Over Analyzing

I have to admit.  I have been very guilty of this one.  I analyze relationships for a living.  I read into things and speculate on what things mean.  It is great at work.  Speculation is what helps me help others.  However, in a relationship it can be very stressful.  This is something I’ve worked on for a long time.  My worry comes from insecurity and my great imagination.  I find that a lot of people are like this, especially when it comes to relationships.     So when I read the post, Translating Text Messages by Neal on COED Magazine’s blog, my mind went back in time to when I was in college.

If I had texting ability when I was in high school or college it would have made me an anxious mess.  I over analyze things now, but I was way worse back in the day.  In college I was not a confident person.  If you read the post I linked above you know it is about interpreting what people mean when they text certain statements.  It is hard to know what the intentions are behind certain texts because emotion doesn’t come across.  This would have driven me crazy.  That is probably why I fell in love with my husband.  He is like me in that he doesn’t like to text very often.  He’s also blessed to have met me in my 30’s because I am a lot more confident about myself which helps me not over analyze everything in our relationship.  Back in the day I was little more dramatic, passionate, emotional…whatever word you would like to use.  So there weren’t many guys who could deal with that for months on end.

Since college, I have worked hard to improve my self confidence and finally found someone who can not only deal with me for months, but he signed up for an undetermined amount of years.  I found out that I can’t do much about my overactive imagination.  I do try to distract myself if my mind keeps going in a certain circle to interrupt the obsessing process, but my imagination just likes to make stuff up constantly.  That is why in my counseling sessions I really address self confidence.  If you over analyze, confidence is going to be what helps you minimize the amount of time your imagination goes in a bad direction.  Confidence is the key to avoiding a lot of  relationship stress.  This is why texting would have been the death of me if I had the technology in college.  I wasn’t confident enough to keep my imagination from going down a dark path if a text could be interpreted negatively in any way.

Communication is complicated enough because men and women do think differently.  When you add insecurity on top of that it can cause many more problems.  I liked the post about texting because it does point out that men and women have different intentions when they say or do certain things.  That is why a lot of people can get caught up in it.  I still sometimes mistakenly say to myself, “If I cared, I would do this or wouldn’t do that”.  Then I project that belief onto the other person and judge them based on what I think their actions mean.  That person may not be meaning it that way at all.  So then I just got upset or worried over nothing.  I’ve worked hard to stop myself from doing that, especially with my husband.  It has really helped me to understand that my husband doesn’t think the same way I do, so therefore what he says or does may not mean the same thing.  I continue to fight the urge to jump to conclusions.

I have also learned to prioritize.  There are more important things to worry about then why my husband isn’t answering his phone right away.  Being confident and having trust in the relationship really helps me to keep my overactive imagination on the right track.  Gaining knowledge about how men think, especially how my husband thinks, also really helps.  If you are naturally a laid back person, I’m very jealous of you.  However, I’ve noticed that even the most laid back person can act like a crazy worrier when it comes to their relationship.  If confidence is the problem, then continue to address that.  No one can fix that but you.  If you feel you don’t know enough about what your own partner thinks, then pay attention and look for patterns.  Knowing the difference between the sexes is also helpful.  If you are an over analyzer, I’m here to tell you there is hope!  You can get better and feel more balanced.  Just take it one day at a time and put more energy into taking care of yourself rather than analyzing those crazy text messages!!