This is going to be a bit long because I have a lot to say, but I’ll put a tldr of course. I (22F) have been with my bf (21M) for about 2.5 years. He’s always been more introverted, which I never had a problem with because I too am more of an introvert. One thing he’s been struggling with that I’ve noticed has gotten more prominent over the last two-ish years, is the amount of social anxiety he has.
Almost two years ago, we ate at a restaurant with his family, and I’m not too sure what caused this, but I think that he ate so much food that when we left he threw up in a bush. I think he was really embarrassed about it, I didn’t laugh or anything but I was super worried because I thought that maybe he had gotten sick or something from the food. The way he described it I think was that if he gets too stuffed he feels a little nauseous sometimes, and at that moment he kept thinking in his mind about possibly throwing up that it actually happened? He gets queasy pretty easily so I guess I understand his thought process behind it.
Ever since that day, he’ll go through periods where he won’t eat at a restaurant because he has this anxiety about it, I think he’s scared he might throw up again. He was always this type of person to not really believe in like “anxiety” or things like that, it took me and his mother talking about it to him multiple times for him to finally agree that what he’s feeling is anxiety.
Now I’m pretty certain that he has social anxiety. I’ve seen his mannerisms when we go out in public and as someone with a lot of anxiety as well I can clock it right away on him, but when it comes to restaurants, I don’t know if it’s food anxiety now or still a form of social anxiety.
Because of this, we never go out. He’s always been a home body but we really never go out now. My birthday was yesterday and I didn’t really do much, I don’t have many friends so I just went to eat at a restaurant with my parents. I invited my bf but he said he didn’t want to come because of this issue and he doesn’t want to sit there and not order any food then explain to my parents why he doesn’t eat at restaurants. I totally understand that, but it still made me sad.
He’s never been good at planning dates and used to always just default to going to a restaurant even though I’d suggest alternate things like going to a museum, a park, doing something other than just sitting down at a restaurant because that’s kinda the only kind of “dates” we did. At some point I didn’t even consider going out to eat a date anymore because it was the only thing he’d want to do, it didn’t feel special anymore. But now I don’t even want to suggest doing out to eat because he can’t. Now we really never do anything and it’s been like that for the past year. Our relationship is starting to feel dull to me, all we do is go to each other’s houses and order in and spend the night, which don’t get me wrong I love it because I love being with him, but I value going out on dates and doing things together because I feel like it builds the connection and the relationship. He’s not much of a talker either so I’m not getting much mental stimulation out of our relationship and that’s kind of something I need. When we went out to eat together we were at least forced to kind of talk to each other, and that’s when he’d be more open to talking about whatever.
It’s upsetting but I also feel bad for him because I know he hates that he has this anxiety, he’ll talk to me about it and his struggles and I try to be as understanding as possible. Honestly I want to suggest therapy, I feel like it’s bad enough to where he should do this, but I can see him shoot that down so fast because I don’t think he believes in things like therapy. Something that has helped me with my anxiety is purposefully going out of my comfort zone and doing the things that cause my anxiety. For example I used to loathe clubbing but i made it a point to go out with friends who invited me until I was able to actually have fun. Or one thing that gave me such bad anxiety was job interviews. When I have anxiety I shake so bad and my teeth chatter like I’m in below 0 degree weather, my chest hurts and it gets hard to breathe. I would have fake interviews with my parents or professors at school and it helped me out.
I want to suggest things like this but I don’t know if it will help him. One time me and him went clubbing with some friends (something he definitely doesn’t like doing) and his anxiety was so bad he ended up throwing up on himself (granted he downed a whole beer and like 3-4 shots in the span of five minutes or left, so that probably was a factor lol). So I don’t think he’ll ever want to go out like that again.
What are some things I can suggest that would help him? I want to be patient and helpful to him but also, and I know this is selfish of me, but I feel like our relationship is so dry because we can never go out and do things together.
TLDR: my bf has really bad anxiety that prevents us from going out and doing things together and I feel like it’s making our relationship dull. What could I suggest to him that could help him?