What is Emotional Availability?
In today's episode, we're talking all about emotional availability. Emotional availability is one of those terms that is thrown around a lot on social media - and it seems like everybody is on the lookout for the "emotionally unavailable" people that are to be avoided at all costs. But as always, I think it's important to approach these conversations with nuance and curiosity, before slapping labels on others and declaring them to be the problem. As we discuss in this episode, our focus on others' emotional unavailability can often mask the parts of us that are hiding behind inauthenticity.
In today's episode, we're talking all about emotional availability. Emotional availability is one of those terms that is thrown around a lot on social media - and it seems like everybody is on the lookout for the "emotionally unavailable" people that are to be avoided at all costs. But as always, I think it's important to approach these conversations with nuance and curiosity, before slapping labels on others and declaring them to be the problem. As we discuss in this episode, our focus on others' emotional unavailability can often mask the parts of us that are hiding behind inauthenticity.
Emotional availability is a crucial concept in modern relationships, especially in an era dominated by social media. It refers to an individual's emotional maturity, ability to articulate feelings, openness to honest conversations, and capacity to express themselves authentically without resorting to games or misleading behaviors. This definition underscores the importance of authenticity, emotional maturity, and genuine connections in relationships.
What is Emotional Availability?
Emotional availability is often discussed in the context of dating and relationships. It's a term that encapsulates the ability to be present and engaged in a relationship emotionally. An emotionally available person is someone who is capable of sharing their feelings, understands and respects their partner's emotional needs, and is willing to be vulnerable. This characteristic is essential for building a deep, meaningful connection with others.
The Importance of Self-Reflection
It's critical to consider your own emotional availability. Self-reflection helps in understanding why one might be attracted to individuals who exhibit traits of emotional unavailability. By exploring our behaviors and tendencies, especially in the context of anxious attachment patterns, we can identify and address issues like people-pleasing and approval-seeking. This awareness is vital for personal growth and healthier relationships.
Recognising Emotional Unavailability in Anxious Attachment Patterns
Emotional unavailability can often manifest in anxious attachment patterns. This might involve performing, shapeshifting, and constantly seeking validation, driven by a fear of being unlovable. Such behaviors often lead to presenting a curated persona, hindering the ability to form genuine connections. Emotional unavailability, in this context, stems from a lack of authenticity and honesty.
Accepting Authenticity and Vulnerability
Embracing authenticity and vulnerability is fundamental in relationships. Genuine connections require individuals to be true to themselves, without resorting to a curated version for validation or control. This approach fosters meaningful connections and establishes trust, leading to more fulfilling and sustainable relationships.
Embracing Change and Growth
Showing up as your true self, even at the risk of rejection, is essential for attracting and cultivating relationships with emotionally available partners. It's about embracing your entirety without the need for performance or inauthenticity. In summary, understanding and embracing emotional availability is key to developing genuine, meaningful relationships. Through self-reflection, embracing authenticity and vulnerability, and being open to change and growth, individuals can foster deeper connections based on mutual emotional availability. This journey towards emotional maturity not only enhances personal well-being but also enriches our relationships with others.
Questions for Reflection & Discussion
1. What do you think emotional availability means to you after listening to the episode? How does it differ from your previous understanding, if at all?
2. Stephanie mentions the importance of emotional authenticity and maturity in relationships. Do you think you are emotionally available to your partners or friends? Why or why not?
3. How do you think emotional availability impacts the dynamics of a relationship? Do you agree with Stephanie's perspective that it's more fruitful to start within ourselves when it comes to emotional availability?
4. Is there a particular instance in your life where you found yourself attracted to emotionally unavailable people?
5. Stephanie talks about anxious attachment patterns and the tendency to shapeshift in relationships. Have you ever experienced this behaviour in yourself or others?
6. How do you feel about the concept of "performing" in relationships? Do you think this is a common behavior, and if so, how does it affect emotional availability?
7. Stephanie talks about the inherent discomfort in receiving emotional availability when one is accustomed to not receiving it. Have you ever experienced a similar discomfort in your own life? How did you handle it?
8. Stephanie discusses the toll of inauthenticity and its impact on relationships. Can you identify instances in your life where inauthenticity affected your relationships, and if so, how did you navigate this?
9. Stephanie emphasises the importance of trust and being fully oneself in a relationship. What steps do you think you can take to build this trust and authenticity in your own relationships?
Further Links & Resources
Save $150 on my Higher Love break-up course with the code PHOENIX
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
[00:00:04]:
In today's episode, we're talking all about emotional availability or emotional unavailability. I think that this is one of those terms and one of those concepts that's thrown around a lot, particularly in the world of instagram and social media more broadly when we're talking about dating and red flags and what to look for and building healthy relationships. And I think that's with good reason. But I also think it's really important, as always, to approach these sorts of big labels with a level of nuance and articulating.
[00:01:06]:
What does it really mean when we're talking about emotional availability? What are we looking for in other people? And I would argue, more importantly, what does that look like within us? Because I think it's really easy to focus on the ways in which someone else might be, quote unquote, emotionally unavailable and almost distract ourselves with all of their shortcomings and everything that we want them to change, while overlooking the ways in which we might be exhibiting certain signs of emotional unavailability, albeit maybe taking a different form. I think that a lot of the time the trope of the unavailable person is someone who is more avoidant and aloof and hot and cold and you can't really seem to crack them and you don't know what's what. And so while if you're more anxious leaning, you might not fit that description, I think there are some less obvious ways that we can ourselves be emotionally unavailable and in so doing can prevent the kind of deeper, more authentic connection that we really crave. So I'm going to be sharing some thoughts on that today. Before we dive into that, a quick announcement that Healing Anxious Attachment is still open for registration. We had the Black Friday sale over the weekend, which has now ended, but you are still able to join at the usual early bird price. All of that is on my website. For those who are interested, we've got just shy of 300 people in the past week or so, which is just amazing.
[00:02:33]:
And it's always so gratifying for me to see people coming into the programme and feeling so much optimism and so much commitment to really making some changes in their blueprint when it comes to relationship to self and others. So if that feels like something that you would like to take steps towards, I'd love to see you inside the programme. And as I said, all of that should be relatively easy to find on my website. Okay, so let's dive into this conversation around emotional availability. So I think it's useful to frame the discussion by asking, what do we mean when we talk about emotional availability, I think it probably means different things to different people, as I said, because it's a term that's tossed around so liberally. I think everyone's probably got their own version of what that means when they are talking about emotional availability or unavailability. But what I think of this term as meaning is someone who is mature emotionally, who's able to articulate themselves, who's open to having conversations with other people when it comes to not only emotions but anything else that might arise concerns, boundaries, those sorts of things. Someone who is authentically themselves, who isn't playing games, who isn't misleading, who isn't performing.
[00:03:54]:
Someone who you feel really comfortable with because you feel like you're connecting with that person in their true expression, rather than feeling like there's facades and there's masks and tricks and games which are not always coming from a place of malice or an intention to manipulate. But I think when we lack internal security, we resort to all sorts of tactics to try and win over people's approval or present a certain version of ourselves. And as I'll come to shortly, I think that we can fall prey to those sorts of tactics no matter where we sit on the spectrum. We can engage in those things as a way to create a semblance of comfort, confidence, safety for ourselves, even if ultimately it's kind of trapping us in something that isn't truly authentic. So I think that that's really the essence of it for me is that emotional availability is authenticity and emotional maturity. So I think that when we have this conception of the person, I think it's most often used in the context of dating. Although of course, emotional availability is relevant and important in any relationship, romantic or not. I think that it most often comes up in the context of dating.
[00:05:15]:
And it's like, how do I spot someone who's emotionally unavailable so I can avoid them like the plague and save myself the trouble? And I think that again, I understand the desire to steer clear of people who maybe aren't in the same place as you or don't want the same things as you or don't have the capacity that you seek in. A partner in terms of having that deeper connection and that emotionality and vulnerability between you that allows you to really feel like you can trust them. But what I think is much more interesting than listing out traits of things to avoid in other people, as you guys would know if you've followed my work for a while and listened to the podcast. I think the much more illuminating analysis is what is it within me that feels attracted to that in the first place? Because it's really easy. I've done an episode on this before and the reasons we might be attracted to unavailable people. And I think that it's really easy to kind of throw up our hands and say everyone's so emotionally unavailable. And I'm not. The problem doesn't lie with me.
[00:06:23]:
It's everyone else in the dating pool who's the problem. And I just need to sharpen my tools in terms of avoiding the bad people and then all my problems will be solved. And if only it were that simple. I think that what we really need to get honest about is there's something within me that is attracted to that or that feels some sense of comfort in the dynamic of chasing the unavailable person, of performing, of gameplaying, of tiptoeing around that, of trying to earn the love and approval of someone. And I think that we have to see that within ourselves and get really curious about it because that comes with its own form of emotional unavailability, right? This is really speaking more to the anxious experience because as I said, I think that the stereotype of the emotionally unavailable person is someone who's more kind of classically, typically avoidant. But I think emotional unavailability in the context of more anxious attachment patterns tends to manifest as performing as shapeshifting, like being a mirror for someone else. If they say that they like something, you quickly agree and say you like it too. Or if they want to do something, you agree and you acquiesce and you just follow someone else's lead all the time and kind of lose yourself in the process.
[00:07:47]:
And of course we know that that can come from a lot of different things of really just wanting to be chosen or feeling like being low maintenance is the way to be loved. And that to be difficult is to be unlovable. All of those things that we've talked about before on the show. But the reality is that when we conceal so much of ourselves, when we bury so much of ourselves or subdue certain parts of us that we fear are unworthy of love or unacceptable or make us difficult, we're not being emotionally available either because we're not being authentic, we're not being honest. We're presenting a very carefully crafted, curated view of us that we think is going to be the ticket to kind of controlling for an outcome. And oftentimes that outcome is being chosen and having someone love us and not doing anything that could possibly jeopardise the connection. But when we do that, we are inadvertently jeopardising the connection because we're not authentically being there. We're not showing up as our true selves, we're not maybe advocating for ourselves, we're not just being forthcoming with how we're feeling something that might be bothering us.
[00:08:54]:
All of that is part of emotional availability as well. And so I think it's really important to see how these things interface with each other and that while it is really much easier to just point the finger at someone who's unavailable in more obvious ways, we can say, what do you mean? I'm available all the time. I'm always available if you want to hang out with me, how could you be calling me emotionally unavailable? I have big emotions. I think there's a little more to it than that. And I think that if we return to at least how I think of emotional availability as being honesty, authenticity and emotional maturity and all the things that flow from that, I think we can see that maybe we are attracted to and attracting people who maybe mirror where we are at in terms of our own emotional availability. And so it might be useful and enlightening to kind of reflect on that and go okay, maybe I'm getting back what I'm putting out and start there. Always starting there I think is a good idea, starting with ourselves because it can be. We were having a conversation in my small group coaching programme earlier today and someone was sharing that their partner is really showing up and it's quite daunting because she is really accustomed to burying needs or working really, really hard to just get scraps of attention from someone or scraps of validation.
[00:10:27]:
And it can actually be quite disconcerting or quite foreign to your system. When you are met with someone's availability and consistency and care and attention and support, all of a sudden your system might sort of reject it and push it away and go I don't know how to receive that because I'm so accustomed to not receiving that and to fighting for it only to be disappointed. And there's some sort of weird familiarity in that dynamic and it leaves me feeling really out of my depths when all of a sudden someone is available. And I think that often it's in those situations that we are shown our own work because we might all of a sudden feel a lot of resistance coming up, feel that all of a sudden we have nowhere to hide. And that's really scary. If we've always blamed the other person for the lack of connection or the lack of depth or the lack of commitment and all of a sudden they're showing up with depth and connection and commitment and then we're pushed to go okay, well, who am I going to be in response to that? Am I ready for those things? Am I ready to be seen and known? Because when we haven't had that in the past, it's a really, really scary thing and it really raises the stakes. It's, as I said, in a weird sort of way, much more comfortable to just sit in the dissatisfaction and kind of lament the fact that someone won't change but all the while being comforted by the fact that they're the problem and it's not us. So all of that to say, I think that in this conversation around emotional availability, it helps to broaden the lens on what that means and what that can look like and what the converse emotional unavailability.
[00:12:13]:
How that can show up in ways that we might not typically associate with emotional unavailability in the more common sense of avoidance and associated behaviours. And going, oh, is my lack of authenticity in terms of my people pleasing and my approval seeking and my tiptoeing and my strategizing and all of those little things that I do behind the scenes to try and control for the outcome that I want. Maybe that's emotional unavailability too, and maybe that's blocking some of the connection that I really crave. So maybe my freedom and my relief and a new way of being in relationships requires me to change the inputs on my side of the equation and to kind of lay down some of those old strategies and take the brave steps towards showing up more authentically and trusting that if that does yield to the worst case scenario that our fear would have us believe, if we show up authentically and honestly and we stop curating this perfect version of ourselves that we think will be the lovable version, and we just allow ourselves to be enough. If someone leaves in response to that, well, I think that that's kind of a blessing in disguise, because otherwise you're locked into a lifetime of performance and a lifetime of inauthenticity, and that's a really, really tiring game to play. So I think that there's a lot to be said for just trusting that for the right person or people, you, all of you, it's going to be enough. In fact, it's going to be delightful and lovable and wonderful and that someone who is themselves emotionally available and who has done that work is going to be ready for all of it and is going to have realistic expectations about what it means to be in a relationship. And you don't have to bury parts of yourself or feelings or fears or insecurities, you don't have to try and hide that from someone in order to trick them into loving you.
[00:14:23]:
As I said, that's a really exhausting way to be in relationship and I think it's one that sooner or later really catches up with us and tends not to give us what we really desire, which is safety in relationships. So I hope that that has been helpful given you something to think about when it comes to emotional availability. And as I said, of course we can look out for that in other people, but I think it's always more fruitful to start within and start with ourselves and the way we're showing up and watch that ripple out. So thank you so much for joining me, I'm so grateful for all of your support. The spotify wrapped, year in review stuff has come out today and I'm being tagged by so many beautiful people who have been staunch supporters of the show and I've seen some amazing statistics on my side, people listening all over the world and I'm just eternally grateful always for your support. So thanks for being here and I look forward to seeing you again next time. Thanks guys. Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment.
[00:15:29]:
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. It's.
Embracing Change and Growth
attachment, emotional availability, emotional unavailability, relationships, insecurity, healthy relationships, dating, red flags, authenticity, emotional maturity, boundaries, self-esteem, anxious attachment, avoidant attachment, emotional connection, vulnerability, self-discovery, personal growth, relationship coaching, self-acceptance, self-reflection, personal development, people-pleasing, approval seeking, fear of rejection, intimacy, emotional intelligence, authenticity in relationships, self-awareness, resilience.
10 Tips for Healing an Anxious Attachment Style
In today's episode, I'm sharing 10 tips to start healing your anxious attachment style. While "healing" is not something that really lends itself to a formula or a 10-step plan, having guided thousands of students through the process of healing their anxious attachment I can certainly attest to the key growth areas for most folks with anxious attachment patterns.
In today's episode, I'm sharing 10 tips to start healing your anxious attachment style. While "healing" is not something that really lends itself to a formula or a 10-step plan, having guided thousands of students through the process of healing their anxious attachment I can certainly attest to the key growth areas for most folks with anxious attachment patterns.
We'll cover things like getting your mindset right, learning about your nervous system, building self-worth, voicing needs and boundaries, how to have healthier conflict, and diversifying your life so you're not solely focused on your relationship.
Healing Anxious Attachment: 10 Tips to Transform Your Relationship
Attachment styles play a significant role in how we form and maintain relationships. Anxious attachment, characterized by a constant need for reassurance and fear of abandonment, can heavily impact the dynamics of our relationships. In the latest episode of "On Attachment," we delve into practical tips to heal anxious attachment and transform your relationship patterns.
Understanding the Mindset of Healing
The journey of healing anxious attachment begins with the right mindset. It's essential to acknowledge that healing is not a quick fix. Self-compassion and patience are crucial as you navigate through this process. Understanding that it's okay to feel anxious at times and that these feelings do not define you is a pivotal step in transforming your attachment style.
Navigating your Nervous System
Learning to understand and regulate your nervous system is another key aspect of healing anxious attachment. Practising self-soothing techniques and grounding exercises can help in times of distress, enabling you to navigate challenging emotions and experiences.
Healing Core Wounds
Anxious attachment tendencies often stem from core wounds of abandonment and unworthiness. Acknowledging and addressing these deep-seated wounds is vital for healing. Through introspection and therapeutic work, it's possible to heal these wounds and reshape your beliefs about yourself and relationships.
Establishing and Honouring Boundaries
Many people with anxious attachment tendencies struggle with setting and respecting boundaries in their relationships. Fear of conflict can lead to avoiding difficult conversations, but establishing clear boundaries is a crucial component of building healthy relationships.
Clarity in Desires and Needs
Being clear about your desires and needs in a relationship is paramount. This clarity provides a foundation for open communication and understanding between you and your partner, fostering a healthier and more fulfilling connection.
The Journey of Healing
Healing from anxious attachment doesn't mean never feeling anxious again. Instead, it entails building resilience, understanding, and tools to manage these feelings when they arise. Recognizing and accepting that healing is a journey, not a destination, can alleviate the pressure for immediate change.
Building Self-Worth and Respect
For individuals with anxious attachment patterns, building self-worth, self-respect, and self-trust is fundamental. This involves investing in activities and relationships that nurture and uplift you, contributing to a stronger sense of self.
Diversifying Energy
Focusing solely on the romantic relationship can intensify anxious attachment tendencies. Diversifying your energy across various areas of your life, such as career, hobbies, and friendships, can create a healthier balance and reduce dependency on one relationship for validation and happiness.
Identifying and Communicating Needs
One of the challenges for individuals with anxious attachment patterns is identifying and voicing their needs. Learning to advocate for yourself and communicate openly in your relationships is an empowering step towards healing and growth.
Setting and Respecting Boundaries
Learning to set and respect boundaries is crucial for individuals with anxious attachment patterns. By doing so, you create a sense of safety and agency within your relationships, fostering mutual respect and understanding.
The Journey of Transformation
In this episode, Stephanie shares her personal experience with anxious attachment patterns and how she has worked to overcome them. While the old patterns may occasionally resurface, she has developed the confidence and self-awareness to navigate and transcend them.
Embracing the Journey
Healing from anxious attachment is described as a transformative journey without a definitive end date. Though challenging, the growth and self-awareness gained throughout the process make it a worthwhile and liberating experience.
Further Support and Community
For those seeking additional support in healing anxious attachment, Stephanie introduces a program specifically designed for this purpose. The program offers a roadmap, live Q&A sessions, and an online community space, providing valuable resources and connections for individuals on their healing journey.
Healing from anxious attachment is a transformative process that requires patience, self-awareness, and support. By implementing these ten tips and embracing the journey of healing, individuals can gradually cultivate healthier relationship patterns and a more secure attachment style.
Make sure to connect with Stephanie on Instagram and leave a review for "On Attachment" to stay updated with valuable insights into attachment styles and relationships.
Questions for Discussion & Reflection
Have you ever noticed a fear of setting boundaries in your relationships? How does this fear impact your interactions with others and affect your own well-being and self-respect?
Do you find it difficult to voice your needs and desires in relationships? What steps can you take to better advocate for yourself and create healthier connections?
In your experience, how does anxious attachment manifest in your relationships? What impact does it have on your sense of self-worth and confidence?
Have you ever felt a strong need for validation and approval in your relationships? How does this impact your behaviour and decision-making within those relationships?
How do you navigate the balance between showing care and support for your partner and maintaining your independence and self-fulfillment?
What strategies have you found effective in regulating your nervous system and practicing self-soothing during moments of anxiety or distress in your relationships?
Do you notice a tendency to avoid conflict in your relationships? How does this impact your ability to communicate openly and effectively with your partner?
In what ways have you diversified your energy across different areas of your life to reduce dependency on your relationships? How has this impacted your overall sense of fulfillment and well-being?
How do you define and prioritize your own needs in your relationships? What challenges do you face in this process and what steps can you take to overcome them?
How do you practice self-compassion and patience in your journey to heal anxious attachment patterns? What role does mindset play in your approach to healing?
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Join the waitlist for Healing Anxious Attachment Black Friday Sale
Save $150 on my Higher Love break-up course with the code PHOENIX
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
[00:00:29]:
In today's episode, I am sharing ten tips to heal your anxious attachment style. Now, you would probably know if you've been following the podcast for a while, whenever I am opening registration for my program, Healing Anxious Attachment, I typically do an episode that is on the topic of healing anxious attachment. Go figure. And it's funny because the previous episodes I've done, which were most recently the path to healing anxious attachment, prior to that, the three stages of healing anxious attachment, there's been a how to heal your anxious attachment and they're all kind of variations on the theme, but they are by far and away the most downloaded episodes, the ones that people are clearly really interested in hearing about, which I think speaks to the fact that so much of my audience is in that place of struggling with anxious attachment and really wanting to know what to do about that. So today's variation on that theme is ten Tips to Start Healing your anxious attachment. Before I dive into that, a couple of quick announcements.
[00:01:35]:
The first being in keeping with the theme of today's episode, I've created a PDF guide, which is, again, Ten Tips to Heal Your Anxious Attachment. That just summarises what I'm going to talk about today into a neat little PDF that you can download for free so that's linked in the show notes, or you can otherwise find it on my website for anyone who I know. Sometimes people reach out to me saying that they listen to the podcast and take notes. So for a longer list like today's, you can be saved from having to do your own notetaking and download that PDF for free. Second quick announcement is, of course, just to remind you about healing anxious attachment, which is opening in a couple of days time for the big Black Friday special, which is going to be a really big discount. It's just two nine $7 or four monthly payments of $77. So that is the lowest price I've offered the course at since the very first launch, when the programme was just an idea way back in March last year. So it's a really great time to jump in if you are thinking about it, if you have been thinking about it, if the timing maybe hasn't been right, I really encourage you to do so.
[00:02:48]:
Not only is the course $100 cheaper than it usually is, even for the early bird folks, but I'm also including a live Q and A for everybody and a community. So the community component was part of the programme for the first couple of rounds, but then it all got a little bit unwieldy and so I pulled back on offering that. But I'm reviving it for this round so there'll be an online community space where you can connect with each other. I know that a lot of people really value the opportunity to feel seen and understood by others who are on the same path and the same journey. And those spaces are always really supportive and positive and everyone is really, really compassionate towards each other. And I think that helps everyone to feel a little less alone. So all of that is included for the discounted price of $297. And that gives you lifetime access to the course materials and everything else.
[00:03:42]:
So it's a really big sale, it's a really great time to jump in, but that price is only available to people on the waitlist. So make sure that you do sign up in the show notes or on my website if you're interested in that. Doors open in two days time. Okay, so let's talk about these ten tips to heal your Anxious Attachment Style. Now, the first one is to get your mindset right and I think it's important to start here, even as I say, Ten Tips to Heal Your Anxious Attachment Style. I kind of cringe at that title and I wish that I often wish in this podcast that I could have long titles with lots of caveats and nuance, but unfortunately the format doesn't really lend itself to that. So I have to resort to short, snappy titles like Ten Tips to Heal Your Anxious Attachment Style. Now of course, it's not like I can just tick off ten things on a list and then voila, I'm going to be healed.
[00:04:34]:
And that's really what I want to emphasise in getting your mindset right here. It's so important that we're approaching any sort of healing journey, any process of growth from a place of self compassion and seeking to understand and support ourselves to feel safe. I think that so often we come to this work with a sense of brokenness and wrongness and we kind of shame ourselves. We think, there's something wrong with me and I've got to change, I'm ruining all my relationships, I'm so pathetic, I'm so desperate, I've got to stop, right? And I know that feeling, I know that sense of feeling out of control and it can be really overwhelming and exasperating. But I promise you that that is not the frame of mindset is going to allow the parts of you that are really scared to feel safer. It's like a bully is coming into that system and telling the scared little child inside you to just toughen up and to stop being so scared. And of course, that's not the way we would relate to a child and it's not the way that we should relate to our scared parts. So approaching ourselves instead with compassion, of course, coupled with self responsibility and ownership of our part in the pattern, but ultimately having that frame of mind of I want to do this work to gift myself more safety and security and space and freedom in my relationship with myself and my relationship with others.
[00:06:02]:
That's really what we want to be entering into this journey with the mindset of rather than, there's something terribly wrong with me, I'm broken and I've got to fix myself so that someone will love me. That kind of mindset is really entrenching us in the patterns that have gotten us to where we are. And so that is the first shift we need to make. Okay, the second tip is to learn about your nervous system and how to self regulate and self soothe. Of course, I've talked about this so many times on the show. But without understanding what is going on in our body and what it is that feels so terribly unsafe about a particular situation, something that might feel really activating or triggering in our relationships, we've got to know how to speak the language of our body. We've got to know what our body is doing in response to these things. Because when we do feel really anxious, when we do feel really scared, that's our body sounding the alarm and saying there's something wrong here.
[00:06:58]:
And again, rather than just trying to override that or press the mute button on the messages that our body is sending us, the work is really in learning to listen and learning to attune to ourselves and going, oh, okay. I am feeling this tightness in my chest. I'm feeling this sense of butterflies in my stomach. I feel heat in my face. My body's trying to tell me that this doesn't feel safe. And can I seek to understand that and try to bring safety to my body first and foremost so that I can then resource myself to deal with whatever this situation is? Most of us don't know the language of our body and we've been really conditioned out of that level of attunement. And so we just keep pushing and pushing and pushing and then wondering why we feel so burnt out and exhausted and disconnected from ourselves. So learning to attune to our own system, but then also to develop those skills to self regulate, to create safety from within.
[00:07:58]:
Because again, you will have heard me say so many times that for most anxious folks, safety comes from outside exclusively. And that puts us in a very vulnerable position of feeling like someone else is in control of whether or not we are okay. And of course, that's going to create a lot of anxiety. So learning how to rebalance the scales a little there so that we do have this well to draw from within that allows us to feel much more anchored in who we are and what we are capable of. Okay, the next one is understand and heal your core wounds of abandonment and unworthiness. Now, these are not the only core wounds that anxious folks are going to encounter and they're not exclusive to anxious folks. So it's not saying that anyone who has a worthiness wound also has anxious attachment style, but these tend to be pretty high ranking for those with anxious attachment tendencies. So the abandonment wound, as we've talked about, is related to what I was just saying around safety existing outside of us.
[00:09:01]:
There's this sense of someone's going to leave me and I'm not going to be okay on my own. And so feeling like we're always on the brink on the precipice and feeling like we have to try and get ahead of the risk of someone leaving us and that might interface with our worthiness wound, that tells us we are not enough to make someone stay. And that we have to work really, really hard on being a certain way or not being a certain way in order to earn the love, the approval, the validation of the people in our lives. Because we're just so terrified that love is going to be withdrawn at any moment and we're going to be left in the lurch. We're going to be alone in our hour of need. And again, that's a very deep and visceral fear for many folks. And so getting to know that part of us or those parts of us that carry those fears and those burdens is really, really important in sort of addressing the underlying cause of a lot of this stuff. Because you can learn any number of self soothing techniques, but you're going to continue to become activated or triggered or afraid, often in what looks like a disproportionate way if you're harbouring these very deep fears that make everything feel so high stakes.
[00:10:23]:
So it's always a balance of both. It's a balance of creating the safety in the body or learning how to better carry ourselves through challenging moments in our relationships while also trying to understand why those moments feel so challenging having regard to those deeper wounds that we might have. Okay, the next one is to build your sense of self worth, self respect and self trust. So if only it were as easy as just ticking those things off, right? This is a big journey, as all of this stuff is, but self worth to me is a really big one. And I think so much of the work for anxious folks is the self peace, which is why I emphasise things like self worth and self respect and self trust. I think all three of those things can be a little lacking in a lot of people with anxious attachment patterns. As I said, the worthiness wound leads us to feel like we are not good enough in so many ways. And so we really undervalue ourselves and we can really struggle with self esteem, with believing that people like us, that we have something to offer.
[00:11:25]:
We tend to be really biassed towards the ways in which we consider ourselves as falling short or the ways in which we are imperfect. And all of those things, I think, then drive us to behave in ways that further erode our sense of self worth, that lead us to self abandon, to self betray, to act in a way that doesn't really align with who we want to be or what our values are. But because we're so disconnected from self, we maybe don't have that clear compass. So when we start to build our self worth and our self respect, there is this harmonisation that takes place, there's this sense of inner alignment that allows us to go you know what? I might not be able to control everything around me. I might not have all the answers, but I know who I am and I'm kind of broadly comfortable with who I am. And that's a really, really liberating relieving feeling. It's a nice thing to be able to honestly say I'm not perfect, I'm not everyone's cup of tea, but I'm okay with who I am because I know what integrity looks like to me. And I can say that in large part that's the way that I'm living.
[00:12:36]:
And so I think that taking those steps towards greater self respect and self worth pays huge dividends not only in your relationship with yourself but then the ripple effect in your relationships more broadly. You just start to show up differently. You're less inclined to outsource all of that to other people and need so much reassurance and validation from the world around you that you're okay because you start to really believe that in an embodied sense from within. Okay, the next one is diversify your energy across all areas of your life. Now, as you would know, I'm sure anecdotally I certainly do. It's easy if you're someone with anxious attachment patterns to just go all in on the relationship. And as soon as you're in a relationship, the field of vision narrows and you kind of pour all of yourself into this container of the relationship. And I think that that only intensifies if the relationship is feeling wobbly.
[00:13:31]:
So if things are a little off or it's not feeling really solid, then it's likely that you'll only escalate in your laser focus on the relationship. And I think that that can be a double whammy. Because not only do we then start to smother our relationship and a lot of those behaviours of controlling and obsessing and ruminating really take hold. But it raises the stake so much such that if anything does happen to our relationship, if our relationship ends, God forbid, then we're often left really empty handed because we've lost so much of ourselves in the process. We only had so many resources and so much energy and because we poured it all into the project of our relationship and we neglected other areas of life, maybe we didn't pay that much attention to our friendships. Maybe we didn't really nurture those other relationships and we haven't been keeping up with certain hobbies or other habits that we know really keep us feeling balanced and good and whole. When we let all of those things drop off because we just don't have the bandwidth for it because we're so focused on our relationship, then we can feel extremely disoriented and empty handed if anything does happen to the relationship. So as much as it goes against the impulses to actually lean back from your relationship and let go of the grip a little, it not only benefits you as an individual, but it actually benefits the relationship.
[00:15:02]:
Because I think that relationships really do well with a bit of oxygenation and a bit more balance rather than just putting all of your eggs in that basket and then becoming completely obsessive about what happens there and feeling like everything rides on the fate of the relationship. Okay, the next one is figure out what your needs are and start voicing them again. Sounds simple. For a lot of anxious folks, it's harder than it sounds. But of course we are often accustomed to downplaying to minimising, to dismissing our own needs in an effort to accommodate the needs of others because we somewhere along the way convinced ourselves that that was what it took in order to be lovable, was to be easy. And so apparently having no needs makes us easier to love. And so we've often just kind of put all of that away and gone with the flow and been very low maintenance, been very easygoing on the outside. All the while we're having all of this internal turmoil because all of our needs are going unmet.
[00:16:10]:
And that leads to a lot of resentment and stress and frustration and ultimately big blow ups, right? So figure out what your needs are. And as I said, that can be hard for a lot of folks I work with. That. Step one is not just start voicing the needs, it's identify the needs. Because when you've only ever been led by the needs of other people and you've just slotted yourself into whatever situation you've ended up in and you've just gone along with that and mirrored other people, you might be pretty disconnected from what is actually important to you in a relationship. So figuring that out is a big step. And then of course, translating that into the self advocacy of voicing needs. And I would say the hardest part is learning to receive.
[00:16:53]:
Because for a lot of people who are chronic overgivers, receiving is really, really uncomfortable. And once someone actually starts to pay us attention and to show up for us in the way we've asked, we can kind of freeze and go, I don't know how to receive this, I don't know how I push it away because I all of a sudden feel very vulnerable in that receiving. So all of that is part of the work for you as you unlearn some of those old excessively self sacrificial, over giving patterns and again rebalance recalibrate your relationships. The next one is learn to set and respect boundaries in a healthy way. So again, we've talked about it before on the show. Anxiously attached people tend to be fairly average at boundary setting, but also boundary respecting. So I think on the incoming side, in terms of your own personal boundaries, there tend not to be any. And so it's like I kind of, again, just defer to whatever is comfortable for other people.
[00:17:56]:
Or if something is uncomfortable for me, I just suck it up. I don't want to make a fuss, I don't want to rock the boat, I go along with things even if I'm patently uncomfortable or it really doesn't work for me or a situation is very challenging for me, but I just don't really say anything. I think on the other side of that is we're not very good at recognising the boundaries of others and we think that being boundaryless is being that's what you do when you love someone, right? And that's why we don't have boundaries, is again, I think we have this idea that when you love someone, you don't say no, you just let them in without any boundaries whatsoever. And so on the flip side, when someone else sets a boundary with us, we can either take offence to it and feel very rejected and hurt, kind of affronted by the boundary, or we can just bulldoze straight through it and someone will say look, I need space. And you'll call them 20 times and then turn up at their house because you think you know better and you can kind of just quickly dismiss or override their boundaries and go look, yeah, I know you said that, but I just really needed to talk to you. That is as much your work around boundaries as setting them for yourself is learning to respect them in others. So that's a big part of the growth for anxiously attached folk is recognising like I am my own person and you are your own person and there has to be space between us. There are limits, right? Where do my limits meet your limits? And how can we negotiate in that space in a way that actually allows us to be in closer, more connected relationship in a safe way? Because boundaries, when done well, will hopefully invite you into a stronger relationship.
[00:19:47]:
And I think for a lot of us who've not had experience with boundaries, we just think that boundaries mean distance and that can feel really scary. It's like boundary is a wall up, which means that I can't reach you. And that is frightening to me. And so we have this aversion to the idea of boundaries. But really to express a boundary is to express how we can love each other better and more sustainably. And I think that that's a really important mindset shift to grasp. Okay, next one is learn tools for healthy conflict and repair. So again, I think for a lot of anxious folk, there is a level of conflict aversion.
[00:20:22]:
We don't want to rock the boat. We don't want to raise difficult topics because we're scared that someone will leave, right? If I want to talk to you about commitment, I'm scared that you'll just throw your hands up and say, well, this is too much, and then you'll go, so I don't raise the thing, but on the inside my distress is mounting. And then eventually there's usually some sort of volcanic eruption where we then kind of unravel and have this really ineffective conflict where I spew out 50 things that have been bothering me that I haven't been actively proactively, advocating for myself around or sharing with you because I'm scared of the consequences. Again, going back to those core wounds, I'm constantly in this space of feeling like love could be withdrawn at any moment. And so I'm very careful about what I do and how I do it because that's always looming as a potential outcome for me when there's any sort of discord or disharmony. There's not a lot of trust in the fact that we can endure challenging things together as a team and come out the other side. And that does tend to breed this sense of conflict aversion. So one of the great gifts that you can give yourself is to repatten that and to actually have these corrective experiences around conflict, where we go, oh, I can actually have a hard conversation with my partner and feel good during and after that conversation.
[00:21:51]:
I don't have to be in this state of terrible fear and anxiety that at any moment it's going to mean the end of our relationship. Being able to have conflict where you express something that you're disappointed about or that upset you without it being like you're in combat with each other and you're both yelling and you're having to defend and explain and justify your emotions. We can actually learn ways to express yourself where someone is likely to be able to receive and validate that experience rather than just defend your attack. So that's a really big piece as well and I think is, as I said, such a great gift that you can give yourself if you've always been in that mode of tiptoeing and walking on eggshells because you're so afraid of adverse consequences of conflict. Okay, number nine, we're almost there. Get clear on what you want in a partner and a relationship. So the number of people that I've worked with who are either in a relationship or who are single, and when I ask them what's important to you and a partner, they actually just kind of stare at me blankly. When we kind of dig a little deeper, the theme tends to be I want someone who wants me.
[00:23:04]:
And that's kind of heartbreaking when we think about it because it's that worthiness wound in us that's saying all I want is to be chosen. And as much as we can have so much compassion for that part, that just wants to be loved and chosen and of course we all have that part. That part needs to be supported by awareness of what is actually important to me in a partner. What do I value in a partner? What are things that are not going to work for me? What are my deal breakers? What are my non negotiables? You have the right to know that and to say no to people who don't feel like a good fit for you. Again, I think when our self esteem, our self worth has been a little bruised, we don't feel like we have the right or entitlement to say no to anyone who's showing us attention. And so that can lead our so called picker to be a little bit skew if or a little bit prone to pursuing connections with people just because we're riding the high of feeling like someone's giving us attention. So I think that when we can be more discerning and bring that greater awareness, then we're much better placed to measure up reality versus our desires and go, okay, how does this connection stack up against what I claim is important to me? And I think that can often reveal the Stark discrepancy when otherwise we're just feeling kind of confused and like, oh, I kind of like them, but they're pretty inconsistent and I'm not really sure. And they're sending mixed messages.
[00:24:34]:
And then we just keep hanging out in that limbo, I think when we go into it, knowing what we're looking for with absolute clarity and of course, not to the point of rigidity, but just knowing at a pretty fundamental level. Here's what I'm looking for and here's what I'm absolutely not looking for. It's an incredibly empowering way to approach dating and relationships and last but not least, understand what healing actually looks like in this context. So I'm often asked, is it really possible to heal my anxious attachment? And my answer is kind of yes and kind of no. Is it possible to learn new ways of being so that you are not completely in the grips of anxiety all the time and you're not at the mercy of your fear? Yes, absolutely. I can attest to that firsthand and having guided so many thousands of people through this work that there is absolutely growth and freedom available to you. And I will never tell you that healing anxious attachment means you will never feel anxiety again or that you will not experience those little flutters of anxious attachment again. That would be dishonest because that's just part of it.
[00:25:41]:
And when it's been part of your blueprint for such a long time, of course that's still there, right? But for me, and I can speak firsthand here, those parts of me that I associate with my anxious attachment patterns, those are still there, they're still in the background and in certain situations those impulses still arise in me. But I've worked so hard to build up the strength of my other parts that are confident and clear and self aware and have a really strong sense of who I am and what I desire and what's important to me and self trust and all of those things that they now far outweigh the old parts. And I think you'll get to a point in your journey and that'll take a different amount of time for everyone, but you reach a point where the new way becomes more comfortable than the old way and it's really like that becomes second nature. And so that's what's possible for me now, to have a big conflict where I'm attacking and highly emotional, that's extremely unlikely. I can't remember the last time I did that because I've just trained myself so much in the new way, which I actually know works much better for me. And so while you might still have the internal scripts going and the stories you tell yourself and the victim stuff that we can kind of get stuck in sometimes and blaming our partner and feeling like they are the worst person in the world and how could they do that? And who do they think they are? That voice sometimes chats away in the back of my mind, but it's not so powerful anymore, it's not so persuasive that I feel the need to act on those impulses or those little flutters of fear and anxiety that can rear their head from time to time. So understanding and managing your expectations around what healing looks like and means in this context at least, the way that I am teaching it, I've had people before ask me, if I do your eight week course, does that mean I'm going to be healed in eight weeks? And again, it's kind of a constraint of the format that you've got to put a time on it. But of course, healing is not a journey with a start and an end date and then you kind of get spit out of a machine and you're all better.
[00:27:58]:
If only it were that easy. But alas, it is messy and it's a practise. So just again, manage those expectations, but recognise that in embarking on that practise and that journey, you're giving yourself a really, really beautiful gift and one that can profoundly change the way that you experience the world and yourself and your relationship. So it's not always easy, but it's always worth it in my mind. Okay, so that was it. That was long. Ten tips to heal your anxious attachment style. As I said, there's a PDF download that sets all of those out and shares some thoughts on each that you can download in the show notes or via my website.
[00:28:38]:
I hope that's helpful for. You to keep in your back pocket as a little roadmap, and anyone who is ready to do this work, I would love to have you inside healing anxious attachment when doors open in a couple of days time. Otherwise, thank you so much for joining me and I look forward to seeing you again next week. Thanks guys.
[00:28:58]:
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 sooner.
Keywords from Podcast Episode
Healing anxious attachment, mindset, self-compassion, nervous system regulation, self-soothe, core wounds, abandonment, unworthiness, boundaries, conflict avoidance, partner expectations, validation, approval, self-worth, self-respect, self-trust, relationship balance, self-advocacy, Stephanie Rigg, attachment patterns, confidence building, self-awareness, transformative process, journey, program discount, live Q&A, online community, Instagram connection, podcast review.
Am I People-Pleasing or Just Being Nice?
In today's episode, we're talking all about people-pleasing: what it is, why we do it, and how it's different to "just being a nice person". For many of us, people pleasing is second nature. We are so accustomed to accommodating others and burying our own feelings and needs that we don't even realise we're doing it.
In today's episode, we're talking all about people-pleasing: what it is, why we do it, and how it's different to "just being a nice person". For many of us, people pleasing is second nature. We are so accustomed to accommodating others and burying our own feelings and needs that we don't even realise we're doing it.
Unfortunately, this typically leads us to feel disconnected, lonely and exhausted - not to mention it usually backfires insofar as building healthy relationships is concerned.
The Difference Between People-Pleasing and Being Kind
Relationships play a crucial role in shaping our lives, and the way we attach to others can greatly impact our experiences. In today's fast-paced world, the topic of people-pleasing frequently comes up in conversations about relationships and self-awareness. People often wrestle with the question: "Am I a people pleaser or just a nice person?" This internal conflict can lead to confusion and anxiety, creating a need for clarity.
Understanding People-Pleasing:
People-pleasing is more than just being kind or considerate. It is a learned strategy aimed at gaining control and ensuring safety in relationships. It involves micromanaging interactions, opinions, and emotions to maintain approval and acceptance. When people-pleasing becomes ingrained in our behaviour, it can lead to a loss of self-identity and a disconnect from our authentic desires and values.
Effects of People-Pleasing:
The constant need to please others can leave us feeling exhausted, as we portray a version of ourselves that is not entirely genuine. We might find ourselves trapped in a facade, unable to break free from the expectations we have set. Alternatively, if our attempts at people-pleasing don't yield the desired results, we can be overwhelmed by feelings of failure and disappointment. Moreover, the prolonged focus on catering to others can leave us with a deep sense of loneliness, as we lose touch with our own needs and values.
Differentiating Kindness from People-Pleasing:
Kindness, on the other hand, stems from a place of authenticity and empathy, rather than being a calculated strategy. A genuinely kind person does not seek to control outcomes or seek validation through their actions. True kindness is not burdened by the fear of disapproval or rejection. It exists without an agenda or the need for external validation. When we address the underlying fears and wounds that drive people-pleasing tendencies, we can connect with our kindness in a more authentic and liberated manner.
Recognising the Human Experience:
It's important to remember that occasional instances of adapting to social dynamics or seeking approval are part of the human experience. We all engage in these behaviours from time to time, and it's natural to adjust our behaviour in different social contexts. However, the concern arises when these adjustments become the primary way we navigate the world, and we lose touch with our genuine selves.
Embracing Authenticity:
Embracing authenticity and asserting our true selves may initially feel uncomfortable, especially if we have been entrenched in people-pleasing patterns for a long time. It requires making peace with the fact that not everyone will like us, and that's okay. Accepting this reality grants us the freedom to express ourselves genuinely, without the need for external validation or control. It offers a path to self-discovery and a deeper connection with others.
Healing and Growth:
At the core of addressing people-pleasing tendencies is the need to tend to the underlying wounds and fears. This process involves showing compassion and understanding to the parts of ourselves that yearn for approval and fear rejection. By acknowledging and nurturing these vulnerable aspects, we can embark on a journey of healing and personal growth.
Moving Forward:
Recognising the distinction between people-pleasing and kindness empowers us to navigate relationships and interactions with greater authenticity. It allows us to form genuine connections with others and fosters a deeper sense of self-awareness. Embracing our authentic selves provides a profound sense of liberation and opens the door to more meaningful and fulfilling relationships.
Conclusion:
The journey from people-pleasing to genuine kindness is a transformative one. By cultivating awareness of our behaviours and motivations, we can release the grip of people-pleasing tendencies and embrace a more authentic way of relating to others. It's a journey that requires courage, self-compassion, and a willingness to explore and nurture our true selves. As we embark on this journey, we can create deeper connections, reclaim our sense of identity, and experience the profound freedom that comes with embracing authenticity.
Questions for Discussion & Reflection
Do you find yourself often trying to please others in your relationships? How does this impact your sense of self?
Are you aware of any underlying fears or wounds that may drive your people-pleasing behaviours? How can you tend to these underlying emotions?
Reflect on a time when you felt the need to constantly shape-shift or contort yourself to fit in or avoid conflict. How did this impact your sense of authenticity and self-worth?
Have you ever felt the pressure to earn approval and validation from others at the expense of your true self? How did this make you feel, and what underlying emotions might be at play?
Consider a situation where you felt the need to hide or suppress parts of yourself in order to be accepted by others. How did this impact your ability to form genuine connections and relationships?
Have you ever felt burnt out or resentful due to constantly seeking approval and validation from others? How did this affect your mental and emotional well-being?
Reflect on a time when you felt afraid of not being liked or approved of by others. What underlying wounds or fears do you think might be contributing to this fear?
Have you ever felt like you were performing for others rather than being your true self? How did this impact your confidence and self-awareness?
Do you struggle with the concept of self-trust and asserting yourself in relationships? How can you work on building trust in your own intuition and authenticity?
In what ways can you cultivate a greater sense of authenticity and self-worth, free from the need for constant approval and validation from others?
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Join the waitlist for Healing Anxious Attachment Black Friday Sale
Save $150 on my Higher Love break-up course with the code PHOENIX
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:04]:
In today's episode, we are talking all about people pleasing. So this is a topic that I've touched on before on the show and is one that I'm sure a lot of people can relate to. It's one of those terms that I think bounces around so much in the world of Insta therapy and lots of online content.
[00:00:53]:
But I'm prompted to talk about this today by a question that I received on Instagram yesterday, which was, how do I know if I'm a people pleaser or if I'm just a nice person? And I thought it was a good question because for a lot of people I think it can be a little confusing. And something I see all the time is this tendency to almost police our own behaviours and worry that, oh, am I being empathetic because I'm empathetic, or am I being empathetic because I'm manipulative or self sacrificing? And I think we can almost create more anxiety for ourselves because we don't have clarity around what the difference is and what distinguishes one thing from another. And I think, spoiler alert, it's rarely that we're one or the other. It's not that people pleasing means you can't be a nice person. People pleasing is just one of many strategies that you might have picked up along the way, as a way to keep yourself safe, as a way to navigate relationships when you didn't know any better. But as with so many of these subconscious patterns and strategies, they can follow us through life and they can become part of our identity, or at least so second nature, that we actually don't know what the alternative looks like. It feels so foreign to us to do things differently. And so, as always, I'm hoping that by shining a bit of a light on that and cultivating more awareness of what distinguishes people pleasing from just being a nice person and how you can maybe release the grip on some of those people pleasing behaviours and start to tend to the underlying wounds that drive those behaviours, then you are free to be your kind, generous, loving self without an agenda or without strings attached.
[00:02:50]:
And I also think that when we stop with the people pleasing all the time, it allows us to form far more genuine connections. Because when we're people pleasing much of the time, we're pretending. And it's hard to form an authentic relationship when you're not really letting someone see you, when you are just mirroring back to them what you think they want to hear or who you think they want you to be. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. Before I dive into that quick announcement, that healing anxious attachment you've probably heard me share over the past week or two, healing anxious attachment is coming back next week, just in time for Black Friday. There's already about 1300 people on the waitlist, which is wonderful. Those on the waitlist are going to get access to the Black Friday sale, which is the lowest price I've offered the course at since the very first round I ever ran of the programme over 18 months ago. So if you're at all interested, now is a really good time.
[00:03:53]:
If maybe you've been on the fence previously, if the timing hasn't been right, maybe it's been a bit of a stretch. Financially, this round is a really great one to join because it is just that little bit more affordable. And I'm also including some exciting bonuses like a live Q and A with me. Ordinarily that has been a paid upgrade, but this time I'm including it for everybody. So if you're interested, the link to join the waitlist is in the show notes, or you can head directly to my website and you should be able to find that. Okay, so let's dive into this conversation around people pleasing. So, as I said in the introduction, I think that people pleasing is a strategy. And I think it's mostly a strategy to feel more in control.
[00:04:41]:
That somewhere along the way we learned that keeping ourselves safe meant micromanaging our relationships, micromanaging other people's opinions of us, micromanaging other people's emotions, and that it was our responsibility to work really hard to do that by saying, by deferring to what other people want, what other people think, what other people expect, adopting their opinions as our own, going with the flow all the time, even when it doesn't really work for us, saying yes, when we may know all of these things that I think really can lead to an abandonment of self and really a loss of self. And you would know, if you've listened to the podcast for a while, that I think that disconnection with self is really at the heart of anxious attachment. Oftentimes we think that if I can just prioritise the relationship and keep the relationship intact and give of myself incessantly to this person, this relationship, then that's all I need. That's what's going to keep me safe. That's what's going to make me happy, then I'll be okay. But the way that we go about this can really lead us astray. Because not only as I alluded to in the introduction, does it actually make it much harder to connect with someone in any authentic way. When we're adopting all of these masks, when we are contorting ourselves, when we're shapeshifting, when we're one person one day and another person the next day, when we're subduing certain parts of ourselves and then amplifying parts of ourselves that maybe aren't very true to us all in this effort, this tireless effort to be liked, to be approved of, to be accepted, to belong, I think that it's really, really exhausting.
[00:06:43]:
And what I often see happen is you'll either end up in this scenario where it works, so to speak, in that you get the validation and the approval that you're seeking by playing that game. But then that means that you're kind of locked into that, right? You're locked into the facade. It's sort of like if you tell a lie and then you get stuck in it and you've just got to keep perpetuating it on and on because that's the representation that you've made and you're kind of stuck with it. I think the same can be true when we are pretending in our relationships, when we're not being fully honest or authentic in the way that we represent ourselves. And so I think either it works and you're trapped in the falsehood of being someone that you aren't, or it doesn't work in that the person that you're trying to impress, the person whose love you're trying to earn, doesn't want you or rejects you or doesn't approve of you in the way that you would hope. And then you feel like a failure because you've convinced yourself that it's your job to make them feel a certain way about you and that that's within your control to engineer that outcome. And I think that that's really an illusion that we have that much control. My therapist always says that you're less powerful than you think in the context of when you are someone who thinks that you can orchestrate all of those things and manage everyone's emotions and control the way everyone thinks.
[00:08:15]:
About you. I think sometimes it's a good reminder you're not that powerful. Right? So good to be humbled in some ways, when we notice ourselves going into those patterns of thinking that it is our job to manage all of that. Because, as I said, it's really exhausting and often leaves us feeling empty and like a failure. And to make matters worse, we don't really know who we are because we've spent such a long time in that mode of flip flopping and just trying to make everyone else happy. And we don't even really know who we are, what we want, what we think, what we feel. And there's a real grief that comes with that, a real loneliness that comes with not knowing yourself. I've said before, much of the time when I work with anxiously attached folks, and part of the work will be to get clearer around your values, your needs, your wants.
[00:09:13]:
And most of the time people are really stumped because they've never really thought about it. All they've ever done, all they've ever known is to mirror the wants, needs, values of the people around them, to adopt those things as their own, as a way to fit in or to not rock the boat and not be difficult, because we've absorbed some sort of message that to be different is to be difficult, and to be difficult is to be unlovable. And I think that, again, that makes a lot of sense, if that's been your story. But as with so many of these patterns, it's really important to recognise that whatever environment we were in that gave rise to those patterns. We're not there anymore. And we are adults with choice and responsibility, and we don't have to keep operating on the same painful autopilot that has gotten us to where we are. We can learn a new way, even if it's uncomfortable. And it will be uncomfortable to contemplate the possibility of asserting yourself, of advocating for yourself, of disagreeing with someone and maybe having them think poorly of you.
[00:10:32]:
Making your peace with the fact that not everyone will like you, and that you can't control that if you want to be yourself. I think that there is a real freedom that comes with that, once you can make your peace with it, but it is, as a starting point, really uncomfortable if that's not been your way. I know a lot of people really can't tolerate the idea that someone's angry at them, that someone's disappointed in them, that someone thinks they're rude. Any of these things can feel really threatening to your whole identity, your whole sense of self, which is crafted on being nice and easy going and not causing a fuss, not rocking the boat. If that's been really fundamental to how you identify yourself, then the idea of departing from that can be really uncomfortable. But often it's part of the journey. Now to return to the original question, which was, how is this different to just being a nice person? I think essentially just being a nice person, just being kind, being generous, being loving, being authentic. It's not based in strategy.
[00:11:35]:
It's not something that you are thinking about a lot. You're not calculating, you're not working really hard behind the scenes to manufacture a certain outcome. And indeed, you're not actually all that invested in an outcome or attached to an outcome. You're not monitoring someone's response to you. And then if they don't respond the way you think they should have, or you'd hoped that they would, then that's a problem. And you feel like you've failed, or you feel like there's something very wrong, and you take it personally and you think about it and you dwell on it. Maybe you feel a lot of shame or stress. I don't think that just being kind has that sort of emotional baggage or residue attached to it.
[00:12:19]:
I think once you tend to the underlying fears and wounds, you're able to be kind and generous and loving without fear, without an agenda, without strings attached, without feeling like you do need to control, or that your sense of self is tethered to the way that someone responds to you. And I do want to mention as well, because I think, as I said, with terms like people pleasing, I think we can take it to extremes and pathologize ourselves if we notice ourselves ever doing this. And I think, let's be honest, we all do this from time to time. We all people please. We all adapt ourselves to certain situations and people and dynamics. And I think that that's fine. It is what it is. I think where it becomes a problem is where it is compromising your inner sense of integrity and your awareness of who you are.
[00:13:09]:
And so if it becomes your only way or the predominant way that you move about the world, that you're always flip flopping, that you're always shapeshifting, that you're always contorting yourself such that you've lost connection with who the you is underneath all of that, that it's always this performance and that it's just trading one mask for another. And you don't actually know what is true or authentic to you when you feel burnt out by it, when you feel resentful. I think that's when it crosses over into being a concern, being something that we want to look at. It's not about being overly vigilant of, oh, I actually behave a certain way in front of my boss because I'm trying to impress them and I wouldn't do that in front of my friend. Does that mean I'm a people pleaser? No, I think that that means you're human and that's perfectly fine. But as I said, when we do feel like it's only masks and facades and performances, and so much of our self worth hinges on our ability to earn the approval and validation of others, that's when we want to look at these things. Because ultimately, there's a part of you underneath all of that that is terrified of what would happen if you didn't people please.
[00:14:23]:
Part of you that's absolutely terrified of the idea that someone could not like you or could disapprove of you. And that's the part of you that needs your attention, because that's probably a very old wound and that needs some love and compassion and understanding rather than just trying to kind of forcefully change the behaviour that springs from it. Okay? So I hope that's given you something to think about, something to reflect on. And as I said, if this resonates with you and you notice these patterns within yourself, definitely recommend you cheque out healing anxious attachment next week as we talk about all of this stuff and so much more in the course. And I would love to see you there. So make sure to jump on the waitlist in the show notes if you haven't already. Otherwise, thank you for joining me and I will see you again next week. Thanks guys.
[00:15:16]:
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 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 sooner.
Keywords from Podcast Episode
attachment, relationships, insecurity, people pleasing, empathy, self-sacrificing, subconscious patterns, identity, genuine connections, anxious attachment, values, needs, authenticity, strategy, control, approval, emotional baggage, pathologize, integrity, performance, self-worth, validation, compassion, reflection, self-discovery, emotional resilience, online content, relationships, Black Friday sale, live Q&A
Why Anxious & Avoidant People Are Drawn to Each Other
In today's episode, I'm sharing some thoughts on the common question of why those with anxious attachment patterns are typically attracted to those with avoidant attachment patterns (and vice versa). As we know, this is a very common relationship pairing - which can be confusing when you feel like the challenges of that dynamic are at odds with your preferences and desires.
In today's episode, I'm sharing some thoughts on the common question of why those with anxious attachment patterns are typically attracted to those with avoidant attachment patterns (and vice versa). As we know, this is a very common relationship pairing - which can be confusing when you feel like the challenges of that dynamic are at odds with your preferences and desires.
As we'll cover, oftentimes this is driven by subconscious patterns that propel us to recreate the familiar in a way that reinforces our core beliefs about ourselves and others.
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Join the waitlist for Healing Anxious Attachment Black Friday Sale
Save $150 on my Higher Love break-up course with the code PHOENIX
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
[00:00:04]:
In today's episode, I'm going to be talking about why it is that anxious and avoidant folks tend to be drawn to one another in relationship. So this is a very well established, observable, and I'm sure, anecdotally relatable pattern that we see all the time. And yet for a lot of people, it can feel really confusing because it seems to be at ODs with maybe not only what you want, but also at ODs with your preferences, your underlying desires when it comes to relationship, how you would like your relationship to look and feel. It can feel really confusing when we find ourselves in partnership with people who have ostensibly conflicting preferences and ideals when it comes to what it means to be in a relationship.
[00:01:20]:
And yet, as I said, it is very common for anxious and avoidant folks to be drawn to one another, almost like a magnetic pull that we can't resist. And if you're familiar with my work, you'd know that my philosophy is not one that says just avoid each other or it's always doomed and you should just go and find a secure partner and save yourselves the trouble. I don't subscribe to that kind of mentality, but at the same time, I think that we can often find ourselves drawn to certain people and patterns and dynamics from a subconscious, often wounded place, a place that is being largely driven by insecurities or unhelpful belief patterns. And so while that doesn't necessarily mean the relationship is doomed or the other person is bad, it is helpful always, I think, to have more awareness around what does drive our patterns so that we can have greater capacity to choose right. Without awareness, there's no choice. And I think we're much more prone to projection and fear and blame and insecurity when we're operating from a subconscious place. And the more we can bring awareness, the more we can take responsibility. We can clean up our side of the street, and we're much more likely to have healthier relationships when we are operating from something that is more aware and more conscious.
[00:02:51]:
So I'm going to be talking about this today. What tends to drive that pattern on both sides? Because it is very much a two way street. It's not just anxious people being drawn to avoidant people. Avoidant people tend to be drawn to anxious people as well. And so I'm going to share some thoughts on what can drive that on both sides. And of course, there's no single explanation that will apply to every case. But there's certainly key themes that I see emerging from the many people that I've spoken to about this and worked with before I dive into that. I just wanted to share that in a couple of weeks time, I am going to be reopening healing anxious attachment.
[00:03:31]:
It will be the 6th round of the course, which is wild to say. We've had over 1250 people go through the programme, which is very, very wonderful. And this next round happens to line up with Black Friday, which means that for those who sign up in this next cohort, you are very lucky. The timing is such that you'll be getting very discounted pricing. I'll be offering the course at the lowest price that I've offered it since I very first launched it in March of 2022. So if you are interested, jump on the waitlist via my website or that's linked directly in the notes under this episode. Being on the waitlist will ensure that you get first dibs and that you're able to access the Black Friday sale pricing for the course. I also wanted to quickly mention I've had a couple of people message me or leave a review recently complaining about me sharing about my courses at the start of each episode, and I just wanted to give a little bit of context for that.
[00:04:32]:
This podcast is ad free. I don't have any sPonsors. I don't have any subscriber only content. It's completely free. I think there's almost 120 episodes of totally free content. And believe it or not, that takes a lot of energy and effort and time every single week for me to record and edit and produce and upload, all of which I do myself. So I just want to contextualise that for people and maybe a gentle reminder that all of this doesn't just happen magically. And the only way that this show is able to exist is by me sharing opportunities to work with me in a paid capacity.
[00:05:12]:
For those who are interested in it, whether you are someone who has bought everything that I've ever offered, or you've never paid me a penny and never planned to, I'm grateful for all of you, really, I am. And I'm so glad to be able to provide so much free content and free resources for so many people. It really is incredibly meaningful. To me, but it's only viable by virtue of this very small percentage of people who do then go on to purchase something from me. So just keep that in mind, not only with respect to me, but with respect to all the creators whose work you value and follow. That it does really take a lot of effort. For me, it's the thing that I spend the most time on in my business, by a long shot, is creating free content, whether that's here or my newsletter, blog posts, YouTube videos, Instagram content, all of that is free and it is very time consuming. Anyway, so I just wanted to share that.
[00:06:04]:
Of course, you're always most welcome to skip past the first few minutes of the podcast if you find it particularly irritating, but I think that sometimes people need a bit of a reality cheque on how things work, and maybe when they're being a little bit entitled about other people's time and energy. Okay, let's dive into this conversation around anxious avoidant dynamics. Why we're so drawn to each other so, as I said, there's no hard and fast rule or explanation as to why this happens, and yet we see it happen all the time. And I'm sure many of you listening can attest to the fact that it feels almost magnetic, the pull towards each other. Even if you set the conscious intention to steer clear of certain dynamics, you might find yourselves back in them. And as a starting point, I think it's important to recognise that we are incredibly drawn to familiarity. All of our subconscious drives will gravitate towards what is known, because that's what's comfortable to us, even if what is comfortable is also challenging, painful, dysfunctional. There's a certain safety in the known relative to the unknown.
[00:07:09]:
I think when we take it a layer deeper and we look at some of the core beliefs that anxious folks and avoidant folks have around what it means to be in relationship and what that experience generally entails. We can see that the anxious avoidant pairing can do a pretty good job at keeping those belief systems intact. So for someone with more anxious patterns, the core beliefs that they tend to have about themselves are I am unworthy, I am unlovable. No one will ever love me as much as I love them. I have to work really hard to get someone's love, and to keep someone's love, I'm going to be abandoned. I'm always on the lookout for someone pulling away, someone being inconsistent, someone leaving me. Those sorts of belief systems are pretty deeply held and really etched in for someone with anxious patterns. And so when they are in relationship with someone who's more avoidant, who might not be overly expressive with their love and affection, who might be hot and cold at times, who might pull away, who might not be really consistent and available in the way they show up towards their anxious partner.
[00:08:27]:
As much as that triggers those same wounds, it also holds that belief system intact. Right? Because the anxious person believes no one's ever going to love me as much as I love them. I have to work really hard, all of these things. It's like, yeah, okay, my belief system, I've just gathered more evidence in support of that. And in a weird way, that's comforting to me because that is what I know. On the flip side of that, someone with more avoidant patterns is likely to have belief systems that sound like relationships are hard work. People are always disappointed in me. People want too much from me.
[00:09:00]:
What I do is never enough. I always feel like a failure. People are overly emotional and overbearing and controlling all of these sorts of things, which when they are partnered with someone who's anxious, those can be proven true, right. They can see someone who's very emotionally expressive, who might have high emotional needs. And as they get increasingly triggered or insecure, they tend to ramp up things like blame and criticism and raising the bar, and it's never enough. And constant requests for reassurance. And so there can be a lot of evidence gathered by the avoidant person in support of relationships are too hard, people are too much. I'm better off alone.
[00:09:41]:
And so even though that kind of very classic enactment of the anxious avoidant trap, the anxious avoidant dynamic is painful on both sides in that it's reinforcing pretty painful belief patterns. It's actually very much in accordance with each person's view of themselves, of others, and of the world. Right? So that's kind of explanation one for why we do that. There is a strange comfort in proving ourselves right, even if the things that we're proving ourselves right about are stories of pain and victimhood and unworthiness and failure. Related to that point around familiarity is you'll often see people recreating dynamics in their relationships that have some sort of echo of their family system. And when we look back at the origin patterns, the origin stories of most folks with anxious attachment style, the key factor that gives rise to anxious attachment patterns is inconsistency. So sometimes when I reach for you, you're there, and sometimes you aren't. You don't respond reliably enough to my attempts at connection that I trust in the stability of that connection that I trust in the reliability of you being there and that unreliability, that Unpredictability, that inconsistency, creates in me a lot of anxiety about whether I'm going to get my needs met creates a lot of anxiety of whether you're going to be there.
[00:11:09]:
And so when you are there, I want to keep you closed, and when you're not, I panic because I don't know whether or when you're going to come back. Right. Again, we can see a lot of the things that I'm describing which are really in the context of infant caregiver relationships playing out in a classic anxious avoidant dance with someone who might be less consistent, less available, less reliable to the anxious partner. So while that is, again, triggering and carries a lot of residue from that person's origin story, it's also very familiar because our origin stories are our blueprint for what it means to love and be loved. And so we go, oh, okay, this might hurt, but it's what I know. And more than that, it's not just a familiar pain, but all of the things that we've learned to do in response to that kind of pattern. So all of my tools, all of my strategies work really well in that environment because that's what they developed in response to. You could use the analogy of if I grew up in a particular climate and I developed a lot of savvy and know how about how to get by in a harsh environment, if you suddenly put me in a totally different environment, even if it were a less challenging environment, objectively speaking, I might not be very well adapted to that environment.
[00:12:23]:
I'm adapted to the one that I have spent most of my life in, and similarly in relationships, we can see, okay, if I have grown up in a system where I had to work really hard to get love, or I'm used to trying to perform, to get attention, or I'm used to trying to be low maintenance and having no needs. That's all in my toolkit, right? Those are all protective strategies that I've become very sharpened at. And so in a weird sort of way, I feel safer when I have those tools at my disposal and when those tools feel well suited to the dynamics that I then find myself in. So we can see that play out. And on the other side of the coin, it's the same story. So that is the core belief, family of origin explanation for why anxious and avoided people are drawn to each other on the other side. And these are not alternative explanations. I think they're more complementary.
[00:13:16]:
On the other side, I want to speak to how these dynamics tend to present in early dating, which is obviously the context in which we are initially attracted to, drawn to one another. So in early dating, what you'll often see is that someone who's more avoidant tends to be pursuing someone who's more anxious. I think this is a really common misconception that I've spoken to before on the podcast when people have asked that question of how can I spot someone who's avoidant in early dating. The thing is that most avoidant people are not going to be avoidant from day one. They're not going to be pulling away at the very start. That tends to be a stress response that happens later when there's stress, but at the beginning there tends not to be a lot of stress in the connection, because it's exciting, it's thrilling, it's new, it's fresh, and both people tend to come to that with really, really idealistic views of what it's going to be like, of how easy it's going to be, of like, oh, wow, this person's amazing. We all have that thing of seeing someone through rose coloured glasses at the very beginning, through this fog haze of infatuation and chemistry and all of that. And I don't think that's a problem we need to solve.
[00:14:28]:
I think it just is what it is, and it's something we need to be aware of and maybe not trust our own judgement so blindly in that phase when we know we're very much under the influence. So what you'll see in that early phase is an avoidant person tends to be an active pursuer of someone. And for someone who's more anxious, being pursued feels amazing, right? Particularly being pursued by someone who seems quite different to you, who might be quite seemingly confident and direct and sure of themselves and staBle, and very different to most anxious people who might feel a little bit more insecure, a little bit more shy or hesitant or less assertive. And so to have this person who has all of those traits and qualities that you really perceive a lack of in yourself and you admire in others, to have them pursue you quite enthusiastically, can feel amazing. Because, of course we're like, wow, someone like that wants someone like me, that makes me feel special and wanted, and that kind of lights you up. Particularly if you're someone who struggles with self worth, with feeling good enough, then having that level of attention is going to feel like, really, really good. Now, for the more avoidant person they are often attracted to in that early stage, the anxious person's emotionality, right? Even though that might be something that they later come to resist or resent or be frustrated by, that's something that they perceive a lack of in themselves, that they struggle to access within themselves that sense of expressiveness, of empathy, of emotionality. And so they might be really drawn to that in someone who's more anxious, having that depth, having that access to their inner world, is something that can feel really alluring to someone with more avoidant patterns, who is not accustomed to accessing that within themselves.
[00:16:20]:
And so that can be a real draw card for them, often subconsciously, of course. So that can pull you together at the start. The ways in which you are kind of opposites, so to speak, can be really, really attractive. But then what we often see is, and this is true whether you're in anxious avoidant dynamic or not, is that the very things that we were drawn to become, the very things that we criticise or find frustrating. So what the anxious person initially perceived as stability and directness and confidence, might then subsequently be perceived as coldness, aloofness, arrogance in their partner, and might be something that they start attacking or criticising. And likewise, the avoidant person might initially be drawn to that emotionality and then quickly recast that as neediness or being demanding or being unstable or too much. So we can see how those things that we are initially drawn to, that we lack within ourselves or that we have shut off within ourselves or kind of suppressed, that we can feel really a sense of admiration of or allure around in someone else. We then subsequently, when the sheen wears off, we are met with the rude awakening that this person is just different to us.
[00:17:45]:
And we can find ourselves being very critical of those same traits that we once were drawn to. So that's kind of the other key explanation, is that we are drawn to that which we have suppressed or which is underdeveloped within us, because we find that so alluring. And that makes sense as well, even from, like, an evolutionary point of view, that we would be drawn to someone with complementary traits or strengths or skills to us, rather than someone who's exactly the same as us. Because that sort of diversity of strengths is adaptive, of course. So what do we do with all of that? I think that it's really important, as I said at the start, to not freak out about this. What I often see is that people respond to insights like this by becoming overly vigilant and interrogating themselves and second guessing, third guessing, fourth guessing their own judgement, going, oh, no, is this just my subconscious? Because I think this, but I'm not sure about this. And that self trust piece, that can be a challenge for a lot of people with insecure patterns can get in the way there and we can become almost suspicious of our own feelings. And that's really not what I'm trying to contribute to in any way with sharing this, but rather just giving you some awareness of what it is within you that is drawn to certain things and what need that might be trying to meet or what painful story might be kept intact by certain choices, decisions, patterns that you continue to engage in.
[00:19:21]:
And I think that the more we can shine a light on those parts of us, those shadowy parts or those wounded parts, then the more we can tend to those aspects of ourselves and ultimately work to heal them or care for them so that we can start to trust in our decision making. So that we can have greater consciousness around who we choose to be in relationship with and where that choice is coming from. Because I think ultimately that's what we want to be shooting for. So I hope that this has been helpful. As always, I'm so grateful for all of you and all of your ongoing support. And as I said, if you're interested in joining healing anxious attachment when doors open in a couple of weeks time, just jump on the waitlist in the show notes and you will be notified via email when it's time. Thank you all so much for joining me and I look forward to seeing you again next week. Thanks guys.
[00:20:13]:
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 sooner.
How do I know if my relationship is worth fighting for?
In today's episode, I'm answering a listener's question of "How do I know if my relationship is worth fighting for?" This is a big question, and unfortunately it's one of those messy ones that no one can tell you the answer to. What's worth fighting for according to one person, might be simply too hard and too much for another.
In today's episode, I'm answering a listener's question of "How do I know if my relationship is worth fighting for?" This is a big question, and unfortunately it's one of those messy ones that no one can tell you the answer to. What's worth fighting for according to one person, might be simply too hard and too much for another.
We'll cover:
Fear of regret no matter what we choose
Focusing on what you can control
How to do things differently rather than staying stuck in the same loops
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
CLICK HERE TO ACCESS PRE-SALE PRICING (40% OFF) FOR MY NEW RELATIONSHIP COURSE, SECURE TOGETHER
Save $150 on my Higher Love break-up course with the code PHOENIX
Follow me on Youtube
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
[00:00:04]:
In today's episode, I'm answering a listener's question on how do I know whether my relationship is worth fighting for or whether it's just too hard, whether we're just incompatible, whether we're just not meant to be? Now, this is obviously a really big question and it's one that I suspect many of you will relate to and will have pondered at some point whether it's in your current relationship or a previous one. It's certainly a question that I've asked myself before and it's a really hard one. It is a really challenging place to be because I think when we're asking this question, a part of us really wants to believe that there is a path forward and another part of us is really, really scared that there isn't. And so knowing what to do with that inner conflict can be really challenging.
[00:01:23]:
And I'm going to share some thoughts today on what to do if you find yourself in that position. Before I dive into that, a couple of quick announcements. The first is a personal announcement. If you follow me on Instagram, you might have seen me share late last week that I am pregnant. Joel and I are going to be welcoming a baby boy in early May next year, which is very exciting, and I share that here just in case anyone is at all interested in personal updates about my life. But it's obviously exciting news that I'm excited to be able to share with all of you who so kindly tune in and support my work each week. So that's just a quick little personal announcement. And the second announcement is just to say that Secure Together our new Relationships course is officially open for presale for early bird enrollment that opened yesterday.
[00:02:19]:
And at the time that this episode's release, you'll have about 48 hours to get in on the presale pricing, which is 40% off the regular pricing. So if you're at all interested in the programme, do just check it out. All of the details are now live on the website and it really is I think I said it in last week's episode, but I think it's my favourite programme that I've created so far. I really think it's going to be really powerful and really impactful for a lot of people's relationship. And I think the format of having Joel alongside me to share the avoidant perspective is really, really valuable. And as I said, I think it's going to help a lot of people to overcome those impasses and build those bridges. So if you are interested in checking that out, you have about 48 hours to get in on presale pricing and I will link all of that in the show notes. Okay? So let's dive into this question around how do I know if my relationship is worth fighting for? How do I know whether to stay or go? How do I know if it's salvageable, whether we're just fundamentally not a good fit, whether we're just incompatible.
[00:03:23]:
And I think the starting point is you don't know for sure, right? I mean, absent really awful situations of abuse or mistreatment, which as a side note, that's never what I'm referring to in my work. But absent any of those things, we don't really know, right? Because we don't get to live out different versions of our life. The version where we stay and the version where we go, the version where we keep trying and the version where we throw in the towel. We don't get to play out the different versions and then say, okay, this was the true one or this was the right one. So all we ever really have is the decision that we make and the path that we follow in the moment. And I think that that's really, really hard for people who struggle with self trust because the fear of regret is massive. And I think when you're in this situation of not knowing whether a relationship is salvageable worth fighting for, there's fear of regret on both sides. I'm scared I'm going to regret staying and I'm scared I'm going to regret leaving.
[00:04:22]:
And so I can just be kind of stuck in paralysis of I'm not sure, I don't know what to do. And that's not a nice place to be. As I said, I've been there and it is paralysing and it's overwhelming and it's isolating and it's lonely and it's certainly not empowering. So I think that if that's you and you're feeling aspects of that, my question for you is if you are not ready to leave. And I think that usually people who are asking this question are not ready to leave because there is at least a part of you that doesn't want to do that or isn't ready or feels like there is something worth fighting for, then I think that unless you're going to leave today, then the only thing that you can do that might help is something different. Right? So I've had episodes in the past around when you're feeling stuck in your relationship and what to do around that. And I think it's similar advice here is, okay, if I'm not going to leave today, if I'm not going to pack up my bags and leave today, I'm going to stay. Do I want to stay in the same way that I've been in this relationship for the last weeks, months, years, that hasn't been working, that's gotten me to this point, or if I'm going to stay, do I want to stay and try something different? I think it is that thing of the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
[00:05:51]:
And I think, of course, we're not consciously in our relationships just running into a brick wall. We would never do that intentionally. But when we zoom out and we look at it, it's like often we're actually just trying harder and harder at the same strategy rather than actually trying a different strategy. And so sometimes what we really need is a circuit break. We need to have the courage to do things differently rather than just staying entrenched in our patterns within the relationship and then lamenting the fact that there's no progress or that we're still in that same dynamic or we keep repeating the same conflicts or whatever. Of course we are, because we're not doing anything differently, right? Inputs to the system need to change in order for the output to be any different. Now, I think the hopeful message in amongst all of this is that you have the choice to do that. Of course you can't control how your partner shows up or what they do, or their willingness to meet you in change.
[00:06:47]:
But relationships are a system, relationships are a feedback loop, right? It's like a call and response, it's a dance. And so changing your inputs to the system, changing the way that you show up, changing your energy, how you spend your time, how you relate to your partner, your warmth towards them, all of that will have a ripple effect, I promise you. And I think that it's really important to recognise that you have more choice than you realise, you have more agency than it often feels like when you are in the depths of that paralysis, of not knowing whether to stay or go. So I think that postponing the decision and going, okay, clearly today's not the day that I'm leaving, so let me park that and put that on the shelf for six months or three months or whatever period of time makes sense. For this next period, I am going to change the way that I show up. And that might look like lots of different things. And it's not just trying to elicit change in a partner, because I think that when we try and change ourselves in order that our partner will change or try and change our behaviour to get something out of them, then often it's actually a covert repeat of the same pattern. Because often the person who does that is the person who is already trying to control the relationship, who's already trying to get their partner to change.
[00:08:03]:
And so that's actually an extension of the same pattern rather than a departure from it, but actually going, okay, what would me showing up differently look like? And it might be that I focus more on myself, maybe I focus more on my health and well being, maybe I commit to having some hobbies or really proactively nurturing friendships outside the relationship or maybe I don't nag my partner about the things that I usually nag my partner about or I just let things go more. Maybe I don't feel the need to turn everything into some sort of teachable moment where I punish my partner for getting it wrong or for disappointing me or whatever. There are lots of different ways that we can sort of turn left instead of turning right, if we always turn right. But it does take a level of awareness and intentionality because as you would know, and as I certainly know, it's like muscle memory, right? It's autopilot. We do the things that we do without even realising that we're doing them. So it will take some effort from you. But again, I come back to this question of would you rather that or would you rather to just keep doing the thing that you've been doing that's gotten you to this point? I don't think that what has gotten you here is going to get you to where you want to go. And I think sometimes we do need to just take a more logical, rational approach to things rather than being so attached to the story of well, I can't do anything because they won't change, or how am I meant to find fulfilment when they won't meet my needs? Look, all of that might have elements of truth to it, but for so long as you are attached to making them the problem and blaming them and inadvertently robbing yourself of agency and choice and power, you are contributing to the status quo that you are resisting, right? You are really, whether you like it or not, creating your reality by staying stuck in that story.
[00:10:02]:
So I think the very best thing that you can do if you're there and you don't want to be, is something different. And the great thing about this is going back to what I said at the start, that so often it's a fear of regret in either direction that it's keeping us stuck. And this is really advice that goes for, I think, all areas of life, all big decision points in our life when we can really hand on heart say I did my best, right? I did my best in the relationship, I really gave it my all, I really got vulnerable, I really did the courageous thing then there's not a lot of space for regret because you acted with integrity. Whereas I think that if you hide in victimhood or you hide in blame and self defence and all of those patterns that some of those what ifs or if onlys, or maybe if I'd done this differently or maybe if I'd tried harder, or maybe if I'd not been so insert whatever here, right? But you have those wonderings because of the way that you showed up or didn't show up. Whereas I think that it is really a buffer against regret when we are making a decision to be able to say, like, I gave it my all. I really did. I was courageous, I was vulnerable, I laid down my guard and I put myself out there, I let myself be seen. And if it doesn't work, if that doesn't lead to anything fruitful, then maybe you'll have more comfort in making the decision that the relationship is not going to work for you or isn't right for you and maybe you'll be much more at peace with that decision than you are currently.
[00:11:44]:
So I really do think it's kind of a win win. Of course you can't guarantee an outcome, but I think you can really increase the likelihood that you'll be at peace with whatever outcome follows. So reflect on that. Figure out what doing things differently might look like for you. And a precursor step to that is figuring out what your partner pattern is. How do I contribute to the norms in this relationship, to the culture of this relationship, to the status quo that we've found ourselves in here? Because, as I said, just blaming the other person and abrogating any responsibility is not honest. I know it's probably more comfortable, but it's usually missing the full picture and it's really hard to make change when we're not looking at things clearly. So get honest, get self responsible, figure out what doing things differently might look like from your side, and then maybe release the grip on needing that to yield a specific outcome.
[00:12:39]:
And just be curious and be open to the possibility of change surprising you, of your partner surprising you, of you surprising yourself. So much is possible beyond the really rigid binaries of stay or go, change or not change. But often we can't see them when we're really deep in our fear. So I hope that's given you something to think about. I hope that it's been helpful. And if you are in that place, I'm sending you lots of love. Because as I said, I know that it can feel really overwhelming and really lonely, but you'll be okay. Just come back to the fact that you have choice, you have agency, you have options and you'll be okay because you are much stronger than you realise.
[00:13:23]:
So do the courageous thing and see what happens. Thank you so much for joining me, guys. As always, I'm so grateful for all of you. And as I said, if you're interested in the new course, Secure Together, which goes into a lot of this stuff goes really deep into identifying the patterns and figuring out what your negative cycles are, where you go wrong, and how you can really start taking tangible steps towards building a more positive culture and really understanding each other better. All of that's covered in the course in a lot of detail in a way that's really unintimidating and really approachable. So definitely cheque it out if that appeals at all. But otherwise I really look forward to seeing you next week. Thanks, guys.
[00:14:10]:
Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment. If you want to go deeper on all things attachment, love and relationships, you can find me on Instagram @stephanie__rigg or at stephanierigg.com. And if you enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a review and a five star rating. It really does help so much. Thanks again for being here and I hope to see you again soon.
5 Things to Normalise in Long-Term Relationships
In today's episode, we're talking all about things that we need to normalise in long-term relationships. So much of the time, our expectations about our relationships - that they should be harmonious 100% of the time, that we should love everything about our partner, that we should never doubt or question our choices - leave us feeling confused and anxious.
In today's episode, we're talking all about things that we need to normalise in long-term relationships. So much of the time, our expectations about our relationships - that they should be harmonious 100% of the time, that we should love everything about our partner, that we should never doubt or question our choices - leave us feeling confused and anxious.
When really, the problem is not with our relationship - it's with the pressure we've placed on our relationship to meet an unrealistic standard of perfection.
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Join the waitlist for my new couples course, Secure Together
Save $150 on my Higher Love break-up course with the code PHOENIX
Follow me on Youtube
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
[00:00:04]:
In today's episode, I am sharing five things to normalise in long term relationships. So I think that thanks to social media, thanks to Hollywood and all of those other influences, we can often have really warped expectations around what a long term relationship should look and feel like, what's normal and what isn't. And I think that the very one sided, imbalanced, unrealistic view that we can get from all of those media sources means that oftentimes we are a harsh judge of our own relationship and that we perceive something as being really wrong and being really abnormal or a real cause for concern, when really it's just part of what you sign up for. When you decide to build a life with someone and enter into long term partnership.
[00:01:22]:
So I'm hoping that in today's episode I can speak to some of those things that we really do need to normalise. And of course, it's not about normalising being unhappy, normalising, resigning yourself to a lifetime of dissatisfaction or anything like that, but rather managing our expectations. Because I think in this and so many other areas of life, when we have really rigid and unrealistically high or perfect expectations, then inevitably we're going to feel disappointed when real life misses the mark. And I think that when we're in that mindset of seeking perfection and expecting perfection, then we're only ever noticing the shortcomings, the ways in which we don't meet that standard. And oftentimes that robs us of our ability to be grateful for what we do have, for all of the things that we do really appreciate about our partner and our relationship. So I think that the more we can flip the script on that and know what we're getting ourselves into, know what's normal, the less likely we are to panic when we encounter hardship, when things feel challenging and really approach those trials and tribulations of relationship as part of the journey and an opportunity for growth and something that we feel well placed to navigate as a team with our partner and as an individual rather than a crisis or a sign that our relationship is broken, irreparably or anything like that. So that's what I'm hoping to share with you today before I dive into that one final announcement about my new course, Secure Together, which opens for registration in less than one week. Secure Together, if you haven't heard me sharing about it recently, is a new course designed primarily for couples.
[00:03:18]:
So people who are in a relationship with anxious avoidant dynamics and really struggling with that push and pull feeling like you're stuck in those negative conflict cycles where you're always fighting over who's right or who's reasonable and unreasonable. Maybe one of you is always wanting more closeness, more connection, more intimacy. The other one is always pushing that away or shutting down, withdrawing all of those dynamics that I know so well and I'm sure many of you know so well. And that can feel like we really want to be able to get through that because we really do love our partner, but we just feel a little bit stuck on how to do that. And we've tried over and over and over again, but maybe we have a feeling that we need to try something different rather than just trying the same thing over and over. So this new course, secure together that I'm teaching with my partner, Joel, will be a roadmap out of those sticky dynamics and into greater connection. So we're really going to be taking you by the hand through a lot of really powerful exercises that will allow you to have the conversations that you need to have without it devolving into attack and blame and criticism. And defence and shutdown and all of those things actually guiding you into a place of vulnerability and connection and compassion without all of the defence mechanisms that can hijack those conversations that are so important.
[00:04:49]:
So it's going to be a really powerful programme. I think it's possibly my favourite one that I've created yet, and I'm really excited to be sharing that in less than a week. So if you are interested, definitely jump on the waitlist, which is in the show notes or via my website or my Instagram. Doing so will save you $200 on the course price, so it's definitely worth doing. And you'll also get first access when doors open next week. So I would love to see as many of you there as possible if this is something you're struggling with. I feel really confident about this course and the fact that it's going to help a lot of people. So definitely cheque that out if you're interested.
[00:05:29]:
Okay, so let's dive into this conversation around five things to normalise in long term relationship. So, as you'll see, each of these, as I mentioned in the introduction, is essentially around reframing our expectations and realising that relationships are challenging and that feelings and emotions can come and go and that sometimes we actually just need to let go of trying to control everything and recognise that we're signing up for a full spectrum experience when we decide to be in long term relationship with someone. Relationships are hard. Relationships challenge us in a way that I would say no other experience in life does. The whole point of this body of work is that our romantic relationships bring us into contact with our deepest attachment wounds in a way that no other relationships tend to. And so it makes sense that they're going to challenge us, that they are going to test us all of that is part of the process and I would say part of the gift of long term partnership if you are wanting to do that work. So the first one that I want to share is normalising seasons of ebb and flow in your connection with each other in how things are feeling. I think oftentimes we can have this expectation that things should be good all the time and we should always be really connected and we should always be really in sync and in flow and everything should always be feeling good all the time and as lovely as that would be, it's just not reality, right? I think if we step away from our own experience and think about it a little more rationally, we can understand that life is busy and it can be stressful and there's so many inputs to the system.
[00:07:18]:
You've got two individuals with all of their own stuff, all of their own worries and insecurities and fears and responsibilities and all of the things that life can throw at us. Expecting to maintain a faultless 100% always on connection is just not realistic. Having regard to the backdrop to our relationship. So I think the more we can recognise this and not immediately take a period of feeling a bit off in your connection with each other, maybe you don't feel very in touch with your partner. You don't feel even like you really want to spend time with them or you're constantly getting on each other's nerves or all of those things that can happen. Right? I think when we have unrealistic expectations and often this will go hand in hand with insecure attachment patterns, we can expect perfection, consciously or otherwise and we can absolutely make a lot of meaning out of imperfection. So if we are experiencing a bit of an ebb in our relationship then we suddenly go oh, there's something very wrong oh, my partner doesn't love me anymore or this shouldn't be happening. We have so much resistance to disconnection, however fleeting and I think as a result we amplify the stress because of the meaning that we're ascribing to it.
[00:08:39]:
So rather than immediately going into crisis mode and immediately going into all of the stories we tell ourselves when we're experiencing that, my invitation instead is to recognise that it's totally to be expected at some point in Long. Term relationship. You're going to experience that, and likely at many points and recognising that that doesn't automatically signal anything other than what it is that you're feeling a bit disconnected. So, of course, I don't suggest that you just ignore that and just let it be, but approaching it with the energy of wanting to bring us back into connection and going, hey, I'm noticing that we're a bit out. Of sync at the moment that things feel a bit off between us, and I would really love if we could spend some time reconnecting or whatever you need, but bringing that kind of energy to it. That energy of respect and trust and security and stability, rather than the energy of this is a huge, monumental problem crisis that needs to be solved immediately and all of the stress that that's likely to come with. So I think being patient, communicating clearly and seeking whatever time, shared experiences or additional effort that might be required to understand what's going on underneath the surface, what might be driving the disconnection, and how you can gently move back into a flow that feels better for you. Okay, the next one that I want to share is it is normal to not love every single thing about your partner.
[00:10:26]:
Okay. Again. I think in the early stages of relationship, when we do have starry eyed, rose coloured glasses on about our partner, and we think that everything they do is just completely wonderful. The reality is that as we settle in, and maybe we're not on our absolute best behaviour anymore. After that initial honeymoon period, your partner will reveal themselves as a flawed, messy human with imperfections. And that's just something that you have to deal with, right, to learn to accept. Now of course, that doesn't mean learning to accept really bad behaviour or things that are causing harm, but imperfections and not being exactly as you would like them to be all the time or being different to you finding them annoying at times. That's just reality.
[00:11:18]:
There are very few, if any, people that you're going to love every single thing about. And I think again, where we get into strife here is letting our anxiety get in our ear and say, oh, maybe you should go find someone else, or I'm meant to love everything about them, so if I don't, maybe that means this person isn't the person for me. Whereas the reality is that any person you find will have things you love about them and things that you do find a bit irritating or you don't particularly love. So that's normal. I think focusing on the things you do love and learning to live with the things that you maybe don't will free up so much energy within you. Because again, I think it's the resistance and the judgement and the making things wrong that just costs us so much and really takes us into that negative bias, that tendency to focus on imperfection that leaves us feeling inadequate and leaves our partner feeling inadequate as well. So the next one that I want to share with you is experiencing attraction to other people. Now, I know this is quite a delicate one, and people who struggle with jealousy and insecurity, particularly people with anxious attachment, might find this really hard to hear, but I actually think in some respects it's quite liberating to understand that it is normal and expected that you and your partner, at varying times, would experience attraction to other people.
[00:12:50]:
Being in a relationship, committing to one person does not mean that your brain switches off its ability to find people attractive. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you, but that is just totally normal, right? So I think rather than expecting that you are never going to find people attractive or your partner is never going to find people attractive, the intention is to focus on building trust and having a really clear set of boundaries and integrity in your relationship and building those foundations. Because ultimately it's what you do with that attraction rather than the fact of noticing someone who you find attractive or feeling something towards someone I think normalising. It can not only reduce the guilt if it's you that's feeling that reduce the anxiety about the possibility of your partner feeling that it's really just like a fact of life, of course. So, as I said, focus on cultivating trust and respect for each other and clarity around the boundaries of your relationship and then release the grip around the vigilance. If you're someone who really does struggle with jealousy and you tend to focus on every person who is in your partner's orbit to make sure that there's no one that they find attractive, and taking it upon yourself to police that that is a really taxing job. And I would really encourage you to, as much as possible, release the grip there, because it's tiring and it's actually not it's never going to be the thing that stops your partner from feeling attracted to someone. So just learn to if you can instead shift your goal from trying to control your partner to learning to trust them and that will make for a much more peaceful and spacious relationship, I can assure you.
[00:14:40]:
The next one that I want to share is feeling a sense of grief or longing for either periods of your life in the past or what could have been had you not entered into the relationship that you're in. So the doors that you closed in order to go through the door that you opened to be in this relationship I think this is a tough one because again, when we can feel those longings or those little pangs of what if or what would my life have been like if I'd done X instead of Y? I think that's a very natural musing to find ourselves in and it can kind of throw us off again if we have this expectation that I shouldn't be thinking that or I shouldn't be feeling that. The fact that I feel a sense of grief about what could have been or another version of my life that I didn't choose that means that I've chosen the wrong thing or that I'm unhappy here or that there's something wrong about my present life. I think it's those value judgments that really lead us into doubt and confusion rather than the actual primary experience of having those thoughts or feelings. So I think that normalising, having some of those thoughts around grieving what could have been or what might have been. It's that grass is always greener thing, right? We're always going to have that sense of what if. And I think the more that we can kind of let those feelings come and go and maybe there is some grieving to be done there but not dwelling on it to the point where we use that as fuel to make our current choices wrong or to somehow undermine the value of what we did choose. I think again that comes from this rigidity where we always want something to be right and something to be wrong.
[00:16:45]:
And so to the extent that we feel some sort of positive feeling towards something else, it goes back to the attraction or to anything else, right? If I feel that then it means I must feel this about my relationship rather than finding ways to feel all of it. I can feel so much gratitude for my life and still wonder what might have happened if I'd not ended up with my partner and done something else, right? That's all. Okay, there's space for all of that and it doesn't have to make something wrong to have those thoughts or those feelings. So just creating a bit of space for that and not layering on grief or judgement or doubt or self criticism or any of those meta emotions onto the primary experience. Because again, it's that resistance that tends to amplify and exacerbate whatever we're feeling and lead to all of those stories that then have us doubting our relationship or the value that's there. And the last one that I want to normalise is normalise needing help in your relationship. So again, I think that unfortunately there's still a level of stigma around this. So many people there's a statistic and I'm probably going to butcher it because I'm doing it off the top of my head, but it's from the Gottman's and I think it's something like on average couples wait seven years of being unhappy and dissatisfied before seeking out couples therapy.
[00:18:12]:
That really speaks to the stigma around needing help. I think that so many of us have this really misplaced idea that relationships should be easy, we should be able to figure it out on our own and if we can't, then we should break up. But when we're really deep in those cycles, sometimes we need a circuit break. We can't just keep doing the same thing over and over again and wondering why we're still stuck. It's like it starts to just become a bit irrational for us to be doing that. And so I think normalising that sometimes there will be things in your relationship, challenges, struggles, patterns that might be bigger than your ability to solve it on your own. Or you might be so entrenched in the dynamic that you need something outside of the two of you to help you see another way or teach you another way. So trying to remove some of that shame around needing help, around needing to go to therapy or doing a course together or reading books or whatever, but just recognising, like, I don't know what to do.
[00:19:18]:
I love you and feels like we're stuck. And I don't know what to do. And I don't want to walk away, but I think that we need some help here. There is no shame in that at all. I think it's an incredibly courageous thing to do and it's something that we do in so many other areas of life. But as I said, we have some misplaced idea that we're meant to know how to build a functional relationship, even though most of us were never taught how to do that. So cutting yourself some slack and trying to remove some of that shame or whatever other feelings or beliefs that you might have around what it means to need help in your relationship, it doesn't have to mean you're in total crisis. It could just feel like there's a particular issue where you could use some outside support.
[00:20:04]:
All of those things are really healthy. And I think, if anything, point to the security of the relationship rather than the insecurity of the relationship. Because oftentimes it's that spirit of teamwork and collaboration that will allow you to seek out and get the support that you need, and that really speaks to how committed you both are to the relationship. So definitely no shame around seeking support. And if anything, I think we should normalise that so that more people feel like they can do it and more proactively, rather than waiting until things feel really, really dire. Okay, so that was five things to normalise in long term relationships. I hope that that has given you some food for thought and perhaps given you some comfort. If you are in a long term relationship and you notice any of those rigid perfectionistic expectations sneaking in there and leaving you feeling like there's something wrong, like your relationship is not good enough, like you're incompatible or any of those other value judgments that we can end up placing on ourselves stemming from this unrealistically high bar that we set on our relationships, on ourselves and on our partners.
[00:21:15]:
And just recognising that, as I so often say, relationships are messy and that's okay. It's about who do we want to navigate that mess with, rather than trying to find or build a perfect relationship that is free from struggle and free from challenge. So I really hope that has been helpful. As I said, do sign up for the Secure together. Waitlist. If today's episode resonated with you and you would like some support, I really, really encourage you to do so. It's going to be a great programme and I look forward to seeing lots of you in there. But otherwise, thank you so much for joining me and I'll see you again next week.
[00:21:51]:
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 sooner.
5 Things Secure Couples Do Well
In today's episode, we're talking about 5 things that secure couples do really well to build safety, intimacy and connection in their relationships.
In today's episode, we're talking about 5 things that secure couples do really well to build safety, intimacy and connection in their relationships.
In a world where we often focus on the missteps and challenges in our relationships, it can be refreshing to shift our attention to the positive examples set by secure couples. We often lack positive role models in our lives when it comes to healthy relationships, leading to the need to look to aspirational examples. In this episode, we explore five things secure couples do well, shedding light on what we can aspire to in our relationships and how we can cultivate awareness around our own patterns.
Effective Communication and Conflict Resolution
One key aspect that secure couples excel at is effective communication and conflict resolution. They possess the discernment to address issues in their relationship without letting them fester or escalate. Secure couples are adept at identifying when something requires attention and expressing it in a non-inflammatory manner. This proactive approach allows them to nip potential conflicts in the bud, fostering a healthy and respectful environment in their relationship. Moreover, secure couples understand the significance of knowing when to let things go, showcasing their ability to maintain a balanced perspective in addressing issues.
Maintaining Perspective
Another hallmark of secure couples is their ability to keep things in perspective. While insecure individuals may globalize minor issues, leading to doubts about the entire relationship, secure couples can compartmentalize disagreements and maintain their faith in the strength and value of their relationship. This capacity to hold simultaneously frustration and love for their partner contributes to their relationship's stability and emotional well-being.
Prioritising Connection, Play, and Intimacy
Contrary to common misconceptions, secure couples do not constantly scrutinize and analyze their relationship. Instead, they prioritize connection, play, and intimacy, freeing themselves from the burden of relationship-related stress and insecurity. By carving out time for joyful experiences and deepening their emotional bond, secure couples create rituals and activities that cultivate a sense of ease and safety within the relationship.
Validation and Humility
Secure couples prioritize validating each other's experiences over the need to be right. By acknowledging and accepting each other's perspectives, they nurture an environment of respect and understanding. This humility fosters meaningful interactions and minimizes the potential for disconnection caused by the need to assert one's views over the other's. This commitment to validation and humility creates a culture of openness and vulnerability that enhances the quality of their relationship.
Balancing Togetherness and Separateness
Finding the equilibrium between togetherness and separateness is a skill that secure couples excel at. Rather than solely relying on their partner for all aspects of their emotional and social lives, they maintain individual identities. This balance allows them to access support from a diverse network and cultivates a sense of empowerment and agency in their lives, reducing feelings of abandonment, helplessness, and powerlessness.
Meaningful Repair
When conflicts inevitably arise, secure couples engage in meaningful repair, taking responsibility for their actions and addressing the issue in a considerate and sincere manner. By offering genuine apologies and expressing an understanding of their partner's feelings, they create an atmosphere of acceptance and accountability, fostering deep connection and respect in the relationship.
Conclusion
Secure couples exhibit a set of habits that lay the foundation for healthy and thriving relationships. By adopting the practices of effective communication, maintaining perspective, prioritizing connection and intimacy, validating each other, balancing togetherness and separateness, and engaging in meaningful repair, individuals can cultivate and enhance the health of their relationships.
In a world filled with relationship challenges, exploring the habits of secure couples offers valuable insights and actionable steps towards fostering healthy and stable relationships.
Questions for Discussion & Reflection
Do you struggle with knowing when to raise issues in your relationship and when to let things go? How do you navigate this balance in your own experiences?
How do you prioritize connection, play, and intimacy in your relationships? Are there specific activities or rituals that you and your partner engage in to cultivate joy and connection?
Reflect on a recent disagreement or conflict in your relationship. How did you and your partner handle the validation of each other's experiences during this time? What could have been done differently to facilitate meaningful repair?
Do you find it challenging to balance togetherness and separateness in your relationship? How do you carve out space for your individuality while still fostering a close connection with your partner?
Think about a recent instance in your relationship where meaningful repair was needed. How did you and your partner take responsibility and engage in a process of healing after a disagreement or disconnect?
Consider the concept of validation and the willingness to let go of the need to be right in your relationships. How does this approach contribute to the sense of safety and trust within your relationship? Can you recall a specific time where this approach made a difference in resolving conflict?
Reflect on your current understanding of secure attachment and how it influences the way you relate to your partner. How do the characteristics of secure couples discussed in this episode align with or differ from your own relationship dynamics?
How do you and your partner keep things in perspective during challenging times in your relationship? Have there been moments where maintaining perspective has been particularly beneficial to your connection with each other?
Consider your own experiences with engaging in meaningful repair after a disagreement or disconnect in your relationship. What have you found to be effective in fostering a sense of understanding, resolution, and closeness?
Examine the role of humility in your relationships. How does the willingness to take responsibility and apologize facilitate greater connection and understanding with your partner? Can you recall a time where demonstrating humility positively impacted your relationship dynamic?
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Get my FREE masterclass, Where Anxious Avoidant Couples Go Wrong
Save $150 on my Higher Love break-up course with the code PHOENIX
Follow me on Youtube
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
[00:00:04]:
In today's episode, we're going to be talking all about five things secure couples do well. So oftentimes, we're looking at the ways in which we might be operating in our relationships that are getting in the way of what we want, the places where we're going wrong, the missteps. And so I think that it's really useful and important to flip the script every so often and instead focus on what the goal is or where we should be aiming in our relationships by looking to positive examples of what secure couples do, what the norms are in those types of relationships.
[00:01:11]:
Because I think for so many of us, we don't have a lot of examples of that. I often ask people to reflect on whether they actually have positive role models in their lives around relationships, whether they had that growing up. And I think, unfortunately for a lot of us, when we turn our minds to it, we don't really have lots of examples of like, yeah, those are people with a great relationship, really healthy, respectful, fun, connected over the long haul. So I think that when we are doing this work of trying to repattern reprogram and understand where and why we might be stuck, looking to these aspirational examples can be really inspiring and can help us know what we're looking for and can probably also illuminate where we might be missing the mark a little in our own relationships and thereby cultivating more awareness around our own patterns and our own stuckness, if that's what we're experiencing. So, as I always say, it's really important to know at the outset that secure couples are not perfect. It's not like they've reached relationship nirvana and they never fight and they're totally on cloud nine honeymooning all the time. That's not at all what we're talking about. It's not realistic, and I'd say it's probably not even all that aspirational, but they're really good at navigating life as a team and loving each other through the hard times and really celebrating the good times.
[00:02:40]:
So we're going to be diving into five different things that secure couples tend to be really good at again, so that you can know what you're aiming for and maybe take steps in that direction in your own relationship. So before we dive into that, a couple of quick announcements. You will have heard me in the past few weeks talking about my new course, Secure Together, which I'm creating with my partner Joel, who joined me for last week's episode. If you haven't listened to that, definitely do. I've received so many beautiful comments about that. People who really valued having him along as someone who leans more avoidant to speak to that experience. And I do think that that's so valuable. It's really the whole reason why I've got him joining me in this new course, because I think it's much more much more insightful to hear it from the horse's mouth, so to speak, rather than having me or anyone else talk about it as an observer or a bystander to that experience.
[00:03:36]:
Anyway, so we are launching a new course. It's called secure together. It's coming out in less than two weeks. There's already lots of you on the waitlist, which is wonderful to see. And if you are interested in joining the Waitlist for that, that will guarantee you exclusive, very discounted launch pricing, as well as first access. So you can join the Waitlist via my website, all of which is linked in the Show notes. Second quick announcement is that I have a Free Master class as part of celebrating the launch of this new programme. It's a free masterclass called where anxious avoidant couples go wrong and how to fix it.
[00:04:11]:
I announced this on Instagram about a week ago and I've had, I think, 750 or so people jump onto it and sign up. It's pre recorded, so you get instant access. All you have to do is pop in your name and email address and you'll be sent a link. It's about 45 minutes and again, has been getting really beautiful feedback from those who've already downloaded that. So if you would like a Free Master class from me, again, that is linked in the Show Notes, or you can go to my Instagram and send me a DM with the word Masterclass, nothing else. And a little automation will get your details and send you the link as well. Okay, so with that out of the way, let's dive into this conversation around five things that secure couples do well. So I should say, as always, this is not an exhaustive list.
[00:05:00]:
These are not the only five things secure couples do well. These are just five that came to mind when I was reflecting on this. And I think it's particularly helpful because they are not only things secure couples do well, but maybe things that couples with insecure attachment patterns struggle with, or doesn't come naturally to couples and individuals with more insecure attachment patterns. So the first one is they know when and how to raise issues and when to let things go. And that second half, the when to let things go is, I would say, as important as the first half, which is they know how and when to raise issues. So let's break this down. We know that secure attachment, one of the hallmarks of secure attachment and secure functioning relationships, is really good, effective proactive communication. So not letting things fester, not sweeping things under the rug, becoming resentful and kind of sitting on things for a long time and letting them build up.
[00:05:57]:
Secure, functioning couples tend to be pretty good at calling something out, at naming something that feels off in the relationship and doing so in a way that's not inflammatory or accusatory, but really just puts it on the table and goes, hey, I'm noticing this, it doesn't feel good, can we talk about it? And that tends to be well received. They come to the table, they're able to share what might be going on and come up with a solution or otherwise have some sort of approach to that issue that nips it in the bud, that doesn't let it, as I said, grow and fester into something that is more damaging to the fabric of the relationship. So secure, functioning couples are really good at this, at knowing when something feels important enough, having that discernment to know, yeah, this feels like something that needs to be addressed and I'm going to raise that. The other side of the coin of that discernment, as I said, is knowing when to let things go. And I think that arguably, while insecure couples are not great at raising things proactively, they may be even worse at knowing when to let things go. And this is me looking at you anxious folks again, of course, as always, something I can relate to. But knowing when to let things go can be really, really hard when you have a lot of fear baked into your way of relating and your attachment patterns. Because it can almost feel like if I let this go, then it's going to keep happening and you're going to do it again, and then I'm going to be trapped.
[00:07:25]:
And then ten years from now, we're going to be an unhappy couple and you're going to be doing something that's ten times worse than this. It's going to be this slippery slope we can get very catastrophic. And so there can be this sense of, I need to raise every single issue, almost a vigilance. Like, I can't let anything go because I need to make sure that you understand that every single thing that has hurt me has hurt me. And I don't want you to feel like that isn't a big deal because it is a big deal to me. And of course, while it is important if something's really upsetting you to raise it, I think there's also something to be said for checking in with ourselves and going, am I having a big emotional reaction to something that's maybe not quite matching what's actually going on here? Is that mind to sit with first and maybe on the other side of me sitting with that and carefully handling it, processing it, understanding it a little better, maybe I'll come to the realisation that I was about to. Spew all of this stuff onto you that wasn't really about you or that wasn't really appropriate as a response to what was happening right here, right now. So having that ability to actually zoom out and go, okay, is this worth it? Is this something that I need to sit my partner down and have a serious conversation about or otherwise bring their attention to? Or could I maybe just give them the benefit of the doubt, let something slide and trust that there wasn't any ill intent there and maybe it doesn't need to become this whole big, serious issue.
[00:09:03]:
As I said, I think that people, particularly with more anxious patterns, can really struggle to do that because it can seem like if I let you get away with this, then what else are you going to do? Or feeling like everything is going to become kind of eternal and universal and just bigger because that's the way our kind of fear driven, anxiety driven, catastrophizing brain can work. So knowing when to raise something and when to let something slide is a really, really good relationship skill and something that secure couples do pretty well. Related to that, they also keep things in perspective. I think that's an important kind of footnote to that first point. Again, insecure couples tend to globalise things. So it's like, oh, we're having this one little fight about that one comment you made in the car and all of a sudden I'm rethinking our entire relationship. It's making me doubt everything. It's making me wonder whether we can even do this anymore because it just feels so hard all the time, right? It just can blow up and become very all consuming and take up your whole field of vision.
[00:10:04]:
Whereas I think secure couples are much better at keeping things in perspective. Like, oh yeah, we're having a bit of a TIFF in this moment. We're having some sort of rupture, but I can still feel connected to my love for you and my knowledge that this relationship is solid and good and that there is so much value here. I can hold both of those things at the same time. I can be frustrated with you and still have a lot of faith in our relationship. So that ability to keep things in perspective is really good as well. Okay, the next one is that they prioritise connection play and intimacy. So I think that there might be a bit of a misconception among more insecure people and again, probably more anxious leaning people, that secure couples are talking about their relationship all the time and that's just not true.
[00:10:54]:
I think that the beauty of a secure relationship is that you don't have to talk about your relationship all the time because it doesn't feel like the relationship needs constant scrutinising and fine tuning and examining and probing. It's just like, okay, we can talk about things, but that's only one tiny sliver. And really there's this whole other field of our relationship that is available for us to explore and to be playful and silly and to joke, to be intimate with each other, whether that's sexually or otherwise. But so much energy is freed up to connect and to experience joy together when you're not always bogged down by the stress of insecurity. So that's one of the really beautiful I suppose it's almost like a natural side effect of removing some of that insecurity from the relationship and building more trust and stability is that you aren't devoting so much time and energy to worrying about the relationship and then talking about the worrying about the relationship. So being able to just free up some bandwidth to really connect with each other. And I think secure couples do that naturally but are also good at prioritising it and making space and time for it to the extent that life can get busy. So I think secure couples really value that and are good at carving out the time and space and often having rituals around it.
[00:12:22]:
So it might be that you do some sort of activity together every Saturday morning or you play tennis on a Tuesday night or whatever it might be. You like to play cards together while dinner is cooking. Lots of different ways that you can just be enjoying each other rather than just feeling like you're bogged down in the trenches of relationship stress and drama all the time. And I think that play and that lightness is a beautiful way to really co regulate, to be in a really easeful, safe, embodied space in the relationship which works wonders so far beyond what our rational thinking brain can compute. But that experience of really embodied safety with someone that is available through play and that really we're not able to access that play and that joy and that easefulness unless we're in that embodied state of safety. Okay, the next one is they validate each other's experience rather than needing to be right. Now this is such a big one and I've spoken about it on the podcast before in various other contexts. But again, when we're in that insecure mindset it feels like it has to be my way or your way that I so fiercely feel this urge to protect the rightness of my perspective, my perception, my feelings, all of that because I feel like we are in competition or opposition with each other.
[00:13:53]:
Then I feel like for me to be right, which I so desperately want to be, I have to make you wrong. And so to the extent that you're sharing something that is at ODS with what I'm seeing or thinking or feeling, I have to convince you as to why my way is actually the truth and yours is wrong or a misperception or a misunderstanding. And what that does instantly is invalidate the other person right. It just makes them feel totally unseen, unheard and unloved a lot of the time. And I think as much as we defend that when we're the ones doing it, when we're on the receiving end of it, we know that that doesn't feel very good, right? So this is really one that secure couples do very well, is dropping that need to be right, which I think, again, comes somewhat organically, from not feeling like you're in combat, from not feeling like you have to defend to the death the rightness of your position. So I think that the more you do this, the easier it gets, because you totally change the culture and the energy of the dynamic. So being able to say that wasn't my intention at all. But I can see that I've really upset you or that you're feeling really judged or criticised.
[00:15:11]:
And I'm so sorry for that. Please tell me what I can do differently or help me to understand where I went wrong there, or how I could have communicated myself differently. So having the humility and I think humility is at the heart of this, having the humility to recognise that we might have gotten it wrong or that our intention might not have been received in the way that we wanted it to, that we might have inadvertently caused someone to feel hurt or judged or criticised or attacked, even when we might have been trying to do the opposite of that. So having that courage and that humility to say I'm sorry and I totally get it, if I were in your position, I would probably be feeling the same way and I don't want you to feel that way. So how can I do better or do things differently? That's so disarming and it's just so connective because there's nothing to defend against anymore, right? When someone says that kind of thing to you, it's like, oh, I can lay down my guard, I can lay down my sword, because there's really nothing to fight with there. So it does take a bit of bravery to lead with that kind of open heartedness, particularly in times of conflict or disagreement, when we are so geared towards self protection. But it is really, really powerful and I think it's something that secure couples do pretty well. Okay, the next one is secure Couples balance togetherness and separateness.
[00:16:40]:
So a few weeks back I did an episode on healthy interdependency as distinct from codependency and hyper independence. And this is in a similar vein. So secure couples have a really lovely balance between time spent together. Joint experiences, joint vision, joint goals and separateness. So they have separate people in their lives, separate friendships, separate hobbies. They spend time apart. They're not totally enmeshed into this one unit. They have a distinct sense of self.
[00:17:12]:
They have separate support networks, so they're not each other's only support when things get hard. So being able to balance those two things provides for a lot of safety, because when we have too much togetherness, we tend to lose our sense of self and it can make us feel overly dependent on the relationship as our only source of everything, right? Of our only source of connection, as our only source of support as our only source of joy and play and humour and all of those things. And that's actually a lot of pressure. If you're more anxious, you might be like, yeah, that sounds perfect, but I promise you that that's a lot of pressure. And when you're putting all of that pressure on one person in one relationship, then it's going to be really easy to judge the ways in which it might fall short or be imperfect. Whereas when you have a whole spectrum of people and places and things that you go to to get your needs met, then all of a sudden we can kind of let go of the grip of needing our partner. To be a certain way and to show up 100% of the time in the way that we would want them to because we feel less dependent on them in this needy, survival driven way. So I think being able to balance that really helps with things like feeling abandoned, feeling helpless, feeling powerless.
[00:18:34]:
We feel much more empowered and we feel like we have a much greater sense of agency over our life, over our well being, over our joy, over our thriving, when we have this really lovely balance of togetherness and separateness. Okay, last but not least, when things do go awry, secure functioning couples engage in meaningful repair. So, as I've said many times before, it's not that secure couples don't fight. It's not that they don't have bad days, it's not that they don't say things that they shouldn't have said or that they'd like to take back. It's not reaching this place of perfection where we're all monks on a mountain in total Zen like state. Life is stressful and things can get hard and there will be seasons of disconnection in any long term relationship and that's totally normal. But as I said at the start, secure functioning couples are good at calling things out. And if there is some sort of rupture or someone gets snappy and makes a snide remark or anything like that, there's this culture of taking responsibility and really repairing meaningfully, right? That doesn't mean having to have a four hour conversation about it, because I think that's actually those sorts of really long, draining conversations tend to be more of a hallmark of insecure relationships than secure ones.
[00:19:56]:
But there is this sense of ownership going, I'm really sorry about this morning. I shouldn't have spoken to you like that. I was feeling really stressed about this thing and I took it out on you and that was unfair of me and I'm really sorry. I'm going to try not to do that again. That can be a really beautiful, concise way of just taking the sting out. And oftentimes that's all it takes to restore this sense of connection and respect and love and care. So having things like that where it's like, okay, when something does go wrong, when we do feel like there's a rupture or a disconnection. We really have a culture of taking responsibility, ownership and apologising in a meaningful way that allows both people to feel like the issue has been addressed.
[00:20:45]:
There's an understanding of why we went wrong and there's some sense of a plan around making sure that doesn't happen again, or putting in the effort to be aware of that going forward so that it's less likely to happen again. So that's a really important one. And it links in with all these other ones, right? It links in with validation. It's this sense of like, I see you, I see the impact that my behaviour had on you and that's not what I want for us. So here is my awareness and my love for you. And that, as I said, is so disarming and it just kind of, like, melts away our defences in a really beautiful way. Okay, so those were five things that secure couples do well. I hope that you enjoyed that episode.
[00:21:31]:
I hope it's given you something to think about. And as I said, if you are interested in going deeper into all things secure, relating the new course secure Together is going to be a really beautiful, deep dive into all of this stuff. And it's not just going to be theory, it's going to be a lot of practical things walking you through how to implement this with a lot of exercises that Joel and I will be demoing. So we'll be the guinea pigs for you. And it's going to be designed to be really approachable and unintimidating for everyone, even those with more avoidant patterns who might be a little overwhelmed or reluctant to do this kind of thing. Our intention is to make it really light and playful and, as I said, unintimidating for everyone involved. So if that's interesting to you, jump on the waitlist less than two weeks until the course goes live. Otherwise, thank you so much for joining me and I look forward to seeing you again next time.
[00:22:28]:
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.
Anxious-Avoidant Relationship Q&A (feat. my partner Joel)
In today's episode, I'm joined by my partner Joel and we're answering your questions about how we've navigated aspects of the anxious-avoidant dynamic in our relationship.
In today's episode, I'm joined by my partner Joel and we're answering your questions about how we've navigated aspects of the anxious-avoidant dynamic in our relationship.
We'll cover:
Doing "the work" individually and as a couple
How we've built trust and safety over time
How we manage conflict and have hard conversations
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Join the waitlist for my new couples course, Secure Together
Save $150 on my Higher Love break-up course with the code PHOENIX
Follow me on Youtube
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:04]:
In today's episode, I'm joined by my partner Joel, and we are answering your questions about our relationship. We actually did one of these episodes a little over a year ago, and it's funny to reflect back on that. It's probably not discernible from your perspective as a listener, but certainly for me, and I assume for you as well, Joel. It feels like a long time ago.
[00:00:56]:
And when I think back to our relationship then and our relationship now and everything that we've been through, it feels like it's high time that we do a refresher on this episode and answering questions about how we navigate things, how we have navigated things, our approach to relationships. And hopefully that will give you a bit of insight and maybe some cause for optimism. If you are in an anxious, avoidant kind of dynamic yourself and you're feeling really stuck and overwhelmed and exasperated, as can often be the case, knowing that there are ways to do this that don't have to feel so kind of frustrating and like a dead end or feeling like you're really powerless against this dynamic, that can get quite overwhelming. So this episode is not to put ourselves on a pedestal or to suggest that our relationship is perfect. It absolutely is not. We go through all of the regular, boring, mundane couple stuff that most everyone else does, but really just to, as I said, give some insight and vulnerability into the ways we have waded through the mess of all of that and found our way to a foundation that's pretty solid. And when we do fight, as we do, when we do have challenging things arise individually or relationally, we have found a way to navigate that stuff with kind of a bedrock of love and respect and care. And I really think that makes a world of difference.
[00:02:29]:
So we're going to be answering some questions today that were submitted on Instagram covering how we approach the work, quote-unquote, in our relationship, how we've created safety, how we navigate things like differing needs, and lots of stuff in that category. So hopefully it will be helpful for many of you. Before we dive into all of that, I just wanted to remind you that the new course that we are creating, Secure Together, is coming out in a couple of weeks time, which is very exciting. There are already about 250 of you on the Waitlist, which is just awesome. And if you would like to join the Waitlist for that, the link is in the show notes or via my website. You should be able to find that quite easily. Secure Together is going to be a course primarily designed for couples, but also one that you could certainly do individually while in a relationship and is really designed to be a deep dive on all of this stuff. On navigating these anxious avoidant dynamics and really understanding how we can shift those patterns in a meaningful way, how we can create safety and how we can really start to do things differently.
[00:03:41]:
And obviously, the really interesting and novel thing about this course, compared to any of my others that you might have done, is that Joel is going to be joining me and providing the more avoidant perspective, which I think is far more powerful and interesting than just having me speak to a perspective that I don't know firsthand. I only know as an observer. And so my hope in having Joel along for parts of that course, to speak firsthand to that perspective, is that it will not only provide a much richer insight into what that can look and feel like, but if you are going through the course as someone who is more avoidant or if you're listening to this and you're more anxious and you're going through that with your partner, that that'll feel really hopefully disarming. And it won't feel like an avoidant person being lectured to by an anxious person, which I think can be part of the dynamics that can exist in this space a lot. So I'm very excited about that course, as I said, launching in a couple of weeks time. And if you would like to join the waitlist, do jump on that list in the show note and that will get you first access and exclusive discounts. Okay, with that out of the way, we're going to jump into these questions now. So the first few questions are around the work in relationships.
[00:04:56]:
We got quite a few of these. We've clumped them together. But the first question is, did Joel do the work too, or just you, as in me? If he did, what led him to it? And what has Joel been doing as someone who leans more avoidant to be where he is now? Okay, I think I can take this one. Did Joel do the work? Yes, I have done the work, and I'll kind of describe what I thought the work was previous to this relationship. I have definitely probably been involved and interested in personal development since my early twenty s, and a lot of it has been very self serving. I think that I never really considered the relationship as its own work, so I was definitely doing the work, but I wasn't doing the work of or inside a relationship when Steph and I got together. Even beforehand, we had talked a lot about certain philosophies and our ideas of our own development, but it probably wasn't until I was in a very serious and loving relationship that I was like, oh, okay, I need to tend to this garden as its own thing. No matter how much personal self development work that I do, it's not going to contribute to anything unless I take it holistically as a part of this relationship.
[00:06:31]:
And I think it's so important when we're talking about this to say, like, it's not a past tense thing if I have done the work and now I have arrived at a place where I no longer have to do the work and everything's, happy days, right? I think that makes it sound too neat. And really, it's an ongoing, everyday, moment to moment conversation to conversation practise, of slowing down, of checking yourself, of going, okay, what stories am I making up about who my partner is or what their agenda is in this? Moment or the ways in which they might be trying to undermine me or hurt me or all of those things that we know in the vast majority of cases are coming from a wounded place. And it is it's so ongoing. It's tending to the garden every day. It's not just, oh, I do this for a period of three months and now I'm healed. That is sadly just it's so much messier and more ongoing than that. And I think the other thing I would say is when we speak about it in retrospect, that probably makes it sound quite like there weren't that many bumps in the road. The start of our relationship was pretty bumpy.
[00:07:39]:
Oh, yeah. It's not like we were having horrible fights all the time, but I would say there was a fair amount of insecurity there on both sides, because I think we had we'd been friends before we started dating, and then when we crossed that line into being together romantically, I think we had really idealistic conceptions of how seamless that transition would be and what it would be like, and oh, we're going to be in this amazing, perfect relationship because we have the same values around these things and we want similar things from a relationship. And I think when we found ourselves in it, all of the stuff comes on. The wheels can come off pretty quickly. Yeah, I think we're both we have very strong values and we can be a bit have our ideals of what a relationship can and should be. And I'd say the first few months, because we went from a friendship into quite an intense romantic relationship, we moved in together very, very quickly. So it was like we were right into the pressure cooker. Yeah.
[00:08:54]:
We did everything they say you should not recommend. We tested ourselves and the wheels had come off a couple of times, but I think it was also like testing our standards, testing our values. It's like you say these things are important to you, then we're going to test you out how important they are. I mean, in saying that, yeah, we don't want to gloss over, we don't want to retrospectively seem like it was easy sailing, because it wasn't. We learned more and more over time that we could come back to connection and we could find it in ourselves to just come back to the love and create, over time, a safe and secure relationship in which I could start letting down defences. And I'm still working through that. I'm not speaking as a person, a healed person, because it's ongoing work for me. Yeah.
[00:09:56]:
And I think for you, more so than me, this was certainly your most serious relationship that you'd been in. Correct? And so it was big and it activated all of the things you would expect it to activate in someone with more avoidant patterns, let's put it that way. And so you definitely had the impulse to just kind of shut down and withdraw and run and all of those things that we know are kind of go to coping strategies for people with more avoidant patterns. It's like, oh, this is too much. What have I gotten myself into? Get me out of here. And that evoked all of the responses that you would expect it to evoke in someone such as myself, who has more anxious patterns of like, oh no, what's happened? What's changed? And how do I fix it? How do I kind of take responsibility and find a way to solve this? So I do just want to emphasise that we've been through all of that and it was only from both of us being committed enough to stay in it in those more challenging seasons and, as you say, keep coming back to our love for each other, which sometimes was easier than others. But that was, I think, really what got us through those earlier periods and some challenging periods since. The other thing that I'll say about, two things that I'll say about the work in terms of the actual how or what does that looks like for us, we have mostly solo or like DIY the work.
[00:11:30]:
We haven't worked with a couple's coach or counsellor or anything, although I think that would still definitely be something that would be useful to us and we may well explore in our commitment to going deeper and continuing to nurture the relationship. But something that we have found helpful along the way is having structures around the work. So we have I've spoken about this before on the podcast, but we have a regular cheque in most of the time it's weekly. We've been a little slack recently, but a weekly cheque in where we sit down and we just talk about how we're feeling, anything that is on our mind around the relationship, having that kind of structure has been helpful. We also like to listen to books about relationships or podcasts together and I found that to be really helpful, I think, because due to the nature of my work, it's not always well received when the insight, so to speak, is coming from me. I think that has been challenging for you at times to feel like I am teaching you or lecturing you about a relationship dynamics because it's just too close. So I think sometimes having and I think this is good advice for most people I know a lot of you listen to this podcast with your partner. For that reason, having it come from someone else can take the sting out a little and can create one step remove from any dynamics of one person kind of lecturing the other.
[00:12:55]:
And I think that's certainly been helpful in our relationship. Whether it's like doing an online course together and working through that or having some kind of third party, symbolic or real, to be the voice of some of this work can certainly been helpful. The last question on the work is do you think without Joel's willingness, your own inner work would have been enough? Frankly, no. And maybe more than the fact that it wouldn't have been enough. That just would have been for me like a real point of misalignment from a values point of view, having a partner who is committed to doing the work and that doesn't have to look exactly the same as me, but who has a level of openness to examine these things, to talk about them, to really be proactive, about nurturing the relationship. That's kind of a non negotiable for me. So it's not even so much like could I have done it by just like white knuckling it solo? I wouldn't have wanted to. And so it's just not really something that I would have sought to do alone.
[00:14:02]:
And that's just for me, that I know that having a partner who I can do that with is a non negotiable for me. Okay, the next question what helped Joel to feel safe, to open up and let me in? I'd love to say it was clean and easy and it happened within a couple of months of being in a relationship, but I think it's still something that we work on. And I think more than anything, as an avoidant, there has to be a responsibility taken from our side for our reactivity. And we find it really hard to respond when we're in a heightened state. Whether our nervous system is in a heightened state and we want to flee, it's our responsibility to also regulate ourselves to come back to connection. What Steph has done has really met me with a lot of patience and that's not know that she's just kind of taken all my nonsense. But I think more than anything, just giving me indications that no matter the reasons why I choose to be avoidant and the things that I'm trying to hide, which is I feel the non desirable parts of myself over time, you've allowed me to really express them and explore them. And you've expressed that it's okay, everything is okay.
[00:15:36]:
I know as avoidance, we have a lot of fear around failure and be seen as a failure. And we often the shame runs pretty deep. The shame runs pretty deep. Yeah. And allowing a space in which that shame can at least have some light shed on it and just expressed openly and honestly that it may not be as bad as you've made it out to be. Yeah. I think that a lot of us, whether avoidant or not, can have things about us that we are so convinced no one could ever see that and still love us. Right.
[00:16:15]:
It's no way. And for people with more avoidant patterns, it's like and so I bury that and I do not let anyone see it. And that's not something you can force open. Right. And you wouldn't want to, because that protective shields in place for a reason. And so it really does happen organically. It's kind of like peeling layers of an onion and certain topics that are more sensitive. Things like sex and money and all of those hot button issues that can carry a lot of shame.
[00:16:44]:
Those are things that we've really like. They've been layers we've gotten to incrementally. That was not stuff that straight out the gate. We were talking about comfortably and easefully. You really had a lot of struggle initially opening up, particularly about some of those more sensitive things. Yeah, we lock it down. I've done ifs therapy in the past and I guess I'd use that framework. We're using parts to control other parts, so we sometimes ourselves don't even realise the depth of how solid a defence is.
[00:17:20]:
So this is not going to be solved overnight. I wouldn't advise people to try pride open in their partner. I think it requires it requires a lot of love, requires a lot of safety, trust and but I think, you know, that might feel like a big abstract answer that's like, okay, well, what do I do today? And I think it's I don't know. You can probably speak to this more personally than I can Jolie, but I think you've trusted me with those parts of you because I didn't force you to. And I kind of was firm enough to say, it's important to me that we can talk about these things without looming over you and saying, like, tell me what you're feeling right now. Yeah, correct. I have never felt forced or when it has been. It's just my kind of like, natural defence to feel like I'm being controlled.
[00:18:15]:
But if I really did have a sense of someone is trying to pry me open, there'd be two results. I'd either lie, I'd be dishonest, not dishonest in a way that I would intentionally lie in that moment, but I'd say whatever need to be said in the past to get out of that conversation if I'm feeling forced. Otherwise, I just feel like running. But, yes, it's a willingness to allow me autonomy to open up has been very important yeah. And I think on your side, enough commitment to the relationship to kind of know that you are going to have to face the discomfort of that sooner or later. Yes. Whereas I think in a less serious relationship, you or another person with avoidant patents might just go not worth the risk. Not worth the risk.
[00:19:04]:
Not worth the risk of opening no ROI. Yeah. When it's just like, the stakes are so high for your own sense of self and safety that I think there does have to be a real level of investment. And that's probably just true, because that's maybe what tips the scales in favour of willing to face that discomfort for the sake of the relationship. I had to have something to gain and to lose. Okay, next question. Were there times in your relationship that you felt you were incompatible? Yes. Joel answers this much more quickly and directly than I would, but go on.
[00:19:41]:
You speak first. It's hard to answer this question without being honest about probably the frame of mind that I was in during those times. I was looking for problems, I was looking for incompatibilities. And I think that comes from relationship anxiety rather than a rational kind of response to the situation at hand. But, yeah, I think I've done this so many times in my past where I would often look for incompatibilities and would have a negative bias. But also I just came back to reality for myself. I was like, don't be an idiot, just have a look at how much shared value that you have. Shared values.
[00:20:26]:
Sorry. So, yeah, there was definitely times where I thought we were incompatible, but honestly, I think it was coming out of my own fears rather than, yeah, I think that I would agree with that. And that's probably why I wouldn't answer the question in the same way, just because I think that coming from a different angle is, like, people with more avoidant patterns, people who struggle with relationship anxiety as distinct from anxious attachment, is like, you can absolutely look for imperfections and incompatibilities as an exit. And when things feel tough or overwhelming or maybe you're kind of on the brink of a new level of depth in the relationship or a new level of commitment, all of the anxieties can come up and be like, oh, wait, is this a good idea? And all of those parts of you that are like, oh, risky, are you sure you want to share this part of yourself? Are you sure you want to commit to this? And so looking for incompatibilities, looking for reasons why it's not, I think it can also tie in with not wanting to feel like a failure. So if things feel hard, then calling it an incompatibility and just being like, I was powerless, we were incompatible, nothing I could have done. And that kind of absolves us of feeling like a failure, because it's like, out of our hands. Right. It's bigger than us.
[00:21:44]:
And so I think all of that really makes sense in the context of someone with more avoidant patterns to lean on incompatibility as the reason, rather than, oh, I need to maybe show up more in a more committed way or really get honest with myself or look in the mirror, those sorts of things. It can feel really challenging and intimidating. So yeah, I think that that makes sense. I think for me, incompatibility less so I think that I certainly felt there were times where it was challenging and I didn't know if we were going to find our way through it, but less from an incompatibility point of view and more just are we going to be able to make this work? Yes. Just going back to those who have more avoidant patterns, we do tend to look for the perfect solution and that is like the perfect relationships and the perfect decision in work. We fear a future that we are out of control because we didn't make the right decision. And so that's where a lot of the incompatible fears come up. Sense of I'm going to make the wrong decision and then I'm going to be trapped and I'm going to fail and I'm trapped in a room, I'm powerless, and all of those things right.
[00:22:57]:
Which feel like these really big fears that are very real. Okay, we're going to talk about needs now. So how do we navigate different needs for explicit affection? How do we navigate different needs for explicit I don't know that we navigate it all that well. Right. We have different needs for affection. I definitely have more much higher baseline need for affection and just I am more affectionate, probably much more comfortably and naturally than you are. Yes. I think that you've definitely gotten more comfortable with that.
[00:23:31]:
Yes. But even still, we're definitely not at the same baseline. No, we're not at the same baseline. Which also doesn't mean it has to be again, going back to incompatibility, it doesn't have to be a red flag. It's, oh, no, we're not the same level of intimacy or same needs for affection. I have tried to uncover this a lot in my own work, like where this comes from, and I've kind of got to the point where I'm like, okay, I can't really work it out, I can't find an origin story for it, but I have to meet you somewhere. And I feel like I'm learning. I might be a slow mule, but I am definitely getting better with accepting affection.
[00:24:23]:
Yeah. And giving affection as well. I think that, again, it's finding that middle ground between forcing it, which we don't want to do, because forcing someone to do something that's uncomfortable and particularly something physical can just feel so overwhelming and will often, almost always probably evoke quite an automatic defensive protective response while also not swinging to the extreme of okay, well, I'll just pretend I have no need. So it's like, how can I advocate for myself without making you wrong? And that goes for most everything that we could talk about in relationships. How can we create space for both of us to thrive here and to be recognised and without either of us being wrong or needing to even have a concept of right or wrong or who's winning, who's losing? So I think for me, in obviously articulating to you that that's important to me and that I value that without getting angry at you for not doing that in the way that I would. And just, again, kind of trusting that over time we move in the right direction. And I think also expressing gratitude or appreciation when someone does get it right, rather than just always pointing out where they don't. Because, again, going back to that sensitivity around failure and blame and defensiveness, if you're just always telling someone that they're not doing something enough or in the right way, it's not very motivating for the vast majority.
[00:25:49]:
Yeah, I'll say on that as well. I think what has really helped is having a sense of play to affection that actually segues nicely. I don't know if you meant to do that into the next question, which we might make the final question, because this is getting lengthy. How do you have the improving our relationship conversations without it feeling like a chore to the avoidant partner? I think that, again, this is not something we've done perfectly. There have definitely been periods where you absolutely felt like it was a chore. I mean, you felt a lot of resistance to those conversations. I'm reflecting on periods of our relationship where things felt pretty hard and we were having a lot of those conversations several times a week and they'd stretch out and I'd be upset or whatever. And I think you definitely felt like you were being kind of called into the principal's office every time I wanted to have a conversation, which is it's not too dissimilar to my experience as a kid.
[00:26:48]:
I'm like, oh, I'm in trouble again, I'm being called up for being disruptive, I'm not doing things right, I'm a failure. Yeah. And I think, again, it's a hard one because it's how do we find space for both? Because we don't want to go, well, we just won't have the conversations because they're hard for you. Because not having the conversations would have been really hard for me at that time. So I think, as I mentioned before, we do more structured cheque ins, I think that can be really helpful just to normalise talking about the relationship without waiting until things get really bad. Because I think if you don't talk about things in a proactive kind of maintenance way, and you only talk about things when it is really tense or fraught or there's been some sort of big rupture, then those conversations are always going to be heavy and bogged down with probably ten other issues that you haven't been addressing. And so there's just going to be a real imprint of negativity around the conversations that will almost certainly feel like a chore to the avoidant partner, particularly if the anxious partner has been burying a lot of stuff. So the avoidant partner might be chugging along, thinking everything's mostly fine because nothing's being talked about, nothing's being raised, and then one thing happens, there's a conversation, and then there's ten other issues that are thrown at them.
[00:28:02]:
And it feels like this kind of torrent of all of the things that you've been doing wrong that I haven't been raising. And that's going to feel pretty overwhelming and threatening to someone with more avoidant patterns, as it would if it were coming the other way. I think that's not a nice experience for anyone. So I think shifting into a can we just cheque in with each other regularly and kind of clean up the space between us and make sure everything's kind of looking and feeling good for us both and having a kind of maintenance mindset rather than an emergency response. One allows the relationship to feel kind of more balanced and steady, rather than feeling like you're having these big spikes in stress and those conversations that can just feel so ineffective and really drag on. And just a lot of the time I think be like a bit of an emotional vent for the anxious partner who's been holding a lot of stuff in. Yeah. I think generally, anywhere in life, you're doing maintenance, cheque ins, whether it's your community sports, whether it's at work.
[00:29:11]:
So it's not really that abstract to think about. Hey, maybe we should sit down on a Saturday morning and have a cheque in. If you need to add a Little some pastries in there so You Feel Like it's reward, you don't have to make It oh so serious. But it does get serious if you don't do it and everything is an emergency meeting because that is just a massive spike. And if you're only having those types of conversations, I can probably guarantee that they're not that constructive. You're not thinking your best when you're that heightened. So to kind of avoid that, I do think often mixing in a bit of a fun play, coming to the table often to do cheque ins. Yeah, having some sort of, as you say, like a ritual around it that isn't heavy and serious, like, oh, we go for a walk on a Sunday morning and we have a chat.
[00:30:05]:
It could be we have pastor on a Monday night and we have a chat about our relationship, whatever, but it just doesn't have to be like, can you please come into the living room? I need to talk to you about something very serious because that feels ominous, right? It feels heavy from the outset and it's probably going to become a. Self fulfilling prophecy because both of your energies are going to be in that defensive. Yeah, totally. Like, guards up. Oh, no. I'm in trouble, as you say, john, you're going to come to it? Oh, no, she said my middle name. I'm in big trouble. So, yeah, I think that the more often you have them, the more kind of structured it is, the less you'll need to get really serious all the time and probably then the more open you are to hearing about things, getting feedback.
[00:30:48]:
I've said a few times on the podcast that for us, now and again, it's not perfect, but for the most part, if something's bothering you that I've been doing, or something's bothering me that you've been doing, we kind of want to know about it. That just feels like an important part of the emotional hygiene of our relationship, that I think we're on the same page around that. That it's not in the interests of either of us individually or our relationship for us to be harbouring stuff. So I think creating that kind of culture where we do talk about things proactively, not as an attack, but just because it's part of our mutual commitment to what we're building here yes. We don't find things that linger that constructive. Yeah. You can feel the difference, right. When there's a lot of unsaid stuff, I think it's very disconnective.
[00:31:39]:
Very quickly, you can feel the difference. Okay, I think we're going to leave it there. There were so many more questions, so maybe we'll do a part two of this at some point, but we'll leave it there so we don't drag on too long. Thank you so much for joining us. I hope that this has been really helpful. And as I said, if you want to go deeper on all of this stuff, definitely cheque out the new course, secure together, it'll be all of this stuff and a lot more. And in a way, that's both a mix of teaching and exercises for you to do with your partner. And as I said, for us, doing courses and stuff together has been really, really helpful in just creating that little bit of distance, that little bit of impartiality, not having it all come from one person to the other, because that can create some funky dynamics that don't always land well.
[00:32:29]:
So it might be a really nice thing for you to explore with your partner if you're listening to this and feeling seen and that you maybe struggle with some of the things that we have struggled with and that you'd like to find your way to a place of a bit more security and safety and trust in one another. Thank you so much for joining us and I hope to see you again next time. Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment. If you want to go deeper on all things attachment, love and relationships, you can find me on instagram @stephanie__rigg or at stephanierigg.com. And if you enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a review and a five star rating. It really does help so much. Thanks again for being here and I hope to see you again soon.
How Stress Impacts Our Relationships
In today's episode, we're talking all about stress and the profound impact it can have on our relationships. We live in a world where stress is chronic and constant - and not only does that spell trouble for our health and wellbeing, but it can leave us feeling lonely, resentful and disconnected in our partnerships.
In today's episode, we're talking all about stress and the profound impact it can have on our relationships. We live in a world where stress is chronic and constant - and not only does that spell trouble for our health and wellbeing, but it can leave us feeling lonely, resentful and disconnected in our partnerships.
We'll cover:
How stress can exacerbate existing attachment dynamics
Why we aren't designed for chronic stress and what it does to us
How our nervous system's stress response affects our perception and our stories
Tips for managing stress more adaptively as an individual and within your relationship
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Join the waitlist for my new couples course, Secure Together
Save $150 on my Higher Love break-up course with the code PHOENIX
Follow me on Youtube
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:04]:
In today's episode we are talking all about the impact of stress on our relationships. I think this is an incredibly pervasive and very important issue and topic to address. Because as much as we can try and figure out what's going on in our relationships, what dynamics are there, oftentimes we neglect to look.
[00:00:54]:
At the role of environmental factors, other stuff that's going on in life, all of the real world stuff that oftentimes we can't control, but that has a very, very real and oftentimes negative impact on our relationships and our ability to feel safe and connected and really at peace and to access joy in our relationships, which for most of us, is what we're looking for. So in today's episode I'm going to talk a little bit about how stress might impact your relationship and some of the factors that are at play. There not only why stress might exacerbate existing dynamics around attachment and attachment styles, but also looking at the role of the nervous system and how that interfaces with all of this stuff that we're going to talk about. Because as we'll get to understanding your nervous system and how it plays such a huge role in managing stress and mobilising you in response to stress and influencing the way you perceive the world when you're under stress, I think it's really important that you have that knowledge and understanding as you try and not only manage your stress, but just cultivate greater awareness of just how powerful the impact and influence of stress is on not only your relationship, but how you view the world. Because it really is very, very powerful. So we're going to be talking about that today. And of course, I will be giving you some tips as well, so that if you are in that situation that you can not only be aware of it and maybe feel a little less hopeless, but equip you with some tools and some reframes and some steps that you can take to feel a little more in control when stress strikes. Because it will.
[00:02:42]:
That's part of life. So it's not so much about trying to eradicate stress from our lives, although I think a lot of us could benefit from lowering our stress levels. But really, how can I respond most adaptively to stress and hopefully how can I band together with my partner or others in my life to feel more supported and more resourced in times of stress rather than feeling really isolated and alone and seeing everyone around me as the enemy? Because I think that's the place a lot of us can go to. So that is what we're going to be covering today. Before I dive into that, I just wanted to remind you, if you've listened to recent episodes, you will have heard me speak about my new course, Secure Together, which I am launching in a few weeks time. There's already about 150 of you on the waitlist, which is just wonderful. This new course is designed for people who are struggling with anxious avoidant dynamics in their relationship. You can either approach it as a couple, as in do the course together, or you would still get a lot out of it doing it as an individual grappling with those dynamics.
[00:03:47]:
But it's going to go into so much of this stuff. And if you are familiar with my work, you've been following along for a while. You know that I'm a big advocate of not just writing off anxious avoidant dynamics and relationships and saying, look, it's too hard, give up. Go find someone secure. I think that that's not very helpful advice because the reality is a lot of us are in relationships with people that we really love and care for, but we just feel a bit stuck. And we feel like these patterns and cycles that we get into are almost bigger than our ability to shift them. And having been through that and having experienced it, I absolutely can relate. But I can also attest to the fact that it's possible to change those things and to really build a solid and secure foundation of trust and respect and safety.
[00:04:38]:
That doesn't mean you won't experience tough times or conflict or differences, but those things don't feel so life threatening, they don't feel so viscerally frightening. And you actually trust in your ability to navigate those things from a loving place and from a place that trusts that we'll figure this out together. And I think that if you're listening to that and going, oh, wouldn't that be nice, I can assure you that is available to all of us. It's not to say that every single relationship will or should reach that place, but I do believe that that kind of relationship is available to all of us if we're willing to put in the work. And that's really going to be the focus of this course, Secure Together. So if that sounds interesting to you, definitely jump on the waitlist because that will allow you to get first access in a few weeks time when registration opens, and you'll also get discounted pricing that you won't be able to access otherwise. So definitely jump in there all of that's linked in the show notes or you can otherwise find it on my Instagram or on my website. Okay, so let's dive into this conversation around how stress impacts our relationships.
[00:05:45]:
So I want to start by pointing out, and I think this is something that maybe a lot of people don't really appreciate about attachment. When we're talking about attachment styles and attachment behaviours is that what we're really talking about is how we respond to relational stress or how environmental stress impacts our relational behaviours towards our attachment figures. So for those who are more anxious in their patterns, we go okay. In times of stress, I have these proximity seeking behaviours. I try and close the gap between me and my partner. I try and derive my security from them almost exclusively. And that's what stress does to me. It tells me that I'm not okay on my own and that I need to seek safety in another.
[00:06:33]:
For someone who's more avoidant, stress tells them to isolate, right? It tells them it's all too overwhelming. I just need to kind of go into my shell, go into my cave and maybe numb out, maybe avoid or distract, do whatever I can to process the big feelings of stress that I don't know how to be with. So even though it might look very different to the way that you deal with those stresses, what we're really seeing is that stress will almost always exacerbate insecure attachment behaviours. So of course stress is hard just because it's stressful, right? We have less patience, we have maybe less ability to give someone the benefit of the doubt. We're more short tempered, we're more easily overwhelmed when we're under a lot of stress. All of those things are very normal. But I think a lot of people do miss that the attachment dynamics that are present in a relationship are going to be on a multiplier effect in times of stress. And I think that that's really important to understand because if you've noticed that and maybe you've gone, wow, why is this happening? Why particularly if you're more anxious, you might go, okay, I'm so stressed and I'm trying to reach out for my partner and they're responding to that by isolating that's the last thing I need, what I really need is their support and how could they do this to me? And your stress in response to that is only going to escalate your own internal dialogue around feeling abandoned and feeling alone and how hard that feels.
[00:08:04]:
And then someone else who's on the other side is going to be feeling incredibly overwhelmed and can't you see I'm stressed? Can you just leave me alone? So we can get into these dynamics that are ostensibly opposite, but have in common this thread of we're both under a lot of stress and we're doing our best to create safety for ourselves the only way we know how or the best way we know how. I think the other really important thing to acknowledge about stress is that to varying degrees, stress makes us selfish. And that's just biologically true. That's kind of the fitting your own oxygen mask. I think the vast majority of us by default become much more selfish, self absorbed, focused on our experience when we're stressed. And that's just because we're going, oh, okay, I feel like I'm in danger and my body is telling me to do something about that to create safety for myself. So it's not selfish in a judgmental way. We're not saying that it's bad.
[00:08:58]:
It's just factual that when we're stressed, we become very focused on our experience. And we're much more likely to see other people as doing things to us or against us. But we're much more likely to place ourselves at the centre of the narrative in times of stress because we are so focused on our own experience. We are so consumed by whatever it is that's going on, whether it's stuff that's going on at work or in family relationships or in your romantic relationship. There's this sense of victimhood and everything's working against me. And from that place we can be very self centred. And it's quite common that we have a shorter fuse from that state of feeling like we're in that victim seat and we're really wanting everyone to feel sorry for us and to empathise with the stress that we're under. But it can just mean that we're maybe impaired in our ability to empathise with someone else's experience or to recognise the stress that they might be under or how we're being towards them and how that might be impacting them.
[00:10:02]:
So I think recognising, okay, when I'm stressed, I'm likely to be quite selfish, I'm likely to be quite self absorbed, I'm likely to be quite self centred and that's okay. But it's just something to be aware of because I think that kind of behaviour, when we're not aware of it, we're just on a really fast track to projection and blame and self pity and all of these things that are likely to again exacerbate whatever cycles and patterns already exist in our relationship. So the other really important piece here that I think is absolutely essential to understand is the role of your nervous system in all of this. Now, this could easily be a whole episode in and of itself. It could probably be a whole course in and of itself how our nervous system deals with stress and mobilises us to deal with stress. But to give you a very high level overview, when we're in a state of stress, when we're perceiving stress in our environment and that's a process called neuroception that our nervous system is engaging in constantly in every microsecond of every moment we are scanning our environment. We're taking in huge amounts of sensory information and making a judgement of am I safe or am I in danger? Are there any present or imminent threats that I need to be aware of, prepared for, that I need to mobilise myself to deal with constantly doing that? All of us, all the time, we all have this in common and there's nothing wrong with that. That's what keeps us alive.
[00:11:24]:
But the thing is, when we're in that state and when we do perceive stress, and unfortunately for most of us, our modern lives and the way our society is set up, there's stress everywhere, right? So whereas evolutionarily, we might have perceived potential stress from, oh, there's a lion that might attack me, that's probably not going to be a chronic stressor. It's not going to be there every moment of every day. And our stress response is really designed to be something that happens in peaks and bursts and then returns to normal and we stabilise again. We find our equilibrium. But the way our society is now, you might wake up to an alarm that feels really jarring and read an email from your boss that you should have read before you went to bed. But you fell asleep. And then you're stressed and you're freaking out and you feel anxious and you've got a twisted stomach and running around trying to get ready for work and feeling stressed and you're running late and you walk out the door and then you realise you've forgotten something and that's more stressful. And all of these things, right, that for a lot of us, are chronic.
[00:12:28]:
And so we don't ever actually get to have this complete stress response where we go, oh, okay, I'm stressed, and then I'm going to do something to deal with it, our fight or flight response, and then I'm going to feel a sense of resolution and I'm going to come back down to base. When we're playing, like stress ping pong, we're just bouncing from one thing to another or like pinball, and there's never any resolution. It's just this running on adrenaline of this constant of stress. It's not healthy, it's not adaptive, it's not what we're designed to do. And yet it is, unfortunately the norm for so many of us. All of that to say that when we are stressed and our body starts to perceive stress and we mobilise into this stress response, which all of the hallmarks of anxiety are just part of that stress response, right? Oh, I've got a racing heart, I've got tingling fingers, I've got heat in my face, I feel that knot in my stomach or a lump in my throat, I feel sick, I have butterflies, all of that. I feel jittery. That's just a stress response, right, that's your body mobilising, you giving you more energy to deal with the threat.
[00:13:34]:
And when we're like that, it's really important to be attuned to what's going on in our body because we can go, okay, all of these symptoms, that tells me that I'm anxious, that tells me that I'm stressed. And the reason why it's important to notice that is because when you are in that state, your story so your perception of everything else, everything subsequent to that response until you've come back into regulation, is going to be tainted by the stress or the threat perception. And where this gets difficult is then if we say, going back to that scenario, you wake up, you get the email from your boss. You go oh shit, like I was meant to do that. And you're stressed and they're going to be angry at you and you're running around and the shirt that you thought you had has actually got a stain on it and you've got a meeting and whatever other you can imagine the scenario your partner in all of that. If they're just in the background of that scenario it's really easy for you to look at them like they are a lion attacking you, right? For everything that they could be doing or not doing to be threatening or wrong in some way because you've essentially got the threat goggles on. You are viewing everything through this lens of I am in danger and I've got to protect myself. And obviously that kind of perception is not going to be conducive to giving someone the benefit of the doubt, to communicating calmly and respectfully to someone, to being connected, to empathy, to having awareness of someone else's experience, right? Again, stress makes us selfish and we get so worked up in our staff that we project and we snap at people and we are rude and impatient and impolite.
[00:15:17]:
We blame them, we judge them, all of these things because we're really deep in this nervous system stress response where we're perceiving everything as being part of our internal experience of stress and our external perception of threat. So being aware of that and going okay and it's something that we really need to be self responsible for and go okay, if I'm really stressed like that I need to name it and own it and communicate it. Sorry, I'm really stressed. I don't mean to take this out on you, I'm really overwhelmed. Even naming it can do a lot to give us some momentary relief. If you do lash out or you do project, really taking responsibility for that and going, that was not appropriate. I'm really sorry that I did that. I was very stressed.
[00:16:05]:
And here's what I'm going to do next time to make sure that I don't take that out on you, because I know that's not fair and you are just trying to help or whatever is appropriate for the circumstances. Right? So unfortunately I think that the vast majority of couples run out these patterns on default mode and lack the skills, the tools, the awareness to do anything about it. Because as I said, stress is really powerful. It's designed that way. Our bodies are designed to respond quickly and dramatically to threats, right? But when we do live in a world that feels like everything's stressful and everything's threatening then that big dramatic spiky stress response that we have can all of a sudden become very disproportionate and misplaced. And in a relationship when you've got two people who are stressed and projecting onto each other it can very quickly erode trust and safety and an environment of care and mutuality and feeling like you're on the same team. And so I think, unfortunately, most couples do just find themselves in these cycles where stress gets the better of them and they become really disconnected. They feel really isolated and alone, particularly in times of stress.
[00:17:22]:
And that can do a lot of damage and it can cause a lot of hurt and pain. And to that end, I want to offer you a few tips that I hope will allow you to at least start on this journey of seeing the role that stress plays and coming up with a plan to really tackle stress as a team. Because I think that what sets apart couples who really have got it figured out. They're really solid, secure couples whose lives and relationships are far from perfect, but they really do the relating part well is that they know how to band together as a team. Because as much as by default we might become selfish and self centred and solo in times of stress. I think that we are so much better equipped to deal with stress adaptively. If we band together and we play to our strengths and one person can pick up the slack and we can go, okay, I can see you're stressed. How can I support you? And the person who's stressed can really receive that rather than just firing off snarky comments or being passive aggressive or whatever might be our flavour of choice when it comes to dealing with our stress.
[00:18:29]:
So the tips that I want to offer you, and these are obviously just a starting point, and I should say we'll be going into all of this in a lot of detail in the new course, Secure together. So if this is a place where you feel stuck, again, I definitely recommend that you cheque out that new course. But I think start by acknowledging the role of stress in your relationship and specifically to your relationship going, okay, when we are stressed, when you are stressed at work. I've noticed that this happens when I am stressed by whatever kids, when I'm stressed by my relationship with my brother. But naming really specifically, like, here's how this thing impacts me and us, and here's how I know I get when I'm under this type of stress, when I haven't slept properly or when work is crazy or I've got a deadline or whatever it might be. But reflecting and acknowledging really specifically and taking ownership and going, okay, here's what happens. And when that happens, the next thing happens. So I lash out at you and then I notice that you get really withdrawn and defensive and you don't want to talk to me.
[00:19:38]:
And that just enrages me because even though I'm being passive aggressive towards you, I actually desperately want your support. But I know I'm not making that very easy for you because I'm hurling all of these snippy remarks at you and that just makes you want to hide from me. Because I'm being so unpleasant, right? Whatever it is. But name the cycle and name both of your parts in it and try and open up a conversation where you can, even with a bit of humour, acknowledge how you get stuck and acknowledge how unpleasant it is for both of you and how contrary to what you would both really want for your relationship it is. Because I think that's really at the heart of it as well, right, is if we were to be honest and lay down our ego a bit, we could both say, I don't want this. I don't want to feel like I'm at war with you, I love you and I care about you and I really want us to find a way to do this better and do this differently. So how can we approach that together and really try and come up with a plan? That's my next tip, is try and come up with a plan. So knowing that stress is inevitable, knowing that it's going to come for you and there's going to be many days, weeks, months, seasons of life that will be varying degrees of stressful.
[00:20:53]:
In light of that inevitability, how can we best prepare ourselves for it so that we don't hurt each other when we're stressed, so that we actually do find ways to band together for one of us to support the other and vice versa? When we're feeling really overwhelmed and like our bucket is empty? How can we fill those gaps and play to our strengths and really find our way back to a loving, caring place when we're stressed, rather than doing that solo act of going inwards and then getting really resentful and angry at each other? Which, again, is what I think most people do. And if you know that in advance, certain periods are going to be stressful. If you've got a busy period at work coming up, come up with a plan and really find ways to deal with it so that it doesn't catch you off guard. Because everything that I was explaining earlier around the nervous system, when you're in that, it can be really hard to see through the fog, it can be really hard to get out of there. So knowing in advance, like, AHA, that's how stress affects me and this is how I get when I'm stressed. And I know that when I'm in that, it's really hard to see my partner as anything other than the enemy. So know that and just having the awareness and having said it out loud and acknowledged it as between you will make it much easier to spot it in real time and go, I'm doing the thing. And that might make it a little easier to get down that escape slide back into a more regulated place where you can actually see things clearly and you can see your partner as the loving, supportive person that you have decided to be in relationship with and really act from that place and hopefully find your way back to more love and connection.
[00:22:40]:
But having a plan is really helpful for your nervous system, having tools that you can reach for, what allows me to feel more regulated, what allows me to let the pressure out rather than just waiting until I get into peak stress again? I think a lot of us do that. We only really realise how stressed we are when the volcano erupts, rather than proactively managing our stress and proactively taking care of ourselves so that we don't reach those really acute heightened states of stress that are just the product of cumulative little things piling up on a day to day basis. So we're not really having that kind of emotional or nervous system hygiene to really prune back the stress and process it and deal with it on a day to day basis so that we're in maintenance mode rather than the emergency response. And the last tip that I want to give you and I've alluded to this throughout the episode, but don't hesitate to ask for support when you're stressed. I think that, as I've said, we can get really insular and isolated when we're stressed. We might tell ourselves a story of either no one cares or no one understands or it's just easier if I do it all myself. Those are all such stress state stories and notice how they keep you there longer. That all of those things that just heighten your stress and heighten your perception of everyone's against me and I'm the victim.
[00:24:06]:
None of those things are really going to help you to get what you need, which is to deal with the stress and to feel connected and supported. So just consider what it might be like to ask for support, whether from your partner or from other people in your life, and really allow yourself to receive that support. And just notice, okay, I don't have to suffer in silence. I don't have to do all of this alone. And then be resentful that I'm doing all of it alone. When you're stressed, when you're overwhelmed, when you're at capacity, resist the urge to just hunker down and isolate and then resent everyone for not helping you ask for help. I know that can be hugely uncomfortable for those of us who are used to either doing everything ourselves or not wanting to be a burden, not wanting to bother anyone. But there's huge growth in actually just asking and receiving, so don't hesitate to recognise your own stress when it arises and ask for help when you need it.
[00:25:06]:
Okay. I hope that this has been helpful as a little introduction on how stress can impact our relationships and all of the different parts and pieces that can be at play there, and giving you a little bit of a roadmap on where to start, on shifting some of those patterns to, as I said, not eradicate stress from your life. Although letting out some of that steam more regularly can help to mitigate some of those volcanic eruptions, but really to become more resilient in times of stress so that it doesn't feel like everything crumbles and we really feel alone, and we turn against our partner, and they turn against us. And how can I actually grow stronger through stress? By using it as an opportunity to connect with my partner and to lean on them and to really reinforce the security of our bond. Because that is what can happen and what is available to you once you develop some more safety and security in your relationship and trust in your ability to band together as a team and everything that flows from that. I hope that this has been helpful. As always, I'm so grateful for those of you who leave reviews. I read every single one of them, and I'm always so touched by your words.
[00:26:24]:
And again, if you are interested in the new course Secure Together, you can join the Waitlist in the Show Notes or by heading to my website or my Instagram. Otherwise, I look forward to seeing you again next time. 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.
When Your Partner Doesn't Want to Do The Work
In today's episode, we're talking about what to do when your partner doesn't want to work on the relationship. This is an incredibly common dynamic, to have one partner who wants to actively work on things and another partner who is more resistant (which can often overlap with anxious-avoidant dynamics).
In today's episode, we're talking about what to do when your partner doesn't want to work on the relationship. This is an incredibly common dynamic, to have one partner who wants to actively work on things and another partner who is more resistant (which can often overlap with anxious-avoidant dynamics).
We’ll cover:
Why your partner might be feeling resistant to doing "the work"
How different people make meaning out of needing to work on a relationship
Ways to dismantle fear stories your partner might have
Why it's entirely valid to value growth in a partnership
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Join the waitlist for my new couples course, Secure Together
Save $150 on my Higher Love break-up course with the code PHOENIX
Follow me on Youtube
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
[00:00:04]:
In today's episode we are going to be talking all about what to do when your partner doesn't want to do the work. So when one of you is really wanting to grow and wanting to actively work on the relationship, whether that's from a place of need, as in the relationships in dire straits and you know that that kind of work is required in order for the relationship to survive, or maybe you're wanting the relationship to go from okay to great. But in either scenario or any combination of those or anywhere in between, it's a really common dynamic that one person is more invested or more proactive about wanting to work on the relationship and they are met with resistance from the other person who is maybe not as interested in personal development kind of work.
[00:01:23]:
Maybe doesn't want to look at the dynamics in the relationship with a critical lens and see where things could be better. So it's really very normal and as I said, very common for couples to find themselves in this kind of situation. And I'm going to share some thoughts on how you can tackle that, how you can think about it and some paths forward for you if that's the situation that you find yourself in and you're really wanting to be. Able to connect with your partner and get to be on the same page or at least have some common goals around what you desire for the relationship and how you can work together to head in the right direction. Before I dive into that, a couple of quick announcements. You might have heard me recently sharing that I have a new course for couples in the works which is really exciting. We've now landed on a name. So the course is going to be called Secure together and it will be all about navigating anxious avoidant dynamics in a way that allows you to really meet in the middle and not only both be compromising in a way that feels suboptimal, but where you can really find joy and peace and love and connection in a way that just doesn't feel so stressful and threatening and oppositional all the time.
[00:02:41]:
Because as I know all too wells and I'm sure many of you know, that can certainly be where it goes without the tools and the skills and the awareness to shift out of our default pattern. So Secure Together will be launching in a few weeks time and I have a waitlist up and running for those who are interested to learn more. If you're on the waitlist, you will receive first access and also very discounted pricing, so it's definitely worth jumping on that. Waitlist, all of that is linked in the show. Note for anyone who is interested, the second quick announcement is just to share. I've been reflecting on the podcast and the future of the podcast. This sounds like an ominous announcement, but it isn't, I promise, and wanting the podcast to feel sustainable and viable, hopefully for a long time to come. And for that reason, I've decided to shift back to one episode per week from the current two episodes per week.
[00:03:37]:
As you can imagine, it takes a lot of time and energy and resources to be putting out two episodes a week, every week. And in the interest of making sure that, as I said, the podcast can continue to be around and putting out new content for you all every week for a long time to come, in order for that to feel sustainable on my side, I've decided to shift back to one episode per week. So that'll be happening shortly. And in case anyone notices, maybe no one would have noticed anyway, but in case you are an avid listener who tunes in twice a week, I just want to say I'm so grateful for you and there will be still podcasts every week, but we'll be shifting back to one. So thank you in advance for your understanding and for your ongoing support. I'm very appreciative of you. Okay, so let's dive into this conversation around what to do when your partner doesn't want to do the work. So I really do just want to emphasise, and I know I said this in the introduction, I really want to emphasise how common and normal this is.
[00:04:34]:
So to the extent that you're in that kind of dynamic and you're feeling really frustrated and really isolated and maybe feeling powerless or hopeless, maybe you're wondering if this means you shouldn't be with this person and it shouldn't be so hard and why don't they care? All of those stories are really understandable and I've certainly been there, but I do just want to emphasise that it's very, very common. I think in most cases you will have one partner who's more keen and one partner who's more resistant. That doesn't have to mean anything in and of itself, it's just that we often find ourselves in those sorts of dynamics. Obviously, with the attachment overlay, we can see that someone who leans more anxious is likely to be very invested in wanting to do the work. Oftentimes, I would argue from a place of almost of fear and seeking to feel in control, because if we're constantly talking about the relationship and improving it and all of that, we're plugging all the holes in the ship all the time and then nothing can ever happen. We're like proactively problem solving and protecting the relationship at all costs. And it's not to say that's a bad trait, but I think it's really important no matter where you sit on the spectrum of willingness to do work in your relationship. It's good to be self aware and it's good to reflect on what's this really about.
[00:05:53]:
For me, is this a values thing? And I think that's a completely valid values thing or is this an insecurity and a fear thing? Or maybe it's some combination of those and just sifting through that so that we can come to these conversations in our relationships with a lot of self awareness and a lot of self responsibility that allows us to meet. Our partner in kind of honesty and vulnerability rather than attack and blame and projection, which I think is what can happen when we feel frustrated and exasperated and we make the other person the problem. We say you're the reason that we're like this because I want to do the work and you're the roadblock, you're the impasse, so you just have to change and then everything will be fine. I think we can really easily fall into that kind of story and project that in a way that spoiler alert, tends not to work very well and tends to lead to more resistance in the other person. Quite understandably. So what do we do with this with a partner who's really resistant? I think that as with all things, I know how frustrating it is, but it really can be very helpful to get curious about the source of their resistance, right? So rather than just making them wrong for their resistance and their reluctance to do the work. Go okay, what might this signify to you? What is it about working on our relationship that feels threatening to you in some way or that feels unsafe or that scares you or stresses you out? And for a lot of people with more avoidant patterns, the idea of needing to work on a relationship is maybe quite foreign or at the very least, quite intensely vulnerable. Because particularly if you've been in a relationship dynamic where the status quo is having these big, long, heavy emotional conversations for 3 hours, where you spin around in circles, and for someone who leans more towards avoidant patterns, that is likely to be a very emotionally exhausting experience that they're going to have a lot of resistance to.
[00:07:53]:
Again, quite understandably. And so they might think of doing more work on your relationship as being tantamount to signing up for more of that. So getting curious, what is working on the relationship? What does that mean to you? What does that look like to you and what does it signify or symbolise? What does it mean about our relationship to you if we are doing work on it? For some people and I think this is hopefully becoming less true now, I think there's cultural shifts taking place, but certainly a more old fashioned view would be that you shouldn't have to talk about it or work on it. And I think that some more avoidant folks can have the perspective of if it's that much work, it's not worth it. And that just means that something's broken, it's not a good fit, so I'll just go find someone else where that work isn't required and that is my solution. And there are people who are more than happy to be in a relationship for years, decades, a lifetime, and not do this kind of work. So it's not wrong, but it's just finding compatibility in that respect. And I think for a lot of people nowadays, and certainly I know for probably the majority of people listening to this podcast, there is a desire to grow in relationship and there is a desire to deepen emotionally and to not just get by, but to really thrive in love together.
[00:09:19]:
And I think that's a beautiful thing to value and to fight for. So I think that all of that to say, it can be really helpful to get clear for each of you on what the work means. And if there's some confusion there or you're faced with resistance, maybe you could share with a partner that I'm not doing this because I think that this is broken and you're doing something wrong and I'm trying to change you or any other stories that you think you might need to dismantle. But really because I love our relationship and I really want to invest in it in the same way that I'd invest in any other part of my life that I really valued and wanted to nurture. You do exercise to take care of your health or you would take lessons in dance if you wanted to learn to be a better dancer. And it doesn't mean that there's something wrong there or that we need to get defensive or protective of the thing. But I think oftentimes we have all of these really unrealistic expectations of how easy relationships should be. And that if you are doing work together, if you're going to couples counselling, if you're having big talks about your feelings or if you're reading a relationship book or doing a course together, that that means that there's something wrong and that you're failing.
[00:10:44]:
And I think for some people more than others, that can be a real point of sensitivity and can bring up a lot of stuff and it can bring up a lot of those defence mechanisms that we can see, whether that's avoidance or denial or projection or any number of things that basically deflect away from the need to look deeper. Because that can feel quite confronting for some. So getting really clear, making sure that when you're trying to talk to your partner about this stuff, that you're not bringing the energy of blame and attack because that's just going to provide evidence in support of the fear story that someone's likely harbouring if they have a lot of resistance. So really trying to dismantle that and leading by example, by showing like I don't think there's anything wrong. I just really would love for us to go deeper or to expand or build more joy, more fun, more peace, more play, more intimacy, because that really matters to me and because I love you. So I think that's a very different angle than dragging someone by the scruff of their neck to counselling because you've had enough and this is a last resort. I think that's going to be really hard because, of course, for a lot of people, that will bring up resistance because they feel very powerless and they feel like they're being maybe that they're going to be ambushed. I think that's a really common dynamic when it comes to couples therapy as well, that you're just recruiting someone who's going to take your side and tell me all of the ways that I'm bad.
[00:12:16]:
So really getting clear around what the objective is, what your intentions are, explaining why it's important to you, really forefronting your values in that, and how growth is really important for you as an individual and for the two of you as a couple. And that feels really important to the ongoing thriving of the relationship and ensuring that it doesn't get lazy or complacent or stagnant as so many relationships do. I think the other important thing to say is that you're allowed to value growth and you're allowed to really prioritise that. I think I've said it on the podcast before where I'm at in my life now, I wouldn't be open to a relationship with someone who wasn't interested in growing in the way that I am. It doesn't have to be in the exact way that I am or at the exact point in my journey that I'm at. I'm not telling you that you need to recruit someone who is your exact copy. I don't think that's advisable or realistic, but alignment is important. And if growth and development is of the utmost priority to you, and that really is a high ranking value for you in your own life and in your relationships, then I think it's totally valid to stand behind that and to convey the gravity of that or the magnitude of that desire to a partner.
[00:13:45]:
And ultimately, of course, it's going to vary hugely depending on the circumstances if you've been with someone for 20 years versus if you're dating someone for two months. Right? So I'm not going to lay down the law on what you should do in any of those situations, but rather just to really validate that that is a perfectly understandable desire and value. And that's certainly something that I value very highly and very appreciative of in my own relationship, that my partner and I are aligned on, that it's something that we'll be speaking about, I think I mentioned at the last episode I might not have here. Joel, my partner, will be featuring in the new course on couple stuff and anxious avoidant dynamics. And it's something that we'll be speaking to these dynamics in the context of anxious avoidant relationships. But yeah, just to say that you don't have to shy away from that if you know that's really important to you. And while it might not look exactly the same, someone's work might look really different to yours. Just because your partner doesn't want to read a book about relationships that you thought was an amazing book doesn't mean that they don't care about the relationship.
[00:14:51]:
Just because they don't want to do an online course or listen to this podcast with you. It doesn't have to mean anything. You don't get to control the exact steps that they take. But I think some people will say to me, my partner says I don't need to do any work on myself because I like myself the way I am. Full stop, end of conversation. And I think that can be hard to work with, particularly when the relationship is struggling and someone's deflecting all of the attention away from themselves and suggesting that they've not got work to do. That can be hard to work with and that can be hard to build with that kind of attitude. So I just wanted to say that to validate that you don't have to struggle through that.
[00:15:34]:
Particularly, as I said, if it's earlier in a relationship and if you're not in a relationship at the moment, I would really encourage you to get clear. This is a bit of a sidebar, but write down what your values are, write down what's really important to you, and willingness to grow together can absolutely be a high ranking value of yours. And so you can have that front of mind when you're dating people, when you're connecting with new people and making sure that you're screening for that to make sure that you're aligned because it can make a big difference down the road. Okay, so I hope that has been helpful. I realise we jumped around a bit there, but just to recap, it's so normal to have resistance. It doesn't necessarily mean that there's something wrong with your partner or your relationship. I think most couples will encounter some form of this at some point in the journey, so don't get too down and out if this is the situation that you're in. And try to be somewhat open minded and curious as to what purpose their resistance might be serving.
[00:16:34]:
What are they protecting behind that resistance? What feels really vulnerable or edgy for them about the idea of doing work together? And how might you offer them some additional context communication, dismantling some of those stories that they might have around what it means to do the work and really explain why for you it doesn't have to mean all bad things and really quite the contrary. It's a sign of how much you love and appreciate them and how much you value the relationship can be a really helpful reframe. Also that you are allowed to value this. You don't need to downplay that or deny that, because it's a totally valid need. But also, just try and be somewhat flexible around not needing a partner's journey and their work to look exactly the same as yours, because oftentimes it won't. And I think sometimes when we're expecting someone to have the same path as us, that's when we can get a bit controlling and judgmental, and that tends to make the resistance worse. I really hope that that has been helpful. As always, so grateful for those of you who leave a review or a rating.
[00:17:38]:
It really does help so much, but otherwise, I look forward to seeing you again soon. 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 sooner.
The Pillars of Trust & Trustworthiness
In today's episode, we're talking all about trust & trustworthiness. Trust is something that many people struggle with, oftentimes as a direct result of past experiences where trust has been breached. And as we'll discuss in today's conversation, trust is about so much more than honesty. My hope is that you'll walk away from today's episode with greater clarity about why you might struggle with trust, and the steps you can take to remediate this in your relationships.
In today's episode, we're talking all about trust & trustworthiness. Trust is something that many people struggle with, oftentimes as a direct result of past experiences where trust has been breached. And as we'll discuss in today's conversation, trust is about so much more than honesty. My hope is that you'll walk away from today's episode with greater clarity about why you might struggle with trust, and the steps you can take to remediate this in your relationships.
We’ll cover:
The interplay between trust and trustworthiness
The five pillars of trust
How self-trust and relational trust are connected
Building trust through small acts over time
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Save $150 on my Higher Love break-up course with the code PHOENIX
Follow me on Youtube
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
[00:00:04]:
Welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. In today's episode, I'm going to be talking all about the pillars of trust and trustworthiness. So this is something that I started reflecting on and formulating in preparation for my master class on building Trust, which I ran a couple of weeks ago. And it's really stuck with me. And I think it's such an important conversation to be had because if you're like most people, you probably think of trust as comprising honesty and openness.
[00:01:03]:
And while honesty is definitely a component of trust and a really important ingredient in being able to trust someone, it's not the be all and end all. It's not the whole picture. And I think that understanding that trust is more layered than that, that there's more depth to it and more breadth to what it takes to really trust someone and what it takes for someone to demonstrate their trustworthiness. That really allows us to have a fuller picture of where and why we might struggle to trust and by extension, what we might do to start building more trust in our relationship. So I'm going to be sharing with you five pillars of trustworthiness, which is not an exhaustive list and it's not some sort of doctrine that you're going to find in a textbook. This is just something that I came up with when I was preparing for this master class that I ran. But I am hoping that it is helpful for you in reframing and broadening the way that you think about trust. The other thing I want to say in framing the discussion is that self trust and relational trust are much more parallel than we think.
[00:02:07]:
I think that a lot of people treat self trust as something mysterious and we throw our hands up and go, oh, I just have such bad self trust. I'm so indecisive. I don't really trust in myself to make a good decision. I always ask other people for their opinions and I to and fro on it incessantly. I always doubt myself. And while I understand that that can be a really overwhelming experience, I think we underestimate how many of the principles that apply in the realm of relational trust are very much influential and formative in whether and to what extent we trust ourselves. So I'll touch a little bit on that today. But I do want to say if this is a topic that you're interested in and you enjoy today's discussion, please do go and cheque out the Building Trust Masterclass.
[00:02:57]:
It's two and a half hours or thereabouts of a really deep dive on this topic on self trust and relational trust and rebuilding trust after there's been a breach of trust. So it's really in depth and has an accompanying workbook as well. So I will do my best to give you a taster of these pillars of trustworthiness in today's episode. But if you are keen to go deeper, definitely a good idea to cheque out the Masterclass, which will be linked in the show notes. Okay, so let's dive into this conversation around trust and trustworthiness. So I want to start by saying, you might have noticed I keep saying trust and trustworthiness because, again, I think oftentimes we can blame ourselves if we have so called trust issues. And we go, oh, I just need to get better at trusting. I just need to be more trusting.
[00:03:47]:
And I think it's important to recognise that often our trust issues, if we're going to call them that, are there for a reason. And it might not be a reason that originates in your current relationships, where it might be a legacy wound from a previous relationship, but it's rare that it just comes out of nowhere. So I think we really have to approach ourselves with a level of self compassion and recognise that most of the time our fears make sense and they come from somewhere. So in the past, you might have been lied to or betrayed or disappointed or let down blindsided by something. There might have been secrets kept that you were unaware of. And so you've developed certain fears around trusting in response to something that's happened to you or something that you've seen, but there's something within you that's going it is not safe to fully trust this person, to rely on them, to count on them, to take their word at face value. And so I've got to add these additional layers of protection in order to keep myself safe. And that might look like either withholding parts of yourself not being fully vulnerable, not opening yourself to someone, or it might look like probing someone or not trusting what they say.
[00:04:59]:
It might look like reading their messages or crossing boundaries around privacy because you struggle to just trust that things could be as they seem. So there's lots of tentacles to this whole trust piece. But I did just want to say that oftentimes our trust wounds make sense, and so we do want to approach ourselves with a level of compassion. The other piece is this distinction between trust and trustworthiness. It really is a dialogue, right? It's like call and response. So I trust to the extent that you demonstrate yourself to be trustworthy, and that's likely to happen in increments, or at least ideally it would. So I might trust you with this piece of myself and then you show up in a way that feels really safe and trustworthy, and then I give you a little more, and then you stay steady and you are showing me that you are worthy of trust. I e trustworthy and so as we proceed in a moment to talk about these pillars of trust and trustworthiness, I want you to think about it being a two way street.
[00:06:00]:
It's not just your responsibility to blindly trust. It is a dialogue. It is back and forth between people in a relationship, not just a romantic relationship, to be clear, but this interplay, this dialogue between trust and trustworthiness, and that we really need both of those to dance together in a way that feels really safe in order for that to build over time. So let's talk about these pillars of trustworthiness. The first one is perhaps the most obvious, as I alluded to at the beginning of this episode, that honesty, right? Honesty is a really important part of trust. So honesty to me is, can I trust your word? Is your word true? Is it reliable? Are you sharing the whole truth? Are you withholding are you concealing? Are you not being transparent with me around not only the facts of a situation, but maybe how you're feeling and anything like that? So can I trust that what you say is the truth? And I don't really need to probe or interrogate or push beyond that because you have shown me that your word is valuable and honest and reliable. So honesty, as I said, is what we mostly think about when we think of trust. And so if someone has lied to us, we might not trust them.
[00:07:19]:
And that is perfectly understandable, but it is just the tip of the iceberg, I think, when it comes to trust. And we do want to dig a little deeper to look at some of these less obvious expressions of trust and trustworthiness. So the next one is reliability. So in this context, I'm thinking of reliability as, can I count on you? Will you be there when I need you? Do I really feel like you have my back? It doesn't mean that you're perfect. It doesn't mean that you are waiting at my beck and call all the time. But can I trust that if I were ever in a moment of need, that you would show up for me in a way that really contributed to my feeling of safety? Again, this could be in a friendship. Hopefully you've got at least a couple of friends that you know you could always call and count on to be there for you. And I think that level of reliability, no matter what else is going on, is so conducive to deep trust in any relationship.
[00:08:15]:
Obviously the converse of that is unreliability flakiness maybe not prioritising the relationship enough such that you don't feel important to this person in a way that they really are there for you and care about you. Reliably okay, the third pillar of trustworthiness is integrity. So are your values and your actions in alignment? Is there this sense of wholeness? And can I really feel that you know who you are? You know what you stand for and you are committed to broadly acting in accordance with your values. So I think when there are people who you can feel into the fact that they don't really know who they are and they're really insecure and they flip flop all over the place and they go with the flow and they try and fit in. And there's no real internal angst. There's no sense of them knowing who they are and what they value in anything other than a really shallow sense. It is very hard to trust that person because you just don't know what it is you are connecting with. You don't know who the person is behind the mask.
[00:09:19]:
And so I think that having this really embodied sense of integrity and again, I think of that as alignment and knowing what your values are and acting from a place of integrity, doing what you think is right rather than what is easy or comfortable, that really helps to build trust. And again, I think this is one where it's particularly important to highlight the parallels between relational trust and self trust. Because as I've spoken to before on the show and I teach in all of my courses, a lack of self awareness and self knowledge around our values is a surefire way to erode self respect and self trust. Because when we don't know who we are, we don't know what we value, we don't know what we stand for, we don't know what our boundaries are, we don't know what our limits are. We don't know what we're okay with. And we just float around doing whatever other people want us to in an effort to seek approval or be accepted or be chosen. Very, very hard to trust ourselves from that place because there's no direction, right? There's nothing really anchored or grounded about that. And that flaky kind of energy is not very trustworthy.
[00:10:30]:
So again, both in yourself and other people, integrity and alignment is a really, really important pillar of trustworthiness. The next one is responsibility. And in this context I'm meaning responsibility like do you own your mistakes? Do you recognise your contribution to a situation? Do you own your blind spots? And do you seek to repair and make amends, proactively and find ways to make sure that certain things don't happen again or don't continue because you are committed to nurturing the relationship? So I think the absence of responsibility basically looks like avoiding hard conversations, not really owning your part, being very defensive. And I think all of those behaviours really obliterate trust because they say to someone I don't really care about your experience, or I don't have the capacity to care about your experience because I'm too concerned with my own. And while we can all do that at certain times, it's really, really destructive to trust. So I think that having the courage to be self responsible and to be proactive and to own our part to own where we've slipped up. I think this one is really important to call out. We're not talking about perfection, right, in any of this.
[00:11:45]:
We're not saying you need to have a squeaky clean track record where you've never made a mistake and you never do anything wrong and you never fall out of integrity or alignment. It's about repairing and not trying to avoid those conversations, not trying to shirk responsibility, but really owning up and owning something and saying, look, I messed up and I see where I went wrong and here's why it isn't going to happen again, because here's my plan, right? That level of self responsibility and accountability really, really helps to build trust and it also really helps to rebuild trust if there has been some sort of rupture or breach. And the final pillar of trustworthiness that I want to share with you is consistency. So are you doing all of those things consistently over time? So rather than it just being a little spurt of motivation, which I think can often happen if we've had a rupture and then we have this big conversation around it and you might come up with a plan and then things are better for a couple of weeks or even a couple of months. But then they start to slip back into old patterns. And again, we can give ourselves some grace because I think we're all guilty of this, of getting a bit complacent and lazy with the commitments that we make. But it's really important to trust that there is consistency and inconsistency makes it very hard to trust because there's no predictability, there's no safety in inconsistency. So having consistent behaviour over time and a really solid track record is going to be really helpful for building trust and rebuilding trust.
[00:13:21]:
So really making sure that whatever we're doing to build trust in a relationship is comprised of lots of little things compounding over time, because that's really how trust is built. I think we can imagine that trust would be built in big moments, but I don't think that's actually true. I think it's lots of little moments, lots of bids for connection and moments of reaching out where we feel really seen and safe and held by another person, validated by them. And over time we go, wow, I can really count on this person. Like I said at the start, it's that dialogue between trust and trustworthiness that is constantly happening, this interplay of reaching out and having someone reach back and going, ah, yes, I can trust you because I've got all of this evidence in support of that. So making sure that whatever you're doing in any relationship to demonstrate your trustworthiness is something that you are doing consistently over time, because that is really important to our sense of safety and trust. So I hope that has been helpful, as I said, in sort of widening the lens for you in terms of what you think of trust as comprising and the ingredients that go into building trust? Because I think that if we are only thinking about trust in terms of honesty, then we're missing all these other ways that we might be inadvertently unintentionally harming the trust in our relationships, or that someone we're in relationship in is proving themselves to be untrustworthy and we don't know why we can't trust them. So maybe hearing this is validating to you, that it's understandable that you struggle to trust someone if they've been really unreliable and inconsistent, but they insist they've been honest.
[00:15:05]:
We really need more than just one piece of the puzzle in order to build this overall picture of trust. The tapestry of trust is much more intricate than just honesty. So perhaps this has been validating, and you can then take that away and go, oh, okay, I now have a little bit more context for why I'm struggling to trust this person and what feedback I could give them in terms of my needs so that I could cultivate a bit more safety. We could cultivate more trust and repair or plug some of the holes in the ship to the extent that it feels like you're not quite there yet on really trusting someone. So I hope that this has been helpful. As I said, if you want to go deeper on this conversation, definitely check out the building trust masterclass, which is very much a deep dive, but otherwise, I hope that this has been helpful, and I look forward to seeing you again next time. Thanks, guys. Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment.
[00:16:04]:
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 sooner.
What Healthy Interdependency Looks Like & How to Cultivate It
In today's episode, we're exploring healthy interdependency. Interdependency is often cited as a key trait of secure functioning relationships, and yet many of us lack a clear picture of what healthy interdependency actually looks and feels like - especially if you have a history of insecure attachment patterns.
In today's episode, we're exploring healthy interdependency. Interdependency is often cited as a key trait of secure functioning relationships, and yet many of us lack a clear picture of what healthy interdependency actually looks and feels like - especially if you have a history of insecure attachment patterns.
We’ll cover:
The spectrum from codependency to hyper-independence
Interdependency as a healthy middle ground
How different attachment styles relate to codependency, independence and interdependence
Signs of healthy interdependency in a relationship
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
JOIN THE WAITLIST FOR MY NEW COURSE ON ANXIOUS-AVOIDANT RELATIONSHIPS
Save $150 on my Higher Love break-up course with the code PHOENIX
Follow me on Youtube
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
[00:00:04]:
In today's episode, we are talking all about cultivating healthy interdependency in relationships, which is really one of the hallmarks of secure relating and secure attachment. So this is an area that I think doesn't come naturally for those of us with more insecure attachment patterns as their starting point. But it really is such an important thing to have as a reference point as you're doing this work, so that you can be really aware of what would a secure couple do? How would that look? And how can we bring more of that energy of balance and mutual care and respect to whatever we are grappling within our relationship? So we're going to be looking at this spectrum of relating from codependency at one end through to hyper independence at the other, and then figuring out what this healthy middle ground of interdependence looks and feels like. And then I'm going to be giving you some more specific signs or things to work towards insofar as healthy interdependency is concerned, so that you can start to take steps towards that and cultivate that in yourself and in your relationships.
[00:01:41]:
So that is what we're talking about today. Before we dive into today's conversation, a couple of quick announcements. The first one is very exciting and I almost hesitate to actually announce it because it formally locks us into following through, but I am in the process of creating a new programme for couples around anxious avoidant relationships. So my master class on how to navigate anxious, avoidant relationships is my most popular by far has been purchased and used by almost 1000 people in the last year. And I've had it in my mind for a long time to spin that out into a fully fledged course with a view to providing that for couples to work through, to cultivate more secure patterns together. And so I'm really excited to announce that we have in the pipeline a course for couples, particularly in those anxious avoidant dynamics, and that my partner Joel, who leans more avoidant, is going to be joining me in creating and presenting that for you. So that's something that I'm very, very excited to announce. It's not ready and available yet, but it will be in the not too distant future.
[00:02:51]:
And if that's something that piques your interest and you would like to put your name on a waitlist to learn more about that when the time comes, I have put the waitlist link in the show notes and you can sign up to that which will, as always, not only allow you to get first access and all of the details, but also very discounted launch pricing. So if that interests you and you want to go deeper on the art of secure relating when you're in that anxious avoidant dynamic, I would love for you to jump on the waitlist for this new course. Okay, second quick announcement is just to share the featured review which is from the first episode I listened to. It literally pointed out feelings and triggers that I felt during my past relationships that kept me from a fulfilling, healthy relationship. I always wondered what is this feeling? And now this podcast has opened my eyes and I feel like I'll be able to concentrate my healing into becoming a better version of myself. Thank you for all your work and words. Thank you so much for your beautiful review. If that was yours, please send an email to podcast@stephanierigg.com and my team will set you up with free access to one of my masterclasses.
[00:03:57]:
Okay, let's dive into this conversation around cultivating healthy interdependency in relationships. So, as I flagged in the introduction, there's this broad spectrum that we could look at from codependency on the one end to hyper independence on the other and we can see how anxious patterns probably veer more towards codependency or certainly can do, whereas extreme avoidance tends to be in the direction of hyper independence. And it's really important to understand that neither of these being opposite extremes of a spectrum are the healthy middle which I talk so much about and what we're all trying to cultivate on this path to more secure relationships. So codependency is not something that I'm going to go into in great depth, it really is its whole own body of work. And for those who don't really know much about the origins of that body of work, it's very much in the context of addiction and the systems around addicts. So codependency being a dynamic that's often seen in those systems whereby a partner of someone with addictions tends to over function and make themselves needed by someone in order to protect the relationship and to protect themselves. And that usually is driven by very low self worth and comes with its whole own set of dynamics that can be really challenging. And of course if that is in the context of addiction, then that is its whole own kettle of fish.
[00:05:28]:
But codependency tends to be this energy of I need you to need me in order for me to feel okay. And so I over function and overgive and overextend myself and I try and take care of all of your needs so that I become indispensable to you because I don't trust that without that you would want me and this relationship wouldn't be able to stand on its own 2ft without my over functioning. But the problem with that is that it tends to facilitate and perpetuate the other side of the coin, which is the under functioning of the other partner, the under giving. So it's sort of like excessive selflessness or self sacrifice tends to feed and reinforce selfishness or self absorption on the other side. So codependency is not a balanced dynamic and it's not something that we want to be shooting for in our relationships. And yet if you are someone with more anxious attachment patterns, you can easily veer into some of those behaviours. Again, not to conflate anxious attachment and codependency, although I think certainly people with more anxious patterns would be more prone to ending up in codependent dynamics and relationships. But we can see some of the other things I've spoken about many times on the show.
[00:06:46]:
Things like over giving, over functioning, tiptoeing around someone's sensitivities, walking on eggshells, trying to insulate someone from the consequences of their own behaviour, trying to stabilise someone's emotional state, and really working hard to do all of that are all symptoms of what we might call codependency. In essence, it's by taking care of you, I am taking care of myself, that if I can make you be stable and your needs taken care of, then that will have some trickle down effect to me and I will be safe in some way. At the other end of the spectrum is hyper independence. And this is very much the classic more dismissive, avoidant pattern of I don't need anybody and we should all be responsible for our own needs and be these very discreet units and we can be in relationship with each other, but ultimately we're not responsible for each other in any way. And so I don't need anything from you and I don't expect you to want or need anything from me. I expect you to take care of yourself in large part, okay? And so this type of person tends to be very averse to the idea of someone wanting or needing things from them, can be quite almost turned off or repulsed by the idea of someone being needy. Their threshold for what neediness entails is very low and there can be a lot of almost content or disdain for the idea of people having needs and being vulnerable in that way. So I think what a lot of anxious people do is they see someone's hyper independence and they go, wow, you have such good boundaries, or you're so secure because you are so independent.
[00:08:37]:
And that tends to be a slight misconstruction of what security means because really one of the hallmarks of secure attachment is I'm comfortable relying on others and having them rely on me. I can take care of my own needs, but I don't feel the need to do that either from a place of self protection or from martyrdom, which are kind of the two flavours you might see in anxious or avoidant people. It's this sense of I'm not grasping or clutching at someone from this survival driven place of neediness and fear, but equally I'm comfortable in the idea of leaning on people and being supported and offering my support in return. So there's this really beautiful experience of balance and trust that comes with secure attachment and interdependency. So let's go through some of the signs of healthy interdependencies and things you might look out for in your relationships. Or perhaps as I share these, you might go, oh, okay, that's where we're a little off the mark and where we need to be stepping more towards in the way that we relate to each other. So the first sign that I want to offer is both persons needs matter as much as the others, so we are committed not only do I care about my needs and advocating for my needs, but I really want your needs to be met and vice versa. We both have this same mindset of elevating both of our needs to this level of high priority, right? Because we both understand and recognise that the success of our relationship depends on both of us feeling loved, cared for, respected, admired, supported and so we are really actively nurturing and nourishing those things again and it has to go both ways.
[00:10:27]:
This is very important because as soon as we've got one person who's doing that and going, oh, I'm very invested in you getting your needs met but it doesn't come back the other way, then we're back in codependency territory, right? So it has to be I care a lot about my needs and your needs and you have to care about both of our needs as well and that's what brings us into this space of interdependency rather than being one of the other expressions of either codependency or hyper independence. So this is also a departure from what I often see, which is mostly with anxiously attached people just because that's the bulk of who I work with. But people assuming that needs and this tussle of my needs versus your needs has to be a zero sum game with a winner and a loser. And that is very much an insecure mindset and way of relating to needs. Whereas healthy interdependency is we don't have to have a winner and a loser. We don't have to sacrifice one person's well being in order for the other person's well being or needs or desires or preferences to be catered to. We're both really actively invested in finding solutions that are really good for both of us, not just we're both compromising to some watered down version of what truly works. We find something that feels good for us both rather than who gets to win.
[00:11:50]:
What about me? Why should they get their way? All of those things. If you're hearing that and going, yeah, that's my internal dialogue as it is for a lot of people with more anxious, avoided and insecure patterns, that's really what we want to shift away from, because the more we're entrenched in that oppositional mentality, of course, all of these conversations, it doesn't feel safe. It doesn't feel like we can trust, because we feel like we've got to protect our interests and fiercely advocate for our position against the position or the interests of someone else. And it's almost like a debate, right? Why I should win instead of you, why I'm right and you are wrong. Interdependency is really putting that to the side and going, okay, we might have a departure in how we view this situation or how our needs interact here what would be a really great path forward that honours both of us and really elevates both of our needs to this place of really important. We both really are invested in both of us getting our needs met and how can we be creative in finding a solution from that starting point and that intention. Okay, the next sign of healthy interdependency that I want to share is you take turns being in the support role. Okay? Picking up the slack.
[00:13:08]:
When one person is stressed, the other really rises to the occasion and supports them and tunes in and goes, oh, my partner's stress. How can I support them? And you take turns in that. I think what often happens, again in more anxious, avoidant dynamics, in more codependent patterns, if we want to use that terminology, is one person is the one who's always stressed and the other person is always in the support role. And that again leads to a very imbalanced dynamic where one person is orbiting around the other and tiptoeing around them and trying to preempt their needs and try to anticipate what might be stressing them out and how to solve it, and then they get lost in the process. Right? The internal dialogue or the internal script might be like, well, what about me? Who's going to care for me? Who's going to support me? Who's going to look out for me? And I say that having thought and felt that many times myself. So I understand this deeply, but I also recognise that we have to recalibrate that and part of it. If you're the person who tends to always be in the support role, a big part of your work is learning how to receive support because it's much more comfortable. If that's always been your role to be helping, to be supporting, to be caring, it's much more vulnerable to say, hey, I could really use some support.
[00:14:26]:
I could really use some extra care and attention because I'm stressed or my capacity is low and it would feel so nourishing to my system to just feel really held and cared for. So helping Interdependency looks like tag teaming on that, right? One person picks up the slack when the other feels a little low or a little stretched or a little underresourced. It's not about perfect equality, but an overall impression of fairness, right? We're not point scoring because we both trust in the fact that the other will have our back. And so we can really go between that in this beautifully fluid, trusting way without, again, having that oppositional mentality of, it's either me or you. Either I support you or I get supported, but not both. And really, interdependency is living in the land of both. Okay? The next sign of healthy interdependency is you play to your respective strengths and you work really well as a team. So it's in a similar vein, right? You don't have to be point scoring, you don't have to be saying, I always do that, and you always do this, and comparing and competing.
[00:15:35]:
You recognise that you each have your strong suits and you really slot into those roles in a way that allows you to function really effectively as a team and recognising those strengths and really playing into them, into your complementarity as a team and going, oh, okay, we work better when we are in this together and really feeling that. So, again, it's this idea of we don't have to go one or the other. We don't have to be keeping tally or score. We don't have to feel like we're protecting our interests or looking over our shoulder. It's like, yeah, we know how to do this dance in a way where we both feel supported and successful and like, we can really be a well oiled machine from this place and feel really held and supported. Okay. And the final sign that I wanted to share with you, and I should have said this is by no means an exhaustive list, it's just a few of the things you might want to look out for. You both really want to know if something's bothering the other person.
[00:16:41]:
Okay? So there is no conflict aversion in this space. There's no sense of, do we have to talk about it or tiptoeing around it, or oh, I don't want to upset them, or I don't want them to feel bad, so I won't raise it, or I don't want them to take it the wrong way. All of that anxiety around raising a concern. There is this sense in the relationship, this culture of we absolutely, both of us, want to know if something is bothering the other, if there's an unmet need, if there's resentment building. We are both really proactive in cleaning house, so to speak, in, can we bring these things to the surface and bring them to each other? Because we want to be I think, of the visual of there being a pane of glass between us that represents our relationship. And if there are, like smudges or little things building on that pane of glass, we want to keep it clean and clear so that the energy between us is really good and we know that we work well from that space. But when things start to build up and we just ignore them or we sweep them under the rug or we turn away, we avoid that really builds up over time. And healthy, interdependency, secure, functioning couples really are so committed to the ongoing care and maintenance of their relationship such that we turn towards those things and we call it out.
[00:18:06]:
And there's enough trust in the relationship that it's not received as an attack. It's not, oh, here we go again. We have to talk about it. It's like, oh, please point out my blind spots. Please let me know where I'm missing things, because I want us to thrive. And that requires both of us to be feeling overall a sense of fairness and love and connection and support in the relationship. Now, this isn't to say that people with secure patterns in their relationship or healthy interdependency are perfectly, 100% connected and happy with each other all of the time. Of course not.
[00:18:38]:
That is unrealistic. No one is suggesting that. But there is an overall culture and climate of trust and respect and care and commitment in the relationship that allows you to approach all of these things, whether it's conflict or discussions of needs or boundaries or concerns. Desires. Preferences with a tone of openness and a prioritisation of those things as being in the interests of both of you and the relationship and really making that your joint commitment and mission to always be pruning the garden, cleaning that pane of glass and investing in the relationship. Because you both know that you benefit from the relationship thriving. So I hope that's given you a feel for what healthy interdependency looks like and how it's different from more codependent patterns or hyper independence and how you might start to make some shifts in your relationship to step off the ledge at those two extremes and make your way towards a more healthy middle ground. So if you've enjoyed this episode, as always, I'm so grateful for those of you who leave reviews or five star ratings.
[00:19:52]:
If you're listening on Spotify, it helps so much in continuing to grow the podcast, and I'm so grateful for your ongoing support. Otherwise, I look forward to seeing you again next time. 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 sooner.
Anxious Attachment & Open Relationships
In today's episode, I'm sharing some thoughts around anxious attachment & open relationships. While not being my personal experience, this is an area I receive a lot of requests and questions around, as various non-monogamous relationship structures grow in popularity.
In today's episode, I'm sharing some thoughts around anxious attachment & open relationships. While not being my personal experience, this is an area I receive a lot of requests and questions around, as various non-monogamous relationship structures grow in popularity.
We’ll cover:
Common struggles of anxious attachment and how they might show up in an open relationship structure
The importance of having a strong relationship to self when exploring open relationships
Communication, boundaries and self-advocacy
Why you should never agree to open a relationship just to hold onto someone
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Save $150 on my Higher Love break-up course with the code PHOENIX
Follow me on Youtube
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
[00:00:04]:
Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. In today's episode, I'm talking all about anxious attachment and open relationships, which is a topic that I have resisted up until now. Not because I have any position against open relationships or any sort of philosophical take on this issue, but really just because it's not my personal experience and so much of what I share on the show is derived in one form or another from my personal experience. And so a part of me feels ill qualified to speak on this topic. And I should say at the outset that I'm not going to be speaking on the virtues or otherwise of alternative relationship structures other than monogamy.
[00:01:10]:
But really, I'm going to be focusing on the questions that I get a lot of the time from people who identify as anxiously attached and are thinking about entering into some sort of open relationship structure and also speaking. About some of the pitfalls or challenges that you might be likely to encounter as someone with anxious attachment patterns by virtue of the structural elements of those relationships and things to look out for, how you might be able to alleviate some of those stresses or support yourself best through that, if that's your intention. So that's what I'm going to be talking about today. Before I dive into that, a quick announcement. I wanted to let you guys know that I have started a YouTube channel, actually started a YouTube channel about a year ago, but it has had no videos up until now and I have finally bit the bullet, pulled the trigger, and I am uploading quite a lot of videos. I've got a lot of content from the podcast and elsewhere. So if you want to watch the podcast, you'll be able to watch clips of it on YouTube. But I'm also going to be uploading exclusive content there, speaking to various topics and questions on attachment, love relationships, all the same stuff that you get here but in video form for those of you who like YouTube.
[00:02:27]:
So be sure to go check me out. My handle is Stephanie Rigg. You should be able to find me pretty easily, but I would love if you would head over to YouTube and subscribe to my channel and support my videos there. Thanks guys. Okay, so let's talk about open relationships and anxious attachment. So I think on the surface you could see anxious attachment and everything that we know about anxious attachment and then look at open relationships and go, surely that's not going to be a good fit, right? And yet I've had a number of clients as well as heaps of people on instagram who reach out to me asking for advice on this. It is definitely something that's growing in people's awareness, these alternative relationship structures, something that people are more interested to explore than perhaps they would have been historically when most people have defaulted to monogamy. Let's take a step back.
[00:03:20]:
We know that people with anxious attachment patterns struggle with fears around abandonment, fears around unworthiness, fears around rejection, fears around jealousy and comparison. And so we can see that a lot of these things are usually alleviated for anxious people by getting into relationship and staying in relationship and as much as possible, eliminating doubt, uncertainty, establishing some semblance of control and security by holding onto someone pretty tightly. That's what most people do who have anxious attachment patterns. And so on the surface you could look at that and see how it could be really easily exacerbated by open relationships or other structures whereby there isn't the same level of exclusivity, commitment, security as there might be in a monogamous setting. Again, please be very clear, I'm not making value judgments. I'm not saying that there isn't security and there isn't commitment. And I know that depending on the structure, those things can absolutely still be present, albeit in a different form. But I think that something that's really important and I've given this advice to clients before, is if you are really in the thick of anxious attachment, if you are not working with a stable foundation within yourself, if you are experiencing a lot of unworthiness.
[00:04:46]:
If you're experiencing a lot of fear and insecurity, then it's probably not the best time to wade into the waters of more complicated relationship structures. Because I think in most cases it would be fair to say that it does add a layer of complexity, having more people in the mix, having more considerations, more people's needs and dynamics. It is getting more complicated than monogamy. Not to say that it's worse than just different and I would say oftentimes more complicated. And so I think if you haven't mastered you're in a relationship, I e your relationship with yourself and you're in relationship with someone else and that's feeling really insecure, then branching out into non monogamy in whatever form is probably just going to be exacerbating the insecurities that are already present. So I think that as a starting point, it's a good idea to really work on building a level of comfort and security within yourself before thinking about going onto these additional levels of complexity that are likely to bring you even more so into contact with those wounds around unworthiness jealousy, comparison, rejection, abandonment. So I think that's a really important point is do I have the mental and emotional fortitude at the moment to be putting myself in situations where I may very well be quite triggered and feel really insecure? And maybe I don't have the skills or capacity at this time to advocate for myself in the way that would allow me to experience that safely? I think the other thing, and this won't apply to everyone, but I think a really important consideration is oftentimes people who are more anxious will be in relationship with people who are more avoidant. We know that, but there may be some pressure from one person to open up the relationship.
[00:06:46]:
Now, again, I realise there are a lot of caveats in this episode. I told you I was treading carefully. I realise that that's not every situation. Some people from the outset are in open relationships, but equally, I think a lot of people will be in partnership. And then there's pressure from one person to open up the relationship. And if that's a situation that you are in or have been in, I have to caution you to be really careful and make sure that that is what you want as well. Because the very worst thing that you could do, particularly as someone with anxious attachment patterns, is agree to open up a relationship just so you avoid losing someone. And I think that that can happen.
[00:07:28]:
It's certainly happened to people I've worked with. I've received a lot of messages from people who are saying my partner wants to open the relationship and I'm scared to lose them, so I would rather do this than lose them altogether, so I'd rather at least be involved in some way or have transparency and some sort of veto power. And I think that while all of that's really understandable, it is not going to be the solution to your problems. So making sure that if you are thinking about opening up your relationship and you're someone with more anxious attachment patterns or anyone for that matter, anyone who's struggling with unworthiness or frankly, if you're perfectly secure but you feel like there's pressure from someone to open up a relationship when that's not what you want. I think it's really important to tune in and go, is this what I want? Or am I just trying to hold on to someone? Because I think a lot of the time people will just yield to that out of fear and it is very, very rare that is going to ultimately make your situation better. It will almost always make your situation worse because the fear and insecurity that is driving you to say yes to that thing that you don't really want is going to be 100 fold. Once you're opening up your relationship and your partner is seeing other people or whatever other structure it might look like, that is not going to be a good outcome for you. So getting really clear on what your boundaries are, what your limits are, what you actually want and being comfortable, advocating for what you actually want and what you don't want I think is extremely important.
[00:09:00]:
And for folks with more anxious attachment patterns, there's growth in that because that's not the starting point for most of us is not to have real clarity around what we want and what our limits are and then take that additional step of advocating for ourselves in that. That brings me to the last thing that I sort of want to flag, which is if you are wanting to explore open relating as someone with anxious attachment patterns, you're going to want to really work on your communication. And this is true for everyone. Again, it's not my area of expertise, but I think we could all agree that something that people in non monogamous relationships do really well when they do it well is communication. And that's something that a lot of people hold up as being the big growth for them in exploring these alternative relationship structures. Is there's no space to be lazy or complacent around your communication of boundaries and desires and all of those things? I think for those of us in monogamous relationships there's certain default assumptions and expectations that we can get a little lazy about and it allows us to bypass talking about things quite directly. So one of the opportunities and the gifts you could say of these alternative relationship structures is that it really invites you into much more direct and open communication with the personal people that you're going to be in relationship with. And I think that that can be a real area of growth for you as someone with anxious attachment patterns.
[00:10:26]:
But I guess the word of warning or caution is don't shy away from that. I know that talking about things can be really uncomfortable and particularly if there is any insecurity there, not wanting to push someone away, not wanting to voice our fears out of worry that we're going to be seen as needy. All of those things I totally understand. But if you are thinking of exploring open relationships, communication, it's absolutely paramount because there is so much space for misinterpretation. And if you don't have absolute clarity and directness around your respective expectations, what's okay and what's not okay, where the lines are, how it's all going to work, then there's a lot of potential for hurt and misunderstanding and pain. And of course, that's not what we want. So those are a few thoughts on anxious attachment and open relationships. As I said, far from being a comprehensive overview of what is a very big topic.
[00:11:19]:
But I hope that for those of you who are either considering opening up a relationship that you're already in or you're considering exploring open relating as a starting point, that that just gives you a few things to think. About in terms of what it might bring up for you and how best to navigate that in a way that is self responsible and self compassionate. So that if you do make that choice that you're doing it in a way that's likely to be resourced and allowing you to really take care of yourself rather than triggering yourself more deeply into those wounds and those fears and Insecurities that might already be lurking under the surface. As always, super grateful for those of you who leave reviews. If you've enjoyed this episode, if you could leave a five star rating or a review, as I said, do come find me on YouTube. I'm working hard to build up a library of great resources for you there, but otherwise, I look forward to seeing you again next time. Thanks, guys. Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment.
[00:12:18]:
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 sooner.
How to Navigate Different Love Languages
Understanding the 5 love languages can help couples understand the secret language in their relationship dynamics. In this episode, I’ll share how they play out with anxious and avoidant people and offer unique insights and practical tools on how you can share your love language with your partner so they can understand how to love you the way you want to be loved.
Understanding the 5 love languages can help couples understand the secret language in their relationship dynamics. In this episode, I’ll share how they play out with anxious and avoidant people and offer unique insights and practical tools on how you can share your love language with your partner so they can understand how to love you the way you want to be loved.
We’ll cover:
The 5 different love languages
The benefits of knowing your love language, and your partners
How love languages play out in anxiously attached people
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Find me on my new Youtube channel
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
[00:00:04]:
Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Onattachment. In today's episode, we are talking all about Love languages so what they are, how they interface with attachment patterns to the extent that there are any themes there. And what you can do if you and your partner have different Love languages so that you can both feel like you're giving and receiving love in the way that feels good for you, which is really at the crux of the whole idea of Love languages. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. I'm hoping that it will be both fun and useful.
[00:00:55]:
Before we dive into that, I just wanted to share, you might have heard me share that I have started a YouTube channel and I am uploading lots of videos. There are already a bunch on there and I'm uploading new videos almost every day. So if you are someone who likes YouTube, I have to confess, I'm not a huge user of YouTube myself, but I know a lot of people are. So if you're someone who likes video content and you'd like to either watch while you listen to the podcast or look at other exclusive clips from me, on Attachment, love Relationships, all of that good stuff, come find me on YouTube @stephanierigg should be relatively easy to find me and I would love your support there. If you wanted to like and subscribe comment on my videos, that would be a huge help. So let's dive into this conversation around the Love Languages. Now the Five Love Languages, if you're unfamiliar, uninitiated was a book written by a guy called Gary Chapman in the early 90s. So it's been around a really long time.
[00:01:52]:
But the essence of the Love Languages is that we all give and receive love differently. So something that, for me, feels really important in order to feel like I am being loved and cared for and cherished and all of those things might be totally different for you and that might not be significant for you or important to you or something that you particularly value or require in order to feel loved in a relationship. And so he came up with these five Love Languages which are essentially five different broad categories of how people tend to give and receive love. And it's not to say that you are only one of these things, it's not to become overly attached to the label, as with anything, it's a useful tool, but it's not something to get dogmatic about. But the premise of the Five Love Languages is that most of us will have one or two dominant Love Languages, which are the ways that we by default give love and prefer to receive love. And so the idea being that in cultivating a greater understanding around what our preferences are, our love languages and those of the people that we're in relationship with, we can make sure that we're not missing each other. Because so much of the time I could be giving someone love in a way that works for me, but it's not how it works for them or it's just not something that they register as love. And so it might just not be received as an act of love.
[00:03:16]:
And so I can feel then as the giver like the person's not receiving it in the way that I intended when really I'm giving it in the way that I would like to receive it. So that's all a lot of words and I'm going to now dive into what these five love languages are to give a little bit more context for those who might not be familiar. So there's physical touch which is pretty straightforward. People who really value physical touch, affection, kissing, hugging, holding hands, cuddling, intimacy, all of those things that really it's hard to feel loved without having that physical closeness and really really value and rely upon physical closeness and intimacy in order to feel loved and connected to someone. Gift giving is another one. So people who really appreciate to receive gifts and who love to give really thoughtful gifts. I wish I was better at gift giving, it's just so not my love language. As much as I appreciate when someone gives me a nice gift, it's just not part of my programming.
[00:04:16]:
But I have so much admiration for people who are really excellent gift givers and come up with these really creative thoughtful gifts that are just like wow. And so it can be really beautiful. But that's a good example for me. I never really value gift giving that much so I never think to put in heaps of effort to gift giving. The next one is what? Acts of service. So how can I go out of my way to do things for you as an act of love? I always think of this as like a dad love language. I think a lot of dads are acts of service people. So can I go out of my way? Can I lighten the load for you? Can I do chores on your behalf if I see that you're stressed or can I pick something up from the shop for you or drive you to the airport or whatever I can do to make your life easier by way of an act of service of some description.
[00:05:07]:
So that's one of the love languages is acts of service words of affirmation. So really loving affirming words, giving people compliments, telling them how much you admire them, telling them that you appreciate them, that you value them being really verbally affirming and loving and really overt in those expressions of love and affection and admiration for someone. And last but not least, quality time. So if quality time is my love language, I might really value not just spending time with you, but doing really exciting things together. So playing a game or going on a hike or doing things that feel connective as joint experiences rather than just it's not quantity time is probably a good way of putting it. So people who value that, who have this quality time, love language, might like to go on an adventure with their partner, do something exciting, do a class together, have new experiences, but they get a lot out of connecting through doing together. So those are the five love languages physical touch, words of affirmation, acts of service, gift giving and quality time. So, as I said, the whole premise of these love languages is that most of the time in relationship you're not going to have the same love languages as your partner.
[00:06:24]:
And what that means is that we are on different wavelengths, speaking different languages, right? It's as if we were speaking different languages in terms of how we are giving and receiving love. And so the idea being that if we can have greater clarity around not only what our love language is, but what our partners is, then we can get better at giving them love in their love language and receiving love from them in their love languages. Whereas without that knowledge we might be just giving them love in our love language in a way that doesn't really land for them as particularly significant or loving. And we're missing all the ways in which they give us love in their love languages because we're expecting to receive it in ours. So taking this out of the abstract, because again, I realise that all sounds a bit semantic and wordy, I won't even give hypotheticals, I'll use myself and my partner as an example. I always think it's kind of funny, anxious attachment. I kind of think that every love language is an anxious attachment love language because there's kind of no ceiling or upper limit in terms of how much love anxiously attached people want and the ways in which they are open to receiving it. But I tend to find that in terms of how anxiously attached people like to receive love, I think that physical touch, words of affirmation and maybe acts of service to a lesser degree can be really dominant for people with anxious attachment patterns.
[00:07:50]:
And certainly myself included quality time as well, now that I say it really ticking all the boxes, but for me those things are really, really important. Whereas my partner, he's probably more quality time and definitely doesn't naturally or by default he doesn't value physical touch or words of affirmation anywhere near as much as I do. And so without having that recognition and that knowledge, it would be really easy for me to internalise that as he doesn't love me or care about me, right? That's an easy story to tell. It's like, oh, you never even reach out to give me a massage when we're watching TV or something. It's like, I would always do that for you. It's like, yeah, well, we're not coming from the same starting point and that's a really important thing to recognise. And on the flip side, for me, quality time, I don't really care that much what we're doing. I'm happy to hang out at home together, I'm happy to go on a bushwalk, I'm happy to go out to a restaurant.
[00:08:48]:
I don't really mind what the substance of the activity is, but for my partner, it's really important to have some sort of sense of novelty or excitement or like we're doing something that is a little bit more than just hanging out at home. For me, I'm kind of happy with the comfy cosy do nothing, because the quality time is not such a big one for me. So recognising that and going as always, it's not just like, okay, who wins? Whose way is the right way? Does one of us just have to yield to the other or one of us just has to accommodate the other? No, of course not. The idea is that we both develop the knowledge and understanding to accommodate each other while also making space for our way. So if you have different love languages to your partner, which you probably will, the challenge is, can I go out of my way to give them love in the way that feels good for them and can they do the same for me so that we're both getting love in the way that we want it? And can I start looking at their acts and behaviours as potentially loving in ways that I might have missed otherwise? For example, if my partner suggests an activity like, oh, do you want to go play tennis with me? That might be an act of love from him, because that's a quality time experience. Whereas for me, I'm just like, yeah, okay, but that doesn't score higher points for me by default than just being at home together. But it's like, can I bring more awareness to the ways in which you are offering these bids for connection, in the way that to use the Gottman language, because that allows us to receive more love, right? That's what this ultimately boils down to, is, can we give and receive more love in all directions? So I promised that I'd also speak a little to the attachment dynamics here and I kind of have already alluded to it by using myself and my partner as an example, that for people with more anxious attachment patterns, more overt and direct expressions of love tend to be favoured. So physical touch and words of affirmation giving, that really direct reassurance of, like, I love you and you're beautiful and you're amazing.
[00:10:52]:
And all of that is going to really support the anxious person, to feel reassured and really valued as a partner, make them feel special, make them feel really you're my person, all of that kind of thing. It's going to be like warm honey for the anxiously attached person who in the absence of that, it doesn't take much to go quickly into insecurity and worrying, I'm not good enough, I'm this, I'm that. All of that unworthiness stuff can bubble up to the surface pretty quickly in the absence of those displays of love and affection. So if you're in relationship with someone who has more anxious attachment patterns, you would do well to really dial up the words of affirmation, the physical touch, even the access like any of them, right? Gift giving. I'm sure if you went out of your way to give a really thoughtful gift to your partner, they'd really appreciate it. But particularly words of affirmation and physical touch are really, really big for anxiously attached people. So going out of your way to really deliberately dial up the intensity on those love languages will usually do a lot. It's not just like a nice thing to do, although it absolutely is a nice thing to do, but it will actually lessen the anxiety quite a lot.
[00:12:05]:
So it's in your interest as well because your partner is likely to really settle into the security of that and feel really loved and that is obviously an everybody wins situation. More avoidant folk, as we know, tend to be less focused on overt displays of emotion, can feel a little vulnerable around that, so they tend to focus more on things like quality time, gift giving and acts of service. Those are more doing based rather than saying or overt connections. So it's almost like those activities like if we're doing something together or I'm going out of my way for you or I'm giving you a gift, it's like there's a buffer between us that allows me to feel a little less vulnerable in my display of love. Because to just lay it all out there might feel really intensely vulnerable for someone with more avoidant patterns who hasn't had experience with that level of vulnerability. So yeah, I think that people with more avoidant patterns do tend towards love languages that feel a little safer in that they're a little more indirect. And again, there's nothing wrong with that. It's just recognising the difference and going, oh, okay.
[00:13:14]:
When they do those things, when they ask me if I need anything or if they offer to drive me here or they give me a gift or they want to do an activity together, that is a bid for connection. That is them trying to connect with me. That is them trying to show love. Even if I'm sitting there just feeling the lack of the other things, when really there is love coming my way, I'm just not aware of it. I think the other thing to say about love Languages is it's really good to be specific about just saying to someone, I really value gift giving is very broad and doesn't really help someone out all that much, so be specific in what the actual quality of the thing is that you desire. So I think gift giving is a good example because some people who like gift giving might want something really extravagant and expensive and luxurious, and other people want something handmade, thoughtful and really tailored uniquely to them that has all of this personal significance. Those are two very different categories of gift giving, and if you went for one and the person was expecting the other, again, it wouldn't land. So I think we do have to dig a little beneath the surface of these love languages and go, okay, words of Affirmation do I just want you to tell me that you love me or do I want you to give me compliments? Do I want compliments on my appearance or do I want compliments on my personality? All of these things, I get pretty granular in terms of helping your partner out on the things that you appreciate and the things that feel really good for you.
[00:14:39]:
So I think that that can help a lot. And I think that, as always, the more we can create open dialogues around these things and be really open minded and curious and let the ethos of this be how can I love my partner better? And how can I receive their love in a more open hearted way? That is really the gift or the opportunity that learning about love languages presents to us. And so if you take anything from this episode, I hope that it's. That opening my eyes to the ways in which my partner might be giving me love that I'm missing and thinking about some ways that I might be able to take steps towards them in a way that is going to really land for them and feel really deeply loving, even if it's not my default mode, even if it's not something that feels particularly significant for me. And just seeing what happens from that place, seeing what blossoms from that culture or environment of giving and receiving love really deliberately and intentionally that you can foster in your relationship. As always, I hope that this episode has been helpful and if you want to leave a review or a rating, I'd really appreciate it. And as I said, come find me on YouTube. I'm trying to build up more of an audience there and putting out lots of exclusive content as well as stuff from the podcast.
[00:15:53]:
So if you love the podcast, you'll love the YouTube channel. Come find me @stephanierigg. Otherwise, I look forward to seeing you again next time. 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.
[00:16:21]:
Thanks again for being here, and I hope to see you again sooner.
Q&A: Mismatched Libido & Anxious-Avoidant Sexual Dynamics
Mismatched libido in a relationship is a challenge that a lot of couples face. In today’s episode, I’ll be answering a listener's question of how to navigate mismatched libido in a relationship, particularly in an anxious-avoidant dynamic. I’ll guide you on strategies to break the anxious-avoidant spiral, by initiating open dialogue and finding a middle ground between both partners.
Mismatched libido in a relationship is a challenge that a lot of couples face. In today’s episode, I’ll be answering a listener's question of how to navigate mismatched libido in a relationship, particularly in an anxious-avoidant dynamic. I’ll guide you on strategies to break the anxious-avoidant spiral, by initiating open dialogue and finding a middle ground between both partners.
We’ll cover:
It’s not going to be 100% aligned all the time
How sex shows up for anxious and avoidant attachment styles
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Use the code PODCAST50 for 50% off the Sex and Attachment Masterclass
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
[00:00:04]:
In today's episode I am answering the listener’s question of how to navigate mismatched libido in a relationship and particularly in anxious, avoidant kind of dynamic. So this is something that I've touched on before on the show, but I haven't very recently and it is such a common experience and I think unfortunately one that doesn't get talked about anywhere near enough. And so, so many people end up feeling really lonely and isolated and convincing themselves that it's just them and everyone else is having really great sex and a really thriving sex life and they are alone in their struggle.
[00:01:04]:
I can tell you from the privileged position of hearing a lot of people's stories all the time that that is far from the truth and so many people are struggling with this. So with one partner wanting sex more than the other and all of the things that can flow from that the shame, the conflict, the sense of rejection and unworthiness and worrying about the relationship not really knowing how to connect internalising that taking it very personally. All of these things are so much more common than you would realise and I think, as I said, really important to talk about so that we can destigmatize that a little and hopefully empower ourselves to feel like we have more agency in how to talk about it and how to approach finding a solution. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. And as I said, we'll be looking at it with a bit of an attachment overlay because often sex and attachment are spoken about in isolation. When really if attachment is looking at the way that we relate to and experience intimacy and what fears we might have around that, it makes sense that sex would bring those wounds to the forefront in very profound ways. And that has certainly been my observation and my personal experience as well. So that's what we're going to be talking about today.
[00:02:19]:
Before we dive into that, I did just want to flag that one of my Master classes on my website is called Sex and Attachment and it's over 2 hours. Just on this topic, I've created a discount code for you. If anyone listens to today's episode and feels like they could use a little bit more of a deep dive on this topic or you're just interested to learn more, you can use the code podcast 50 or One Word and we'll link all of that in the show notes to save 50% on that Masterclass. That's less than $50 that it'll come to for you. So yes, as I said, if you're interested in learning more about sex and attachment, which I think most all of us should be because it's such an important area of relationships, definitely go and cheque that one out. Okay, so let's talk about this mismatched libido and anxious avoidant sexual dynamics. Even as I say that it's such a big topic I don't even know where to begin. Maybe we can start by acknowledging that mismatched libido is incredibly common.
[00:03:15]:
If we think about libido as being this combination of our desire for sex, interacting with all of the reasons why we wouldn't want to have sex at any given moment, most often that's around stress. So our brain is going through this process of basically tallying up reasons for and against having sex. And some of us are really sensitive to the reasons against so that if there's any slight reason against having sex, we have no interest in sex, and we really don't want to go there, whereas some of us really are quite open to having sex most of the time, and we don't place a lot of weight on the reasons why we wouldn't want to have sex. And so when we've all got these complex equations going on with all of these different inputs and our levels of openness to sex at any given moment, is it any wonder that mismatched libido is so common? Of course it is. Right? It's so personal when and under what circumstances we feel like being intimate with a partner. And so when we've got two people with their own sets of equations and circumstances, it's rare that it's just going to organically line up all of the time. So mismatched libido is something that most people will encounter at some point in some season in one or more of the relationships in their life. So it's really not something to be ashamed of.
[00:04:34]:
It's just part of navigating relationships, is that you're likely to have to negotiate a little on this because it's unlikely you're going to just start and finish at the same point, pardon the pun, but you're not going to be 100% aligned on that all the time just because you're different people with different experiences. So recognising that libido is not something that's objective in terms of what is normal, right? And ask anyone, any experts in the field of sexuality, there's no objective metric for what a normal amount of sex is or what a healthy amount of sex is. A standard libido is wanting sex x amount of it's not like that. It's really what's normal for you and what allows you to feel like your sexual needs are being satisfied and is not causing you any distress. So if you're having sex three times a year, but that is perfectly fine for you, then that's your normal and that's fine. Whereas someone else might need to be having sex three times a week minimum to be feeling like their sexual needs are being met. And part of being in relationship with someone is negotiating your needs to the extent that there are divergences and finding ways to meet in the middle or find ways for both of you to get your needs met. To the extent that there are vast differences in your needs that feel like you can't bridge the gap, then maybe you're not compatible, right? But before we get to not compatible, let's look at some of the ways that this might show up in relationship and particularly why it might be present in anxious avoidant dynamics and why it might cause particular distress in those dynamics.
[00:06:08]:
So, for anxiously attached people, sex is often used as a barometer for the overall health of the relationship. So if my partner wants sex and we're having sex and they seem to be sexually satisfied, then I feel safe and reassured and wanted and desired and all of those things. And that's like a big tick in terms of I can relax because there's nothing wrong, right? I use sex as the litmus test for whether the relationship is going well overall and because anxiously attached people tend to struggle with unworthiness and fears of being undesirable and also jealousy or fears about potential infidelity or just outside threats to the relationship, sex feels like a really important glue to hold things together. And so, to the extent that there's any change in the sexual dynamic or their partner pulls away sexually or loses interest sexually, even if just for a period of time, the anxiously attached person is likely to take that and spin it into a really catastrophic story. So the interpretation is likely to be very severe. There's something terribly wrong. They've lost interest in me, they don't find me attractive anymore, they're falling out of love with me, they're seeing someone else, there's someone else they're interested in and that's why they don't want me. All of these things are likely to go to existential threats to the relationship just because that's what we know anxious folks do.
[00:07:29]:
And so what often happens and why this can be such a predictable cycle is that at the start of a relationship between an anxious person and an avoidant person is there'll often be a lot of sexual chemistry and intensity as there tends to be in most relationships, certainly here. And then as the relationship progresses, becomes a little more serious and a little more stable and steady, the avoidant person will often start to pull away and they often won't really have a solid understanding of why that's happening for them. They might just have this inexplicable loss of desire or reduction in desire and attraction. And for the avoidant person they might start to make meaning out of that and go oh, maybe this means it's not the right relationship. What is often happening is that for avoidant folks, they don't really know how to desire someone that they love and someone that is a comfortable person who they have a level of intimacy and vulnerability with. For most avoidant folks, I think it would be fair to say that more casual sexual encounters are going to be more comfortable than more intimate ones. And that's kind of just the opposite for a lot of anxious people who go the more intimacy the better. But for avoidant folks, sex is vulnerable for all of us and it's really how we relate to that vulnerability that can change how we respond to that, to the idea of sexual intimacy.
[00:08:50]:
So for a lot of avoidant people, they won't really know how to have sex in a vulnerable way with someone that they love and so they can start to experience this withdrawal. And when that happens, the anxious person responds by testing escalating, upping the ante, trying to figure out if it's just all in their head or whether something really is wrong. So they might try and initiate more frequently, might try and be more affectionate with their partner to see whether they pull away or whether they're open receptive. And so the anxious person gets to work on gathering information and trying to test their hypothesis. And oftentimes the avoidant person feels that additional pressure pulls away more because they just feel overwhelmed. And then the anxious person goes well yes, I was right, they are pulling away, something really is wrong. And then it spirals and spirals because as one person escalates and the other pulls away and there's no actual open dialogue about anything, it's just both people living in these fear stories and whatever their self protective mechanisms are that just happen to be in direct opposition. So that's kind of a dynamic that I've previously termed the anxious avoidant sexual spiral.
[00:09:57]:
And you can probably imagine why if you've experienced it, I've experienced it, it's hard and it's really, really easy to internalise their stories of what's wrong? What have I done? Has something happened? Why do they not find me attractive anymore? What do I need to change about myself in order for them to desire me? Again, as is often the case, we take someone's behaviour and we make it about us and then we try and solve the problem by solving ourselves. And needless to say, that's really painful because usually it doesn't work and then we just feel like we failed and there's something really inherently wrong with us and the relationship. So all of that to say, there's a lot at play here and I think the first step in making any sort of headway here is can I depersonalise this? Now, I'm not going to tell you to not be impacted by it because I know that's not realistic and I can't even do that myself, right? Because it hurts and it's really easy to take that personally and to feel hurt by it. And that's I think totally fair enough. But we want to just interrupt between hurt and there's something wrong with me where that story starts to take root. That's what we want to interrupt and just soften away that story rather than feeding that and going, okay, this is uncomfortable, or this is painful. How can I change myself or do things differently or start frantically over functioning to try and get this person to want me? Because that's really kind of overstepping on where our responsibility lies. And we tend to then, as I said, feel like a failure if and when that doesn't work, which it usually doesn't.
[00:11:36]:
So can we hold on to the primary emotion of oh, this feels uncomfortable, this feels scary, I feel rejected, which is not good, I feel embarrassed. Even all of those things really normal. But can we just nudge in between that and the stories that spring from it and try and be really careful there so that we don't add more suffering to what is already a painful experience? I think when we can do that, we can also tend to those emotions more skillfully and we can share with our partner from a place that is self honouring and honest without being really, really charged with all those stories that we've been crafting and spinning around in our head. So being able to say to someone, look, it's really important to me and I really value when we're intimate and I've noticed that recently you've been less open to that. Is that something that you'd be willing to talk about? Is there something going on for you? And really being open minded and curious rather than projecting all of the fears and the hypotheses that you might have as to what's going on for them, seeking to understand. And if they are reluctant to have the conversation, you can kind of say, look, I get it. I get that this is really uncomfortable. It's not really comfortable for me either, but it's important to me.
[00:12:51]:
We don't have to have the conversation right now, but we do need to have it because it's important to me that we nurture this part of our relationship. And I really want us to be able to do that in a way that feels safe and good for both of us and here's what I'd need in that respect. So really being firm but compassionate in the way that you approach the conversation with your partner and emphasising everything that I've shared with you, that it's not something to be ashamed of. Mismatched libido is super common and stress is such a big part of it. So having a little more awareness around what goes into our experience of sexual desire, what we call libido, and tinkering with the variables. So if I know that being really tired at the end of the day is not conducive to sexual desire, then maybe you need to reverse engineer your environment to be trying to initiate sex at other times of day when your partner is likely to be more conducive. Or if you know that when you guys don't have enough space and privacy, then that makes you more stressed than allows for an enjoyable experience. Right? We need to get really clear and specific on what factors contribute to and detract from our experience of desire in a way that allows us to get really pragmatic and just help ourselves out rather than being very passive and then hoping for a miracle and then feeling awful when things aren't going the way we'd hoped.
[00:14:20]:
So I think we need to dispel this idea that sex should be really effortless and romantic and easeful all the time and really go, okay, if this is something that we're prioritising in our relationship, like any other thing, any other type of quality time, then we need to prioritise it and stop just waiting for it to happen or to improve or whatever. That's not going to happen on its own. So going if this is something that we both value about our relationship, then we're going to need to be really active participants in that process and in making it really great. And again, some people will have resistance to that. Your partner might be of the view that it shouldn't be hard and that it should just come easily and that there's something wrong if it's not really natural and easeful. And I think you've just got to say to them, look, I understand that that's the messaging we've gotten, but I just don't think that that's true. And I think that that can be a defence mechanism that people come up with. It's like, oh, it shouldn't be this hard and that's why I'll just kind of run away and go find someone else where it'll all be easier and I'll just get to start from scratch.
[00:15:24]:
I think that that's just a defence mechanism that allows us to move away from vulnerability and convince ourselves that with the perfect person it'll all be easy. And of course, we know that that is unfortunately a myth. So I hope that this has given you at least a starting point. Obviously this is a huge discussion. I have had a few episodes previously around sex and sexual communication and sexual dynamics. You can scroll back through the archives if you want to listen to more on the podcast or as I said, the sex and attachment masterclass is very much a comprehensive deep dive on this issue and you can use the code podcast 50 to save 50% on that masterclass which we will link in the show notes. Or you can find via my website. Otherwise I really hope that this has been helpful and if it has, please do leave a review or a five star rating.
[00:16:11]:
I really do appreciate so much your ongoing support of the show and I look forward to seeing you again next time. 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 sooner.
Retroactive Jealousy: Navigating Discomfort With Our Partner's Past
Retroactive jealousy is one that focuses on the past, fixating on other partners or stages in your partner's lives and being threatened by it. In today’s conversation, I’ll dive into how such jealousy stirs immense stress, but more importantly, we share insights into building healthier, more resilient relationships.
Retroactive jealousy is one that focuses on the past, fixating on other partners or stages in your partner's lives and being threatened by it. In today’s conversation, I’ll dive into how such jealousy stirs immense stress, but more importantly, we share insights into building healthier, more resilient relationships.
We’ll cover:
Impacting our self worth
Looking for skeletons and reasons to not trust
If you should share the jealousy with your partner
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
[00:00:04]:
Welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. In today's episode, we are talking all about retroactive jealousy, which for anyone who's not familiar with the term, refers to being preoccupied with jealousy about the past and particularly in the context of a relationship about your partner's past and maybe their past relationships. So this is something that a lot of people reach out to me about and I receive a lot of questions about. It can look like a comparison with a partner's exes or just obsessive preoccupation with what came before you and I think to the point where it can feel really all-consuming and can be really feeding a lot of insecurity. In the relationship and can really impact our connection and all of the other good things that we would want to be cultivating in our relationship in the present moment.
[00:01:18]:
It really can take us out of the here and now and create so much stress in our bodies and in our relationship with our partners when we're obsessing about things that may or may not have happened in the past. So I'm going to be talking a little bit about that today, why you might experience that and some ways that you can process it and work through it. And hopefully that will give you a little bit more context. For it and allow you to feel a bit more supported and able to work through those things as and when they arise rather than just panicking or spiralling or feeding all of those obsessive thoughts in a way that ultimately doesn't get you what you're wanting. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. Before I dive into that, I just wanted to say that my building Trust Masterclass, which I ran recently, if you're someone who really struggles with jealousy and you want to be able to reframe the way that you relate to trust within yourself and in your relationship, that might be a good one to cheque out. If the content of today's episode resonates with you and you know that trust is an area that you could use some additional support in, then definitely cheque out the building Trust Masterclass as it's very much a deep dive on all things trust, both self trust and relational trust. Okay, so let's talk about retroactive jealousy.
[00:02:41]:
As I said in the introduction, retroactive jealousy is jealousy about things that have happened in the past. And particularly when we're talking about it in a relationship, it's usually referring to things that have happened in your partner's past. So maybe their past relationships or other chapters of their life that preceded your relationship and feeling really jealous about that. I think it's important to set the scene in this conversation and normalise that for all of us. I think we can have this irrational possessiveness to varying degrees, where we might not love the idea of our partner having been in past relationships or having had sexual partners or other experiences in their life that predated us, particularly if we're hearing about that in any detail. I think it's pretty normal to have a level of discomfort or something within you that isn't crazy about hearing about those things, doesn't love it. But I think when we're talking about retroactive jealousy in the context of this discussion, it's really more than that, right? It's not mild discomfort, it's really fixating on it, becoming quite threatened by it. So feeling like your partner's past is in some way threatening to your relationship in the present and all of the things that go along with that.
[00:03:59]:
So feeling like you need to gather all of the information and know all of the details and maybe stalk your partner's exes or compare yourself to them. Find all of this data on them so that you can assess. The level of risk, which I think is a good warning sign that there's more going on there for us when we notice those behaviours come up. I think that's where it goes from being a normal, understandable level of discomfort to okay, this is really being driven by some fear and insecurity in me. And what might that be about? Can I get a little curious? So I think there are a few different possible causes of retroactive jealousy or reasons we might feel that way or struggle with that in our relationships. I think an obvious one is unworthiness and insecurity. So I think this particularly arises where we feel very threatened by a partner's exes. And I can't tell you every single time I put up a question box on Instagram, I will get at least five questions that are about comparison with exes.
[00:05:03]:
How do I make my peace with the fact that my partner had these exes and these relationships and thinking they're prettier than me? And how do I not feel bad? How do I not compare myself? Why do I need to be convinced and reassured that my partner loves me more than they ever loved their exes? All of these kind of quite obsessive, controlling thoughts around needing to be better than or different than and being persuaded of why we are more valuable than as if we are in direct competition with the past. And I think that to try and rationalise that is not really engaging with the fact that it isn't rational, right? Of course it's not really rational. In most cases it's quite emotional. But for whatever reason, we've got this story that we are unworthy or there's something wrong with us or we don't have enough to offer as a partner. And so our partner's exes might emerge as our competition because we have evidence of the fact that our partner was attracted to them, that they might be our partner's type, so to speak, that they had a relationship. So, okay, my partner loved that person at one point. Why am I better than them? Am I better than them? And if not, how can I be better than them? How can I make them worse than me so that I feel safe and secure in my relationship? And I think that again, while we can have self compassion for our unworthiness and whatever might drive us to those sorts of thoughts and patterns, I think we really need to recognise that at the relationship that we're in, our partner is in that relationship because they want to be in that relationship with us. And so it's not really useful or relevant to be obsessing over their past relationships because it's just extraneous to what is right now in the present.
[00:06:54]:
And I think that really, as I said, what that tells us is that we have some work to do on our self worth. Because I think if you were comfortable and confident in who you are and what you have to offer, kind of your value proposition as a partner, then all of that other extraneous stuff becomes much less relevant. And you can trust in the fact that your partner loves you and is choosing you and wants to be with you because of what you bring to the table. Right? Rather than thinking that you are unworthy and feeling very threatened by things that may have happened in the past or your partner's past relationships. I think that the other thing to add there is this can be exacerbated if a partner's ex is still an active part of their life. So if they still have an ongoing relationship, maybe if they were broken up with and they didn't want the relationship to end, maybe it took them a long time to recover. I think it's understandable that you might have some fears around what if they still love them, what if they want to get back together with them? All of those things, right? Again, I think are fairly normal fears to have. But ultimately we do just want to bring ourselves back to the present and be grounding ourselves in what we can see and the evidence that we actually have, which is that our partner is choosing us and that we are in relationship with them and reminding ourselves of all that we have to offer.
[00:08:20]:
And really doing that work on building self worth as well, which I think as I said, is a big part of it. I think the other kind of expression of retroactive jealousy outside of feeling threatened by past partners or past relationships, you might feel threatened by past chapters of your partner's life. So they might not be so much romantic experiences so much as like if they had a wild time in their twenty s or they used to party really hard or go and have all of these experiences that feel threatening to you in some way. Whether it brings up fears that they used to be out of control or that maybe they struggled with certain substances or any number of other things that feel like skeletons in their closet, I think that we can feel kind of uncomfortable with that because it feels so out of our control. And I think this is probably true for what I was saying earlier around the exes as well. This retroactive jealousy is we know that jealousy is a response to feeling like there's some sort of outside threat to the relationship. And I think when something is in the past and it predates our relationship with that person, our information is always going to be imperfect. So there's a lot of uncertainty, there are a lot of unknowns and that can lead us to feel very out of control and like we don't have the situation under our control and that can feel intensely vulnerable.
[00:09:43]:
So when there are all these unknowns, these blanks, our brain will often fill them in with really catastrophic interpretations rather than just looking at the facts at hand and recognising that that's not really relevant to right here, right now. The relationship that we're in with the person as they are today, we can obsess over looking for cobwebs, looking for skeletons, looking for signs that something dangerous or bad is lurking that we're unaware of and that we're going to be caught off guard. And so I think that when we can get really hyper vigilant around someone's past, it's often that part of us that struggles to trust, that is looking for evidence that something bad's going to happen, the other shoe is going to drop. What is it that I'm missing? What are you hiding from me? All of those thoughts that are often coming from that place. And so, again, while we can see that and it's always this interplay of how much we are willing or able to trust and how trustworthy the other person has proven themselves to be, I think if it is retroactive meaning it's not based on your current experience of this person. We do have to take a level of responsibility for that possibly being our stuff more than it is theirs. Because I don't think that you can punish someone for their life before you and the fact that they had a life before you. That doesn't strike me as fair or reasonable.
[00:11:10]:
Now, I suppose that leads to the question of should you share this with your partner if you're experiencing retroactive jealousy, and I think you certainly can, you can share it. But I would say, as always, share it in full recognition of the fact that part of it is your stuff. I think that's a good rule of thumb, saying, I noticed that when I hear about your exes, it's a bit uncomfortable for me. I feel a little bit threatened or insecure. And I'm not saying that you've done anything wrong, obviously, but I notice that that gets a bit of a reaction from me, and I'm trying to work through that or something. You can share it to the extent that you want to let them in on your experience and give them a little more context for why something is hard for you, but at the same time I don't think you want to be shoving it in their face and going, tell me why I'm better than her. I've again had questions from people who've described situations to me where they frequently ask their partner for reassurance that they love them more than and differently than they love their ex and explain to me all of the reasons why you want me and not them. And I think that that kind of dynamic is not healthy and it's not fair.
[00:12:27]:
And if we're in that, we really need to own that. That is our fear that's driving the bus there and we need to really prioritise working on our self worth so that we're not so obsessed by and consumed by these imaginary threats to the relationship that aren't even present day realities. And I think that as I said, when we are in that level of just obsessive intrusive thoughts about the past, that it's probably a warning sign for something else, whether that's within the relationship or within ourselves or some combination of the two. Usually we're just in threat mode and so we're going hunting for confirmation of our fears. And so again, I think we can take those feelings of jealousy and the fears that go with them and maybe the behaviours that they're driving as feedback for what's underneath it and go okay, something needs my attention here and how can I offer myself something, some work, a conversation, some self compassion? But how can I use this as feedback for what's going on for me and actually tend to the underlying fear or wound rather than just obsessing over these surface level things and feeding that loop and keeping myself really stuck in an insecure place that's ultimately harming me and my relationships. So I hope that that has been a helpful, albeit brief introduction to this topic of retroactive jealousy. And I do want to say, as I said at the start, if it's something that you experience or have experienced, it is pretty common. But obviously, and I've said this before on the topic of jealousy more broadly, jealousy is a very fundamental human emotion.
[00:14:16]:
It's part of the human experience. But obviously it can be taken to extremes and some of us can experience jealousy to degrees that really do get in the way of our relationships and just consume so much of our mental and emotional energy to the point where we feel really just totally exceeded our capacity. And so I think that if this specific flavour of jealousy is one that you struggle with. You don't need to shame yourself for it, but it is something that you might want to pay attention to and get really curious about and ask the question, what is this really about for me? Where are all of these perceived threats coming from? And what would I need to feel or think or believe in order to not feel so threatened by the past? What am I making my partner's past mean about them or about me or about the relationship that is feeling so threatening and causing me to think and act in this way? So getting a bit curious and doing the work around that, because I think that you'll be much better for it if you can reach a place of relative peace with the past, rather than feeling like you need to control it or eliminate any risks to do with your partner's history. So I do hope this has been helpful. As always, very grateful if you can leave a review or a rating. It does help me so much in continuing to get the word out about the podcast, but otherwise, I look forward to seeing you again next time. Thanks, guys.
[00:15:46]:
Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment. If you want to go deep on all things attachment, love and relationships, you can find me on Instagram at stephanie__rigg or at stephanierigg.com. And if you enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a review and a five star rating. It really does help so much. Thanks again for being here and I hope to see you again soon.
How to navigate being newly single in my mid-30s? I feel like I'm out of time
With societal pressures and a ticking clock, being newly single in your mid-30s can be challenging. In today’s episode, I want to share advice on navigating being newly single and the mindset for dating, and honouring the desires you have without feeling hopeless or overwhelmed.
With societal pressures and a ticking clock, being newly single in your mid-30s can be challenging. In today’s episode, I want to share advice on navigating being newly single and the mindset for dating, and honouring the desires you have without feeling hopeless or overwhelmed.
We’ll cover:
Grieving a future you thought you would have
The opportunity for reframe
Comparisons to other people’s lives
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Use the code PHOENIX for $150 off the Higher Love Course
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
[00:00:04]:
In today's episode, I am answering a listener question of how do I navigate being newly single in my mid thirty s. I feel like I'm running out of time. This is a question that I'm sure so many of you will resonate with maybe not being in your mid-30s, although I think there's a big chunk of you that might fall into that demographic. But just this sense of my life hasn't played out in the way that I envisaged and I feel like all of a sudden I'm scrambling and I am running out of time and we can really feel an overwhelming sense of scarcity. It can really rob us of the joy and the ability to be present in our lives as they are today and can lead us to feel really hopeless and deflated about what our future might hold.
[00:01:18]:
So I'm going to be sharing some thoughts on this and navigating being newly single, how you might approach dating from a mindset point of view, and how to really honour the desires that you have without feeling hopeless or overwhelmed or demoralised by where you find yourself. So that's what I'm going to be talking about today. Before I dive into that, I just want to share the featured review. This one was from Spotify and it said your show has been life-changing. Your words let me wrestle with what resonates and I could not be more grateful. Thank you for all you do because you're actually helping people look inward and heal. Thank you so much for your beautiful words. If that was your review, please send an email to podcast@stephaniergg.com and my team will set you up with free access to one of my master classes.
[00:02:06]:
I also just want to say before I start this episode, I've mentioned this a couple of times before on the show, but my higher love course is a breakup course. But the first three modules are around grieving, the breakup. And the second three modules, there are six in total, are around looking to the future and really figuring out who am I and what do I desire? And really levelling up in terms of where we're at and what we want and our self confidence and our self worth self esteem so that you can think about reentering the dating world if that's what you desire, from a place that is not just going to be a rinse and repeat of your old patterns. Because there's nothing worse than feeling like we've had a fresh start and then we actually just end up right back where we started. So if you are in that situation, akin to the person who asked the question that is the topic of this episode. You can use the code Phoenix to save $150 on my Higher Love course if you enter that code at checkout on my website and we'll link that in the show notes. But that is a really great resource. I kind of forget about that course sometimes because it's always available on my website, but it is actually one that gets incredible feedback.
[00:03:17]:
And a lot of people who've then gone on to work with me in more intimate capacities really rave about Higher Love as being the turning point in their journey after a relationship ended. So if that's you and you're looking for some more support, definitely check that out. Okay, so let's talk about this, how to navigate being newly single in my mid thirty s, I feel like I'm out of time. I just really want to validate how very, very understandable this is, particularly for women. I think that oftentimes it is women who have this sentiment and this sense of scarcity around timing, particularly if you want to have kids. There's no denying that there is a timing reality, right? There are timing constraints around having kids. And while it's not to say that if you're in your mid-30s, time is up, time is also not infinite and limitless, and so it's really understandable that you'd be feeling all of those things. I think society gives us a lot of messaging around that.
[00:04:11]:
And again, for women, even putting the kids piece to one side, I think we really have been conditioned to feel like our value starts to plummet as we age as women. And so I just want to really validate all of the things that you're feeling, and I'm not just going to tell you like, oh, it's all in your head, don't worry about it, because I don't think that that would be helpful or honest. So it can be really hard to be grappling with all of those messages that we get and whatever realities might exist in terms of timing constraints. So I just really want to say, like, I get it. I think that's really, really normal. And as I said, so many of the people that I work with are in a similar boat. And that is really what brings them to me. Because it's like okay, I feel like I need to get serious about this now because maybe I've spent my twenties and the first part of my 30s really focused on career or other things and in this youthful sense of having limitless time and then waking up one day and realising like, oh, okay, I'm not getting any younger, and there are still things that I really desire for my life, and I probably need to start moving on those things.
[00:05:22]:
So it is a really common experience that a lot of the people I work with will relate to. I think when we layer on to that, being newly single, if you've been in a long-term relationship and you really pictured a future with that person and that's what you thought you were working towards, and you thought you kind of had it all laid out in front of you to have that taken away. I think we don't talk enough about the grief that is the grief of a future that we thought we were going to have. Often we think about grief as being a backwards-looking thing, something we're grieving the memories, we're grieving the past. But a huge piece of that grief when a relationship ends, a long-term relationship where we pictured a future is grieving the future that we won't have with that person and grieving our fear of the unknown that now lies ahead of us when we thought we had it all figured out. So I think that really allowing yourself to grieve and to feel that is an important part because, again, just bypassing all of that and trying to bottle it up or try and push it down and telling yourself, like, there's no point being upset about it, here's where I am. I understand the part that wants to just white-knuckle it through, but it's probably a short-term solution. It's probably not going to really deal with the underlying reality of how you're feeling.
[00:06:40]:
So allowing yourself plenty of time and space to grieve not only the past but also the future. And when you've done that, and I say when you've done that, as if it's a nice to-do list item that you can cheque off neatly, which of course is not the case. But in addition to that, I suppose the reframe I would offer you and the mindset piece that you might want to feel into is what possibilities arise from the reality of where I'm at right now. If my life has thrown me a curveball and it's not what I hoped or expected, that can be true. And at the same time we can go, okay, I have an opportunity here, and I have the power to decide. I have a level of freedom and autonomy at this moment in time in my life. And I can use this to get really, really clear and really empowered in what I truly desire for myself. And I think that a lot of people go look around them and go, everyone's married and has kids, and I'm not even close.
[00:07:47]:
How can I not feel defeated and deflated by that? But I think it's really important to remind ourselves that comparison we all know that comparison not helpful. We all do it, of course, and it's not like, okay, I'll just flip the switch in my brain for comparison, and then I won't do that anymore. I think we all do that somewhat naturally, but it's important to remind yourself that you're not comparing apples with apples. You looking at your life and then comparing it to the person you went to high school with who's had everything play out the way that society would say is the right path or is kind of the traditional path. You don't know what's going on there. You don't know that that person's storybook. Life is as it seems. And I think we all have really imperfect information.
[00:08:31]:
As we all know, social media is a highlight reel and of course it is. We don't really tend to show the hard stuff in real-time when it's messy and it's challenging and it's uncertain. So just reminding yourself that that comparison game when you're looking around you on social media, it's really bad data and it's just going to skew you towards feeling like your life is shit and everyone else's is great. So I think reminding yourself of that when you go into comparison. But also someone else's life might not actually be what you want, or they might be married and have kids, but maybe their marriage is not of the level of depth and connection that you desire. And maybe you haven't been willing to make certain sacrifices that someone else has. So just like trying to stay in your lane and go, okay, I'm here for whatever reason. I'm here because of my desires.
[00:09:19]:
I'm here because of my limits. I'm here because of my boundaries. I'm here because of my experiences. I'm here. And so what am I going to do with it, right? What am I going to do with this moment in time in my life? How can I really go all in on myself? How can I be so steadfastly committed to being the best version of myself? Not in the sense of like, I have to strive to be perfect in order for someone to choose me. But how can I really commit to my health, my well-being, my emotional development, my spiritual development, whatever that means to you, in a way that you can cultivate peace and contentedness and joy and vibrancy and vitality in your being and trusting that from that place you're far more likely to attract or be attracted to people who are on a similar wavelength and who have similar values, who are looking for similar things. Whereas I think if we allow ourselves to spiral into scarcity and into fear and into the I'm running out of time, I'm just going to have to settle for the first person who buys me a drink. Of course, we're going to end up with an approximation, maybe a sad approximation of what we truly desire.
[00:10:33]:
So I've done a podcast episode in the past around how to enjoy being single when I really want a relationship. And I think it's ultimately similar advice but with the overlay of that contextual factor of being in your mid-thirty s and feeling like you're running out of time, it's like you can really lean into that experience of where you're at right now. And the season of life that you're in and really embrace that and really make the most of it, really make it juicy and vibrant and vital while also holding the desire and really fiercely holding the desire for partnership, if that's what you desire. So getting really clear, not just like I want a partner, but I want depth of connection and I want commitment and I want someone to build a life with. I want co-creation of a vision. I want us to really be supportive of another's dreams, just go really all in on the vision. I think a lot of people in this situation start diluting or watering down their desires, and I would say that's the opposite of what we really want to be doing. Of course, we don't want to be overly prescriptive around.
[00:11:37]:
I need someone who's this height and has all these physical attributes and getting a little bit rigid in what we desire in a partner, in a superficial sense, but really allowing yourself to get very clear around values and desired feelings in the relationship and not really being willing to compromise on the things that you know deep in your heart you're not really willing to compromise on and giving yourself full permission. And I think when we balance these two things, it's like, I'm really committed to creating a vibrant life and a full life, a life that feels rich and joyful and wonderful. And I'm really desiring a partner in a relationship that has these qualities. We are able to hold both and we can go, okay, I'm willing to wait to find that, to find that partner, that kind of relationship. And I don't really need to compromise dramatically on what I truly want because I've got all of this vibrancy and joy and vitality in my life and the season that I'm in. So I think they actually really support each other when we can hold both of those things. So I hope that that's been helpful as a little pep talk and a little mindset reframe. I know it's really hard, I know it's really easy to feel weighed down by all of those societal messages, particularly as a woman.
[00:12:56]:
The pressure of time feels really big and really real, but life is long and I'm sure there are a lot of people listening who are much older than their mid-30s who are going, wow, I wish I could snap my fingers and be in my mid-30s again and start fresh. So reminding ourselves it's all relative and we're still alive for as long as we're here, right? Like, today's a new day and all we can do is figure out what our next move is and decide how we want to be and who we want to be and trust that from that place of intentionality and integrity we will be okay and that we can create something really beautiful for ourselves. So I hope that that's been helpful. I'm sending you lots of love to the question-asker and anyone else who is in a similar situation and feeling a little downtrodden. And as I said, if you do want to check out my Higher Love course, you can use the code Phoenix to get $150 off at checkout. Otherwise, so grateful for you all joining me, and I look forward to seeing you again next time. Thanks, guys. Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment.
[00:14:01]:
If you want to go deeper on all things attachment, love and relationships, you can find me on Instagram at 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.
The Importance of Separateness in Relationship
As an anxiously attached person, space in a relationship can sometimes feel like the biggest threat. In today’s episode, I’m sharing my own experience with this and advice on how you can consciously choose space and separateness to foster greater intimacy in your relationship, especially in a time where you may feel more drawn to stay connected.
As an anxiously attached person, space in a relationship can sometimes feel like the biggest threat. In today’s episode, I’m sharing my own experience with this and advice on how you can consciously choose space and separateness to foster greater intimacy in your relationship, especially in a time where you may feel more drawn to stay connected.
We’ll cover:
Wanting to close the gap and be closer
Advice for how to reset and nurture separateness
Things to do to focus on your own self-trust and security
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
[00:00:04]:
In today's episode, I'm going to be talking all about the importance of separateness in relationship. So again, for people who tend more towards anxious attachment, separateness is a big part of the growing that we do on the path to greater security. And figuring out where that balance lies of togetherness and separateness can be really, really liberating and can allow you to access much more peace and internal security in your relationship in a way that allows you to really trust that you're okay on your own. As I've talked about so many times before on the show, it's really easy to have the story and the belief that you need your partner in order to be okay and that anything that threatens the connection or the relationship feels incredibly distressing and leads to all of those anxious attachment. Typical behaviours of how do I close the gap, how do I get us back into connection, because anything other than that sends me spiralling.
[00:01:35]:
And of course, you don't need me to tell you that that's a really challenging way to live. I know that you know that. And so I think one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself is to cultivate greater confidence around separateness while in relationships. So being really comfortable in yourself and having a clearly differentiated sense of self and cultivating more of a practise around being alone and doing things by yourself so that you can really stand on your own 2ft and feel like you are in your relationship from a place of choice rather than a place of need and desperation. So I'm going to be sharing some thoughts on this today, including some sharings of my own experience with this, which is ongoing, but something that I found to be really, really fruitful and really a positive impact on my relationship in more consciously and deliberately choosing space and separateness as a way to actually foster greater intimacy. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. Before I dive into that, just sharing the featured review for today. This was quite a long one, so I'm going to snip it a little.
[00:02:49]:
Thanks Stephanie, for the enlightening and safe service you provide to help guide us through new and old territory. I'm so glad that I found your show at a time when I'm navigating new terrain with a new kit bag of tools that gives me insights to understand myself in challenging yet sensitive ways. Thanks for giving so honestly and intuitively. It's like you're following my new relationship life from afar. Thank you so much for your beautiful review. I'm so honoured to hear that it's been such a source of safety and support for you. And if you want to send an email to podcast@stephanierigg.com, if that was your review, my team will set you up with free access to one of my masterclasses. Okay, so let's talk about separateness in relationship.
[00:03:30]:
Now, as I alluded to in the introduction, for most of us who tend towards more anxious patterns our default is to avoid separateness to gravitate towards closeness, the closer the better and wanting that proximity as much of the time as possible without veering too much off topic. You may have heard me say before that this makes a lot of sense in the context of the anxious attachment, origin story and blueprint which is I feel really, really good and safe when we're connected. But I can't trust in the reliability of you being there when I need you. And so I cling to you and don't want to let go because I don't know that if we're apart that we will be able to come back together when I need you. And so the anxiously attached person has this aversion to time apart, to separateness, to space in relationship and a strong preference for togetherness and particularly in any sort of stress. The overwhelming urge will be how do I close the gap? How do I seek proximity and how do I reestablish safety for myself via being connected to you? And of course, there's an element of very primal human drive in that that's not in and of itself a problem to be solved, but it can be taken to extremes. And again, you don't need me to tell you that being completely reliant on connection with someone and needing to be with them all the time in order to feel safe can be really stressful and vulnerable. Not in the way that we really want, not the type of vulnerability that we're trying to foster more, the vulnerability of powerlessness and feeling very out of control, feeling like we are at the mercy of someone else to determine whether or not we can feel okay on a moment to moment basis.
[00:05:30]:
So a huge part of the work in cultivating greater security as someone with anxious attachment patterns is figuring out how to have this differentiated sense of self going what if this is me? And what if this is you? And what if this is us? And knowing where those lines fall and actually being really comfortable in selfhood, in going yeah, here are my values, here are my needs, here are my preferences, here are my opinions, here is who I am as distinct from you. And being really comfortable in holding that and being with that and advocating for yourself from that really grounded place, that is such a big part of it. And that's why I speak so much about self worth and self trust and self respect. It's all self centred, quite literally, because for the anxiously attached person there is such a disconnection from self. And so that is where a lot of the rebuilding work has to happen first and foremost. And so this concept of separateness I think that when things are hard in relationship and today's topic is really I suppose it's broad advice but it's particularly useful when things are feeling strained in your relationship. And that's really the area for me where I have put this into practise and seen really great ripple effect for my relationship is think when we are in a long term relationship we can get really cosy. And that's something that's very beautiful about long term relationships, is that they get safe and they get comfortable and at the same time, we can just be really in each other's physical space, in each other's emotional space, in each other's energetic space in a way where we just start to feel really blended and enmeshed with each other.
[00:07:22]:
And again, while there's some beautiful cosy aspects to that, it can also feel a bit stuffy sometimes. And when we add to that any sort of stress or strain, if we have relationship challenges that we're actively working through and the domain of the relationship feels bogged down in the heaviness of that maybe you've got recurring conflicts or areas that you're trying to improve and you just feel like you're having the same conversation over and over and over again. And it's just like the whole tone of the relationship gets really weighed down by all of that. For the anxiously attached person, the impulse is in those times of stress and strain to get even closer. Right? And I get that that's my impulse as well. But what I've actually found and the advice that I've since given to a lot of other people who've similarly found this to be very liberating and effective is to fight that impulse to go further in and actually do the opposite. So when things feel really heavy in the relationship, can you actually infuse some separateness? Can you oxygenate the relationship and see what happens from that place? Because I think it can be a really powerful reset at a time when we're otherwise just like all in each other's space and energy and the claws are in and we're really bogged down and it just feels really heavy. So what might separateness look like now? Of course there's extremes of taking time and space apart, taking a break.
[00:08:59]:
That's not really what I'm talking about here. Although that may be what you choose to do and that may be fruitful for you. I said that I'd share a bit about my experience with this. So earlier in the year, my partner and I were I wouldn't say going through a rough patch, but we were working through some stuff, and it felt heavy at times, and it felt like we were dragging ourselves back. To the dining table every couple of days to have these big, heavy, emotional conversations in a way that just really felt like it wasn't really connected in a way that felt nourishing, it was like we were connected through this pain that we were working through. And what I noticed for myself in that is that when things are hard, I just become obsessive about it, and I devote so much time and energy to thinking about what my partner's doing wrong or what he needs to be doing differently or all of the pros and cons of the situation. And it becomes all consuming in a way that, for me at least, I don't think is helpful because it's just like, it occupies so much space within me that it becomes magnified. Right.
[00:10:08]:
The issue itself just becomes like, oh, this is global, and it's catastrophic, and it's urgent, and I've got to find a solution, and from that place, I can get very controlling and get very just really stressed. And so what I decided to do for myself was to kind of just let go. And again, this is not natural, right? It's not easy if you have anxious attachment patterns that tell you that's the last thing you need to be doing when things are hard, that's when you need to amp up your controllingness and make sure that you can steer the situation in the direction that you want it to go. But what I did was the opposite of that. It was like, okay, I'm going to stop. I'm going to stop pulling you up on this thing. I'm going to stop hovering over you and making sure that you're doing what you said you were going to do and being accountable and stop dragging you into these big conversations. I'm actually just going to focus on me.
[00:11:05]:
Okay, so what do I need? What does thriving and well being look and feel like for me at this point in my life? And how can I really invest in that? Because the more that I devote this energy into trying to fix my partner, fix my relationship, control, it really takes me away from that, and it subtly reinforces the message that that's how I create safety for myself, that being okay is something that I derive from my relationship being a certain way. And that's not again, it's not a very empowering place to be. It's actually very disempowering because it's like kind of banging my head up against a brick wall and then becoming frustrated and blaming my partner and all of that stuff. Right. I'm sure we've all been there in various expressions in various ways. So practically, what did this look like for me? I booked a trip, which I'm going on in a couple of weeks. I'm going to a retreat in Europe on my own. My partner also booked and went on a retreat by himself to the States.
[00:12:11]:
And I started focusing on all of these other things, like, what can I be doing to take care of myself, to nourish myself in a way that is not about controlling my partner or trying to fix and problem solve my relationship. So really focusing on exercise and health and healthy habits and just really, how can I go all in on myself in this period of time, in this period of my life when things feel hard and trusting that from that place there's really nothing bad that can come of that, right? Again, it's not the impulse. The impulse is to focus on the other person. But the real medicine is often in focusing on ourselves and going all in on ourselves. Because not only does that take some of the heavy energy away from the relationship and alleviate some of that burden that's in the relational sphere, but it'll never be a bad outcome from really backing yourself and taking care of yourself. Because even if things don't get better in your relationship, how much better off are you for having invested that time and energy in yourself? You're much more likely to then be able to stand on your own 2ft and go, you know what? No matter what happens, I'm going to be okay. Because look at this really rich and beautiful life that I've cultivated. And that's not to say that this is a stepping stone to your relationship ending.
[00:13:30]:
That's not the objective and it's certainly not my personal experience. My partner and I are still very much together, but it has lightened things a lot and it has allowed us to really appreciate each other more because we're more deliberately creating lives that aren't completely enmeshed. So giving ourselves more opportunity to do things separately, to have separate interests, to take trips separately, all of those things. It's like, oh, we're giving each other an opportunity to miss each other. Creating that oxygen in the relationship and also being reminded of why we love each other and why we're choosing each other is I think that I was saying this to a client just yesterday. It's like if the only thing keeping the relationship intact is control and gripping and that really heavy, bogged down energy of like, we just have to keep working at this no matter what, in a way that feels really like sinking your claws in. That's not really a nice energy to be in relationship from. I don't know about you, but I'd much rather be in relationship as two people who have a sense of wholeness and integrity and are actively choosing each other.
[00:14:45]:
Not from a place of frantic, desperate need, but from a place of really grounded, embodied, loving openness, of I love you. I'm here because I want to be here and not because I'm terrified of the alternative. And I think that cultivating separateness is a beautiful way to reach that point. And if it doesn't go that way, if you have more space in the relationship and you feel like that leads to the relationship changing or ending, that's okay too. Because that's just revealing the truth. Of what was there. And that's, I would say, the best outcome to realise that in that space and separateness, that maybe it wasn't working or it wasn't what you wanted. That truth already exists.
[00:15:29]:
It's just obscured by all of the stress and the fear at the moment. So if that's where you land in having this separateness, then so be it, right? That's probably a liberating truth to really land upon. So I hope that this has given you something to think about. I know that for a lot of people, it's, as I said, the opposite of what you want, but it's a really, really beautiful practise and it's something that you can play with in really minor ways. As I said, you don't have to take a break, you don't have to be really drastic, but just bringing even some more awareness to it. How much separateness do I have in my relationship? Or have I just become fused with my partner in a way that, of course I feel completely dependent on them and terrified of not having them if I've come to navigate my entire identity via them and us. So having a clearly demarcated sense of self and a deep self trust of, like, I have the capacity to create a beautiful life no matter what's going on in my relationship, whether I'm in this relationship or not. Of course I can love my partner and I can choose to be in my relationship and commit to that, but it's not my lifeline, it's not this sense of panic and terror at the idea of not being in my relationship.
[00:16:45]:
Because, again, that is a really reliable way to self abandon. And to lose yourself in partnership is to feel like, if I'm not with you, I'll die. And that can be the underlying script of a lot of people with more anxious attachment patterns. So I hope that this has been helpful. As always, grateful if you can leave a review or a rating, share it with someone who you think might enjoy it or benefit from it. All of that really helps so much and I'm so grateful for you. Otherwise, I look forward to seeing you again next time. Thanks, guys.
[00:17:18]:
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 it's 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 sooner.
How to Help a Partner Struggling with their Mental Health
Looking out for someone who you care for that is going through a hard time is a challenge most of us will have to face in our lifetimes. But feelings of threat to the relationship, especially as an anxious attached person may come up in these times, and I want to help you navigate through these while prioritising your wellbeing, and not overstepping.
Looking out for someone who you care for that is going through a hard time is a challenge most of us will have to face in our lifetimes. But feelings of threat to the relationship, especially as an anxious attached person may come up in these times, and I want to help you navigate through these while prioritising your wellbeing, and not overstepping.
We’ll cover:
Monitoring your “fixing” the situation
Ways to support someone and yourself
How you can be a balanced supportive person
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
[00:00:04]:
In today's episode, I'm answering the listener’s question of how to support a partner who's struggling with their mental health. So I think that given the prevalence of mental health challenges, there's a good chance that all of us will encounter this situation in some form at some point in our lives, if we haven't already having to be the support person for someone that we really care about. And I should say at the outset, this listener question was in the context of a romantic relationship. But most of what I'm going to share today could be applied to any relationship, whether that's a friend, a family member or someone else.
[00:01:08]:
But most all of us will be confronted with the situation of having someone that we care about who's going through a hard time and having to navigate all of the conflicting feelings and boundary struggles and the push pulls that can come with that. Because, spoiler alert, that can be a really complicated emotional terrain to try and navigate. We can feel immense worry and concern and care and really want to be able to help someone, but maybe also feel frustrated by them not taking the steps that we think that they should be taking or them not making progress at the rate that we would like. Wondering whether we should be holding out hope for things to change. Juggling wanting to be sensitive to the ways in which they're struggling against the very real impact that's having on us and concerns that we have in that department. There is a lot of really conflicting stuff that goes into that kind of dynamic. And while today's episode is not going to give you the solution or give you total clarity over what to do, if that's a situation that you find yourself in, I'm hoping that the discussion will at least give you some markers. Things to look out for, things to be aware of, and maybe some permission slips in terms of how you can care for yourself in that dynamic and how you might navigate setting boundaries with someone who you care about but who's going through a hard time.
[00:02:39]:
So that's what we're going to be talking about today. Before I dive into that, I just wanted to share today's featured review, which is longtime listener, first time reviewer. I've been listening for over a year now, and I've shared with friends, family members and partners alike. I've also begun re listening to old episodes when I find myself repeating unpleasant patterns. This podcast has dramatically influenced my approach to relationships for the better, and I can't recommend it highly enough. Thanks, Stephanie. Thank you for that beautiful review and for your longtime support. I really appreciate it so much and I'm glad that the podcast has been a supportive resource for you throughout the past year, but throughout different seasons and different relationships, I really do appreciate it so much.
[00:03:20]:
So if that was your review, please send an email to podcast@stephanierieg.com and my team will set you up with free access to one of my Master classes as a way to say thank you, I should say my Building Trust Masterclass, which I held last week, is now available for purchase on my website, The Recording. And so whoever's review gets read out, you can choose from that, in addition to my other three Masterclasses that are available. Okay, so let's dive into this conversation around how to support someone who's struggling with their mental health. And I do want to just frame the discussion with a few disclaimers, as I am known to do, but I think for something that is delicate like this, it's important to get clearer around what we are talking about and what we're not talking about. And what I'm not talking about today is any specific diagnosable mental health condition that's outside the scope of my work and it's not my area of expertise. So please know that I'm not giving specific advice around how to manage someone with X condition. And really the focus of what I'm going to be sharing today is not on them, but on you. Because as much as we can hold the intention of how can I best support someone, I think it's really, really important to make sure that you are best supporting yourself and not losing yourself to that dynamic.
[00:04:41]:
And this is particularly so if you are someone who tends more towards anxious attachment patterns because you probably don't need me to tell you that your default mode, your starting position is to forget yourself and to really orbit around someone else's needs. And that can go into overdrive. When the person that you care about, the person that you love, is in need and is suffering, that can really activate a lot of your fears, a lot of your patterns and wiring around. Caretaking not only from the point of view of really wanting to help someone, but also because it can feel really destabilising for the person that you are in an intimate relationship with, who you rely upon, who you depend on to be unwell and to be struggling. Because that will most often take you out of connection in some way. And it can feel like for as long as they are in that state, your relationship is threatened in some way or is impacted and that makes them unavailable to you as a supportive present partner. So it is really challenging, undeniably. As I said, I think we will all experience this at one point or another and of course, to varying degrees, again, as I alluded to when I'm giving disclaimers around this.
[00:06:02]:
There's a huge spectrum of mental illness or mental health challenges and that can vary in severity by a huge margin. So I think the overarching message that I want to give someone who's saying, how can I support my partner who's struggling with their mental health, I think you have to get really clear around the allocation of responsibility, and this is true for relationships more broadly and figuring out what healthy interdependency looks like. But I think that having clarity around what is within my control and what is appropriately mine to be responsible for and what sits outside of that ambit of control and responsibility. Because, again, when we're worried about someone else that we care about and we're worried about the impact that that has on us, it's really easy to overstep that line and to try and fix it again, it's not something to be ashamed of, I'm very guilty of this. It's something that I still have to monitor in myself, because not only all of my skill set, my personality, my attachment patterns, but also my family system has really conditioned me into being the fixer and the one who goes and takes care and kind of launches in when someone's in need or someone's struggling. And how do I make that better for them? But I also recognise what that has cost me throughout my life, to be in that self appointed role of making everyone's pain go away. It's a really easy way to lose yourself and I think underneath that, there can be a real sense of resentment or unfairness or injustice, because we end up feeling like, who's going to care for me? What about me? And I've certainly had that internal dialogue when I've been in that carer role in my relationships. It's like I spend so much time focusing on you and how I'm going to make you better and stabilise you, and there's a part of me that's terrified and lonely and worried of who's going to be that for me.
[00:08:06]:
So I think that recognising as a first port of call, the importance of figuring out what you are responsible for, which is you and the way that you show up and how you take care of yourself in that dynamic, your own boundaries, I think that's a really important first step. And it's not going to be easy because, as I said, every urge within you, if you tend more towards anxious patterns of caretaking and managing other people and their emotions, will be telling you to roll up your sleeves and get in there and fix it. But that comes at a cost. So I think having some clarity around that and practically speaking, I think what that can look like is it's not a pendulum swing to the other extreme of not being caring, not being helpful, not being supportive, not being available and leaving someone to their own devices and saying, this is not my problem. Again, that tends to be bouncing between extremes and that's not what we're trying to do here. But I think saying something along the lines of I can see that you're really struggling and that makes me really sad or It really hurts me to see you like this, please let me know how I can support you, full stop. I think that most of us go how can I support you? And then someone says I'm fine. And we go no you're not.
[00:09:21]:
And we keep pushing and pushing and pushing. We don't really accept someone's limits as they've been articulated to us because we think we know better. And even if we do know better, even if our way might be healthier or more adaptive or whatever, I think it's a slippery slope to go down to bypass someone's what someone is telling us about whether they want our help and kind of barge through and try and help them indirectly or influence them indirectly or change them. Fix them, solve their problems. Usually that won't be welcome and then we'll be frustrated that they're not grateful for the help that they didn't want. So I think that that's kind of step one is like figure out what a balanced version of being a supportive partner, friend, family member, whatever situation you're looking at. What is a boundaried way of being available and supportive without rushing in and being the crisis emergency response person who just tries to fix everyone's problems and makes that your responsibility. The second one, which is also really around boundaries and taking care of yourself and this is where it gets really tricky.
[00:10:37]:
If someone's behaviour arising from whatever mental health struggles they're experiencing is unsafe in any way or is hurtful harmful, causes you pain. And again, please to be clear, I'm not talking about abusive situations. That is again outside the scope of my work. And if you are in that situation, I really encourage you to seek appropriate support. But short of that, if someone is just really disengaged, lacking in presence, unable to offer any connection or support or interest or presence, they're just not really being in a relationship that goes both ways. I think that there are conversations that need to be had around what you need in order for the relationship to feel viable and sustainable. And this brings up a lot of stuff, right when I was speaking about it in the introduction, those conflicting feelings of guilt but also resentment. I feel bad that I'm really unhappy in this relationship because I can see you're genuinely having a hard time.
[00:11:47]:
But equally, I can't just be in a relationship that's totally one sided with someone who's not really there in perpetuity, with no end in sight. And those are really challenging feelings to be with and to own. So I think that the original question that was asked had a follow up which was my partner won't go to therapy, how do I help them? How do I make them go to therapy? How do I make them do something? And I think that's where we can start to say to someone and I've said this to my partner, my current partner is like, I love you. I'm in this. And there are certain things that really don't work for me that I really need to know you're taking seriously and that you're working on so that I can trust that we're on a certain trajectory and that these recurring challenges that arise in our relationship from your mental health struggles, your anxiety, your struggles with managing stress. If you don't do anything about that, nothing's going to change. Of course. Right.
[00:12:58]:
I think that's just trite to say that if we're having struggles in any area of life and we're not changing any inputs to the system, it is irrational to expect any changes to the outputs, changes to our experience. So I've said that to my partner. It's not a threat, it's not an ultimatum, but it's just saying in order for me to feel comfortable continuing in this relationship, I need to have some assurance of what you are doing to support yourself in these areas where your struggles impact our relationship in a way that doesn't really work for me. And so being able to have those direct and frank conversations that are really framed in love and care, it's not hanging someone out in the cold. It's just saying, like, this is what's true. I love you, and I'm here to support you in any way I can, but here's what I need in return. And I think what that conversation looks like will again vary. There are a million different contextual factors that will determine what that conversation looks like.
[00:14:01]:
If you've been together for two months, it's going to look very different to if you've been together for ten years, if someone's having a depressive episode for a few weeks, versus if there's been real prolonged, extended, severe mental health struggles if someone is medicating, there are so many variables. So of course, everything that I'm saying is very much principles rather than directives that will be applicable to every situation and every variation on this. But really having those clear boundaries for yourself around what I'm responsible for and what I can control and what I can't, and then having clarity on what would allow me to feel comfortable that this is being managed in a way that I can feel safe and they kind of go hand in hand again. In my own relationship, my ability to not take responsibility for what my partner has struggled with, that was facilitated by knowing that he was getting help elsewhere. So it's like, okay, if you're going to therapy, then I don't feel like I need to step in and be your proxy therapist. If you've got a group or you've got a this or that, like if you've got support systems and you're being proactive about managing whatever it is that you're experiencing that gives me the comfort of things are happening. And it's not my responsibility to monitor that. It's not my responsibility to micromanage that.
[00:15:29]:
I don't need to take control. I don't need to take responsibility because I can trust that you are serious about this and you have the self awareness and the recognition and you are taking those steps to support yourself. And I think that really creates the safety of, okay, I can step back, I can focus on, I can stay in my lane a bit more without having to step into yours and try and take the reins because I don't trust in your capacity. So I hope that's been helpful just to give you something to think about again. I know I've said it ten times already in this short episode, but this is not going to apply to everyone, or at least you'll need to adapt this to your specific situation. But I hope that those principles have given you something to think about. And I think that those really will and should apply across the board these principles of figuring out where an appropriate allocation of responsibility sits in a way that allows you to really take care of yourself and prioritise your well being, not overstep and not get into that controlling micromanaging mode, which ultimately tends not to work because you just feel like a failure if things don't go your way and the other person feels like a failure because they feel like they're disappointing you and letting you down and also setting those boundaries for yourself. So what would I need in order for this to feel safe and sustainable for me? What would progress look like? What would support look like in a way that I can get comfortable with in order to continue in this relationship, notwithstanding the struggles that you're having.
[00:17:04]:
And also the corollary of that is ensuring that any behaviours that are harmful are really clearly there are very clear boundaries set around those in a way that doesn't allow them to continue despite the underlying challenges that the person might be having. If you've enjoyed this episode, as always, so grateful. If you can leave a review or a five-star rating, depending on where you're listening, it all adds up and is very, very helpful and I'm so grateful for all of you tuning in. I look forward to seeing you again next time. 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 at stephanie__rigg at stephanierigg.com. And if you enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a review and a five star rating.
It really does help so much. Thanks again for being here and I hope to see you again sooner.
Break-Up Q&A: No-Contact, Reconciling, and Guilt
Ever wondered about the right way to navigate a breakup or considering reconciliation? Welcome back to 'On Attachment', where we unravel the realm of relationships, heartbreaks and new beginnings.
We're talking no-contact periods, emotional upheaval, and even the possibility of rekindling things with your ex. It's a tough road to tread, but we're here to walk you through it.
Ever wondered about the right way to navigate a breakup or considering reconciliation? Welcome back to 'On Attachment', where we unravel the realm of relationships, heartbreaks and new beginnings.
We're talking no-contact periods, emotional upheaval, and even the possibility of rekindling things with your ex. It's a tough road to tread, but we're here to walk you through it.
This episode will help you understand the necessity of space in healing, the art of breaking up without causing undue suffering, and the benefits of diversifying your support system.
But it's not all about goodbyes. We're also diving into the unpredictable waves of reconciliation. We'll guide you on understanding the reasons for your breakup, creating an action plan for success, and managing the disapproval from your inner circle. The journey to change isn't just about willpower, it's about working on yourself in meaningful ways. So, get ready to get comfortable with the discomfort and join us in building healthier, thriving relationships. Tune in, and let's grow together.
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
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Episode Transcript
In today's episode, I am answering breakup questions, so I'm going to jump through a few different topics that are drawn from questions I've received from people in my Instagram community all around the topic of breakups. So it's been a while since I've done a combined Q A, but I think breakups is one of those areas where I always get a truckload of questions anytime I put the call out on Instagram. And so I thought that I'd combine several into one to be able to give you a little bit more breadth of support. If you are going through a breakup or you've been through one recently and you're looking for some advice, So we're going to be covering no contact periods.
[00:01:13]:
The idea of when and whether it's a good idea to think about reconciling with an ex, and what to do if you feel like you need to break up but you don't quite know how. So that's what we're going to be covering today. Before I dive into that, I just wanted to share the featured review for today, which is this resource has been a game changer for our relationship. Stephanie, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Much love. Thank you so much for your beautiful review. I'm so glad to hear that it's helped you to make real changes in your relationship. That's always very heartwarming for me to hear.
[00:01:46]:
If that was your review, please send an email to podcast@stephanie.com, and my team will set you up with free access to one of my Master classes. Okay, let's dive into these breakup questions. So the first one is, tell me more about no contact periods. How long should they be? When are they needed? Do we always need a no contact period? So for anyone who isn't familiar with this term, I mean, it's fairly straightforward. It's not the most cryptic of terms, but a no contact period is essentially after a breakup, the idea being that it's a good idea to take some time apart and take some space from each other and ideally, not be in contact during that time. Hence the name no contact. Go figure. Now, why is this something that so many people will advise, myself included? I think that in a lot of cases, staying in contact and in frequent communication in the wake of a relationship ending is likely to be confusing, even if intellectually rationally, you can wrap your head around why that might be.
[00:02:50]:
Emotionally, it keeps you tethered to this person in a way that might soften the blow in the short term and allow you to feel some relief from the grief and the loss and the confusion and all of the feelings that come with a breakup. But that relief comes at a cost, right? So the fact that you get some relief by staying connected to the person that you are grieving means that eventually you're going to have to do that work. And I think that the longer we stay in touch with someone, and particularly if the contact we're having is going back and forth and saying, I miss you and I don't know what to do without you and I'm so sorry and starts to get a bit emotionally mixed in terms of the messages, I think that can really prolong our pain and the time that it takes us to actually let go and move on. So of course there are a million different versions of this situation and I recognise that structural factors will prevent a no contact period for a lot of people. For example, if you live together, if you have shared assets that need to be divided, if you have kids, if you have pets, there are many reasons why a no contact period might not be appropriate for your situation. But in the absence of those things, I think that as hard as it is, it's usually a good idea to take at least a few months, if you can, to just turn your focus away from the other person. Away from the relationship and do your own work of grieving and healing and figuring out who you are and what your life looks like without it being about you, the couple and tending to them. I think relatedly, if you are playing the role of emotional support person to each other with respect to the breakup, that is going to be equally confusing and it really prevents you from decoupling emotionally in a way that will allow you to move on.
[00:04:53]:
So as hard as it is, I think recognising that you need to be diversifying your support system away from your ex partner in most cases, so that you can again figure out what it looks like to have someone. Else in that role, whether it's a friend or a family member or a therapist, but not leaning on this person who you've decided to no longer be in relationship with for whatever reason. I think that that will just confuse your emotional system in a way that doesn't ultimately help, even though it does provide some short term relief. So I think having a period of a few months and to address the question that I often get from people, which is, okay, it's been three months, should I reach out to them now? And I think that as much as I understand that if you are counting down to the end of the no contact period so that you can reach out to them again, I think you might be missing the point ever so slightly. So it's not so much about no contact and then all of a sudden we go back into frequent contact. It's giving myself the time and space to recalibrate my system and focus on me and my life. So it's not like, oh, I'm just watching the clock until the time runs out and then I can go back to talking to them all the time and pleading with them and telling them I miss them. If that's where you're at, then it might mean that you need more time and space or you need something else, but it's not so much no contact and then go straight back into it.
[00:06:28]:
So focus more on substance and less on form as far as the no contact period is concerned and go really feeling into what do I need to land on my own 2ft and figure out what this next chapter of my life looks like. And oftentimes having some space from the person we've been in partnership with is a good idea even though it is absolutely very challenging and will hurt and everything within you will be saying that it's a terrible idea, but it's usually the medicine that we don't like the taste of but is ultimately helpful for us. The next question is, is it ever a good idea to reconcile? When is it a good idea to reconcile? A related question I got was how do I go about reconciling when friends and family don't approve? It's a big topic, right? I have done a podcast episode probably close to a year ago now on questions to ask before getting back with an ex. And again, this is an area where there is no one size fits all answer. There are so many different situations that people are in and anytime I give any advice, people go but what about this? And but what about that? Yes, all of that, right? Of course I can't speak to every single situation and the advice that I usually give on getting back together with an ex is it has to be about more than that. You miss each other and you want it to be different, okay? Because when we've had time apart and we tend to have the stresses of the relationship alleviated by the distance and so all we feel is their absence and that hurts and we go, oh, I actually really miss this person. I love that person. I miss watching movies with them.
[00:08:10]:
And I miss when we used to go get coffee and all of the little things that we suddenly feel the lack of very acutely. And we just have this overwhelming urge to reconnect. And we want to believe that all of those things that I was angry about, I don't even care about anymore because I just miss you so much. And of course, that's such a tender feeling, and I understand it, and I've been there. And I think we have to shift into a more wise part of us that can see where that urge is coming from and recognise that in the absence of having done meaningful, substantive work to shift the dial on whatever had us stuck, pure willpower might not be enough to shift it. Willpower and intent and the desire to make change is really important and it's not to minimise that. But if you're both just like, oh, I miss you so much, let's try it again, I'm ready this time. Those sentiments are beautiful and important, but they're not enough without more.
[00:09:14]:
And so if it were me and I were thinking about reconciling, I would need a really, really clear action plan on how it's going to be different, why it's going to be different, what we're going to each do. Differently and how we're going to have accountability to each other and to ourselves on the things that we are no longer going to do and the things that we are absolutely committed to doing. I think without that and without having that really clearly articulated and agreed upon, then it is all too easy to ride the initial wave of relief at being back together, but then slip into the muscle memory of old patterns that we know so well and we just do so automatically. And again, it's not because we don't love each other, it's not because we don't want it to be different, but without really clear intentionality and accountability and a plan to make it happen, it's going to be really hard because the magnetic pull of our patterns is strong. So when is it a good idea to reconcile? When you're both on the same page around what went wrong and how you're going to do it differently and you have a really clear path forward that is going to prevent you from slipping back and that you can both feel really comfortable about? I think the related question of what do we do when friends and family don't approve? It's a tough one. So I think there's something to be said for having boundaries around. If people's judgement is such that it is an unwelcome imposition on what you know is right for you, then you might need to clearly set that boundary and say, look, I appreciate that you are coming from a place of love and care and at the same time, I've given a lot of thought to this and I'm comfortable with my decision. I really would love for you to respect that and to try and be open to it.
[00:11:06]:
That might be one thing, I suppose the other thing, and in the podcast episode I referenced earlier around questions to Ask Before reconciling, one of the questions was do the people who love you and know you very well support that idea or are they staunchly against it? Because I think people who love us and care about us and know the situation, if they are unequivocally telling you, please do not do this, it is a terrible idea. I don't think that we just want to be blindly tuning that out and saying you just don't get it. Maybe they don't get it, but maybe they also do get it and they're seeing something that you're not seeing and they might be seeing reality. Whereas you are attached to hope and wanting and potential and you're driven by the emotion of missing this person and feeling very attached to them. Whereas the people who love you have your best interests at heart and maybe you're able to see things a little more clearly than you are. So I wouldn't totally drown out tune out the advice and counsel of people who really love me and care about me and know me. But equally if you are very comfortable with your decision and you do have additional context that they maybe don't, then you might just have to set the boundary around that. Final question I'm going to answer is I know that it's time to break up with my partner but I feel so guilty about hurting them and I just don't know how to pull the trigger.
[00:12:35]:
And I think that this is something a lot of us will relate to. Again, I've been in this situation as well and I think the really important reminder is we often think that we're being kind to someone by not doing that, that we're saving their hurt. But I really think we're saving our discomfort more than anything. We don't want to feel responsible for their hurt. We don't want to feel like the bad guy, we don't want to have kind of like their hurt on our hands or our shoulders. And so we just avoid and we persist in dynamics where our heart's just not in it anymore. And as much as we feel like that's the kind thing, it's actually not. Because leading someone on kind of dragging them along in a dynamic that you know has an end date and you're not really in it for the long haul.
[00:13:30]:
You're wasting their time, you're wasting your time and they're going to have to face that hurt and upset sooner or later if you really know that the relationship isn't for you. So I think that you kind of just have to rip the band aid off and of course you can do so lovingly and in a way that is honest and kind and doesn't need to exacerbate hurt. And I think that oftentimes making ourselves available to have a conversation in a direct way rather than letting it get really bad before we break up, I think that will actually liberate them far more than just letting it fester and kind of dragging them along, leading them on. I don't think that that's as kind as you might be telling yourself. I don't think that that is the selfless thing to do, even though I have no doubt that it is coming from a good place in you in wanting to avoid that really big hurt. Trust that they'll be okay. And in any event, if that's what's going to happen sooner or later, then that's what you need to do. So I think go have the conversation.
[00:14:38]:
Be honest, be loving, be kind, be respectful, but don't prolong the pain longer than you need to. Okay? So that was a breakup. Q-A-I hope that that was helpful, and do let me know if you enjoy that format where I jump between a few questions. I receive so many more questions than I ever have the opportunity to answer, and I do file them all the way. So I have a screenshot folder on my phone with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of questions. So if you do like this format of kind of a mixed bag of questions on a topic, let me know in the reviews or feedback on Spotify or send me a DM on Instagram and let me know, and I'll be sure to schedule a few more of these episodes in. If you've enjoyed this episode, please do leave a five star rating or a review. Share it with the people in your life.
[00:15:26]:
It all helps so much, and I'm so grateful for your ongoing support, but otherwise, I look forward to seeing you again next time. 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 sooner.