How to Stop Overthinking in Relationships
At one time or another, we all have a tendency to overthink in relationships. It’s a time when we find ourselves going down the proverbial ‘rabbit hole.’ And sometimes we can get ourselves out of that cycle. And sometimes we cannot. But you can learn how to stop overthinking in relationships.
Overthinking typically comes from a lack of confidence, trust, and control of a situation or a person. When fear creates uncertainty, sometimes all we can do is spin our minds in circles thinking of every possible outcome - good or bad. This can and often does lead to self-sabotaging or the destruction of relationships.
Before you can stop overthinking, you have to understand what is causing the overthinking before you can start practicing tips and tricks to help yourself stop.
Why are you overthinking your relationship?
Overthinking is a coping mechanism spurred into action by an inability to feel in control or understood. It is typical to overthink in stressful or anxiety-inducing situations. It’s only natural to be concerned with all of the possibilities for how something will turn out. In fact, overthinking relationship anxiety is a common occurrence in both short-term and long-term couples.
We want things to be okay but we know that is not often how life turns out and thus, we overthink every angle. It’s in these moments that we believe that overthinking a situation with every angle is our way of being in control.
However, overthinking in a relationship does just the opposite.
It will leave you feeling less in control and more at the mercy of your thoughts that you cannot turn off.
How to Stop Overthinking in Relationships
Since we are concerned with all of these possible outcomes, it becomes very difficult to keep your thoughts on the positive side of the spectrum because we don’t want to get our hopes up. We want to be prepared for anything that could end up coming our way. When panic sets in, our overthinking switches to overdrive and this is when we often struggle to hear any type of logic or rationalization.
Overthinking in relationships can also be due to an interaction with another individual that went poorly or that you have convinced yourself did not go well even if there is no conclusive proof of that. We don’t want to be perceived in a negative way so we over-analyze every angle of the interaction, and obsess over how we can fix it.
For example, I worked with a client who had a negative exchange with a coach while in college. When he was kicked off a sports team, the words the coach used stayed with him for years. It impacted how he interacted with other people both at work and at home. He analyzed every word thinking that if he did that, he would not be perceived as a negative person (something the coach said to him).
It wasn’t until we unpacked that incident that happened all those years ago that he was able to see himself differently and stop overthinking in relationships. This improved his life and he now continues to have a positive impact on his on colleagues, friends, and his family.
This shit stays with you forever if you don’t work through it.
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What causes Overthinking in Relationships
It is easy to overthink all types of interactions but when it involves our romantic partner, the obsession over the outcome is even stronger. This is because they are an important person in our lives with whom we want only positive outcomes.
Therefore, it becomes even easier to concern ourselves with if and how we have upset our partner and what we need to do for reparations.
In a way, this type of self-awareness sounds like a good thing because it holds us accountable to be the best we can be in our relationships.
However, the obsessiveness of overthinking in a relationship is what can be our downfall. And by continuously allowing ourselves to do this only reinforces the behavior, until a change is made.
Unfortunately, when all we do is overthink our relationships, it leads to more scrutiny, needing more reassurance and codependency, apologizing too often, analyzing every encounter, and overall, not being able to live authentically.
Sometimes our thoughts or presence may upset people. This is not always up to us to apologize for and fix, especially if we did nothing wrong and were simply remaining true to ourselves.
In order to take control over these thoughts, we need to process and work through the realistic concerns and decide on what is within our power to fix.
How to identify when you are overthinking your relationship
Sometimes certain scenarios only live in our heads, and we do not need to make any amends. Other times we can pinpoint our exact moment of negative response, which then helps us plan a direct way to handle the situation.
Then, there are times that processing these moments show that there was no actual negative response to be managed and no hard feelings to be dealt with. Processing the reality of the situation is helpful in determining the best course of action or for helping us to find peace of mind by realizing there was never even a situation to handle.
11 Tips to Stop Overthinking in a Relationship
Become aware of the behavior, make a commitment to yourself to make a small change, and hold yourself accountable to that change.
Work on overanalyzing your relationship less. It will be hard to not do it at all, so start small. But just start.
Challenge your assumptions. You can do this by finding evidence to back up your assumptions. Or maybe you cannot find any evidence. We all have assumptions based on prior experiences which are associated with memories. But sometimes they are wrong and can interfere with how we are processing information.
Create open and honest communication with your partner. Create a safe space to discuss your concerns and show up authentically to resolve the issue.
Journaling in a special book provides information and struggles throughout the week we often forget about. Journaling helps us to connect the dots to make sustainable changes.
Meditation / Deep breathing. Just start with 5 minutes a day.
Don’t take things personally or assume people’s negativity is based upon you. People do take things personally, but you should ask yourself, “how much of the situation am I to blame for or is my fault?” Then assign yourself that part of the issue and the rest goes to the other person or the situation. Own your share and learn from it, but don’t take all of it - unless it warrants it.
Determine your motivation for overthinking in a relationship - what about the situation concerns you? Ask AND answer the questions. Often people who are anxious and overthink things have a lot of questions. That’s ok - but take the next step and answer them. You might just be surprised by the answers.
Consider the context of the situation and where your partner is coming from. Context is everything and learning how to listen to another person and where they are coming from is key to both individual and relationship growth.
Learn to let go of the little things that other people will quickly forget. The goal is to put things in life on a scale from 1-10. Not everything is a 1 or a 10. Some things warrant a lot of attention, other things, not so much. Learn how to tell the difference.
Write down your initial response, then review it or erase it altogether. When our lizard brain takes over (the emotional part of our brain), the brain is unable to access the prefrontal cortex - the part of the brain where rational thought, executive functioning, and working memory are stored. The brain cannot do two things at the same time - so don’t expect it to. Manage your emotions and then decide what to do with the information.
Final Thoughts
Being an overthinker in relationships is manageable and doesn’t have to end in self-sabotage or the destruction of the relationship. There are ways to train your mind to work through the reality of the decision and either let it go or determine the best course of action moving forward.
Sometimes you just need to get all your initial thoughts out, let yourself process all of your emotions on your own, and then process the situation to either formulate a rational response or process it enough to drop it if it isn’t important enough to bring up.
Some things are better off just being let go rather than drudged up again. Sometimes you will bring up a situation that you have been overthinking that the other person has already forgotten. Determine what is important and what isn’t worth your time worrying about.
The main goal is to recognize this pattern of overthinking and take the steps to pivot and make necessary changes to lead a healthier life.
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