Connor Beaton (YouTube, Nov 25, 2024) gives brief, practical advice for supporting a romantic partner during moments of anxiety. Key strategies include reassuring the partner about the relationship by helping them notice cues of stability, practicing co-regulation (including physical touch), agreeing on code words to reduce embarrassment, and encouraging the partner to face anxiety rather than avoid it.
How do you support your partner when they are anxious? Couple different things. If she's worried about the relationship, get her buy in to have her start to look for the cues and the clues that the relationship's okay, it's stable, you love her, you want to be in the dynamic and that will help her move into a more secure, less anxious space. Number two, begin to help co regulate when she's not anxious. Ask the question based on what you know about yourself and your anxiety. The next thing is have some code words to lessen the possible embarrassment of when she's feeling anxious. Next, physical touch, physical co regulation. Guiding your partner through that in that way can be very helpful for her. The last thing I'm going to say is about support your partner in facing leaning into the anxiousness. As the saying goes, the only way through the anxiety is to face it and not hate it.
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