#77 How to enjoy being single when I really want a relationship?
When you really want a relationship, enjoying being single can be something incredibly challenging. In today's Q&A style episode, I’m diving into how to enjoy being single when all you really want is a relationship.
When you really want a relationship, enjoying being single can be something incredibly challenging. In today's Q&A style episode, I’m diving into how to enjoy being single when all you really want is a relationship.
WHAT WE’LL COVER:
Owning your desire for a loving, healthy relationship
Being grateful in the present
What it means to actually enjoy your life being single
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Use the code PHOENIX for $150 off the Higher Love Course for a limited time only.
Apply for my 6-month Homecoming Mastermind
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
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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 am answering the question of how can I enjoy being single when, if I'm being honest, I really wish I was in a relationship.
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So I know a lot of people are in this situation of being single and deep down actually just wanting a relationship and probably coming up against a lot of advice on social media and elsewhere, telling them to enjoy being single and really savour in that experience and make the most of it. And you should be really happy that you're single. And while I think that advice is coming from a well intentioned place, sometimes it can be frustrating when that's just not how we're feeling and we can almost feel like we are deficient or we can feel some shame for our true desire, which is to be in a relationship. So I'm going to be talking through that and giving some reframes and perspective shifts and permission slips that will hopefully help you to navigate this period of your life, this season of your life, with a little more self. Compassion and in a way that allows you to have both.
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To own your desire to be in relationship while also enjoying your life as it is today. So that's what we're going to be talking about in today's episode. Before I dive into that, a couple of quick announcements I wanted to share the featured review for today, which I've actually taken from Spotify. You might have heard me say recently, Spotify now lets you leave little comments under Episodes. And so to try and be fair to the people who are Spotify listeners rather than Apple, who haven't historically been able to leave reviews, I'm going to start drawing from the Spotify comments in addition to the Apple podcast.
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Reviews in the review of the week So today's is I discovered your podcast by chance while going through the hardest time in my life and I can't express the profound impact it's made. You taught me the wise and gave me hope for the future that I couldn't see. Thank you so much. That is such a touching and humbling review and I'm so, so grateful for you and I'm grateful that you found me and that you were able to find your way back to hope. 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.
0:02:50.70 --> 0:04:01.44
The other quick announcement that I wanted to share in keeping with the theme of today's episode, which is around being single and wanting to be in a relationship. My Higher Love Course, which is a breakup course that I created last year, is currently available for $150 off. So if you use the discount code Phoenix you can save $150 on the price of that course. It's a fully self study course where you get access to the full thing upon sign up and you can take it at your own pace. The reason that I'm mentioning that today is because in addition to helping you process a breakup, which the first half of the course is around, it also really allows you to embrace not only your life as a newfound single person, but to really own your desires and cultivate a level of clarity and confidence around your desires for future partnership in a way that feels really empowering rather than desperate or needy or any other negative label we might put on those things.
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So if you're someone who has been through a breakup recently and you are looking for some support or maybe it's not all that recent, but you think there's still some processing to do and some grieving to do around a previous relationship and you're looking to really anchor into greater self worth for the future. My higher love course is a really great option I've had. I think upwards of 300 students go through that course and it always gets really beautiful feedback. So that might be something to cheque out and I will link that in the show notes. Okay, so let's talk about this.
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How can I enjoy being single when I actually really just want to be in a relationship? So without knowing anything about the person who asked this question, I'm going to frame the discussion in terms of anxious attachment because I think that most people who have this experience probably will fall closer to that end of the spectrum in terms of their attachment patterns. I know that makes up a bulk of my listeners in any event. So I think that we have to start by just owning what we desire. And I alluded to this in the introduction.
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I think that we can feel almost pathetic. We can be really judgmental of ourselves for the fact that we want to be in a relationship and I think that that isn't helpful. As I always say, if you're feeling some sort of primary emotion like sadness or longing or grief or whatever else, anxiety even and rather than having compassion for that and seeking to understand it, we just put some judgement over the top and we criticise ourselves and make ourselves wrong for the way we're feeling. We are invariably making it worse. We are just adding fuel to the fire.
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We are adding more tension to a system that is already under stress. So it's really the opposite of what we need is to make ourselves wrong for a desire and I would say particularly for a desire that is as beautiful and pure as wanting to be in a healthy, loving relationship. I think that that is something that we should absolutely own and be proud of and be confident in. I don't think that that makes us desperate or needy or pathetic or any other thing that we might put on that I think we can just throw that kind of thinking in the bin. So my big permission slip for you at the outset of this episode and if you are someone who struggles with this, is you don't need to pretend not to want a relationship in order to enjoy being single.
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And indeed you are absolutely encouraged to own that desire, if that is your heart's desire to be in a relationship. Now, with that being said and holding that in one hand, can we find a way to hold in the other hand, enjoyment of life in whatever season you're in rather than making those things an either or? I can't enjoy being single because I want to be in a relationship. I think that this kind of thinking, this once I am there, then I can be happy. Once this other thing happens, this very conditional approach to our joy and contentedness and peace and satisfaction in life and it's really, really easy to get stuck in that because we can find ourselves, without even realising it, moving the goalposts on ourselves forever and ever and ever.
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It is this carrot dangling thing of once X-Y-Z thing happens, then I will be happy. Once I make this change about myself, then I will love myself, then I will accept myself. That is a real slippery slope and it's not actually conducive to happiness and fulfilment. Anyone will tell you, anyone who works in this space, teaches in this space, will tell you that the trick is to be grateful in the present for what you have while knowing what it is that you desire and being able to hold both of those things at the one time. So saying I really want to be in a relationship, that is my heart's desire and I'm not going to sit at home and shrink or not enjoy my life in anticipation of that thing or unless and until I have this thing.
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Because that is really placing way too much responsibility on a relationship to create our happiness or to be the sole source of our happiness and fulfilment and enjoyment of life. And what I would say to you is, and I talk about this in my higher love course, the calibre of relationship that you are going to attract as someone who has already created this beautiful, big, full, satisfying life, you are going to attract a really different calibre of person and relationship from that place, rather than the place of lack and emptiness. And I need some person to make me feel happy, to make me feel worthy, to make me feel pleasure and satisfaction and enjoyment. So I think that the more we can cultivate that as our baseline, as our starting point and really commit to building this very beautiful life with many pillars to it. Rather than just feeling the immense lack that can come with wanting to be in a relationship but not being in one, the more we focus on what we don't have that can really drag us down and probably lead us to indulge or engage in connections and relationships that
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aren't actually meeting.
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The bar that we would like to set for ourselves because we are coming from this place of anything is better than nothing that tends not to lead to the greatest relationship. So I think that the more we can enjoy our lives as single people, what we're really trying to do there is enjoy our own company and enjoy our work and enjoy what we spend our time doing and enjoy our friendships and really build out beautiful community. All of these things mean that we have many pillars to our lives and the relationship just becomes this beautiful addition to that landscape rather than the only thing propping up our lives and making us feel worthy and okay and giving us a sense of meaning where otherwise we would be plunged into darkness. That is an over indexing on a relationship and expecting it to solve all of your problems. So I think when people talk about can you enjoy life as a single person?
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It's not to say make the most of it, go out and sleep with a bunch of people because you can or you have to enjoy the process of casual dating. I don't think that that's what people mean. And if they do mean that, then if that doesn't resonate with you, again, you can chuck that in the bin. You don't have to take that on. And if it were me, that certainly wouldn't resonate with me because that's just not who I am.
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So I think that rather than hearing that advice around being single as meaning you have to enjoy dating lots of people or having those casual interactions, it's more can I see this season of my life as an opportunity. To really upgrade, to maybe do work on my own inner world, on my parts, on my woundedness and really all of that energy and attention that I'm accustomed to devoting to other people and focusing on them. Can I? Focus some of that back on me and use that as a way to nurture my relationship with myself and upgrade that relationship so that I'm ready to meet someone from a really grounded, secure, self respecting place in my next relationship. And can I trust that that will pay such dividends when the time comes rather than waiting and feeding stories of low self worth and of shame and of everything else and expecting that to yield a relationship that's going to solve all of my problems?
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I hate to be the one to tell you, but that almost invariably doesn't work. And so the more that we can use those transitional periods as opportunities to spring clean so to speak, that is a beautiful, beautiful time and it is a beautiful opportunity and as I said tends to pay huge dividends in terms of what we then make ourselves available for in another relationship. And even as I say that, I'm reminded to make the point that it's not like you are doing all of those things for someone else, you are doing them for yourself first and foremost. And that is an important reminder for anxiously attached people who tend to orient everything as being about someone else, to attract a partner or to make someone else happy or to get someone back or any other kind of agenda. It always tends to be other focused.
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And so as much as possible use this period of time where you don't have an other to orbit around as is your default to really tend to that relationship with yourself because that is your work for all anxiously attached people. That is your work is to build up a relationship with self that feels nourishing and self sustaining and allows a level of independence that you can then go to relationship from a place of choice rather than need and desperation and unsafety needing the relationship to make all of those fears go away. So I hope that that has given you a bit of a paradigm shift on how to relate to being single and also given you, as I said, a permission slip to want to be in a relationship because there is absolutely nothing wrong or shameful about holding that desire. But I suppose the takeaway being can you trust that this season is a beautiful opportunity to prepare for that and to really lay the foundations for the next relationship to be a really nourishing one and a really healthy one. And that the healthier you are going into that the more secure you
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are, the clearer you are, then that is going to be a really, really beautiful next relationship.
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So the work that you do in preparing yourself for that is certainly not going to be wasted. If you've enjoyed this episode, as always, super grateful. If you can leave a rating or a review, make sure you hit subscribe and follow the show. No matter where you're listening. Share it with the people in your life, share it on social media.
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All of that good stuff is hugely helpful in continuing to get the word out. Otherwise, I look forward to seeing you again soon. Thanks guys. Take care. Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment.
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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.
# 76 5 Communication Mistakes You're Making (& What to do instead)
In today's episode, I’m sharing five communication and conflict mistakes that I often see people making in relationships and what you can do instead to bridge a positive connection with your partner.
In today's episode, I’m sharing five communication and conflict mistakes that I often see people making in relationships and what you can do instead to bridge a positive connection with your partner.
WHAT WE’LL COVER:
Why we shouldn’t avoid the hard conversations
What happens when we suppress our emotions
How to express your desires with your partner
Why we shouldn’t expect our partners to be mind readers
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 → 0:01:14.03
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 welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. In today's episode, I'm going to be sharing five communication and conflict mistakes that I often see people making in relationships and what you can do instead in order to cultivate greater understanding, mutual respect, and ultimately to be able to have conflict in a way that feels not only not scary, but actually positive, actually a bridge to connection and an effective way to cultivate greater understanding of one another and feel more connected rather than feeling like conflict. Is a one way ticket to really painful ruptures and disconnection and misunderstanding, which I think is certainly the case, or at least the starting point for a lot of us.
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So I'm going to be sharing, as I said, some of the things that I think a lot of us do, and this will not exclusively be true for people who tend towards insecure attachment patterns. I think even if you are broadly secure in your attachment, you might have had less than ideal modelling around communication and conflict in your family system. But more often than not, I think that people who are either anxious or avoidant in their attachment strategies tend to be somewhat conflict averse and that can lead to a starting point of being really self protective when it comes to conflict. And so as soon as we're in that self protective mode straight off the bat, then obviously our strategies are going to be infused with that energy of self protection and it's really hard to connect from that place. So I am going to be talking about all of that and more.
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Before I do, I just wanted to share the featured review for today, which is thanks for all you do, Stephanie. I've recommended On Attachment to all of my friends. This podcast has helped me own responsibility for my attachment style and actions while helping me bring compassion and understanding. It's been incredibly grounding to hear about the thousands of people just like me that Stephanie's helped. This podcast has made me feel less alone at a time when I felt so trapped in old thought patterns and anxieties.
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Thank you, Stephanie, for your honesty, kindness and hopefulness. For the first time, I'm starting to feel like a healthy relationship is a possibility for me. Thank you so much for that beautiful review. I'm so glad that that's been your experience and I couldn't agree more that the experience of feeling like we are not alone and that reassurance of realising that other people are going through a very similar thing to us makes us feel so much more optimistic about there being a path forward. So I'm glad that you found that in the podcast.
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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 communication, mistakes that you might be making in your relationship and what to do instead. Now, this will apply somewhat to non romantic relationships, although, as always, this being a relationship focused podcast, I will frame it in that way. But just a note, if you're not currently in a relationship, there are certainly principles here that you can apply to non romantic relationships, whether that's with family, friends or colleagues or anyone else. So the first tip I want to give you here is don't avoid the hard conversations.
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As I said in the introduction, I think that a lot of us, particularly if you are either more anxious or more avoidant, have a level of conflict aversion. And we can really avoid those hard conversations until we're at a boiling point, until the conversations sort of force themselves on us because we've put ourselves through so much stress by trying to avoid it or sidestep it or bypass it or tiptoe around it, and it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger inside us until it all comes out. So I think that if you are someone who really does struggle to have hard conversations, this is a really important thing to reprogram in yourself and it is a skill that we can learn. I think it can be a really vicious downward spiral. Because if you haven't got a lot of experience in having hard conversations in a safe and healthy way, then every time you do have these big conversations, if you're not having them in a way that sets you up.
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For success. Then you're probably going to have these big, awful fights or attack, defend, or you say something, but you say it in a bit of a demanding way and then someone shuts down. And what does that do? That reinforces to your system hard conversations are unsafe, they threaten the relationship, they lead to people abandoning me or attacking me or whatever other story you might have. That might not just be a made up story, it might be based on your experience.
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But I think it's really important, if that's the case, to recognise, okay, how am I contributing to the perpetuation of that experience and of that story that I have? So, noticing that as much as avoiding the hard conversations feels like it's something that we're doing from a place of keeping ourselves safe, if we think that the hard conversations are not safe, then of course we're going to want to avoid them. But it really costs us a lot because, as I've said before, usually when we try and avoid those conversations, this is more for my anxious folk, we suppress our needs, we suppress our concerns, but it's like the less we talk about them, the more we think about them. I've said this to my partner before that if we're not talking about something that we both know is going on and it feels like an elephant in the room, it's deafeningly loud to me inside. And the more that we avoid it, the louder it is for me.
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It takes up so much space inside of me to avoid it. And so if that's true for you as well, just consider, am I really achieving anything by trying to avoid these conversations? Because if you're anything like me, it probably just comes out in a more distressed and escalated way somewhere down the track as a result of trying to suppress it. So one of the best things that you can do, and if you take nothing else away from today's episode than this, please learn to have the hard conversations and trust that the earlier you have them, the less hard they will be. And the more often that you have them, the less hard they will be, because they just don't come with the same energy of pent up, stressed, overwhelmed.
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I've spent three weeks building up the stories around this and making a lot of meaning and interpreting everything you say and do and don't say and don't do through the lens of this story. I've been telling myself the more we can fast track that and nip it in the bud, have the conversations when something first arises, we're much better off because we're going to be able to cheque those stories, connect, get our needs met, share what's bothering us and just air the grievances or whatever else is on our heart and on our mind that it's pretty rare, that just avoiding something and letting it grow and fester is the path forward. So that's the first mistake. Try not to keep avoiding the hard conversations. As I've said many times before, whatever scary truth you think might be revealed in the conversations you're avoiding, if it already exists in your relationship, it already exists in your relationship, the conversation is just the thing that's going to reveal it, right?
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So I think we have to be courageous and have those conversations and trust that we will be all the stronger for it. Okay, the next communication and conflict mistake that I see a lot and again have experienced myself, as with most of the things I talk about on this podcast, is fighting about fighting. So what do I mean by this? Have you ever been in an argument with someone and it starts as an argument about a situation or a set of circumstances or what you're feeling or needing or whatever it might be, but very soon you start fighting about the way you're fighting. So it's things like, are you going to say something?
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Or I can't believe you're just sitting there, or Why are you ignoring me? Or don't speak to me like that. Or whatever it is but it becomes less about substance and more about form. So we start attacking each other on the way that we are talking rather than actually engaging with the substance of what we were meaning to talk about, what was bothering us. And it should be obvious that this is completely ineffective.
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When you notice that happening, then just know that the horse is bolted, the conversation is a dead end and you are much better off to just take a break, take a time out, call it for what it is, say look, we're clearly not getting anywhere, let's regroup in an hour, or whatever it might be. But don't just keep following that rabbit hole of attacking and defending not even the substance of what was bothering you, but actually just fighting about the way that you are fighting. This is just so common. And if it's not something you've been aware of prior to now, I promise you, now you'll notice it and you'll realise just how common it is to nitpick at each other about the way that we are communicating. And really when we're doing that, as always, we can go, okay, what's behind my complaint or my criticism?
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What's the unmet need? And if you're getting angry at someone for not saying something as quickly as you would like, or for getting defensive or whatever it might be, it's like what do I actually need here? And try and voice that say I know that you're just processing, but it's really hard for me when you go quiet for ten minutes or whatever it might be. Right? But share the vulnerability that is within you rather than armoring up and attacking because that will almost always make it worse.
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So that leads me nicely into my third communication mistake, which is criticising rather than voicing desires. So a really, really helpful and easy rule of thumb is instead of criticising your partner, express what the desire is underneath your criticism or your complaint. So if you're frequently criticising your partner for whatever it might be, you never are affectionate with me, or you're always on your phone or you never let me know when you're running late or whatever. Right? Think of all of the things that we can be critical about, whether we voice them or not.
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But with a little bit of interrogation and really not much, because oftentimes the desires sit pretty close to the surface, with a little bit of interrogation, you'll see that there is a desire underneath that. So as I said, we tend to armour up and lead with our sword. We attack someone because that feels less vulnerable than sharing. When you're on your phone, when I'm talking to you, I feel really unimportant to you and that scares me. It scares me to not feel like you care about what I have to say, even if it's just telling you boring stuff about my day.
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It would mean so much to me to have that time protected and connected for us to sit together without our phones, is that something that you'd be open to doing? Can you see how that is so much more likely to be received in a way that invites engagement and reflection and response rather than telling someone, why do I even bother being in a relationship with you? Because you're always on your phone. I may as well just live here by myself. That's how disengaged you are, right?
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When we go with that, it's like, yeah, I'm keeping myself safe somehow by leading with that level of aggression and attack. And it's not to excuse or explain away someone's behaviour that you might be unhappy with, but it is to take responsibility for the ways in which our response to that behaviour might be entrenching us in painful dynamics rather than forging a path out of those dynamics and towards greater connection. So think about it. What is the desire underneath my complaint or my criticism? And can I be brave enough to show my heart and voice that?
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And even if my partner can't meet me in it or doesn't meet me in it, I am still so much better off sharing that honesty and that vulnerability from a place of integrity and open heartedness than if I join them in some sort of negativity and criticism and whatever else might be the dynamic of the relationship. You don't win by joining them in the trenches in that. So take the high road without being high and mighty about it and voice the desires that sit underneath your criticisms and see what happens. You might be surprised. Okay, the next communication and conflict mistake that I see a lot is schoolkeeping and kitchen sinking.
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So what do these terms mean? Schoolkeeping should be obvious enough. It's when we go, well, why should I have to do this when you haven't done that? We can do this in lots of different settings. Maybe it'll be I've called you the last three times that we've met up for a date and you haven't called me since.
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This time we're really keeping tally on inputs to the relationship, on effort, on who does what and when and all of that. And really, apart from the fact that that's exhausting to be in that mode of scrutinising and score keeping our relationship, it really is just an indicator that we feel a sense of imbalance and maybe we don't feel valued for our contribution and so we feel the need to keep jumping up and down and making a point of it. I think, relatedly, we can sort of gatekeep our love from this place. We can become very protective and feel like to the extent that there's an imbalance in contributions or in inputs, we don't want to be loving because we don't want to skew it further and feel like we're going to send that imbalance to further extremes. So if we do feel like we are the one who usually initiates contact or plans dates or does more stuff around the house, whatever it might be, we start getting really defensive of our contribution and contributing less or becoming very resentful about it because we are so acutely aware of this perceived imbalance and all
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of the stories that come with it.
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So we usually are doing a lot of meaning making when we're in this score keeping mindset, we're making it mean that someone doesn't care about us or that they're entitled or that they take us for granted or that they're lazy or they don't respect us, right? There's a lot of pretty significant stories that come with that that can be really harmful. So when you notice that score keeping mindset in your relationship, the first thing that you should be doing is getting really curious around what's going on with you. What are the unmet needs that are leading me to use this strategy of scorekeeping? Whether it's just me huffing and puffing and internally scorekeeping and harbouring that resentment or whether I'm waving that in front of my partner and trying to get them to see what is the underlying need.
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And can I ask that? Can I be really clear around my communication rather than just spinning around in the resentment and the kind of victim mindset? Because I think a lot of us can go there when we feel hurt or unsupported but again, it usually doesn't help us to get what we really desire. The other part to this one that I mentioned was kitchen sinking. So this is not exactly related but it's this tendency to raise one issue and then raise 234-5678 other issues when we have a conversation with our partner.
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So we might start a conversation about one thing and then our partner might get defensive and then we might pile on another one and another one and another one. So it's you didn't take the rubbish out last night and you didn't do this and you didn't do that and you were late home last Tuesday and you never even put in effort anymore and I can't remember the last time you cooked dinner for me and right. Again, this is kind of the flip side of the suppression of our needs is that we say nothing and then when we finally get the opportunity, it's like we finally have our moment. We have the microphone, we have centre stage and we just come at someone with this barrage of things that we've been suppressing and tell them all of the ways, seemingly unrelated, that they have been inadequate or that they've been messing up or that they've missed the mark or not meeting our needs or expectations. And I think this is particularly common among anxiously attached people.
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Again, never any judgement when I call this out because I am guilty of it. But it's this thing of I've been suppressing my needs because I don't want to be too needy, too burdensome. I don't want to be a nag, I don't want to be critical, but I still have all of these grievances that I'm very aware of. And so when I finally get the opportunity, if we're having an argument or I do feel like that window is there for me to say these things, I can feel a sense of scarcity around it. I don't want to keep it to one issue because what if I don't get another opportunity for another month or something to share all of these other things that have been bothering me?
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So I just have to ram them all in there now and let you know all of the things that you've been doing wrong. Now that I have this opportunity and now that I have your attention and I feel like this is my moment, needless to say that this is not a very effective strategy, particularly if you have a more avoidant partner, they're going to feel really very quickly overwhelmed and demoralised by that kind of communication style. This sense of you're just hitting me with a tidal wave, of all of the ways in which I am inadequate and all of the ways in which I am failing you as a partner because you are so unhappy with me. Now, you might see it differently, but that is, I guarantee you, how they will see it and experience it and we can kind of understand that if we can step outside of our own stuff and look at that situation a little more objectively. Just being hit with this long list of complaints about all the ways in which you aren't stacking up or you aren't fulfilling your partner's needs, can feel really attacking and in.
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Most people will trigger defensiveness. So as much as possible, try to keep your conversations to one issue rather than leading with this long list of things and capitalising on the opportunity and trying to air every single grievance and resolve every single issue and just keep the conversation going for hours and hours because you feel like that is your one window of opportunity. The fifth and final communication mistake that I wanted to share is stop expecting your partner to read your mind. Now, I know that this is not romantic. I know that we all wish that our partner was a mind reader and that we wouldn't have to tell them what we need and tell them how we would like our needs to be met and tell them how we're feeling and tell them what might be bothering us or whatever other thing might be on your mind.
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And feeling heavy and taking up a lot of space. But the more we have that expectation, which is just not realistic, the more we then again make meaning out of the fact that our partner hasn't been able to read our mind and we get really upset and we probably start engaging in some of those protest behaviours to indirectly get their attention. Maybe we get a bit quiet and withdrawn or sulky or short tempered and try and elicit that what's wrong? Kind of response in our partner so that we then get the space to share because we don't feel comfortable expressing it. So I know that this can be really hard and I know that, as I said, in an ideal world, our partners would be mind readers and we would never have to step into the vulnerability of sharing and asking for things and being direct and being open because it is vulnerable, right?
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It opens us up to rejection. It opens us up to the possibility that our partner cannot or doesn't want to be there or support us or meet our needs or that they just might not respond in the exact way that we would like them to. It's vulnerable, it's edgy, it's scary, but it's also just part and parcel of being in a healthy relationship is being direct and being communicative. And the more that we play these games of pretending to be low maintenance or not asking for things or shapeshifting or trying to not have needs, I mean, you tell me, how is that working out for you? Because I know that when I've tried that, it hasn't worked terribly well.
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It just leads me to feel more anxious and stressed. And as I said earlier, the less you talk about it, the more you think about it. And it just takes up a lot of space and really occupies a lot of real estate in your mind and in your emotional body. It's a heavy burden to carry. So as much as it's not the most romantic or sexy thing in the world to have to spell it out for our partners, try and believe that they care and that they really want to be able to support you.
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But you might just have to be a little more of an active participant in that process, rather than expecting it all to happen magically. Okay, so that was five communication and conflict mistakes. I hope that that has been interesting and helpful for you. As I said, I know a lot of people really struggle with this and it's a very commonly requested podcast topic to do stuff around conflict, so I might have to do some more on this again soon. But I hope that that's given you at least a starting point of things to think about, of ways that we can go wrong and what you can do instead to create conflict that's not only not excruciatingly painful and stressful, but actually helps you to feel more connected and really understand each other's needs and feel closer as a result.
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Because it is possible. As much as that might feel totally alien to you if it's not been your experience, I guarantee you it is possible and it's a skill that you can learn. As always, if you've enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a five star review, a rating. You can leave a little comment on Spotify underneath the episode, share it with the people in your life. All of those good things really help so much in getting the word out, but otherwise, I look forward to seeing you again soon.
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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.
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Thanks again for being here and I hope to see you again soon.