The outcome of overthinking takes into account all the possible routes, albeit a little improbable, and though you might think you are being rational and all that, you are only losing a piece and peace of your mind. Imagine some random name pops up in the screen of your partner and with time you relate to the most horrific things your partner might be up to, in association with just a name on the screen. Being insecure and not communicating properly might bring in a lot of unnecessary, secret-agent-national-enigma-code-cracking kind of mental thinking. But more often than not, overthinking also happens when you have had past experiences where you did not pay enough attention. Maybe you have been cheated on and it was only later that you realised all the signs were right in front of your eyes. So in your relationships after that, you have lost the ability to take words at their face value. It is to your belief that if a guy says you are cute, he is only doing it to make you feel better. Or if your partner checks out someone, you might think you are not attractive anymore.
5 Signs Of Overthinking In A Relationship
When you’re in a relationship, especially if it’s new and exciting, it’s easy to just float through the day with thoughts of your significant other in your head. Even as the relationship grows and develops steady, solid legs to stand on, thoughts revolving around your coupledom are valid. However, when those thoughts grow bigger than you and start to occupy more and more of your time when you should be focusing on other things, it’s perhaps a good idea to pull in the reins a bit. When you start to obsess over little things said and unsaid, done or not done, the mind can trick you into believing things that are not there. These are the signs of over thinking.
1. You always think of the worst
If your spouse isn’t picking up the phone you start thinking they might have been in an accident, if your child is appearing for an exam you fear they might faint in the exam hall, if your neighbour contracted Covid 19, you are sure you will get it too. Remind yourself that overthinking is all in the head but when a person is constantly assuming the worst, there are psychological responses, which might end up derailing the quality of the relationship.
2. You create improbable situations in your mind
“As a teenager whenever I would have an episode of a stomach bug with nausea and vomiting my mom would assume I was pregnant. She was always overthinking in our relationship and assuming the worst about me. She thought I would fail my grades, I was into drugs and if I got late reaching home she always presumed I had run away with my boyfriend,” said Naomi (name changed).
No reason is good enough for overthinkers and they can keep on arguing forever, and even though they know it, they cannot stop it. That’s the worst sign of overthinking in a relationship.
3. You become irrational
The other big problem with overthinking is that clouds your sense of rationality and even though you think you are being sensible and cogent, you are anything but that. Here is why a relationship is hardest for someone who overthinks. They are constantly putting their partner and their family under extreme stress because of their irrational overthinking. If you overthink, every time your husband goes fishing you fear he would fall out of the boat and drown in the lake. So you call him 50 times to check if he is fine. Imagine the situation of your husband.
4. You are too suspicious
An unknown name pops up on her mobile your radar is up. He meets a female friend from college at a party and talks about her and you get stressed out. You get so suspicious that you even end up checking their phone knowing fully well that it’s something you should never do. Overthinking ruins relationships and chances are you are even aware that what your doing is detrimental to your relationship but you cannot deal with the signs of over thinking.
5. Your imagination is fertile
You could have used this imagination to do some great creative writing but instead you use that to overthink and ruin your relationship. You absolutely justify the phrase: Building mountains out of mole hills. This has a terrible effect on people around you because you are always panicking, worrying and creating a disturbing environment at home. If you are at the beach and the waves are particularly high you can actually start thinking that a tsunami is on its way and you will not let go till you make them leave the beach.
10 Ways Overthinking Ruins Relationships
As you understood from the signs of overthinking that being at tenterhooks all the time worrying and panicking has it’s negative effects. Here are 10 ways overthinking ruins your relationship.
1. Your suspicion kills the relationship
Since pessimism is your best pal right now, good things rarely get your attention. So your partner, whom you have known for some time now, suddenly becomes a probable cheater and a liar in your head. Even if they do their absolute best and leave no place for you to doubt, you cannot help but constantly assume the worst and you even feel they are constantly lying in the relationship. Your constant suspicion becomes intolerable for your partner who ultimately might want a way out from the relationship. So their you go your overthinking can ruin your relationship
2.You completely lose yourself in the process of overthinking
With all the overthinking, you are rarely the same person anymore. You might confront your partner about stuff, have emotional outbursts about things you think is going on. After a few months, you have become a perpetual worried, sad person who picks up fights about little things. The person you have become worries you as well but you are unable to quit being that.
3. Everything is on the extreme of the spectrum
Nothing has a middle ground. No normal explanation works for you. They have to be on the extreme ends of the reason spectrum. As we said earlier your overthinking ways takes you to extreme imagination levels. If your husband went on a work tour you keep thinking if he’s having fun with a female colleague when in reality he is working hard and picking up gifts for you. Imagine his predicament when he returns home and you keep accusing him of cheating and emotionally neglecting you because you are now on the brink after overthinking. Your reaction leaves a bitter taste in his mouth and he feels terrible. It creates a rift in the relationship that’s hard to mend.
4. You are perpetually paranoid
The lack of trust coupled with overthinking makes you grow paranoid that someone is barging into your relationship. Obsessive compulsive behaviour of knowing where your partner is every minute of the day is you being paranoid. You even keep thinking, “Is he cheating or am I paranoid?” But you can hardly control your own feelings and you keep disappering into the dark hollow of overthinking. You also keep thinking of accidents, deadly diseases and fires and calamities affecting your family. You think your paranoia is keeping them safe but you are harming them beyond control.
5. No solutions, more complications
Since no logical reasoning is good enough, because you will always find a way around it, you come up with bizarre explanations to explain the reason given. You don’t have any solution to your problems; just a huge pile of more unreasonable problems.
6. Trust is gone from the relationship
In the process of thinking stuff and being a pessimist, trust is completely gone from the relationship. Paranoia might lead to confrontations which might create more gap in communication. Overthinking mostly crops up when trust is missing in a relationship. If you have reason to believe your partner is not to be trusted, losing your peace of mind won’t help anyone. In the process of all this pessimistic thinking, re-thinking and overthinking, trust issues keep plaguing the relationship. Communication is a key to a healthy relationship. One might try to communicate all the thoughts one has in their head, just to vent it out and a loyal partner will understand.
7. You develop anxiety issues
Overthinking does lead to anxiety issues. You are perpetually anxious and you develop tendencies like double texting. You get really upset when your partner or your children don’t text you immediately and true to your nature you start thinking the worst.
This is how overthinking ruins your relationship and your partner feels you are constantly after them keeping a tab on their whereabouts.
8. Your silent overthinking is acting like a slow poison
When you are overthinking you might not voice it always but your actions starts working like a slow poison on the relationship. Overthinking can making you controlling and manipulative because you want everything to go your way. If it doesn’t go the way you want it to you become anxious. So you try your level best to keep every situation under your control and that makes your partner totally claustrophobic.
9. It takes away all the happiness from the relationship
When was the last time you felt really happy and relaxed? You spent a day with your partner without feeling that something would go wrong? Overthinking in relationships can be killing it altogether because you are never in a relaxed state of mind. You keep thinking how to make my wife happy but you end up being so tense and anxious that happiness becomes an illusion in your relationship.
10. Your partner starts looking for a way out
Your overthinking becomes such an issue in your relationship that your partner feels the noose tightening around their neck gradually. Can you imagine how your partner’s life is with someone, who is constantly insecure, anxious, magnifies every small situation to the worst scenario possible and keeps nagging about that. It is inevitable your partner will look for a way out from such a relationship. Once they are gone you will realise how overthinking has ruined your relationship.
