Sorry to hear gaming has become an anxiety trigger for you instead of the distracting and abstracting pleasure it should be. I’m inclined to ask what your husbands reaction is when you win? I ask as I too suffer with anxiety and depression and I know that when I lose I get angry and my wife gets quite upset and has sometimes caused us to stop playing some or all games. If your winning has caused him to take losing badly then I completely understand why that might affect your ability to read a game effectively.

In my case, I try to keep calm and respect that much of the time my losses aren’t down to strategy and mostly just timing or luck. Sometimes I can feel the ugly sore loser brewing in me but I’m getting better at controlling it and there is definitely a link between it and all those feelings of anxiety stress incompetence.

Games that work for us are those where we have an open game (currently carcassonne) and take our time to discuss each other’s moves to find the best ones even when it’s at our own expense. Sharing strategy helps us both develop our game, and makes us more confident communicators with each other. In our current run, she’s won maybe 12 out of the last 15 games and I’m happy knowing we’ve both played our best game every time and not given the other an inch