5 Tips for Loving Someone Well
In today's episode, I'm sharing 5 tips on how to love someone well. So often, we think we are being loving towards someone - when really, we are pursuing our own agenda of loving them with strings attached.
In today's episode, I'm sharing 5 tips on how to love someone well. So often, we think we are being loving towards someone - when really, we are pursuing our own agenda of loving them with strings attached.
We love in order to get something in return, and then feel secretly resentful when things don't go our way. So instead, I'm sharing how to love someone in a way that feels pure and open-hearted.
WHAT WE’LL COVER:
the importance of gratitude
voicing appreciation and recognition of someone's contribution
how to accept someone rather than control or change them
taking responsibility for your own happiness
staying curious about your partner's inner world
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Apply for my 6-month Homecoming Mastermind
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
0:00:00.41 → 0:00:44.85
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. You hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. In today's episode, I'm going to be talking about how to love someone well, sharing five tips for you to be more loving and open hearted in your relationships.
0:00:44.90 → 0:01:49.74
And I think that this one, while primarily geared towards romantic relationships, as I reflect in this moment, as I'm saying, and I think that most of what I'm going to share could equally apply to other relationships. Really focusing on how can I love in a way that is pure and open hearted rather than think what some of us do without even realising it, is we love with conditions and strings attached. We love to try and get something in return. We love in a way that is inherently self protective or self interested, particularly if we have a lot of fear around love and relationships. And while that's not our fault, and that is why doing this work is so important, because oftentimes we don't even know that we're doing it, I think it is our responsibility, and it's certainly in our best interest and in the interests of having really beautiful, loving, healthy relationships to reflect on how we're loving people and how we could love people better.
0:01:49.87 → 0:02:18.64
So that's what we're going to be talking about today. Before I dive into that, just a couple of quick announcements. A reminder again, I know I've mentioned it a few times recently, but I am accepting applications for Homecoming, which is my intimate six month small group mastermind programme. We meet every week on Zoom for 90 minutes and we explore everything under the sun that you could imagine. This is the most intimate way to work with me.
0:02:18.74 → 0:03:02.16
So if you've ever wondered what it would be like to work directly with me and you are on a journey of growth and transformation, and you are being called to embark upon that journey with a little more support. And community, then Homecoming is a really beautiful place for you and I would love to receive your application, which you can find via the link in the Show Notes. And all the information is on my website, which again, is linked in the Show Notes. Second quick announcement before we dive into today's conversation is just to share the featured review. This was quite a long one, so I've trimmed it down a little, but it said I was introduced to this show back at the beginning of February as a suggested interest under relationships and attachment styles.
0:03:02.22 → 0:03:23.45
I honestly wish I'd found it sooner. Her short to the point shows really helped me identify what I was doing wrong and how I can fix the problem. Just by working with my nervous system and learning how to communicate my needs and wants without the push and pull that I'm used to. I'm signing up for her Higher Love course very soon because I'm ready to make the change in love myself for my next relationship. Thank you, Steph, for changing my world.
0:03:23.57 → 0:03:58.24
Please keep it real and I'll be a listener for life. Thank you so much for that lovely review and I'm so pleased that you found some solace in the show and I hope to see you inside my Higher Love course, which, for anyone listening who doesn't know, is my breakup course. So thank you for that review. And if that was your review, please send an email to podcast@stephanierigg.com and my team will set you up with free access to one of my Master classes as a way to say thank you. Okay, so let's dive into this conversation around how to love someone well.
0:03:58.42 → 0:04:36.79
And as I said, I'm going to be sharing five tips for this. Okay? So the first tip is remind yourself every day what you love about them. So I think that for all of us, it's easy to become trained to spot the negatives, to always be focused on what could be improved, on what could be better, on where things are feeling a little out of sync, where we've gotten lazy, where we've gotten complacent, where our needs are not being met. Maybe focusing on the ways in which our partner annoys us.
0:04:36.94 → 0:05:17.45
I think because those things tend to stir up big emotions, things like anger and frustration and resentment and irritation. Those emotions tend to take up a lot of real estate inside us. And so it's easy to tip the scales in favour of always feeling that way or always focusing on what's wrong, what's missing, what is lacking. And against that backdrop, we can pretty easily lose sight of what we love about this person that we're in relationship with. We can see the negative side, the underbelly side of all of the traits that we initially loved about them.
0:05:17.54 → 0:06:03.87
I've spoken about this on the show before, but it's quite remarkable how quickly we are to see an aspect of our partner that we once loved and were drawn to as a negative. An example might be that you are drawn to your partner's charisma and Vivaciousness in the beginning, and then a year or two or more down the track, you find that irritating and you wish that they would sit down and be quiet. You wish that they could be more relaxed and easygoing. Or you might be really drawn to the fact that your partner is disciplined and structured, but then you might find it irritating that they're not more spontaneous or that they seem uptight. Right?
0:06:04.02 → 0:06:46.01
We take these things that we once loved and that we probably still do love, but we focus on the aspects of it that feel imperfect. So as much as it's easy to do that. And I think it's somewhat natural to spot imperfections, particularly again if we do tend more towards insecure attachment patterns at either end of the spectrum. I don't think it does very much to support the health of our relationships and it doesn't really feel good either. I think that there is so much to support the importance of gratitude and reminding ourselves daily what we are grateful for in our partner and what we love about them.
0:06:46.21 → 0:07:25.58
I think that that is a really powerful practise not only for upgrading our own energy, but certainly in loving our partner better. So remind yourself every day what you love about them and train yourself to see that rather than to see all of the things that are wrong or imperfect or need work. Okay, the next one, which is in a similar vein, is make sure that you give appreciation and admiration compliments freely. Okay? So while the first one is focused more on for your own sake, remind yourself why you love this person and why you've chosen them.
0:07:26.43 → 0:08:05.68
This next one is really make sure that you voice those things. Create a climate of gratitude and appreciation as between you. I think that sometimes when we get into a bit of a funky place in our relationship and it can either be because there's tension or it can be just a complacency thing, we get a little bit lazy about being loving actively towards our partner. But we can stop doing this, we can stop thanking them for doing things, we can stop appreciating things, we can stop expressing gratitude. And sometimes, as I said, that's an oversight and other times it's withholding.
0:08:05.82 → 0:09:10.45
Sometimes we feel like we shouldn't have to avoid appreciation for things that are everyday tasks. If your partner does some sort of active service around the house that you consider to be just a basic part of living in a household, there's that whole thing of why should I have to praise them for doing basic jobs? And I think that we've just got to really ask ourselves what we're trying to win there by holding onto that mentality, by withholding appreciation from someone and whether that's creating a climate that we really want to live in in our relationships. I think that when we notice ourselves in that place of point scoring or competitiveness, it's just not nice, it's not loving, it's not open hearted, and it's actually not going to get us what we want or need. Oftentimes in doing that, we are trying to protect ourselves and we're trying to ironically, probably get more appreciation for the things that we contribute that we don't feel seen and valued for.
0:09:10.59 → 0:09:43.25
But creating this culture of hostility or withholding in your relationship is not the way to get your own needs met in that regard. And I think that again, it goes back to what I said in the introduction. We're not giving compliments to receive compliments. We're not giving appreciation to receive appreciation. Because if we're doing that, we are manipulating as much as we might not want to see it that way, but if you are only giving to receive, then you are not truly giving from a generous and open hearted place.
0:09:43.37 → 0:10:15.53
And I think that that's an important thing to remind ourselves. It costs us nothing to be open hearted and loving and voice appreciation for someone. And it costs us a lot to do the converse, which is to cultivate a climate and culture of bitterness and resentment and point scoring in our relationship that is not fertile soil for love to grow. So reflect if you do find yourself going to that pattern of why should I have to? I don't know what that is really accomplishing for you.
0:10:15.57 → 0:10:55.93
And it's a good one to sit with and ask yourself is this how I want to be in relationship? And is this really getting me any closer to the kind of loving relationship that I so deeply desire? Okay, the next tip for loving someone well is don't make them responsible for your happiness and your fulfilment, okay? Because when you do, whether you do this consciously or not, you will end up blaming them every time you aren't happy or fulfilled, whenever you feel down or whenever you feel anxious or like all of your needs aren't being met or life isn't exactly as you thought it would be. It's easy to blame them.
0:10:55.97 → 0:11:56.38
It's easy to deflect and shirk responsibility for the way that we're showing up in our lives when we have tacitly made our partner responsible for our happiness. So it's so important in loving someone well. And I realise it might not seem like this is an act of love towards them, but one of the most loving things you can do in a relationship is to take responsibility for your own joy and fill your own cup and then enjoy the way that you're able to share in the overflow together. So when you make that your primary responsibility to create happiness and joy and pleasure and love, then you're able to invite them into that without relying on them or only experiencing happiness and fulfilment via them, which is a lot of pressure on them. And ultimately it's pressure on them to do something which they can't do because your happiness is not within their control.
0:11:56.51 → 0:12:39.42
So it's kind of an illusion that you can both get stuck in and you can end up blaming them and they can end up feeling like a failure for not doing something that they were never able to do. So I think that the more we can be self responsible insofar as our happiness is concerned and certainly not fall into these patterns of I would do X-Y-Z thing if it weren't for them stopping me. Just fact cheque that for yourself. Because that can be a really good protective story that we can tell ourselves that someone else is stopping us from living the life that we want or someone else is preventing us from having the experiences or feelings or just being the way we would like to be in the world. Okay?
0:12:39.47 → 0:13:15.51
So just cheque on those stories because they're very often untrue and they're almost always quite disempowering. So don't make them responsible for your happiness. And I should say just as a disclaimer there I'm by no means saying that you can't expect a partner to meet needs, that you can't expect a partner to contribute to your happiness. But there is a big difference between contributing to happiness and enhancing happiness and them being the sole source of happiness and that being their responsibility to make you happy. The latter is unrealistic and unhealthy.
0:13:15.67 → 0:13:41.61
The former is what we're aiming for but the former does require that you are first and foremost taking that on as your responsibility and your duty to yourself. Okay? So the next tip I want to offer you is notice where you try to control and change them even if it's so subtle. Notice where you do not accept them for who and how they are. Okay?
0:13:41.70 → 0:14:29.37
One of the most beautiful gifts, one of the most pure acts of love that you can give to someone is to accept them the way they are. Now, if you are more anxious in your attachment then you might really struggle with this because as much as you probably attach to someone very intensely and you hold on to them for dear life and it's not like you are criticising them with a view to ending the relationship and leaving them. You criticise them with a view to moulding them into some version of themselves that would make you feel more comfortable and that is not loving. Okay? It's really really self serving.
0:14:29.42 → 0:15:02.41
And I don't say that in a judgmental way because god knows I've been guilty of this. But it is something that we have to watch in ourselves, this tendency to want to change someone, to think that we know better than they do, to think that our way is superior to their way, to think that if only they change X-Y-Z thing, then our relationship would be good, and then we'd be happy together. Then we'd be fulfilled. Then we'd be satisfied again. This is a hamster wheel that's really hard to get off once we're on it.
0:15:02.53 → 0:15:43.19
So notice can I just accept my partner as they are today? And if the answer is no, you're not able to accept them. If you only love them with strings attached or with conditions or with control or you only love some hypothetical potential version of them that you've conjured up. In your mind and that you are squirrelling away at to try and mould them into, then query what it is that you're doing in relationship with them because it doesn't sound like love. So if you want to love someone well try accepting them as they are.
0:15:43.23 → 0:16:15.57
And try trusting that accepting someone as they are and loving them fully is so much more likely to inspire positive changes and shifts and transformation, but that you may need to release the grip and let go of the reins on what that looks like and how that happens. Because trying to turn someone into who we want them to be is selfish. It's not loving. That's a hard truth, but I think it's an important one to hear. And as I said, no judgement when I say that, because I have absolutely been guilty of it.
0:16:15.64 → 0:17:03.42
The last tip that I want to give you for loving someone well is remain endlessly curious about who they are today and who they are becoming. It's so easy to get complacent and to think that we know everything there is to know about our partner. But the truth is, you probably haven't even scratched the surface because we are all so brilliantly, messy and complex. There was a conversation in Homecoming, My Mastermind yesterday, which was so beautiful, and it was that one of the women had finally understood what it felt like to view her partner as a whole person, as a whole, complete person that wasn't about her. And I think that that might sound funny, but reflect on it.
0:17:03.52 → 0:17:27.96
How often do you see your partner as their own person? In the same way that you see yourself, in the same way that you know yourself to have a million different thoughts every day and fears and insecurities and dreams and hopes? Your partner has all of that too. And there's a good chance that you might know some of it, but you probably don't know all of it. So try to remain curious about them.
0:17:28.09 → 0:18:13.68
Try to remain curious in getting to know them a layer deeper, in finding things out about them, in learning from them, because they have so much to teach you that you probably haven't even scratched the surface of yet. We are all forever unfolding and growing and changing. So even if you've been together for a very long time, the person that you're in relationship with today is not the same person that you are in relationship with a year ago or five years ago or ten years ago. So can you be curious about who they are today and who they might become tomorrow or a year from now? Think that we can get a little bit cocky and think that we've read the book cover to cover, but it's good to remind ourselves that the book is still being written.
0:18:13.79 → 0:18:48.02
So it's nice to remain interested in the mystery of who our partner is, rather than assuming that there's nothing left to learn. And I think that that really does help, not only with loving someone, but with keeping that excitement in your relationship, with keeping connection and spark and aliveness. Because there is always this new growth. If we are courageous enough to look for it. Okay, so that was five tips for loving someone.
0:18:48.07 → 0:19:06.93
Well, to quickly recap, that was remind yourself every day what you love about your partner. Give your appreciation and your admiration freely. Don't point score, don't withhold. Don't play tit for tat on compliments or words of affirmation. Nothing good comes of that.
0:19:07.10 → 0:19:41.65
Don't make them responsible for your happiness and fulfilment. Make that your commitment to yourself and then enjoy the spoils of it with your partner. Notice where you try to control and change them and see if instead you could accept them fully and trust that good things will flow from that place of acceptance and remain endlessly curious about who they are today and who they are becoming. If you've enjoyed this episode, as always, I'm so grateful for those of you who leave ratings and reviews. We've got almost 2005 star reviews on Spotify, which is pretty amazing.
0:19:41.85 → 0:19:58.38
You can also leave a comment on Spotify under the episode. There's a little Q and A box, so you can leave a specific episode comment if you feel called to when you're listening on Spotify. Otherwise, thank you so much for joining me, guys. As always, I will see you next time. Take care.
0:19:59.55 → 0:20:22.08
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.
"Is he avoidant or just not that into me?"
In today's episode, I'm answering the question of "How do I know if someone is avoidant or just not that interested in me?" This is a question I get A LOT - and the answer might surprise you.
In today's episode, I'm answering the question of "How do I know if someone is avoidant or just not that interested in me?" This is a question I get A LOT - and the answer might surprise you.
I'm going to share a common misconception about avoidant attachment in early dating, as well as some hard truths about why we seek out people whose behaviour leaves us questioning whether they're interested or not.
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Apply for my 6-month Homecoming Mastermind
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
0:00:00.41 → 0:00:43.49
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. You hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. In today's episode, I am answering one of the most frequently asked questions that I get, which is how do I know if someone is avoidant or just not that into me?
0:00:43.66 → 0:01:19.49
So I know that a lot of you listening will relate to this question purely by virtue of how often I get asked. It really is something that I'm hearing all the time from people. How can I figure out, particularly in early dating, whether the way someone's behaving towards me, which might feel sort of unclear or ambiguous or maybe not super interested? Do I put that down to the fact that they're not interested? Or is there something more different at play here that might be their attachment patterns, their avoidant attachment style?
0:01:19.83 → 0:01:41.43
How can I tell the difference and what do I do about it? So that's what I'm going to be talking through today. Before I dive into that, just want to share the featured review for today, which is this is the only podcast I wait for new episodes to be released every week. It's just that good. Even when I don't think the episode is going to be related to me, I find a new way to apply it to my life and be able to better understand the people around me.
0:01:41.47 → 0:02:00.41
I recently started Stephanie's Anxious Attachment course, and it has flipped the way I experience relationships. I can't thank Stephanie enough for this magical gift of a podcast that came into my life just when I needed it. Thank you so much for that beautiful review. I'm so glad that you've been loving the podcast and healing anxious attachment. That is all very lovely feedback.
0:02:00.46 → 0:02:47.69
So thank you so much for sharing. If that was your review, please send an email to podcast@stephanierig.com and my team will set you up with free access to one of my master classes as a way to say thank you. Okay, so let's talk about whether they're avoidant or just not into you. This big question that I always get before I answer it, and I won't be answering it in any sort of yes or no way, obviously, but I do just want to give the caveat and emphasise that there are a million and one different answers to this question depending on context and all of those things. So please don't take what I'm going to say as being true for your situation, but rather as something to reflect upon and to apply to your situation to the extent that maybe it feels insightful.
0:02:47.74 → 0:03:19.35
But if it doesn't, then leave it. There's no need to panic and draw some sort of conclusion about someone else's behaviour based on what I'm about to share. I am just sharing observations and reflections from my experience and what I know to be true. So with all of that out of the way, with all of the disclaimers out of the way, I think that when we ask this question of is someone avoidant or just not interested in me? We are perhaps misunderstanding how avoidant attachment shows up.
0:03:19.47 → 0:04:06.64
A lot of the time, in my experience, dating avoidant people and working with avoidant people and working with many, many anxious people who date avoidant people. Fair sample size. In early dating, most avoidant people are not in their avoidant mode, meaning they haven't been triggered yet. So their strategies of withdrawing or going hot and cold, those sorts of things probably haven't been activated yet, right? That tends to come into play a little bit later when things become a bit more serious, when they start to feel pressure, when they start to feel like there's a bit more reliance on them or dependability or they're expected to do things or all of that stuff that we know can feel overwhelming for an avoidant leaning person when their freedom starts to feel like it's being impinged upon in some way.
0:04:06.67 → 0:05:07.64
But usually it's not at the very early stages of dating and I do tend to find that the people asking this question of how do I know if someone's avoidant or just not interested in me? Are usually asking that at a pretty early stage of dating, right? So I think that if you've been on one or two dates with someone, or you've just been messaging them a lot on an app and their behaviour is such that you're questioning whether they're interested in you and you're going, oh, is it just because they're avoidant because they're being really indifferent and they're not really messaging me, they're not putting in any effort, they're whatever, fill in the blanks. I think in many cases I think a lot of the time when we find ourselves asking that are they avoidant or just not interested in me?
0:05:07.74 → 0:05:28.22
At the very early stages of dating? Perhaps we're looking for an explanation that is better preferable than the thing that we're afraid to hear, which is that they just might not be interested in us. I should also say these things aren't mutually exclusive. Someone could be avoidant and not interested in you. So I think when we're trying to go, oh, is it this or this?
0:05:28.37 → 0:06:05.67
And how do I know whether it's one or the other? We have to recognise that there's a Venn diagram and there could be both, right? That's a bit of a side note. So the first kind of key piece here is that in my experience in early dating, avoidant people tend to show interest in people that they are interested in most of the time. Of course, not always exceptions, of course, but avoidant attachment doesn't usually manifest as being really coy or disinterested or indifferent towards people that you are actively pursuing and actively really interested in.
0:06:05.76 → 0:07:04.26
The avoidant stuff tends to come a little bit later when the relationship feels like it's becoming exclusive or there's other pressure or seriousness involved in a way that then activates some of those attachment fears and their accompanying strategies. The second key piece, and this is more important by a long shot, if you are asking yourself this question of are they avoidant or just not interested in me? And this is the question of does it matter and what part of you wants to go on that expedition of finding out the answer so that you can solve it right? If someone's behaviour towards you is so confusing and inconsistent and indifferent and whatever else that you are already straight out of the gate asking these questions are they even interested in me? Or is there some sort of label I can put on them that makes this behaviour make sense?
0:07:05.03 → 0:07:39.75
Does it really matter what the answer is? Do you want to persist in pursuing that connection when you're feeling like this? And to be very clear, this is not about demonising avoidant attachment and avoidantly attached people. If you're familiar with my work, you know that's not my philosophy at all, but a big part of my philosophy is taking responsibility for our part. And what I see all too often is anxious people going through a world of pain because they persist with people who the signs were there from the beginning.
0:07:39.80 → 0:08:24.92
It's not even a sign, it's just plain to see oh, I was wondering whether it was because you're avoidant or you didn't even like me and rather than just going oh well, if I'm asking that question, that's probably all I need to know. I stick around and I try and be more of this or less of that, or try different strategies and techniques and ways to get your attention and ways to make you happy and make you show up and make you interested in me. Why do we see someone's indifference towards us or inconsistency as an invitation to try harder? That's what we really need to ask ourselves because that's where the growth is. And this is particularly true for you if it's a recurring pattern, if you consistently ask yourself this question of is someone avoiding or just not interested in me?
0:08:25.02 → 0:09:18.24
Whenever we notice ourselves as the common denominator in a pattern in our relationships, that's where we have to look in the mirror and go, okay, what's going on for me here? And this is one where we have to go okay, what is it about someone else's disinterest or someone being lukewarm about me that feels like an invitation to prove myself and to try harder and to make them want me? Because that is our work, that is our worthiness stuff coming up. And if we're doing that with someone who isn't really interested then we are almost certainly just going to strive and strive and strive in the face of someone who didn't ever really care for us all that much in the first place, who was maybe kind of ambivalent towards us. And we made it our mission to change their mind, to convert them to be the one.
0:09:18.61 → 0:10:00.87
And then we feel so hurt and disappointed when that doesn't come to fruition and we make it mean something about us and we fail to see how much of a role we've played in creating that situation and bringing ourselves to where we are. We throw our hands up and go, why does this happen to me? Why do I attract people like this? When really we've been a main character in that story again and again and again. Okay, so this wasn't really meant to turn into me standing on a soapbox and giving you this pep talk, but I think it's an important one because, as I said, I get this question all the time and it breaks my heart to see people who have a blind spot around their part in their pattern.
0:10:01.03 → 0:11:04.20
So if you are someone who is dating and you're feeling this question of why do I always attract avoidant people, why do I always attract people who are uninterested in me or who treat me in this very lukewarm way? I think the better question is, why do I look past the behaviour itself and try and find an explanation for it so that I can then roll up my sleeves and get to work in trying to change them? Or change the way they feel about me, rather than just seeing it for what it is and directing my energy and attention elsewhere towards a person or even just myself and my life in a way that is far more fruitful and nourishing and supportive for my well being. Why do I make it my mission to change someone's mind about me? I think that's the really fertile ground for deep insight about ourselves and our patterns and whatever wounds might be driving those patterns.
0:11:04.26 → 0:11:31.12
So I hope that that has been helpful. It might not be the answer that you were expecting when you started listening to this, but it might be the answer that you needed to hear if this is something that you struggle with. As always, super grateful if you could leave a rating or a review. If you're listening on Spotify, you can now leave a Q and a response at the bottom of the episode. So grateful for all of your ongoing support and I look forward to seeing you again soon.
0:11:31.22 → 0:11:55.98
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 soon.
How to Talk About Sex with Vanessa & Xander Marin
In today's episode, I'm joined by Vanessa & Xander Marin. She’s a sex therapist with 20 years of experience, he’s a regular dude, and they recently co-authored their first book Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life, which became an instant NYT bestseller.
In today's episode, I'm joined by Vanessa & Xander Marin. She’s a sex therapist with 20 years of experience, he’s a regular dude, and they recently co-authored their first book Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life, which became an instant NYT bestseller.
WHAT WE COVER:
the five conversations you need to be having about sex
navigating mismatched libido & (perceived) sexual rejection in relationships
how emotional intimacy (or lack thereof) impacts sexual intimacy
what to do when sex becomes a heavy, high-pressure topic in your relationship
how to bring back fun, play & lightness to your sex life
Follow Vanessa & Xander on Instagram @vanessaandxander, and tune in to their podcast, Pillow Talks, for totally do-able sex tips, practical relationship advice, hilarious and honest stories of what really goes on behind closed bedroom doors, and so much more.
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Apply for my 6-month Homecoming Mastermind
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
0:00:00.41 → 0:00:37.34
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. You hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. In today's episode, I'm joined by Vanessa and Xander Marin, and we are here to talk all about sex.
0:00:37.53 → 0:00:49.49
So, Vanessa and Xander, welcome. It is great to have you. Thanks for having us. Yeah, we're excited to be here. So you guys have just recently released a book, Sex Talks, which is an instant New York Times bestseller.
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Congratulations. Thank you. Super exciting. And I think today we can go into a lot of that what you guys cover in the book and more broadly, conversations around sex and where we can get stuck sexually, why we can get stuck sexually and what we can do to sort of take matters back into our own hands and not feel like sex is this big, scary thing that sits outside of our control and that then feeds all of this shame and stigma and aloneness. Because I think it can feel pretty lonely when we're in that place.
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Absolutely. I'd love to hear from you. Just to start off, why do you think it is that we can struggle so much to talk about sex? And I think sometimes it feels like it's harder to talk about our partner, the person that we love and care about and know most deeply. It's actually harder to talk to them about sex than maybe someone that you just met.
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I think it's hard for us to talk about sex because we really don't have any examples. I mean, if you think about every sex scene that you see in the movies, on TV, you never see characters talking to each other about the sex that they're having or not having with each other. And when we see that exact same sort of scene repeated over and over again throughout our lifetimes, of course we're going to internalise this belief that we shouldn't have to talk about it. It's supposed to just unfold naturally and effortlessly. So when we get into our own sex lives and there are things that we want to communicate with, we struggle because we just have this feeling that we're not supposed to have to.
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And furthermore, if you think back, do you have any good examples of having non awkward conversations about sex in your life? For most of us, our very first example or first conversation we ever had about sex was the talk with our parents. And usually that doesn't go particularly well. You can pick up on the fact that your parents feel super awkward about this topic. It feels embarrassing, it feels shameful.
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Or maybe they don't even have the conversation with you because they're too embarrassed to even bring it up. And as kids, we pick up on stuff like that. And so our first experiences tend to be, oh, this is a topic that we tend to avoid. Sex is obviously important. It's something that we all want to do, but we don't have that experience of talking about it, so we just try to figure out how to do it without actually communicating about it.
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Yeah, totally. I think that, as you say, if we just don't have the reference point for what that looks like, then not only are we kind of fumbling around, so to speak, but we also have the expectation that we shouldn't have to. I know you guys talk a lot about sexual perfectionism and this expectation of, like, I should just know how to do this. And to the extent that I don't, then there must be something wrong with me because all I'm seeing is these examples, whether it's in movies or porn, which I think for most people is like, the two areas that we get our sex education, which is pretty woeful. There is this sense of brokenness or wrongness to the extent that our real sex life deviates from that depiction of it.
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And I think that both people in the dynamic can be feeling that without talking about it. And no one wants to be the one to raise the fact that there's a problem or to acknowledge that there's work to be done there. And so it can just become this really pressure laden elephant in the room topic that we're tiptoeing around. And one of the big problems there, too, is that most of us will wait to talk about sex until something is really bad in our sex life. There's something that we're really not enjoying.
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We're feeling super disconnected. Maybe we're not having sex at all. And so we hit that boiling point, and that's the point where we decide, fine, I've had enough. We have to talk about it. And of course, that's a very scary starting point if that's the first time you're approaching your partner to talk about it, and it only leaves you with the experience of, oh, sex is a scary thing to talk about.
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When we have to talk about it, that's a bad sign. Yeah. And then therefore, you want to try to do everything in your power to make your sex life just okay enough so that you never have to have that feeling again. Never have to have that conversation again. Right?
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Yeah, totally. Yeah. I think that's such a good point. It's only when it reaches crisis, and I think this is true for a lot of relationship stuff, that it's like the crisis point is the point at which we finally go, okay, there's something to address here. Rather than being proactive about the way we approach it and going, okay, this is something we talk about to enhance it and optimise it, rather than to fix something that's broken.
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Because I think as you say once you're reaching that point, you're coming to the conversation with so much charge, so much sensitivity, all of those wounds that we all carry to varying degrees around unworthiness or undesirability. There's a good chance you've been having a lot of conversations in your own head preceding the real one that you have with your partner. So I think you're kind of, like, braced for the impact and the fallout of that. And it can become a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy there in that we both just get really guarded and protective about the way we approach that conversation, which, as you say, reinforces that this is not a safe thing to talk about. That this is not a productive thing to talk about.
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We're stuck, there's no way out of this, and downward we spiral. So what do we do with all of that? I mean, I feel like we've gotten to the what do we do very quickly. I mean, obviously you've got this book, Sex Talks, and the premise being that there are these five conversations that can transform the way that you approach to sex. Do you want to share with everyone a bit of a bird's eye view of what the book is all about?
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We start in a completely different place. Yeah, we're going to do it totally different from what we just described. So the first conversation of the five conversations, we call it acknowledgment, aka sex, is a thing. We have it. So the idea in this conversation is we want to ease you into talking about sex with your partner.
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We want you to get comfortable with sex as a topic of conversation and we're not doing anything else in this conversation, so we're not giving feedback, we're not making complaints, we're not initiating sex. We have nothing, no agenda on the table here. It's literally just getting comfortable talking about sex. So one very practical thing that people can do if they want to get started is take a moment to think about one of your favourite sexual memories with your partner and then share that memory with them. So you can do that face to face.
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If you're feeling shy, you can do it over text message instead. But what you're doing here is creating a positive experience around talking about sex, creating a positive foundation for the communication that you're going to continue having and showing yourself and your partner, that we can talk about sex and it can feel calm and playful and fun. Yeah. And I think that that is so important, having those corrective experiences where if we've only ever had that version of it that feels really scary and big and overwhelming, we actually need to show our system that there is another version of that. As much as we can intellectually know that, or rationally, we like, yeah, of course, hypothetically, that could exist.
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I think having the low stakes, relaxed, calm version of a conversation about sex that actually feels connective rather than high pressure and high stakes. I can imagine why that is really beneficial. Yeah. And I mean, if you have had a lot of experience in your relationship of many of those high stakes type of conversations, you're going to have to have a number of these kind of agenda free, acknowledgment conversations to build that habit or that baseline of, you know, kind of walking back from where you all the pressure that you used to feel of like, okay, just bringing even bringing up the word sexual memory is making you feel like, oh, God, they're going to think I have an agenda. Yeah.
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It's just going to have to be something that you repeat over and over to start breaking down those associations. But the idea is that over time, the acknowledgment conversation can actually just kind of turn into a way of flirting with your partner, of like, oh, acknowledging something about the sex that you just had. Acknowledging sex is a topic of like, this might be something we might want to do later. I can't stop thinking about last night. That was fun.
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Yeah. So it definitely can feel like, okay, yeah. At the beginning it's like, this is a new way of thinking about sex and talking about sex and breaking those associations. But long term, a lot of people think, oh, well, we just need to acknowledge it and then we can move on. But it's actually like, this is one of the most foundational conversations because you can keep doing it and it actually just keeps helping you feel more connected, keeps your sex drive up and all those good things.
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Yeah, totally. Would you advise people who are in a bit of a rut to start there? Obviously, in an ideal world, we'd be proactive. We'd be doing all of this from day one and laying the foundations for a really healthy, thriving sexual relationship straight out of the gate. But recognising that a lot of people haven't started there and might be in a really disconnected state.
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Sexually mismatched, libido, all of those things that we can get into. Is it still best to return to acknowledgment as the starting point and just try and drop all of the other emotional weight and charge that might be living in your sex life? Yes. We wrote sex talks for all kinds of couples, for couples who are in a rut and really struggling, and for couples who feel like our sex life is pretty great, but we want to explore more, go deeper. So we definitely recommend that as the starting point for every couple, there is in that chapter instructions for how to have what we call like a fresh start conversation.
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If you have talked about sex a lot in your relationship and it has only ever led to fighting a way to sort of clear the slate with each other and say, okay, you know what? I know we have really struggled to talk about this in the past, but let's wipe the slate clean and let's try to start fresh. Yeah. And I think that even if, say, you're in the midst of a really long dry spell, it's still important to be able to have this type of acknowledgment conversation. And maybe there's a little more to be wrapped into that of.
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Like, I'm talking about this because sex is something that's important to me, and it's something that we both want for our relationship, regardless of where we're at right now. Because I think that's a mistake that a lot of people make is they feel like, well, I can't possibly acknowledge or talk about sex unless we are in a really good place with it. Because by acknowledging it, somehow I'm also going to have to acknowledge the fact that we're in the midst of a dry spell. But when you're in the midst of a dry spell, both people are aware of that. You're not fooling anybody by not talking about it.
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Yeah. And I think that that can be really hard right when sex has become this thing between you that you don't want to touch and you don't want to talk about, and particularly when it's in that dry spell that's maybe fueled by mismatched libido over kind of a longer term and there's been one person wanting sex and the other not pulling away. The person wanting sex is probably going to be the person raising the conversation because that's how it usually goes. And I think navigating that dynamic of the person who's wanting sex and feeling rejected versus the person who doesn't want sex for whatever reason, that they may know or not know and feeling the pressure and feeling the guilt and the shame. I realise it's a bit of a diversion from the five conversations, but I'm sure it will be something that a lot of people can relate to.
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This whole topic of mismatched libido and that dynamic of you do have one person who's feeling rejected and one person who's feeling guilty and broken. How can we talk about that and navigate it in a way that doesn't just feed those sensitivities and wounds on both sides? We start off the book by sharing the story of how we struggled with this in our own relationship in the first couple of years. And it was really challenging for us. I wanted us to talk about sex.
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I wanted us to go to therapy and really work on our relationship. And Xander was not at the point where he was ready to. And it was a couple of the most painful months of our relationship of just sitting in that, what do I do? And so we wanted to start off being super vulnerable and sharing that story just to normalise. In relationships, it is so common for couples to be on different timelines and different pages, not only about do we want to be having sex or not how much sex we want to be having, but also are we ready to talk about this?
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And so I wanted to just validate the experience of the person who's picking up the book and reading it. You're being very brave and you're going first, and it might be very challenging to feel that resistance from your partner or to feel them not wanting to engage with you. So we share that story and then we give specific tips for helping get your partner engaged in that conversation. And again, I know we've said it before, but trying to build that positive foundation of communication is going to be the best way to get started. Because if you go in hot and heavy and this is what I did in the beginning when we were struggling, why aren't we having sex?
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Why don't you want to have sex with me more often? Yeah. And I just felt horrible. I felt horrible about our relationship, I felt horrible about myself, about myself as a man came into it, the sort of gender dynamics and yeah, it was not a fun way to go through that. Fortunately, we muddled through it.
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We got some help eventually and I think we've tried to lay it all out in the book. Like, these are the ways that are better not to do it. These are the right ways to do it. Yeah. I also loved in that opening chapter, I mean, I really appreciated your vulnerability because I think it had that exact impact of it's very disarming to people reading it who otherwise feel alone and self conscious in that experience.
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I also liked how you contrasted it with the initial chemistry and that kind of fall from grace, where we go, oh, no, what happened? Have we lost something kind of irretrievably? And when we don't really know what happened, then we feel kind of powerless. And again, particularly if there's one person who's wanting it to be like it was and kind of lamenting the loss of that kind of the transition from the honeymoon period into something different, I think that that can be really challenging. I know that in my work, a lot of it is around those anxious, avoidant dynamics.
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And what I see time and time again is a lot of sexual intensity and chemistry to begin with. And I think that sometimes that intensity allows us to bypass having conversations because we don't really have to talk about it. It's just like the chemistry carries the whole encounter and then once that chemical haze subsides a bit, we realise that we've never really talked about sex. And other stuff can come up on the more avoidance side of the street, I think it's like, oh, I actually don't know how to be sexual with someone that I love and care about. This feels extremely vulnerable all of a sudden, and so there can be this kind of pulling away sexually and then the anxious person starts to freak out and goes, oh my God, like they're losing interest in me.
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What have I done wrong? And so starts to push and escalate and poke and try and get that engagement back, which only causes more pulling away. Is that something that you see as well? And what would you sort of say to people who experience that dynamic, which I know is a lot of people? Yeah, the pursuer distancer, it's a classic dynamic that comes up so much.
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If someone pulls away, then we just want to get drawn to them more. So, I mean, there are a bunch of things that you brought up in that one is a normalisation, that initial chemistry. Yes. It feels so good and it feels like this is the sign from the universe that I found my person. The chemistry is so good, but we walk through normalising that that stage chemically can really only last six to twelve months, max.
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And then we settle into a different kind of intimacy in the relationship. But I think so many of us feel really afraid when we notice that spark start to fade. We get so scared of, what does this mean? Is this not actually my person? The signs in the universe is wrong.
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And that can really activate that pursuer distance or dynamic, where one person might respond to that fear by I want to draw closer to you to make sure that we're going to stay together, and the other person might get avoidant and scared of, oh God, maybe this isn't the right fit. I need to kind of back away a little bit. Yeah. And I think there's so much meaning making on both sides, right. On the pursuer side, it's like I've done something and there tends to be a lot of unworthiness stuff there and a lot of personalization and internalising everything that's going wrong is like, I've done something wrong.
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I've done something to cause you to lose attraction to me. And then on the other side it's like, I don't know why I'm not attracted to you, but the more you're coming at me like this, the more I have this urge to push you away and making that mean that there must be something wrong.
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There's one chapter in the book where we share communication tips for going into the conversation. And those tips work really well for any kind of conversation, not just talking about sex, but one of them is called cheque your stories with each other. So we all make meaning of everything that our partner says and does, regardless of if it's in the pursuer distance or dynamic or not. But one thing that we've found especially helpful in our relationship is to actually speak those stories out loud and to ask our partner, is this accurate or not? So it's not like an accusation, like, oh, you're doing this because of blah blah blah, but it's an acknowledgement, hey, I'm realising I'm telling a story in my head that actually using that language.
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I'm telling a story or I'm making up a story. Yeah. And then you can cheque that story with them. So that way it's not dumping it on them, it's not accusing them of anything. It's acknowledging that you're doing this yourself, but then you're checking it.
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So it allows you to air out the fear. Because when we hold those fears inside and we don't share them, they often just feel stronger and stronger, and then that can make the way that we are approaching our partner even more intense. So it allows you to air out the fear, but in a way, like Xander said, it's taking ownership of it. I'm making up this story. This is how I'm putting the things together in my head.
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Here's the story. Is that true? So then you're giving your partner the opportunity to say, oh, no, that's not true. That's not at all how I viewed the situation, or what I thought, or what I said, or anything like that. So it gives them the opportunity to correct.
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Yeah, I love that. And my partner and I do that pretty much every conversation, every kind of relationship conversation is like, story. I'm telling myself, is this, or there's a part of me that's wanting to say this, or there's a part of me that's getting really angry, or that wants to tell you this. And I think that, as you say, it's like the ownership and kind of the witnessing of ourselves in it and taking that responsibility rather than just spewing it out on our partner and treating it as fact, which there's a lot of temptation to do that, I think, again, particularly around sex, which just feels so tender and vulnerable to just go into a really protective mode without even realising it. Just saying, Why don't you want this?
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Or what's wrong with you? Any of that kind of language is just put someone in their own protective state and on the defensive, very reliably, and it's just not a productive starting point. And also using words like, there's a part of me, or, this is the story that I'm making up, it also makes you turn inward and figure out what is it that I'm feeling? What is it that I'm telling myself? It's so easy for us to focus on our partners.
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You did this. You said that you feel this. You made me feel that. But that, of course, like you were just saying, only puts your partner on the defensive. None of us like being told what we think or feel, but it also completely cuts you out of the equation if you're just focusing so much on your partner's words and feelings and actions and all of that.
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So if you turn that focus inward and say, okay, what is it that's actually here for me? What is it that's actually coming up for me? Because it's those feelings and emotions that really need tended to. If I were to tell Xander you feel this way, and he said, okay, sure, I feel that way, that's not actually going to be that satisfying for me because there's some underlying feeling that's being activated in me. That's why I'm attacking him.
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So if I can access what that feeling is and say, this is what needs tending to, this is what I need, that's going to make the conversation go in such a healthier and more positive direction. Yeah, I think when we can down our shield and our sword and be like, what's the underneath part for me? What's the scared part in me? And can I vulnerably share that with you? It's not going to be comfortable, but you've got a much better chance of actually getting to the heart of whatever is happening and building a bridge between you rather than just like, firing arrows back and forth.
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Something that I think, again, I certainly have personal experience with and I know a lot of other people will relate to is this distinction between, like, yeah, I want to have sex with you, but I actually want you to want that. And that thing that we want to be able to control our partner's feelings towards it rather than just getting the outcome of sex. And there can be a lot of charge around that and a lot of emotional density in that kind of dynamic of like it's not just that I want differently. I get a question a lot, which is like, how can I reframe it for myself so that I don't feel like my partner's doing me a favour by agreeing to have sex? Or like, that sex feels like a chore for them and it kind of detracts from it from my point of view, because I don't just want sex, the activity, I want a feeling of connectedness and I want to feel wanted.
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Yeah, we call this I want you to want me. The dynamic that comes up a lot around this, we call this the inhibition effect that the longer you are in a relationship, the more inhibited we tend to get with each other around sex, particularly around initiation. So a lot of people, you've been in a relationship with your partner for years, even decades, and you find yourself getting more and more awkward and nervous and anxious about initiating sex. And so a lot of us in long term relationships, the way that we initiate intimacy is very boring, not particularly exciting. It's often like, it's been a while.
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We do it. Do you want to do it? It's not very exciting. And it definitely doesn't give us that feeling of being desired. If Xander just tells me, do you want to do it?
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I don't feel desired by him. Yeah. I mean, the only way that I respond super positively if she just goes, Want to do it? Is if I happen to be wildly horny. In that moment, you're actually not doing yourself any favours by a kind of low energy or roundabout initiation, because that actually sets the bar so high for your partner and you're setting them up to fail the test that you're kind of wanting to give, which is I want you to say yes and be super excited.
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Right. So to get into the practicalities of this, the first step that you need to start with is identifying what makes you feel desired and wanted. So if I just tell Xander I want you to want me, great. What is that? Yeah, exactly.
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And it could be very different things. So, for me, maybe the way that I feel wanted is by him giving me compliments about you. Like, you look so good, that outfit looks so nice on you, but somebody else might feel very wanted if their partner comes up behind them and just wraps them up in a hug. Somebody totally different might like, I like when my partner just grabs me out of nowhere and gives me a big kiss. So there are a lot of different ways that we can feel wanted.
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And if your partner doesn't know the ways that work for you, then they're going to feel that nervousness and that anxiety and not really wanting to approach you with that energy. Yeah. And that's kind of where the second and the third conversations in the book come in. So the second conversation is connection. What do we need to feel connected?
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And the third one is desire. What do we need to get turned on? And so with both of these, it's really about trying to uncover what are the things that make me feel most connected to you and what are the things that I do to you that make you feel most connected to me? And then, similarly, same thing with the desire. Like, what things really supercharge our own desire?
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What things does our partner like? And how do we kind of give each other both what we need? The reality is, when we don't know what those things are, we tend to just assume, well, she must work the same way I work. So the things I love it when she cuddles me. So therefore, if I want to get more connected to her, I should just cuddle her.
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And the reality is, what I've come to learn is vanessa physical affection is not the first thing that makes her feel the most connected to me or the most turned on. And in fact, Vanessa actually loves compliments. There's some very specific compliments that I have learned that she responds really, really well to. If I tell her she's killing it at anything, literally anything, she totally lights up. But if we had never talked about this, I would have never known that, because that, to me, I'm like, okay, thanks.
0:28:16.64 → 0:28:51.56
That's nice compliment, I guess I'm definitely not turned on as a result of that. And so it. Took me learning that and then actually having a lot of repetitions of doing it before I really, truly believed that it was working. Because to me it just seems so like it seemed too easy. But the reality is there's probably a lot of really easy ways that you could be feeling more connected with your partner, you could be turning each other on more that you are just not aware of, or you haven't had those things reinforced enough so that you really truly believe that you need to do them.
0:28:52.25 → 0:29:58.97
Yeah, and I think that that kind of leads into a really again, an important thing to normalise is like getting a bit pragmatic about curating your sex life and your life more broadly in a way that is supportive to your desire for sex and your connectedness with your partner. Again, it goes back to this very unrealistic expectation that if it's right, it should just be effortless or they should know everything that I need without me needing to tell them. My partner should be able to figure me out, know me better than I know myself totally. And that it's like some sort of indictment on us or our relationship if we have to take steps to make it work for ourselves. So I think whether it's curating contextually what supports us to desire sex or desire our partner or getting really clear on what gets in the way of that and kind of getting ahead of it rather than just expecting the stars to align and for us in all of our busyness for our partner in all of their busyness and bringing it all together.
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And it just so happens to work, I think, yeah, it might not feel sexy, but not having sex isn't sexy either. Well, here's the funny thing too, is a lot of people will tell us, oh, I just missed the early days of our relationship. It felt so easy, so effortless then. But if you really take a trip down memory lane and think about those early stages of a relationship, there is so much effort that goes into that stage. You're scheduling dates with each other, you're usually pushing yourself out of your comfort zone, trying to do new things on the date.
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You're putting your best foot forward, trying to present the best version of yourself to your partner. Even practical things like when Xander and I were dating, I could spend hours getting ready for the date, like getting myself so excited. So it's not that we have these magical days where there was zero effort involved, it's that we had a very different attitude about the effort. We got excited about it back then versus now. We judge ourselves for having to put in even the tiniest little scrap of effort.
0:31:05.31 → 0:31:49.16
Yeah, totally. And I think that tendency to just look at the early days with very rose coloured glasses, and it's not to detract from that at all, because, as we've said, there is something really lovely about that initial stage of a relationship. But I guess it's just like honouring that for what it is, while finding a way to see the more mature version of the relationship as an opportunity to go deeper, rather than like, oh, we've just lost that spark. And we just have to make our peace with that and kind of live out our days in this mediocre, lacklustre version of what we once were. So maybe next we can go.
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I know we've still got two sex conversations, sex talks left, but what are the fourth and fifth conversation that we haven't yet covered? Or if there's more that you want to say on connection and desire? Yeah, we can go into number four, that's pleasure, fun one. What do we each need to feel good, to have a satisfying and pleasurable experience? And that one is another great one where so many of us feel this pressure to be amazing in bed, to be the best our partner has ever had, but a lot of us have never talked to each other about, well, what does good sex even mean to you?
0:32:28.81 → 0:33:20.81
So there's some really great conversations within that chapter all about starting to talk about it more openly and even exploring for yourself. What is it that brings you pleasure? Pleasure is a really interesting one in that a lot of people who come to us asking about low libido or like, low desire, what we find is that very often one of the main reasons that you don't have a very high sex drive, you don't think about sex very often, you don't want it. Very often is because the sex that you're having is not particularly pleasurable. Why would you be craving something that is not very enjoyable, or even worse, something that feels like a chore, something you have to have to take off, something that feels like it's more about your partner's pleasure than your own?
0:33:20.88 → 0:34:05.03
So the exciting part about this conversation is the opportunity it presents to really transform things in your sex life and also for yourself in terms of your own desire. Yeah, you touched on something there that I'd love to kind of go into, which is that tendency. I don't think it's exclusively gendered, but it's probably there's a lot of that, the tendency to focus on your partner's sexual experience and kind of ignore your own. And I think that the corollary of that is a real difficulty in receiving discomfort, in receiving it's. Like, I'm just so accustomed to being focused on ensuring you're having a good time that I actually don't feel comfortable with anything other than that.
0:34:05.07 → 0:34:24.15
Even if my partner was willing and wanting to focus on my pleasure, I don't really know what to do with that. It feels very exposing and vulnerable. Is that something that you guys see a lot? And what kind of advice would you give to people who struggle with receiving sexually. We see this all the time and it's also something that I've struggled with personally.
0:34:24.20 → 0:35:12.43
I share my story in the book about that. I struggled with orgasming with a partner for many, many years and I faked every single orgasm because I was so much more focused on my partner's experience on is my partner having a good time? I want to make sure it seems like things are clicking between the two of us that I don't seem too hard in the bedroom. I'm easy breezy and I think this is something that, like you said, it's not just limited to women, but as women, we are really socialised to be caretakers, caregivers, to put other people's needs before our own, so it's easier for us to slip into that role. And also compounding things is the way that we see sex depicted in the media.
0:35:12.50 → 0:35:51.99
Sex between a man and a woman is very focused on male pleasure. So it leaves so many of us women feeling broken because we feel like, god, I'm not getting a tonne of pleasure, I'm not having orgasms from this. Something must be wrong with me, so let me just fake it so my partner doesn't think anything's wrong with him. So yeah, it's definitely a really big issue that comes up for so many women. And that's one of the reasons why we're so excited about this conversation in particular, because we talk about the orgasm gap that's happening in male female relationships and we lay it out just in a very straightforward, matter of fact kind of way.
0:35:52.03 → 0:36:15.63
So there's no blaming of anybody in here. It's not like, oh yeah, the guys really need to fix this and they're doing a terrible job and you should feel ashamed of yourself or anything like that. It's just, hey, here's the reality of how female bodies and pleasure really work. Here are some of the challenges that we women come up against when it comes to being present and letting ourselves receive in the bedroom. And we talk about that.
0:36:15.67 → 0:36:36.22
A lot of male partners genuinely want their female partner to enjoy the experience. So it's just laid out in a really nice way that couples can read together and it takes the shame away from it while also giving you the information you need to start having sex. It's about both of your pleasure. Yeah. And I think it's so important as well for a lot of women.
0:36:36.67 → 0:37:01.11
There's probably some mindset work to do there around, like taking up the space and not feeling guilty or burdensome or that they're not going to enjoy it. So I just like the classic, I'm taking too long. And that's just such a surefire way to go into your head and out of your body, which tends to exacerbate it, right? Yeah. And that's a great story to cheque with your partner.
0:37:01.21 → 0:37:49.52
You could say to your partner, I have this story that I am too difficult in the bedroom or that if I were to allow you to focus on me, that you would get bored or resentful of me. Ask your partner that and see the response that you get because it's going to be very different from what you're fearing in your head. Yeah, because if I'm thinking about it right now, if I'm just asking myself what makes truly great sex, what first comes to mind for me is it's not about doing an act or doing the right sequence of moves. It's like I want to have an experience where I'm seeing my partner really, really enjoying things and feeling as good as possible. And we're both feeling really good.
0:37:49.57 → 0:38:11.53
We're both having a great time. I derive so much of my own enjoyment of sex out of the enjoyment that I see my partner having. It's not like, oh, I'm just in it for an orgasm at all. And so I think that that's so valuable to be able to cheque with each other. Like, what is it that we're actually looking for out of sex?
0:38:11.87 → 0:39:04.45
I think for most people, it's just that real, honest, mutual enjoyment. And I think another big piece in that is getting to know your own body. Because a lot of the time it's like, again, this expectation of that should all just be obvious or that my partner should know. And I think it is really hard to talk about sex, to ask for things if you don't really know what you like, what feels good, what doesn't. And so I think that in cultivating that sexual confidence, getting to know yourself sexually can really help you to feel like you've kind of a bit more prepared for that rather than a total beginner on your own body, expecting your partner to kind of have it all figured out for you.
0:39:04.54 → 0:39:33.98
Absolutely. And this is another way that the deck really gets stacked against us. Women, when we talk about masturbation in particular, men are really given much more permission around that there's a kind of like, oh, boys will be boys type of thing. But female masturbation is very looked down upon and so many women grow up feeling deeply ashamed. So we talk to women all the time who have never masturbated, have never even looked at what their genitals look like.
0:39:34.08 → 0:40:09.61
And so we are robbed of that opportunity to explore our own bodies, to discover what we like and what makes us feel good. The good news is that it's never too late to start doing this exploration. And sometimes getting yourself fired up about that crappy socialisation that we received can be a great motivator. Like, yeah, I've been robbed of this opportunity for so many years of my life and I don't want to waste another second. I don't want to let another moment go by where I feel like I'm not allowed to explore and to enjoy my own body.
0:40:09.81 → 0:40:39.98
And then on the flip side of all of that the deck has also been stacked against men in terms of the stories we get about sex, of feeling like we're supposed to be really good at it, we're supposed to be the leaders when it comes to sex. We're supposed to know somehow better than our partner does. If you're in a male female relationship, I think the stereotype or the story is like, it's all about giving her an orgasm rather than somehow both of you doing it together.
0:40:43.71 → 0:41:13.71
Guys talk to each other about like, oh, did you make her come? That kind of language. So it feels like, oh, well, this is what I'm supposed to be able to do. And I think a lot of men end up thinking, okay, well, I think I figured out what this one partner needed, and therefore that must be what all women need. And then you go into your next relationship doing that same thing, and if it's not working, it can feel like, oh my God, what's wrong with me?
0:41:13.75 → 0:41:41.00
And so it's just yeah, the story is never like, hey, every partner is different. When you start having sex, it's an amazing opportunity to get to know each other. It's like you get to start from scratch every single time. But instead we feel like, oh, we're supposed to take all this knowledge and these tools that we have from our past relationships and be really good. And the reality is, there's no such thing as being objectively good in bed.
0:41:41.05 → 0:42:18.67
Everybody is different, and we all need different things. Yeah, I think a person who's good in bed or a person who's sexually confident is a person who's willing to be vulnerable and have the conversations and do that messy work of fumbling through it and kind of allowing ourselves to be in that without being stuck in the rigidity of the sexual perfectionism that would have us believe that we're just meant to already know. So what's the fifth conversation? The fifth conversation is, what should we try next? Exploration is the name that we put on it.
0:42:18.76 → 0:42:50.33
So we've all heard the advice to try new things in the bedroom, and it actually is good advice. Research has found that when we try new things inside and outside of the bedroom with our partner, it just lights our brains up. It creates that sense of the spark of things feeling fresh and exciting, getting to see your partner in a new light, kind of like it did right at the beginning of your relationship, when you're pretty much only doing new things together. But when it comes to trying new things in the bedroom, a lot of us get very self conscious. It's like, I don't know what to try.
0:42:50.42 → 0:43:17.59
I don't even know what the options are to this conversation. We give you the options. One of the exercises in the conversation, it's like a huge list of possible things that you could try with your partner, and some of them are very small things, but even those small little changes or Tweaks can have a big difference. So we give you the options and we walk you through how to actually try new things in the bedroom without activating that sexual profession. Nice.
0:43:17.63 → 0:43:36.59
And I think that, again, comes back to this thing of like, oh my God, I don't want to look like an idiot. And it's so bizarre, isn't it? That our partner who sees us all day, every day, particularly if you're in a long term relationship. I love I can't remember exactly what you called it, but that like inhibition, the inhibition of sex. Yeah.
0:43:36.63 → 0:44:51.56
That the longer we're in it, the smaller we get in our sexual expression and really actively fostering the opposite arc so that we can be like, no. The more safety we create, the more we get to expand and grow and explore in our sexuality and really, like, creating the container for that to be the status quo in our relationship. And I think it is one of those things that feels really scary at first and then every time we have the conversation, it gets a little bit less scary and we get a little bit more comfortable with it. So it's like you just kind of have to take a deep breath and have that conversation the first time and you may have to fumble your way through it a few times, but just trusting that it's probably not going to be as scary as it feels like it's going to be. And I think arming yourself with all of this knowledge that can make it feel a bit less personal and a bit less hopeless going into it with those tools and that awareness that allows you to be optimistic and pragmatic and practical and, like, okay, maybe this isn't irreparably broken and there are things that we can do about it.
0:44:51.61 → 0:45:20.38
And I think taking solace in the fact that this is something that the vast majority of people struggle with to varying degrees at varying points in their relationship. There are very few couples who are just living that fairytale version of sex where everything works and never tapers and never fizzles. So rest assured that you're not alone in that. And it will take a bit of courage to have the conversations, but can really reap the rewards. Yeah.
0:45:20.40 → 0:46:07.54
And that was why it was so important to us to go first and be very vulnerable. In the book, we shared so many stories of things that went awry in the bedroom for us, of times that we struggled and felt like we were on different pages just to help people know you're so not alone. It's very normal, it's very common to struggle with sex, to struggle with that connection, with keeping that intimacy alive. But the good news is that with the conversations in the book, with these very practical tools that we share, you can absolutely recreate that feeling of closeness and get it even deeper and more intimate than you ever thought it could be. And I mean, even though Vanessa and I have had all these conversations, and we continue to have these conversations, our sex life is by no means perfect.
0:46:08.47 → 0:46:59.64
We still mess some of these things up, we still make mistakes and we realise that we've made a mistake and we loop back around and try to repair that. But I think the difference is when you are having these types of conversations and sex becomes a safe topic of conversation, yeah, you're going to screw up, things are going to go awry, your bodies are not machines. Like, nothing goes perfectly. But the difference is that now, when something goes weird or wrong or whatever, it's something that we can look back at and laugh about. It's something that we feel we feel more connected after sort of a sex mishap or something like that, versus when you don't have these conversations and it feels like, oh my God, that was so embarrassing.
0:46:59.67 → 0:47:29.45
It's this big, heavy thing that we can't acknowledge. So that's really the key with these conversations, is like, just turning sex into a fun topic instead of a scary topic. Yeah, totally. And I think that's kind of like, what we all want, ultimately, is for sex to feel light and playful and exciting and not this big, heavy, scary, dense, shame riddled thing. And I mean, yeah, my partner and I have been doing one of your courses, your Better Hot and More course.
0:47:29.52 → 0:48:12.03
So I can absolutely vouch for all of these tools and again, to kind of vulnerably share and normalise that it's okay to have to actively work on these things. And it doesn't matter who you are or what, you know, intellectually when it comes down to the actual being in relationship, we've all got work to do. And that's not something to be ashamed of. So is there anything to wrap up that you'd like to share? I just want the listeners to know, like I just said, that whatever challenges or struggles you're having in your sex life, you are definitely not alone.
0:48:12.13 → 0:48:44.41
And it's really this lack of conversation that has set all of us up for failures. That the decks stacked the decks against all of us, but that it is so possible to create the intimacy that you've always been wanting. And we hope that having these conversations will feel really fun and connecting for you. Where can everyone find you, obviously, on Instagram, your book and your courses. If they want to go deeper on Instagram, they can find us at Vanessa and Xander.
0:48:44.46 → 0:48:58.12
We show up in stories every day. We love hanging out there. Shoot us a DM. Let us know that you found out about us through this podcast. And then all of our guides and courses are@vmtherapy.com that's our website.
0:48:58.57 → 0:49:23.61
We love getting into the nitty gritty aspects of sex that nobody really talks about. So we have that better, hotter, more class that you mentioned. Then we have guides like our foreplay guides and next Level intercourse that really guide you through exactly what to do and when and challenges and all that kind of stuff. And then, of course, you can get the book@sextalksbook.com. We have a link there to all the different retailers.
0:49:23.69 → 0:49:50.77
And then if you want a free workbook that goes along with the book, just come back to that page, fill out step two after you've ordered, and we'll send you a free workbook so that you can go even deeper. Amazing. And I will link all of that in the show notes. Guys, thank you so much. This has been hugely valuable and I'm sure that everyone listening is going to have gotten a lot out of it and feel hopefully a lot more optimistic about the future of their sex life and what's possible.
0:49:50.86 → 0:49:55.18
So thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having us. Thank you.
0:49:58.19 → 0:50:20.80
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.
Why Healthy Relationships Can Feel Boring
In today's episode, I'm answering the question of why healthy relationships can feel boring - especially if you're someone who's accustomed to drama and chaos in your love life.
In today's episode, I'm answering the question of why healthy relationships can feel boring - especially if you're someone who's accustomed to drama and chaos in your love life.
WHAT WE COVER:
why unhealthy relationships are so addictive
the principle of intermittent reinforcement
how to navigate discomfort around stable relationships
how to get your needs for novelty & excitement met in a healthy way without sabotaging your relationship
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Apply for my 6-month Homecoming Mastermind
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
0:00:00.41 → 0:00:41.76
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. You hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. In today's episode, I am going to be answering the question of why healthy relationships can sometimes feel boring, particularly if you've not had many healthy relationships.
0:00:41.79 → 0:01:20.04
And so you're coming into maybe your first ever healthy, stable, secure relationship after a string of really dysfunctional, turbulent, unhealthy relationships. This is something that a lot of people experience. There can be this almost unsettling discomfort of being in a relationship where there's no drama and chaos. And we can either feel that as a form of low level anxiety or maybe a loss of attraction or kind of disinterest in our partner because they're so stable and reliable and available to us and we're used to chasing someone who isn't. So there's lots to unpack there, and I'm going to be talking about that today.
0:01:20.65 → 0:02:07.34
Why unhealthy relationships can be so addictive. Even though it's ostensibly the opposite of what we say we want, there's something within us that chases that drama and that inconsistency, and that unpredictability. And what you can do if you do find yourself kind of uncomfortable with a healthy, stable relationship, rather than just pulling away or sabotaging it because it feels unfamiliar to you, I'm going to be offering some tips for you to hopefully get through those growing pains so that you can continue with and maybe not let go of the healthy relationship that you've worked so hard to find. That's what I'm going to be talking about today before I dive into that. Just sharing the featured review for this episode, which is I'm so thankful my friend sent me this podcast.
0:02:07.40 → 0:02:19.35
It's so nice to be more aware of why you feel and react to certain people and situations. Thank you so much for sharing all of this information. I'm forever grateful. Thank you so much for that beautiful review. I really appreciate it.
0:02:19.42 → 0:03:12.57
If that was your review, you can send an email to podcast@stephanierigg.com, and my team will set you up with free access to one of my master classes as a way to say thank you. Okay, so let's dive into this conversation around why healthy relationships might feel boring. And I think that the best starting point for explaining this is to flip it around and go, why are unhealthy relationships sometimes so addictive? This is something that a lot of people will relate to. And certainly for a period of time, I found myself very much in that hamster wheel of chasing someone who was very inconsistent, very unreliable, very unavailable, and yet there was something extremely addictive about continuing to try and seek and chase.
0:03:13.39 → 0:04:08.36
And I think that a really important concept to understand in this is the concept of intermittent reinforcement. I've probably spoken about this once or twice on the show before, but for anyone who's not familiar with the term intermittent reinforcement, this comes from behavioural science, behavioural psychology, and it's basically a premise behind gambling machines, all sorts. Of addictive patterns, which is if you do not know when you are going to get rewarded, you will keep trying and trying and trying to do the thing that might elicit the reward because you never know when you're going to get it. Whereas if you know that every fifth time you do the thing, that's when you'll get your reward and that's very stable and predictable or even every one time you do it, then eventually you kind of get bored of trying. Whereas when you don't know and there's this level of unpredictability, you keep trying and trying.
0:04:08.41 → 0:04:42.83
That's why people spend all of their money on slot machines is because the next spin could be the one that I win. It's completely unpredictable. So I'll just go one more, one more, one more. It absolutely capitalises on our dopamine system which is all about pursuit and the pursuit of more of this thing that could be rewarding. So as applied to relationships, and particularly inconsistent relationships, we can see why chasing after someone who gives us intermittent reward and intermittent reinforcement becomes so addictive.
0:04:42.96 → 0:05:36.83
And most of the time when we're in an unhealthy relationship, it is not unhealthy and bad. 100% of the time there will be times and moments where this person shows up and you are connected and you do feel good and you laugh together or you are intimate or whatever, something that feels rewarding about that dynamic. But then all of a sudden it'll be gone and they'll be angry or you'll be fighting or whatever. But there's this sense of I don't know when the reward is going to come and sometimes when I behave in this way it works and other times it doesn't. And so I'll just keep trying and trying and trying and trying and because that is so dopamine fueled and it's so addictive that intermittent reinforcement, we can get really trained to seek that and expect that and associate that with relationships.
0:05:36.88 → 0:06:29.59
And that is a real hamster wheel, it's a real roller coaster that keeps us at this elevated level of stress and striving in our relationships. If we then take that away and we enter into a relationship with someone who is stable and predictable and reliable and we don't have to work really hard and we don't have to guess and we don't have to play all of those games. Our system can kind of be in a bit of disarray because we are used to operating up here. And all of a sudden, all of that energy that we're used to expending in our relationships doesn't really have anywhere to go. And there's a part of us that's uncomfortable without all of that chaos and drama because we kind of trained our body and our nervous system to expect it and to be primed for it and to actually get something out of it.
0:06:29.63 → 0:06:40.25
Because when we do get the reward, even when it's very intermittently, it feels so good. In fact, it feels even better for the fact that it's so unpredictable.
0:06:43.09 → 0:07:48.30
Again, to use the slot machine analogy, if you do win, even if it's $5 and you're down $200, it is so exciting and exhilarating and lights you up to have won $5 and you lose sight of the fact that you have lost $200, right? It's the same principle. If the person who you're in this really unhealthy relationship dynamic with is dismissive of you 95% of the time, but then brings you flowers, one day those flowers are going to feel like the most incredible thing in the world because they're so out of the ordinary, and you never really know when you're going to get something like that. So when that is the backdrop, going into a relationship with someone who's really stable is probably going to feel disconcerting, at least to certain parts of you that are used to working really, really hard to get kind of basic needs met to get basic recognition, basic connection. So I think having conscious awareness of this is a really, really important first step, as is always the case, right?
0:07:48.40 → 0:08:22.46
No matter what our pattern is, if we are not consciously aware of it, we are just going to be blindly acting from a wounded place, from a kind of subconscious protective place. And then we're going to wonder why we keep repeating patterns and we're not where we say we want to be. That's because we're not acting from a conscious place. So the place we consciously want to be, like that part of us just isn't in the driver's seat of our experience. So when we can get curious and go, I notice that maybe I'm not even attracted to healthy people in the first place.
0:08:22.91 → 0:08:56.12
And I think that's the case for a lot of people. You might have heard me say before, I always correct people's question when they ask me, like, why do I attract unhealthy people? And I think we really have to ask ourselves, why am I attracted to unhealthy people? And that is a much more honest and self responsible question and one that we actually have power over. Why am I attracted to what part of me seeks out people who fit a certain mould, who are inconsistent or unreliable or unavailable to me in some way?
0:08:56.65 → 0:09:33.80
What do I get out of participating in those dynamics? Because if we don't know the answer to that, that subconscious part of us that does get something out of it is going to keep running the show. So getting really curious going, what do I get out of this? What part of me prefers the chaos and the drama and feeling like I need to work really, really hard to get my connection needs met and feeling a sense of victory or worthiness when that unavailable person shows up for me. And spoiler alert, oftentimes this has origins in our family system or in earlier relationships.
0:09:33.83 → 0:10:29.60
It's very rare that it is born of the situation that you're kind of reenacting it in, but bringing conscious awareness to that and going, okay, what part of me needs my attention there? Rather than just going, oh, this healthy person, I'm not attracted to them, therefore they must not be a good fit and I'll break up with them and then I'll go into a pat and repeat with that other person. Right? So I think we do really need to become aware of that and decide which part of me do I want driving the bus here in my relationships, my wounded parts, or my wise adult self who knows what I truly want and knows what I deserve and what's best for me. So if you do find yourself in this situation where you're in a healthy relationship and it feels boring or it feels disconcerting or unsettling in some way, I think there are a few things to remind yourself of.
0:10:29.70 → 0:11:16.94
One is that stability and predictability and reliability is not always terribly exciting. And I think that we don't have to resign ourselves to the fact that our relationship is going to feel boring forever and ever and we just have to accept that. But I do think we have to manage our expectations around the fact that comfort and stability and cosiness and safety are not always the most exhilarating and exciting of experiences. And recognising the benefits to that to that stability and that safety and really allowing ourselves to be nourished by it again, particularly if that has not been your experience in the past. It might feel uncomfortable at first, but it is probably the medicine that you don't realise you desperately need to just be able to rest in that safety and security.
0:11:17.01 → 0:12:11.28
That's probably going to be a really healing experience for you. With that being said, I think we can also acknowledge if we are someone who values excitement or adventure or any of those other kinds of qualities in a relationship, those are things that we can deliberately cultivate. We don't just have to feel like we've given up because a relationship is healthy and cosy and comfortable and that necessarily has to come at the cost of excitement. But I think that distinguishing excitement and adventure and novelty from drama and intensity and chaos is an important distinction to make. So if you do value those things, figuring out for yourself what a healthy expression of that kind of energy looks like, rather than just defaulting back into the chaos and the drama that you know so well, but that is also really costly to your system and is not a nice pattern to keep spinning around in.
0:12:11.46 → 0:12:59.27
So what could be examples of things that would inject and infuse some excitement and maybe even passion into my relationships, but not with this undertone of turbulence or anything that feels like it's injecting insecurity into my system. Because that's an easy place to gravitate back towards when it is our familiar. But it's likely to be an unhealthy pattern, repeat rather than what we truly need in order to heal those wounded parts of us. So I hope that that has been helpful in answering the question of why healthy relationships can feel a little bit uncomfortable or boring, particularly if that's new to you to have a healthy relationship. But as I said, stick it out.
0:12:59.34 → 0:13:33.43
Definitely don't run at the first sign of discomfort. All relationships are going to have growing pains, and ending a relationship because it feels too safe and secure is probably not a great idea. So stick it out. See how you go. And if you do really miss that sense of excitement and rush and exhilaration, try and find healthier and more adaptive ways to consciously cultivate those dynamics within your healthy relationship, rather than going and seeking chaos and drama elsewhere to get that sugar hit.
0:13:33.52 → 0:13:48.92
So I hope that that's been helpful. If you enjoyed this episode, as always, I'd love for you to subscribe, leave a review, leave a rating. It all helps so much in continuing to spread the word about the podcast. Otherwise, I look forward to seeing you for our episode next week. Thanks, guys.
0:13:50.17 → 0:14:12.30
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.com 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. Thank again for being here, and I hope to see you again soon.
"Can a relationship between two anxiously attached people work?"
In today's Q&A episode, I'm answering the question of "Can a relationship between two anxiously attached people work?". I get variations of this question a lot - basically, why wouldn't anxious and avoidant people save themselves the trouble by sticking to their own kind? Well, as always, it's not quite that simple...
If you have an anxious attachment style, you’ve likely experienced the struggles of dating people with more avoidant attachment styles. You might find yourself constantly battling against differing needs and expectations around closeness and emotional intimacy. In contrast, anxiously attached people often crave a lot of time together, making the relationship a significant focus of their lives.
So, why don’t anxiously attached people just date each other? Wouldn’t it be easier to be with someone who has the same needs for connection, intimacy, and togetherness? It seems logical, but in reality, we rarely see anxious-anxious pairings. In this post, we’ll explore why this is the case, the dynamics that emerge when two anxiously attached people do come together, and why avoidant-avoidant relationships are also uncommon.
Why Opposites Attract in Relationships
For many people with anxious attachment, dating someone with avoidant tendencies feels familiar. While it’s not always easy, there’s a magnetic pull towards avoidant partners. This attraction often comes from our tendency to be drawn to people who possess traits that differ from our own.
An anxiously attached person who struggles with low self-worth and independence might find an avoidant partner’s independence, assertiveness, and confidence particularly appealing. On the flip side, an avoidant partner, who tends to suppress their emotional world, may be drawn to the emotional expressiveness and affection of someone with anxious attachment. This "opposites attract" dynamic plays a big role in why anxious and avoidant individuals often find themselves in relationships with each other.
The Rare Case of Anxious-Anxious Pairings
While it seems logical for two anxiously attached people to date, it rarely happens in practice. Even if it does, the dynamic often shifts over time. Here’s why:
Attraction to Avoidant Traits: As mentioned, anxiously attached individuals often feel a stronger attraction to people who possess qualities they themselves feel they lack, such as independence or emotional detachment. Therefore, they are less likely to be drawn to someone with the same anxious tendencies.
Emotional Saturation: In relationships where both partners are anxiously attached, the dynamic tends to recalibrate after some time. When both people want constant closeness, one partner may start feeling overwhelmed. The emotional intensity of the relationship can reach a point where one person begins to pull back, taking on a more avoidant role. It’s not that they suddenly become avoidant in a long-term sense, but within the context of this particular relationship, they may need to create space to balance the overwhelming closeness.
The Recalibration Effect: Relationships are dynamic systems, and partners often adjust to each other’s behaviors. In an anxious-anxious pairing, one person will usually lean towards avoidance to create a balance. When both people are "full throttle" with their emotional needs and demands for closeness, the relationship can feel unsustainable. As a result, one person pulls back, and the dynamic starts to resemble the anxious-avoidant pattern, but on a lesser scale.
Avoidant-Avoidant Relationships: Why They’re Uncommon
Just as anxious-anxious pairings are rare, avoidant-avoidant relationships are also uncommon. While it might seem like two avoidantly attached people would be an ideal match because they both value independence and emotional distance, these relationships often struggle to gain traction or deepen into emotional intimacy.
Lack of Emotional Glue: Avoidantly attached people typically find it difficult to connect deeply with their emotions and the emotions of others. In a relationship between two avoidants, this can lead to a lack of the emotional “glue” that bonds partners together. With both individuals keeping a distance, there’s little to anchor the relationship in terms of vulnerability or emotional closeness.
Difficulty with Commitment: Avoidant individuals often fear the vulnerability required for deep connection, which makes it hard to build and maintain a close, committed relationship. When both partners are avoidant, they might struggle to invest enough emotionally to keep the relationship alive, leading to stagnation or detachment over time.
The Anxious-Avoidant Dynamic Emerges: Similar to anxious-anxious pairings, avoidant-avoidant relationships may shift over time. As the relationship progresses, one partner might become more anxious in response to the ongoing emotional distance. For example, one partner might begin to feel abandoned or lonely, triggering a need for more connection. As a result, they may start acting in ways that resemble anxious attachment, while the other partner remains or becomes even more avoidant. This creates a new, albeit milder, version of the anxious-avoidant dynamic.
Is the Anxious-Avoidant Relationship Doomed?
While anxious-avoidant relationships are often seen as challenging, they aren’t inherently doomed. With the right awareness, skills, and a commitment to growth, these relationships can be healing. However, both partners need to be willing to understand their attachment styles and work towards healthy communication and emotional connection.
Anxious-anxious and avoidant-avoidant pairings, while uncommon, often shift into more familiar dynamics over time, with one partner leaning towards the opposite attachment style. This recalibration helps balance the relationship, though it can also lead to challenges if both partners don’t have the tools to navigate these shifts.
While it might seem easier for anxiously attached people to date each other or for avoidantly attached people to pair up, the reality is that we’re often drawn to partners with opposing traits. The attraction between anxious and avoidant individuals stems from our deeper needs and desires. Relationships, whether between anxious, avoidant, or mixed attachment styles, require awareness, communication, and commitment to working through the inevitable challenges that arise.
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Episode Transcript
0:00:00.41 → 0:00:40.76
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. Um, hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. Today's episode is a Q and A episode and I'm answering the question of can a relationship between two anxiously attached people work?
0:00:41.29 → 0:01:51.43
So this is a question that I get quite a lot and I'm going to answer that question and also the alternative version of that, which is kind of relationship between two avoided people work, or why don't avoidant people tend to date each other and anxious people tend to date each other. So I think this is something that many people wonder, perhaps when they are or have been in an anxious avoidant dynamic and they experience the struggle of that opposition, of feeling like they need to compromise so heavily on their needs and preferences because they are in partnership with someone who has opposing needs and preferences. And so the logical solution seems to be, why don't I just find someone with the same needs and preferences as me when it comes to all of those attachment patterns, and then everything will be resolved. We'll live happily ever after, two anxiouses, spending all of our time together, being obsessed with each other, both feet on the accelerator and the avoidance can go over there and be in their relationship where they have lots of space and peace among the lands. As you can probably tell from the way I'm talking about that, it's a little messier and more complicated.
0:01:51.56 → 0:02:33.06
And as is often the case, what makes logical sense often doesn't take into account the emotional layers that drive a lot of our behaviours when it comes to relationships. So I'm going to be speaking about that not only can these versions of relationship work, can these pairings work, but also why it is that they don't tend to happen that often, why it is that anxious and avoidant people tend to gravitate towards one another rather than sticking to their own kind. So that's what I'm going to be talking about today. Before I dive into that, a couple of quick announcements. The first is a celebration.
0:02:33.12 → 0:03:04.42
I forgot to mention this on the show last week or the week before when it happened, but we recently crossed over a million downloads for the show in less than a year since starting the podcast. I think it's about a week or so until the podcast turns one. So to have crossed over a million downloads in less than a year is really incredible. And I'm just so grateful to all of you. Whether you're a new listener or you've been here since the start, I am so proud of this show and what it's become and continues to evolve into.
0:03:04.55 → 0:03:35.81
And none of that would be possible without your support. So to anyone who has listened or left a review or a rating, or shared it with someone in your life, or shared it on social media, I'm so immensely grateful and thankful for you and for your ongoing support. So from the bottom of my heart, sending you so much love and gratitude. The second quick announcement is just to share. If you listened to the episode earlier in the week, you may have heard me speak about my Homecoming Mastermind programme, which is now open for applications.
0:03:35.99 → 0:04:23.36
The next round of the programme starts in July, so it's still a little bit away, but I'm offering an early bird rate for those who sign up before the end of the month. And I've already had five or six amazing applications in the last couple of days, so it's already shaving up to be a beautiful collection of women. This is a six month programme with me. We meet every week on Zoom and we have a community channel between calls. So if you are looking to work with me intimately as well as forging beautiful connections with others who are on the same path, who are doing this work, who are showing up in the mess and being beautifully brave and courageous in facing all of the parts of us that are sometimes uncomfortable to face.
0:04:24.05 → 0:05:01.95
I would love for you to apply the link to that is in the show notes. I realise that that probably is only relevant to a tiny fraction of you listening, as it is my highest level programme and it is a big commitment, so I won't speak too much more about it. But just if that feels like you and you're feeling the pull, you can find all of that via my website and I would love to receive your application. Finally, just to share today's featured review, which is I feel like I could indeed, I often do listen to these episodes on repeat. I feel like Steph is spot on with all of her explanations and I found myself nodding along, saying yes, yes to myself throughout the episodes.
0:05:02.05 → 0:05:30.28
I also appreciate that Steph doesn't have black and white opinions on matters and allows space for us listeners to fill in the blanks. Thank you so much for your beautiful review. I really appreciate the kind words. If that was yours, please send an email to podcast@stephanierig.com and my team will set you up with free access to one of my Master classes. Okay, let's dive into this conversation around can a relationship between two anxiously attached people, or two avoidant people, for that matter, work?
0:05:30.73 → 0:06:22.54
So I think it's important to say at the outset that in my view, any relationship in the abstract, in a hypothetical sense, can of course, work if we're willing to put in the work to make it so. So I would never be one to say, oh, no, that pairing will never work. I think that's just a bit blunt and unhelpful and untrue, right? There's so much individual variation and richness and messiness in between the lines of putting people into buckets and saying, oh, if you tend towards anxious attachment, you could never possibly be in a successful relationship with someone else of that same blueprint that just denies the immense complexity of all of us in our humanness. So I want to make that very clear at the outset.
0:06:22.57 → 0:06:55.95
What I'm going to talk about today is not to deny the possibility of this working in any individual case, right? But what I do want to speak to is why is it that anxiously attached people don't tend to be attracted to one another? They don't tend to end up in relationship with each other. And likewise, neither do avoidant people for the most part tend to be in relationship with each other. So I think taking almost a spiritual or metaphysical lens on this, relationships and systems tend to find balance, right?
0:06:56.15 → 0:07:40.08
We tend to find this yin and yang. There tends to be this equilibrium point where a relationship, it's that classic thing of opposites attract. And I think there is some truth in that. That two people who are very very similar in terms of all of their behaviours, their attachment wounds, their attachment drives, their origin stories tend not to be drawn to each other because our attachment behaviours develop in response to something, right? And what they develop in response to is what we almost grew around.
0:07:41.01 → 0:08:13.22
So because we're used to growing around that and we've been shaped by what we experienced, we tend to it's like a puzzle piece. We're looking for someone who fits that piece that is missing in our puzzle that we learn to grow around. That's probably an imperfect metaphor or visual, but I'm hoping that's starting to make sense. So to take it out of the abstract, if I am anxiously attached, if I am, I'll actually use myself as an example here. What did I learn?
0:08:13.40 → 0:08:28.58
I learned to be low maintenance, okay? I learned to be good. I learned not to cause a fuss. I learned to take care of other people really well. I learned to be very empathetic and attuned.
0:08:28.69 → 0:09:03.56
I learned to be a great peacekeeper or a peacemaker. I learned to be a mediator in conflict, right? These are all of the skills that I learned in my family system. And so with those being my skills, that being my puzzle piece, the puzzle piece of me, I am likely to gravitate towards someone who I can use those skills and strategies with. Someone who might have higher needs than me, someone who might need stabilising or in my perception, right?
0:09:03.61 → 0:09:43.58
Someone who I can take care of, someone who is higher maintenance or unavailable or whatever else. And I have to work hard to get their attention. I have to strive, I have to try and control the conditions of the environment in order to keep the ship afloat, all of these things, right? That is what I know, that is what I have been trained to do and that is what is familiar to me. So when we go out into the world as adults and we have these attachment wounds and the behaviours that grew from them, you can almost think of it as a seed.
0:09:43.69 → 0:10:39.32
And then all of the branches on the tree become our behaviours, our strategies that we know so well, that have become part of who and how we move around the world. We're looking for someone that fits in with that, that clicks in with that. And if we've got two anxiously attached people, then we've got two people who want to be the caretaker, two people who want to be the people pleaser, two people who are wanting to suppress their needs to take care of someone else's, two people who are hyper vigilant and on high alert and monitoring everything, right? Without much to monitor because the other person's doing the same and is suppressing their own stuff. So there just tends not to be this subconscious drive of like, oh, that's where I can make myself useful, that's where I can slot into that system and know my place in it.
0:10:39.77 → 0:11:27.83
So hopefully that's starting to give you a sense of why we tend not to gravitate towards someone with the same attachment style and pattern as us, because it doesn't tend to remind us of our initial blueprint of what love and connection looks and feels like. So with all of that being said, of course there will be circumstances where two anxiously attached people, or too avoidant leaning people, do end up in relationship with each other. But what tends to happen here and it comes back to this idea of we find our way to a balance point, right? It's unlikely that two people will stay at the same end of the spectrum when in relationship with each other because so much of this stuff is like call and response, right? It's so much of a dialogue, it's such a co created dynamic.
0:11:28.43 → 0:12:11.24
And so what tends to happen is that, say two anxiously attached people are in a relationship, one person will likely be more anxiously attached, right? One person will be more paranoid, one person will be more clingy to use that word. One person will be more invested, one person will be more stressed out by any sort of distance or uncertainty, one person will require more reassurance. And what that tends to elicit in the other person, who might, in other circumstances lean more anxious. They will typically, again, I'm speaking in very general terms here, because I'm not going to tell you this is what will exactly happen in your relationship.
0:12:11.69 → 0:12:48.09
What will typically happen is they will start to exhibit more avoidant behaviours, they'll start to push some of that away. When that anxious energy gets really extreme, they will start to pull back and they will start to withdraw. They'll start to become overwhelmed by the intensity of the other person's anxiety and so on and so forth. So it finds its way to what ends up looking something like an anxious avoidant dynamic, right? And again reminding ourselves that attachment styles aren't fixed, they really are responsive to relational dynamics and relational patterns.
0:12:48.14 → 0:13:37.54
So it's entirely possible, and indeed not unlikely that too anxious people or too avoidant people are in relationship that you will start to exhibit more of an anxious avoidant dynamic, particularly in times of distress or relational tension or whatever else you'll find your way to aversion an expression of that dynamic and that pattern, even though you might have previously, in other relationships, both been more inclined towards one end of the spectrum or the other. And the same goes. People often ask me could a secure person become anxious if they were in relationship with someone who was extremely avoidant? Or could a secure person become avoidant if they were in relationship with someone who was extremely anxious? And the answer is yes, absolutely.
0:13:39.11 → 0:14:34.61
Some behaviours extreme avoidance can create anxiety. Extreme inconsistency, extreme dishonesty or intermittent reinforcement can create anxiety in someone who is otherwise not really prone to anxious attachment. I think the only qualifier to that, and I'm going a little off topic, but just to clarify, is the difference with a secure person is they might be less inclined to get in those relationships in the first place, or to let them get to the point of that extreme where they're really suffering as a result. People who are really secure tend to be pretty good at advocating for themselves and setting boundaries and walking away from things that are unhealthy. But that doesn't change the fact that notionally, yes, you could be primarily secure and then notice yourself slipping into more insecure patterns one way or the other in response to someone's behaviour.
0:14:36.97 → 0:15:24.48
I hope that that has answered the question to recap. Basically yes, a relationship between two anxiously attached people could work under the right conditions and the right people, but it tends not to happen very much of the time that they are attracted to each other in the first place. And if they are and do end up in a relationship, they will oftentimes find their way to more of an anxious avoidant, yin yang, opposites attract dynamic, which tends to keep the relationship in balance a little more, rather than both people being at one end of the spectrum or the other over the long term. If you've enjoyed this episode and found that helpful, please do leave a five star rating or a review if you're listening on Apple podcasts. As I said, it really does help so much.
0:15:24.53 → 0:15:35.82
And thank you again for helping me reach over a million downloads. I'm so grateful for you and I look forward to seeing you next week. Thanks guys. Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment.
0:15:35.93 → 0:15:54.94
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.
"How to deal with an all-consuming fear that my partner will cheat on me?"
In today's Q&A episode, I'm answering the question of how to navigate an all-consuming fear & paranoia around a partner cheating - particularly in circumstances where that fear is seemingly unwarranted.
In today's Q&A episode, I'm answering the question of how to navigate an all-consuming fear & paranoia around a partner cheating - particularly in circumstances where that fear is seemingly unwarranted.
WHAT WE COVER:
the importance of nervous system regulation when we experience intense fear & paranoia
when to talk to a partner about our fears
the link between fear of cheating and low self-worth
a liberating truth about control in relationships
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Apply for my 6-month Homecoming Mastermind
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
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Episode Transcript
0:00:00.41 → 0:00:38.24
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. You hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. Today's Q and A episode is all about navigating paranoia about a partner cheating.
0:00:38.38 → 0:01:30.26
So the specific question that I'm answering is one that I got on Instagram and it was how do I navigate paranoia and all consuming fear of cheating, even when there's no warranted situation at hand? So if you are someone who really struggles with the fear of infidelity and all of the associated behaviours that can spring from that paranoia overthinking control. Playing detective, maybe snooping, struggling to trust your partner, really struggling with any sort of distance between you, because you tend to fill in the blanks and assume that the moment they're out of sight, they're going to be doing something in breach of the agreements of your relationship. All of these things can flow from that paranoia about a partner cheating. And so if that's something that you experience at the moment or you have in the past, you know that that's something you struggle with.
0:01:30.39 → 0:02:21.17
Today's episode should be really helpful for you in understanding that piece of you a little more. I think that for me to say that I can solve that for you in a 15 minutes episode would be misleading because there's usually a lot of stuff wrapped up in it. But I suppose the way I frame it is probably as you do the broader work of healing and becoming more secure in yourself, of building your self worth then your fear around things like infidelity and the paranoia and the need to control will probably organically soften because as we'll talk about that stuff usually springs from extremely low self worth and low self esteem and the associated fears that can come with that. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. Before I dive into that, a couple of quick announcements.
0:02:21.33 → 0:02:41.51
Today is the last day to join this round of healing anxious attachment. At the time of recording, we have just over 300 people who've signed up in the last couple of weeks. So it's really, really amazing. I'm so excited for all of those people who've already dived in. So when you sign up, you get instant access to the first module and then each module after that will be released weekly from your start date.
0:02:41.60 → 0:03:20.24
So it's an eight module course, an eight week course, although you do get lifetime access to all of the materials. You also get to come to two live Q and A calls with me. That might sound a little weird given I just told you there's 300 people who've signed up, but in the past we've not had more than 30ish people on a call. The reality is most people don't turn up live. So if it's anything like previous cohorts, which were of a similar size, you do still get access to me and have the opportunity to ask me a question and have me directly speak to your situation and give you some individual coaching within that group forum.
0:03:20.35 → 0:03:52.39
So, as I said, today is the last day to join. There is an extended payment plan so you can get started for as little as $97 on a six month payment plan. The link to that is in the show notes, and I probably won't be running the course until the latter half of the year. I haven't set a date for that yet, but if it's something that you've been considering, I do really encourage you to cheque it out and sign up because there is no time like the present to get started on this work. The second quick announcement is just to share the featured review, which is I really love this one.
0:03:52.54 → 0:04:08.74
Stephanie's teaching on attachment and relationships has settled deep in my heart. She brings a beautiful mix of knowledge, wisdom, experience, compassion and forthrightness that speaks the truth in a loving but firm manner. I highly recommend all of her podcasts. Thank you for that beautiful review. As I said, I really loved that one when I read it.
0:04:08.84 → 0:04:44.09
If that was your review, please send an email to podcast@stephaniereg.com and my team will set you up with free access to one of my master classes as a way to say thank you. Okay, so let's dive into this conversation around paranoia, jealousy, all consuming fear about a partner cheating. Now, you might recall that in the original question that someone asked, they said, it's an unwarranted fear. There's nothing currently happening that would justify this fear of mine. And I think that that's an important qualifier at the outset.
0:04:44.11 → 0:05:27.09
And I'm always minded to offer this caveat, because oftentimes I hear from people who really struggle with jealousy and they blame themselves for that. They say, what's wrong with me? I'm so paranoid, I'm so crazy, I'm so jealous. And then they tell me a little more about the situation, and my response is, well, of course you feel that way, because there are things going on there that would make anyone feel crazy and paranoid and jealous. So I think that that's an important footnote to this discussion at the outset is that when we're talking about paranoia, trust issues, jealousy, we want to make sure that we're not almost like gaslighting ourselves or making ourselves out.
0:05:27.13 → 0:06:01.59
To be the crazy one, the unhinged one, the unstable one, when there are things that are sort of patently not okay or would not be okay. For the vast majority of people in monogamous relationships or non monogamous relationships where there are clear boundaries that are being crossed. So that might be true in the current sense, but also if there has been previous infidelity within the relationship. Again, give yourself some grace because that's not something that's easy to just get over and draw a line under. The past is in the past, and I'm not going to have those feelings come up again.
0:06:01.68 → 0:06:39.18
That's a very normal and understandable way to respond to betrayal infidelity some sort of breach of trust. And even if that wasn't in the current relationship, if that has been in your past, then your body remembers that and your protective mechanisms, your protective parts, their whole job is to look out for similarities of things that happened in your past that were painful or frightening and try to protect you against that. So if there's anything that looks even vaguely similar to something that happened in the past, you're going to get the alarm bells ringing. That's how your system works. Okay?
0:06:39.55 → 0:07:25.33
So let's just be somewhat kind to ourselves around what we're bringing to relationships in terms of what might have happened in our past that would justify us feeling a certain way. With all of that being said, I think we can acknowledge and agree that there are circumstances where our reaction, our response doesn't match what's really happening. And that can feel extremely frustrating and scary and destabilising. And we can feel like we're almost possessed by this demonic part that is behaving in a way. It's almost like we can watch ourselves in slow motion and go, I'm being a bit crazy here, but I feel powerless to stop it because I'm so scared, I'm so panicked about this.
0:07:25.50 → 0:08:02.93
And so I think a really good starting point if you listened to the episode earlier in the week with Sarah Baldwin on Understanding your Nervous system, I think the more literacy you have around your nervous system, the better equipped you will be to navigate things like all consuming fear, paranoia. And what you'll probably notice is a very sympathetic response to that, meaning a lot of activation, energy mobilisation, I have to do something, right? This sense of probably being really flooded with energy, heat, tingling, I've got to do something. I've got to find information. I've got to call them.
0:08:02.97 → 0:08:50.53
I've got to cheque on them, I've got to stalk them, whatever I've got to do. But it's like your body is propelling you into action to try and deal with this perceived threat. The more that you can locate yourself and your current experience in the states of your nervous system, the better equipped you will be to regulate and then go, okay, what's really happening here? Can I put on my clear glasses and see this situation for what it is, rather than looking at everything that's going on through this lens of extreme fear and dysregulation? So in summary, whenever you notice this and this might be something that happens acutely, so in certain situations, you have sudden bouts of paranoia, or maybe it's something that's kind of chronic.
0:08:50.61 → 0:09:46.85
But either way, when you notice that coming up prioritising regulation in your body. So maybe that's going for a run, maybe that's calling a friend, whatever you need to do to bring your body back into a level of regulation that's going to be a really responsible, I would say, first step in managing these emotions. I think that there is definitely scope to talk to a partner about this right now, depending on the state of your relationship, depending on how your communication is, depending on your partner's capacity. But I don't think it's something that you have to internalise and feel shame about and feel really alone in that experience. So if it's totally unwarranted and your partner has never done anything to your knowledge to breach trust, then you can say to them, I know that this is going to sound crazy, and I really want you to understand.
0:09:46.97 → 0:10:33.39
That this is not an accusation and it's not something that I'm saying you've done wrong. But I'm having these thoughts and feelings, and it's causing me a lot of stress. Having that awareness for yourself, what stories am I telling myself and where is that coming from and what do I need in order to feel safe in this? Letting your partner into the experience a bit can be quite relieving, but we just want to make sure that we're not doing it in a way that is dumping it on them and then making it their responsibility to reassure us and convince us that everything is okay. Because if we become reliant on them to create that safety for us, we're going to need just regular doses of reassurance from them in order to feel safe.
0:10:33.44 → 0:11:12.60
And if you're really anxiously attached, which I assume the person who is asking this question is that will never be enough. No amount of reassurance from them will be enough because it's just not actually meeting the need, right. If anything, it's perpetuating the pattern of I'm only safe if you convince me that I'm safe, rather than being able to create that for myself. So as I alluded to at the start, I think the bigger picture work on this. If we think about regulating our nervous system and having a conversation with our partner around what we're feeling and what we might need from them, or things that might help relationally.
0:11:12.63 → 0:11:48.81
If those are the two shorter term practical points to help you with this, the bigger picture solution is going to be building up your self worth. Because fear about a partner cheating or jealousy about a partner's exes anything like this is just a symptom of really low self worth, right? We're convinced that the second we turn our back, our partner is going to go find someone better than us that they like more, that they're more attracted to, that they want more. And that is terrifying, right? But it is just a symptom of I think that I am unworthy.
0:11:48.89 → 0:12:14.05
I think that I am not good enough. I think that I have very little to offer. I'm not attractive enough, I'm not smart enough, I'm not funny enough, I'm not compelling enough as a partner and therefore I'm holding on to you by a thread. It feels like there's nothing substantive keeping you here and in relationship with me. I am convinced that you're going to leave me the first chance you get.
0:12:14.17 → 0:12:43.16
And so I'm extremely paranoid about you cheating on me. That is a low self worth story. That is a story that only takes root when we feel like we have nothing to offer, like we have no value to our partner. And while again there might be aspects of that that we can deal with relationally, the vast majority of that is your work. And that's not meant to lay blame on you.
0:12:43.18 → 0:13:14.60
It's meant to empower you to go wow, okay, this is an inside job, I've got some work to do. Where did I learn that I have to prove my worth and that I have to be perfect in order to be lovable and that I have to control someone and keep them so close because the second I let go, they're going to leave me. If I release my grip on them, they're going to run and find someone that they actually love. Where did I learn that? Where's that coming from in me?
0:13:14.73 → 0:13:43.55
What part of me needs comfort and reassurance and soothing that I can offer in order to change that story? And again, this is longer term work, right? This is the work of reprogramming our core wounds. But I think that I alluded to this last week in a different context on what to do when you're feeling stuck in your relationship. But the more that you can turn focus back onto yourself because paranoia about a partner cheating is so other focused, right?
0:13:43.59 → 0:14:12.08
That's a beautiful expression of the anxious attachment tendency to be obsessed with what our partner is doing and needing to control that in order to feel okay within ourselves. So the more that we can interrupt that expression of the pattern and instead go okay, what do I need? How can I stand on my own 2ft and be less hyper focused on what my partner is doing, right? And actually turn attention inward? And what do I need and what do I want to do?
0:14:12.12 → 0:14:47.52
And how can I make my life really full and rich and rewarding without that being tethered to the ups and downs of my relationship or whatever my partner might be doing or not doing? The last thing that I want to offer here. And this is a little bit more philosophical and for some people this will be very triggering, for others it will be very liberating. So just bear that in mind and if it doesn't work for you, leave it. The radical truth is that you cannot control your partner and if your partner wants to cheat on you, they will cheat on you.
0:14:47.59 → 0:15:34.00
Irrespective of whether you are on them like a hawk, they'll find a way. So put differently, no amount of control or manipulation or detective work or monitoring is going to be able to keep someone where they don't want to be. So in acknowledgment of that can we release the grip and trust? Right? Because we've either got a relationship that has no trust that is governed by control and monitoring and detective work and grip and clinging and fear and paranoia and all of these really heavy exhausting dynamics and even in that dynamic your partner could still cheat on you.
0:15:34.10 → 0:16:01.92
Your partner could leave you tomorrow, right? We can never control that. That's part of the intense vulnerability of relationships is that we cannot stop ourselves from getting hurt no matter how hard we try. So we could try, we could be on that hamster wheel of control and seeking to control and preempt and try and avoid the worst happening even though we ultimately can't. Or we could let go.
0:16:02.45 → 0:16:53.24
We could trust, we could create space, we could be with the discomfort of distance and uncertainty and not knowing and not being able to guarantee that your partner won't cheat on you because none of us can. And instead focus on building our self worth and building our resilience, building our capacity to experience discomfort and building the self trust of knowing that even if the worst happens, I will be okay. Because I have reallocated that energy that I was obsessing over what someone else is doing and instead directed that towards cultivating a stronger relationship with myself so that I learn to be my own anchor. I learn to be okay. And that is not to say that we're kind of tacitly or indirectly endorsing cheating or infidelity or mistrust or anything like that, right?
0:16:53.34 → 0:17:45.20
It's more to acknowledge that the control tactics don't actually work. If anything, they can probably sabotage a relationship by pushing someone away because none of us like to feel controlled, none of us like to feel like someone doesn't trust us. That really erodes emotional safety and intimacy. So put that way and of course easier said than done but that is part of the intense vulnerability of being in relationship and this work is wow, I don't own this person and I can't control what they're doing and I don't know what goes on in their head. So can I radically accept that and surrender into it rather than banging my head up against a wall and causing myself so much stress and tension and fear and anxiety in the process?
0:17:45.73 → 0:18:11.21
Okay, so I hope that that has given you something to think about. As I said, it's not one that I can give you a three step plan and then voila, it will be solved within a couple of days. It is really a symptom of the broader experience of anxious attachment of low self worth. It springs from that. It really does take root in that soil.
0:18:11.39 → 0:18:27.02
And that's okay, right? It's not something to shame ourselves about. It makes perfect sense. And you are so far from being alone in this experience. I've experienced this for sure, but I've also experienced the version where I've made peace with not being able to control someone.
0:18:27.07 → 0:19:11.24
And I can assure you that there's a lot of relief in that, even though it can feel vulnerable at times. So I hope that that's been helpful for the person who asked the question and anyone else listening, who struggles with paranoia, struggling to trust betrayal infidelity all of those fears, which are, as I said, very understandable and very common. If you've enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a five star rating or a written review. If you're listening on Apple podcasts, it really does help so much. And a final reminder that if you are someone who struggles with anxious attachment and you're ready to make a change, today is the last day to sign up for my Healing Anxious Attachment programme.
0:19:11.37 → 0:19:19.44
The link is in the show notes and I would love to see you there. Thank you so much for joining me, everybody, and I will see you again next week. Take care.
0:19:21.57 → 0:19:43.62
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.
"I'm feeling stuck in my relationship and don't know what to do."
In this Q&A episode, I'm speaking to the common conundrum of what to do when you're feeling stuck in your relationship. This often happens when we've been trying for some time to make changes (or hoping that our partner will make changes), but we're just not seeing any progress. I'll share an unexpected way that you can shift out of low self-worth and hopelessness, and into a more empowered, self-confident state that will allow you to navigate whatever is happening in your relationship with clarity & trust.
In this Q&A episode, I'm speaking to the common conundrum of what to do when you're feeling stuck in your relationship.
This often happens when we've been trying for some time to make changes (or hoping that our partner will make changes), but we're just not seeing any progress. I'll share an unexpected way that you can shift out of low self-worth and hopelessness, and into a more empowered, self-confident state that will allow you to navigate whatever is happening in your relationship with clarity & trust.
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Sign up for my signature 8-week course Healing Anxious Attachment
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
0:00:00.90 → 0:00:39.36
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. You hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. Today's episode is a Q and A episode and I'm going to be talking about what to do when you're feeling stuck in your relationship.
0:00:39.54 → 0:01:19.26
So this isn't in response to any one question, but it's in response to a lot of questions that are a variation on this theme that I get all the time from people. How do I know whether to keep trying in my relationship? What do I do if my partner is not interested in working through things? What are my options and how do I overcome this feeling of overwhelm and maybe even hopelessness? If you feel like there are issues in your relationship that are unresolved and you maybe feel like you're out of options, or you feel like you've tried lots of things, or you kind of just feel like you're banging.
0:01:19.29 → 0:01:53.68
Your head up against a brick wall trying to get something to change, trying to get your partner to be more engaged maybe your voice needs. But you're not getting any traction or any kind of lasting, sustained change in the right direction. What we can do. And of course, that's a complicated conversation and it's not one that I can give you in a 15 minutes episode. It's not that I can give you the solution for every situation, but this is going to be particularly geared towards anxiously attached people.
0:01:54.53 → 0:02:26.21
And it's going to offer you almost an invitation or a challenge for you that will allow you to at least take some action for yourself that feels fruitful and rewarding irrespective of what's going on in your relationship. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. Before I get into that, a couple of quick announcements. The first being that early bird enrollment for healing anxious attachment closes tomorrow. So that means you've got just over 24 hours to get in at the reduced price, which is $100 cheaper than the regular price.
0:02:26.30 → 0:03:08.67
I've also just added an extended payment plan which allows you to pay for the course over six months and means that you can get started right away for just $80, so hoping that that makes it accessible for as many people as possible. And as I said, the early bird pricing ends tomorrow, so in about 24 hours from when this goes live. So if you are interested in the programme, please do cheque it out via the link in the show notes or by going straight to my website. Stephanierig.com, I would love to have you in the programme. I think at last count, there's 210 or so people who've already signed up in the past few days, which is amazing.
0:03:08.76 → 0:03:31.38
So I'd love to have you in there. If you are someone who struggles with anxious attachment and you're looking to make some changes and get that support, you know where to find me. The second quick announcement is just to share the featured review, which is stephanie's podcast has been a true revelation for me. I've had so many AHA moments I've lost count. Stephanie delivers her knowledge and wisdom with such clarity, kindness and compassion.
0:03:31.49 → 0:03:41.28
Listening to her feels like a soft hug every time. I'm so grateful to have discovered her in this podcast. Thank you. Thank you for that beautiful review. I really appreciate it.
0:03:41.33 → 0:04:11.13
And I'm glad that you have the experience of feeling like you're getting a soft hug every time you listen. That's really nice to hear. If that was your review, please send an email to podcast@stephanierig.com and my team will set you up with free access to one of my master classes as a way to say thank you. Okay, so let's dive into this discussion around what to do when you're feeling stuck in your relationship. So, as I said in the intro, this can encompass so many different things, right?
0:04:11.17 → 0:04:50.06
The content of the stuckness could be a vast array of situations and dynamics. But the common thread here that we're looking for is a sense of feeling. Like you've tried, feeling like you've expressed yourself, like you've asked for things, like you've had these conversations maybe several times, and you're just not seeing any kind of momentum or shifts relationally between you and your partner and you're feeling overwhelmed by that. And maybe to the point of questioning, is this ever going to get better? What more can I do?
0:04:50.51 → 0:05:23.57
And if it doesn't get better, how long do I wait to find out? And should I think about potentially ending this relationship? So this is a big conversation. Obviously it's pretty loaded and it's pretty heavy sometimes to be toying with those thoughts and emotions. And while I can't offer you, as I said, the answer in any kind of prescriptive way, because obviously it's deeply personal and contextual, my invitation for you or my challenge for you, if you are in this situation, is this.
0:05:23.64 → 0:05:58.84
And as I said, this is mainly for anxiously attached people for the next period of time. So maybe one month or three months. Become so focused on yourself. Now, that might be counterintuitive if you are relationally in this sticky, yucky place. And it's taking up so much of your time and energy thinking about the relationship, thinking about your partner, what they're doing or not doing, and being so scrutinising of their every move and looking at it through this lens of, is this in the right direction?
0:05:58.90 → 0:06:12.99
Are you taking action on the things that I wanted? Or are you ignoring my needs or whatever? We get so judgmental when we're in that place. I don't mean judgmental. I sort of mean that descriptively, right?
0:06:13.03 → 0:06:51.55
We are applying a lens of scrutiny to whatever's going on in our relationship when the stakes feel really high and when we're feeling really stuck because we start to look at everything through this lens of should I stay or go? Is this going to get better? It really infuses the relationship with a lot of tension and pressure. The reason that I said this is mainly advice for an anxiously attached person is not because it's not good advice generally. But I think when we overlay anxious attachment onto that sticky place, the tendency for an anxiously attached person is to just be so focused on the relationship and on the other person to the exclusion of all else and certainly to the exclusion of your own relationship with yourself.
0:06:51.70 → 0:07:48.11
And when things are not good in the relationship, that tends to really drag down your energy and your self esteem and your self worth. And that makes it really hard to be in a position to make a decision about the relationship, about what needs to happen next from an empowered place, because we tend to have this tussle between I'm not sure what to do about my relationship, but at the same time, my self worth is just getting chipped away at day by day. And that leaves me feeling really scarce and afraid about the idea of the relationship not working out. And so I'm likely to be making decisions and even having conversations from this place of very low self worth and that's probably not going to be conducive to making an aligned decision, which is really what is best for us. So again, this is not with a view to needing to end the relationship, but I really believe that the greatest gift you can give yourself is go.
0:07:48.15 → 0:08:41.31
Okay, I'm going to pivot my attention away from what's happening out there because as I said, anxious attachment, we tend to be very other focused, very outer focused, spending so much time ruminating over what they're thinking and feeling and doing that we lose ourselves in the process. And I think that it can be incredibly empowering in this situation to go, you know what, this is going to be about me for the next period of time. I'm going to focus on my own joy and my own fullness and my own expressiveness for myself, not as some sort of ploy to get their attention, not to make them feel threatened, not to manipulate them into not taking you for granted. It's not about them and that's really, really important here. This is about you.
0:08:41.35 → 0:09:07.90
And that is actually like the revolutionary thing for an anxious person. You're going to do things for you that are just about you that don't relate to the other person. So what does this look like? You might prioritise yourself a lot more in terms of what you do in a day. If you live with your partner and you're used to orbiting around their routine and their preferences and the things they want to eat and the things they want to do.
0:09:08.35 → 0:09:27.04
Just let go of that for a bit and go what do I want? What do I want to do with my time? Can I do things differently for myself? Can I take myself out for a meal? Can I start just spending more time alone and prioritising myself and my self?
0:09:27.09 → 0:10:01.98
Nourishment. In a way that infuses a new energy not only into me but into the relationship that really is a byproduct of it. And I've said this before on the podcast, but the really wonderful thing about doing something like this, about devoting that time to yourself in a really committed, dedicated way, is not only do you build up that relationship with yourself in a way that's probably quite new to you and very empowering and pays dividends for your self worth. But it also allows you to feel like no matter what happens, I'll be okay. Right?
0:10:02.11 → 0:11:13.07
No matter what happens in my relationship, whether my partner is able to meet my needs or meet me halfway or make the changes that we've talked about or whatever it is, right? Whether that happens or not doesn't have to be a comment on me and my worth and I can really rest in the knowing that it's not about me and I don't need to make it about me and I can kind of feel comfortable that no matter what happens I'll be okay. Because I've started to cultivate this really beautiful relationship with myself in a way that allows me to feel like I'll be okay because I'm creating a rich life that doesn't just orbit around my partner and my relationship. And I think that when we are in that pattern of orbiting around our partner and our relationship, the idea of that being taken away is incredibly destabilising and makes us feel like we'd just be spinning around in space, very lost and afraid. So the more that you can come back to your own centre of gravity and make your life more about you, that's going to be a very very powerful shift for you that you'd be surprised will likely have knock on effects for your relationship.
0:11:13.19 → 0:11:59.76
Although again, to emphasise you're not doing it for that purpose, you are doing it for you first and foremost. But I think the ripple effect of that in shifting relational stuckness can be really profound and even if it doesn't, you will be in such a better position to do whatever you need to do next from this place of greater selfhood, greater self knowing, greater self awareness, greater self esteem, all of those good things. The more you build up that sense of self and relationship with yourself, the better off you will be. So that may not be what you expected by way of advice when you started listening to what to do when you're feeling stuck in your relationship. Because as I said, the default thing as an anxious person is, how can I make them change?
0:11:59.89 → 0:12:26.34
Right? Oh, I'm feeling stuck because of all these things they're doing or not doing. How can I control them, essentially? How can I influence them to do what I want them to do so that I don't feel like this anymore? But as I said to someone the other day who asked me a version of this question, for me to give you that advice is just to reinforce the pattern that's to reinforce the old way that we're trying to shake, which is, I need to change them in order to feel safe.
0:12:26.40 → 0:12:56.13
I need to be in control of who they are and how they are. And that needs to look like what I want it to look like, because otherwise I feel out of control, and out of control feels unsafe. But that's not sustainable. That's not a sustainable or healthy way to be in relationship. And so the better way is, can I build up my own sense of self and trust that from that place I'll be much better able to navigate a relational dynamic that is balanced, that is reciprocal, and that is empowered.
0:12:56.47 → 0:13:27.88
So I hope that that has given you some food for thought, and if you're in that place that maybe you can set yourself this challenge of, okay, for the next month, I'm going to go all in on myself. I'm going to be so devoted to me and my life and making that very beautiful and rich and full in a way that isn't contingent upon what my relationship is doing. And even if it's just a month, just do it as a little experiment with yourself and see what happens. See what shifts within you. See what becomes possible from that place.
0:13:28.06 → 0:13:46.14
I'd love to hear from you. If you do do that and you notice anything, feel free to reach out to me and let me know. If you've enjoyed this episode, please do leave a five star rating if you're on Spotify or a written review if you're on Apple podcasts. It really does help so much. And as I said, healing, anxious attachment.
0:13:46.28 → 0:14:00.44
24 ish hours to go until early bird ends. So if you've been on the fence, now is a really good time to hop off the fence and hop inside. I'd love to see you there. Otherwise, I look forward to seeing you on the show next week. Thanks, guys.
0:14:02.09 → 0:14:24.14
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.
5 Reasons You're Not Getting Your Needs Met (& What to Do About It)
In this episode, we're talking all about needs - specifically, looking at some common reasons why you're not getting your needs met in a relationship. It's easy to feel defeated and hurt when our needs are going unmet, but oftentimes there's far more that's within our control than we might think.
In this episode, we're talking all about needs - specifically, looking at some common reasons why you're not getting your needs met in a relationship.
It's easy to feel defeated and hurt when our needs are going unmet, but oftentimes there's far more that's within our control than we might think.
WHAT WE COVER:
the importance of identifying your needs
how to communicate your needs to your partner
mindset blocks around receiving and how these stops you from getting what you need
what to do if your partner can't or won't meet you in your needs
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Sign up for my signature 8-week course Healing Anxious Attachment
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
0:00:00.90 → 0:00:31.41
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.
0:00:31.57 → 0:00:56.33
Today's episode is all about needs, specifically five reasons that you're not getting your needs met and what to do about it or how to fix it. So we're going to be talking about some of the common blocks to getting our needs met, particularly in the context where we might be telling ourselves a story that our partner just doesn't care about us. They're not meeting our needs. Maybe we're incompatible. Maybe they're not interested in meeting our needs.
0:00:56.45 → 0:01:41.48
We can't ask them or there's no point. All of these stories that we can get really stuck in. And a lot of the time I find that those stories are happening behind the scenes and maybe we're not taking the steps we need to in our relationships in terms of putting ourselves out there, asking in a way that is supportive of us actually getting our needs met and conducive to us getting our needs met. So getting clear around what some of the blocks and the impediments to that might be. And I'm going to sort of step through them almost in like a ladder, so entry level, identifying your needs and then we'll kind of go from there and it almost becomes like a five step plan for getting those needs met as you go along in your relationship.
0:01:41.61 → 0:02:19.04
So we'll be starting at the first and perhaps most obvious reason that you might not be getting your needs met, which is that you don't know what they are. And then we'll be going a little bit deeper and more nuanced from there. So I do want to say at the outset that for the people who are going to say, oh, you're blaming me that my needs aren't getting met when really it's my partner's fault, that's not my intention at all. I mean, today or ever in my work is to lay blame on anyone. But as you know, if you are familiar with my approach, I think that the most helpful thing we can do is look honestly at our contribution and try to take responsibility and really control what we can control.
0:02:19.11 → 0:03:12.73
And when it comes to getting needs met, what we can control is knowing really well what our needs are, communicating them effectively, and all of the stuff that happens on our side. And it's really only once we've taken it as far as we can personally that we need to look at the other person's capacity, willingness, our compatibility, all of those things. So I think that the most supportive thing that you can do and the thing that really allows you to make peace with whatever is going on in your relationship, even if that ultimately means that there's an incompatibility or an unwillingness, it's much easier to make peace with that and let it go if that's what needs to happen. If you know that you really have done your best and taken it as far as you can. And so today we'll be focusing more on what you can do within yourself, the things that are within your control, and then going from there.
0:03:12.80 → 0:03:46.16
We will touch on what to do if there is a fundamental incompatibility or your partner is not willing to meet you in your needs. But that really is at the very end of the line. We don't want to be putting that first because I think oftentimes we can fall into this pattern of shifting blame and responsibility away from ourselves when it comes to needs. And I think that that can be really fed into by a lot of the content that we all see on social media around. You have to find someone who meets your needs, meet your needs, or that person can't meet your needs.
0:03:46.29 → 0:04:13.70
And I think it's important that we're talking about it, but we also want to be talking about it with a level of nuance. Because I think what can get forgotten in all of that poppy kind of discussion of this is that your partner has needs as well. And they are not a need meeting machine, nor are you. And there's much more negotiation that needs to happen there rather than just demanding that someone meet your needs. And if they can't, that means that they're bad and you need to leave them.
0:04:13.80 → 0:04:42.49
I don't think that that's a very emotionally mature or effective way to be in relationship. So that was a very long introduction to say we're going to be covering all of those things and more in today's episode. Before we dive into that, a couple of quick announcements. I am very delighted to share that Doors opened yesterday for early bird registration for Healing Anxious Attachment. The first 24 hours since doors opened, we've had 135 people, I believe, sign up, which is absolutely incredible.
0:04:42.67 → 0:05:21.66
I'm so excited for those people and I'm so excited to welcome more people over the next week or so while registrations open for this program, of which I'm so proud. So if you are someone who struggles with anxious attachment and you're wanting to do something about it and you're wanting some support in that process, I really, really encourage you to check out Healing Anxious Attachment. It's an eight week course. It's very comprehensive and really gives you everything that you need, distills down everything that I know and teach and have taken so many other people through and it really does work. So if you're interested, the link is in the show notes to check that out and sign up.
0:05:21.68→ 0:05:39.97
I would love to see you in there. The second quick announcement is just to share the featured review, which is I feel like Stephanie somehow knows me better than I know myself. I'm amazed at how relatable everything she says is. I cannot get enough of this podcast. It's helping me navigate my relationships in ways I never thought to before, and it's helping me to understand myself better.
0:05:40.01 → 0:06:04.81
I'm recommending this to everyone. Thank you so much for that beautiful review. I'm so glad to hear that. I think that when you have that response of feeling like I know you better than you know yourself, really, it's just because I've had really similar experiences and I've worked with so many other people who've had those experiences too. So I think it is a nice feeling of knowing that we're not alone in that, and that is a really powerful part of the healing process.
0:06:04.93 → 0:06:35.59
So thank you for your review and your support. If that was your review, please send an email to podcast@stephanierigg.com and my team will set you up with free access to one of my master classes as a way to say thank you. Okay, so let's dive into this conversation around five reasons you're not getting your needs met and how to fix it. So the first reason is you don't know what your needs are. Now, I think that this is surprisingly common, or maybe not surprisingly common, but it is frighteningly common that we actually don't know what our needs are.
0:06:35.71 → 0:07:19.15
I think this is particularly true for people who are more anxiously attached, perhaps also fearful avoidant. There's just such a pattern of suppressing ourselves. We're so outer focused, so other focused, that the extent of our self awareness around our needs tends to be, I need to be connected to my partner and I need to make sure that everything's okay, and then I will be fine. Beyond that, I don't really know because that takes up so much of my field of vision and so much of my mental and emotional energy tending to that, making sure the connection is okay. And in this state of hyper vigilance around it, that I don't have bandwidth to consider anything else.
0:07:19.32 → 0:07:39.19
And I really do feel as though as long as we're okay, you're happy with me, we're spending time together, everything seems fine on that front. That's all I need, right? Unfortunately, that's not true. So as much as we might feel that way, that's actually not true. We do have needs beyond the need for connection.
0:07:39.24 → 0:08:15.57
It's just that when we're feeling insecure, that need for connection is so paramount and all encompassing that it kind of drowns out everything else. And when we've lived in that state for a very long time, the drowning out of everything else can get to a point where we really are quite disconnected from our other needs. So whenever I'm teaching about needs, the first step is always, can I get some clarity around what my needs are? Particularly if you are someone who has tended towards chronic over giving, chronic self sacrifice, chronic people pleasing to very extreme degrees. That is going to be the start of your work.
0:08:15.66 → 0:08:52.56
What are my needs? And you may have heard me talk about this before, a really nice neat shortcut to what are my needs? Is working back from what are the things that I complain about. So if I feel really triggered or agitated by you sitting on your phone while we're talking to each other, maybe I need and value presence, quality, time. If I feel resentful that I'm always doing things and I carry all of the mental load, maybe my need is around support and a sense of balance in the relationship.
0:08:52.74 → 0:09:53.83
So you can see how when we look at those things we can work our way back from it. What I'd layer on to that is that if you are more anxiously attached, there's a good chance that all of the examples that are going to come up to you can kind of trace back to some form of connection need. And so while that's still useful information, useful feedback, we do want to step outside of that and make sure that we are fleshing ourselves out as a full person with needs beyond just the relationship and really trying to figure out what our needs are outside of just that connection need. So that might be a need for a sense of purpose or a need for novelty and excitement and adventure, a need for challenge, a need for personal growth, a need for independence. I think that's one that is a really powerful growth edge for anxiously attached people because it's really easy to think that we don't need independence and we don't need time and space to ourselves.
0:09:53.99 → 0:10:39.33
But I think once you start to grow into that edge of spending more time figuring out who you are and doing that separate from a relationship, you come to realize that that is a need that you have. Maybe not to the degree of an avoidant person, but nevertheless we all have that need to have a carved out sense of self and it's incredibly nourishing to explore that space. So try to play around with that, sit with the question what are my needs? And can those needs not just be about getting some sort of reassurance or connection from a partner? Because when we distill all of our needs down to that, that's actually playing into the pattern rather than shifting away from it, right?
0:10:39.45 → 0:11:15.72
If all of the needs are just about the other person and needing to control them so that we feel safe in the relationship, then that's a good sign that we're actually repeating the pattern rather than shifting it. So the next reason you might not be getting your needs met is you do know what they are, but you aren't actually voicing them. So maybe you've gotten past that first step of just being totally disconnected from your needs and you do have a sense of what your needs are, but you're suppressing them for whatever reason. Now again, this is pretty common among those with some level of anxiety in their attachment pattern. So both anxious attachment and fearful avoidant attachment.
0:11:15.83 → 0:12:13.29
There tends to be this feeling that it isn't safe to express needs, that it isn't safe to ask for things, that it isn't safe to take up that space. On the anxious side that tends to be fueled by a fear of abandonment, a fear of being too much, a deep belief that we aren't lovable or worthy at our core. And so we have to try and be easy and low maintenance in order to not push someone away. Because if we are anything other than easy, if we're difficult, if we ask for something, then that's going to tip the scales in favor of this isn't worth it for me, for the other person and we're going to lose them. So what we have to do is abandon our own needs and tend to theirs in order to maintain the balance of the relationship, in order to maintain the status quo, in order to maintain that connection.
0:12:13.47 → 0:13:24.24
Now hopefully it is obvious to people listening that that's not a very sustainable strategy. I put out an instagram post a couple of days ago saying often it's our efforts at feigning low maintenance that ultimately drive us to behave in high maintenance ways. So the longer you try and suppress that and pretend not to have needs, then the more likely it is that those needs are going to climb up to the surface, scramble up to the surface and jump up and down and become very loud in a way that is not healthy. So that might come up as complaining, as accusing, as blaming, as nitpicking, as passive aggressiveness, all of these ways that the needs eventually spill out but they do so in really destructive and unhealthy ways that actually do push someone away. Thereby reinforcing the belief that it's not safe to have needs when really the problem was not that it wasn't safe to have needs, but that we tried so hard not to, that we actually self sabotage, so to speak, because the needs came out eventually but just in really unhealthy and shadowy ways.
0:13:24.85 → 0:14:03.00
So the solution there is not get better at suppressing my needs. The solution is, can I communicate those needs proactively safely, reasonably, rather than trying not to have them and then having this pendulum swing to really aggressive, high maintenance, panicked behaviors once we're at such a state of insecurity and stress and distress in our relationship that we actually just can't hold it in any longer. Because I think we all know that's not a very good strategy. It doesn't work, it doesn't get your needs met and it doesn't help you to build a healthy relationship. Okay?
0:14:03.05 → 0:14:17.72
So the next reason that you might not be getting your needs met is perhaps you are voicing them. Which is great, right? I don't want to discount this. I don't want to suggest that everything you try is still not enough and imperfect, and that's why it's your fault. That's really not the sentiment behind this.
0:14:17.82 → 0:15:14.60
As I said at the start, it's just trying to point out blind spots so that we don't become overwhelmed and exasperated and feel like the other person doesn't want to meet our needs. So sometimes, and I know I've been guilty of this and I see it all the time, we finally muster up the courage to voice a need, but we do it in quite a general way because that tends to be less vulnerable. So we might say something like, I want more quality time, or It's really important to me to feel connected to you, and I need you to prioritize that, or I need you to make me more of a priority. I need you to not work so much all of these things. And because we've had a lot of anxiety around voicing the need, we might not be articulating it in a way that makes it easy to receive for the other person and that actually provides the action or the solution that would help us to feel like the need was getting met.
0:15:14.67 → 0:15:40.32
So we might present the need more as a problem, rather than offering up kind of the action item with a level of specificity that really spells out to the other person, here's what I need from you, or Here is my request. Would you be open to doing that? This is an area where nonviolent communication, if that's a framework that you're familiar with, great. Lean on that. If it's not, definitely look it up.
0:15:40.34 → 0:16:11.55
There's a huge amount of online resources about it. But essentially here, rather than saying something like, I want you to put in more effort, which is totally valid, right? It's valid to desire that, but just don't assume that more effort means the same thing to you as it does to them, okay? Because oftentimes we have really, really different ideas of what that means. And again, it can feel like then we've asked for the need, and we've done this brave thing, and the other person isn't delivering on it.
0:16:11.59 → 0:16:48.26
And so we go, oh, they don't care, or they're not listening, or they don't respect me, or they're not invested in this when really they're trying, but just their efforts being directed in the wrong place or the wrong kind of action because you maybe weren't specific enough around what in particular would help you to feel that effort. What does effort mean to you? So to take this out of the abstract and give you an example, which I think would be a pretty common one, is I want more quality time with my partner. And so I say, I want more quality time, but to me, quality time means phones away. We're really connected.
0:16:48.29 → 0:17:01.01
We're paying attention to each other. We're talking in an engaged way, having meaningful conversation. It's not just boring, everyday, mundane, practical stuff. It feels really connective. That's what quality time means to me.
0:17:01.16 → 0:17:17.95
Maybe for my partner, quality time just means we're in each other's company. And so when I say I need more quality time from you, he might go, what do you mean? We spend so much time together. We eat every meal together and we watch TV together after dinner. How do you possibly want more quality time?
0:17:18.04 → 0:17:39.91
We spend so much time together. What are you talking about? Or even if we don't spend time together, he might go, oh, okay, she wants more quality time, and make an effort to spend more time in my company. But that to me might actually be more triggering because we're just sitting on the couch together on our phones. And that to me is reinforcing that we're not spending quality time together, whereas my partner thinks that that's exactly what we're doing.
0:17:40.00 → 0:18:27.91
So that for me is amplifying my internal distress and all of my stories around my needs not getting met, when really my partner is trying to do what he thinks I need. So if I had have been clearer at the outset saying, I'd really love for us to spend more quality time together without our phones, maybe we could have one night a week where we play a board game instead of watching TV. Or maybe my idea of quality time is that we go for a hike on a weekend or do some sort of activity, whatever it is, but get specific and do not assume that your partner knows what that thing means to you. Because it's one of those things that two reasonable people might have very different understandings. And it's not that one person's right or wrong, it is just open to interpretation.
0:18:28.04 → 0:19:03.22
And that means open to misunderstanding. So try and eliminate the likelihood of misunderstanding or at least reduce that likelihood by being very clear in your communication of what would help you to feel like that need was being met. Even though it might seem a little bit perfunctory or unromantic to have to spell out specifically, I would like it if you would organize for us to go out to dinner. That might be what effort looks like to you. That's the kind of thing that would make you feel like your partner is putting in effort that might not ever cross their mind.
0:19:03.27 → 0:19:18.62
And that doesn't mean that they don't love you and that doesn't mean that they're wrong or bad. It just means you had different ideas of what a thing meant. So so spell it out. And again, that might require you to go back to step one and go, what does this actually mean for me? What does effort mean?
0:19:18.67 → 0:20:05.04
What does connection mean? So getting really clear around that and then taking that additional brave step of articulating the request that goes alongside the need. Okay, so the next reason you might not be getting your needs met, and this is very much one for my anxious attaches, is you keep raising the bar and always feeling like it's not enough. So this is getting into some deeper emotional stuff. We've had some really beautiful conversations in my Homecoming Mastermind about this in the past few weeks is we can have this story that as much as we talk about wanting to get our needs met, there is often a part of us that doesn't feel like it counts or like it's enough if we've had to ask.
0:20:05.57 → 0:20:57.84
So, for example, I might ask my partner for more affection and really desperately want that, and that feels so important to me in order to feel loved and chosen and wanted. And then my partner goes, okay, she wants more affection and so later that day gives me an unsolicited hug or a kiss, but my anxious brain might go, he's only doing that because you ask it's not because he wants to. So your need to feel chosen and wanted isn't actually getting met because that action, which on the surface seems to be responding to the request, actually originated with me asking for it rather than them offering it or wanting it. And therefore it doesn't count. So that's a really common thing that our brain will do.
0:20:58.21 → 0:21:12.27
And it's amazing, right? And it's hard, right? Because on the one hand, I get it, I relate to it. We do want to feel chosen. We don't want to feel like our partner is duty bound to be loving towards us.
0:21:12.31 → 0:21:46.07
That that's not coming from a spontaneous expression of love on their part. And at the same time, I think we have to get really honest with ourselves around how hard we are making it for someone to meet us in our needs and desires. And I think a big piece of this that sits on your side, if this is something you can relate to, is difficulty receiving. So we have this sense of I can only receive if it's unsolicited because then I feel worthy of it because you wanted to do it. It's for you.
0:21:46.24 → 0:22:06.83
Right? I actually end up making the giving about you. If you've given me a gift or you've gone out of your way to do something for me and I didn't have to ask for it, then it feels valid. And I feel loved and chosen because I don't feel burdensome to you. Whereas as soon as I've asked for it, I feel like a burden, then I can't receive it and I push it away.
0:22:06.95 → 0:22:34.47
So again, there's a lot to this and there's probably a longer episode just in this one point. But in summary, I think the thing to reflect on here is am I taking an action which is my partner doing the thing I've asked for because they want to meet my needs? Right? It is important to them to meet my needs. That is a gift that they are giving me because they want me to feel loved.
0:22:34.60 → 0:23:12.04
And I'm somehow twisting that to mean it doesn't count. I am pushing away your loving act because I have decided it's invalid because I had to ask for it. Can you see how hard we're making it for ourselves and for our partners when we keep raising the bar like that and moving the goalposts? Not only does that not meet our own need and push away the thing that we're desiring, but it leaves our partner feeling confused and demoralized and like nothing they do is good enough and that is incredibly demotivating for them to continue trying. Right?
0:23:12.17 → 0:23:58.99
So if that's something you relate to, really reflect on it. Can I spend some time looking at my relationship to receiving? Can I find a way to trust that my partner wants to meet my needs and that that is something that they desire and the fact that I've had to guide them and steer them towards what that looks like doesn't have to invalidate the act and the love behind the act. Okay, so the last reason that you might not be getting your needs met and as I said at the start, it's kind of a ladder. And this final rung that I've very deliberately left to last is maybe your partner is unwilling and or unable to meet your needs.
0:23:59.16 → 0:24:25.41
Okay, so I've left this to last because we do want that to be the last resort. We do want to know that we've taken it as far as we can on our own and then it really is okay. Have I clearly identified the need? Have I expressed the need in a healthy, regulated way? Have I been specific about what that looks like and what would help me to feel like my need was met?
0:24:25.60 → 0:24:56.50
Have I done any work that I need to do? Mindset, emotional stuff around my ability to receive? And if I feel really comfortable with all of those things and my needs are still not getting met, then maybe there is something to look at in the other person's willingness or capacity. So that doesn't mean if you get to this point, it doesn't mean that you have to break up. As I said at the start, I think that we do tend to be a bit all or nothing and black and white about this stuff when the reality is your partner might not be able to meet all of your needs.
0:24:56.55 → 0:25:33.44
In fact, they won't be able to meet all of your needs and definitely not all the time. So it doesn't have to be a deal breaker. But if there is a need or a few needs that are core needs of yours that are non negotiable and that do sit inside the relationship arena and your partner has consistently shown disinterest or has kind of actively pushed back has said I'm not going to do that. Or you're asking too much, or you're needy, or whatever else, then that may be the point at which we go, okay, this isn't working. Right?
0:25:33.54 → 0:26:40.26
So we either need to make peace with not getting that need met in the relationship, depending on how important it is to you, or, as I said, if it's a non negotiable, if it's something that is really foundational to you feeling safe and secure in a relationship, and that's not a need that you can get met elsewhere, either by yourself or through other people, then that might be time to reflect on whether the relationship is going to work. So I hope that that's been helpful in fleshing out this conversation around needs, in pointing out some of our blind spots, some of the ways in which we might be contributing to our needs not being met. And hopefully given you some really clear steps both practically and from a more emotional mindset work kind of perspective on what you might be able to do, what steps you can take to get to know your needs better and really increase the chances of those being met in relationship. If you've enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful, as always, if you could leave a five star rating if you're on Spotify, a written review, if you're on
0:26:40.28 → 0:26:51.58
Apple podcast, hugely helpful. And if you are interested in Healing Anxious Attachment, a reminder that the early bird enrollment is open for another couple of days and that allows you to save $100 on the sign up price.
0:26:51.63 → 0:27:00.98
So definitely check that out in the show notes if you're interested. Otherwise, I look forward to seeing you later in the week for our Q and A episode. Thanks so much, everybody. Take care.
0:27:03.11 → 0:27:25.64
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 @stephanierigg 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.
From Anxious to Secure: 6 Shifts You'll Notice As You Heal
In anticipation of the upcoming launch of my signature program Healing Anxious Attachment, today's episode is all about what changes you can expect as you heal your anxious attachment. I'll be sharing 6 shifts that you'll notice as you do the healing work and become more secure within yourself and in your relationships.
In anticipation of the upcoming launch of my signature program Healing Anxious Attachment, today's episode is all about what changes you can expect as you heal your anxious attachment.
I'll be sharing 6 shifts that you'll notice as you do the healing work and become more secure within yourself and in your relationships.
WHAT WE COVER:
learning to observe your anxious thoughts rather than be ruled by them
not feeling the urgent need to fix and problem-solve your relationship
trusting that conflict isn't a matter of life or death
building your self-worth
learning to enjoy your own company
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Sign up for my signature 8-week course Healing Anxious Attachment
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
0:00:00.90 → 0:00:36.67
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. Today's episode is titled from Anxious to Secure Six Shifts.
0:00:36.72 → 0:01:15.85
You'll notice as you heal. So, as the title suggests, we're going to be talking about what that journey looks like as you start to heal your anxious attachment style and develop a more secure way of being in relationships. So what I'm going to share with you today is drawn not only from my personal experience of shifts I've noticed within myself and in my relationship as I have worked on my own anxious attachment over the years, but also the shifts that I consistently notice in the many, many hundreds of people that I've worked with in healing their anxious attachment. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. Before I dive into that, a couple of quick announcements.
0:01:15.98 → 0:01:56.62
In keeping with the theme of today's episode, you will have heard me speaking about my signature programme, Healing Anxious Attachment, which is reopening for early bird enrollment in less than one week. For those of you already on the waitlist and I think there's almost 1200, which is amazing, you are all taken care of and you will get an email when doors open next week. If you aren't on the waitlist, but you're interested in the Healing Anxious Attachment programme, definitely join the waitlist. You can do so via the link in the show notes and that will ensure that you get first access next week as soon as doors open, and will also entitle you to save $100 on the course price. So definitely join the waitlist if you're at all interested.
0:01:56.75 → 0:02:24.10
And as I said, the link is in the show notes or you can go straight to my website, stephanierig.com and that should all be relatively straightforward and easy to find. The second quick announcement is just to share the featured review, which is this is the only podcast that I've listened to every single episode and have been able to relate to. I'm fearful avoidant attachment and lean anxious. This has made it extremely hard to maintain relationships. Stephanie's knowledge has taught me so many things about myself and I'm thankful every day that I found this podcast.
0:02:24.24 → 0:02:48.19
Thank you, Stephanie. There are no words that can express the gratitude I have for you and your work. Thank you so much for that beautiful review. Brought a big smile to my face and I'm so glad that you found my work and that you are getting so much out of it. If that was your review, please send an email to podcast@stephanierigg.com and my team will set you up with free access to one of my Master classes as a way to say thank you.
0:02:48.31 → 0:03:13.88
Okay, so let's dive into these six shifts that you'll notice as you heal your anxious attachment style. And I should say at the outset, a couple of things. This is far from an exhaustive list. As I was writing it. You might notice that usually I have five tips or five signs or five something, and I had to keep going and I thought of a 6th one and then I started thinking of 7th and 8th ones and then I had to just hold myself back.
0:03:14.01 → 0:03:43.63
In the interests of brevity for the podcast. So this is not an exhaustive list. These are just six of many shifts that you'll notice as you heal your anxious attachment style. The other quick thing I should say at the outset, and this is particularly for people who might be new to the podcast, new to my work, or even new to attachment theory, a really important and foundational thing about all of this work, which makes it so powerful, is that healing is possible for everyone. I always get asked, is it really possible?
0:03:43.75 → 0:04:15.58
Is that really something that is achievable for people to not be anxious anymore, to become secure? And the way that I always answer that is, yes, it is possible for everyone to become more secure in their attachment. That doesn't mean that you'll never be anxious again. It's something that I still come up against from time to time, but it's no longer my whole experience, it's no longer my story, it's no longer something that I'm at the mercy of. So it really is something that you can unlearn and you can learn a new way of being.
0:04:15.63 → 0:04:56.39
And that is why I'm such a big advocate of this work and I really do believe in its efficacy. Okay, so let's dive into these six shifts that you'll notice as you heal your anxious attachment style. The first one is you're able to distance yourself from your anxious thoughts and stories in real time. So you're able to shift into more of a witnessing role and really observe your thoughts and stories in real time rather than experiencing them in this all consuming way. In this way that feels very true and then creates so much anxiety and stress in your system and spins you out of control.
0:04:56.59 → 0:05:29.43
So, again, this is true for not only anxious attachment. I think generally, as we do any kind of healing work, and certainly a lot of meditation and other spiritual practises are predicated on cultivating this skill of being able to witness ourselves in real time. And I think it certainly is, particularly for the anxious mind, the anxious system. It is a really powerful shift that you will notice because once you can stop yourself and go, wait a second, what am I making this mean? Is that necessarily true?
0:05:29.50 → 0:06:18.37
Do I have all the information? What are my choices in this moment? Do I need to spin out and start frantically trying to fix things or get back in control or get information or connect with someone or do whatever other fear driven thing my body would have me do. I can kind of interrupt the process much earlier and kind of coach myself out of it in a way that when you're at the earliest stages of your journey with anxious attachment, that can feel really out of reach, that ability to distance ourselves from the fear and the anxiety and shift into more of an observer role and really decide that, no, I'm going to act from a more grounded place. I'm going to look at this situation with a bird's eye view and I'm going to assess what's really happening.
0:06:18.49 → 0:07:19.96
I'm going to ask myself what I need and then I'm going to decide on the other side of that space and that process of self inquiry and that alone. Honestly, if that was the only shift you made, you'd be in such a better position than before you made that shift. Because it really is very powerful and transformative, not only for your relationships, in that it prevents you from lashing out or engaging in other activating strategies or protest behaviours that can be harmful to your relationship, but it's actually just so powerful for you in your own ability to calm yourself and your own ability to create safety for yourself and support yourself in those moments. Because again, before you go through the process of healing and when you don't have that tool, you can feel not only really stressed, panicky, afraid, but really alone, because you are not able to provide that safety for yourself. And so you feel terrified because it's like being a frightened child and no one's there to help you.
0:07:20.01 → 0:08:04.98
So that is the first shift that you'll notice as you heal. You're able to shift into that observer role and remain grounded. Even when anxiety is present, even when those fear stories come up, you're not at the mercy of them. Okay, the next shift that I've noticed, this is a big one, that I've really noticed in my relationship is I don't feel such a sense of urgency in terms of fixing and addressing everything. So if there is something that's bothering me, if something's happened, if my partner said something or done something, or not said something, or not done something, whatever it might be that stirred up some sort of an emotional response in me, I trust that we will address it at an appropriate time.
0:08:05.11 → 0:08:59.43
So, by contrast, before I had done a lot of this work and I'm sure a lot of people listening will relate to this, there's this sense of urgency around. We have to address everything now because it's not safe for there to be any sort of tension or disconnection or any other thing that could feel threatening to the relationship. And your fear will always tell you that everything is urgent and global and important and make or break, right? So as you start to heal, you trust in the relationship enough and in the connection you have with your partner that you don't need to kind of storm into the space of the relationship with this long list of here are all of the things that are wrong, and we need to fix them right now. Because I can't tolerate anything less than perfection in our relationship, in our connection.
0:08:59.51 → 0:09:27.58
And relatedly to this one, I would say your tendency to keep raising the bar all the time softens a bit. So this is something that anxiously attached people are notorious for this sense of okay, we need to do this thing in order for the relationship to be okay, we need to make this change or we need to fix that problem. And then as soon as that thing does get addressed, it's not enough. We need more. We move the carrot keeps dangling, we keep moving the goalposts all the time.
0:09:27.76 → 0:10:23.80
And the reason for that is often because we can't ever feel reassured. Because the thing that we're saying we need in order to be okay is not really the thing that we need. It goes so much deeper than that surface level thing that might be triggering us and so it will never feel like enough. Our ability to receive that reassurance is really impeded by the fact that we're not addressing the root cause of the problem there. So I think as you start to heal and as you start to reprogram some of these old patterns, you'll really notice that not only you don't have this urgent need to fix everything in terms of you can let things digest and settle and trust that when the time comes, you'll have a conversation, you'll work through it and you don't have such a strong bias towards everything that is wrong and feel this need to once one thing's.
0:10:23.83 → 0:11:02.14
Addressed. It's almost playing whack a mole with all of the things that are wrong in your relationship rather than just resting in a feeling of peace and contentedness. Okay, so the next one is that when there is a rupture, so if you do have a fight, if there is conflict in your relationship, it doesn't feel like life or death. Okay? So again, by contrast, I think for people who are in the thick of anxious attachment and again, this was certainly me, conflict feels really, really scary because for most of us, we have this sense of feeling like we're only ever one fight away from breaking up.
0:11:02.27 → 0:11:38.45
Even if that's not true, right? Even if there are no signs to suggest that in the relationship, even if there's no evidence to support the fact that you really are on the brink of the relationship ending. It feels like that because disconnection feels really, really unsafe to the point of almost feeling life threatening. And so because we've got this looming fear of abandonment that is always just there under the surface and driving so many of our fears and protective strategies and behaviour. As soon as there is conflict, there can be this sense of, oh no, this is it, this is where it all ends.
0:11:38.50 → 0:12:40.01
This is where you're going to leave me. And that really, again, interferes with our ability to have healthy conflict because we've got our fear goggles on, right? When we start to do the healing work and we start to learn new ways of experiencing conflict safely, of having hard conversations, of advocating for ourselves without getting really combative and antagonistic with a partner, we start to realise that conflict can be had safely, that not every rupture is a matter of life or death. We can zoom out and go, okay, I can hold in one hand the fact that I'm upset with you or you're upset with me over this thing and we still love each other and care about each other and we're committed to each other and everything's going to be okay, we're going to get through this. Our ability to hold both of those things is something that most anxious people need to learn, because as soon as we've got in one hand, you're upset with me, it's very, very hard for us to feel like everything else could still be okay.
0:12:40.13 → 0:13:10.58
And being able to hold both of those things as true is a really powerful and important shift that you will notice as you heal. Okay, so that's a nice segue into the next shift you'll notice, which is you're able to find your way to the healthy middle, the space of both and. So if you've not heard that expression before, both and, meaning the opposite of either or. And I think again, when we're in fear and insecurity, we live in the land of either or. It's either my needs or your needs.
0:13:10.68 → 0:13:55.15
It's inherently oppositional. There's so much competition built into it and we are operating from this place of threat and self protection, and that is the space of either or. When we start to become more secure, when we start to build our capacity, we realise that there are so many options in between the extremes of either or, of me versus you, and we start to recognise that both and is possible too. So what do I mean by that? To take it out of the abstract, an example might mean I can have compassion for you and I can have boundaries for myself rather than if I'm compassionate for you, that means that I'm making excuses for you when I lose myself.
0:13:55.24 → 0:14:14.11
That's the insecure version, right? The secure version is, I can have compassion for you. I can see that this is hard for you and I'm not going to lose myself in the process of feeling that empathy and compassion for you. I'm still going to advocate for myself. I can assert my needs while also respecting your needs.
0:14:14.26 → 0:14:27.40
We don't have to play in this zero sum game of either you get your needs met or I get mine met. Again, that is insecure lens. We go, okay, how do we both get our needs met? What's the compromise? What are the choices?
0:14:27.46 → 0:14:56.10
How could this look in a way that works for both of us so we find our way to this healthy middle. Okay, so the next shift that you will notice is you start to really believe in your own worth and value, both as a person and as a partner. Okay, this is huge. Again, you could take any one of these on their own and they would be hugely valuable to your life and relationships. But this one in particular, you start to actually believe that you have worth and value.
0:14:56.28 → 0:15:23.47
So a lot of anxiously attached people, I would probably say all anxiously attached people struggle with low self worth to some degree. And that low self worth drives a lot of relationship patterns and behaviours. Things like not expressing needs, things like not having boundaries, things like jealousy and comparison. All of this stuff comes from oh no, I don't believe that you could really love me for me. I don't believe that you could really value me.
0:15:23.59 → 0:16:03.18
So I people please or I over give, I overextend myself to try and earn your approval and your love and keep your approval and your love. Perfectionism is another great example of how that unworthiness drives unhealthy behaviours. We feel like we have to be perfect, otherwise someone's going to leave us. So as you start to do this work and you start to build up that self worth and that self respect, you go, wait a second, I have a lot to offer. I believe in my own worth, I believe that I deserve to have needs, I believe that I deserve to be cared for.
0:16:03.31 → 0:16:35.43
And that is such a powerful shift because it allows you to stand tall and stand firm in your relationships. Again, not from a place of aggression or self protection, but just from a place of self advocacy. And that's really the energy that you'll start to notice yourself embodying as you become more secure, this energy of self advocacy. And that is really such a beautiful shift to notice in yourself whether you're in a relationship or not. Okay, the last shift that I want to offer you is that you start to enjoy your own company more.
0:16:35.63 → 0:17:28.76
So a lot of anxiously attached people really struggle with being on their own. And particularly if they're in a relationship, they tend to be so consumed by thinking about the relationship all the time and being apart from their partner can be quite triggering, can stir up some level of stress response. Now, depending on the dynamic in the relationship and how much trust and stability is in the relationship, that might go from very low level anxiety all the way up to quite extreme anxiety when you're apart from your partner. But as you start to become more secure, you're less consumed by thinking about your relationship all the time, or even by dating. If you are dating rather than in a relationship, and you start to develop this really beautiful, comfortable, thriving relationship with yourself, you start exploring who am I, what do I like?
0:17:28.81 → 0:18:11.49
What do I like doing? You start prioritising yourself and figuring out how you want to live your life. Again, this isn't a reaction against being in a relationship. It's not to say that you can't enjoy the company of your partner or other people, but you're not dependent on it in order to feel safe, secure, fulfilled in your life. And you really start to build out the pillars of your life and diversify your energy so that you're not over indexed on your relationship or your dating prospects or that kind of domain, which for most anxiously attached people as a starting point, takes up 99% of their field of vision at any given time.
0:18:11.58 → 0:18:56.29
And as you would know, and as I certainly know, that gets really exhausting. So as you become more secure, you really do start to not only prioritise yourself, but really enjoy building that relationship with yourself and step into a more fully embodied, authentic version of who you are. And from that place so much becomes possible. It's amazing for me, my students and clients, it's not just the relationship stuff that changes it's I've quit my job and I'm starting my own business, or I got a promotion, or I'm travelling the world. All of these things become possible when we step away from fear and into a more authentic, secure, embodied version of ourselves.
0:18:56.37 → 0:19:31.07
So that is a really powerful shift that you'll notice as you become more secure and shift away from those old patterns of anxious attachment. Okay, so that was six shifts you'll notice as you heal. I really hope that that has been helpful and I hope that if you are someone who struggles with anxious attachment, I hope this has inspired you and given you a sense of what is possible for you and available to you if you do this work. Because I promise you, this is a transformation that I've experienced and that I have accompanied many, many people on. It is possible for you.
0:19:31.11 → 0:20:07.65
And as I said, I really hope that this has given you some cause for optimism and has inspired you to do the work. And if you are someone who struggles with anxious attachment and you're ready to make a change and you'd like some support in doing that, do cheque out healing anxious attachment. My signature course, the Waitlist link is in the show notes and early bird enrollment opens in just six days time and I would love to see you there. Thank you so much for joining me, guys. If you've enjoyed this episode, please do leave a rating or a review if you're listening on Apple podcasts, but otherwise I look forward to seeing you later in the week for our Q and A episode.
0:20:07.75 → 0:20:29.94
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 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.
0:20:30.07 --> 0:20:33.16
Thanks again for being here and I hope to see you again soon.
From the Honeymoon Period to Power Struggle: Navigating the Stages of a Relationship
In this episode, we're talking all about the stages of a relationship - specifically, what happens when we transition from the honeymoon period of a relationship (fuelled by chemistry, romance and infatuation) to the power struggle (where all our flaws and wounds come to the fore).
In this episode, we're talking all about the stages of a relationship - specifically, what happens when we transition from the honeymoon period of a relationship (fuelled by chemistry, romance and infatuation) to the power struggle (where all our flaws and wounds come to the fore).
WHAT WE COVER:
what each stage of a relationship looks like
why the transition from honeymoon period to power struggle feels like a bait & switch
how anxious-avoidant dynamics overlay onto this dynamic
how you can make the most of the power struggle stage & use it to grow closer as a couple
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
0:00:42.67 → 0:01:46.33
So there's been a lot of theorising books written on this concept of the stages of a relationship and while if you Google that, you'll get lots of different results, with some say five stages, others say seven stages, the names of the stages are different. It all kind of looks a little bit different depending on who you ask. But I think where there's more or less consensus is in the dynamics that usually characterise that initial stage. So chemistry and excitement and infatuation, followed by what can feel like this fall from grace into conflict and power struggle and competition, and what that can feel like, what it can bring up. And some things to bear in mind if you have been through this before, which almost everyone listening will have to varying degrees in some capacity, and how you can navigate this better, because, to put it bluntly, the power struggle stage of a relationship, which is what comes after this honeymoon period, will make or break you.
0:01:46.37 → 0:02:26.02
It's the period in which most couples break up because it is a time where we get really triggered, where we experience a lot of doubts and uncertainty and fear and all of those wounds start to get touched. So knowing how best to approach that period in a way that can allow you to get to know each other better, understand each other better, accept each other, and ultimately grow through that experience into something deeper and more connected and come out the other side stronger for it. That takes some awareness and some tools and some knowledge. So that's what today's episode is going to be all about. Before I dive into that, a couple of quick announcements.
0:02:26.08 → 0:03:12.85
The first being you may have heard me mention in recent episodes that The Waitlist is now open for healing Anxious Attachment, which is my signature programme. There are, I think, about 750 of you on The Waitlist, which is pretty amazing in the past couple of weeks. Enrollment for that will be opening later this month and being on The Waitlist will entitle you to a discount and guarantee you first access when doors open. So if you're interested in that, if anxious attachment is something that you struggle with and you're wanting some support and resources in building healthier relationships both with yourself and with other people, definitely jump on The Waitlist, which is in the show notes. The second quick announcement is just to share the featured review, which is I'm so grateful my husband found your podcast and shared it with me.
0:03:12.89 → 0:03:30.01
We finally found the reasons we've danced the way we have for the past 25 plus years. We've learned simple ways each of us can ease the burden of anxiety and combat the desire to avoid. Your information has made us a more stable and happy couple. We're so thankful for you and your podcast. Thank you for that beautiful review.
0:03:30.13 →0:04:10.68
It brings a big smile to my face to hear that you've had those insights and that you've been able to translate those into action in your relationship and feel closer and more connected as a result. That is really, really beautiful to hear. If that was your review, please send an email to podcast@stephanierigg.com and my team will set you up with free access to one of my master classes. Okay, so let's dive into this conversation around transitioning from the honeymoon period to the power struggle. So I want to first start the conversation by setting the scene a little and to preempt what I know will be the inevitable questions around how do I know what phase I'm in?
0:04:10.73 --> 0:04:46.09
And how long does each phase last? I'm not going to give you anything prescriptive on that. Again, if you Google it, you'll get a whole host of different answers. I think that focusing on the micro, on the details, the minutiae of like, oh, if we've been together for seven months but we're behaving in this way, what phase are we in? I would encourage you to let go of needing to pigeonhole yourselves and more, just engage with the overarching tone of these phases because I think that there is enough of a contrast in them that just substantively.
0:04:46.27 → 0:05:10.07
You should have a feel for where you're at. Now, the honeymoon period, which is also referred to as the romance stage or the Hollywood stage of a relationship, is that initial period where we're infatuated by our partner. There's the chemical rush. We can't stop thinking about them, we idealise them, we put them on a pedestal. There's this intense attraction, chemistry.
0:05:10.12 → 0:05:40.61
We can't keep our hands off each other. We want to talk to them all day, every day. We never want to be apart from them. And beyond that, something that's really important about this phase to realise is that our differences are really attractive and alluring, so the ways in which our partner is different to us increases our attraction for them. So, for example, if you're someone who's quite introverted or socially anxious and your partner is really charismatic and confident, then that's going to be super attractive.
0:05:40.66 → 0:06:10.65
In this honeymoon period, we have a very positive sheen on all of their traits and particularly the ways in which they differ from us. So the person who is spontaneous in this phase, if we're a bit more structured and routine driven, their spontaneity is going to be really attractive and we're going to be really drawn to it. And see it in a very positive light. I'll come back to why that's important. Shortly during this honeymoon period, we're also on our best behaviour.
0:06:10.78 → 0:06:43.39
So we are trying to get this person to like us, right? We are presenting all of our best traits and we are probably downplaying our more difficult side. We're probably not being very picky or demanding or speaking up about things. We're letting more things slide because we're leaning into all of this positivity in the relationship. And most importantly, most of our stuff isn't getting triggered in this early honeymoon stage.
0:06:43.73 → 0:07:48.29
Now, I'll say with the caveat there that particularly if you're more anxious, you might still be experiencing some anxiety and overthinking and ruminating in that honeymoon phase just because that's kind of the tendency, and particularly in early dating, that can happen. But for the most part, the honeymoon period is relatively free of conflict and triggers because we're just enjoying this chemically fueled bondedness to one another. Now, I think it's important to say there is nothing wrong with this. I think when we have terms like love bombing and trauma bond and all of that being thrown around on Instagram, we can get a bit overly paranoid that oh no, how do I know if my chemistry with this person is actually a red flag in disguise and we're actually trauma bonding to one another? If you're familiar with my work, you'd know that I try and steer clear of those terms because I think that they do more harm than good.
0:07:48.36 → 0:08:31.69
I think they put people on guard and on alert and make people very suspicious and wary of everything that they're doing. So I think that the starting point is the honeymoon period is pretty much universal. The vast majority of relationships will go through this initial period of chemistry and intensity and super attraction. And that is biological right, that is designed to facilitate this pair bonding thing that we do. What follows when that chemical rush inevitably wears off, and I'm sorry to say that it will inevitably wear off, is we enter what is called the power struggle stage.
0:08:31.85 → 0:09:30.21
Now, for a lot of, again, more anxious people, this point of transition, and it doesn't have to be an overnight thing, often it'll cross fade from one to the other. But this transition is extremely hard because everything that I've just described about the honeymoon period, the intensity and the romance and the extreme levels of effort and best behaviour and attention and affection, is pretty much exactly what anxiously attached people would love their relationships to be like 100% of the time. Forever and ever, till death do us part. It's a nice idea and I'm sure that we'd all love that, but it's also not realistic. And so I think because anxious people really relish in that period of that honeymoon energy and they feel like it is the best thing imaginable and they make so much meaning out of it, or we have such an incredible connection and they romanticise and idealise.
0:09:30.95 → 0:10:07.12
When they transition into the power struggle stage, it elicits a real panic. So let me just set the scene for what the power struggle stage usually entails. As the chemistry tapers off, we typically start to notice our partner as a whole, flawed, messy human. Okay? So whereas previously we were only noticing how wonderful they are and how amazing they are, and all the ways in which they're different to us are super attractive and complementary to how we are in this power struggle stage, we start to see their differences as threatening to us.
0:10:08.21 → 0:10:37.48
So the person whose spontaneity was exciting and attractive, all of a sudden we see that spontaneity as unreliability, or as them not being dependable or them being flaky. The person who we were drawn to the charisma of, all of a sudden we find them obnoxious. And so we start to see the other side of the coin. Or as those rose coloured glasses come off, we see things a little more holistically. We see the whole person.
0:10:37.85 → 0:11:11.40
And because we're not aware of the haze that we were in, we feel like there's been a bait and switch. We feel like this person has suddenly gone from being amazing, perfect, to having all of these flaws that they were actively concealing from us. And so that can feel really threatening, this sense of you're showing me your real self and you tricked me and you're actually this terrible person with all of these deficiencies. So a lot of conflict comes up here because this is not just an anxious thing. This is happening on both sides.
0:11:11.43 → 0:11:46.43
In virtually all relationships will go through some version of this where the sheen wears off and we start to get irritable, we start to get critical, we start to compete with one another, we start to attack and defend. We have our first conflicts and all of these triggers and wounds that exist for us relationally start to get activated. And so this can be a very high conflict time. Now, you may recall at the start of the episode I said that this is the period when most couples break up. And for some couples that happens after six months.
0:11:46.50 → 0:12:52.59
For others, they can spend a lifetime in the power struggle stage. And for whatever reason, socially, culturally, people can get married and live a whole marriage in the power struggle stage without ever resolving it and just triggering and reinforcing those wounds. So to make matters worse, or to add fuel to the fire, when we overlay attachment onto this base dynamic, as I said, some version of honeymoon followed by power struggle will likely exist in all relationships, even between two secure people, because it's just part of that life cycle or trajectory of a relationship as it matures. But when we have an anxious, avoidant kind of dynamic, one person being more anxious, the other being more avoidant, this power struggle stage can really be amplified. You might have listened to an episode I did a few weeks back, you may have listened to an episode I did recently on perfectionism in anxious avoidant relationships.
0:12:52.75 → 0:14:17.36
And I think that that can really come to the fore in this power struggle stage whereby the anxious person feels like they have to be perfect and to the extent that anything goes wrong in the relationship, it's because they've done something wrong. And so they need to frantically overwork to restore the connection, to return themselves to the former glory of the honeymoon period. And on the avoidance side, as their stuff starts to get triggered in this power struggle stage, as they start to see their partner as imperfect, they take those imperfections as a reason to leave the relationship, as a reason that the relationship is not good, is not working, is not right. And so they start to distance, they lean into that sense of judgement and criticism of a partner as a way to keep themselves safe from the vulnerability of progressing and doing the work, of navigating those wounds and those dynamics because it's vulnerable work. So what we see is the anxious person is intensely triggered by this transition from the honeymoon period to the power struggle stage and the tapering off of that initial intensity chemistry effort almost obsessiveness with each other, which is their ideal way of being in relationship.
0:14:18.29 → 0:14:58.77
Coupled with the transition to a power struggle stage where their partner is being potentially quite critical of them and making them feel like they have indeed done something wrong and that is the cause of the issues in the relationship. So it becomes this double edged sword. So what do we do with all of this? I think in a more macro sense, the honest answer is this power struggle stage is where the work of building healthy relationships has to take place for a lot of people. Where we need to learn about our wounds, where we need to understand our triggers, our projections, the stories we tell ourselves, the ways in which we participate in unhealthy dynamics in our relationship.
0:14:58.94 → 0:15:43.59
And doing that work is what will ultimately allow us to emerge through the power struggle into the subsequent stages of relationship, which for reference are stability, commitment and what's called the bliss phase in one particular framework, but really maturing into a deeper connection and commitment and sense of trust and safety and dependability. But most people don't get there and that's the honest truth. So knowing that this is a really important phase in your relationship and that it is an opportunity, right? As I said, the power struggle will make or break you. It is that simple.
0:15:43.79 → 0:16:32.02
So you can either use it as an opportunity to reenact and reinforce all your deepest wounds, to play out that script and that scene once again, and use it as evidence of everything that's wrong with you or with other people with relationships. Or you can use it as an opportunity to rewrite that script and do things differently and create a new version of relationship for yourself. So something that's really important in allowing you to approach it with that mindset of okay, this is an important phase of my relationship, rather than something to resist, is knowing that it's coming. So if you're in a new relationship, you're in that honeymoon period, or maybe you're between relationships at the moment, maybe you're in the power struggle stage right now. Know that it's completely normal.
0:16:32.08 → 0:17:19.36
Know that the honeymoon period will come to an end. Much as you'd like to resist that, that doesn't mean that the romance has to die out. It doesn't mean that you stop putting in effort that you settle for a lacklustre relationship. But just know that the tone and the character of your relationship will inevitably mature into something different and that's okay. See that as an opportunity to deepen your connection and nurture it, rather than scrambling to get back to what your relationship was at the start and feeling like your inability to return to that starting point is some sort of personal failing or I did something wrong or a reason to start from scratch with someone else and try and cling to it with the next person.
0:17:19.46 → 0:17:48.40
It's unrealistic. So just be aware of that and prepare yourself for the fact that that will come to an end. So enjoy it while it lasts, but also don't lament its evolution into something deeper. I think if you are more anxious in your attachment, that advice is really, really important for you. Don't personalise or internalise the end of that honeymoon period as meaning you've done something wrong.
0:17:48.45 → 0:18:55.76
Because as soon as you're in that mindset of, oh, no, they've lost interest in me, they've lost attraction to me, panic, they're going to leave me, they're going to stop loving me. As soon as you're in that place where you're in fear and anxiety, you're going to start trying to control and grip and reach them and over function and overwork and over give and shapeshift and do all of those things to try and alleviate that fear and anxiety that you're experiencing. And I promise you that will only make it worse. So as much as possible, taking responsibility for that and taking responsibility for learning to self regulate, for doing this work so that you're not in this state of desperation and panic and fear, that tends to be a self fulfilling prophecy on the avoidance side. If you're listening to this, your impulse will probably be to pull away in that power struggle stage because your starting point is valuing harmony in relationships and feeling like anything short of harmony makes you feel like a failure or just makes relationships feel not worth it.
0:18:55.78 → 0:19:47.04
It tips the balance in favour of this is not worth it for me because I'm pretty comfortable being on my own so as soon as it gets hard, it ceases to feel worth my energy. As tempting as it is to go there, just know that that's not the relationship, that is all relationships. And if you do want to be in relationship for the long term, if you want partnership in your life, you will have to stay in that discomfort sooner or later. You can run, you can withdraw, you can pull away, but you'll be doing this again in six or twelve months or whenever you next go down this road. So you can do the work now or do it later, but you will have to do the work at some point if you want to be in healthy, secure, lasting, nourishing relationship.
0:19:47.22 → 0:20:59.58
So that's your growth edge as a more avoidant person is turning towards the discomfort of doing the work and being vulnerable and persisting through the mess and the conflict and the triggers and allowing yourself to grow through that rather than turning away from it and retreating to your comfort zone of isolation and aloneness. So I hope that that has been an interesting discussion, that it's been helpful for you, that you've learned something. And no matter where you're at at the moment, whether you're single, whether you're dating, whether you're in a relationship, really normalising these seasons and these changes in our relationship and cultivating more of an acceptance around that and an appreciation for the gifts and the opportunities that each seasonal stage offers us. Again, it lessens that resistance that we can have and that desire to control and allows us to really grow through those things and make the most of where we're at in our relationships. If you've enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a five star rating if you're listening on Spotify or Apple and leaving a review.
0:20:59.63 → 0:21:22.17
If you are listening on Apple podcasts, it is a super helpful way of continuing to grow the podcast and get the word out. And I'm so appreciative of your support and all of the beautiful reviews. Otherwise, thank you so much for joining me and I look forward to seeing you later in the week for our Q and A episode. Thanks so much guys. Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment.
0:21:22.27 → 0:21:41.76
If you want to go deeper on all things attachment, love and relationships, you can find me on Instagram @stephanie__rigg or at stephaniergig.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. I hope to see you again soon.
5 Questions to Assess the Emotional Health of Your Relationship
In this episode, we're talking all about emotional health & safety in relationships. We'll be discussing some guiding principles and questions you can ask to assess how emotionally healthy your relationship is, and most importantly, what you can do to improve the emotional safety of your relationship.
In this episode, we're talking all about emotional health & safety in relationships.
If you've ever wondered what "emotional safety" actually means, look no further - we'll be discussing some guiding principles and questions you can ask to assess how emotionally healthy your relationship is. And most importantly, what you can do to improve the emotional state of your relationship - because let's face it, this is going to be a work in progress for most of us.
WHAT WE COVER:
the importance of feeling safe to voice needs, concerns & boundaries
why we should aim to navigate life's challenges as a team
the ability to safely & effectively repair after conflict
why we should be feeling loved, cared for & respected (most of the time!)
how your nervous system can give you insight into your relationship's emotional health
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
0:00:28.33 → 0:01:03.33
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. In today's episode, I'm going to be sharing with you five questions to ask to assess the emotional health of your relationship. So this is going to be diving into some of the hallmarks of emotional safety, emotional wellbeing, and we could say emotional green flags. Insofar as your connection with your partner is concerned, I think a really important thing to foreground at the outset is, first, that this topic is not intended for people who are in abusive situations or unsafe situations.
0:01:03.43 → 0:01:44.71
If that is the situation you're in, I really encourage you to seek support. That's not something that I can speak to in a podcast episode. It's not the scope of my work. So please take good care of yourself and be discerning. If that's you outside of that situation, please know that if you fall on what we might call the wrong side of the line in terms of the questions that I'm going to pose to you today meaning that you feel like you have a lot of room for improvement on the emotional health front, know that that doesn't mean that you are doomed, that your relationship is terminal, that you are in a toxic dynamic.
0:01:44.76 → 0:03:47.56
Any of those things that might feel stressful to realize, I would encourage you instead to take it as room for improvement, areas for growth, things to focus on, cultivating. Because the unfortunate reality is many of us, dare I say most of us without the knowledge and the tools will have had experiences with these less than perfect emotional safety kind of situations as we'll get into shortly. So those are just some caveats at the outset.
0:03:48.25 → 0:04:50.75
The first question is, do you feel safe and able to express how you're feeling to set a boundary to voice a need, or to give someone feedback without worrying that it's going to blow up or spiral into a fight, or that there will be some other adverse consequence? For example, that the relationship is going to end, that they're going to say they're going to leave, that they're going to say, oh, it's too much, let's not bother. Do you have a level of safety in bringing to your partner whatever it is that you're feeling or needing without having that fear of adverse consequence? So this is obviously really important to the emotional health of a relationship to be able to have that container of whatever is within me - of course, we don't need to give our partner the raw, unfiltered, high charge version of that - but being able to take what we're thinking and feeling to our partner to the extent that there's a conversation that needs to be had, I think this is really foundational.
0:04:50.85 → 0:05:50.46
Because in the absence of this, if we don't have that safety, then what happens? We tend to internalize that, suppress it, get increasingly frustrated, resentful, hurt, lonely, and then usually it comes out sooner or later, but it might look more like a volcanic eruption than a regulated conversation. So when we have that kind of dynamic, it really erodes the emotional health of the relationship and the sense of trust and safety. There something I should say on this one is that sometimes that's anxiety driven on one side. So for anxiously attached people, for example, they may very much struggle to voice those things, not because it actually would blow up into a fight or that their partner would leave them, but there is so much fear and anxiety around being too much, around being a burden, around pushing people away.
0:05:51.25 → 0:06:56.02
A lot of that is kind of mindset stuff and wounding around those stories that it prevents them from ever trying, from ever actually putting that out there, from sort of a hypothetical worst case scenario or fear. So I think it's important, and this probably goes for all of the questions we'll be talking about to ask is this a real thing relationally, or is this predominantly or at least partly my own individual work to do, and it's probably going to be a combination of both. So irrespective of where it's coming from, if you don't feel like you can bring things to the relationship because you think there's going to be some sort of adverse consequence associated with that, that is really going to impede your emotional safety in connection with one another. Okay. The next question is, do you trust that when life gets challenging, you'll be able to tackle those challenges as a team?
0:06:56.63 → 0:07:44.58
Or do things that are hard tend to divide you and turn you into enemies or competitors? So the kinds of things that I'm thinking in this question might be one of you loses your job unexpectedly or you get a challenging health diagnosis, or you have to juggle caring for kids or aging parents or anything like that just the vicissitudes of life. The things that do get in the way, that do make life more stressful and unpredictable, do those things tend to unite or divide you? If they unite you and turn you into a team, brilliant. That's a really good sign for your emotional health, safety and connection in your relationship.
0:07:45.27 → 0:08:59.83
If those things tend to divide you, then that's probably a good sign that when you do get stressed, your tendency is to feel again, if we're going to talk about this through an attachment lens, on the anxious side, you probably feel emotionally abandoned in those moments like you're not getting enough support from your partner. And on the avoidance side, you probably have stories around when things get hard, my impulse, my instinct is to go it alone because that is what I know at my very core, that when things get hard, I turn a bit insular and I just try and tackle that on my own. So if that is your tendency overall in the relationship, that rather than coming together when things get hard, you tend to be divided and sort of in your own lanes, that's something to be aware of and maybe talk about saying, hey, I noticed that when things get hard, it really impacts our connectedness and our sense of collaboration in our relationship. Would you be open to working on that? What are some ways that we could be more supportive of one another when things get hard rather than siloing ourselves and then feeling really alone?
0:09:03.84 → 0:09:37.96
Because I think that that can be a really disconnected experience. Okay. The next question I want to offer you is when you have conflict, as all couples will, if you never have conflict, I would say that is more concerning to me than if you fight regularly, are you able? To safely repair? Or do you tend to have a big fight and then run out of steam and then have some sort of half assed Band Aid apology, sweep it under the rug and then kick it down the road until you have the same fight again?
0:09:39.29 → 0:09:53.91
This is a really good example of most, maybe not most, a lot of couples do this. So if that's you don't panic, don't feel, oh my God, my relationship is terrible. What am I going to do? Should I break up with my partner? No, we can learn these things.
0:09:53.95 → 0:10:23.35
This is skill based, but it is really important and it's an important skill to learn if you want to have a healthy, secure, lasting relationship. So what does safe repair look like? I could do a whole podcast episode on that, and I probably should, but it's things like, oh, okay, can we hear each other in conflict? Can we engage with what the other person is saying? Can we validate their perspective even when their experience of the situation is different to ours?
0:10:23.45 → 0:11:11.87
Can we negotiate and find a healthy middle ground that acknowledges and respects both of our perspectives and our needs? In this situation, are we able to substantively engage with the underlying issues that might have triggered a surface level rupture? So these sorts of conversations, are we able to actually stay in the discomfort of rupture and repair? Or do we just tend to have these big explosive fights and then we kind of run out of steam and don't do anything to actually solve or at least address the underlying concerns? Because I think, as I said, if we don't do that, we will continue to have the same fights.
0:11:11.95 → 0:11:24.77
They might be triggered by different things. So one time it might be, oh, you're home late from work. And the next time it might be, oh, you didn't do the washing up or whatever. Right. It might be the most mundane things and they might be different every time.
0:11:24.89 → 0:12:00.27
But the underlying emotional complaint will be the same until you engage with and address that emotional complaint and it's accompanying need. Okay, so the next question is on the whole, and that's an important introductory qualifier to this question, do you feel loved, cared for, respected, and listened to in the relationship? So this is really a foundational right to secure relationships. We all want to feel loved, seen, understood. I could add those in there cared for, respected, listened to.
0:12:00.47 → 0:12:35.77
That is really at the heart of healthy relationships, of secure relationships. The reason that on the whole is important is that you aren't going to feel all of those things in every moment of every day actively from your partner. But when we can zoom out and go, what is the overall feeling tone of this relationship? Do I feel loved and cared for? Do I trust that my partner loves me, cares for me, respects me, and will listen to me, sees me, understands me?
0:12:35.89 → 0:13:24.99
Those really are such foundational needs as humans that I think having that overall impression of your partner and your connection with them in the relationship is important. I think when we don't feel all of those things on balance again overall, then that's a sign that we either have some real work to do around that going, okay, what would I need to feel loved, cared for, respected, understood? What are the things that are preventing me from feeling that? And how can we take really actionable steps towards me feeling that? And if you're not feeling that, there's a good chance your partner is not feeling that either.
0:13:25.14 → 0:14:14.72
Because these things, I think oftentimes when we're not feeling any of those things, we might be withholding that from our partner, from a place of self protection. So getting really honest with ourselves and this is probably a harder question to be honest about, depending on where you fall. And then if we are committed to the relationship and we do really want to work on the relationship, taking this one pretty seriously because I think it's going to be hard to sustain a relationship in which you don't, generally speaking, feel loved, cared for, understood, respected, listened to, et cetera. Okay, last but not least, how does your nervous system feel in their company? You know, I love looking at and working with the nervous system and weaving that into an understanding of our emotional experience.
0:14:15.57 → 0:15:17.76
So I think that when our nervous system feels at ease, feels safe, feels regulated in their company, that they are a natural co regulator for us, meaning that our systems sort of soothe each other and are a signal of safety to one another. That's a really good sign because our nervous system, our autonomic nervous system is subcortical, meaning it sits below our thinking brain, our prefrontal cortex. And so underneath all of the analysis and all of the thinking and overthinking and ruminating that we can do, there is this fundamental question of how does my nervous system perceive this person? Now, again, some of this will be historical. Meaning if you have had difficult relationships in the past, if you have trauma, then there might be a lot of projection going on there.
0:15:17.81 → 0:16:10.90
You might feel relationships broadly are unsafe, and therefore your nervous system registers your partner as threatening or unsafe, even if that is not in fact the case. So the fact that your nervous system perceives your partner is threatening and you feel anxious or shut down in their company, that's not necessarily a sign that your partner is in fact dangerous. But I think it's a really good sign in terms of the emotional health of the relationship. If your nervous system feels at ease in their company and if it doesn't, again, it's not terminal. There's absolutely things that you can do both individually and relationally to work on that, to provide more evidence of safety so that your nervous system can settle and that you can reap the rewards of that beautiful nourishing co regulation that we all need.
0:16:11.59 → 0:16:33.64
Okay, so that was five questions to assess the emotional health of your relationship. I hope that that's been helpful. I'll just quickly recap those. The first one was do you feel safe in expressing how you're feeling, setting a boundary voicing needs, and giving feedback without worrying that it will blow up into a fight? Do you trust that when life gets challenging and throws unexpected things your way, you'll be able to tackle that as a team?
0:16:33.69 →0:17:00.83
Or do those things usually divide you and turn you into enemies or competitors? When conflict does occur, are you able to safely repair or do you usually sweep things under the rug and put a bandaid on them until the next time you have the same fight? On the whole, do you feel loved, cared for, respected, and listened to in the relationship? And does your nervous system feel at ease in their company? Okay, guys, I really hope that this has been helpful for you.
0:17:00.87 → 0:18:06.82
As I said, don't despair if you feel like you've got some work to do based on those guiding questions. This is kind of the whole point of this work, right? That a lot of us do have work to do there, and it is ongoing work, but it is really fruitful, worthwhile, rewarding work, and it is within reach for all of us if we're willing to put in the time and effort to make it so.
‘We’ve been together a year and I’ve just seen he’s still using Tinder. Can trust be rebuilt?”
"We've been together a year and I've just seen he's still using Tinder. Can trust be rebuilt?" Today's episode is a community Q&A, and I'm answering a hard question about rebuilding after discovering a breach of trust.
Today's episode is a community Q&A, and I'm answering a hard question about rebuilding after discovering a breach of trust.
WHAT WE COVER:
things to look for when deciding whether to stay & rebuild after infidelity
the importance of the other person taking ownership & responsibility for the harm caused
what it really takes to rebuild trust
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
For a deeper dive on deciding whether to stay or go, check out Episode 19 of the show (Should I Stay or Should I Go?).
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
0:00:29.13 → 0:00:43.45
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. Today's episode is a Q and A, and I'm answering the question. We've been together a year, and I've just seen he's still using tinder. Can trust be rebuilt?
0:00:43.95 → 0:01:16.26
So this is a big one, and whoever's question this was, I got this one via Instagram. I'm sending you out a lot of love because obviously that's a pretty shitty situation to be in. So I'm going to be diving into that can trust be rebuilt? And the circumstances under which you might want or not want to go through that process with someone. Some questions to ask yourself, some things to look out for, and some guiding principles in my mind on how to make that decision and how to embark on that process together.
0:01:17.43 → 0:01:47.96
Before I dive into that, I just wanted to share the featured review, which says tell everyone you know Stephanie is the voice you've been looking for. She's distilled the weightiness of attachment theory into easy to digest chunks that can be applied to real life immediately. Though I previously felt I understood attachment, I was operating with an incomplete image for the first time. I not only know my attachment style, but what I can do about it to connect and empathise more deeply with those I care about. And honestly, I would listen just for a voice more regulating than any meditation I know.
0:01:48.06 → 0:02:13.73
I've told everyone I know about this podcast, and I think you will, too. It's truly important work, and Stephanie brings wonderful clarity and compassion to this project. Thank you so much for that lovely review. I really do appreciate it, and I appreciate you sharing with the people in your life. Word of mouth goes such a long way for those of us putting our work out into the world and trying to build small businesses, so I really do appreciate it so much.
0:02:13.85 → 0:02:54.16
If that was your review, if you could just send an email to podcast@stephanierigg.com and my team will set you up with free access to one of my Master classes as a way to say thank you. Another quick announcement is just to let you know that I'm running a flash sale on all of my Master classes and my Higher Love course. So you're able to save 50%, which is the biggest discount I've ever given on these with the code loveyou. One word that includes my better boundaries masterclass, sex and attachment, how to navigate anxious, avoidant relationships. Those three are all recordings of Live Masterclasses that I ran late last year.
0:02:54.21 → 0:03:19.88
They're about 2 hours each. And also my Higher Love course, which is a breakup course. It's six modules it's very comprehensive and equips you with everything that you need to get through a breakup and emerge stronger and more confident and more sure of yourself. So all of those are really great options. And as I said, those are the lowest prices that I've ever offered those for.
0:03:19.93 → 0:04:01.02
So if you've been thinking about going deeper with my work, now is a really good time to do that. Okay, so let's dive into this question of can trust be rebuilt after an infidelity, after a betrayal, in this case, having been together for a year and finding out that your partner is still on Tinder. So I think there are a couple of threshold issues here. Obviously, the first one is not can trust be rebuilt, but do I want to rebuild trust? The reality is that, unfortunately, betrayal infidelity dishonesty and relationships is shockingly common.
0:04:01.95 → 0:05:01.84
And unfortunately, it's something that many of us will have to deal with if we haven't already, through the course of our lives and relationships. I think what that means is that in reality, a lot of people do stay together and work through breaches of trust, betrayal, infidelity, and it can be done. I very much believe that it can be done, but I think we also have to be really clear about what that rebuilding process takes because it takes a lot. And in your case, you've been together for a year, and if your partner has been on Tinder that whole time that you've been together, query whether that is a breach of trust that you want to be working through. And I say that with curiosity for you and not knowing any more about the situation than what was included in the question.
0:05:02.37 → 0:05:21.35
Some of the things I'd be looking for personally are what's the context for this? What's the explanation? Did you discover that by sort of seeing the app on their phone? What have you confronted him about it? And if so, what is his explanation
0:05:21.45 → 0:06:12.22
Is he apologetic? Has hed any light on why he decided to do that and what that's actually led to, whether he's been meeting up with people, whether he's been sleeping with people, all of these things. I think we need to understand the gravity of the situation. I think one of the most important things to be considering when thinking about going through that repair process after infidelity is how much responsibility is this person taking? And if their response is to explain, to justify, to defend, to minimise, to downplay the severity of that, to come up with reasons why it's not that bad, that would be a red flag for me.
0:06:12.24 → 0:06:44.93
That would be something that would signal to me they're not really taking this seriously. They're not going to be willing to put in the work that it's going to take to rebuild trust here. And the work that it will take will be big. The reality is that the person who has done that, who has breached trust, has to go over and above to repair. They have to own their mistake, they have to own the consequences of their poor decision and the pain that they've caused.
0:06:45.03 → 0:07:47.85
So they have to be willing to maybe sacrifice some freedoms and some privacy and they have to bear the consequences of you not trusting them for a while, because that is the natural consequence of their behaviour. So if that means that you are uncomfortable with certain things, if you're suspicious, if you want lots of details and you want transparency I think that they need to be open to those conversations and they need to really realise that it's not status quo, it's not ordinary course kind of boundaries and negotiation, that they might not get as much privacy for a period of time because they've lost that right to privacy on account of their behaviour. And it's really on them to help you to be able to trust them again. I think a lot of people are hard on themselves and go, oh, I have trust issues because I was cheated on and that's a me problem. Yes and no, right?
0:07:47.94 → 0:08:27.68
We can do our own work around that, but a lot of it is going to be on the other person to help you to feel safe again, to ask you, what would you need from me by way of behaviour actions? Reassurance accountability in order to know that this isn't going to happen again and that you can trust me. And that needs to be a process that's really led by them. It shouldn't be coming from you, you being the one that's leading the charge on rebuilding the trust. I think they've got to, again, take ownership and responsibility for the harm that they've caused and be the one to lead that process.
0:08:28.37 → 0:09:18.01
So I'd be looking for signs of responsibility, taking signs for acknowledgement of the gravity of what they've done and willingness to engage, to talk about it, to repair. And that takes a lot, right? That's not an easy thing to do because I'm sure that they feel most people would feel a lot of shame and guilt and we tend to shy away from things that leave us in a shame and guilt spiral. That's not nice for anyone to have to sit with and to have to look at the impact that our poor choices have had. The shame that comes with that is not comfortable and so it's going to take a level of emotional maturity on their part to be with their own guilt and shame around what they've done, rather than to shy away from it, to dismiss it, to not want to talk about it.
0:09:18.13 → 0:09:49.11
Because I think for a lot of people, that's what happens, they just don't want to talk about it. They say things like, can't we just move on? Can't we just start fresh? And while we can understand why they would want that, it's really not sensitive to the other person's experience, who has been betrayed, who has had this real breach of trust and all of the pain and hurt that comes with that. So I hope that that gives you something to work with and to think about, things to look for in their response.
0:09:49.53 → 0:10:49.26
And I guess the hard truth is in the absence of those things, in the absence of this person taking responsibility and being willing to go above and beyond, to repair and to sacrifice certain things in order to support you in getting back to a place of trust and safety, then it may be that they're not really ready to be in that kind of relationship. And the hard truth is that it may happen again because if they're not really engaging with the severity and the magnitude of what they've done, and if they're not willing to face their guilt and shame, they're not willing to do the work to inquire around, why did I do that? What drove me to think that that was okay? All of these patterns, so much of the time, infidelity is driven by our own shadow and our own demons. And if someone's not willing to look inside and go, why did I do that?
0:10:49.71 → 0:11:16.82
What drove me to do that? What's going on for me that compelled me to behave in that way, then there's a good chance that it will continue to happen. Because as I said, I think so often infidelity is driven by our own woundedness. And so until they're ready to do the work there, there's a good chance that that will continue to happen. As I said at the start, I'm sending you so much love.
0:11:16.87 → 0:11:33.32
It's not a nice situation to be in. It's painful, it's hard, it's confusing. But I hope that this has given you something to sit with and some support. And I think the most important thing for you is to honour yourself here. Honour what you need.
0:11:33.37 → 0:12:25.27
And try not to agree to something less than what you truly need to rebuild trust just for the sake of holding onto the relationship because that's ultimately going to work against you in the long run, and it's going to cause you more hurt and pain in the long term. So try and stand your ground, try and honour yourself, get really clear around what you would need and then if this person is not able to meet you there, then maybe it's not a relationship worth persisting in and pursuing. I hope that this has been helpful for you. The question asker and for anyone else listening who has wondered about rebuilding trust or has faced a similar situation of infidelity, if it has been helpful, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a rating, a review. As always, it's much appreciated.
5 Reasons You Might Struggle to Apologise
In this episode, we're talking all about apologies - and specifically, why they might feel so hard sometimes. Being able to apologise is so fundamental to healthy repair, but for many of us, can feel inexplicably challenging. After listening to today's episode, my hope is that you'll have greater clarity around why apologies can feel so hard, and how to address the underlying resistance so you can foster greater connection and emotional maturity in your relationships.
In this episode, we're talking all about apologies - and specifically, why they might feel so hard sometimes.
Being able to apologise is so fundamental to healthy repair, but for many of us, can feel inexplicably challenging. After listening to today's episode, my hope is that you'll have greater clarity around why apologies can feel so hard, and how to address the underlying resistance so you can foster greater connection and emotional maturity in your relationships.
WHAT WE COVER:
why apologies can feel so hard
what to do when we feel unseen and misunderstood
the difference between intent and impact
how people-pleasing & perfectionism can hold us back from taking responsibility
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
0:00:27.61 → 0:00:59.13
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. In today's episode, I'm going to be sharing with you five reasons why you might struggle apologising. I think that this is a really important conversation to have and a really important area of our relational patterns to bring more conscious awareness, too, because I know for a lot of people, myself included, that apologising can feel really hard sometimes. We can have a lot of resistance, a lot of reluctance, and it's something that's really interesting to reflect on.
0:00:59.25 → 0:01:29.07
What stories am I telling myself? What is preventing me from saying sorry, from taking responsibility, from apologising to someone who I may have heard or who may be upset with me? What's holding me back from doing that? What resistance am I experiencing and why? I think this is so important to have awareness around, because being able to safely repair after a disagreement, after conflict, is so fundamental to building healthy, secure relationships.
0:01:29.17 → 0:02:25.88
And this really applies irrespective of whether we're talking romantic relationships, friendships, colleagues, family, being able to have these conversations, these repair conversations in a mature, healthy way is really fundamental. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. Some of the reasons why that might feel hard, just so we can bring a little more conscious awareness to it and go to those conversations and be in those moments with a bit more self awareness, so that we're not just acting from fear, from woundedness, from defensiveness, which I think is a big thing when it comes to apologising. Before we dive into that, couple of quick announcements. The first being that I have created a new Instagram account for the podcast specifically, so if you look up On Attachment on Instagram, you can follow along.
0:02:25.93 → 0:02:53.81
I'm going to be sharing exclusive podcast content, so clips from the show and other podcast related things. So if you love the show, that would be a really great way for you to support me and also for you to get more content from the podcast via Instagram. So if you look up On Attachment, you'll be able to find it there. The second quick announcement is just to share the review of the week. I have to say, you guys have been leaving so many beautiful reviews.
0:02:54.39 → 0:03:15.86
I was really spoiled for choice when I was picking one out to read today, but today's one is finally someone that understands me. I stumbled across this podcast while searching for something else and man, did the stars align. Finally, I found someone who explains things in a way I can understand. Like, she's talking to me about me and she's half a world away. If you're looking to understand attachment.
0:03:15.92 → 0:03:32.12
This is a podcast for you. Thank you so much for that beautiful review. I really do appreciate it. And as I said, there are so many lovely reviews that have gone up in the past couple of weeks. I am so grateful and really very humbled to be helping so many of you with the podcast.
0:03:32.18 → 0:04:05.28
So even if I haven't read your review out, please know I have read it. I read every single one and I'm deeply appreciative. If that was your review that I just read out, please send an email to podcast@stephanierigg.com and my team will set you up with free access to one of my master classes as a way to say thank you. Okay, so with all of that out of the way, let's dive into five reasons why you might struggle apologising. I'm going to start with the more obvious and simple ones and then dig into some that are a little less obvious and where there's a little bit more to unpack.
0:04:05.39 → 0:04:56.79
So the first reason that you may struggle to apologise is that you feel misunderstood or like you haven't been heard. You feel like there's a deeper issue and you don't want to let go of the conversation, the opportunity to discuss what's going on. You feel like the conversation is unfinished because you haven't been heard, validated, understood. And so to apologise, to say, yes, I'm sorry, you might have some fear that that's going to herald the end of discussion and you're not ready for the discussion to end because you don't feel like you've had sufficient space and airtime to share what you're feeling and your perspective on the situation. So I think that for a lot of us, when we don't feel heard, we want to keep the conversation going.
0:04:56.83 → 0:05:27.54
And there's a broader point here. If you are someone who in conflict, tends to not want to wrap up, and this is probably more for my anxious people, a common complaint from avoided partners is, oh, you just want to keep talking and talking and talking about it. You never just let it go. And that usually signals that you do not feel like you have been understood or heard. And so you just want to keep dragging it out, or you want to keep raising new issues or reopening issues that you've already talked about.
0:05:27.67 → 0:06:06.06
You don't feel like there's a resolution. And so if you notice yourself struggling to apologise, struggling to get to the resolution and kind of wrap up the conversation that you're having, then it may be that you don't feel like you've been heard or understood. So reflect on that. And if that is the case, if you feel like you haven't been heard or understood, what would you need in order to feel heard or understood? And maybe that's saying to someone, I feel resistant to apologising or I feel reluctant to apologise because I'm not sure you're really understanding what I'm saying.
0:06:06.24 → 0:06:42.79
And asking whatever it is that you need in order to feel understood. Okay? The next reason that you might struggle with apologising is that you are focusing on intention rather than impact, meaning you're focusing on what you meant or what you intended or didn't intend, rather than the impact that your words, actions, omissions had on the other person. So I think this is a really big one and one that a lot of us, most of us are probably guilty of. It's like, no, but I didn't mean that.
0:06:42.91 → 0:07:23.45
Therefore I'm not going to apologise for it because it wasn't my intention, I didn't mean to upset you, I didn't mean to disappoint you, I didn't mean to frustrate you. Therefore, even if it had that impact, why should I have to apologise for it? Okay? And while this is very it can be really frustrating when you're in that experience and you feel like someone has taken an innocent intention and is then sending it back at you and telling you that you hurt them. Or you upset them or they're angry with you and you can kind of feel like your behaviour has been hijacked or taken out of your hands and turned into something that you never intended.
0:07:23.79 → 0:07:56.45
Healthy, mature relationships require that we can separate ourselves from that a little and be mature enough to go, wow, that wasn't my intention, but I'm really, really sorry that it had that impact. Right? Because as soon as you start arguing with them on that, you are denying what their experience was and it's very invalidating to the other person's experience when you say, I didn't mean it, therefore your experience of it or your emotional response is invalid. And I'm not going to apologise that I shouldn't have to. Okay?
0:07:56.60 → 0:08:21.25
So I think as hard as this one can be, if you can hold both, I didn't mean it. And it had that impact anyway, and I'm going to take you at your word on that and I'm going to apologise, because I obviously didn't want for it to have that impact, and I'm sorry that it did, rather than I didn't want it to have that impact. Therefore, that impact doesn't exist. And it's all in your head. Right, or I shouldn't have to apologise for it because that's a you problem.
0:08:21.42 → 0:08:48.17
I think that healthy relationships require that we care about how our behaviour impacts someone else. Even if that wasn't our intention. And frankly, especially if that wasn't our intention. Because we need to have more awareness around things that might be inadvertently causing tension or rupture in our relationship when that wasn't our intention, so that next time we can have more awareness around it and hopefully do something differently. Okay?
0:08:48.31 → 0:09:39.99
So that one is we want to validate and apologise for the impact, even if especially if that wasn't our intention. And that doesn't mean to apologise for the impact doesn't change the intention, so it doesn't mean that you are acknowledging or owning up to ill intent. Okay, the next reason that you might struggle apologising is this is one that I really used to struggle with in a previous relationship. You feel that the other person has more to apologise for, so it feels unfair for you to be the one apologising, even if the issue at hand might warrant an apology from you. You might feel that there's an overall imbalance and so there's this sentiment of you want me to apologise when you do Abcde and F things and you never apologise.
0:09:40.41 → 0:10:28.72
So if you notice that kind of response coming up and as I said, I can really relate to this one. In a previous relationship, when my partner would say, raise something that he was unhappy with, that I had done, and I had such a long shopping list of things that frustrated me, angered me, unmet needs, all of those things. And so I would get really righteous and indignant when he would expect me to apologise for anything. Even if, as I said, an apology was warranted on my part, I would use that as an opportunity to come back at him with this barrage of all of the things that he did continuously that I thought were far more worthy of apology and that hadn't been adequately addressed. So that might be a factor.
0:10:28.86 → 0:11:16.55
If you notice this big resistance and this kind of righteous, indignant thing of you want me to apologise, I think we need to look at that and go, okay, what's really going on here? I think in terms of what we do with that, if we've made a mistake, if we've hurt someone, if we've slipped up, then being responsible means owning that. And I think that we don't want to start point scoring and being competitive about who's more bad. When you notice yourself going to that kind of pattern in your relationship, that is the problem. The fact that you're in that mindset of competitiveness and point scoring, that's really the issue, not whatever the substantive issue is in the moment that's raised the discussion.
0:11:16.89 → 0:12:15.16
So I think that you need to recognise that if that's the pattern, and find a way to talk about all of the other things that you're harbouring resentment around so that you can address the underlying issue and not get stuck in this point scoring, angry, bitter kind of energy in your relationship. Because it really just locks connection and really impede your ability to repair and move forward on anything. Okay, the next reason that you might find it hard to apologise is that you might find it hard to validate and affirm that someone could have a good reason to be upset with you. So this one, I think, is for my people, pleasers. And I think if you are someone who really notices a people pleasing streak and that you try very hard to keep everybody happy, this is probably more an anxious attachment thing.
0:12:15.85 → 0:13:03.37
If you're constantly working in overdrive to keep everyone happy, to please everyone and to meet everyone else's needs, to keep everything peaceful and stable and someone's upset with you, then it can feel like this really personal failure. And so if that's where you're coming from, then it might feel safer to try and persuade them of why they're mistaken, why they're wrong, why they don't have valid reason to be upset with you, rather than owning that you were imperfect. Right. I think another way that I could frame this one is you really try to be perfect in your relationships. You rely on being perfect and you don't know how to hold the ebbs and flow of relationships.
0:13:03.55 → 0:14:01.40
So you can't actually tolerate the idea that someone could be validly upset with you and still love you. And so rather than owning that and recognising it and validating it and coming up with a solution, you become quite defensive and you go into overdrive trying to restore your image in their eyes rather than engaging with the legitimacy of their concern. The final reason that you might struggle with apologising, and this is sort of an umbrella one, is that you may just never have had safe experiences with rupture and repair. So if you grew up in a family system where there was no conflict or everything was like a cold war, nothing ever got talked about, everything was always swept under the rug. And you may have never seen apologies, you may have never given them, you may have never been on the receiving end of them, you may have never had them modelled for you.
0:14:01.53 → 0:14:50.43
On the contrary, you might have had a very high conflict environment. But then when everything was over, the dust settled and there was no actual substantive repair, it just kind of fizzled out and went back to business as usual. There's lots of different ways that this can show up, but I think for a lot of people, they haven't had positive modelling around what it means to have relational ruptures and then safely repair and come back together stronger. So I think if you have a lot of fear around conflict for that reason, then you don't really trust that that's all part of the process of healthy relationships. And so you're just in a fear state anytime you're in any sort of conflict, because you just don't trust that that can happen safely.
0:14:50.53 → 0:15:54.21
And when we're in a fear state, our ability to connect empathically and apologise is really impeded because we're automatically going to be in a threatened state and defensiveness and counterattack comes very naturally when we're in that state. So if we don't have an embodied experience of safe connection through rupture and repair, then we just might not trust in the safety of the overall experience and we might be very guarded and defensive when we're having those conversations as a result. Okay, so that was five reasons why you might struggle with Apologising in your relationships. I hope that that has given you some food for thought, given you something to reflect on, and maybe will allow you to approach Apologising and the repair conversation with a little more self awareness and emotional maturity the next time you find yourself in that situation. If you enjoyed this episode, as always, I'd be super appreciative.
0:15:54.26 → 0:16:09.79
If you could leave a five star rating, leave a review. If you're on Apple podcasts or elsewhere, we are able to leave a review. It really does help so much in getting the word out and I appreciate it so much. I really do appreciate your support. Thanks so much for joining me, guys.
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I will see you again later this week.
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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 on a five star rating. It really does help so much. Thanks again for being here and I hope to see you again soon.
"How do I navigate the tendency to lose myself in a long-term relationship as anxiously attached person?"
In this week's Q&A episode, I'm answering a community question about the (very common) tendency to lose oneself as an anxiously attached person in relationships. I'll talk through why this happens so often and easily, and what you can do to counter it.
In this week's Q&A episode, I'm answering a community question about the (very common) tendency to lose oneself as an anxiously attached person in relationships.
I'll talk through why this happens so often and easily, and what you can do to counter it.
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Sign up for my signature 8-week course Healing Anxious Attachment
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
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Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. Today's episode is five tips for rebuilding after a long term relationship. So this was a topic that was requested by my Instagram community, and it's one that I know a lot of people struggle with, and certainly I've struggled with myself. I think that long term relationships ending can be very destabilising, and it's certainly a time and an experience when we can feel really filled with doubt and inner conflict and confusion and mixed feelings.
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And so I'm hoping that today's episode will give you some clarity, some guiding principles, some tools, and some mindset shifts to navigate that process with greater self trust and greater trust in the process itself, which I think is really what it comes down to. I should also say that even though I will be speaking more so in the context of a long term relationship, all of the tips I'm going to share would equally apply to any breakup or ending. So if you've just come out of a relationship that wasn't long term, that was only a couple of months and you're still really feeling it and still having a hard time, rest assured that you can apply and adapt, if need be. The tools and the advice that I'm going to be sharing today. Before I dive into that, I just wanted to share a couple of quick announcements.
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The first being that I am holding a flash sale on my Master classes and my Higher Love course. It's 50% off, which is the biggest discount I've ever given on those. And you can get any of my Master classes. So better boundaries, which is all about boundaries, go figure how to navigate anxious, avoidant relationships and sex and attachments. So those are the three Master classes.
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They're about 2 hours each. And my Higher Love course is a breakup course. And that's six modules. Fully self paced, self study, so you get instant access to all of it when you sign up. So you can use the code Love you loveyou at checkout to access that discount.
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And I'll link all of that in the show notes. The second quick announcement is just to share the featured review, which is I stumbled across this show by accident a few months ago and I'm so glad I did. The podcast has helped me understand my own attachment style, and the sense of relief I now feel is massive. I finally know why I feel anxious and most importantly, what I need to do to become more secure. In fact, I've already started on this journey via the podcast and I've never before felt such a sense of calm.
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I can finally relax. I'm looking forward to continuing this journey with Stephanie's podcast at the centre. Thank you so much for that beautiful review. I really love hearing that and it brings a big smile to my face. I think that your experience really speaks to the fact that so often what we need is just to be told you make sense, your experience makes sense, you're not crazy, you're not defective, you're not broken.
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And understanding like, oh, other people are like me. And I feel understood and I feel like there's an explanation for all of this and there's a path forward. I think that in and of itself, before you even start taking those steps forward, is incredibly, as you say, relieving and calming to the system. So I'm so glad that that's been your experience. If that was your review, please send an email to podcast@stephanierig.com and my team will set you up with free access to one of those master classes that I mentioned earlier.
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Okay, so let's dive into these five tips for rebuilding after a long term relationship ends. The first tip that I want to offer you is allow yourself the time and space to grieve however you need to. I think collectively we're pretty uncomfortable with grief, whether that's grief after death or after any other ending. And I think it's really important to understand that the grieving process after a breakup is really biologically akin to any other type of grief. Obviously it can show up in different ways and circumstances will influence that, but it can take you through emotionally the same kind of process.
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And so I think we need to approach it and honour it as such. What that means in Practise is allowing yourself to feel those feelings. Granted, you may not be able to take three months off work to stay in your pyjamas and cry all day, and that's certainly not what I'd be encouraging you to do anyway, but allowing yourself the time and space to be with whatever emotions are arising, and oftentimes those emotions will be conflicting. And so preparing yourself for that without making it mean more than it does. So it is perfectly normal to feel doubt, confusion, second guessing whether it was the right thing to do, longing for that person, wanting to reach out to them, rehashing everything that happened, anxiety, confusion, all of these things are completely normal, expected parts of the breakup experience and that grieving process.
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And that's true irrespective of whether the relationship was healthy or unhealthy, whether the breakup was a long time coming or happened quite suddenly, we're going to go through some sort of grieving process and that's likely to come in waves. It's unlikely to be linear. And so I think the more we can go into that experience, expecting it, expecting it to be emotionally dense and turbulent, expecting it to come in waves, the less likely we are to take that experience and make it mean something. Because this is where I see people get stuck every single time we go, oh my God, I missed them so much. This cannot be the right decision.
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If this were the right decision, there's no way that I would miss them this much or we're both so upset. Doesn't that mean that we should be trying to make it work? Maybe, but also probably not. If I'm being really honest, I think I have another episode on questions to ask before getting back together with someone that you can scroll back and find. But what I always say as a starting point is if it's just missing them, then that's not enough.
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That's not enough of a reason to go back or to take any action with those feelings. Because missing someone is a completely normal, predictable response to a long term relationship ending. Again, any relationship ending, but especially a long term one. Because when you've been with someone for a long time, there is inherently a level of comfort and stability and predictability that you get from that relationship. Even if that relationship is dysfunctional and unhealthy and not working, that's still an anchor point in your life, that you come to navigate the world via all of your daily routines and habits and what you do, how you move about the world is influenced and shaped by the relationship.
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So when that gets taken out, you're going to feel the lack of it, you're going to feel the void and that is going to be uncomfortable. So again, being really realistic with our expectations so that we can go, okay, I really miss them. I feel really knocked off centre here. I want to reach out to them. I feel lonely, I feel sad going, yeah, okay, of course I do.
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Of course I feel those things. That makes perfect sense. That's part of the process. Okay? It's like if you injured yourself and you felt pain, you would expect to feel pain because that's part of the process.
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That's what's going on here. And we need to allow ourselves to feel that without frantically trying to fix or solve or make it go away. So the first one there is allow yourself to grieve without making it mean more than it does or getting stuck in the stories that can spring from those big emotions. The next one that I want to offer you is to really lean on your support people here and that will look different for everyone. But whether that's close friends who you really trust, therapist or other professional that you see family members, it's really important for a couple of reasons.
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I think there can be a temptation to isolate ourselves again if we're not comfortable with all of the big emotions and particularly if you're someone who has a bit of a tendency to not want to burden people with your stuff. If you're used to being the support person to others, you're used to playing the carer role, then it might be really uncomfortable for the shoe to be on the other foot, for you to be in need of that support when you're so accustomed to saying, I'm fine, don't worry about me. But the reality is you do need support in this period because, again, one of the key people in your life has been taken away and they are no longer in the picture. And so you're going to need to diversify where you would usually get that support from. So don't be afraid to ask for help, to ask for support.
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The other key piece in this one is from a nervous system point of view, you need active and regular reminders that people in relationships are good and safe and positive, that you are loved, that you can be held by other people and supported, that you can be cared for. That's very nourishing to your system and will really counter any other stories you might have around the unsafety of being alone. Again, this is particularly for people who do struggle with being alone. So people who tend more towards anxious attachment, you may have quite a lot of visceral fear around the aloneness that comes with a breakup. And so countering that by going, okay, actually, as much as my fear stories in my body want to tell me that I'm alone, and that's terrifying, I'm not alone.
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I've got all these people around me who care about me, who are invested in my well being, who I can lean on and be held by. And so maybe as much as my body wants to tell me that this is really unsafe and we need to do something about it, which might mean reaching out to your ex and trying to backpedal on everything, no, it's okay. I have other options. I have other support people. Here they are, and I'm going to be okay.
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I can resource myself to get through this period in a way that is grounded, that is supported, and I don't need to go into a really fear based state, even more so than I might already be, by isolating myself. Okay, the third tip that I want to give you is see this period as an opportunity to spring clean your life. So this will start to come in a little bit further down the track. I don't expect you on day three, after the breakup to start reinventing yourself. And to be clear, you don't ever have to reinvent yourself.
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There's nothing wrong with you, right? But I think that it can be really nice and can give you a sense of renewal and agency over the story and your role in it to go. Okay. This is an opportunity right. To see it as a fresh start as a new chapter, as a new beginning.
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And to step into that in a really empowered, deliberate way, rather than floating around rutterless going, oh, my God. How has this happened? I'm alone. I can't live without them, what am I ever going to do? Obviously that's not a very empowered story and doesn't really allow you to get intentional about what you want your life to look like in this next chapter and beyond.
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So see it as an opportunity to sprinkle in your life, to rediscover yourself again, particularly if you are someone who tends more towards anxious attachment or you otherwise know that you tend to really lose yourself in a relationship, so you tend to sort of become subsumed to the relationship container. This is a really great opportunity to carve out, like, who am I? What do I like? What would my ideal be if I weren't always thinking about someone else and what they like and what they're comfortable with? How do I want my space to look?
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What do I like to do with my free time? What food do I like to eat? What shows do I like to watch? What do I want to spend my weekends doing right? When we're so accustomed to factoring in someone else?
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And potentially, if that's your tendency to defer to what their preference is, we can lose sight of that. And so this is actually a really, really beautiful opportunity for you to make it about you for once. So relish in that opportunity, relish in the freedom that this period can afford you. So don't waste that or lose sight of it, or be so distracted by the hard parts of the experience that you aren't noticing all of the positives. The next tip that I want to offer you is become the most fully expressed version of yourself that you can.
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So this is kind of in a similar vein to the previous one, but become more of yourself. So if the previous one was around, kind of revamping your surroundings and your routines and all of that to suit you, this one's about becoming more of you. So doing things that once would have scared you or doing things that you never thought that you could or that you've always wanted to, but you thought, no, I couldn't do that, right? Maybe you could, right? Challenge yourself.
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Learn to overcome those fears or nerves or embarrassment or shame or any of those other things that have held you back from doing things that you've always been curious about or interested in. Right? So again, it's kind of easy and it's not a bad thing. I think it's just true, right, that it's easy to get lazy and really comfortable and cosy in a long term relationship. I think that a lot of us who are in long term relationships can relate to that, right?
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That it's easy to get a bit complacent around the way we spend our time. So see this period as an invitation, a permission slip to really broaden your horizons and live a little. So whether that's like taking up a new hobby, going to cooking classes, or challenging yourself physically, starting to work with a personal trainer or taking up a new sport or starting running or something that you've previously thought wasn't like you or you didn't have time for or would be too hard. I think all of those things can be really powerful in building up your self worth, your sense of self and your self confidence as you enter into this next chapter. So reflect on what would be the things.
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Maybe it's just one or two things at the moment. How could I infuse some newness or stretch my comfort zone a little so that I'm becoming more of who I am and particularly in ways that I felt I couldn't when I was in a relationship? So stretch out that comfort zone, okay? And the last tip that I want to give you is when it comes time to date, and that might not be for a while, so please don't expect yourself to be back out there in a month, particularly if it's a long term relationship and there's a lot of processing to do. There is absolutely no rush here.
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Expect to relapse, for want of a better term. So you might be feeling like super upbeat and positive and excited to get back out into the dating world and then maybe you download one of the apps and you feel really deflated and defeated and hopeless all of a sudden. Or you go on a couple of dates and it's underwhelming. Okay? Expect that it's going to be a bit of a process and don't expect to find your soulmate or the next person you're going to be in a long term relationship with on your first date or your first interaction on an app.
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You need to be kind of bracing yourself for the process of dating, being hit and miss and being trial and error, and go into that with an open mind, with good humour. And again, try and see it as an opportunity rather than this drudgery, this frustrating thing that you reluctantly have to do in order to meet someone. Try and enjoy the process as much as possible. Try and approach it with a mindset of, oh, look at all these people that I get to meet. What a great opportunity.
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That's all it has to be, right? And when I say expect to relapse, what I mean is expect to be reminded of your ex in ways that you might not have been in the intervening period. So I think it's really normal and natural to have felt like you were over them. And then you go on a date with someone and they have a trait that annoys you and you're like, oh, my ex would never have done that. We always used to laugh at people who did that or dressed like that or said things like that or liked that thing.
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I miss them. Or you might just miss how comfortable and easeful it felt with your ex. Whereas with all these new people. You're starting from scratch and it feels difficult, and you don't know each other yet, and it's a bit awkward, and so you really just miss and crave the comfort of the comfy pair of jeans that you've worn in rather than the stiff new ones. It's really normal to feel that way.
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And again, try not to make too much meaning out of it. Comparing new people with old people is a completely normal thing to do, so don't then go. Maybe that means that my ex is actually the right person for me. Stay the course, stick with the process, trust in the process, and know that you'll get more comfortable with it. And as time goes by, you'll get to know new people, and what starts as being a little bit awkward and uncomfortable will slowly become more comfortable.
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Right? There was a time where you didn't know your ex and you were in that same place with them. So just allow things to blossom and grow rather than writing them off straight out of the gate from a place of comparison or fear or anxiety or whatever else might be driving that response in you. Okay, so those were five tips for rebuilding after a long term relationship ends. I hope that that has been helpful.
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I did try to give you a bit of a spectrum there of advice ranging from very early in the process, post breakup, to that kind of midway point where you're starting to emerge from the darkness and rebuild and then ultimately going towards potentially dating again. So I hope that that's given you a lot to work with, no matter where you are in that process. If you've enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful, as always, if you could leave a five star rating or a review. If you're listening on Apple podcasts. It really does help so much, and I'm deeply, deeply appreciative of all of you who have been taking the time to do that recently.
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It's very touching and humbling to me. Thanks so much for joining me, guys. I will see you again later in the week. 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 stephanierig.com.
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And if you enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a review on a five star rating. It really does help so much. Thanks again for being here and I hope to to see you again soon.