#116 5 Things to Normalise in Long-Term Relationships
In today's episode, we're talking all about things that we need to normalise in long-term relationships. So much of the time, our expectations about our relationships - that they should be harmonious 100% of the time, that we should love everything about our partner, that we should never doubt or question our choices - leave us feeling confused and anxious.
When really, the problem is not with our relationship - it's with the pressure we've placed on our relationship to meet an unrealistic standard of perfection.
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:04]:
In today's episode, I am sharing five things to normalise in long term relationships. So I think that thanks to social media, thanks to Hollywood and all of those other influences, we can often have really warped expectations around what a long term relationship should look and feel like, what's normal and what isn't. And I think that the very one sided, imbalanced, unrealistic view that we can get from all of those media sources means that oftentimes we are a harsh judge of our own relationship and that we perceive something as being really wrong and being really abnormal or a real cause for concern, when really it's just part of what you sign up for. When you decide to build a life with someone and enter into long term partnership.
[00:01:22]:
So I'm hoping that in today's episode I can speak to some of those things that we really do need to normalise. And of course, it's not about normalising being unhappy, normalising, resigning yourself to a lifetime of dissatisfaction or anything like that, but rather managing our expectations. Because I think in this and so many other areas of life, when we have really rigid and unrealistically high or perfect expectations, then inevitably we're going to feel disappointed when real life misses the mark. And I think that when we're in that mindset of seeking perfection and expecting perfection, then we're only ever noticing the shortcomings, the ways in which we don't meet that standard. And oftentimes that robs us of our ability to be grateful for what we do have, for all of the things that we do really appreciate about our partner and our relationship. So I think that the more we can flip the script on that and know what we're getting ourselves into, know what's normal, the less likely we are to panic when we encounter hardship, when things feel challenging and really approach those trials and tribulations of relationship as part of the journey and an opportunity for growth and something that we feel well placed to navigate as a team with our partner and as an individual rather than a crisis or a sign that our relationship is broken, irreparably or anything like that. So that's what I'm hoping to share with you today before I dive into that one final announcement about my new course, Secure Together, which opens for registration in less than one week. Secure Together, if you haven't heard me sharing about it recently, is a new course designed primarily for couples.
[00:03:18]:
So people who are in a relationship with anxious avoidant dynamics and really struggling with that push and pull feeling like you're stuck in those negative conflict cycles where you're always fighting over who's right or who's reasonable and unreasonable. Maybe one of you is always wanting more closeness, more connection, more intimacy. The other one is always pushing that away or shutting down, withdrawing all of those dynamics that I know so well and I'm sure many of you know so well. And that can feel like we really want to be able to get through that because we really do love our partner, but we just feel a little bit stuck on how to do that. And we've tried over and over and over again, but maybe we have a feeling that we need to try something different rather than just trying the same thing over and over. So this new course, secure together that I'm teaching with my partner, Joel, will be a roadmap out of those sticky dynamics and into greater connection. So we're really going to be taking you by the hand through a lot of really powerful exercises that will allow you to have the conversations that you need to have without it devolving into attack and blame and criticism. And defence and shutdown and all of those things actually guiding you into a place of vulnerability and connection and compassion without all of the defence mechanisms that can hijack those conversations that are so important.
[00:04:49]:
So it's going to be a really powerful programme. I think it's possibly my favourite one that I've created yet, and I'm really excited to be sharing that in less than a week. So if you are interested, definitely jump on the waitlist, which is in the show notes or via my website or my Instagram. Doing so will save you $200 on the course price, so it's definitely worth doing. And you'll also get first access when doors open next week. So I would love to see as many of you there as possible if this is something you're struggling with. I feel really confident about this course and the fact that it's going to help a lot of people. So definitely cheque that out if you're interested.
[00:05:29]:
Okay, so let's dive into this conversation around five things to normalise in long term relationship. So, as you'll see, each of these, as I mentioned in the introduction, is essentially around reframing our expectations and realising that relationships are challenging and that feelings and emotions can come and go and that sometimes we actually just need to let go of trying to control everything and recognise that we're signing up for a full spectrum experience when we decide to be in long term relationship with someone. Relationships are hard. Relationships challenge us in a way that I would say no other experience in life does. The whole point of this body of work is that our romantic relationships bring us into contact with our deepest attachment wounds in a way that no other relationships tend to. And so it makes sense that they're going to challenge us, that they are going to test us all of that is part of the process and I would say part of the gift of long term partnership if you are wanting to do that work. So the first one that I want to share is normalising seasons of ebb and flow in your connection with each other in how things are feeling. I think oftentimes we can have this expectation that things should be good all the time and we should always be really connected and we should always be really in sync and in flow and everything should always be feeling good all the time and as lovely as that would be, it's just not reality, right? I think if we step away from our own experience and think about it a little more rationally, we can understand that life is busy and it can be stressful and there's so many inputs to the system.
[00:07:18]:
You've got two individuals with all of their own stuff, all of their own worries and insecurities and fears and responsibilities and all of the things that life can throw at us. Expecting to maintain a faultless 100% always on connection is just not realistic. Having regard to the backdrop to our relationship. So I think the more we can recognise this and not immediately take a period of feeling a bit off in your connection with each other, maybe you don't feel very in touch with your partner. You don't feel even like you really want to spend time with them or you're constantly getting on each other's nerves or all of those things that can happen. Right? I think when we have unrealistic expectations and often this will go hand in hand with insecure attachment patterns, we can expect perfection, consciously or otherwise and we can absolutely make a lot of meaning out of imperfection. So if we are experiencing a bit of an ebb in our relationship then we suddenly go oh, there's something very wrong oh, my partner doesn't love me anymore or this shouldn't be happening. We have so much resistance to disconnection, however fleeting and I think as a result we amplify the stress because of the meaning that we're ascribing to it.
[00:08:39]:
So rather than immediately going into crisis mode and immediately going into all of the stories we tell ourselves when we're experiencing that, my invitation instead is to recognise that it's totally to be expected at some point in Long. Term relationship. You're going to experience that, and likely at many points and recognising that that doesn't automatically signal anything other than what it is that you're feeling a bit disconnected. So, of course, I don't suggest that you just ignore that and just let it be, but approaching it with the energy of wanting to bring us back into connection and going, hey, I'm noticing that we're a bit out. Of sync at the moment that things feel a bit off between us, and I would really love if we could spend some time reconnecting or whatever you need, but bringing that kind of energy to it. That energy of respect and trust and security and stability, rather than the energy of this is a huge, monumental problem crisis that needs to be solved immediately and all of the stress that that's likely to come with. So I think being patient, communicating clearly and seeking whatever time, shared experiences or additional effort that might be required to understand what's going on underneath the surface, what might be driving the disconnection, and how you can gently move back into a flow that feels better for you. Okay, the next one that I want to share is it is normal to not love every single thing about your partner.
[00:10:26]:
Okay. Again. I think in the early stages of relationship, when we do have starry eyed, rose coloured glasses on about our partner, and we think that everything they do is just completely wonderful. The reality is that as we settle in, and maybe we're not on our absolute best behaviour anymore. After that initial honeymoon period, your partner will reveal themselves as a flawed, messy human with imperfections. And that's just something that you have to deal with, right, to learn to accept. Now of course, that doesn't mean learning to accept really bad behaviour or things that are causing harm, but imperfections and not being exactly as you would like them to be all the time or being different to you finding them annoying at times. That's just reality.
[00:11:18]:
There are very few, if any, people that you're going to love every single thing about. And I think again, where we get into strife here is letting our anxiety get in our ear and say, oh, maybe you should go find someone else, or I'm meant to love everything about them, so if I don't, maybe that means this person isn't the person for me. Whereas the reality is that any person you find will have things you love about them and things that you do find a bit irritating or you don't particularly love. So that's normal. I think focusing on the things you do love and learning to live with the things that you maybe don't will free up so much energy within you. Because again, I think it's the resistance and the judgement and the making things wrong that just costs us so much and really takes us into that negative bias, that tendency to focus on imperfection that leaves us feeling inadequate and leaves our partner feeling inadequate as well. So the next one that I want to share with you is experiencing attraction to other people. Now, I know this is quite a delicate one, and people who struggle with jealousy and insecurity, particularly people with anxious attachment, might find this really hard to hear, but I actually think in some respects it's quite liberating to understand that it is normal and expected that you and your partner, at varying times, would experience attraction to other people.
[00:12:50]:
Being in a relationship, committing to one person does not mean that your brain switches off its ability to find people attractive. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you, but that is just totally normal, right? So I think rather than expecting that you are never going to find people attractive or your partner is never going to find people attractive, the intention is to focus on building trust and having a really clear set of boundaries and integrity in your relationship and building those foundations. Because ultimately it's what you do with that attraction rather than the fact of noticing someone who you find attractive or feeling something towards someone I think normalising. It can not only reduce the guilt if it's you that's feeling that reduce the anxiety about the possibility of your partner feeling that it's really just like a fact of life, of course. So, as I said, focus on cultivating trust and respect for each other and clarity around the boundaries of your relationship and then release the grip around the vigilance. If you're someone who really does struggle with jealousy and you tend to focus on every person who is in your partner's orbit to make sure that there's no one that they find attractive, and taking it upon yourself to police that that is a really taxing job. And I would really encourage you to, as much as possible, release the grip there, because it's tiring and it's actually not it's never going to be the thing that stops your partner from feeling attracted to someone. So just learn to if you can instead shift your goal from trying to control your partner to learning to trust them and that will make for a much more peaceful and spacious relationship, I can assure you.
[00:14:40]:
The next one that I want to share is feeling a sense of grief or longing for either periods of your life in the past or what could have been had you not entered into the relationship that you're in. So the doors that you closed in order to go through the door that you opened to be in this relationship I think this is a tough one because again, when we can feel those longings or those little pangs of what if or what would my life have been like if I'd done X instead of Y? I think that's a very natural musing to find ourselves in and it can kind of throw us off again if we have this expectation that I shouldn't be thinking that or I shouldn't be feeling that. The fact that I feel a sense of grief about what could have been or another version of my life that I didn't choose that means that I've chosen the wrong thing or that I'm unhappy here or that there's something wrong about my present life. I think it's those value judgments that really lead us into doubt and confusion rather than the actual primary experience of having those thoughts or feelings. So I think that normalising, having some of those thoughts around grieving what could have been or what might have been. It's that grass is always greener thing, right? We're always going to have that sense of what if. And I think the more that we can kind of let those feelings come and go and maybe there is some grieving to be done there but not dwelling on it to the point where we use that as fuel to make our current choices wrong or to somehow undermine the value of what we did choose. I think again that comes from this rigidity where we always want something to be right and something to be wrong.
[00:16:45]:
And so to the extent that we feel some sort of positive feeling towards something else, it goes back to the attraction or to anything else, right? If I feel that then it means I must feel this about my relationship rather than finding ways to feel all of it. I can feel so much gratitude for my life and still wonder what might have happened if I'd not ended up with my partner and done something else, right? That's all. Okay, there's space for all of that and it doesn't have to make something wrong to have those thoughts or those feelings. So just creating a bit of space for that and not layering on grief or judgement or doubt or self criticism or any of those meta emotions onto the primary experience. Because again, it's that resistance that tends to amplify and exacerbate whatever we're feeling and lead to all of those stories that then have us doubting our relationship or the value that's there. And the last one that I want to normalise is normalise needing help in your relationship. So again, I think that unfortunately there's still a level of stigma around this. So many people there's a statistic and I'm probably going to butcher it because I'm doing it off the top of my head, but it's from the Gottman's and I think it's something like on average couples wait seven years of being unhappy and dissatisfied before seeking out couples therapy.
[00:18:12]:
That really speaks to the stigma around needing help. I think that so many of us have this really misplaced idea that relationships should be easy, we should be able to figure it out on our own and if we can't, then we should break up. But when we're really deep in those cycles, sometimes we need a circuit break. We can't just keep doing the same thing over and over again and wondering why we're still stuck. It's like it starts to just become a bit irrational for us to be doing that. And so I think normalising that sometimes there will be things in your relationship, challenges, struggles, patterns that might be bigger than your ability to solve it on your own. Or you might be so entrenched in the dynamic that you need something outside of the two of you to help you see another way or teach you another way. So trying to remove some of that shame around needing help, around needing to go to therapy or doing a course together or reading books or whatever, but just recognising, like, I don't know what to do.
[00:19:18]:
I love you and feels like we're stuck. And I don't know what to do. And I don't want to walk away, but I think that we need some help here. There is no shame in that at all. I think it's an incredibly courageous thing to do and it's something that we do in so many other areas of life. But as I said, we have some misplaced idea that we're meant to know how to build a functional relationship, even though most of us were never taught how to do that. So cutting yourself some slack and trying to remove some of that shame or whatever other feelings or beliefs that you might have around what it means to need help in your relationship, it doesn't have to mean you're in total crisis. It could just feel like there's a particular issue where you could use some outside support.
[00:20:04]:
All of those things are really healthy. And I think, if anything, point to the security of the relationship rather than the insecurity of the relationship. Because oftentimes it's that spirit of teamwork and collaboration that will allow you to seek out and get the support that you need, and that really speaks to how committed you both are to the relationship. So definitely no shame around seeking support. And if anything, I think we should normalise that so that more people feel like they can do it and more proactively, rather than waiting until things feel really, really dire. Okay, so that was five things to normalise in long term relationships. I hope that that has given you some food for thought and perhaps given you some comfort. If you are in a long term relationship and you notice any of those rigid perfectionistic expectations sneaking in there and leaving you feeling like there's something wrong, like your relationship is not good enough, like you're incompatible or any of those other value judgments that we can end up placing on ourselves stemming from this unrealistically high bar that we set on our relationships, on ourselves and on our partners.
[00:21:15]:
And just recognising that, as I so often say, relationships are messy and that's okay. It's about who do we want to navigate that mess with, rather than trying to find or build a perfect relationship that is free from struggle and free from challenge. So I really hope that has been helpful. As I said, do sign up for the Secure together. Waitlist. If today's episode resonated with you and you would like some support, I really, really encourage you to do so. It's going to be a great programme and I look forward to seeing lots of you in there. But otherwise, thank you so much for joining me and I'll see you again next week.
[00:21:51]:
Thanks guys. Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment. If you want to go deeper on all things attachment, love and relationships, you can find me on Instagram @stephanie__rigg Or at stephanierigg.com, and if you enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a review and a five star rating. It really does help so much. Thanks again for being here and I hope to see you again sooner.