How Understanding Attachment Can Drastically Improve Your Relationship: A Review of Hold Me Tight by Dr. Sue Johnson

There are many theories and countless books about what makes relationships and marriages work.  Self-care and relationship sections at bookstores are filled with plenty of resources to offer marriage advice, not all of which is reliable or helpful.  But when all these tools coincide with increasing divorce rates, we are left wondering: how can couples make it through some of the worst moments of their relationship?

If you’ve been in a relationship with high levels of conflict, negative spirals you can’t seem to escape, and a sense of growing distance between you and your partner, the discouragement can feel overwhelming.  What’s the solution to these seemingly endless loops in which couples find themselves that propel them to consider divorce?

“To achieve a lasting loving bond, we have to be able to tune in to our deepest needs and longings and translate them into clear signals that help our lovers respond to us.”

— Dr. Sue Johnson

Hold Me Tight

In her book Hold Me Tight, Dr. Sue Johnson uses the lenses of attachment theory and neuroscience to explore how some couples overcome the destructive patterns in their relationship to forge a stronger connection.  She pulls together research from various studies on relationships that highlight the themes of attachment.  She then translates these concepts into seven practical conversations that help you explore the application of these concepts to your relationship.  They focus on how to turn challenging patterns of argument and conflict into opportunities to create connection and empathy.

This book is written for the everyday couple.  She explains clinical terms in a way that makes sense to someone who has never heard them before, and she uses frequent examples of couples going through challenges to illustrate the points she is making.  Counselors can also benefit from reading this book, however, as I know I was able to glean some practical tips and language that can help me guide my clients in their relationships. 

What I Appreciated

“Emotional Safety” and Other Terminology

Dr. Johnson’s use of terms like “emotional safety” take the heady, intellectual concepts of attachment and translate them into clear, relatable language.  Emotional safety is what we long for in relationships: the ability to know that our partner is Accessible (Are you there? Can I get to you?), Responsive (Can I depend on you to be there for me emotionally?) and Engaged (Am I valuable to you?  Will you maintain closeness with me?).  She teaches how to use what she coins A.R.E. conversations (based on accessibility, responsiveness, and engagement) to get at the heart of what is happening within connection and disconnection.

In fact, much of her language is descriptive and easy to remember.  For example, she uses “Demon Dialogues” to identify common patterns in faulty communication.  She introduces “Hold Me Tight” conversations, in which partners talk about their needs for emotional safety and connection that exist behind a conflict, inviting empathy and compassion.

Providing a Contrast to Cultural Messages

Frequently, Dr. Johnson contrasts our culture’s emphasis on independence and self-sufficiency with the reality of what makes couples work: mutual support, emotional bonding, and healthy meeting of emotional needs.  Often our culture decries weakness or dependency on anyone, encouraging us to stand on our own.  Even language surrounding codependency can swing toward this extreme of isolation through independence.  Her work in this book is meant to shift the narrative around healthy emotional support and depending on our spouses to meet emotional needs, particularly as larger social connections have been decreasing.

Conversations about Arguments and Hope

In the seven conversation topics Dr. Johnson proposes, she includes addressing arguments and conflict head-on, as they often carry the charge of longing for emotional connection behind them.  However, she doesn’t stop there.  The later conversations dig into such topics as improving daily moments of connection, creating rituals that reinforce your love, and improving your sexual relationship.  The earlier conversations around conflict and emotional needs lay the groundwork to make these later conversations go more smoothly.

“A desperate need for an emotional response that ends in blaming and a desperate fear of rejection and loss that ends in withdrawal – this was the scaffolding underneath these endless conflicts.”

— Dr. Sue Johnson

Pauses for Self-Reflection

As attachment and emotional safety are likely new concepts for you in your relationship, it makes sense that you might not know where to start in understanding your emotional needs.  Dr. Johnson leads you through personal reflection and helps you identify what she’s talking about, like your own personal raw spots based on past relationships with family or significant others.  The use of examples throughout can also help you self-reflect, as you identify what you relate to in their stories.

“Play and Practice”

In every chapter, there is at least one, if not several, practical application sections labeled “Play and Practice.”  These take the concepts Dr. Johnson talked about in the chapter and help you have a productive conversation with your partner about how they apply to your specific relationship.  These include such tools as fill-in-the-blank sentences that help you communicate with your partner about your reactions and emotional needs.  In particular, one section I appreciated near the end encouraged couples to write a summary story of the progress they’ve made in their relationship that serves as a narrative base to come back to when things start to get difficult or slip back into old patterns.

Addressing Trauma

She also included a chapter specifically targeting the challenging symptoms and disconnection that arises when trauma exists in your relationship.  I found this chapter especially helpful when thinking about addicts and betrayed partners who need to know that using these principles is still possible within their recovery from trauma.

She reminds the reader that we cannot stay isolated and disconnected in our trauma.  Instead, we need to let others, including our partners, into those dark places.  This can help make sense of the often confusing symptoms of PTSD that arise and create chaos within the relationship.

“If we cannot successfully connect with others, our struggles to cope with trauma become less effective, and our main resource, our love relationship, often begins to sink under its weight.”

— Dr. Sue Johnson

How to Use This Book

If you are in a relationship where you find yourself arguing often, unable to get on the same page, feeling unsupported, or simply not understanding each other, this book might be a good place to start.  It is helpful if you don’t think you’re ready for couples counseling yet, but could use some support and growth within communication and connection.  Perhaps you and your significant other could read the book together and work through the Play and Practice sections to learn more about one another.  I believe this book can also be beneficial if you read it separately from your spouse, but the best outcome is more likely to come if you read it together.

If you are a couple in crisis, on the brink of divorce, or unable to have the type of in-depth conversation the book requires due to a buildup of past pain or a tendency to get lost in the “Demon Dialogues,” your first priority might be instead to seek out couples counseling.  If the principles of this book interest you, I’d recommend looking for a therapist who has training in Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT), the model Dr. Johnson created based on her body of work.  You could also read this book as part of your therapy or on the side, but the best option is likely meeting with a quality couples therapist.

“We will never create a really strong, secure connection if we do not allow our lovers to know us fully or if our lovers are unwilling to know us.”

— Dr. Sue Johnson

Reintegrating Healthy Sexual Intimacy after Betrayal: A Review of The Couple’s Guide to Intimacy

Couples recovery from sex and love addiction can be a complex and lengthy process.  Even for those fully committed to the process of recovery, it can take between three to five years to uncover all that’s needed to heal a marriage.  The chaos and storm of staggered disclosures, broken trust, and faltering attempts at honesty can lead to confusion and overwhelm for both partners in the relationship.

Couples therapy requires participation and change by both members of the couple.  In the early stages of recovery, when the betrayed partner is reeling in pain and has often been manipulated, it doesn’t feel safe to make changes to support the relationship.  Individual healing work needs to be done first. Because of this, couples therapy is not recommended for most couples until each member of the couple is getting their own therapeutic support and a formal disclosure process has been completed.

The addict needs to get their individual pattern of addiction under control, and the partner needs space to process the pain of trauma that they experience.  They both need to establish support systems outside of the relationship in the form of 12 Step groups, sponsorship, support groups, and/or healthy friendships.  Boundaries need to be established and understood. Healing cannot happen in the marriage until there is a foundation of honesty, and formal disclosure is designed to create that foundation.

In some cases, couples therapy can begin earlier in the process of recovery.  Often this is when the couple needs to learn basic communication skills in order to navigate life together while going through this healing process.  Also, this can be helpful if the couple is pursuing a formal therapeutic separation and need guidance from a couples therapist on how to implement this logistically.

Let’s say you and your partner have been consistent in individual therapy, have strong social support, are committed to recovery-oriented behaviors, and have completed a formal disclosure.  Now what?  Many couples aren’t sure what to do once they’ve made significant progress in their individual recovery.  Deeper still, reintegrating or introducing healthy sexual intimacy can feel like a daunting task.  How can a couple recovering from sex and love addiction be intimate again?

Why A Couple’s Guide to Intimacy is Needed

In The Couple’s Guide to Intimacy, Bill and Ginger Bercaw give an answer to these “what next” questions.  They outline the sexual reintegration therapy (SRT) model that they’ve used consistently with recovering couples to help them achieve a level of intimacy in their relationships they hadn’t thought possible. 

The Bercaws’ approach helps to completely overhaul the experience of sexual intimacy in a recovering relationship.  Often, when sexual addiction was present, sexual experiences weren’t truly connecting or meaningful.  Physical and emotional intimacy are explored as integral parts of true sexual connection. 

Their book includes information about the SRT model and explorations of true healthy sexuality and its differences from addicted sex.  They also include a series of practical exercises (planned intimate experiences) that can be put into play by the couple, progressing gradually toward an entirely new vision of sexual intimacy.

Bill and Ginger Bercaw strongly recommend working with a CSAT couples therapist while going through this material, as much of what can arise emotionally and relationally needs space to be processed in a safe environment with trained professionals.  It is also important to maintain your individual therapy and support while walking through SRT, so you can have space to process what comes up for you individually as you begin to experiment with this new approach to intimacy.

Insights from the Book

The foundations upon which Bill and Ginger Bercaw lay their book form a series of important insights into the process of reintegrating healthy sexuality into a recovering marriage.

Healthy sexual intimacy is made possible by integrating physical, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of intimacy.

Broken trust and betrayal destroy all levels of intimacy. In particular, sexual intimacy is affected as often one or both partners are using it as a way to get something from the other, as opposed to truly connecting during the experience.  The book emphasizes the need to integrate all areas of intimacy through direct and open communication and conversations, especially as integrated in the planned intimate experiences (PIEs). 

Reprogramming sexual scripts is Essential.

Our culture’s view on sex influences our approach to intimacy. For example, we emphasize trying new things as a way to keep sexual experience interesting or “spice it up.”  This is intensified by the influence of sex and love addiction on your relationship, where the addict may see sex as a way to pursue novelty or seek the next “high.”  But these approaches are not truly connecting.  They are more focused on performance than they are on intimacy, and intimacy is the greater need.

Reviewing your own sexual history can reveal your expectations about sex.

Bill and Ginger Bercaw lead the reader to reflect on their own sexual experiences and influences on their sexuality as an exercise in self-understanding.  For example, if you have a history of sexual abuse, it likely affects messages about your body or your sexual experience.  Exposure to pornography can create distorted expectations about how sex ought to be.  A lack of sexual information, particularly in more rigid home environments, can lead to a lack of knowledge about sexual response and experience.  Even such influences as the media, peer groups, churches, and others can have an impact on sexuality. 

Early attachment relationships also have an influence on your experience of sexual intimacy in your marriage.  If you have an avoidant attachment style, you’re more likely to want to withdraw from conflict and therefore don’t talk about sexual issues.  If you are more of an anxiously attached person, sex might be a way that you confirm you are loved by someone.  If you grew up in a rigid family system, you might see sexual behavior as rebellious or a way to branch out from restrictions.

These influences need to be acknowledged and addressed before true sexual intimacy can be experienced.  You’re carrying around baggage from your past that has to be unpacked before you can enter into the relationship without expectations or judgment.  This is important as you will be able to come to know your own sexual self and your partner’s sexual self, which then creates a more intimate experience.

The end goal isn’t perfect technique or sexual experience, but expressing love and connection through being present to yourself and your partner.

An overemphasis on technique or an idealized sexual experience has probably already led you to disappointment and pain.  Instead, the Bercaws’ approach to intimacy takes emphasis off the final result, instead focusing on remaining present throughout the entire process of intimacy.  Every PIE exercise focuses on different depths of intimacy.  Many exercises in the progression occur outside the bedroom or with clothes on.  Several focus on creating more emotional and relational intimacy, which paves the way for connected sexual intimacy.

The importance isn’t to find the new sex technique that’s going to boost your pleasure (despite what some magazine covers may say) but instead to learn how to become fully present to yourself, your partner, and your experience during your intimate encounter.  

Safety and communication are necessary in personalizing your path.

For many betrayed partners, there is not a sufficient level of safety in the relationship to rush into intimacy.  The Bercaws’ PIE exercises are designed to help you grow closer, and they also encourage speaking up when you aren’t comfortable or when you need to change something.  They emphasize using talking and listening boundaries throughout their PIEs and reinforce that with an emphasis on healthy, functional boundaries, which they describe at length.

If you’re looking for additional support in understanding how you can grow in the area of sexual intimacy in your recovering marriage, Bill and Ginger Bercaw’s book and their method of sexual reintegration therapy offer useful and practical tools to revolutionize your relationship.

Recognizing Codependency: A Codependency Quiz

The term “codependent” has been used often within addiction and the mental health world to describe someone whose identity or sense of self is wrapped up in another person.  But this term has had its fair share of misuse and controversy.

In addiction literature, “codependency” became synonymous with “co-addiction”.  Co-addiction suggests that the partner of an addict is addicted to the relationship with the addict, which enables the addict and allows him or her to continue their addictive behavior.  Labeling the partner as a co-addict gave them a disproportionate amount of blame for the addict’s choices.  It caused many partners to feel that their stories were invalidated.  Because of this, addiction literature has shifted to recognize partners’ experience in relationship with addicts as traumatic and avoid using labels such as codependent .

Unfortunately, this response neglects the reality of some people’s true experience of codependency.  Codependency can happen in the context of a relationship with an addict or not.  It can also happen with a child who is rebelling or making poor choices.  It could happen in friendships or work relationships.  It can happen in your church or other places you volunteer or give your time and energy.

What is codependency?

According to Melody Beattie, author of Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself, a codependent person is “one who has let another person’s behavior affect him or her, and who is obsessed with controlling that person’s behavior.”  He or she becomes overly involved and entangled in the lives of others, to the detriment of their own well being.  A codependent person often has high needs for affection and care with corresponding devastation when they feel they aren’t receiving them.

Codependent individuals lose themselves in others.  They misplace their identity and unique personality in the search to find another person to “complete” them.  Their relationships are often one-sided, as evidenced by a tendency to try everything to save relationships that are destructive.  Codependent people feel they can save others through their compassionate help and care, but are disappointed when their attempts to fix or “support” are met with resistance, and their well-being suffers as a result.

Pia Mellody, another clinician who writes on codependency in her book Facing Codependence: What it Is, Where it Comes From, How it Sabotages Our Lives, talks about failure to set appropriate boundaries as a hallmark of codependency.  You might see this as taking on too much responsibility for the well-being of others and feeling guilty when attempts to help fall through.  She shares insights into the origins of codependency in her book, indicating that often this stems from codependency in your family-of-origin.

A Codependency Quiz

Read through the questions below and answer yes or no to determine if you might struggle with codependency.

• Do you tend to doubt yourself and feel insecure, even in areas where you have experience and know what you’re doing?

• Do you struggle to say “no” to requests even when you don’t have the time or energy to carry them out?

• Do you let people too close to you, only to feel betrayed when they disappoint or hurt you?

• Do you find yourself pushing people away to protect yourself?

• Do you have a hard time recognizing your own emotions or thoughts?

• Do you struggle to identify your own needs?

• Do you spend excessive amounts of time and energy on others at the expense of meeting your own needs?

• Have others described you as “too needy” in relationships?

• Do you have intense emotional reactions to conflict in your relationships?

• In relationships, do you often feel that you are the only one making a sacrifice to meet your partner’s needs?

• Do you find your personal worth or value in how others see you?

• Are you constantly striving to prove yourself to others?

• Do you tend to overanalyze and obsess over mistakes you’ve made in relationships?

• Do you find yourself thinking, “if only this other person would change, everything in my life would be better?”

• Do you feel a strong need to be loved, affirmed, and desired that causes problems in relationships?

• Do you notice yourself using passive-aggressive statements to get your needs met?

• Do you find yourself trying to “fix” others?

• Do you have a hard time trusting others?

• Do you struggle with intense outbursts of anger or irritability?

• Do you feel ambivalence toward intimacy: a desire to be close to others, but also a fear of what it means to be close?

• Do you try to make everyone else around you happy, even though you feel miserable?

• Do you feel overcome with shame and/or guilt when someone offers you constructive feedback?

If you’ve answered five or more of these questions with “yes,” you may be dealing with codependent tendencies in your life.  Reach out to a licensed counselor to talk more about your responses and get help.

Resources for Codependency

In the meantime, you may be interested in learning more about codependency.  Here are a few books I’d recommend if you’re interested in learning more, seeing if you identify with any codependent tendencies, and beginning the process of healing.

• Facing Codependence: What It Is, Where It Comes From, How It Sabotages Our Lives by Pia Mellody (also has a workbook)

• Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself by Melody Beattie (also has a workbook)

• The Intimacy Factor by Pia Mellody

• Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life by Henry Cloud and John Townsend

• Conquering Codependency: A Christ-Centered 12-Step Process by Pat Springle

The Key to Satisfying Relationships: Understanding Your Adult Attachment Style

How do you experience relationships?  Are you confident in your connection with others and able to relate easily?  Do you long for the perfect relationship, but feel dissatisfied once you’re in one and struggle to get out?  Do you feel terrified of being alone or abandoned, and will do whatever it takes to keep your loved ones close, even if it means sacrificing part of who you are?

Whether or not you’ve experienced these yourself, you probably know someone else who has. These patterns in relationships can create despair, hopelessness, or distress.  Often, these patterns are rooted in the theory of adult attachment styles.

What is attachment?

Attachment is an individual’s beliefs about his or her safety, security, and protection in relation to others, formed by early interactions between child and caregiver.  Attachment theory is based on the research of John Bowlby, who was curious about the distress infants showed when separated from their caregivers.  He believed that children use these behaviors in order to get their caregiver’s attention and essentially ask their caregiver, “Can I trust you to respond?  Will you take care of my needs?”  The response of the caregiver forms the foundation of the child’s attachment style.

Building on Bowlby’s research, Mary Ainsworth put this theory into the research lab.  She created the “strange situation,” an environment where a child was brought by their caregiver into a playroom where another adult was present.  The caregiver would leave for a short time and then return.  Researchers observed the response of the infant when the parent left, while the parent was outside the room, and upon the return of the parent.

She observed four different responses in children.  Securely attached children were upset when their caregiver left, but comforted by their return.  This was the most common response (60% of children) and indicated that the caregivers were responsive to the needs of the child.

Insecurely attached children were impacted by lack of responsiveness or inconsistent responses from their caregivers.  They took one of three forms:

• Insecure-resistant attachment – These children showed high levels of distress when their caregiver left.  They were unable to be soothed upon reuniting with their caregiver, almost as if they were “punishing” the caregiver for leaving.

• Insecure-avoidant attachment – These children weren’t distressed by their caregiver leaving and ignored their caregiver upon re-entry, often choosing to continue playing rather than engaging with their caregiver.

• Insecure-disorganized attachment – These children demonstrated an unpredictable response that could not be categorized.  These responses were more commonly correlated with childhood abuse.

Adult Attachment Styles

Later on, researchers Hazan and Shaver extended these findings into adulthood.  They concluded that attachment styles in childhood affected the way adults experienced intimacy and connection in romantic relationships. 

For example, if you experienced insecure attachment as a child, you learned at a young age that important people will not respond appropriately to your needs.  As an adult, you may find yourself in similar relationships that confirm the belief formed early on that you cannot depend on others to meet your needs, or that you are unlovable and aren’t deserving of love or care.  Unfortunately, you can then become trapped in a cycle of relationships where you expect this belief to be true, and (in self-fulfilling prophecy) reaffirm the belief.

Read the descriptions below about adult attachment styles and pay attention to if you relate to any one of them, or if you know someone who does.  You can also take this assessment online to discover your attachment style. 

Secure attachment

These individuals are confident in themselves and in their ability to be loved and cared for by those close to them.  This doesn’t mean that they are always without insecurity – in fact, it is normal for anyone to have some level of hesitation in these areas.  However, at their core, secure individuals believe they are worthy of love and trust that their loved ones will respond to their needs.  They are willing to both depend on others and can also be depended upon by others.

In relationships, securely attached individuals are interdependent.  They can separate from their partner, have their own interests, and encourage their significant other’s interests.  But they can also come back to their relationship feeling connected, loved, and supported with their partner.  They both seek and provide support to their partners, and therefore are the most satisfied.  They tend to have honesty and equality in their relationships.

Anxious (preoccupied) attachment

Anxiously attached individuals long to be loved and worry consistently that they are not.  They become frustrated and angry when their attachment needs aren’t met in their primary relationships, and will attempt to create intimacy when they are feeling this way. Sadly, this often backfires. 

In relationships, anxiously attached individuals are over-dependent. They believe their partner will “complete” them.  They hold to the fantasy that finding a significant other to love them will solve their problems and make their lives better.  This isn’t real love, but an obsession fueled by fantasy.  Rushing into relationships, these individuals don’t allow enough time to build real trust, but instead create a false sense of security with their partner   Love addicts tend to fall into this category.  They desire to be very close, cling to their partners for safety and security, and crave reassurance that they are loved.  Unfortunately, this often causes their partners to withdraw, creating a vicious cycle that reaffirms their beliefs in their own flawed nature and inability to be loved.

Avoidant (dismissing-avoidant) attachment

Those with avoidant attachment styles struggle with the intimacy required for close relationships, preferring to be on their own without any others depending on them.  They dismiss the need for close relationships, having used that behavior to cope with early childhood experiences where they were responsible for caregivers’ emotional needs and learned to deny or shut down their own as a result.  In fact, shutting down emotionally became an adaptive way of protecting themselves.

In relationships, these individuals prefer to be independent, creating emotional distance between themselves and their partners, often as a way to protect against smothering or feeling consumed by their partner.  They learned that the way to get their needs met is to pretend to have no needs.  This can easily detach from relationships because of lack of consideration for their importance.  Sex addiction is more common in these individuals.

Fearful-avoidant attachment

Fearful-avoidant individuals have a strong sense of ambivalence about their relationships, switching between feeling anxious about losing their loved one and avoidance of emotional closeness.  They have difficulty managing their overwhelming emotions.  You might see this type as chaotic and unpredictable, and even they feel confused by the near-constant attempts to balance just the right amount of closeness with someone. 

Often this stems from a caregiver who was too close, enmeshed, or smothering with the child.  They desired to go to their caregivers to get their needs met, but may have received a negative response when they reached out. In relationships, fearful-avoidant individuals exist on a roller-coaster of drama and intensity.  They are both fearful of being abandoned and fearful of experiencing true intimacy with another person. 

Adult Attachment Styles in Relationships

As mentioned earlier, it is common for anxious and avoidant individuals to be drawn to one another and create a cycle of disappointment.  In some ways, being with a partner that reinforces childhood beliefs about the dependability of a caregiver feels familiar and therefore attractive.  While it is better for both to build a relationship with a securely attached individual, those relationships often contain less intensity, which both the anxious and avoidant crave.

Fortunately, your adult attachment style is not a permanent death sentence for your love life.  Understanding your natural tendency in attachment helps you to be aware of it when going into relationships.  It can also be changed by “learned” attachment with corrective experiences in your romantic relationship and/or friendships, relationships in therapy, and other important people in your life.  Being close to a responsive and kind individual can go a long way toward changing the dynamics of insecure attachment in adulthood.

Additional Resources

If you’re interested in learning more about attachment theory, check out these resources:

• Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find – and Keep – Love by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller

• The Power of Attachment: How to Create Deep and Lasting Intimate Relationships by Diane Poole Heller

• Attachments: Why You Love, Feel and Act the Way You Do by Dr. Tim Clinton and Dr. Gary Sibcy

3 Steps to Argue Your Way to a Stronger Relationship

Do you often find yourself in the same argument over and over again with your significant other?  Are there certain topics you can’t seem to agree on, no matter how often you talk about them?  Maybe you truly love your spouse and want what’s best for them, but you can’t seem to see eye-to-eye on finances, parenting, or household responsibilities. 

You are not alone.  Every couple faces these types of conflicts.  But there’s some good news: these conflicts are the greatest opportunities you have for increasing intimacy and connection in your relationship.

John Gottman, a marriage researcher who has been studying what makes marriages healthy for over 40 years, has termed this type of conflict “gridlocked.”  He defines gridlock as conflict that doesn’t have a clear-cut solution.  And surprisingly enough, he has found through his research that 69% of all conflicts are gridlocked.  That means over two-thirds of all conflict doesn’t have a right or wrong solution!

But that doesn’t mean it’s a lost cause.  Rather, these conflicts you experience in your relationship can be approached with a heart of compromise and understanding in order to pave the way for more closeness in relationship.

Where do these arguments go wrong?

When you’re in gridlocked conflict, you may find yourself trying to convince your significant other that you are right and they are wrong.  You may not be wiling to see their perspective because you’ve already dug in your heels on your point-of-view.

On the flip side, you might develop bitterness and resentment from avoiding conversations about these tense topics, which spills out into other areas.  Have you ever had difficulty remembering what started your fight?  Little annoyances are magnified by the underlying tension and anger from gridlocked conflict.

What needs to change?

Altering your approach to conflict requires you to reframe the argument as an opportunity to grow in intimacy with your partner.  There are reasons why you feel stuck in these areas.  Often it is because of your own and your partner’s desires and the narratives tied to them. These make it difficult for you to change your position.  The purpose of the next exercise is to understand you partner’s story so that you can see why their position is so important to them. 

This does require some level of vulnerability on the part of each of you in order to grow in intimacy.  If you struggle with vulnerability with your partner, try this exercise out with a smaller gridlocked issue first..

Gottman’s 3-Step Process

Step 1: Discuss (and listen) to each of your perspectives.

Set aside a time for each of you to talk about your personal perspective on the issue.  Use the talking formula: “I feel…because/about…and what I would like is…”  Speak in a respectful and non-critical tone to your partner, believing that they want to hear your side.

The most crucial component of this exercise, however, is playing the role of the listener.  Often we listen with one ear, but our mind is focused on our response and how we might defend ourselves.  When we do this, we’re not truly listening to the other person.  Instead, Gottman encourages you to “suspend persuasion” for a time and seek to understand your partner’s perspective, as if you were an outside observer.  Validate what you hear in your partner’s perspective.  What feelings make sense to you?  Can you understand from their perspective, even if you don’t fully agree? 

Example: In talking about housework, you might say, “I felt abandoned when I asked you to help me clean the garage and you said “no.”  I need to feel like we share responsibility and are working together to keep our home organized.”

Step 2: Identify the “dreams within conflict.”

Look deeper at why the issue is so important to you personally.  Exploring your own triggers is a self-reflective tool that helps you identify your own personal narrative contributing to the issue.

Typically, this narrative has to do with your past.  Describing why you are uniquely triggered helps your partner feel empathy.  As you discuss this narrative, ask open-ended questions like “tell me the story behind that” or “what experience from your past makes this so important to you?” to understand more of your partner’s perspective.

Similar to Step 1, it is essential to listen and understand your partner’s perspective.  Do you see why they might make the connection between the present issue and a past experience?  Does it make sense why they are having a strong emotional reaction? 

Example: “I’m reminded of the importance of my value of equality.  My father made sure that my mother felt as though they carried an equal weight in taking care of the house, and I saw that as a way they loved each other.  When you don’t help me out, I wonder if you don’t see us as equals, and then I feel unloved.” 

Step 3: Choose areas of compromise.

Once you’ve listened to one another’s perspective, asked questions, and helped each other feel fully understood, then you can move into a place of compromise.  Understanding and empathizing with your spouse’s story makes compromise vastly easier.  Where you might have been stubborn before, now that you know their story, you may be more willing to move closer to what they desire.

Make a list of essentials about this area: what do you need?  Then make a list of more flexible items where might you be willing to compromise.  Discuss your lists together and seek overlap.  Where might each of you make some compromise to move closer to your partner’s needs?  How can you practically put this into play this upcoming week? 

Example: “It is essential to me that, in general, you help out with tasks around the house.  I am willing to be flexible about what those tasks are.  If organizing the garage is not your cup of tea, I would feel supported and equal to you if you prepared dinner so I could focus on getting the garage done today.  Are you willing to consider that?”

Know this:  even in using these three steps, you will likely still argue.  Perhaps the compromise will work for a time, but eventually a new trigger will come up that needs to be discussed.  Remember: this is normal!  You will be discussing compromises and seeking to support one another throughout your relationship.  If you look at this as an ongoing conversation that will get easier over time, you’ll be set up well to continue to love one another through compromise in the course of your relationship.

Why We Need People: How Friendships Help You Live Longer

On any given day, how many people do you interact with?  Take a day this week and count the number of people with whom you have a social interaction, whether they be friends, family, baristas, or coworkers. 

In the past, face-to-face social interactions were more common.  Whether it was a spouse, family member, friend, coworker, or even just a cashier or postal worker, you would have some form of social contact on a daily basis.

Yet in a world where we are more connected through texting, social media, and FaceTime, that face-to-face contact is becoming less frequent.  It’s easier to purchase items online, use the self-checkout at the grocery store, text a friend rather than setting up a meeting, or work from home. 

While the advances in technology that allow us to do these things are convenient and useful, they have the potential to create a roadblock to relationships.

“Now, social isolation is the public health risk of our time.”

— Susan Pinker

As a therapist working with sex and love addicts, I often emphasize how important relationships are to my clients.  Yes, involvement in support groups and one-on-one relationships foster accountability from destructive behaviors.  But more than that, they provide healing to relational wounds that often form the foundation of the addiction.

Susan Pinker, in her TED talk, shares research she’s discovered about the roles of social contact and friendships in longevity and other health benefits.  She traveled to Sardinia’s Blue Zone, which has the largest concentration of adults over the age of 100 in the world.  Find out what she learned from these interviews in her talk.

What surprised you about this video?  Here were some helpful insights I gained:

People who have more social interactions live longer.

While Susan Pinker was interviewing the centenarians in the Blue Zone, she continually came into contact with family members and friends of these individuals who would stop by to say hello.  Their caregivers felt privileged and grateful to care for their loved ones.  Research about protective factors in relationships reinforces the influence of extended family, friends, neighbors, and daily interactions on longevity.

Online interactions do not have the same impact as face-to-face conversations.

Technology continues to develop to create closer imitations to face-to-face meetings, allowing for a greater sense of connection.  However, in the research on neuroscience cited by Pinker, she notes that oxytocin and dopamine were noticed in higher levels when individuals had face-to-face discussions as compared to viewing a video of a similar discussion.  Oxytocin and dopamine are two neurochemicals involved in the addictive patterns of sex and love addiction, further reinforcing the power of relationships for healing from addiction.

“Building your village…and sustaining it is a matter of life and death.”

— Susan Pinker

A factor in women’s longer lifespans may be their number of social contacts.

Anthropological research Pinker quoted indicates that research on baboons showed that females were more likely to prioritize social relationships.  Women tend to be more relational and social than men, and the ease with which women are able to maintain social connections may be a significant contributor to their life span.

Social relationships offer health benefits stronger than some medications or other treatment.

Research on support group interventions for breast cancer, chronic illness, or heart disease are shown to create a significant difference in treatment outcomes than those who simply use medication.  This indicates that having social support allows the body to function more effectively and bolsters the immune system.

What are ways to gain more social support?

Make an intentional effort to talk to people on a daily basis.

If you tend to isolate or find that you can make it for days at a time without having any meaningful social interaction, make a purposeful choice to change that pattern.  Choose the checkout line with a cashier at the grocery store.  Say hello to your neighbors the next time you see them.  Chat with your coworkers over lunch rather than eating at your desk.  This may be difficult, especially if you are introverted, struggle with social anxiety, or are simply out of practice.  Regardless, this intentional effort will make a difference over time.

Find a class or group that focuses on a special interest of yours.

What are the things you enjoy in your free time?  Maybe you’re athletic and love to play sports, or you like to read and talk about books.  Perhaps you love to knit or crochet, or you like fantasy football.  Search websites like meetup.com to find groups of people who share your interests.  Join a book club at your local bookstore or library, a club sports league, or a service organization and create relationships with the people you meet there.

Join a support group.

If you’re currently in therapy for sex and love addiction, support group involvement is a crucial step in healing.  Having the support of others through your stages of growth and freedom from addiction is a game-changer.  Sex and love addiction is an intimacy disorder usually stemming from childhood trauma, and healing trauma that comes from relationships requires positive, supportive relationships.  You can find support groups for sex and love addiction at Sex Addicts Anonymous (SAA) or Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (SLAA).

If you’re in therapy for another addiction mental health issue, you’ve experienced grief or a significant loss, you’ve been diagnosed with a chronic or life-threatening illness, or you’re just looking for support, join a support group at local church, hospital, or community center that focuses on a topic relevant to you.  Connecting with others who are struggling helps you not to feel alone and provides an extra boost to your immune system. 

Get involved at a church through small groups or Sunday school classes.

If you are a Christian, it can be easy to become so busy with work, family obligations, and other responsibilities that getting involved in church events outside of Sunday services can feel like a burden.  But finding other individuals to support you on your journey of becoming more like Christ can be revolutionary not only in your faith, but also in your friendships.  Seek out a way to get involved with others in your church community through a small group, care group, or Sunday school class and begin to forge relationships based on a common ground of faith.