Is insecurity or withdrawal — by you, your husband or both of you — an issue in your marriage? Today, I’ll give you some insight into what might be going on. I’ll explore different attachment styles and how they play into your relationships.
Your family is actually the very first place you learn about relationships. The experiences you have with your caregivers have a strong influence over how you relate to other people in your life. Understanding your particular style of connecting helps you see what strengths and vulnerabilities you bring to your marriage.
What Is Your Attachment Style?
If you’re lucky, your early caregivers were loving, responsive, and reliable. If so, you learned that you can trust people and developed a secure attachment style. You’re probably comfortable with emotional intimacy and depending on others, which, as you can imagine, makes it easier to be in a relationship. About 60 percent of people have this attachment style.
But what if your parents or caregivers weren’t so consistent? Maybe they were there for you sometimes, but other times were physically or emotionally unavailable when you needed them. These experiences can lead to an ambivalent/anxious attachment style. It’s characterized by feeling unsure whether someone will actually love you and worried that they may leave. People who are clingy or very sensitive to rejection often have this style.
Children of parents who were regularly unavailable or unresponsive can develop an avoidant attachment style. They learn to take care of themselves at a very young age. This independence can cause them to have trouble seeking emotional closeness with others. A person with this style may seem like an aloof or uncaring partner.
Finally, there’s the disorganized attachment style. It can arise in children who suffer abuse or neglect, or whose parents frighten them because of their own unresolved trauma. These children grow up to become adults who struggle with trusting others, managing their emotions and even feeling safe at all.
In reading the descriptions of the different attachment styles, you probably have a sense now of what your own might be. This quiz can also help you pinpoint your attachment style.
Working With Your Attachment Style
If both you and your husband have a secure attachment style, that’s great news for your marriage. You have a sound foundation for weathering a relationship’s normal ups and downs.
But if one of you doesn’t have a secure attachment style now, that hardly means your marriage is doomed. It’s possible to shift your attachment style. If you happen to have found a secure partner, that may help you to eventually develop a secure connection too.
The most challenging situation is when both of you have insecure attachment styles. It’s common, for example, for ambivalent/anxious and avoidant people to couple up — and drive each other crazy. One will cling, and the other will try to get away. Just understanding where each of you is coming from can be helpful. But you may need to seek counseling to protect your marriage and to develop healthier ways of relating.
When was the last time you and your husband had sex? Do you feel like the physical intimacy between you is slowly withering away? In this eye-opening TED talk, seasoned marriage therapist, Michele Weiner-Davis explains how to turn this situation around.
Michele Weiner-Davis, MSW is an internationally renowned relationship expert, best-selling author, marriage therapist, and professional speaker. Among the first in her field to courageously speak out about the pitfalls of unnecessary divorce, Michele has been active in spearheading the now popular movement urging couples to make their marriages work and keep their families together. Michele is the Director of The Divorce Busting® Center and the founder of www.divorcebusting.com. She has been a frequent guest on shows such as Oprah, 20/20, 48 Hours, The TODAY show, Good Morning America, CBS Evening News, and so on. Her work as been featured in most major newspapers and magazines.
Do you remember how upset you got the last time you felt your husband was ignoring you or didn’t seem to care about your needs? Did you calmly ask for what you needed? Or, did you scream at him or give him the cold shoulder?
When someone we love isn’t there for us, it can be very distressing. And when it’s the person we’ve chosen to spend our lives with, it can feel downright scary. Like it or not, we are all hardwired for connection. We literally cannot survive on our own. This means depending on each other is not a choice, even if our society incorrectly convinces us we’re weak if we need anyone.
I recently attended a fabulous conference about Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), a type of marriage therapy developed by Dr. Sue Johnson. Sue is one of the leading marriage researchers in the world and says we should accept our need for each other and learn how to get closer in our most important relationships. She uses the science on love and attachment to help people become warmer, more genuine, and present with their partner.
If you think you might be interested in learning more about EFT, I would recommend reading Sue Johnson’s wonderful book, Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love or her checking out her website: DrSueJohnson.com. If you’d prefer a summary of some of the core ideas, keep reading.
Importance of Close Relationships
EFT draws on the large body of research on human attachment and recognizes that close relationship are essential to our well being. Think about some of these interesting facts research has already discovered about love:
We are hardwired to connect. We are bonding mammals, so we literally die without connection to others. Love is a force that keeps us close to each other, thereby supporting our very survival.
For our physical and mental health, we need to feel secure, not just know it. We know when we have emotional security because we feel it at a gut level.
Secure connections with our loved one are linked to lower rates of heart disease, increased immune system functioning, and decreased depression.
When we truly feel secure and safe in our relationship(s), we are also naturally calmer, clearer in our thinking, and much more empathetic, curious, and open.
The single largest threat to us emotionally is anything that jeopardizes our sense of belonging. We use each other to stay calm and steady, so when something significant goes wrong in an important relationship, we will go into a state of panic at a very deep level.
Being alone is the scariest and most dangerous thing that can happen to a person. Because we’re wired to keep others close to us, our bodies literally experience pain when are isolated, left out, or lose an important relationship. Heartbreak is a real thing.
Research shows that criticism and other hurtful words actually cause us physical harm. The same areas in the brain light up on a brain scan in response to physical or emotional pain.
Strategies for Connection
So what does all this have to do with you and your husband? In a society where people have fewer and fewer connections, a marriage becomes a very important part of your well being. How your husband responds when you need him carries a great deal of weight. When you reach out to your partner, sometimes he will respond, and sometimes he won’t. By reaching out, Sue Johnson says, what we’re really asking our partner is:
Can I count on you?
Are you here for me?
Will you respond when I need, when I call?
Do I matter to you?
Am I valued and accepted by you?
Do you need me, rely on me?
If you have a husband that is usually responsive, an occasional lapse may annoy you, but not much more. If, however, you’re truly afraid that the answer to these questions is “no,” you’ll feel insecure and will probably do one of the following:
1. Protest. You react to his disconnection by freaking out, demanding, or pushing. You may also complain, criticize or blame. Unfortunately, these behaviors tend to push any person even further away.
2. Withdraw. You tell yourself that you don’t need him anyway. Inside, you’re not at all at peace or happy about this. In fact, you feel resigned and hopeless. You might find other ways of numbing or escaping these painful feelings, such as staying incredibly busy, spending all your time with the kids, surfing the net, eating or exercising too much, or using alcohol or drugs.
EFT has identified three common relationship patterns that couples get stuck in when they feel disconnected:
1. Protest Polka. I protest your disconnection, and you withdraw. (“I know you don’t care about me any more!”) Your withdrawal makes me more insecure, so I protest louder (“You’re never going to change!) and you withdraw further. This pattern is the most common one leading to divorce.
2. Find the Bad Guy. I protest your distance (“You don’t even kiss me when you get home!”), and you protest mine (“When was the last time you actually asked me how I’m doing?”). We try to pin the blame for the disconnection on each other and end up driving each other further away.
3. Freeze and Flea. We both give up on fighting for the connection and retreat because we think it’s safer. This is nothing but a recipe for tremendous loneliness.
The hard thing to see in these relationship dances is that couples are actually wanting emotional connection, but creating more distance. We all need our partner to see us, tune into how we’re really doing, and love us through hard times. We just may not be so great at asking for connection in ways that work very well.
So, what can you do to increase the odds of keeping your partner close? Here are a few tips out of the EFT approach to try:
• Be emotionally present. Emotional presence is the key to connection. Direct face-to-face contact without electronic devices, interruptions, or distractions is essential. You must show up in both body and mind. You don’t have to always make huge amounts of time for each other, but when you are interacting, make sure you’re really genuinely present and doing your best to connect. Otherwise, the connection with you will be no different from connection with a stranger. But since you’re not a stranger, being disconnected from you will probably upset your partner.
• Make your relationship a priority. You have to be very intentional and make your relationship a priority if you want to keep your marriage strong. Our society does little to support relationships, so you have to decide yours is important and work on staying connected emotionally.
• Move toward each other. When either of you are struggling, try to reach out, rather than being hurtful or pulling away. Talk about what’s really going on with you without casting blame. If you value your partner, he’s much more likely to listen to you.
• Be positive. Consistently acknowledge, support, and appreciate your partner, remembering how bad you feel when you’re not receiving these things yourself.
