My (35M) fiancée (33F) starts crying or shuts down when I bring up a topic that she doesn’t want to talk about.

She is very responsible and level-headed, but there are a number of topics she has anxiety about, and refuses to discuss, or gets defensive, or shuts down and starts crying when I try to bring them up.

For example, she had to go to the ER after dropping something on her foot, and the bill is very expensive, but her insurance covers about 70% of it. She needs to fill out paperwork to send to her insurer, but she has delayed doing it for over two months. When I asked if she’d sent it, she said no, she’d been putting it off because she’s afraid she can’t afford to pay the outstanding bill. When I said that we’ll have to pay it either way, and delaying the paperwork doesn’t help, and that she really needs to do it, she started crying and spiraling about how her job doesn’t pay enough and she’s stressed about bills, and so on.

I understand that she has major anxiety about things like that, and I do my best to listen and help, but at the same time, it’s impossible to stay on task about the fact that she HAS TO send the paperwork when she starts spiraling and crying, and after everything calms down, she still hasn’t sent it.

I’ve tried to ask her to go to therapy for anxiety, but she has been dragging her feet on that for months as well, and same story, when I’ve gently brought it up, she gets upset and shuts down, saying she knows she has to, but can’t afford therapy at all. I’ve asked her to look into sliding scale therapy based on income, but it’s just clear that she doesn’t think it’s that important and that she can handle everything herself.

I’m trying to figure out how to initiate important conversations with her, and stay on topic and find some sort of resolution without her spiraling and catastrophizing AND actually getting her to follow through on those things.

It’s especially ironic because when it comes to things that she doesn’t have anxiety about, she is over-the-top responsible and rational and I trust her implicitly to handle problems and responsibilities. So, not sure how to handle this inconsistency.

TL;DR: My otherwise responsible fiancée starts crying when I try to bring up things she is anxious about, and I don’t know how to move forward.

Submitted November 02, 2019 at 03:23PM by jackinitt https://ift.tt/2PKmnej