Hey, everyone. Welcome to Being Well. I'm Forrest Hansen. If you're new to the show, thanks for listening today. And if you've listened to before, welcome back. I've been really looking forward to today's episode, which is going to focus... on one of the most important aspects of most people's lives creating a fulfilling secure relationship we'll explore some of the most common mistakes couples make how our individual attachment style can shape our relationships
and the importance of key ideas like emotional validation. We'll also be talking about some of the common problematic cycles that can emerge in our relationships and what we can do to move toward more secure ways of relating to each other. And to help me do that, I'm joined by a very special guest, a marriage and family therapist and author of the new book, Secure Love, Julie Manano. So Julie, how are you doing today? I'm good. Thanks for having me.
Yeah, really happy to be doing this with you. To tell you a little bit more about Julie, she has a clinical therapy practice working with couples. And many listening probably already know her through Instagram, where she offers relationship insights and advice to over 1.3 million followers, which is an absolutely crazy number of people, Julie. You're like radically successful over there, which is great.
It feels good. It feels good to be able to have that kind of reach. You've worked with so many different couples through your private practice, and you've also just talked to a lot of people, I'd imagine, through places like Instagram. Is there a particular mistake? issue that couples make that really stands out to you something that typically brings them into your office you know all couples are struggling with different you know kind of content details in their lives
All couples have their different kind of things that they fight over, right? Their hot topics. But most of the time, what's going on is that it's the way that they're communicating during conflict. a lack of actual emotional full emotional safety and connection in the relationship which impacts the way that they do conflict and then the way they're doing conflict
further erodes anything that was already kind of off about their emotional availability connection to each other. So the typical couple is going to come to me and they're going to say, you know, we have all these strengths a lot of times we're doing really well you know we get along over here and we parent great together and
see eye to eye in these areas, but then we get in these fights and it goes south and A, nothing gets resolved. You know, we keep having this fight about the same topic over and over and B, causes us to stop trusting each other and feel distant from each other. You know, we're in a bad spot. We're in a tense place after these fights or arguments. And then they say to themselves, well, we're never going to do that again.
you know, we're never going to fight again. We've learned so much. And then they just either go from that point, they just kind of push that issue under the rug. But eventually that issue is going to resurface and they're going to go right back into the real core of the problem. which is the way they're communicating around these areas where they don't see eye to eye. And then the layer on top of that, that is the fact that really there's just emotional dysfunction.
Typically, almost all the couples I see, one partner has an avoidant attachment style. The other partner has an anxious attachment style. And basically what that means is they can't reach each other emotionally in a nutshell. And so what happens is, is anyone who kind of comes to the relationship with this stuff to begin with, which is typically developed during childhood, not having...
the healthiest emotional environment in childhood. You know, there's varying degrees. Sometimes people can say, look, I had a pretty good childhood, right? But we can still have... some areas where the emotional availability wasn't fully there and so then they come into the relationship with these this kind of emotional baggage and typically that's going to look like not really knowing how to manage their own emotional selves in the healthiest way
And then they're going to start, they're going to come together and things are going to be okay. And then there's going to start to be conflict, like inevitably will happen with any two people who come together. those emotional issues are going to get tied up in the way that they're trying to work through this conflict. And then they're going to start creating insecurity between the two of them. You see these different...
emotional notes or emotional topics. The top line of the music might be different from couple to couple, the specific issues that they're dealing with. But you've identified that the baseline of the music has this consistency to it. These common kinds of themes, these common kinds of dynamics, which for you in the work that you do seem to really get back to attachment theory.
I know that you're also trained in emotionally focused therapy, which is Sue Johnson's method. We had the great pleasure of speaking with Sue on the podcast a little while ago, which was lovely. Unfortunately, she passed away recently, as listeners might know. and is a total legend in the field and was also just a gem of a person. Absolutely.
Most of the people listening have probably heard of attachment theory, which originally focused on the relationship that a child has to its primary caregivers. And the basic idea is that people are either securely or insecurely attached. More common insecure styles are anxious and avoidant. You already mentioned those two. There's another one, disorganized or fearful, which is a bit less common that includes aspects of both anxious and avoidant.
And these different styles have different tendencies, which again, as you said, then show up in our relationships. I've read a lot about attachment at this point during the podcast, but I really liked how in the book you often talked about the different styles through the lens of attachment needs. Could you explain what those are? You know, we all have kind of the same attachment needs, right?
It's an evolutionary thing. It's kind of like we all have an appetite, right? We all need food. We all kind of need the same macronutrients to be healthy and survive. Within that context, there's a lot of variation. So we all need, in order to feel safe and close to another person.
right? These attachment needs are different from these needs that we have kind of with our own relationship with ourself. But to feel safe and close to another person, we need to feel relatively understood. We need to feel emotionally. seen and validated, we need to feel like, and I'm going to speak specifically in the context of close romantic relationships, we need to feel like our needs matter to our partner.
We need to feel like we can reach them, their vulnerability. We need to feel that they can hold our deeper levels of vulnerability. Some people might not be in touch with these needs, but these needs are very much there. So according to attachment theory, when these needs are predominantly met in the relationship between two partners, both partners most of the time in the overall climate of the relationship are walking around feeling... heard, understood.
or they know that when they need to, when they reach for that, those needs are reasonably, they can be reasonably assured that their partner will show up for them. They're going to have a secure attachment. They're going to feel a sense of security and safety in their relationship. And then we have.
the couples who predominantly don't feel that way. They're never quite sure. They can't be 100% sure. Sometimes they don't feel understood or validated. And when that happens, they can't get back on track. and get back to that kind of felt sense of safety and security. And it just creates like a, you know, imagine like food insecurity. There's not a lot of predictability that it's going to be there when I need them. They're not going to be fully fulfilled and safe.
It's kind of the same thing in these distressed relationships. Yeah, there can be these really good moments, but if you always sort of have this nagging idea that I'm going to get dropped in the future or I can't quite be sure, and if I do, we can't really make our way back to each other. consistently. So that according to attachment theory is a state of insecure attachment. And so my job is to go in and just help couples start meeting each other's attachment needs consistently.
time and then when inevitably there's ruptures and those needs being met they have the skills and tools to come back together and get these repairs made and usually you know through the repair process They have an opportunity to be vulnerable with each other, which then actually strengthens the relationship. So we're using these repairs, not just as a way to undo damage, but as a way to actually.
strengthen and then in your words of your work, create more resilience. There are some needs that are pretty common across people, but- Also, there's a lot of variety on top of that. We're all human, but we all have our individual pain points, the things that tend to really matter to us more than the other things.
Are there ways that you've found that can help people identify not just their bigger attachment style like the bucket that they're in, but really the core attachment needs that tend to really matter for them? I find that specificity there that you explore in the book actually really helpful for people. We're really as needy as our unmet needs, and we're more needy around where we have been wounded. piece of it too, is how a person goes about getting that need met.
Right. So it can make it look because some people are behaving in ways with the same need. It can make it look almost like they have different needs, but it's really the difference is how they're going about trying to get that need met. Everybody's really core need is a sense of safety and connection and relationships. And so someone with an anxious attachment, you know, typically they're going to be far more in touch with.
a need for emotional validation. That's going to be kind of paramount for them. And what this is, is it all sort of circles back to the theme of abandonment. And a lot of times when people hear that word abandonment, They think, oh, physical abandonment. But there's this big, huge piece of emotional abandonment for a lot of couples that are in kind of stable relationships where they're not really worried their partner's going to leave them.
But still, they get massively triggered during these interactions because they feel emotionally abandoned. Their partner's telling them you're irrational. Your feelings don't really make sense to me. You're being too emotional. Here's why you should just feel better. I'm going to present all this evidence that you shouldn't feel the way that you feel. Your feelings really aren't welcome here. You're emotionally too much.
For someone who grew up in an environment where this was already the case, they're going to be very, very sensitive to what I've just described as emotional abandonment. And then you have someone with an avoidant attachment. And they're ultimately going for the same sense of safety and the same sense of connection. They just, when they were growing up.
They didn't get any emotional attention to the degree that they learned to just not need it anymore, right? But did they really not need it or did they try to push it away? So they pushed it away. The same emotional need is there, but typically someone with an avoidant attachment, they learned to feel that sense of safety a lot of the times with the couples I treat through task oriented.
be good enough, succeed, you know, get kind of surface level reward for what you do as opposed to just kind of who you are. Right. But they're still looking that that is their way of getting emotional validation. But it is all at the core. It's the same need for connection and safety. And so. What I need to do is I need to balance this out. Like I need to, you know, help this anxious partner learn how to get.
emotional availability from their partner so that they don't have to feel emotionally abandoned all the time. But guess what? I have to do the same thing with the avoidant partner who thinks they don't have emotional needs, which is... get them in touch with the fact that you actually need to be emotionally validated too. You're just fighting for it in a very different way.
You're getting into something that I really want to talk with you about today, Julie, which is how our individual attachment styles predict what our relationships will look like. Are two securely attached people just going to have a securely attached relationship if they end up in a relationship with each other? Are two anxiously attached people just going to, they're kind of doomed to be in an anxiously attached relationship? What have you really seen here?
I do think that two people who are securely attached are probably going to come together and create a securely attached relationship because your relationship with other people is a direct reflection of your relationship with yourself. So what is someone who has a secure attachment with themselves? They are able to kind of manage and regulate their emotions in a very healthy way. They're able to.
recognize, be in touch with their emotional needs. They're able to advocate for those needs. They're able to have a you know a real strong sense of wanting to help other people that they care about with their emotions they know how to deal with their own emotions meaning they're equipped to help others with their emotions
We get these skills originally from the relationship that we have with our earliest caregivers. That sets the template for the relationships we have with ourselves. And then we go into relationships and we replicate all of that with other people. So it's very... you know, something really big needs to happen for that to be shaken up. Let's say...
You know, two people come together. They're very securely attached. One all of a sudden, bam, gets hit with like a terrible episode of depression or something, some kind of trauma happens. And yeah, they can start going into. some of these anxious avoidant dynamics at that point. I don't see people who have anxious, anxious attachments or avoidant, avoidant attachment. I think they're extraordinarily rare. Really? That's so interesting.
For a relationship to be sustainable, it's going to have to find some sort of emotional homeostasis. The anxious partner is the one constantly trying to close the distance. resolve problems, create more closeness, fix things, reach, reach, reach, reach. The avoidant partner is the one that's over here going, let's just not make things worse.
Right. Let's I'm not going to work on closing the distance because every time we try to resolve something or get close, it turns into a fight. And so I need to protect the relationship in my way. by kind of pushing problems under the rug, pretending they don't exist, trying to get my partner to just calm down, right? And so if you have two people with this anxious style where they're both fighting, fighting, fighting for connection, it's just too much energy.
It's probably not going to last very long. It's going to be exhausting. And the end game isn't going to work out too well because these people don't. really know how to connect, right? That's kind of the core issue is they're wanting connection. They're very well aware that they want it, but they also don't really know how that looks or feels anyway.
For the anxiously attached person, you mentioned there's this deep desire for connection, which I think hallmark of anxious attachment, the bucket that can never be filled. You know, like the constant reaching for these kind of emotional resources or love, security, the feeling of safety, all of that. So they might get it right now. And when the food is in their mouth, they can taste the flavor of it. But the moment they swallow the flavor,
flavor is gone. And even kind of the sense memory of it is gone as well. But you mentioned something there about there's this desire for that, but without any real sense of how to get it or internalize it or what it would be like if they had it, kind of like a dog chasing their own tail. Would you mind talking about that a little bit or maybe doing a better job of explaining?
again that i did yeah i mean i think that that what you just said about you know taking the bite and it's fine until you swallow it i would add to that that it's fine halfway through chewing and then all of a sudden It's like the second the brain registers something kind of good, it's like, bam, good things go away. Good things go away.
That's been their experience with unpredictable relationships and predictable emotional availability, right? When something's unpredictable, you have this hope. You've had enough of it to know that there's hope, that it exists. But you haven't had enough experience with predictability and consistency. So in your experience, not yours, but someone with an anxious attachment in their experience, anything good that came their way.
didn't come back or was ripped away from them you know it was like sometimes Sometimes I get emotionally responded to, sometimes I don't growing up. And so they take the bite and it's like halfway through chewing it, their nervous system says, oh no, alarm bell, something good is coming our way. That means it's going to be followed by loss.
That means we can't trust that we'll ever get more of it. And then their nervous system gets hijacked. That sends them into a trigger. They're never really able to fully take it in. I have a podcast right now where I'm doing 20 sessions with a real couple. And if you listen to that podcast, you'll hear it playing out with the anxious partner. And it makes sense. It's actually, there's wisdom and truth in that fear.
Because that's been their experience and it probably still is their experience in the relationship. So I'm always working with both sides of the equation. I need to not only get this anxious partner in a place where they can actually take this in and sit with it and enjoy. I also need to get the other partner in a place where they can start showing up more consistently so the anxious partner can start to rest. So it's not just...
teaching the anxious partner to blindly trust. It's fixing the whole system. So the environment is a trusting environment. A lot of times... Anxious partners, they don't even know what feels good to begin with. Some of them have never experienced actual connection, actual feelings of connection. Again, they know they crave it.
right? They know they want it. They know there's a hole there. If you don't know what it actually feels like on a felt nervous system level, how could you possibly try to find a partner who can... help you create that experience within your body and so they find partners that they think on paper yeah this should be okay this should look good here they are but but that partner it doesn't really know how to be available
So they have this chronic feeling of like emptiness that they don't even know how to put words to. They don't really even know what's missing. And so then they start fighting. It's like that's when you're going to see people be clingy or constantly raise the bar because they're fighting for something that they don't even know what it is and their partner doesn't know how to give it to them anyway. We'll be right back to the show in just a moment.
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Let me get you started with my special discount. You'll get 20% off your first order. Just use code beingwell at fieldofgreens.com. That's code beingwell at fieldofgreens.com. Now, back to the show. So this is sometimes also known, it could be anxious, avoidant attachment, or sometimes it's called the pursuer-distancer dynamic. And I think that's a really interesting way to talk about it. You have one person who's searching for more closeness.
the other one who's searching for a bit more distance. And it's true, every single clinician I've ever had on the show who works with couples talks about this dynamic and talks about it as being by far overwhelmingly the most common group of people. that they see in their practice. On the one hand, this is very counterintuitive, like why would these two different people be drawn toward each other when their attachment style seems to activate
the greatest fears that each of them have. On the one hand, you're activating that anxiety in the more anxiously attached person. On the other hand, you've got this more avoidantly attached person who's like, man, can you just give me a little bit of space over here? on the other hand it kind of makes sense you know you're replicating these systems maybe you had some exposure to them when you were a kid maybe it's just a pattern that you've fallen into
that are kind of more present for you throughout your history. And it's where you're comfortable, you're used to that kind of a dynamic. It has a certain familiarity to it that can be attractive to people in a way. And if you're working with somebody who's in that kind of a... dynamic with their partner julie is there a place that you normally start yeah i always start with you know stabilizing their negative cycle so when couples get into a fight let's just say
a couple comes together and they have some issue right there there's a problem one partner's mad at the other one and so the concerned partner the one who's bringing up the concern which is typically going to be the anxious partner they bring up the concern but they bring it up in this way that's kind of heated
with this blame and protest and criticism. You never do this. You never do that. Now the other partner, now they get triggered and they say, oh my God, here we go again. Now we're going to talk about this thing that's only going to take us into a fight. Or, oh my God, now I'm being attacked and I'm being accused of being a bad partner and that feels horrible. And so then they go into their move of trying to kind of make it okay. They might.
defend themselves right which is that's not true look at all the things i did do right right that strategy is how can i convince my partner that they're seeing it all wrong That really, if they would just see all the things I've done well, they won't be mad anymore. Or they might kind of just shut down, shut it down emotionally. They get overwhelmed. They don't know what to do. It could be.
different rounds of that. And so if it's different rounds, it's going to look like anxious partner protests. Avoidant partner starts defending. Now the anxious partner feels invalidated for the concern that they brought up. They're not being heard. They're not being taken in. And there's so much going on underneath that. There's layers, right? You have the first layer, which is just the anger of the situation. And that anger is their body's way of saying,
This doesn't feel right. And this pressure in my body is this feeling of motivation to try to get this fixed, try to reach you, try to. get us to a better spot right but but the anger doesn't really work for the relationship because when the anger comes out in these reactive ways then that just you know creates all these issues between them And so that's the first layer. And then underneath that, you have a layer of more vulnerable feelings, sad, alone, demoralized, helpless, powerless.
You know, they're not talking about that stuff. They're not saying to each other, I feel powerless. I feel alone. I feel there's so much sadness around how lonely I feel. And then under that we have shame. where both of them are saying, what is it about me that I can't get this right?
right? What is it about me? Here I am again. Yeah, there's all these good reasons to blame them. They're too emotional. They're too emotionally out of touch or emotionally unavailable. And there's truth to that. There's always truth to it. have these different parts, but there's also these little voices that are saying, what is it about me? Maybe I am actually too much. Maybe I am just bad. Maybe I am just selfish. And so then that starts to taint the picture.
All of this stuff is happening when you see them talking about money. Yeah, the specific issue becomes a microcosm of all the issues inside of the relationship. And how in the hell, sorry, pardon my language. Are you going to get through a conversation about money and find a way to meet each other?
When you're dealing both partners are dealing with these layers of emotional gunk and overwhelm and having no idea how to put words to it, organize it, help each other with it. And I need to get couples. talking about this stuff and helping each other with it so that we can feel safe and we can feel connected. That's going to feel so good that it's going to be pretty easy for us to approach money as a team.
Because a lot of the needs that people are looking to get met with their finances are actually their cravings for connection that they're not getting. Right. Or security or whatever else. Yeah, absolutely. Yes. Validation. And so it's all, you know, it's all there are sometimes, yes, that there are deal breaking situations. But what I have found.
is that I don't have to spend much time at all, very, very, very little time talking about these surface level details. Once we start getting that emotional connection going, they're just like, oh, we're not arguing about that anymore.
Yeah, because you've gone through this process of exploring these deeper issues. So again, you've got the top notes of the music. I have a background in music. Maybe this is why I'm doing this. Yeah, I love it. Yeah, you've got the melodic line of the music and then you've got the bass notes. So the melodic line is the issue that they're having about money.
the bass notes are everything else that's going on inside of the relationship. Yeah, exactly. What can happen to the melody when you fix the bass? I don't know about music, I'm asking you. Can the melody just start adjusting on its own?
If you had a weird baseline to a song with a great melody, you would definitely notice. Let's put it that way. So even maybe a way to put it is that even a really good melody could not save a song that had a weird rhythm section going on in the background. They're banging too much cowbell. You know, they're really having a good time back there. There's no such thing as too much cowbell, but just as SNL taught us. Yes, absolutely. So I kind of wonder here, Julie, for somebody like.
me who lives in the world of self-help and lives in the world of personal development, has all of these conversations with people, maybe even for somebody who frankly listens to a podcast like ours. There's a certain level of psychoeducation, a certain level of familiarity with these topics. This is probably not the first podcast that this person has ever listened to about attachment theory. If it is, welcome. Thanks for joining us. But for most people, probably not.
It's one thing to talk about these kinds of deeper emotional issues with that person and a bit different to talk with them with somebody who doesn't have that level of familiarity, that idea that there's all of this stuff that could be going on beneath the waterline. from an emotional needs standpoint that might not be showing up superficially inside of the conversation. It's one thing to engage topical content, and it's another thing to engage emotional content.
Putting those kinds of emotional communications on the table can be really foreign for people. Even saying things like, I have these emotional needs. A lot of people are not familiar with that. The way that I get there almost 100% of the time is through fear. You know, when you're triggered, there's some level of fear, something, something is scary. You know, triggers are a fight or flight response. And I just, that's my doorway in is always fear, which is help me understand.
You know, you look at the receipt, right? You look at the receipt and you guys have talked about your budget and how you guys can help each other achieve your financial goals. And you look at the receipt and they ordered an appetizer.
and that's something that you specifically you've talked about a thousand times like hey let's go to dinner and it's not a big deal and but here's one great way where we can cut down on expenses is water and no appetizer right some people are listening to me going who cares that's not a big deal like how controlling if you're mad at your partner for ordering an appetizer but these things matter for people you know that that appetizer can have a lot of meaning for them
financial security and we've talked about this and they said that we could do this plan and all of a sudden, bam, they're not doing it. And what does that mean? And so we're breaking our agreements. You don't respect me. All of this kind of other content gets in here.
I need to understand that. And there's multiple different ways that could be triggering. And I just need to find one of them for someone. And I really need to understand, like, help me understand what this appetizer is. Like what happens in your body when you see that? Just right here and now. We're talking about this moment that you see the appetizer on their seat and they'll go, well, my chest tightens up, my stomach kind of drops. There's your entry point.
What's going on with that? What is your nervous system trying to say right there? Well, it's saying I'm mad. Yeah, you're mad. This isn't where you want to be. This feels bad, right? Like what's going to happen? If this continues, if you keep not being on the same page, if you keep breaking these agreements, what would the relationship feel like to you if you always had to wonder?
When you guys make an agreement when it's going to get broken, well, that would suck. That would be awful. Yes, it would be awful. Your nervous system reaction makes sense to me. That's a bad spot. That's a scary place. How would you feel? Well, I feel alone.
Tell me about the alone. And if you can get them kind of sitting with that, everybody's used to wanting her to run away from that feeling, right? Everybody's used to just go back into talking. Everybody in therapy wants to talk about the trigger. Right. Here's what they did. Here's what they did. And I need to get them back into them. And I need to say, let's just sit with that tension. It has something really, really important to say. Then it's going to turn to sadness.
and alone. And I'm going to say, this is the dark place. Have you ever been here before? Have you ever felt like in your life, your needs don't matter. You're alone with all this stuff. You don't want to go back there. You don't want to feel insecure anymore. You don't want to have to worry about money anymore.
It's a dark, bad place. And how do you try to regulate that? What do you do in the conversation to help that bad feeling go away? Well, that's when I start telling them they're irresponsible. And, you know, yeah, you start protesting. That's your way you're trying to reach. You're trying to reach. How often do you talk about the dark, lonely place, the fear? How often do you talk about the powerlessness, the letdown? Never. All right, let's start putting some words to that.
Every session we're going deeper, deeper, deeper until I start getting down to the, like the shame and the deepest, darkest place of all of these. And so to kind of go full circle. to answering your question you know if people can get good at doing this with themselves and really truly understanding themselves on the level i just explained it's so much easier to start seeing that in your partner and even if your partner really isn't
in the same spot, you know, you can start kind of saying things like, you know, what I'm realizing is that, you know, when I'm in this place where I'm yelling at you about the receipt, like there's all this stuff going on. I mean, I'm really actually kind of scared or. you know me i i felt let down a lot as as a kid and sometimes i go back to that place where it's just a dark place and i and i'm realizing like when i start yelling at you you know then that kind of
hit your wounds and we're not really getting anywhere here. And there's such a self-work component to it. It's very difficult to do this work. And just kind of learn to say the right words and the scripts and all of these things. I mean, there's so much value in that. That's why I wrote a book about it. But there's also this.
you know, this self-work that really needs to be done in conjunction with that. One of the things you seem to be alluding to in this example that you're given, particularly toward the end where the person starts using that more emotionally loaded language or that more needs-based language. I had these experiences, when you do this thing, it makes me feel this way.
maybe even less judgmentally when you do this thing, I feel this way. Things like that. That speaks to something you talk about in the book a bunch, which is emotional validation and having experiences of being emotionally validated by your partner. Many people have essentially no familiarity with being emotionally validated by their partner. So I think it would be great here if you could give some examples of that and sort of explain what you mean by it and the importance of it.
Yeah. So, I mean, in the example I gave, that would be like, let's say that one partner does want to get appetizers. You know, there's no right or wrong here. What happens is, is they get stuck in these arguments. you know nobody's validating each other's feelings so the partner that wants to get the appetizer
you know, they can really take some time to really kind of hear what their partner is saying about money and their fears about money. And, you know, they're feeling like we made this agreement and they might still retain their belief that I really do as an adult. kind of want to go get appetizers, but they still can be like, you know what? I get it. I hear you. I hear that these appetizers, it's not about the appetizer. That actually brings up a lot of fear for you.
You know, you did grow up in a situation where you, you know, your dad lost his job and you had to have government cheese delivered. And this has actually happened to my husband. You know, he grew up. with 13 siblings and his dad did lose his job and they did have to start getting government cheese and money is, he is very frugal because of these experiences that he went through. And just being able to meet that and say, I do, I get that that's a scary place for you. And that's so, so different.
than just continuing to argue facts and details and this and that, and the money isn't a big deal and all this stuff. And it's just very... It's healing in more ways than I can even describe. First of all, if I say that to my husband, he may have never in his life had anyone help him.
Talk about that in that way or just see that experience that he went through. Even just saying to your partner, I really do see how scary this is for you. I really do see that this is rooted in something more powerful. The single best piece of advice, just as a quick comment that my dad ever gave me about relationships was start by joining. Just start by joining. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Like start with, hey, I hear you.
I see you. I might disagree with you, but I hear you and I see you. And that's a good place to start. Yeah. I think that could be the best advice in life ever, period, at all. I mean, if you're doing well in relationships with people, I don't care who it is. You're probably going to do okay in life. And joining is... Rule number one.
That script that you gave earlier about the anxious avoidant relationship and the way that it looks and the way that it spirals and the way that the interaction goes from point A to point Z way over there because it just escalates so rapidly. everything gets sucked into it. That's one model of relating, one model of problem solving that many people are extremely familiar with. That is just life for most people. And so I wanted to ask you,
How does a securely attached couple solve problems in a different way? What does that look like in what you would describe as a securely attached relationship, and how does it contrast with what you painted earlier? Lots of layers there. First of all, they're less likely to get triggered by each other to begin with. So we have to start with that as a starting point. But even in the...
most healthy of circumstances, the healthiest couple out there, something's going to go wrong at some point. They are going to trigger each other. They are going to... bump up against a topic that they're not fully equipped to navigate or whatever and you know people get tired people get hungry people have you know are stressed out by a situation more than the other
I don't know that there's any such thing as a perfectly secure attachment to people who just constantly feel great and there's never a problem. And so what it is, is that the securely attached couple, I would say probably to kind of speak to what you just said is that when these ruptures happen, they're just, they're going to join each other. You know, they might.
kind of start off with wait a minute what are you talking about especially people who've kind of earned the secure attachment through a lot of work you know they're more likely to kind of fall back on those old patterns start with some activation yeah which is totally normal yeah totally normal yeah they're going to fall back but they're going to quickly regroup and they're going to be like okay hold on hold on let's just try to meet each other let's do some co-regulation here
We have a lot of evidence that we're going to be able to work through this. We've been doing a great job. Let's just kind of breathe together. Let's hold each other. It might look like that. For people who are, you know, really kind of savvy with this type of work, especially some people, they might just, you know, go, okay, help me understand what's happening. It's a great line.
Yeah, like help me understand what just happened, what's going on with you. Give that, you know, that's soothing. That is co-regulating when someone's willing to kind of put their own stuff to the side for a second. and meet you where you are and come into your world and try to understand you, that person is going to have an opportunity to say what's going on with them and be vulnerable and get some comfort for that.
They're going to be so much more open now to understand what was going on with their partner. So I'm going to say in a nutshell, the most successful couples are able to successfully repair. Yeah, I think you're totally right on because conflict in a relationship is just inevitable, right? It really is. I mean, I would describe myself as a fairly securely attached person. I was really lucked out in terms of my primary caregivers.
All kinds of stuff comes up in a relationship, man. Nobody gets through this unscathed. So the real question is not can we perfectly avoid conflict, it's like can we handle conflict pretty well when it comes up. And for a lot of people, their model of conflict is conflict is something to be avoided. Conflict is something that is incredibly damaging when it appears.
it's explosive, there are a lot of painful experiences associated with conflict, as opposed to developing a little bit more of a model of conflict that's about learning. about creating an environment where you can be safe even when you're disagreeing with somebody else. Those kinds of models are just a lot less common for people.
And is that something that you find that is able to be developed over time, that kind of safer model of being able to do a repair interaction or be able to engage in a disagreement? Yeah, I mean, that is couples work. So if couples work is possible to be successful, then that is why, you know, I mean, conflict is not a.
bad thing. It's just an is thing. It's I like the color blue. I like the color red. What color are we going to paint the wall? I mean, that's conflict, right? And it can obviously get more uncomfortable. The stakes can be higher. But it's not just managing the conflict. It's also in the process of managing conflict, growing connection. A relationship isn't healthy just because partners can do conflict well.
It's also healthy because they connect well. The beauty of conflict is conflict gets down to the vulnerability that is actually the most connecting. So conflict can be an enormous opportunity, not just to get through it okay, but to actually grow from the experience of navigating it. So that's something that might actually strengthen the attachment bond inside of a couple.
Yeah, that sense of connection and relationship. When I was telling you about my husband and the cheese and the, okay, were you having like a warm feeling?
for my husband okay yeah i was having definitely a sense of empathy a sense of empathy and a sense of like i feel like i know this person better absolutely yeah yes okay so there it is i mean we got there because let's say we started with him being mad at me this didn't really happen we have plenty of fights but this is not one of them but let's say he's mad at me because he finds out i order an appetizer okay
And so you hear that and you're just like, well, that's kind of, that's kind of rigid, you know? But then when I start getting down to that little boy watching his mom getting the government fees and them struggling and being stressed out. How does that hit your heart? Very, very different. Okay, so now use the trigger. We've just used this surface level stuff to get down. I now know my husband better. You know my husband better.
So, yes, I mean, that absolutely. When you start to see your partner through that lens, next time you have some kind of issue come up. those pieces, those fragments of those experiences that you talked about are going to be there. And it's just going to make more empathy. It's going to make less, you know, more resilience.
So the big question that a lot of people are asking themselves, particularly when they walk in the couples counseling, is should we keep doing this? Should I stay or should I go, right? And I'm wondering if you've seen throughout your practice. key traits or key tendencies that tended to differentiate the couples that got better, strengthened their relationship, were able to work through these issues from the couples that were not able to do that.
The easy answer is the couples who are not able to get to a point where they can communicate in a healthy way. Where they can talk about this stuff, yeah. Yeah, my goal is really... i want to meet people where they are if they want to stay together i want that for them too but it's not my goal to keep them together it's my goal to get them healthy
get them communicating in a way and from that you know 99 of the couples when they start doing that they they just want to stay together there are exceptions to that i do have couples who get through this and they really are very strong and they are communicating in the healthiest way possible and they do choose, you know, I'm assuring a couple right now through a breakup.
What happened was there was a lot of infidelity and they both are very progressive people. They both have really learned how to be healthy within their own selves. They've done a lot of self-work. Through the relationship work, we've gotten them to a great place. They're able to connect. They're able to be empathic with each other. But in this infidelity stuff that happened, the more...
formally pursuing partner who I would describe with a secure attachment now after the work, she just something turned off in her. Yeah, no, understandably. Yeah. yeah and it's just it's really as you know it's not possible for her to go back into the relationship in the way it was This couple's a really good example of highly successful couples therapy with a couple who ultimately does not stay together. Sometimes there's a core issue, a difference of...
personality of values of whatever that actually gets revealed through the course of work together that gets both people to a place where they say, you know what, I like you, I care about you, maybe I even love you, but this just practically isn't going to work for whatever reason. That's totally real.
Yes. And they get to walk away instead of always kind of having to wonder, you know, could we have made it work? Was it me? Was it them? I mean, they get to walk away with a lot of clarity. And that itself can then. fuel more health in future relationships. You know, you go through this big learning process, you develop all of these skills, you get a little bit more in your toolbox. Like there's no harm in any of this. There's no downside to good quality couples therapy.
We'll be back to the show in just a minute, but first a word from our sponsors. Now, back to the show. I have just a curiosity about couples therapy in general. It's something that... I find really interesting because it's hard enough to kind of do this stuff on your own as an individual. You're processing your own content you're dealing with.
with the own things that you're finding challenging. And then you're in a room with two people who are doing that simultaneously around issues that are often quite high stakes issues. When the food starts flying, inside of an interaction, there's so much that's going on. And I think that a lot of the difficulty that people have inside of their own relationships is that it just feels like there's a lot happening.
at any given moment. And so I'm wondering how you kind of pay attention to all of that music and pull out those kind of top notes versus the bass notes and what you're choosing to deal with at a given moment. And I understand this is very individual, but...
I'm just wondering if there are particular skills you're applying. I have this podcast I'm doing and you would think that this couple is, you know, people listen, they're not like us. They don't fight like we do. This is actually a great point. Yeah. Yeah, they do. It's just a really skilled couples therapist that is not going to be happening in the room. You know, I might have a highly escalated couple that comes to me and they're doing that.
One or two sessions in, they're not going to be doing that. And here's why. People who are being heard and seen, even just by me, they don't need to cry. They don't need to scream. They don't need to talk over each other. I create an environment where by two or three sessions in, each partner knows beyond a shadow of a doubt, I'm going to be heard. I'm going to be validated. I'm going to get.
I'm going to be able to say and be understood and maybe not say everything they need to say, because sometimes I need about one 10th of the information that someone's trying to give me. And a lot of people have had.
experience and other therapies in the past where it's just kind of a free for all you just you know talk talk talk talk talk that's not where I have a much more efficient way of hearing people and helping them feel heard without us having to spend an hour on a story you know And I'm going to facilitate an interaction between the two of them where they're able to reach each other and hear each other.
The second they start trusting that's going to happen, and if I can keep that energy going and avoid my ruptures with them, they don't need to be escalated anymore. That's kind of the... core of the work is that like people are escalated because that's the only thing they know how to do to get their needs met. There's a lot of therapeutic skill involved in creating safety in the room.
So we don't have to have these escalated plays. There's a much, much, much better way to be heard and understood. I have to let people know, like at the beginning, you know, if they're used to, which is a very, very, like probably the biggest stumbling block for couples is going back and forth too fast. One person brings something up, the other person reminds them of something and then they're just bound.
And, you know, with a highly escalated couple, I might have to say two or three times, hey, listen, you guys both have a lot of really important things to say here. You're going to be situations that you see it differently. You have different perspectives, whatever. I have to understand both of you.
And the way that I'm going to have to do that is by working with one of you at a time. Otherwise, if I have all this information coming at me at once, I'm going to get confused and we're not going to get anywhere. So do I have your permission to kind of explore Bob over here? Bye.
Yeah. Right. And Mary, I'm going to come back to you. It's going to be hard. I know that, but I'm going to come back to you. So with a highly escalated couple, I might need to have that conversation a few more times, but ultimately I'm not going to need to have that conversation anymore because they're going to start trusting.
There will be times with a highly escalated couple, they'll fall back in and Mary will not be able to sit there. Mary's dysregulated. Mary's going, no, that is not. I can't. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. And I'm going to go, okay, Bob, listen, you're doing a great.
job, but something important is coming up for Mary over here. I need to check in. Like, do you mind? You know, you're doing a great job, but she's not able to hear. I'll go, Mary, you know, listen, I can give you the mic, right? I can, I can go back to you. We can switch over here, but.
you know, I just want to let you know, Bob's not going to be heard. We're not going to get to know more about what's going on with him. And wouldn't it be nice to understand better so you can get out of the cycle? And probably Mary's going to be like, okay, yeah, fine. Mary might not. I might need to pause Bob and go over to Mary. And if I'm consistently throughout the course of the therapy constantly having to tend to Mary's dysregulation, that's a problem.
you know that that might be a conversation later where it's like you know mary you're not able to participate here we're not getting you know bob's not getting enough space blah blah blah what do we need to do about this most the vast majority of the time that doesn't happen because and so
That's what I'm kind of doing is I'm always kind of stabilizing the emotions, keeping my relationship with them solid, avoiding ruptures with me, not really letting them have ruptures because I'm so controlling at first about what they're saying to each other. gets more and more flexible over time. Because if I let them free talk, they're going to go into a negative cycle. Might not be the worst thing in the world because that can let me diagnose a problem, but for the most part.
Now that I have it stable, I get to now do the work. I get to do the teaching. I get to do the facilitating new interactions, you know. So I don't know if that answered your question, but. Makes total sense. I think that's great. Yeah, total window into the room, for starters, if people are interested. But also, you've pulled out a lot of different things here that we can be attentive to inside of our own relationships, and also diagnostically, thinking about...
Is this a relationship that I want to be in long-term? Is this a partner that's going to be good for me long-term? A couple of things that you've mentioned throughout the conversation, a basic level of emotional regulation. Not necessarily that everything's perfectly regulated right now. Different people have different capacities. A lot of people have had a lot of very unpleasant things happen to them in life that led to some dysregulation around emotions.
But an ability, if it's built inside of the relationship over a little bit of time, to at least regulate the toppest, toppest, toppest emotions. The strongest anger, the strongest fear, the strongest sadness, to have a little bit of emotional control so that things just don't get out of hand. The ability to basically listen. the ability to take turns with other people.
an interest in deeper emotional needs, an interest in some level of joining, of co-regulation, of emotional connection. Absolutely. And these can be learned over time. Absolutely. Definitely, yeah. And also, there are people who have a little bit more of a tendency in that direction and some people who just really don't. And that's not necessarily their fault, but it can be their reality. And you, I think, got to ask yourself, is that what I want to...
have my relationship look like long-term with this person? Do I think that this is a person who has, as my dad would say, a growth curve? Do they have an upward trajectory in some kind of way? Do you feel like they can learn around these issues? And if you can, hey, you can work it all out. And if they can't, oof, that one's really tough. So that's kind of what I would pull out of what you were saying here, Julie. Definitely. Yeah, for sure. And there are people out there who they're...
Path to regulation is just too much of an uphill battle at this moment in time, you know, that they're not able to, they have more stuff that work that they need to do before they can really get there. You know, most of the people that come to me are able to get there. You know, I think there's a lot of hope with the right kind of help, but not always, you know. So there's no shame in really making a clear decision about.
going forward. Yeah. What do you want things to look like for you? For sure. No, I just wanted to say this other point that I heard Esther Perel say once that staying is the new shame. I think there is also this idea that, you know, staying in something less than perfect can now be people can say, why would you, that's a toxic relationship. And, you know, there's.
There's no shame in staying in something that's less than perfect and just continuing to work on it either. Yeah. No, I think that could be a totally noble pursuit. It's about that, some clear seeing about what you're getting yourself into.
and about seeing for yourself that you're making a choice. For me, I've really been exploring the idea of freedom recently in my own life. What does freedom mean to people? And to a lot of people, I think that freedom essentially means being able to do whatever they want to do. It means
in a sense, dysregulation, just shooting from the hip, acting like the five-year-old, I'm only free when I can do whatever I want. That's one interpretation of freedom. I think a different interpretation of freedom is about agency.
It's about making choices, being the decider. And so if you're making the choice to stay in that relationship, if you're making the choice to take that hat on, good for you. Assuming it's not an abusive relationship and there's a basic level of stability there, right on. Good for you. Couldn't agree more. Awesome. So Julie, as we get to the end here, is there anything you want to let people know about? Anything else that's going on?
Yeah. I mean, I would kind of just speak to what we talked about earlier. I have, you know, my book, Secure Love, which is just kind of like the instruction manual for all of this, how to start talking vulnerable, how to get out of these, you know, negative cycles, a whole.
First, I don't know, quarter of the book is just attachment theory and here's the styles and here's how they develop. I do have the paperback version coming out in January 30th. So anybody out there has already purchased the book. I hate to say this because I don't want people to have to buy the book twice, but I did revise some things for the paperback that I put in more about anger and shame that I think is.
is really elevates it so if you haven't bought the book wait until then wait until january 30th to get the paperback version. Julie, this is very honorable of you. I'm not sure if I've ever heard an author say, wait to buy the paperback. That's, I mean, that's a high standard of practice there. I love that. Yeah, that does very much matter to me, the level of content and the level of help I put out there. So I'm very married to that.
And if you want to check out more of Julie's work, as I said before, you can find her on Instagram. I think that your handle is The Secure Relationship or something like that. Yes. Easy to find. Can't miss it. It's a very large page. Great content. There are imposter accounts. Oh, there are imposter accounts. You're big enough to have imitators.
Yeah. So you have to look for that blue check because they're indistinguishable a lot of the time. I don't know who in their right mind would. Oh, you know why they do it is because they sell. psychic readings to my followers. They reach out to my followers and say that they're me and for $80, sell a psychic reading. So what you're saying is that you will never try to sell somebody a psychic reading for $80. Yes. All right. Love that.
I wish I could. If I could, maybe I could like second career. But if I could divine the future, I would. But I can't. So I don't. I totally get it. I mean, hey. So check follower count, check for the blue check mark, but you can find Julie very easily on social media. I really appreciate you taking the time today. This was really great. Oh, you're so welcome. Thank you for having me. I had a great time talking today with Julie Manano about what we can do to create more secure relationships.
Julie is the author of the book Secure Love. She also has a very popular Instagram presence, and she's worked with many different couples through her clinical practice. And what she found over time is that couples came to her for different kinds of issues. You know, the things that couples tend to argue about. Money, who did or didn't do the dishes, whatever it is that's going on for them specifically.
But while the details varied, the tone of the conversations, the emotional stakes that were on the table, the deeper issues, had a ton of consistency from couple to couple. And this is what drew her to focus on the idea of security in relationships, which comes from attachment theory.
We didn't actually end up talking about attachment theory in that much detail throughout the conversation. In broad strokes, people tend to be more securely attached or more insecurely attached. Inside of insecure attachment, there are these two big styles. more anxious, and more avoidant.
Julie did talk about those in some detail, describing some of the tendencies that more anxious people have versus more avoidant people. Then there's a third category that we didn't talk about so much. It's disorganized attachment or fearful. And that's a less common insecure style.
includes aspects of both anxious and avoidant. These different styles have different tendencies, and one of the things that Julie mentioned is that, yes, more securely attached people are more likely to end up in a securely attached relationship. And then more anxiously or more avoidantly attached people do tend to end up in more insecurely attached relationships.
But everyone can do things to improve the security of their relationship over time. And Julie focused on a couple of key interventions and a couple of key patterns that tend to emerge inside of these relationships. We then talked for a while about some of the common negative cycles that can appear inside of people's relationships, and Julie really focused on what's sometimes known as the pursuer-distancer dynamic.
And this is when a more anxiously attached partner ends up with a more avoidantly attached partner. This is an extremely common model. And Julie mentioned something like the overwhelming majority of people come into her practice. do have this kind of anxious and avoidant combination. So on the one hand, you have a partner who has more of an anxious attachment style, and this is often characterized, as Julie said, by emotional fears of abandonment.
They crave closeness, they want more intimacy, but they have a hard time actually taking in that intimacy when they do receive it. As we said during the conversation, they get halfway through chewing the bite of food and they can no longer really taste it.
or once that good feeling comes along, there's immediately a fear of what will happen when the good feeling goes away. On the other hand, you have avoidant attachment. This tends to come along when a child's caregivers were more emotionally unavailable, unresponsive, or overly critical, and to protect themselves. From the pain of those unmet emotional needs, the child learns how to become more self-reliant and emotionally distant. So this person tends to like more of an optimal distance style.
where they're not too close, they're not too far, and they tend to get a little overwhelmed by their anxious partner's craving of intimacy. They're a bit more reluctant to depend on others, they tend to withdraw, and they might be a bit more focused inside of a relationship on the very practical aspects of it. you know, we had these agreements. I thought that it was clear that we were going to do A, B, and C. You didn't do A, B, and C, and we're just going to kind of focus on that top line.
Whereas typically the more anxious partner is going to be reaching for the emotional relationship a little bit more. And one of the things that Julie outlined is that when people first come into the room, it is very common for them. to be focused on those top-line issues that are going on inside of the relationship.
And it's a bit less common for them to dig down to the emotional underpinning that those issues rest on. And then maybe even down deeper than that, there could be a basis of shame or personal self-doubt, issues around self-worth. that a lot of these issues are stemming from. And it's only when we're able to get down to those deeper layers and address those deeper issues that the superficial problems inside of the relationship tend to go away.
We talked about a lot during this conversation, so I want to pull out some of the highlights of what Julie said that tends to be really important inside of a relationship. First of all, she highlighted emotional validation, caring about and paying attention to.
what's going on emotionally inside of another person. And really critically, you don't have to agree with an emotion to validate it. This is where a lot of people get tripped up. Well, I don't want to validate my partner's sadness, fear, anxiety, concerns about what I view to be really very minor issues.
and i don't want to validate them because i don't agree with them i don't think that they're right or those are painful emotions right why would i validate them i just want to move them over to a more enjoyable emotion
Because either on the one hand, I don't think that they're right about whatever their view is, or on the other hand, wow, those are painful emotions. Like, why would I want to validate a painful emotion? I just want to move them over to this more enjoyable emotion over here, right? There's a place for that, but a lot of the time people want to be met where they are. And many people have gone their whole relationship or sometimes their whole life.
without ever really feeling like their emotions were truly validated by another person. This is where the idea of start by joining comes in. This was a great piece of advice that was given to me by my dad when I was a teenager or something like that. basic principle is that whenever you can inside of an interaction with another person particularly if you feel like the interaction is starting to get a little intense start by slowing down taking a moment
and trying to find a place where you feel like you can take a step in. Maybe this step in looks like going, wow, I really hear how you feel. Or, oh, I see that this really matters to you. Or, huh, I hadn't really thought about it that way. Whatever that step in looks like to you, see if you can start by creating a little bit of a basis of relationship. And then from that basis of relationship, you can go wherever you go. You could express how you really feel about something. You can...
separate out the practical issues that are going on from the deeper, more emotional issues and try to handle those as two separate buckets. Whatever goes on practically, once you've established that shared foundation of relationship, You just have so much more freedom and so much more possibility inside of the interaction.
Emotional validation is particularly important when it comes to meeting a person's unique attachment needs. This is another thing that we talked about a little bit. While attachment needs tend to vary from person to person There are also a lot of major commonalities. It's just that we all have our own unique experiences and therefore some unique emotional vulnerabilities. Inside of the book, Julie gives a bunch of different possible attachment needs.
A great way to figure out what years are are to start with the sentence stub to feel close to you, I need to know, and then fill in the blank. Answers could include something like, you value me and our relationship, or you hold me in high esteem, or you care about how I feel. Even simpler, to feel close to you, I need to know that I can trust you.
I need to know that you will pay attention to me sometimes. I need to know that I can speak to you, and you will listen to me without criticizing me. Conflict is inevitable inside of our relationship, so a big, big question is what happens when conflict shows up?
and one of the things that really dictates our outcomes when conflict comes along are just how we think about conflict in general a lot of people have a model of conflict where conflict is something to be avoided it is only ever painful it is only ever a problem And this can create a relationship with it where a lot of people just really don't know how to repair with each other. But the truth is that conflict's actually a space if we get comfortable with it.
where we can explore the depths of the relationship in a very real way. Julie shared a story, for example, about her partner, the government cheese story during the episode. And she had a great question. Like at the end of that story, how did you feel in relationship to her partner? You probably felt like you knew him better, like you understood where he was coming from, like you could see why the reactions might have been whatever they were.
And that's true in our relationships as well. Once we have that deeper sense of connection with another person, which we sometimes find by uncovering it through conflict, we have so much more possibility inside of the relationship. This was one of those conversations where I felt like we could have kept on going for another hour or two. It's a fantastic book. Again, the name of the book is Secure Love. It is very deep. It's very rich.
I think that Julie was really exploring a lot of very complex topics, but was doing so in an extremely accessible way, and I would recommend it to just about anybody who wants to improve their relationships.
Julie also mentioned there's a paperback version of the book coming out. You can wait around for that. She also has a podcast if you would like to hear more from Julie. It's a pretty incredible podcast, actually, where it's essentially a course of relationship therapy where she's talking with a couple.
who has that more anxious avoidance style, and they're doing pretty close to live sessions. It's really, really interesting if you're interested also in just learning more about therapy or hearing how a very experienced clinician goes about doing therapy, I would recommend checking it out. The name of that podcast is The Secure Love Podcast with Julie Manano. And while you are in your podcast player, checking that podcast out, you could, hey.
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