I am feeling very insecure about my relationship with my husband. He is withdrawn today and gets annoyed when I try to talk to him. Sometimes this happens because he is angry at me because of something I said or did. But usually I don’t know that I said or did anything and am very surprised when he finally tells me what it was. It is extremely hard to get him to tell me what he is feeling and so I am left guessing. I am in recovery for codependency and he is my longtime fixation as he is a recovered addict but we went through a very hard period when he relapsed a few years ago. I have been very insecure ever since.

The specific situation is that he was a little distant last night at bed time and then he went and slept on the couch and has been annoyed when I approach him today. He has back problems and sometimes goes to sleep on the couch because of that. But when I woke up and he was sleeping on the couch, my chest started burning and I felt extreme anxiety. I tried to talk myself down, tried to use the model (I am a very new scholar), and tried listening to a podcast to fall back asleep but couldn’t.

Today the tightness in my chest and the anxiety are still there. I tried several different models but haven’t been able to make one that helps. Oh, and the other thing is that I was really busy last night with scheduled online work and turned down his overture for sex, which didn’t seem like too big of a deal but maybe he doesn’t think that since he has complained before that we don’t have enough sex, that I’m not interested in sex, etc.

C: Husband sleeps on couch and is grouchy and unapproachable the next day.
T: He is angry and wants to leave me.
F: Extreme anxiety.
A: Can’t sleep all night and keep trying to approach him in the morning.
R: I’m exhausted and he is even more annoyed about the approaches. I feel even worse and more freaked out.

Since I am so new, I wasn’t quite sure I did this right and I didn’t find a thought I believed to replace the old one with. Can you look at it and help me?

Also, I am wondering what to do with all this horrible anxiety. I already scrubbed my whole kitchen. Should I try to self-soothe somehow or should I just try to push into it?