Still together but trying to save this

[PeteWyo]

Thanks for the post Denver. I will try to answer your questions to the best of my ability.

1) I'm in sales (of sorts).

2) I have no idea what the status of the OM and my W are. She doesn't really try to reach out to me at all. I haven't heard her voice in weeks and she only sends me a text message once in a great while. Since he is one of very few people that she has, even as a friend, around here I'm sure they spend quite a bit of time together. Doing what, I have no idea.

3) I have read DB not DR.

4) I have been on a low dose of Xanax for a while now. My IC thinks I might want to talk to my doc about upping the dose, at least if nothing else until I can get things sorted out in my head. I plan on doing that soon. Honestly, my anxiety has been much much better since I have been open an honest with people about it. Talk to my IC has helped a lot to get things off my chest that were causing me anxiety.

5) My anxiety caused me to be uncomfortable in social situations. It caused me to grin and bear situations rather than actually having fun and enjoy them and in the worst cases caused me to stay home while my wife was out having fun. I would stay home to avoid even having been in a situation where something would get triggered. When I was forced to be in social situations (e.g. Christmas) I was not really all there. I was mentally trying to suppress the uncomfortable feelings that I was having while not trying to be rude. So people would talk to me and I would give short, half answers to them. I really just wanted to get back into my "comfort zone" and was just going through the motions. I didn't really understand what was going on and worse yet was in denial that I even had any psychological or behavioral issues. In my mind it was physical and it was something that I had to figure out. Looking back after this eye opening experience, it is a lot easier to see all the times that I was distant or not engaged in conversation. I wasn't taking the time to enjoy my W and my marriage. She saw the pattern as well but we never talked about it. She told me that she thought that any time that I didn't want to do something that she wanted to do, I would just tell her that I "didn't feel good." Which was true in a sense because I would get that anxious feeling of dread when we were in a lot of social situations so I can see where she is coming from or how it could have seemed to her.

5) I am doing the biggest 180 that I can do. I am making amends with all of the people that knew me over the last 2 or 3 years and admitting to them that I have an anxiety issue. I am making an effort to hang out with friends and family as much as possible. I find that finally admitting to MYSELF that I had this issue has helped a ton. I still find myself in social situations where I am uncomfortable and I need to take a deep breath and tell myself that this is something that I developed. It is a learned behavior over 2 or 3 years and I can just as easily unlearn it and get back to the social butterfly (or whatever the more manly equivalent is) that I have been for my entire life.