The title sounds so harsh, especially as someone who also struggles with bad anxiety, but I am medicated and go to therapy. Some background: we are both in college. Our colleges are 45 mins away from one another so he visits me most weekends.

My boyfriend and I have been together for almost 2 years now. Everything started off so perfect. Until recently where we started arguing a lot more. I feel like I have some resentment towards him, and I had trouble pinpointing exactly when it stemmed from until recently. We are never able to talk about problems in person. Everything is through text, because he gets too anxious in person, and this is just not the type of communication style that works for me.

He also gets anxious over a lot of things. For instance, I wanted to host a very small get together with my roommates and 4 friends for my 21st birthday before I went home for the summer. This was on a weekend he was going to visit me. He said that he didn’t want to come because he would get to anxious, and that he would just stay in my room the entire time or go to the library. He has never met my friends because of his anxiety. Not even because he is scared to meet them, but because they themselves make him anxious. I still don’t know why.

Another instance was a couple weeks ago, when my best friend since childhood was having a release party for her EP. I drew the album art. So it was going to be a fun event with our family and friends and she was going to perform the entire album. He didn’t come or want to come. He said he would get anxious.

I try so hard to be understanding. Especially because I want to go into a career in mental health and that anxiety is also something I have struggled with for a very long time. But part of me is also very disappointed that he doesn’t want to go to these events that are special to me. It hurt to see my sister and her boyfriend, (who doesn’t even know my friend) show up to this event but not even my own boyfriend. Same with my birthday party. I tried to break up with him before, but I felt really bad and we got back together. I don’t know what to do from here. How do I manage our two very different coping and communication styles?