#178: When Your Partner Isn't Meeting Your Needs
It’s painful when you feel like your needs in a relationship aren’t being met. Whether it’s emotional intimacy, quality time, affection, or communication, this can lead to frustration, loneliness, and resentment — especially if you’ve voiced your needs and still don’t see change.
It’s painful when you feel like your needs in a relationship aren’t being met. Whether it’s emotional intimacy, quality time, affection, or communication, this can lead to frustration, loneliness, and resentment — especially if you’ve voiced your needs and still don’t see change.
In this episode, we’re exploring:
Why anxiously attached people so often get stuck around needs
What to focus on if you feel stuck in a cycle of unmet needs
How to know when it’s a compatibility issue vs. a communication issue
If you’ve ever wondered whether your needs are “too much” or felt torn between self-advocacy and keeping the peace, this episode will give you clarity on how to navigate these conversations with confidence and self-respect.
Navigating Relationship Needs: A Guide to Understanding and Addressing Unmet Expectations
In the realm of relationships, unmet needs can often leave us feeling unfulfilled and questioning the foundation of our partnership. This experience is common, particularly among those with anxious attachment styles, who may find it challenging to articulate, advocate for, and ultimately have their needs met. Navigating this complex emotional landscape requires a nuanced understanding of both our own needs and those of our partner's. This guide aims to shed light on how to effectively address situations where your needs are not being met, offering insights on fostering healthier communication and discernment in relationships.
Understanding Your Needs
The journey to having your needs met begins with understanding them yourself. Many individuals grapple with identifying their needs, often questioning whether they are valid or if they are being unreasonable in their expectations. It's essential to cultivate self-awareness and trust, recognising that having needs doesn’t make you needy or demanding. Rather, acknowledging them is a step towards establishing a fulfilling connection. Being honest with yourself about what you require to feel secure and valued in a relationship is foundational.
A common barrier is the fear of seeming too demanding or being afraid of rejection. This fear can result in either suppressing needs or communicating them in a way that is laden with blame or criticism. Such approaches can trigger defensiveness rather than collaboration. Understanding and articulating your needs from a place of vulnerability—without assigning blame—can open a pathway for genuine dialogue and resolution.
Communication: The Art of Expressing Needs
Effective communication is an art form, especially when discussing unmet needs. It involves not only expressing what you require but doing so in a manner that invites cooperation rather than confrontation. One common pitfall is the tendency to equate a need with a specific action. For instance, you might express the need for connection through a request for daily texts, but the underlying need is to feel considered and valued. By focusing on the feeling or experience you seek rather than the method, you invite your partner into the solution, allowing for creative and mutually agreeable ways to fulfill that need.
When communicating your needs, clarity is key. It's crucial to articulate what you are hoping to achieve and how it contributes to your sense of well-being. However, balance is important; it's equally vital to be open to your partner's perspective and their own needs. Successful relationships are grounded in empathy and compromise, recognising that both partners have legitimate desires and limitations.
Addressing Disparities: What If Needs Aren't Met?
Sometimes, despite clear communication, needs remain unmet. This can occur for various reasons, including differing capacities, priorities, or emotional readiness. It’s important to distinguish whether the issue lies in the way a need is being communicated or if there is a genuine incompatibility in meeting that need.
If you find that your needs are consistently unmet, it’s prudent to reflect on how essential these needs are to your overall happiness and relationship satisfaction. Are these core needs non-negotiable, or is there room for flexibility? Repeated unmet needs, despite clear communication, might indicate a deeper incompatibility. This doesn’t necessarily render your partner a bad person; it simply highlights a mismatch in the ways both of you are able to fulfil each other’s emotional landscapes.
Self-Awareness and Discernment: Navigating Decisions
In relationships, discernment plays a vital role in guiding decisions about unmet needs. It's the ability to assess situations with clarity, considering what you truly value and what you are willing to negotiate. Cultivating discernment involves building a robust sense of self-awareness and trust, enabling you to make decisions that align with your values and well-being.
If your relationship struggles persist, it could indicate a fundamental mismatch, not a personal failing. Recognising this can be challenging but also liberating, allowing both partners the freedom to seek fulfilment elsewhere if necessary. The process of discernment doesn’t provide simple answers but encourages continuous reflection and growth.
Conclusion: The Path to Fulfilled Partnerships
Ultimately, navigating unmet needs within a relationship requires ongoing reflection, communication, and empathy. By understanding your own needs and approaching them with honesty and openness, you foster an environment where both partners can express and address their desires effectively. While the process may be challenging, it is through this journey that genuine, healthy, and fulfilling connections are forged. Relationships thrive not on the absence of needs but on the presence of mutually supportive efforts to meet them.
Questions for Discussion & Reflection
How do you currently identify and articulate your needs within your relationship? Do you feel confident in voicing these needs, and how does your partner typically respond?
Reflect on a time when you felt your needs weren't being met. How did you react, and would you approach the situation differently now based on what you've learned in this episode?
Consider the balance between expressing your needs and allowing flexibility in how those needs are met. Are there areas where you might be too rigid or prescriptive in your expectations?
What emotions arise for you when you think about the possibility of not having your needs met in a relationship? How can you address these emotions constructively?
Do you find yourself internalising any rejection or pushback when your needs aren't met? How can you work towards maintaining your sense of self-worth and validation independently?
In what ways can you invite your partner into a collaborative process to meet each other's needs, rather than issuing demands or criticisms?
Reflect on a relationship where you felt seen and understood in your needs. What was different about that relationship, and what lessons can you bring forward into your current or future partnerships?
Explore whether there are needs you expect your partner to meet that might be better addressed within yourself or outside the relationship. How can doing so enhance the partnership?
How might your attachment style influence the way you perceive and communicate your needs? What steps can you take to approach this with increased self-awareness?
Are there longstanding unmet needs in your relationship that might indicate a compatibility issue? How do you envision addressing these with your partner, and what outcomes are you prepared to consider?
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:28]:
In today's episode, we are talking all about needs, and specifically what to do if you're in a relationship where you're not getting your needs met, and it's leaving you feeling unfulfilled, or disconnected, or unsatisfied, and maybe even questioning the relationship as a whole. So this is one that, well, I think most everyone will experience at some point or another, but particularly folks with anxious attachment tend to have a really really tough time with everything to do with needs, frankly. There's knowing what your needs are, identifying them, voicing them, advocating for them, and getting them met. It feels like from start to finish, it's a bit of a minefield, and can trigger a lot of our fears and wounds and insecurities, and oftentimes we go about getting a need met in a way that's maybe ineffective. We do that from a wounded place, and in an effort to protect ourselves against the vulnerability and the riskiness of putting ourselves out there and asking for a need to be met, we can almost encase our requests in blame or criticism or demand, because that feels a little less edgy than really showing our more tender, vulnerable parts. And I do have an episode from a while back that I'll link in the show notes which is around reasons why maybe you're not getting your needs met, and that episode talks a little bit more about different approaches that you might take in terms of how you communicate your needs, and also things like difficulty in receiving that can be part of the puzzle when we're trying to understand like what's going wrong here, where are we not lining up in terms of our needs.
[00:02:08]:
But today's episode is going to be focused a little bit more on the specific question of like, how do I go about resolving that impasse where I feel like I've communicated my needs? We're going to assume for the purposes of this discussion that you've communicated them effectively enough, and still I'm not getting my needs met. So that's really going to be the focus, giving you some insights, some things to reflect on, and hopefully some clarity around what your next step might be if you feel stuck in that kind of dynamic. Now before we dive into today's discussion, a couple of quick announcements. The first is a little celebration. Last week we reached a milestone with the podcast of 6,000,000 downloads, which is really crazy. I mean, I know that probably just sounds like a big abstract number, but for a podcast that is independently recorded and produced and edited and everything from my home office, 6,000,000 downloads is pretty wild. It is still something that I have to really pinch myself around. When I see this podcast in the top charts in pretty much every country in the world each week, in amongst all of the big names with a lot of powerful networks and backing behind them.
[00:03:21]:
It's really really touching, humbling, and it is a great honor to be able to share this with you, as I say from my little home office, for better or for worse. And so I have to thank each and every one of you, whether you've listened to all 178, I think, episodes we're up to now, or you're just dipping in for the first time or somewhere in between. It's really because of you and your support in tuning in and sharing it with the people in your lives that I'm able to keep putting the show out and that we've reached such an amazing milestone. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you. Second quick announcement, which is a celebration as well. Healing Anxious Attachment, which is my signature course as many of you would know, is turning three next week. It's been almost three years since I first launched the program. Which for a little bit of backstory was something that happened when I was totally overflowing with requests for one on one coaching.
[00:04:15]:
I had close to a thousand people on a wait list and it became apparent that that was not going to be viable. So I put together a course that distilled down everything I teach and coach people on and speak about and have learned from my own personal experience into a course. And that course was Healing Anxious Attachment. Three years later, almost 2,500 people from all over the world, I think we've had people as young as 20 and as old as 70, as far as I'm aware, it could be more than that, take the course from well over 30 countries. So it has really grown into something beyond my wildest dreams, and for that I'm so grateful. And to celebrate the third birthday of Feeling anxious attachment, I'm going to be doing something I've never done before, which is offering the course for its original price, which is quite a bit less than its current price. Since I first created the course, I've fully updated it, re recorded it, added to it. And for this birthday sale, I'm also going to be giving you exclusive bonuses including my full master class library.
[00:05:21]:
So you're going to be getting six bonus master classes in addition to getting the course for its lowest ever price. So this is really one that is not to be missed. If you have ever thought about joining, now is the time. This is very much a once off. I don't tend to run sales on healing anxious attachment because it is my signature program, and frankly, I think it's worth every penny of its regular price. But I'm in the mood to celebrate, so that is what we're going to be doing. This deal is only going to be available to people who are on the waitlist and only for twenty four hours, so you're going to want to get on the list and you're going to want to keep an eye on your inbox on the March 16. I will be very strictly enforcing those deadlines, so jump on the list.
[00:06:01]:
Link is in the show notes or on my website. I really hope to welcome lots of you into the program as part of this special occasion. Okay. So So let's get into this conversation around what to do when a partner is not meeting your needs. So here's what I see happen a lot of the time. When people who have anxious attachment patterns first come to this work, come to my work, come to me, What I'll often see is people not really knowing what their needs are, and if they have a sense of what their needs are, they don't really know if they're allowed to have them. So there's this internal dialogue of like, I want more connection, but am I asking for too much? Or I want my partner to open up to me, but I'm scared that I'm being too needy. Or I have a sense that maybe my boundary is this thing, but I'm not sure if that's actually just my anxiety or I'm being controlling, or whatever it might be.
[00:06:54]:
Right? We have a hunch as to what our needs or boundaries might be, but we have such a lack of self trust, and we're so unskilled when it comes to validating ourselves, and we maybe don't know that we are allowed to want the things we want, or feel the way we feel, or be uncomfortable with the things we're uncomfortable with. We're so unsure about that, and our internal foundation is so wobbly, that the idea of standing really firm in our needs and then communicating them to a partner, that feels really challenging. Often times people will work their way up to that and they might communicate it to a partner, but as soon as they get pushed back, they crumble, and they go like, Oh, okay. If someone says that they can't do that, or they won't do that, or that I am asking for too much, I very quickly internalize that messaging and cower in the face of someone telling me that they can't meet my needs. And of course that doesn't feel very satisfactory because the needs are still there. Whatever feelings gave rise to that part of us that wanted to express the need and wanted to shift something in the relationship, all of that is still there. But now I've got this additional layer of feeling dismissed or invalidated, or being told that my experience is not allowed, or there's not space for it in the relationship. So we can feel like we're in a bit of a quandary, we feel stuck in not wanting to let go of the relationship, feeling like we love this person, and maybe feeling like there are good things that we do want to hold on to, but knowing that there are certain key respects in which we're not getting what we need and having some real doubt around, is it something that I'm doing that is stopping this person from being able to meet me in that? Am I asking it of the wrong person? Or is there some other thing that is getting in the way here that I'm not aware of? So that's sort of scenario one.
[00:08:44]:
Another version of this which I also see a lot is that people come across the work, they learn about the fact that they're allowed to have needs, they learn about how to speak up for themselves, and then they become demanding of their partner. And I often say to students and clients of mine that I think the language of need can almost be a little bit misleading in the sense that when someone figures out, like, okay, these are my needs, and then they communicate it to a partner, it comes across with this energy of, because it's my need, you need to do this. Or, I need you to do this, in the sense of you don't have a choice in the matter because I've identified this as being one of my needs, and if you don't meet my needs then you are a bad partner or a bad person, and that's on you. So we can become a little bit entitled and righteous almost about the fact that we have to get our needs met. And that's part of the job of our partner, is to willingly meet all of our needs. And so I think that can be the other expression of this same wound, is we either get very small and almost like a little mouse and we might express a need, but as soon as we meet any pushback we cower, and we internalise the fact that we're not allowed to have needs, or we get very big and we get very loud and we get very demanding and righteous and entitled, and if someone doesn't meet our needs then we villainize them, and we make it out as if they're a terrible person because they're not meeting our needs. And I think in that scenario, we forget that they are actually their own person as well, and believe it or not, they also have needs, and they also have limits, and they also have a certain capacity, and it's not for us to dictate what they have to do. And this is where it gets really hard, and we have to bring in some of the hard truths.
[00:10:33]:
And it's something that an insecure attachment mindset, whether it's anxious or avoidant or disorganized, people with mindset, whether it's anxious or avoidant or disorganized, people with insecure attachment tend to struggle withholding two truths. We tend to be quite black and white, quite binary, quite oppositional in the way that we think. It's very like good bad, right wrong, villain victim. We're always trying to look for certainty in our thinking, when the reality is that there's always more to it than that. There's always nuance, there's always shades of grey. And so the two truths that we need to be able to hold when it comes to this conversation and needs in relationship is you're allowed to have needs, and your needs are valid, and they're yours, and they just are. Right? If you've identified that this is what I need in order to feel okay in a relationship, or to feel safe, or to feel loved, or whatever, like that's that's okay. You're allowed to have that, and you cannot demand that someone do what you want them to do in order to meet your needs, or in order to make you feel a certain way.
[00:11:31]:
So both of those things can be true, and I think we struggle to hold that. We tend to go like, Either my needs are invalid, and that's why they won't meet them, so I'm not allowed to have the needs, Or, if my needs are valid then they have to meet them, and to be said that they aren't, that's on them. And so I have to punish them, or blame them, or whatever. Right? Both of these things can be true. The needs can be valid, and someone can be unable or unwilling to meet them. Okay? So if you get to that point, and you've decided, yes these are my needs, and these needs are valid, and I know them to be the things that I really need and value in a relationship and in a partner, and my partner is unable or unwilling to meet those needs, there are a couple of things that you can do next. One is to examine whether you are being overly rigid or prescriptive about how the need is met. And again, I think this is where some of our anxious attachment patterns can get in the way and can actually block us from getting our needs met, because the core need might be, I want to feel connected to you.
[00:12:32]:
But the way that we have come to understand the need, and the way that we then communicate it to a partner is, I need you to text me throughout the day because if not, then I don't feel okay. That's not really the need. Having someone text you all day every day is not a need. Feeling connected to you, feeling like you're thinking of me, feeling important to you, feeling considered by you, those are really valid needs. But we need to bring in some flexibility around the how. I think that often times when we're being overly controlling and rigid and prescriptive about the how, that's where someone can go like, Woah. I can't do that. I can't give you what you need.
[00:13:08]:
You're asking for too much. Right? And I think that can be fair enough when we are coming in with, like, this long list of things that can feel a bit overbearing. It can feel a bit unreasonable. So if you are noticing that kind of thing, where you are being quite specific around like, I need you to do x y z thing every single day, and maybe you're being a little bit highly strung about that, to put it lightly, consider like, what is the core need? What am I wanting to feel? What am I telling myself that I will feel as a result of you doing this thing? And that will likely expose what the underlying need is. What's at the heart of this thing? And oftentimes it will be like, I want to feel important to you. I want to feel like a priority. I want to feel connected to you. I want to feel safe.
[00:13:55]:
I want to feel seen. I want to feel understood. And so if you can communicate those needs, and certainly come up with suggestions for how your partner might go about meeting that need, because I think we can have different understandings. One person could feel really connected by doing one thing, and another could have a totally different conception of what that looks like, and so we can beat a mismatch there. So offer suggestions, but be flexible as to the how, as to the solution for getting the need met. You're much more likely to get engagement from your partner when you're inviting them into the solution, rather than dictating to them what they have to do in order to meet your need, in order to make you happy. Particularly, I might add, if there's a bit of a track record or a history in the relationship of you issuing these demands and then never really being satisfied, or moving very quickly onto the next thing that you're upset, or worried, or insecure about, which we know can be a feature of anxious attachment that we're always raising the bar or moving the goalpost because we really struggle to take in that reassurance even when it is given. So being flexible and inviting your partner into the solution is likely to be much more effective in getting engagement than if you are just telling them about all the ways that they're not meeting your needs, about all the ways they're disappointing you, and then telling them very prescriptively what they have to do.
[00:15:16]:
Otherwise you won't be meeting my needs and I'm going to be angry or upset with you. That's not a very inspiring way of delivering the message, and so sometimes just changing our approach can actually get a lot more traction, than we otherwise would. The other possibility, and of course this is the one that none of us really want to face, but it is always there and it is something that we have to be honest and realistic about, is that sometimes we are asking someone to meet our needs who is unable or unwilling to. And that's where we have to get really clear for ourselves on how important is this need to me? Is it absolutely fundamental, essential, non negotiable for me in order to feel okay in a relationship, in order for me to thrive here? Is this instrumental to my sense of well-being and safety and belonging and security in a relationship? And if so, if it's been made very clear that our partner is not in a position to meet us there or to to respond to the need in the way that would allow us to feel those things, then that might be where we have to look at whether it's a compatible partnership, whether we are asking for the right thing from the wrong person. And of course there's a lot of grief tied up in making that assessment and coming to that conclusion, but that is a possibility. That there's nothing wrong with what you're asking, it's just who you're asking it of. And again, part of our growing is realizing that that doesn't make them a terrible person. It might just mean that they're not a great partner for you, they're not the best choice for you, because your particular set of needs is not compatible with their capacity or what they are able and willing to give.
[00:17:07]:
And I know that people listening to this will have the follow-up question of like, well how do I know if it's at that point? How do I know if we're at the end of the road? And there's nothing that I can give you as a really clear rubric for figuring that out. That is one where we have to be honest and discerning. But I think if you are consistently met with someone's unwillingness or even clear communication as to their inability to meet a need, and you have communicated that clearly, probably over a long period of time, and you know for yourself that that need is not only non negotiable, but it's one that you can't get met outside of the relationship, it's something that you really do need from your partner, those would all be signs that maybe you are asking it of someone who is unable to give it to you. Okay. It feels like we're ending on a bit of a heavy note, because I know that coming to that realization can be really, really challenging, and as I said, can bring up a lot of grief. But I think it can also be, in some respects, liberating to realize that we're not doing anything wrong, there's nothing wrong with us. Sometimes it's just not the right fit, and we can actually free both ourselves and the other person from the stress of putting effort in where maybe it's not going to yield what we're hoping for in response, because I know from experience how very draining and even demoralizing that can be on both sides to feel like we're just banging our head up against a wall and nothing's really moving the dial. So I hope that's been helpful in shedding a bit of light on what to do if you're not getting your needs met, different ways that you can approach that based on your situation, based on what you've tried, and maybe trying different angles or zooming out and looking at the relationship more broadly.
[00:19:02]:
As I said in the introduction, Healing Access Attachment which is on sale next week, we have a whole module to this, but I would say the whole course really equips you with the tools and the self knowing to make these decisions from a place of confidence and trust. And that's really what it's all about. It's not just looking at any one issue in isolation, it's building up our sense of self to the point where we feel equipped to navigate these sorts of tricky relationship questions with more self confidence, with more self esteem, with more self trust. And that is really truly liberating because we actually have our own back oftentimes for the first time in our lives. Okay. So I'm gonna leave it there. Thank you so much for tuning in, guys, and I look forward to seeing you again next week. Thanks so much.
[00:19:55]:
Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment. If you wanna 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 5 star rating. It really does help so much. Thanks again for being here, and I hope to see you again soon.
Keywords from Podcast Episode
On Attachment, relationship podcast, attachment theory, relationships, meeting needs, unfulfilled relationships, anxious attachment, communicating needs, vulnerability, insecurity, partner communication, relationship guidance, 6,000,000 downloads, Healing Anxious Attachment course, relationship coaching, resolving relationship impasse, personal growth, podcast milestone, course anniversary, emotional needs, compatibility in relationships, understanding needs, relationship dynamics, communication strategies, personal development, attachment patterns, self-trust, relationship challenges, setting boundaries, effective communication, navigating relationships.
#177: How Social Media Exacerbates Anxious Attachment
Social media can be a minefield at the best of times, but if you have an anxious attachment style, it can amplify relationship anxiety in ways that feel overwhelming. From overanalysing who your partner follows to spiralling over why they haven’t posted about you, social media can fuel insecurity, comparison, and even compulsive checking behaviours.
Social media can be a minefield at the best of times, but if you have an anxious attachment style, it can amplify relationship anxiety in ways that feel overwhelming. From overanalysing who your partner follows to spiralling over why they haven’t posted about you, social media can fuel insecurity, comparison, and even compulsive checking behaviours.
In today’s episode, we’re exploring why social media is such a common trigger for people with anxious attachment, the unhealthy patterns it can create, and most importantly, how to navigate it in a way that supports your wellbeing and relationship security.
What We Cover in This Episode:
Why social media fuels anxiety for anxiously attached people
The biggest relationship triggers—who your partner follows, why they won't post about you, and more
The comparison trap and how it distorts reality
Unhealthy social media behaviours that reinforce insecurity
Practical strategies to reduce social media anxiety and feel more secure
Link to Episode #165: Why Validation is So Important for Anxiously Attached People
How Social Media Exacerbates Anxious Attachment and What to Do About It
In an age where social media is pervasive, the impact it has on our mental health and relationships is profound, particularly for those who struggle with anxious attachment. Anxious attachment is characterised by a deep-seated fear of abandonment and a constant need for reassurance in relationships. When partnered with the stimulating environment of social platforms, these traits can lead to exacerbated anxieties and behaviours that are challenging to manage. Understanding the intersection between social media and anxious attachment is essential for fostering healthier relationships and a balanced mental state.
The Social Media Minefield
Social media is meticulously designed to capture and hold our attention. Its endless scroll, algorithm-driven feeds, and constant notifications create a realm that is both addictive and anxiety-inducing. For individuals with anxious attachment, who are naturally sensitive to perceived threats to their relationships, social media can act as a catalyst, amplifying feelings of insecurity, jealousy, and comparison.
A common struggle arises when comparing one's relationship to the seemingly perfect relationships displayed online. This constant comparison can lead to feelings of inadequacy and unworthiness, destabilising one's self-esteem. Moreover, witnessing a partner's online interactions—such as who they follow or what they post—can trigger anxiety and lead to compulsive checking behaviours. This often manifests in hyper-vigilance and a relentless pursuit of information, as if more data could somehow mitigate the underlying fear of being abandoned or unloved.
Navigating Partner Dynamics Online
Anxiously attached individuals may find themselves particularly sensitive to how much—or how little—their partners share about them on social media. The disparity between one's own posts about the relationship and a partner’s posts (or lack thereof) can evoke feelings of invisibility or even suspicion. If one partner regularly shares relationship highlights while the other remains silent, it may lead to assumptions about their commitment or feelings, igniting unnecessary disputes rooted in misunderstanding rather than reality.
Discomfort might also emerge around the types of accounts a partner follows, especially if those accounts are flirtatious or overtly sexual. The idea that a partner could be engaging, even passively, with potentially tempting content might stir deep-seated fears and insecurities, prompting complex discussions about boundaries and respect. It's crucial to note that these feelings, while deeply personal, are entirely valid and deserve a considerate dialogue.
Establishing Personal and Relational Boundaries
Setting clear boundaries regarding social media usage is pivotal for managing the impact on one's emotional well-being and relationships. Begin by engaging in open conversations with your partner about any discomforting behaviours online. Ensure these discussions are anchored in your personal experience, avoiding blame and instead focusing on how these actions affect your emotional state. For instance, expressing discomfort about certain accounts your partner follows should be framed around how it makes you feel, rather than a direct accusation.
In addition to relational boundaries, personal boundaries are equally important. Limiting social media usage can significantly reduce anxiety. Consider strategies like removing apps from your phone during certain times, setting screen time limits, or consciously curating your feed to eliminate content that triggers negative emotions. Being mindful of the amount of time spent online and understanding its effects on your mental health allows you to reclaim control from these addictive platforms.
The Path to Greater Security
Ultimately, navigating social media's impact on anxious attachment requires a combination of personal introspection and open communication with your partner. Being in tune with your vulnerabilities and taking active steps to mitigate their overwhelming influence is a form of self-care that benefits not only you but also the health of your relationship.
Remember, it's essential to trust your feelings and validate your experiences without dismissing them as overreactions. Your discomfort is real, and it points towards needs that deserve to be addressed. By setting boundaries, engaging in empathetic dialogue, and managing your social media interactions responsibly, you pave the way towards a more secure attachment style and a healthier relational dynamic.
Questions for Discussion & Reflection
Do you find yourself engaging in compulsive checking behaviors on social media in your relationships? Reflect on the impact this might have on your mental health and relationship dynamics.
How do you feel when your partner's social media activity, such as the accounts they follow or the people they interact with, conflicts with your comfort levels? Have you had a conversation about this with them?
What are your personal boundaries around social media usage, and how do they support or challenge your well-being? Are there any adjustments you feel you need to make?
Reflect on how social media comparisons have affected your self-worth and view of your relationship. What strategies can you adopt to minimize the negative impact of these comparisons?
In what ways do you seek validation through social media, both from your partner and from others? How does this relate to your patterns of attachment?
Consider a time when you felt insecure about your partner's lack of social media engagement regarding your relationship. How did you address this, and what insights did you gain?
How do you balance your desire for information and control with the need for open and honest communication in your relationships? What challenges do you encounter in this balance?
Reflect on your response to your partner's defensiveness in conversations about social media. How can you approach these discussions more effectively to ensure your needs are heard?
How might reducing your social media usage improve your relationship with your partner and your own mental health? What steps can you take to achieve this?
Explore the role of self-responsibility in managing your relationship with social media. What practical measures can you implement to ensure it remains a healthy aspect of your life?
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:29]:
In today's episode, we are talking all about the role of social media, particularly in the context of anxious attachment, and exploring some of the ways that social media and your relationship with it might be making your anxious attachment patterns and behaviors worse, or more challenging. So this is one that has been requested for quite a while now. It's a topic that I'm always getting questions about when I do q and a's on Instagram or in my DMs. I I often get questions from people around how to navigate conversations with a partner around social media usage. I think particularly things like who your partner might be following, their online behavior, also things like the extent to which your partner does or doesn't share about you on social media, and maybe comparing that to how much they've shared of a previous partner, and all of the behaviors that can spring from that insecurity. So compulsive checking, even all the way up to stalking of previous partners, the information gathering instincts that is alive in so many anxiously attached people that I've spoken about many times before on the podcast.
[00:01:42]:
Social media is the perfect forum for those behaviors to run wild, and when left unchecked, I think can be really really detrimental to our mental health, and that in turn can obviously exacerbate all of the stresses in our relationship, and it it just pours fuel on the fire of what is already a challenging dynamic to work with much of the time. And so, in today's episode, I wanna talk a little bit about why social media is the perfect storm for for all of us, let's be honest, in terms of our mental and emotional health. We know that social media is designed to be addictive and almost anxiety inducing, to sort of hijack our dopamine response, and keep us picking up our phone constantly. But certainly for people who struggle with any sort of anxiety, and particularly anxious attachment, social media is a bit of a recipe for disaster in terms of aggravating many of those insecurities and fueling all of the behaviors that go along with them. I want to talk about a few specific ones in the context of relationships, so situations that you might struggle with along the lines that I just mentioned. So what to do if you're not comfortable with a partner's online behavior, maybe who they follow, the post they like, that sort of thing, and other conversations that you might have around boundaries or negotiating online behavior with a partner. I also want to talk about setting boundaries for yourself around your relationship with social media, so that you can really protect your well-being. Because while the odds are stacked against us in many respects, and of course, it's challenging for all of us to have good boundaries around these highly addictive platforms and apps and devices, part of taking great care of yourself is knowing your weaknesses, and knowing your vulnerabilities, and actually being responsive and attuned to that, and setting yourself up for success.
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So I'm going to be sharing some tips on how you can manage your relationship with social media in a way that is conducive to well-being, rather than in a way that makes your anxiety a hundred times worse. So that is what we're going to be talking about today. Before I dive into that, a quick reminder for anyone who missed it, I have created a free resource called the Anxious Attachment Starter Kit. It's a really great little toolkit, it's got exclusive resources that you won't find anywhere else. There's a forty or so minute video where I share about my own journey with anxious attachment, and the steps that were really essential for me in moving from anxious to a more secure attachment. There's a workbook with some journal prompts and a relationship visioning exercise, you can get really clear around the kind of relationship that you want, and then there's a guided meditation track of affirmations for anxious attachment. So all of that is completely free, and you can head to the link in the show notes to download your copy of the anxious attachment toolkit, and in doing so you'll also be added to my email list which will mean you'll get a weekly newsletter from me, of course you can unsubscribe anytime. But I do send out a weekly newsletter to almost 35,000 people, and I always get really beautiful feedback from that as well, just unpacking in a little more detail the sorts of things that we talk about here on the show.
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So if you're interested in downloading that toolkit, you can head to the link in the show notes to do that. As I said, it's a really great resource for anyone who struggles with anxious attachment, and it is totally free. Okay. So let's talk about social media anxiety. Now as I said in the introduction, social media is designed to capitalize on our anxiety and exacerbate it, because anxiety makes us very vulnerable to addictive behaviors, to compulsive behaviors, to obsessive behaviors. The more dependent we are upon something, the better we are as customers, and let's be honest, that is the overarching objective of these platforms, is to make us spend as much time on the apps as possible. And so the algorithms, and the design of the apps themselves with the notifications, and the endless scroll, all of that is really really meticulously crafted to get you hooked. Right? To keep your attention, to keep you coming back for more.
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So when you combine that with anxious attachment, which knowing everything that we do about that, low self worth, tendency towards comparison, feeling insecure in relationships, feeling very hypersensitive to any potential threats to the relationship, all of these things are amplified to extreme degrees in this weird alternate universe of social media. We have an endless stream of perfect people, perfect relationships, perfect lives to compare ourselves against, which invariably leaves us feeling worse about ourselves. And if we are in a relationship, we take a very limited snapshot of what we're seeing of our partner's online behavior, and we deduce certain things from that, that they are not interested in us, or they liked this photo which must mean x y z thing, or why don't they post more about us on social media, or whatever it might be. But it really enlivens that part of us that goes digging for information, and can get really really obsessive. And the part of us that is feeling anxious and insecure, and doesn't want to have direct conversations about things, that worries a lot, but thinks that sitting back and biding our time and building our case and all of that is is the way that we're going to create safety for ourselves, that's the way we're going to guard ourselves against being hurt or disappointed or rejected. And so social media is really a firestorm of all of that. And so if you're someone who has anxious attachment, and you struggle with all of these things that I'm talking about, know that you're not alone. I suspect that most people who are anxiously attached have experienced some version of this.
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I know I certainly have, not so much these days, but go back five or six years, and I was deep in it. It was almost obsessive, and it did just feel like a way to create control for myself when I felt like I was in a relationship with someone whose behavior was confusing, and I couldn't always reach them, and a lot of things didn't add up, and it was opaque in some respects, and so going onto social media and trying to find information, and find the missing piece of the puzzle, what was the thing that I didn't know or understand, or what was being kept from me, this sense that there's a whole another world that exists on social media, and you just have to go and find the answers. Like, that is so seductive to someone with anxious attachment, who feels like information is is the armor that they need, or the safety blanket that they need in order to not get hurt. Now of course, there's a lot that we could say about that. I think that when we're in that state of frantically playing detective, of being hyper vigilant, of avoiding direct conversations with someone, even though we know that something's not right, information is not what's going to provide us safety. Really trusting ourselves and validating how we're feeling and zooming out a bit, and recognizing how detrimental the whole damn thing is. I think that's really where our safety resides, is in being self responsible and and maybe removing ourselves from relationships and dynamics that have us feeling that way, but nevertheless, it is a very seductive thing for anxiously attached people to go into that world of information gathering, compulsive checking, checking someone's whereabouts, checking the story, checking their friends' accounts, checking, checking, checking all the time from this place of, I must be missing something because all of this doesn't make sense, or I'm so afraid that someone's going to cheat on me, or I'm so afraid that I'm being lied to, and I just have this sense that something's not right, so I have to go and find that missing piece. Another really, really common struggle of people that I hear is the types of accounts that their partner follows.
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So the thirst trap accounts, the accounts that are salacious, let's say, maybe it's like OnlyFans creators, or things that feel quite overtly sexual and objectifying. And a lot of people, and usually this is women in relationship with men, a lot of women are not comfortable with their partner following these accounts, and particularly following them, but also interacting with them, so liking the post, and maybe even commenting. That feels like it crosses the line for a lot of women, and yet I'm often hearing, like, I'm not sure if I'm allowed to be upset by this. I tell my partner that I'm not happy with it, but I'm met with a lot of defensiveness and dismissal, and told that it's not a big deal, and kind of to get over it. Right? I think this feeds into a broader conversation around pornography, and, the boundaries around that in a relationship, which is a topic for another day, but probably a needed conversation to have, because again, I think it's something that bothers a lot of people and yet isn't talked about enough, and so people maybe think they just have to suck it up and and be fine with something that they're not actually fine with. But I think in this context, the types of accounts that your partner might follow, and when they do veer into that more overtly sexual kind of content, that can feel really uncomfortable for a lot of people, because it can feel like, I mean, none of us are naive about what exists on the Internet, and that there is so much content in that vein. If anyone wants it, it's right there for the taking. But I think for a lot of people, having a partner who follows and interacts with those sorts of profiles and posts, it feels like they are deliberately opting in to that being part of their feed, and that being served up to them.
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Casually, every time they open up their phone, that they might be like commuting to work, or sitting on the couch, and that's part of the feed that they have opted into or curated for themselves. And I think that's really entirely reasonable and valid if you're not comfortable with that. Again, talking about some of the particular struggles of people with anxious attachment, not that I think this is an only anxious attachment issue, I think that it's not coming from anxiety necessarily, but certainly will be amplified for people with anxious attachment. The jealousy, the comparison, the feeling threatened by outsiders to the relationship. So the idea that your partner is desiring other women, and interacting with that, and particularly when there's a real person behind an account, it feels maybe a bit too close for comfort, it feels a little threatening, and it's really easy to feel like if there's this sort of all these people with these very airbrushed perfect bodies, so to speak, to feel really threatened by that and to feel inadequate or undesirable, not attractive enough. You might be very aware of the ways in which you differ from the types of accounts and women and people that your partner might be following, and that might really exacerbate your own insecurities. And I think if you add to this any sort of tension or fracture in the sexual dynamic in your relationship, so again I have episodes about this, but it's very common in anxious avoidant relationships for avoidant partners to be sexually withdrawn as a relationship settles into more of a steady rhythm, as it becomes more settled and stable, that there can be a loss of sexual desire amongst avoidant partners, and they can withdraw a bit in that respect. If that has happened, and that's the backdrop to your relationship, and you see your partner engaging with these sorts of accounts, that's likely to be very triggering to you, because it's essentially saying you do still have sexual desire, but just not for me, and that's really the worst fear of people with anxious attachment.
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Another key trigger for anxiously attached people that I mentioned was the extent to which your partner maybe posts about you or the relationship on social media, and maybe you are someone who posts a lot about your partner and your relationship. You might share pictures of you together, or if you guys are out for a meal, you might post a photo and tag them, and all of that stuff, because that's part of what you're comfortable with, but maybe also part of the identity that you put forward is being in a relationship. So it may be really triggering for you if your partner does not reciprocate. So if they do not share the things that you have tagged them in, or they don't also post about you, and particularly so if they post about other things. So if they catch up with friends and they post about that, but they don't post about you. I know that this is something that anxiously attached people are acutely aware of. Again, the monitoring, the checking, you're likely to have like a very clear index of we've been together for eight months, and you have never once posted about me, but in that time you posted about this thing, and this thing, and this thing, and this thing, right? Again, anxiety loves information. It makes us feel armed and valid when we have this long list of information that we can point to that bolsters our argument.
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And so, if that's the kind of situation you're in, where you feel then maybe unimportant, or you feel like your partner is hiding you in some way, or you wonder why they don't want to share about the relationship, does that mean they're not committed to the relationship? If someone was committed, wouldn't they want people to know about it? All of those insecurities are likely to be going through your head. And you know, I think there are a lot of reasons why someone may not share about their relationship on social media, and if they are more avoidant, it might just be a level of intimacy or lovey dovey ness that doesn't come naturally, for want of a better term. Lovey dovey ness, very technical. But you know what I mean, like that kind of gushing, sharing for someone particularly with more dismissive avoidant patterns, that just might not be comfortable, and they might really shy away from that much in the same way as they do with public displays of affection. Sharing about their partner and their relationship on Instagram might feel like a public display of affection that they're just not comfortable with. But again, I think that can be a real friction point in particularly anxious avoidant dynamics when it comes to social media, is how much or how little each partner shares about the other and the relationship on their accounts, and all of the inferences that we can draw from that about someone's feelings. So what do we do with all of this? That's a lot of potential triggers, and given how much time most of us spend on social media every day, for a lot of people, we're talking hours and hours every single day. That is spending hours and hours in a state of anxious checking, comparison, insecurity, jealousy, all of those things that are triggering our deep unworthiness, and it it tends to reinforce.
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So the anxiety gets us there, and then being in that space, that online space, increases our anxiety, which in turn keeps us hooked. And so spending all of that time just dialing up our anxiety and reinforcing the need for all of those checking behaviors, it is the perfect storm, and it is really, really detrimental to your well-being and your relationships. So what do we do about all of that? If there are things that are uncomfortable for you, and I'm not just talking about like the paranoid checking piece, I think that's one that we have to have boundaries around for ourselves, but if there is something that is bothering you about your partner's social media usage, for example, in the vein of the types of accounts they follow, the people that they've been talking to, if you've seen them messaging people that they shouldn't be messaging, just burying that is is not healthy, and I I assume you know that, but I think often times that is part of the anxious attachment thing can be like, I don't know if I have enough evidence yet, so I'm just gonna sit on this and bide my time until I can check again, find more evidence, and then I'll I'll be able to share the thing. Right? If something's bothering you, please have a conversation about it, and get really clear. Again, if you haven't listened to it, go back and listen to the episode that I did on the importance of validation for anxiously attached people. I can't remember what episode number it was, but I'll link it in the show notes. You need to be really really clear for yourself what you are okay with, and what you are not okay with. And you need to be clear enough in like how non negotiable that is for you, such that if someone pushes back and says like, well, I'm gonna keep following all of these accounts because I like them, and you're overreacting, if that's an unsatisfactory response to you, and you feel deeply uncomfortable about it, you don't have to just accept that, right? Like if it's a deal breaker for you, it's allowed to be a deal breaker for you, and you can convey that.
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You don't have to invalidate yourself by saying like, maybe I am overreacting. If you are really deeply unsettled by something and you know that it's causing you a lot of distress, that's okay, you're allowed to be. So don't let someone talk you out of something that really bothers you if you know deep down that it's causing you a lot of pain and distress and discomfort. So have the conversations, don't have them in an accusatory way, don't have them in a way that is really guarded and attacking, and you're doing that thing that so many of us do, which is like, it's not just me who finds this problematic, anyone would find this blah blah blah. Just stay rooted in your own experience. Let that be enough, because that's really all that's relevant, you don't have to appeal to outside sources to validate your position, but you can actually just say, I'm not okay with this, it makes me feel blah blah blah, I feel uncomfortable, I feel maybe disrespected, I feel inadequate, I feel really insecure when I see you interacting with that, it doesn't make me feel good. Be vulnerable, be honest, be open, and appeal to the goodness in your partner rather than blaming and attacking and inevitably eliciting their defensiveness. And then lastly, having boundaries for yourself around what you're doing on social media, how much you're using it.
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I know this part's hard, but you've really got to be self responsible here. So putting limits on your phone, I mean there are obviously native controls within iPhones and stuff where you can limit your screen time, although they're pretty easy to override, but there are all sorts of other devices and things that you can use, or like physically putting your phone away, deleting the apps for a period of time. Maybe you delete them on the weekends, or you delete them during the week, or whatever. But finding ways, and it is hard, right, because we all do it so unconsciously. I know for me it's shocking. You know, I don't do so much scrolling on Instagram, but the number of times I'll pick up my phone and just check it, open the app and close it again, and then open my emails and close it again, it is so automatic. And so, like, having physical distance or ways that really prevent you from doing those things that you do in a really habituated way so that you can break the habit if it's really detrimentally impacting your mental health, which I think for most of us it is if we're not being conscious about the way that we engage within your social media, Particularly if you're in the depths of anxious attachment, I struggle to see how social media could be, making things better rather than worse, unless you are very very clear about who you follow. And that's another piece of boundaries for yourself.
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If you follow a lot of accounts that make you feel shitty about yourself, supermodels, and people with perfect relationships, and all of that, be really mindful about what you are curating for yourself. If it doesn't make you feel good, if you consistently feel less than, or insecure, or bad about yourself, just unfollow. It's not you don't need to be dialed into that all the time, you don't need to be exposing yourself, your brain, your system to things that are triggering to you. And so I think you again need to exercise some discernment and self responsibility around what you are consuming, what you are exposing yourself to, and if it's consistently making you feel worse, then act on that and be self responsible. Okay. I'm gonna stop there. I hope that this has been helpful, I hope it's been validating for those of you who do struggle with this and who have maybe wondered whether it's just you, maybe wondered whether you're allowed to be bothered by the things that you're bothered by, as always. Validating the realness of your own experience is such an important step in healing your anxious attachment, becoming more secure, and breaking that pattern of routinely dismissing your own concerns and assuming that you must be overreacting all the time.
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And in addition to that I hope that it's given you a bit of a steer on how you can start to shift some of those things, so the conversations you might want to have, the boundaries you might want to clarify, and certainly the measures that you can take for yourself to have a healthier relationship So, hope that's been helpful. As So, hope that's been helpful. As always, grateful for those of you who leave reviews, but otherwise, I look forward to seeing you next time. Thanks, guys.
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Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment. If you wanna 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 5 star rating. It really does help so much. Thanks again for being here, and I hope to see you again soon.
Keywords from Podcast Episode
On Attachment, attachment styles, relationships, Stephanie Rigg, anxious attachment, social media impact, partner behavior on social media, relationship insecurity, compulsive checking, online boundaries, mental health, dopamine response, social media addiction, information gathering, validation for anxious people, partner's online habits, negotiating boundaries, self-responsibility, managing anxiety, Anxious Attachment Starter Kit, relationship toolkit, affirmations for anxious attachment, social media anxiety, emotional well-being, hypersensitivity, jealousy, comparison, triggers for insecurity, self-worth issues, intimacy concerns, communication strategies.