My 23f gf has crippling arachnophobia. I (24m) am wondering how other couples cope with serious phobias?

The question is pretty self explanatory. For context: as a kid I was petrified of spiders (my dad doesn't go near them, thanks for that conditioning dad), but I thought I'd overcome that. Now that spider shepherding/murdering duties have fallen solely to me, I'm finding a lot of the old fear is coming back. We've been dating for 4 years, so this fear has been slowly building but is getting strong!

There's a lot of pressure to protect her from spiders (she's a screamer around then and I'm naturally a protective partner), but because I'm not very comfortable in the moment myself I can be a bit short with her when I'm trying to 'handle' the situation. It just adds to the stress and makes me extra nervous dealing with it!

I'm sure lots of couples experience something similar, I was wondering if anyone has any tips/wanted to share their similar stories?

TL;DR: how do couples deal with a partner's serious phobias in day-to-day life? Any advice for me and my gf?

Submitted November 23, 2019 at 10:46AM by GrossePointFrank https://ift.tt/2rjAsp2