My ex-husband had the conviction, drive and aggressiveness of my sister. It was nice to have someone like him (her) on my team. He was in my corner. He could fight the dragons for me. He could shore me up where I was weak.
We were a good team until the sunshine went away. When I got overwhelmed and felt used and he got stressed and felt used, we became competitors. We both needed love and understanding but instead we competed for appreciation and respect. Ironically, we fell apart when we had financial security and a Christmas-card-perfect home and family.
We did not fight outwardly. We suffered inwardly. We thought we were good parents and spouses because we did not fight. We kept the peace by giving up pieces of ourselves. We did not express ourselves openly. We harbored resentment. It became hard to be around each other because there was so much emotional subterfuge and suppression. We did not feel emotionally safe around each other. It was hard to connect.
According to research reported in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, couples that address and resolve their conflicts are significantly more satisfied with their relationships than couples that do not.
In truth, we fight because we care. We believe there is something worth fighting for. Only in recent years have I learned to see conflict as two people figuring out a way to move forward together. And I can only do that on my best days, when I am not triggered by fear.
We must all learn a vocabulary to articulate what we want in order to work through dissonance. We learn this by going through phases in our relationship that challenge us. Some call them post-honeymoon, gridlock, or power struggle phases. I call them Reality Phases. They are when we get real and find out if our loved one can and will stand with us.
Reality Phases, where a couple is challenged and forced to work through an obstacle, can happen throughout the lifetime of a relationship, but occur less frequently once a couple has worked through obstacles together and gained maturity and understanding. Reality Phases occur after a Honeymoon Phase and once worked through, lead to more and more secure relationships. Below are the different stages experienced as a couple moves through the relationship maturity continuum.
1.Honeymoon Phase. Most of us are familiar with this heady, effortless, dewy-eyed stage. We are on our best behavior and we only see the best qualities in each other. We want to be together all the time.
There is an attraction fueled by biology and an intoxicating mix of brain chemicals. We are literally high on the feeling of being together. Estrogen and testosterone play a part in initial physical attraction. Interestingly, studies show testosterone drops in men when they are falling in love and rises in women. Both go back to the levels prior to falling in love, after a year or two. Dopamine levels rise when we feel good. It surges on a positive first date. It allows us to sleep and eat less. The more dopamine produced in our body, the more we want it. It is quite like a chemical addiction. Noradrenaline comes on board and makes our heart race and our palms sweat during new love. We feel energized and anxious, and we are very attentive. The more time we spend with a mate the less noradrenaline is produced, which makes us less scared but also less attentive. Another interesting neurochemical fact is that serotonin (a neurotransmitter that affects mood, appetite, sleep, memory, sexual attraction, and social behavior) drops when we are in love, which makes us obsess about a person more. After a year or two of being in love, serotonin levels should return to normal. This mix of chemicals affects our behavior and our decision-making. It behooves us to know how “out of control” we truly are. Our neurobiology has a big influence.
According to couples therapist Bruce Muzik, the romance or honeymoon stage can last anywhere from two months to two years. What causes it to end? The brain cocktail dissipates and the relationship develops a sense of permanence.
2.Reality Phase. Once one or both partners perceive permanence in the relationship, the struggle kicks in. This is when most couples break up. This is where conflict begins—both internal and external. We realize we have given up parts of ourselves for connection and want ourselves back. Often at this point, we break up and each go on serial dating, always breaking up after the honeymoon phase, or we agree to silently compromise and sacrifice our authenticity and what we really want, to keep the relationship going. If we do the latter, the relationship and we die emotionally. Partners grow apart and unsurprisingly; our sex life suffers.
Elements of automation and attachment surface during this stage. We will discuss attachment theory later in this chapter, but I will address automation now. Neuroscience says our brains constantly look to simplify and automate processes to make less work. Think about when you start a new job. At first, it seems there is a lot to learn and our brains get a workout paying attention to every detail. Over time, some parts of our job become second nature and we move through them with minimal effort. Our relationships and our partners are no different. After a while with our mate, we think we can predict their behavior, so we do not have to be as attentive. We go on autopilot and send fewer texts, make less eye contact and use past experiences to forecast present ones. Our partner feels less seen, heard, and loved and usually lets us know.
What can we do to avoid these outcomes?
Love and fight consciously. Maintain attentiveness and presence. Do not go on autopilot. Stay attuned to our partner. Use the conflict to grow and heal, make progress. Work through arguments until we both feel understood.
Imagine you and your mate have been together over a year. You’ve fallen into a habit of watching movies together on the weekend; each of you with your phone or iPad in your lap as you sit side-by-side on the couch. The movie plays on the television. Your eyes rarely meet and your attention is directed more at technology than at each other.
To keep love and interest alive, eliminate the extra technology in your laps. Sit closer together and hold hands. Enjoy the movie together. When something funny happens look at your partner and share the humor. If something sad or meaningful happens, again, amplify the moment by looking into your mate’s eyes.
Here is another example demonstrating conscious attention over autopilot. A couple that has been together for six months gets in an argument over how much time they spend together. The girlfriend thinks her boyfriend spends too much time with his friends and family and not enough time with her. The boyfriend feels he is considerate of his girlfriend’s feelings and that she is overreacting. It would be easy for Girlfriend to go on autopilot and let her experience with a past boyfriend, who often stood her up, shade her perception of her current boyfriend’s behavior. That old fear of abandonment speaks loudly in her subconscious. Instead she realizes she is sensitive to distancing behavior and thinks about how important her boyfriend’s friends and family are to him. She also remembers how often he invites her to join them in their activities. She quickly acknowledges her fears to her boyfriend and gives him the benefit of the doubt. He suggests doing something, just the two of them, that night.
It should be noted the Reality phase cannot be skipped. Every couple on their way to a secure relationship passes through this struggle. This is when we learn to articulate our needs and generate empathy.
3.The Secure Phase. Once we make it through a Reality Phase, connectedness returns. We learn to accept our partner for who they are. We don’t try to change them. There is a sense of respect and security. We stick up for each other and believe and act like we are a team. If one of us hurts the other, we quickly repair any damage we caused. Our partner’s concerns are our concerns.
4.The World Bliss Phase. This is the Secure Phase plus the ability to work together to make the world a better place. Together we can do far more than we could alone. There is the synergy mentioned in Practice Four where one plus one equals three or more. We move beyond our intimate relationship into the world. We act as a team and a force for positive change.
FIGHTING IS HEALTHY
Remember, we fight be
cause we care. We want to make our relationship work. To get to the fulfilling Secure and World Bliss stages, we have to fight our way through the Reality Phase. How do we fight consciously? What does it look like when we don’t?
Let’s start with unproductive fighting, the kind that does not heal or resolve anything. It often starts with an event that sets one or both of us on edge. We may be triggered internally by nuances or memories that remind us of past problems within this relationship or other relationships. Because of the triggering, we disconnect or distance ourselves from our partner emotionally and/or physically. This leads to an argument, which leads to reactive behavior caused by our primitive brain’s perceived threat. Reactive behavior could be anything from yelling and swearing to ultimatums to complete withdrawal to multiple “check in” texts throughout the day. The point is it is unproductive and usually leads to more distancing.
Triggering event Distancing Reactive Behavior More Disconnection
Conscious or attentive fighting is productive. It starts out the same with an inciting event and disconnection from our partner, but it moves into the type of arguing that aims for clarity and understanding. The goal is to work together until we each feel heard and understood. This kind of fighting involves empathy and responsiveness, subjects we will go deep into in the next chapter, but for now responsiveness means listening to our partner’s requests for attention and responding to them without clouding our reaction with our own autobiography or defensiveness. Once we achieve a feeling of being understood, we reconnect. Our intimacy improves and we move out of the Reality Phase.
Triggering event Distancing Attentive Behavior Reconnection
An important point to remember is that every complaint or issue our partner or we bring up has a fear and a need for connection behind it. No one truly likes being disconnected. Not even introverts. As we said in the previous chapter, humans are social creatures wired for love and interacting.
Think of a consistent issue you have with your mate. It could be something like, “He is often negative and judgmental.” Now think of the worry behind it. What are you afraid of? What is the worst-case scenario you envision? It could be, “I worry he may start being critical and mean to me. I am afraid I won’t be able to take that, so I’ll withdraw or end the relationship.”
Lastly, with your complaint or perceived issue, what are you really asking for? In our example about our negative and judgmental partner, it could be, “I want to feel safe around my partner so I can make mistakes and be vulnerable. I want to relax and be close with him.” Does this need remind you of a previous relationship, perhaps with a family member or ex-partner? Often our fears or worries stem from old wounds created when we were children or in a different relationship. All our relationships shape us into the people we are today. They plant the seeds for how we handle closeness and conflict.
“I am not sure that I exist, actually, I am all the writers that I have read,
all the people that I have met, all the (men) that I have loved;
all the cities I have visited.”—Jorge Luis Borges
ATTACHMENT THEORY
Attachment theory tells us that our beliefs and expectations about relationships have their origins in our earliest childhood relationships. The quality of our relationships with our first primary caregivers, affects our future intimate relationships.
If our first relationships were secure, loving, and safe, we have a better chance of experiencing secure, loving relationships in the future. If our parent/child relationships were more insecure, with less emotional stability and protection, then we are at greater risk for forming less stable and insecure relationships in adulthood.
Attachment theory in psychology originated in 1958 with the work of John Bowlby. In the 1930s, John Bowlby worked as a psychiatrist in London, where he treated many emotionally disturbed children.
This experience led Bowlby to consider the importance of the child’s relationship with their mother in terms of their social, emotional, and cognitive development. It shaped his belief about the link between early infant separation from the mother and later maladjustment. This led Bowlby to formulate his attachment theory.
Bowlby, working alongside James Robertson in 1952 observed that children experienced intense distress when separated from their mothers. Even when other caregivers fed the children, their distress did not diminish. Hence, the anxiety was not simply hunger or a desire for food. They missed the connection with their mother.
Bowlby later defined attachment as a “lasting psychological connectedness between human beings.”
Psychologist Mary Ainsworth later (1971 and 1978) designed and carried out a study called The Strange Situation. Infants one to two years old were put into a child-friendly setting with their mother and a stranger. At different times throughout the experiment the child was either with his or her mother alone in the toy-filled room, with his or her mother and the stranger in the room, alone with the stranger in the room or alone in the room. The psychologists then observed the infants’ reaction to each setting.
Insecurely and securely attached children reacted very differently to the absence and return of their mothers.
Securely attached children were confident in their caregiver’s ability to soothe them if they were upset. They safely explored the room when their parent was present and became distressed when they left. They were quickly soothed when their mother returned.
The study concluded children develop a sense of security when their caregiver is sensitive to their needs and responds to them competently. Securely attached children made up the majority of the children in Mary Ainsworth’s studies.
Infants with an insecurely avoidant attachment style did not orient to their caregiver when exploring the room. They did not seek their mother when they were distressed. They were very independent of their caregiver emotionally and physically. Ainsworth concluded that these caregivers were insensitive and even rejecting of their child’s needs. In times of distress this parent was often unavailable. Because the parent did not value closeness, the child stopped seeking it and may have even started viewing it as intrusive. Insecure avoidant children made up about 15% of the children in the study.
Insecurely ambivalent children exhibited clingy or dependent behavior with their mother and were hesitant to leave her and explore the room. They were not soothed by their mother and often rejected her interactions. The child did not have a developed sense of security from the caregiver. They were ambivalent about closeness, both wanting it and rejecting it. This behavior was concluded to be the result of inconsistent responsiveness (close and attentive sometimes, unavailable other times) from the mother. These children also made up 15% of Ainsworth’s studies.
Attachment theory is not limited to the infancy stage of life. The child/parent interactions or lack thereof that occur beyond infancy (into childhood, adolescence and adulthood) affect our tolerance for intimacy and relationships as well. Relationships we form as adults also mold our ability to form secure bonds.
Our brains have plasticity. Neural pathways grow and change with repetition of positive or negative interactions. We can move from being insecurely attached as young children to more securely attached as adults—all based on the relationships we form along the way.
ALTERNATE ATTACHMENT THEORY
An alternate attachment theory proposed in 1984 by Jerome Kagan suggested the temperament of the child is what leads to different attachment types. Children with different innate temperaments will have different attachment types. Research in 1989 found babies with an “easy” temperament (eat and sleep regularly, accepting of new experiences) are likely to develop secure attachments. Babies who were “slow to warm up” and took a while to get used to new experiences are likely to have insecure avoidant attachments. Babies with a “difficult” temperament who eat and sleep irregularly and reject new experiences are likely to have insecure ambivalent attachments.<
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INNATE TEMPERAMENT THEORY AND INTROVERSION / HIGH SENSITIVITY
The innate temperament theory made me wonder about the correlation between introversion, high sensitivity, and attachment. Many highly sensitive people are introverts. High sensitivity in infants could mean fussy, slow to warm up, and not easily consoled, hence a more insecure attachment with their primary caregiver.
The most complete explanation of why children develop different attachment types could be an interactionist theory. In other words, attachment type is a result of a combination of the child’s innate temperament and their parents’ sensitivity toward their needs.
WHY ATTACHMENT THEORY IS IMPORTANT TO RELATIONSHIPS
As mentioned earlier, it has been shown that our attachment style affects how we handle closeness as adults. It offers an explanation of why we react to closeness and intimacy with ease or discomfort. It gives us valuable information about why we may distance ourselves or cling to a partner. It helps us explain the discomfort we feel or the conflict we create with a significant other.
If we understand our attachment style we can connect with our partner better and heal wounds from our past primary relationships. We can fight consciously and productively, versus using our primitive brain and reacting subconsciously and unproductively.
As mentioned, it is possible to move toward secure attachment with an intimate partner as an adult. We change depending upon our current primary relationship. Ideally, we maintain secure attachment or move along the continuum to achieve it. Insecurely avoidant attachment style is the least secure, ambivalent is next, and of course, securely attached is the most secure.
It should be noted that attachment styles are not mental disorders or indicators of our mental health, nor is it bad to be insecurely attached. Dr. Tatkin says more than 50% of people are securely attached, leaving less than 50% insecurely attached.
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