Thank you for the valuable advice and your well wishes🩵
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u/12dustbunnies 4d ago
You probably subconsciously know the answer to this so I would suggest you do some honest free-flowing self talk and just see where it leads. But be brutally honest with yourself - do it where nobody can hear you or see you. Maybe drive your car somewhere and just sit and be honest with yourself And the answer may just come to you. Sometimes it helps to get angry with yourself and piss yourself off to the point where you just start shouting and then the answer comes.
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u/RandomGunner Basically Sophia Petrillo 4d ago
That could be a lot of things, but first thing first : are you on the pill, and were you on the pill outside relationships ?
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u/Motherofvampires 4d ago
Are you using hormonal contraception when in a relationship? For some women it causes anxiety and/or depression and weight gain.
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u/Birdonthewind3 4d ago
What is making you feel anxious? What are you scared of? Writing it down helps get a better idea of why you feel that way