Worried about partner going out

[Violet1]

Hey! Haven't been on this forum for years!! My anxiety has been quite well controlled apart from this one issue! Ok, I sound silly. I dread my partner going out at night for drinks. He's going on a real boys night tonight, til early hours. He very rarely goes out and is looking forward to it. However I have been dreading this day since he said 😞 The problem is, is that I worry about his safety, what if someone hurts him, what if he gets run over, what if he falls in the river drunk......this actually sounds hilarious to read, but it makes me sick to my stomach and come 12 tonight I'll be pacing the room panicking!! He does give me the odd text, and is understanding about my anxiety. But I'm trying not to go on about it, and let him look forward to his night out! I have been like this since I was little, about the people I cared about. I remember if my dad was 10 mins late coming home from work I would panic and cry that something happened to him. I think it all stems from when I was about 5, I was on holiday sharing a room with my dad, my mum was in with my sister and I woke up and he wasn't there! He was down stairs at the bar! And I was running round the corridors looking for him. So this is not a new issue. But why can't I just get over it! Seems ridiculous. Last time he went out I phoned him at 1am screaming for him to come home and crying! Let's just say he wasn't too happy with me the next day. Quite rightly so. I'm a 37 year old women with 4 children and I carry on like this. Wow this is long! So does anyone else suffer with this particular worry, but to extremes like me? If so, how do you stop your self from going crazy whilst they are out? I would normally try to go out with my friends myself but no one available tonight 😞 Plus I can't get to sleep with the worry when he's out

[Clydesdale Epona]

I used to be the same with my partner, on his days off he likes to go out and catch a late movie then a meal ect. sometimes i am not able to go with him so he just brings along a friend or his brother, i guess after a couple of times i realized he's capable of looking after himself(especially as he's more collective in a situation than me lol)
after every interval or hour he usually texts me to let me know how its going and when he'll be back, i feel like a parent sometimes because he has to tell me what hour he'll be back and i'll worry if he goes past it but it works haha x

All the best :hugs:

[Bill]

Try only to worry about things within your control because you can do something to resolve them and try not to worry about things beyond your control by keeping your mind distracted on things that will keep it occupied because then your mind doesn't have time to dwell on worries and you don't end up feeling ill either.

Also, if the worry is about another, have faith in their own abilities to take care of themselves if it's something they want to do otherwise not only do we try to control our anxiety, we also end up wanting to control them to keep them safe but in doing so take any chance of happiness away from them, so you have to let go and allow them to take responsibility for themselves.

In life it's impossible to control everything we care about all of the time or we just end up making ourselves ill. We don't want that and they wouldn't want that either.

Anxiety is like a tree. We feel the need to keep everything close to us safe within its trunk so we feel in control but a tree has many branches which those close to us will want to explore which are beyond our control. This makes us anxious but a tree constantly grows producing new branches just as life present new opportunities to those close to us. To be free of the tree ourselves, we need to learn to accept life for what it is otherwise to attempt to control all those close to us and the branches they wish to explore will only end up in causing anxiety for ourselves and we'll end up not feeling able to explore the branches ourselves.