The Art of Secure Relating with Stan Tatkin
In today's episode, I'm delighted to be joined by the one & only Stan Tatkin, PsyD, MFT. Stan is a clinician, researcher, teacher, and developer of PACT (a Psychobiological Approach to Couple Therapy), as well as being a prolific author of several best-selling books such as Wired for Love and most recently, In Each Other's Care.
In this episode, Stan joins me to chat with me about how we can experience conflict within relationships in a safe way and really build secure foundations in our relationships.
We'll cover:
How launching into self-protecting patterns can harm our relationships
The concept of secure functioning in a relationship
How regret can be a powerful teacher
The concept of the couple bubble
Finding acceptance for our partner's imperfections
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Apply for my 6-month Homecoming Mastermind
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
0:00:00.09 → 0:00:33.76
You're listening to On Attachment, a place to learn about how attachment shapes the way we experience relationships and where you'll gain the guidance, knowledge and practical tools to overcome insecurity and build healthy, thriving relationships. I'm your host, relationship coach Stephanie Rigg, and I'm really glad you're here. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. In today's episode, I'm delighted to be joined by Stan Tatkin.
0:00:33.90 → 0:01:00.46
If you don't know Stan, he is an author, a rather prolific author and couples therapist. He's also the founder or co creator of the Pact Institute. And today we're going to be talking all about conflict in relationships and how we can experience conflict in a safe way and really build secure foundations in our relationships so that we can grow together through conflict. Stan, welcome. Thank you so much for being here.
0:01:00.59 → 0:01:16.90
Thank you, Stephanie. It's really nice meeting you. Yeah, likewise. So your book that has just been released is called In Each Other's Care a Guide to the Most Common Relationship Conflicts and how to Work Through Them. I must say, I love the title of in each other's care.
0:01:16.95 → 0:01:54.98
There's something very beautiful and tender about that. Thank you. Actually, that is a phrase that was there from the very beginning when I developed Pact. It was based on a psychobiological notion that human beings, human primates, are built to co regulate or mutually regulate in close proximity, particularly face to face, eye to eye. And so couple therapy had been focused on, I think, self regulation more.
0:01:55.67 → 0:02:39.58
And the way it works, starting with infants and caregivers, is this is the motion, nobody can see this, but I'm crossing my hands over. Instead of being in your own care, in the primary attachment relationship, you're actually in each other's care. And that's actually more efficient and a better way to think and operate than being in one's own care only, which is a one person psychological system. Yeah. It's ironic, though, isn't it, that a lot of the time we've launched so quickly into self protective patterns and maybe we forget about the part of our responsibility to be in each other's care.
0:02:39.63 → 0:03:14.33
And that co regulation, that reciprocity of care. Because I think we can become very self centred or self absorbed when we launch into that self protective pattern, when we are feeling threatened in our relationship. So it feels like there's this tussle at play, and that in intimate relationships, sometimes that person who's closest to us can raise the alarm more than anyone else in our systems. Well, the reason for that is because we recognise each other, especially if it's a family member. Right?
0:03:14.40 → 0:04:23.78
We recognise each other and we have a memory and a history of threat cues, of facial expressions and vocal tone and movements and postures and gestures, but also words and phrases that trigger a threat memory. So that's family. But when you fall in love and you find somebody that you want to be with. There's a general belief in pair bonding with humans that we only pair bond with people with whom we recognise and find familiar enough, which means that we're going to be proxies for everything and everybody that we've experienced going all the way back to childhood. So that's why it's so difficult because we're memory animals and we also have a survival instinct and you would think that we would know the difference between friend and foe and be able to hold on to an idea that this is our child, this is our partner, this is the person I love.
0:04:24.31 → 0:04:42.31
But we're easily threatened and when we are, our brain changes and we revert to self protection and that's unfortunately, fortunately the human condition, it knows no gender, no sex, no culture.
0:04:44.73 → 0:05:24.57
It is all of us. And that's one of the struggles that we have to recognise and learn how to override our primitive nature. Yeah. And it's been a huge part of my own personal journey. And the work that I do with other people is cultivating a level of mastery, or at the very least, conscious awareness over those triggers and going, okay, if I'm launching into physiologically, in a very felt sense, kind of way, rather than just following the feeling and acting on it, can I get curious about what it is about this situation or this moment, this dynamic that feels unsafe to me?
0:05:24.66 → 0:06:04.23
Can I dig a little deeper and approach myself with a level of curiosity rather than just launching into an attack on my partner or defensiveness or any of the other things that we can so easily fall into? Well, even your mentioning of the word curiosity sets you apart from most. Most people are not curious. Most people are not curious in relationship, they're not curious about themselves, their history, they're not curious about how their mind works and they're not curious of how their partner's mind works. That is unfortunately a very small part of the world population.
0:06:04.33 → 0:06:45.95
Most of us are just going about our day, doing what we think is right based on our upbringing, based on our family culture, based on what we know and what we've experienced in our lives and that's about it. The only people that do question I think are people that are enriched in their environment. But even those people, I believe there has to be some suffering in one's life to motivate one to be interested oneself another. It's great that you think about curiosity. I wish most more people did.
0:06:46.10 → 0:07:28.28
Yeah, I think that you're right. I think there's a level of suffering or struggle and we get to a point where we can't just claim victimhood anymore without looking. Certainly if we want to make meaningful change we have to take responsibility and go, okay, what's actually going on here? Because if I'm just living out the same pattern, the same variations on a theme in consecutive relationships or even within the same relationship, there's something there to look at. And I think that with any of these things, it's an invitation into curiosity and to go, okay, can I approach myself with that lens of what is going on here?
0:07:28.41 → 0:08:01.16
Regret. Lots of studies on regret being essential for learning. And Peter Fonnie, wonderful psychoanalyst and thinker in Britain, and somebody who studies infants as well, did a study on people who don't regret. And these are basically people who are doing gambling and whether they learn from their mistakes. And he found, and others found that people who don't regret don't change, they don't learn.
0:08:01.77 → 0:08:33.29
And so loss and regret, remorse, grieving is an essential part of growing up and becoming a better, wiser, smarter person. Yeah. And I think there's such an important distinction between regret, which can guide us to course correct, and shame, which tends to sink us into numbing or low self worth and can keep us stuck. But I agree. I think regret can be a very powerful teacher if we're willing to learn the lessons here.
0:08:33.38 → 0:09:23.70
Regret, I'm thinking less about shame because that's not a change agent either, but more aligned with guilt, more aligned with loss, a higher level of development than simply being ashamed. Yeah. So maybe we could take a step back and talk a little more about this concept of secure functioning that you set out in the book. Relatedly I remember from Wired for Love, one of your earlier books, this concept of the couple bubble. I would love for you to give us a bit of an overview of those concepts and maybe set the scene on what we can hope for and what we should be working to build in our relationships and the importance of that secure unit at the heart of a relationship.
0:09:24.15 → 0:10:08.69
So a lot of my thinking comes from research and science, but I've always been a clinician at heart, even though I love teaching clinician at heart. And the challenge has always been how to make the science understandable to a lay audience, but also how to communicate. That my work with my clients, right? And so that's been a constant. At the bottom of this has to do with what we understand about our species and what we understand about infant attachment and attachment throughout the lifespan and then also how the brain develops, particularly the social, emotional brain throughout.
0:10:08.71 → 0:10:50.85
The lifespan and the differences between us all in terms of our abilities, our diversity, in terms of being able to operate under different conditions, especially stress. So the couple bubble comes from the idea that we are a species that forms dyads and herds. And so we're particularly diadic. I know they're outliers people that are not, but we tend to form diads. And those diads replicate the earliest DIAD or the earliest experiences of dependency with our caregivers.
0:10:50.95 → 0:11:31.56
And so it operates by certain rules, whether we like it or not. It's just there's a biology behind primacy that if you and I are in a romantic relationship and we've already feel like we've committed. There's a tendency to expect and to have a certain amount of entitlement to being primary, not secondary or tertiary or being demoted. We're central and other people tend to orbit around us unless we agree otherwise. Right?
0:11:31.69 → 0:12:04.02
So a couple bubble basically is a unit of two operating as a two person psychological system of interdependence. In other words, you and I as adults have the same thing to gain, same things to gain, same things to lose. And we're supposed to be in a free society, a union of shared power and authority. Therefore we protect each other from the environment. This is true throughout the mammalian world.
0:12:04.55 → 0:12:36.83
Peer bonding isn't just for procreation or taking care of the young, but it's also a survival mechanism. We're better in numbers. And so in a dietic situation you and I have to we don't have to, but if we want the relationship to last, we have to operate by certain ideas that if we don't protect each other in public and private, we will view each other as unfriendly, we'll view each other as adversaries.
0:12:38.85 → 0:13:24.92
So we protect each other from each other and everyone else by working together and being sensitive to each other. So the couple bubble basically is our protection from the world that is as it's always been frivolous, unpredictable, indifferent, opportunistic and scary as it's always been. Yeah. So I wonder if the couple bubble is this idea of the relationship comes first and there's this primacy to the relationship unit and we both have this duty to protect that and to protect one another and to prioritise that. I wonder if there are any other examples of maybe principles that come out of the concept of a couple bubble in a more practical or tangible way.
0:13:24.94 → 0:13:53.81
If people are interested in what that might look like in a relationship, how do you establish and protect a couple bubble? So people should understand that secure functioning isn't the same as secure attachment. Secure functioning is based on social contract theory. It's a series of social contracts between you and I. So we don't have a duty of any kind unless we decide that is the case.
0:13:54.01 → 0:14:30.28
So you and I come together to create something called a relationship which actually doesn't really exist in life. It is an abstraction, it's something we co create. And otherwise you can't take a picture of a relationship, you just take a picture of people. So the relationship that you and I have has to have a certain consciousness to it can't be just based on love and attraction, right? It has to be or should be based on purpose.
0:14:30.47 → 0:15:01.07
Why do we exist? What are we going to do? And what are we never going to do? Just like any union that forms because of common interests, common needs, either we need to survive or we need to win or we want to make money or why are we doing this? And so the same with the couple that if we don't, you and I co create, like moulding a block of clay.
0:15:01.57 → 0:16:04.04
We're shaping something that is uniquely ours throughout our time together and that it's based on fairness and justice and mutual sensitivity that we have to work together as allies or we cannot work. If you imagine being in a potato sack race, I don't know if they have potato sack races in Australia, but if you have that image, you know that if you and I were to do that, we would have to work together or we will look ridiculous. If I move ahead of you, we'll both fall. If we pull in different directions, we don't go anywhere. That's the same thing that's this you and I have to find where we are the same and where we agree, so we can move together and create the things we want and to solve the problems that we face without trying to solve each other, which is war.
0:16:04.22 → 0:16:42.10
I love that last line, solving the problems without solving each other. I put out a video last week and it said one of the most loving things you can do is accept your partner. It's really something that we maybe don't realise how consistently we reject or disapprove of or try to change our partner to meet our own ends. And I was met with this barrage of comments from people saying, well, if I accept them the way they are, then I won't get my needs met. And there was this very self protective thing and so I would love you to speak more to that.
0:16:42.20 → 0:16:58.05
How can both of those things exist? How can I accept and love you and how can we negotiate? So there's space for both of us to thrive here. To accept each other as is is to be in reality. Is to be in reality.
0:16:58.63 → 0:17:10.92
I accept you as you are, perfectly imperfect, as am I. Annoying, a pain in the ass. As am I. Disappointing, contradictory. As am I.
0:17:11.69 → 0:17:29.10
A burden. As am I. So what what's next? How are we going to work together as those things? Because there has to be something greater than our comparing and contrasting mind, which is always at work for good reason.
0:17:29.95 → 0:17:59.80
If we're trying to pick fruit and write fruit, comparing and contrasting, very good. This car, that car, very good. But other times it is how we get disappointed, feel let down, feel like, I'd rather be with this person than that person. We have features in our mind that are really important for survival but not great for happiness. Like always being aware of what we don't have.
0:18:01.77 → 0:18:23.28
So the mature person understands this and accepts that good enough is perfect. There is no perfect. Good enough is perfect. And you are working together, so I accept you as you are. I don't need you to change, you don't need me to change but that's different than how you and I will do business.
0:18:24.29 → 0:18:38.78
There's a difference between who we are and how we do business. That's been true throughout civilization, throughout time. That is it. You don't need to change. How we work together is constantly being formed.
0:18:38.84 → 0:19:19.19
So we actually work collaboratively and cooperatively and peaceably. Otherwise we'll damage each other just by being human. And I imagine that the more we can genuinely accept one another we're much more likely to have a level of openness to compromise and to rolling up our sleeves and to doing that work. Because when we're in this mindset of non acceptance once again we're pitting each other as enemies and when we're perceiving threat. Because as my therapist will always say to me if you attack someone they're going to defend themselves.
0:19:19.28 → 0:19:59.37
That is very reliable. So ironically the more that we can accept one another the more likely we're going to have a level of buy in and willingness and openness to do the compromising. So I think that while we might hold back from accepting because we worry that to accept someone means making all of these sacrifices and losing out, in reality it's the accepting one another that actually provides the entry point into connection and doing the work and compromising in a way that just doesn't feel as inherently oppositional and threatening. Well, think what it's like in childhood. It's the same thing.
0:19:59.52 → 0:20:17.60
Imagine that your parents don't accept you as you are. They wish you would be more like your sibling or can't you be like this person down the block? Get that enough. And this is when we want to run away from home that who we are is not embraced. Right?
0:20:17.73 → 0:20:45.10
And it's never enough. That's an injury that carries over. And if we experience that remember the adult primary attachment relationship is almost one to one what the infant mother attachment relationship is. It follows the same rules. It crashes and burns in the same way, it succeeds in the same way.
0:20:46.35 → 0:21:04.98
So the very same thing I can't grow, I can't become unless I'm with someone who looks at me with eyes that thinks I'm good, right? I'm good.
0:21:07.11 → 0:21:38.14
Otherwise I won't have any resources to develop. I won't have any resources to be better. I can't really perform well because this relational orbit is what provides the resources to do life. Yeah. And I think just practically speaking any change or influence over a partner that comes from a place of disapproval and shaming them and criticising it's not authentic, it's not real.
0:21:39.07 → 0:22:18.89
You might be getting what you want in a very superficial way but it's really not what you need. And so I think that providing that fertile soil for growth from a place of genuine love, care and acceptance and respect for the other is so much more sustainable in the long term. So back to secure functioning. I accept you as you are. But we have agreements that protect us and focus us to what we want to be, how we want to be, and how we're going to protect us from each other.
0:22:19.04 → 0:22:55.70
Therefore, I can accept you. I accept you fully, but I can also stop you from doing something we agreed that we wouldn't do if it's a principle. Like, we you know, my wife and I have this we can go to bed angry, but we have to at least touch toes. Now, there's a science behind that, by the way. It's very folksy, the science behind that has to do with us as human primates suffering an existential cris, really a survival issue.
0:22:56.07 → 0:23:24.44
If we are angry with each other and we don't repair it, or we don't somehow say to each other, signal, I'm angry with you, Stephanie, but we're okay. You could say, I hate you, Stan, but we're okay. The we're okay part is the minimal but absolutely sufficient thing that we have to experience. Otherwise, we suffered greatly and we get sick. It's not a matter of politeness.
0:23:24.50 → 0:23:51.42
We actually truly get sick because we're in an existential cris akin to when we were infants. And so people don't understand that. And so touching toes, whether touching toes or touching at all, it tends to be an unequivocal signal of friendliness. And then we can sleep. And usually we don't even have to revisit anything because that's enough to just drop the hostility.
0:23:51.61 → 0:24:31.11
Yeah. And I think for so many of us who haven't, for whatever reason, whether it's childhood or previous relationships, a lot of people haven't learned that I can be angry with you and still love you. And that really makes conflict feel so high stakes and so deeply threatening, which, again, exacerbates all of the self protective mechanisms both at a neurobiological level and at an intellectual level. But when I don't think that we can have conflict and still be okay, then of course it feels very dangerous, and we're going to act accordingly. A lot of this is development.
0:24:31.21 → 0:25:25.01
A lot of this is, if I could, I would. This idea of when I am upset with you, to be able to keep things in mind that I love you, I'm mad at you, want to punch you, but I adore you. Holding those two things in mind is a developmental achievement for many and is very hard to hold. To be able to remain a two person psychological system under stress is really hard, because if my heart rate goes up a certain level or yours and our blood pressure goes up a certain level, it's very hard to maintain an ability to think, first of all. But also, we are more likely to protect our own interests.
0:25:25.21 → 0:25:49.85
The more aroused we get. Unless we're skilled and unless we have a greater sense of purpose, unless we understand and have practise right. How to keep us from going off a cliff every time, right. One of us has to do something that is extremely friendly to the other person to snap them out of it. Otherwise we both keep going off.
0:25:50.00 → 0:26:27.83
This is the human condition, is what I was talking about. Everybody will do this unless they understand how this works. Well, I think that'd be a really nice segue into sharing some practical tools for threat reduction or ways that we can bring the temperature down when we feel that those cues are starting to arise, whether it's in anticipation of a hard conversation or there's some sort of stress in the relationship. What are some things that people can do that are really effective? Because I find this is so useful because it is tangible and it's easy a lot of the time.
0:26:27.90 → 0:26:40.57
Once you know how to do it, it's simple. It's just hard to do simple. Yeah, that's probably better. Simple, but not easy. When you go live with people who are people are really difficult, especially when we go live.
0:26:40.69 → 0:27:04.48
Right. That's a real experience that moves at lightning speeds and is being processed subcortically by recognition systems. We mostly are using pattern recognition most of our time during the day. That makes everything easier. But it also leads to bias, it leads to prejudice, it leads to shooting first and asking questions later and recognising something.
0:27:04.53 → 0:27:36.99
And if I feel threatened, I'm going to act, right? I don't think so. It's both a nice thing and it's a problem. This book, I just realised recently why I start to over focus on certain things. Everything I've learned, I obsess over until I know it inside and out and I can feel confident in the reliability of the idea.
0:27:37.14 → 0:27:58.64
Right? And so with this book, I realised, looking back, that my obsession was on structure and the manner in which we interact when one or both of us is under stress. Those are two areas that will tank any relationship. They're sooner or later having no structure. We didn't co create anything.
0:27:58.82 → 0:28:09.22
We don't have a shared vision of where we're going and why. We don't have a shared purpose other than love. Right? We have each other's backs. We're survival team.
0:28:09.32 → 0:28:19.27
We're radical protectors of each other. We're time travellers. We're going to do great things in the world together, right? Whatever it is. Whatever it is.
0:28:19.39 → 0:28:38.19
But no idea of ourselves that looks down the road. And no structure, as if we don't need it. It's astonishing to me that people will continue to just say, oh, we'll do it. You would never do that. I would never do that.
0:28:38.31 → 0:28:46.44
It's nonsense. It's naive. Human beings can do terrible, terrible things without being terrible people.
0:28:50.17 → 0:29:19.29
This is us as human beings. We're wonderful and we can be really awful. And so without having guidelines, without you and I creating a civilization, a society of our ethics, what is our ethical relationship going to be? What are our personal morals and how are we going to rein each other in? How are we going to govern each other is so vital that I can't say enough about it.
0:29:19.41 → 0:29:40.45
Most of the problems in relationship is that there is nothing. They're flying a plane that's half built, a house that's hardly constructed, and it looks weird. It's clearly slap dash. So number one is getting together and starting to think, where do we want to go from here? Why are we doing it?
0:29:40.49 → 0:29:56.20
What's in it for us? And what could possibly go wrong based on what has gone wrong? And to start to actually be hands on with this career. That is relationship, right? That's one.
0:29:56.25 → 0:30:16.42
And the other is, again, the manner in which you and I will interact. When one or both of us is under stress, there's a brain change. Therefore, we have to, again, think ahead. We can't wait to go live every time and rinse and repeat. We have to think ahead.
0:30:17.03 → 0:30:30.25
What will I do next time? I just blew it with Stephanie. Now my tendency, as everyone's tendency, is to blame Stephanie. What should Stephanie do next time? Stephanie.
0:30:30.30 → 0:30:46.47
Is there's a problem with Stephanie? Right, that's what we all do. But that will not work. The only thing that works is I have to think that I'm responsible for Stephanie's reactions. I'm her handler.
0:30:46.63 → 0:31:22.04
I am the one who's supposed to be masterful at Stephanie. I'm supposed to know how to handle Stephanie at any time, in any state she gets into, without using a stick or a whip. That's because that's where my focus goes. And that's one thing that people can start to orient towards. Think about your approach, what you're doing, what your face could be doing, what your voice could be doing, the word choices that you're using.
0:31:23.05 → 0:31:48.45
If your partner is upset you did something, accept it. You did something right? You don't get angry at your horse because you approach it in the wrong way and it gets skittish. You don't beat the horse for reacting because you scared it. If you keep approaching your horse that way, who's the idiot?
0:31:48.63 → 0:32:06.00
Okay, so not that you're a horse, Stephanie, but we're animals. We're animals. You are the animal I picked. My job is to be competent, but we don't think about that. I want you to be competent with me.
0:32:06.02 → 0:32:31.85
I don't think I should have to do anything. And that is, again, part of the human condition. Human beings are by nature selfish, self centred, moody, fickle, opportunistic, xenophobic and very warlike. Very warlike. If we don't realise that and put things in place, we get what we pay for, which is nothing or a lot of grief.
0:32:31.93 → 0:32:49.05
So this is just, again, being in reality. So I have to learn you. I have to take responsibility for you, your reactions. I don't blame you for your perception. I don't argue that my face didn't do that.
0:32:49.14 → 0:33:02.83
First of all, I don't know what my face did. And secondly, who cares if you felt it and you were hurt I better take care of that or I'm going to pay for it. Right? We're connected. We're intertwined.
0:33:02.88 → 0:33:11.62
Our fates are hooked in. Right. There's no way I can separate that from you. Like the potato sack race. There's no way I can do that.
0:33:11.80 → 0:33:38.77
Anything else is a misunderstanding of the situation. Therefore, it's a different orientation, it's a different way of thinking than we normally do. It's not I me and you you. It's us and we we move together in lockstep or we don't move, period. Yeah, it's it's a really radical reframing for a lot of people and the way we do relationships, right.
0:33:38.84 → 0:34:03.01
To say, like, I am actually responsible for tending to you and being attuned to you and responsive to you, it's just counter to the way that a lot of people have learned how to be in relationship. We're entitled, selfish idiots included. We get together and we think we're family. We forget we're not family. You and I are strangers.
0:34:03.06 → 0:34:26.74
We will always be strangers. The formalities of being strangers have to be there. And we're constantly wanting to get to know each other throughout life. That goes against our nature. Our nature is to assume we're family, to automate each other, to never look at our faces again, to remember your face.
0:34:26.78 → 0:35:08.56
I haven't looked at it for a month. I have no idea what it looks like now I have in my head, right? But I don't look. Our tendencies in nature to conserve energy and to not pay attention should be well known by therefore, there is an active working against that, to pay attention, to focus, to be present with our partner. Otherwise, not only are we not enjoying them, but we're not really enjoying life, which is walking, using automation and memory, which we do anyway.
0:35:09.65 → 0:35:34.10
That's it. One thing that comes up for me in listening to the way that you describe that responsibility, to be responsible for our partner as we would an animal handler. I've heard another teacher refer to that film The Horse Whisperer. Bringing Horse Whisperer energy to our partner I think is very apt. I've got to be a Stephanie Whisperer is what I have to be.
0:35:34.15 → 0:36:02.82
Yeah, correct. And again, so often we're doing the exact opposite of that, right? If someone starts to show signs of being threatened or feeling unsafe, we escalate in response, which is the opposite of what we would do with a traumatised, afraid animal. And yet that's how we respond to each other. And some people would be aggressive with a scared child or a scared partner or a scared animal.
0:36:02.93 → 0:36:32.12
Some people will do that because helplessness is the thing that makes us most aggressive. The thing that I wonder, and I can imagine people asking themselves is how do we make sure we don't go too far in that? Because I know that a lot of people in my audience lean more towards anxious attachment. And there can be a pattern. Of maybe taking too much responsibility to the point of tiptoeing or over indexing on that, trying to manage someone else's emotional state.
0:36:32.17 → 0:36:49.23
How do we make sure that that finds a balance point that is interdependent and mutual, rather than one person being the sole caretaker of the other? So I know what you mean when you say anxious attachment. You're referring to Ainsworth or Mary. Ainsworth anxious. Ambivalent.
0:36:49.89 → 0:37:11.11
But your audience should keep in mind that both sides of the insecure spectrum are, by definition, anxious, right? Voidant is anxious. Anxious about being trapped, being having their autonomy, their stuff being taken from them. They're really very anxious, actually. The most anxious.
0:37:12.25 → 0:37:29.80
If we want to look at the physiology of avoidance, they're most anxious. They're just unaware of it. The adult relationship is pay to play it's based on should be based on terms and conditions. Deal or no deal. Therefore, I'm going to do this.
0:37:29.93 → 0:37:45.40
You're going to do it too, if you don't do what I'm doing, because we're in this together. This is a team, pal, right? I don't carry your water unless you're carrying mine, too. We're going to have a sit down. This is not codependency.
0:37:45.59 → 0:38:10.78
I am not doing this in hopes you'll do something for me. I expect it and you should expect it from me. Because we're two, or the only two pillars of this union. Our survival depends on us pulling our own weight and doing what we must to make this relationship worth every penny, every blood, sweat and tear. Otherwise, I'm out.
0:38:11.71 → 0:38:27.91
Now, that's why I say deal or no deal. Here's the problem with that. Sounds so simple, doesn't it? Here's the real problem with that, is the attachment biology. The attachment biology we confuse with love.
0:38:28.08 → 0:38:41.39
It isn't love, it's a biological mandate of I can't quit. You don't even understand it. But we feel it primitively, intensely. It's like we're going to die if I lose you. I can't lose you.
0:38:41.43 → 0:39:03.66
I couldn't say it's the kids or the car, the money, the house, whatever, but it's really also, at the bottom of this, a biology that nature has built in a glue that holds us together for various reasons, none of them having to do with relationship, by the way. Nature doesn't care about relationship. We do. Right? We have to understand that.
0:39:04.03 → 0:39:13.92
So the attachment biology is groovy. It is what makes us stick together. It's what's kept us from murdering each other completely.
0:39:18.93 → 0:39:43.47
But it also can confuse us with love and keep us in a relationship where it is unfair, where it is not in two directions, where it is codependent, which both people are responsible for, by the way. So you and I make sure we're in a foxhole together. This is serious business. There is no pass. You don't get a pass for your drug and alcohol use.
0:39:43.56 → 0:39:56.50
I don't get a pass for my trauma history. I've got to show up or there's no reason for us to do this. I know that sounds cold hearted. No, it's a survival unit, folks. Yeah.
0:39:56.52 → 0:40:25.34
And I think that it really invites people into the vulnerability of being direct about this stuff because we can hide in, as you say, so many of us don't have a map or an agreement or kind of a Bill of rights, for want of a better term, on like what are the parameters of our relationship? What do we stand for? What do we care about? What are our joint values? People would just think about it instead of just assume it all works out, which it doesn't.
0:40:25.40 → 0:40:51.51
Yeah. So often we aren't on the same page and we assume we are and that causes us a great deal of strife and we feel very hurt and we make it mean something about the other person, how they feel about us when really we just weren't brave enough or wise enough to actually have the conversation. Think dance troupe. Think rock and roll band. Think cop car partners.
0:40:51.56 → 0:41:16.15
Think or a military unit you're in the foxhole with. All of these are interdependent relationships based on a common interest and need to survive, to win, to be famous, whatever it is. But that's why we're together. We're not together because we love each other. We're together because we have a shared mission.
0:41:16.49 → 0:41:40.98
Only couples don't do it. And it is one of the reasons why couple relationships on the whole won't last very long. Or they will, but they won't be happy because people won't think of this as a true union of equals and very, very different people. Yeah. And I suppose that's really what makes it a partnership.
0:41:41.04 → 0:41:58.14
Right? I think the word partnership has that quality to it. It's like we're in this together. We're a team. And yet for so many of us, particularly in times of stress or any of the other things that life throws at us, we turn into enemies or competitors when things get hard rather than banding together and being stronger for it.
0:41:58.16 → 0:42:19.58
Yes. And that has to be solid. You and I have to raise the bar and believe in something greater than ourselves. And some people it's God, other people, it's principles, character, values. What you and I believe is truly good together and what we believe is truly right.
0:42:20.03 → 0:42:43.64
Now the question is will we do what's good and what's right when it's the hardest thing to do? And that's where I'm trying to point people, including myself. Right? Yeah. I think that that is in those times of stress, inevitable times of stress when our everything in our being, our body will be telling us to go the selfish route.
0:42:43.83 → 0:43:24.93
It's then more than ever that we need to resist that impulse and turn the other way and turn towards our partner rather than becoming very tunnel visioned and self focused. I do believe that once people start doing this, it's its own reward. It is a practise and I do believe that there is no other system that will last a lifetime. There is no other system that can and be happy because other systems, anything else will end up being too unfair and too unjust, too insensitive. And then there's a build up of resentment and threat memory.
0:43:25.11 → 0:44:02.54
And that is something people do not want because it's the gift that keeps on giving. Right. You and I have done so badly in our interactions, and we've acted in such a way that has been unkind without any repair. And now we see each other as adversaries, even when we walk into the room with each other, because we've built up so much of that memory that there is no more trust. And that's where people will go naturally because of how they did business, how they put this thing together.
0:44:03.55 → 0:44:11.36
Yeah. It's just such a body of evidence in support of all of those fear stories. Right? Yeah. It's just humans being human.
0:44:11.89 → 0:44:37.80
Yeah. It's actually quite rational by that point. It's like, well, I'm making an assessment based on everything I have known throughout our relationship. People should understand that our ability to remember where we're hurt because of survival is very keen. So if I hurt you, I won't remember because I didn't hurt me, I hurt you, you'll remember.
0:44:38.17 → 0:44:52.44
And if I didn't fix that in a timely manner, it'll go into long term memory. And I did that. This is a fact. I created that memory. I can't blame you for remembering this.
0:44:52.49 → 0:45:17.82
I created it because I didn't fix it quickly. If I fixed it quickly, you would never remember. Yeah. Stan, just before we wrap up, what would you say to people who have some sort of resistance to feeling like they need to learn this stuff? Because I think some people feel like love should carry a relationship, like we shouldn't need to learn how to be together, that this all sounds very formal and pragmatic and takes away from the romance of it.
0:45:17.84 → 0:45:39.68
What would you say to those people? I would say I fully understand and party on. I've been at this long enough. This has been my research. Started studying babies and started studying adults very carefully, very systematically, using digital video and frame analysis.
0:45:39.74 → 0:45:57.77
So we've studied faces, studied body, studied how people act and react, things that people don't ever even know because real time is too fast. So I've studied this. I can say good luck to you, hopefully it will work out. But this isn't rocket science. Study your history.
0:45:57.89 → 0:46:15.88
Look around. Watch what's happening today. People have not changed. And so if you think that you can deal with another person through time without a structure, without building something together, without pointing in the same direction, let's see.
0:46:19.21 → 0:46:44.22
There are naturals. I've seen lots of natural couples and they're really good. Until they're not, because life throws curveballs. The vicissitudes of life are such that we can't predict what's coming but we can pretty much guess that what's coming isn't a lot of it's great and a lot of it's really bad. The question is, how good are we when it's really bad?
0:46:44.99 → 0:47:08.60
If we're naturals, we're going to fall apart, because we need more than just being natural, we need training, we need to prepare for that. Yeah. Need the contingencies of all of those pre agreed values and commitments to one another. It's a practise and it's hard to do. This is hard.
0:47:09.85 → 0:47:37.64
I'm stubborn and selfish and difficult as anybody, but this changed my life and I wouldn't be the person I am today, or becoming the person if I didn't do this. And it is hard with lots of failure. Yeah. But as you say, worth it. And I think you're right that it gets easier with time, because we start to reap the rewards of it and we start to trust in it more and so that we create some momentum around that.
0:47:37.66 → 0:48:06.80
And it does get marginally easier with each time round. One last thing. This is where the attachment system is a hindrance. If I'm insecure, and I've been insecure, I'm preloaded to not trust you. I'm preloaded to know, based on experience, what will happen if I depend on you, and that'll cause me to protect myself in ways that will appear threatening to you, which is the problem.
0:48:06.90 → 0:48:32.00
So there is that to consider. Can one have the experience to know that fairness and justice in a union and co creation in working together exists? Some people don't believe it does. I mean, they do intellectually, but when they get in it, how are you going to screw me? How am I going to lose on this?
0:48:34.07 → 0:48:48.27
And so that's another challenge for people. Yeah, certainly. I think that's such a beautiful articulation of the essence of any expression of insecure attachment. I don't trust in my ability to depend on you. Bad things are going to happen.
0:48:48.36 → 0:49:15.53
That's because of memory. Yeah. But you and I can change the memory by understanding it and not doing what is natural, which is to double down and enforce it, but to actually do what is unexpected. And then that system, that inflammation, that fear, begins to settle down and the memory is replaced by other memories of yeah, this is possible. Yeah.
0:49:15.73 → 0:49:30.03
Such is the nature of this work, which is so very powerful and I am so grateful for all of your contributions and in each other's. Care is now available. Correct. It's in the world. Great.
0:49:30.15 → 0:49:50.80
Anyone listening? And I did the audio too, this time. Oh, brilliant. Yeah. So anyone who's listening, I have to say, I realise we went a little off pissed, but the structure of the book, I think, is really excellent because it sets out specific conflicts, giving really tangible examples of places where people get stuck.
0:49:50.83 → 0:50:15.59
So it's not purely theoretical, it's actually diving into the weeds of the kinds of conversations you might have had the types of fights that you might have experienced on repeat or maybe you still experience on Repeat really walks you through what's going on there and what might be a path out of it. So definitely go and grab the book. I'm sure you'll learn a lot. And, Stan, thank you so much for joining me. It's been hugely valuable.
0:50:15.69 → 0:50:19.30
It's been a pleasure. Thank you, Stephanie. Take care.
0:50:21.51 → 0:50:43.62
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 soon.