#81 The Gift of Anxious-Avoidant Relationships
So much of the content around attachment theory focuses on the challenges that anxious-avoidant pairings can present. And while those challenges are undoubtedly very real, there are also real gifts within an anxious-avoidant dynamic when the individuals involved are prepared to meet in the middle. Today I’m sharing what those gifts can look like, and tips on making the most of your anxious-avoidant relationship so that it can become a space for healing.
So much of the content around attachment theory focuses on the challenges that anxious-avoidant pairings can present. And while those challenges are undoubtedly very real, there are also real gifts within an anxious-avoidant dynamic when the individuals involved are prepared to meet in the middle. Today I’m sharing what those gifts can look like, and tips on making the most of your anxious-avoidant relationship so that it can become a space for healing.
WHAT WE’LL COVER:
How different attachment styles respond to stress
Leading with compassion and care
The work that needs to be done with both attachment styles
Lessons and opportunities within anxious-avoidant relationships
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Use the code JUNE50 for 50% off 3 masterclasses or the Higher Love Course stephanierigg.com
Apply for my 6-month Homecoming Mastermind
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
0:00:00.09 → 0:00:45.48
You're listening to On Attachment, a place to learn about how attachment shapes the way we experience relationships and where you'll gain the guidance, knowledge and practical tools to overcome insecurity and build healthy, thriving relationships. I'm your host, relationship Coach Stephanie Rigg and I'm really glad you're here. Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. Today's episode is titled The Gift of Anxious Avoidant Relationships and I'm going to be talking all about what some of the maybe under recognised or unexpected upsides of an anxious avoidant relationship can be.
0:00:45.61 → 0:01:45.79
So obviously, most of the discussions that we have around these particular attachment dynamics tend to be focusing on the ways in which it can be really challenging. And I will be the first to acknowledge and admit that it absolutely can present a lot of challenges to navigate those sometimes conflicting attachment dynamics. But I think there's also a reason that this pairing is so very common and there are certainly gifts present in that dynamic when the individuals involved are committed enough and have a capacity to do the work, to meet in the middle. And as a bit of a spoiler alert, I think that we could summarise The Gift of anxious avoidant Relationships as being that it invites us into the middle rather than hanging out at the extremes of our attachment patterns, which might be ostensibly conflicting. It really does invite us off the ledge and find some healthier way of being that is more akin to a secure centre point.
0:01:45.94 → 0:02:49.26
So I'm going to be sharing that today what those gifts can look like and where the growth edge for a more anxious leaning person versus a more avoidant leaning person can lie in those dynamics. And I suppose also some tips on how you can make sure that you're making the most of your anxious avoidant relationship so that it can be a healing relationship rather than one that reinforces painful patterns and old ways of being that maybe entrench you in your insecurity rather than inviting you into those new healing experiences. So that's what today is all about. Before I dive into that, a couple of quick announcements. A reminder again that for the month of June you can save 50% off my Masterclasses, including my best selling how to Navigate Anxious Avoidant Relationships masterclass, which is very much on theme with today's episode, so you can save 50% with the code June 50 on my website.
0:02:49.36 → 0:03:24.23
You can also go to the new On Attachment website onattachment.com and all of that is there should be relatively straightforward to find. My Master classes and my Higher Love course which is my breakup course is also on sale, so you can cheque that out for the month of June while I am gallivanting around Italy, you can enjoy a discount on my courses. Second quick announcement is just to share the featured review. This was a comment from Spotify which is stephanie is so insightful, sometimes hard to hear the information she shares is necessary and absolutely powerful. She's helped me to create change in how I show up in relationships.
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Thank you so much for that beautiful review. I really appreciate it. And I agree. I think this stuff is hard to hear sometimes, but maybe it's the stuff that is hard to hear that is the most important to hear because it does hold up that mirror and invite us to get honest and get curious about our part in a dynamic. And that is ultimately what creates the possibility of growth and change.
0:03:46.88 → 0:04:26.88
So I'm glad that that's been your experience. If that was your review, please send an email to podcast@stephanierigg.com and my team will set you up with free access to one of my master classes. Okay, so let's dive into this big conversation around the gift of anxious avoidant relationships. Now, as I foreshadowed in the introduction, I will not lie to you and say that these dynamics are easy, that it's really not that hard, and you just have to do a three step plan and then all of a sudden you are free of the challenges that can arise in this anxious avoidant dynamic. That would be dishonest, and it's certainly not been my personal experience either.
0:04:26.93 → 0:05:22.91
I have been through the ringer, I've experienced a not so good anxious avoidant relationship and my current relationship, which I certainly lean more anxious and my partner leans more avoidant. But we've managed to navigate those dynamics in a way that feels so much healthier but also really healing for us both. It has allowed us to both relearn and rewire and reprogram a lot of our old stories around what it means to be in relationship, what it means to love and be loved, to depend on someone. And so I'm speaking today not only as coach and teacher, but also as human who has walked this path and continues to walk this path. So anxious avoidant relationships can be challenging.
0:05:22.99 → 0:05:51.41
We all know that most people listening are either in one or have been in one. And so we all know that that can be hard, right? For very obvious reasons. Some of the core needs around relationship things like connection, intimacy, time spent together, whole attitude and approach to needs, conflict. Anxious people and avoidant people can really differ in the strategies that they use to create safety for themselves.
0:05:51.50 → 0:06:20.91
And this is essentially what we're talking about when we're talking about attachment styles is how do I respond to stress in relationship? For an anxious person, their response to stress and stress is usually caused by distance or uncertainty. I go in, right? I try and close the gap, I try to get closer to you to restore connection, which makes me feel safe again. For a more avoidant person, the way to deal with stress is I need to retreat, I need to create distance for myself.
0:06:21.08 → 0:06:58.32
And the cause of stress is likely to be feeling smothered or feeling like there's been a loss of self or loss of independence, feeling criticised, feeling blamed, feeling controlled or attacked. And so we have these conflicting wounds and seemingly conflicting strategies because in times of stress, and most often in relationships, stress is contagious. So if one person is stressed, the other will become stressed. And in this time of stress, team Anxious wants to close the gap and team Avoidant wants to widen the gap. And so it really can be hard for both people to get what they need in those moments when you are feeling stress in your relationship.
0:06:58.45 → 0:07:35.79
So just wanted to set the scene and acknowledge like, yes, this can be really challenging. And all of the dynamics that flow from that, all of the behaviours and all of the permutations of that dynamic essentially boil down to the differing approaches to stress management. I always really appreciate that way of viewing these attachment dynamics because I think that it's very humanising and very compassionate. And despite the fact that the strategies look different, the core desire is I'm trying to create safety for myself. And so it's much harder to blame or judge someone for doing the same thing that we're doing.
0:07:35.86 → 0:08:07.54
They're just doing it in a different way, they're just trying to create safety the same way you are, and they just might have learned a different strategy. So while that starting point, and I think again, it'd be fair to acknowledge that most couples do not have the tools, do not have the capacity to get out of that rut. Because the vast majority of us go through life, go through relationships blind, more or less, we are on autopilot and that is simply because we are doing what we've always done, right? We're doing what we've learned. And those strategies have served a purpose in our lives.
0:08:07.59 → 0:08:42.94
They've kept us safe and so we will continue to do them until we have a level of conscious awareness around them and awareness of the impact that they're having and the ways in which they might actually be inhibiting us from experiencing the kind of relationship that we desire. But in times of stress, we get selfish, right? And we become really tunnel visioned and we default to our tried and tested strategies for creating safety. So how do we shift these patterns in a way that allows us to access the gift of anxious avoidant relationships? This is really the essence of the work, right?
0:08:43.12 → 0:09:58.74
And it's so, so powerful and so, so important and it's something that I really deeply believe in at a fundamental level, because I do believe that when done right, this dynamic can heal us, right? So what does this look like? I already alluded to the importance of compassion, and I think that the more we can see someone with compassionate eyes and get curious about them, as well as getting curious about our own stuff, all of a sudden there's these new possibilities that emerge because instead of seeing that person as a threat which is what we will all do by default when we feel stressed in relationship we see lions everywhere, we start to see them as a person in fear and we start to be able to relate to them with a compassionate heart and with that energy of care. And I think that from that place we can start considering oh okay, this person that I love and care about is feeling stressed, how can I support them, what might they need? And finding ways to access that and really take steps towards a middle ground, as I said before, it's like coming off our ledges at the extremes and taking steps towards the centre where we can find space for both of us to exist and thrive here.
0:09:58.84 → 0:10:51.35
So how do we then access this gift of anxious avoidant relationships? How do we shift into growth mode in our anxious avoidant relationship rather than pain mode or stuck mode? And I think the thing I want to focus on here and that I want to invite you to focus on is that for the anxious person in any relationship, your primary work is in your relationship with yourself. Because your baseline focus is always going to be on safety via the other person or security via the other person to a degree that is an over indexation, meaning I am overly reliant on you to make me feel safe. I have an underdeveloped capacity for self regulation and for self soothing and for being with myself.
0:10:51.47 → 0:11:32.39
And so that is your work. And you will have heard me say that before on the podcast, that the greatest gift you can give yourself as a more anxious leaning person, whether you are single or in a relationship, is to build up your comfort. Level with being by yourself or diversifying your energy so that you don't become so exclusively focused on your relationship as the source of all satisfaction and worth and comfort in your life. Because I think that is the default mode for a lot of anxious people. So the anxious person's primary work is in self regulation and self focus pivoting from focus on the other back to focus on the self.
0:11:32.51 → 0:12:39.96
Contrast this with the avoidant person's primary work which is in co regulation because their ability to be with self is pretty well developed and arguably the avoidant person tends to be overly reliant on their very well developed capacity to be either alone or to self regulate or to be comfortable with their own company. And so when you're in an anxious avoidant relationship, as the anxious person, you are going to be called to do the very work that is most important for you to do more broadly, which is become more comfortable with self regulation because your avoidant partner is likely to test that in you. Right. They are going to give you plenty of opportunity to work on that growth edge, which is being by yourself or being able to self soothe. Because if they have a greater preference, for example, independence or time apart or space, that's going to really test you.
0:12:40.06 → 0:13:45.54
And again you can either use those tests as an opportunity to reenact old patterns, to spiral, to escalate, to protest, to make meaning out of the fact that they need more time or space or whatever it might be. Or you can take that as the training ground and go okay, this is my opportunity to build up my own capacity to be with myself. Rather than, for example when your partner is wanting some space or they're doing stuff on their own that doesn't involve you, rather than just counting down the minutes until you're going to come back into connection, you get to see what is possible in that space in your own relationship with yourself, in your life. And whether that's spending more time cultivating friendships or hobbies or other points of interest in your own life rather than feeding the tendency to over index on your relationship which is, as I said, an easy place to go for most anxious people. Now for the avoidant person, you are going to get called into your growth work as well.
0:13:45.59 → 0:15:08.46
Because if your growth work is in increasing your comfort level with closeness and intimacy and connection co regulation, learning to meet someone else's needs or to increase your capacity to be needed, then your anxious partner is going to give you plenty of opportunities to work on that as well because they do have really high connection needs. They do want to be close to you, they do want affection and love in a very overt way and so they are going to call you into your growth edge, they are going to test you and they are going to invite you to step towards those experiences. That might be uncomfortable but it might just be the exact medicine that you need. And again, you can see that it can be either healing or if you let the old patterns take you into their grip then you might experience that as oh, these people are too much, it's too overwhelming, too demanding, too needy, not safe, right? But can you see here that for both people their primary work is being called forward in this relationship and if there is enough safety, if there is enough commitment and love and care and respect in the relationship, then you will both be invited into the medicine that you need in order to become more whole, right?
0:15:08.59 → 0:15:52.97
So again, for the anxious person, wholeness lies in finding more balance within yourself by building up the self part. And for the avoidant partner, wholeness lies in finding that balance by building up the togetherness part because the self part is already well developed. And so through this dynamic you both get to meet in the middle. You both get to become more whole and more balanced individually and relationally. So that is what I wanted to offer you as an insight into the gift of anxious avoidant relationships, both as a reminder of your individual work, if you are more anxious or more avoidant, a reminder of the essence of your work.
0:15:53.12 → 0:16:48.13
And of course, that can look like a lot of different things in Practise, but that is kind of the North Star and reminding yourself if you're in an anxious avoidant dynamic, that that is your work within the relationship as well. So the next time you're being frustrated or hurt or triggered, reminding yourself, what is the lesson for me here? What's the opportunity? Am I digging in my heels at an extreme place and am I reenacting or entrenching or reinforcing old patterns? Is there an opportunity for me to step off the ledge and take steps towards the centre, to cultivate more wholeness and more balance within myself, more trust and safety in my relationship in a way that will allow it to be healing and restorative rather than fracturing and reinforcing of those old painful patterns?
0:16:48.23 → 0:17:32.21
So I hope that that's given you something to think about and maybe given you some hope if you are in an anxious avoidant relationship. As I said at the start, I know that the dominant discourse around this tends to be quite negative in focus, emphasising the ways in which this dynamic is painful and hard, doomed even, depending on who you listen to. So I hope that it gives you a sense of what's possible and the opportunities that exist for you within this dynamic when it's done right. If you've enjoyed this episode, so grateful as always. If you can leave a five star rating or review, you can leave a little comment on Spotify, share it with the people in your life, share it on social media, it all helps so much and I appreciate all of you and I look forward to seeing you again next time.
0:17:32.30 → 0:17:56.04
Thanks, guys. Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment. If you want to go deeper on all things attachment, love and relationships, you can find me on Instagram @stephanie__rigg or at stephanierigg.com and if you enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a review and a five star rating. It really does help so much. Thanks again for being here and I hope to see you again soon.
#80 How Do I Get My Avoidant Partner To Open Up?
This week, I’m answering the community question, “How do I get my avoidant partner to open up?”. I’ll dive into how to pave the way for more genuine, authentic connection and what that looks like for people with avoidant attachment styles and anxious attachment styles within relationships.
This week, I’m answering the community question, “How do I get my avoidant partner to open up?”. I’ll dive into how to pave the way for more genuine, authentic connection and what that looks like for people with avoidant attachment styles and anxious attachment styles within relationships.
WHAT WE’LL COVER:
Preferences of wanting to receive information
Trust wounds in avoidant partners
Self-serving behaviour that could be impacting this issue
Insight into their experience
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Use the code JUNE50 for 50% off 3 masterclasses or the Higher Love Course - www.stephanierigg.com
Apply for my 6-month Homecoming Mastermind
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
0:00:00.09 → 0:00:30.08
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.
0:00:30.22 → 0:01:02.23
In today's episode, I'm going to be answering the community question of how do I get my avoidant partner to open up more? So this is a very frequently asked question, as you can imagine. I know that it's something a lot of more anxious partners struggle with and really desire is to have more depth and connection with their partner, particularly a partner who leans more avoidant. So I'm going to be unpacking that a little today. And importantly, and I would say more importantly than the actual, how do I get my partner to open up more?
0:01:02.32 → 0:01:59.10
As you can imagine, if you are familiar with my work and my philosophy, I think the more revealing inquiry here is what is it within me that needs to control or influence that? What part of me feels unsafe with them not telling me everything right away or feeling like I can't reach parts of them, how much of my desire to get them to open up is about them versus me? And I think that when we can get a little curious about that and take responsibility and really own the parts of us that maybe want to control someone or want to change them, want them to be more like us or as we would like them to be, then we're more able to approach those situations with a level of conscious awareness. And hopefully that will pave the way for more genuine, authentic connection, rather than connection that is, with a motive of control attached to it. So that's what we're going to be talking about today.
0:01:59.20 → 0:02:40.00
Before I dive into that, a couple of quick announcements you might have heard me share in the last episode that for the month of June I am offering a 50% off sale on my online courses and master classes. So included in that is my Higher Love course, which is my breakup course, and my three master classes how to navigate anxious, avoidant relationships, better boundaries and sex and attachment. So for the month of June, you can use the code June 50 on my website, the checkout area, to save 50% on all of those products. So if you've been interested in going a little deeper with my work, now is a great time to do that. We'll link all of that in the show notes for you.
0:02:40.77 → 0:03:05.15
Second announcement is just to share the featured review, which is Stephanie's an incredible teacher on attachment. Not only theories covered, but so many good examples of practical implementation. I've had experiences learning about attachment theory that made me feel like I'm a bad person because of how I tend to behave in relationships with Stephanie. I never feel that I've learned so much from listening to her, and I've only just scratched the surface on the many episodes available. Also, her voice is very pleasant and soothing.
0:03:05.20 → 0:03:24.76
She has a wonderful accent, and her way of facing her words makes it very easy to understand. Thank you so much, Stephanie. You're making a huge contribution by creating this valuable content. Thank you so much for that beautiful review. It's kind of you to say that my voice is very pleasant and soothing because I got a message from someone on Instagram yesterday telling me to please make my voice more professional because it sounded unnatural.
0:03:24.82 → 0:03:52.47
So apparently you can't please everybody, but it's nice to have the alternative perspective. So thank you so much for your review and your kind words. 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 those master classes that I mentioned a little while ago. Okay, so let's dive into this conversation around how do I get my avoidant partner to open up? So let's acknowledge the starting point for anxious people.
0:03:52.62 → 0:04:34.60
Disclosure. And arguably, over disclosure is a way to fast track connection a lot of the time. So even if it's very early in the dating process, something that a lot of anxious people will relate to is, I want to tell you everything about me, and I want you to tell me everything about you as a way to fast track us to depth. Right. I don't want to hang out in this in between uncertain thing where our relationship isn't really intense yet, and I lean on disclosure as a way to bypass that in between stage that uncertainty and fast track us straight to really intense connection.
0:04:34.79 → 0:05:28.13
So as is the case a lot of the time, noticing that as an anxious person, you probably sit at one extreme or one end of the spectrum when it comes to disclosure or opening up. And sometimes that can be maybe over disclosure, so it can be a lack of boundaries. I think that if we look at some of those descriptors of the various attachment styles, you'll see anxious people over disclose, avoidant people are very protective of disclosure and might under disclose or not share much of themselves with someone. And secure attachment is somewhere in the middle, right? I share an appropriate amount with people, but I don't blurt out everything and all of my deepest, darkest secrets and my history and my family struggles and my trauma and everything, because that might be too much too soon.
0:05:28.25 → 0:06:23.76
So I suppose I say that just to invite you to reflect on am I sitting at one extreme and judging someone or expecting them to meet me in my version of doing things my way, which maybe isn't healthy either. And I think that we can see that kind of dynamic play out a lot in anxious avoidant relationships is that we tussle over which extreme should win out, when really the goal is to meet in the middle. So I think when it comes to getting someone to open up, we first have to acknowledge that that is driven by our preference from the other extreme. Now, that is not to say that desiring connection with someone via feeling like you know them on a deep level is problematic. I don't think that it is problematic.
0:06:23.82 → 0:06:59.53
I think that's really understandable and natural and can be healthy at the same time. We do need to acknowledge that there can be a level of protectiveness from the avoidant person around sharing parts of themselves with other people. There can be trust wounds. Certainly for more fearful avoidant people, there can be a real betrayal, fear and not trusting in people's good intentions and feeling like the more I share of myself with you, the more potential you have to use that against me or hurt me. So I want to keep you at arm's length.
0:06:59.58 → 0:07:37.50
Or maybe if I do share something with you, then I retreat because I feel like I really regret sharing things with you. But I think that we do have to get really curious around how much of me wanting you to open up is because I genuinely want to know you better from an open hearted, agenda free kind of way. And how much of it is because I can't tolerate the distance that I perceive from not being able to reach you, from there being things about you that I don't know. Because as we know for anxious people, information feels safe. The more information we have, the more in control we feel.
0:07:37.55 → 0:08:01.08
The less information we have, the more out of control we feel. That uncertainty tends to feel really destabilising and can feel like you can't mobilise to keep yourself safe because you don't know what you're dealing with. And those blanks we tend to fill in with worst case scenarios, right? We catastrophize, why would they hide something from me? Why wouldn't they share it with me?
0:08:01.53 → 0:08:33.15
It must be something really bad or they don't like me, or there's something awry here. We become very, very suspicious of someone not sharing everything with us. Again, because our preference and our baseline is to share everything with everyone in a way that again, we use that to fast track connection. So we are suspicious and judgmental of the ways in which someone might be different to us and we think that it necessarily spells trouble. So I do think that we have to get honest and own.
0:08:33.30 → 0:09:11.50
How much of this is me wanting you to open up? Because I want to feel more connected to you and how much of it is I would feel more in control of you and our relationship and I would feel safer if I had more information. Because the more information I have, the more options I have, the more strategies I feel like I have at my disposal. To troubleshoot, to problem solve, to preempt something bad happening. But without that information, I feel like I'm going in blind to this situation where I feel like I'm going to have to protect myself and not going to be able to do that because I'm not armed with that information.
0:09:11.87 → 0:09:50.61
I think the other piece of this is that the other kind of self serving piece and as always, I say self serving not in a judgmental way because I am guilty of all of these things. But the other self serving thing can be if you loved me, you would tell me, right? That's the logic from the anxious side. It's if you really cared about this relationship, you would share everything with me. And so the fact that you don't want to share certain things with me or you're not opening up to me makes me feel rejected or unloved or suspicious or any other thing.
0:09:50.65 → 0:10:43.75
But I'm making it mean something about how much you care about me or how much you love me. And again, that is a very good example of projecting what something would mean if it were us onto someone else who's very different to us. So just recognising all of those different limbs that might be playing out here that might be influencing your need for someone else to be a certain way and how much of that is genuinely about them and how much of it is about you and arguably about control. So putting that to one side and that's kind of a whole inquiry in and of itself is all of the pieces within us that want to get someone to open up and actually looking at, okay, what would be the conditions which would support someone to feel like they could open up? And for an avoidant person, we have to look at the core wounds and the fears there.
0:10:43.79 → 0:11:21.45
And a lot of the time that is around, I don't want to be controlled. I don't want to feel like someone is trying to take away my privacy, my independence, my selfhood. And so feeling like someone is literally or figuratively looming over them and demanding that they open up or making them wrong for not opening up on someone else's timeline, that's usually going to exacerbate it rather than alleviate it. Right. That's going to really lead them to dig their heels in and reinforce the need for self protection rather than to support them to feel safe.
0:11:21.55 → 0:11:48.29
You can't just demand that someone feel safe enough to open up to you. You have to kind of earn that. And earning that might mean building trust incrementally over time and releasing the grip on trying to control someone or trying to make demands of them that are more than they are able to give at a certain point in a relationship or a certain point in their own journey. Right? This stuff can feel intensely vulnerable and unsafe.
0:11:48.39 → 0:12:47.18
And I think we have to really remind ourselves of that rather than just asking these questions of how can I get them to do this thing that I want them to do. There's a lot more in it than that. I think the important thing to add to all of this is it's really reasonable and understandable to want to know that someone is connected to their own emotional landscape. And I think to the extent that your desire to get your partner to open up is because it feels unsafe or otherwise destabilising to you to feel like there's something going on that not only you don't understand, but your partner doesn't understand. If you listen to a recent episode I did with Connor Beaton, a guest that I had on, he works a lot with men, and we spoke in that episode in the context of men that what we really desire from someone in partnership is, can I trust that you know what's going on with you?
0:12:47.36 → 0:13:19.91
And you have self awareness around that, and you have the tools and the resources to do whatever you need to do to take care of it. And I think that that is really the crux of it. And when we feel like someone is not only cloistered but also in denial about there being something wrong or something that needs their attention, that's when it starts to feel really unsafe. And that's where on the anxious side, you probably start escalating and going into this panicky frenzy of, you have to tell me there's something wrong. I know there's something wrong.
0:13:19.95 → 0:13:46.44
Why aren't you telling me? Just open up to me. Because we feel like if they don't understand what's going on with them or they don't know, then how are they going to take care of it? And that can feel really unsafe and really stressful. So I think that that aspect of it, to the extent that that's your experience, feeling like you don't have trust in the fact that they're self aware enough to know what's going on for them and to manage that for themselves, I think that's really understandable.
0:13:46.47 → 0:14:28.17
And maybe the middle ground then is to say I don't need you to tell me everything that's going on. But it would be helpful for me if you could just reassure me that whatever it is that you've got it under control, or that you're taking care of it, or some other reassurance that isn't. I need you to bear your soul to me so that I can launch in and fix it and go into that Caretaker mode, but at least give me some sort of insight into what you're experiencing and what you're going to do about it. Right? And I think when we can ask for that from a more restrained place rather than a demanding place and a place that's tell me what's going on for you, and then I'm going to mobilise straight away into trying.
0:14:28.18 → 0:15:02.66
To fix it, which might feel like a boundary violation for the other person. Or we can do it in a more restrained way, in a more trusting way, a way that says I trust you and I respect you. And I know that you'll take care of it, but it would really help if I could get a little insight into what you're going through that feels more balanced and that feels like more of a healthy middle ground, rather than poking and prodding and demanding that someone open up so that you feel better about it. So I suppose it's a long winded way of saying how do I get someone to open up? I don't know that you do get someone to open up.
0:15:02.68 → 0:15:54.75
I think people open when they're ready and if they're opening before they're ready because you've made them, that's probably not a great outcome, is it? We really want people to open from a place of a natural unfolding and unfurling of their authentic self in a way that feels really true and honest rather than getting someone to share parts of themselves that they're not ready to share or that they feel really reluctant to share. And then that being cloaked in fear or self protection and probably not feeling that great on either side. I think when we can trust that in time, if we are loving and respectful and trusting of one another, that that revealing just happens. It takes place naturally because the safety is established between you in a really genuine way.
0:15:54.90 → 0:16:21.73
And so I think that if you can cultivate that patience and trust rather than needing someone to operate on your timeline of opening up or revealing themselves or disclosing certain things, then I think that that's maybe the better path. Now, of course, all of the caveats, all of the what about this? What about this? What about someone lying to me? Or I'm not talking about any of that.
0:16:21.77 → 0:17:01.23
Right? Really talking about sharing emotionally disclosing things about fears and insecurities recognising that that's much harder for some people than others. And that doesn't mean that they're bad or wrong or broken, but just trying to accept our partner's process and trust their ability to make those decisions for themselves rather than feeling like we need to step in and steward their personal development process for them. Which, as I've said, I think is a really easy place for more anxious people to go. But it costs us a lot because once we step into that role of coach or therapist or caretaker, that can become the balance point in the relationship.
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And that can be the role that we cement ourselves into, which for a time might feel good because we might feel needed or we might feel in control, but ultimately it costs us a lot because then who's there to support us when we've anointed ourselves, the support person in the relationship? It can skew things in a direction that ultimately doesn't serve us. So I realised that was a lot of different limbs and thoughts and reflections and probably wasn't the answer you were looking for if you were hoping for a nice, neat three step process on how to get an avoidant person to open up. But I hope that it's given you something a little more nuanced and layered to reflect upon, and ultimately an invitation into greater self awareness, greater self responsibility, and maybe more acceptance of your partner and more trust and respect for them in a way that will naturally give rise to opening and safety in your relationship. If you've enjoyed this episode, as always, I'm super grateful.
0:18:03.34 → 0:18:26.53
For those of you who can leave a quick review or a rating or a feedback little comment thing on Spotify, share it with the people in your life. It all really helps and adds up and is a huge support for me in continuing to get the word out about the podcast. Otherwise, I look forward to joining you again next time. Thanks, guys. 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 you again soon.