Latest / The Virtual Couch / Why You Fell for Your Partner (and Why You Keep Fighting Them) pt. 1

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Why You Fell for Your Partner (and Why You Keep Fighting Them) pt. 1 · The Virtual Couch

0:23
So let me ask you something. What if the way that you react to your partner,
0:27
your kids, your coworkers, even strangers, somebody that you run into on the
0:31
street isn't really about them at all.
0:34
What if it's actually about the story that not your brain, but your nervous
0:38
system learned decades ago.
0:40
If you're driving to work and somebody cuts you off, your heart jumps,
0:44
maybe your grip tightens on the steering wheel.
0:46
And for a split second, your body floods with adrenaline.
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There's nothing you can do about it. You did not decide to react that way.
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Your nervous system just did
0:54
it. It recognized danger, even though you weren't necessarily in danger.
1:00
Or you walk into a room and somebody looks at you just a little bit too long
1:04
and you get anxious or your stomach drops and your brain starts skinning.
1:08
Did I say something weird?
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Or do I know that person? Do I have something on my shirt?
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Meanwhile, your body is already halfway through a threat response.
1:17
Or maybe you send a text to somebody that you care about and they don't respond
1:21
for 30 minutes, an hour, a few hours.
1:24
And the more that you think about it without even thinking, your chest tightens
1:27
and your mind starts writing this story, creating this narrative.
1:31
Did I do something to upset them? Are they mad at me? I don't even know what I did wrong.
1:35
And before you know it, you're spiraling, even though there's no evidence of a problem.
1:40
That's actually your nervous system, and it's doing its job.
1:43
It's constantly scanning the world for cues of safety or danger.
1:47
It's what's kept you alive, and it's not necessarily conscious.
1:51
It's instinctive, and it's not just responding to what's happening right now.
1:56
It's responding to what has happened before because your body remembers.
2:01
It remembers the tone that your parents used when they were disappointed in you.
2:04
It remembers the feeling in
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your stomach when somebody withdrew their attention when you were a kid.
2:10
It remembers the tension that filled the room before an argument ever started
2:14
with a friend of yours in high school.
2:16
So your nervous system, in the name of keeping you safe, starts predicting,
2:22
anticipating, bracing for what it learned a long time ago might and it thinks
2:27
most likely is going to come next.
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So here's where it gets kind of fascinating. And honestly, it can be a little
2:32
bit heartbreaking at times, too.
2:33
Now we bring those same nervous system patterns into our modern day relationships.
2:39
So if your partner gets quiet, your body might interpret it as rejection,
2:42
even if they're just tired or if they're thinking about something else.
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Or when you sense conflict coming, your brain might go into fight,
2:50
flight, or freeze mode or fawn or fib, not because of them, but because of how
2:55
your body learned to survive connection.
2:58
That's what makes relationships so fascinating, so complex that your nervous
3:04
system is reading cues that your conscious mind doesn't even notice.
3:08
You might think that you're responding to your partner, but you're actually
3:10
responding to a lifetime of experiences, moments of comfort or chaos,
3:15
presence or absence, love or withdrawal.
3:19
Taught you what connection feels like. And that's what we're going to talk about a lot today.
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Because once you see those patterns, once you understand why your body reacts
3:30
the way it does, and maybe how your partner's nervous system might be reacting
3:33
in its own way, I think you can finally start to change the dance.
3:38
But you first have to be aware of the dance and you might not actually be a
3:41
very good dancer if I'm speaking about yours truly.
3:44
So today's episode is going to give you one of the most powerful illustrations
3:46
of how our past shapes the way that we love, the way that we argue,
3:50
the way that we withdraw, and the way that we reconnect.
3:52
So, we've got that and so much more coming upon today and probably another day's
3:57
episode of The Virtual Couch.
4:05
Hey everybody, welcome to The Virtual Couch. I'm your host, Tony Overbay.
4:08
I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist.
4:10
And today, I'm bringing back your favorite couple, Jack and Jill.
4:15
And I actually have received some feedback, jokes mainly, which I love.
4:21
Something about why haven't I responded on, did they ever recover from falling
4:24
down the hill or getting the pail of water?
4:27
I've even forgot the childhood nursery rhyme, but it's just easy to think in
4:30
terms of Jack and Jill. They are not a real couple, at least not in the literal sense.
4:35
But this Jack and Jill is a composite and it is built from hundreds and hundreds
4:37
of very real couples that I've worked with over 20 years as a couples therapist.
4:41
The names are fictional, but
4:42
the dynamics and the emotions and the struggles are as real as it gets.
4:46
And in this episode, you're going to hear two parallel stories.
4:49
If you've listened to me for much time at all, I like to reference the concept
4:53
of the choose your own adventure books.
4:56
And that is just this muse that sticks in my head often. So today I've laid
5:01
out two possible versions of Jack and Jill's lives.
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One path is going to show how unresolved childhood experiences,
5:09
insecure attachment styles, how those things can lead to a classic anxious and
5:14
avoidant pattern of pursue and withdrawal dance that so many couples find themselves stuck in.
5:20
And then I'm going to show what it looks like when those same early experiences
5:23
are met with emotional attunement, with a secure attachment,
5:26
with repair, with healthy co-regulation, which is the foundation of a healthy relationship.
5:32
And I will maintain, I do not know of many, if anyone,
5:37
who had that in their childhood, because we are just finally starting to talk
5:40
more and more about emotions and differentiation and being okay as you are and
5:45
what our role is as a parent to hopefully guide and help our kids find their path.
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Not just, hey, you will make me so proud if you do this thing that I always wanted to do.
5:57
So we're going to explore what their childhoods taught them about love,
6:00
about safety and connection, and how those early lessons shaped the way that
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they respond to conflict and to stress and to each other.
6:06
You're going to hear a lot of terms like attachment theory and interpersonal
6:10
neurobiology, co-regulation, earned, secure attachment.
6:13
But I'm going to connect those dots as we go along. And here's what I really
6:17
want you to think about as you listen. Where do you see yourself in these stories?
6:21
Do you relate more to Jill? Are you anxious?
6:24
Are you the pursuer? Are you trying to keep the connection alive?
6:28
Do you find yourself wracked with guilt or shame or wondering what is wrong
6:33
with you if your partner isn't continually checking in and saying,
6:35
I'm here, I love you, we're good?
6:38
Or do you more identify with Jack? Are you the withdrawer?
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Are you the avoidant attachment? Are you trying to always keep things calm?
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Are you one who thinks, no, I need to do it myself?
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And maybe secretly, I don't want to do it myself, but that's the only person
6:50
that I can trust. Often leaving your partner feeling alone, but not sure what to do about it.
6:55
And at times just thinking, you know what, we'll deal with it later.
6:58
I'm good at kicking that can down the road.
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Or maybe you're both, depending on the day. Sometimes you feel a little more
7:03
anxious. Sometimes you feel a little
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more avoidant. Sometimes you're the withdrawer. Sometimes you pursue.
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But a way to ask yourself as you listen to these stories, what happens inside
7:11
your nervous system when somebody pulls away or when somebody gets too close?
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Because I think a lot of people, especially the anxiously attached,
7:18
think, no, all I want is for somebody to pursue me, for somebody to just be
7:22
so genuinely curious about me.
7:23
But then if we find ourselves in those situations, it's so uncommon that we
7:27
don't even recognize that this is somebody that is trying to see me.
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And I'll dismiss that person. No, no. I want the person who won't pay attention
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to me or won't see me. that's the one that I want to see me and to pay attention to me.
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Because I think once you can start to see these patterns, you really can,
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I won't go as far as to say immediately change them, but you have to know what
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they are. And then you have to see what your own role is.
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And then you can start to change the way that you show up in a relationship or dynamic.
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And that will give it a chance to shift the dynamic or the relationship.
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You can at least start to change how you show up. So as you listen,
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I would love for you to share with me what stands out to you.
8:04
What questions come up? Where do you see yourself?
8:06
Email me, send me messages, reach out through social media at virtual.com.
8:10
Couch on Instagram or at virtual couch on TikTok or find me on Substack.
8:15
I'm putting out a lot of content on Substack because I'm building a lot of this
8:19
content or courses or conversations around the topic of marriage,
8:24
of partnership, of relationships, of this push and pull, this anxious and avoidant,
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this pursuer and withdrawal, what brings us together, what pulls us apart and
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how we can repair or recover, whether we stay in a relationship or whether we
8:37
have to make that difficult decision to move on from one.
8:40
And I honestly believe this might be one of the, it sounds so cliched,
8:45
but most powerful episodes that I have shared because I've spent a lot of time
8:48
trying to capture the why behind so much of what happens in couples therapy.
8:52
So take a deep breath, settle in, and let's meet Jack and Jill and see how two
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people started to become the people that they are, how they found each other
9:01
in relationships, both in a healthy way and in an unhealthy way.
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So let's start with the unhealthy path, and we're going to begin with Jill.
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So Jill was around seven years old, the first time that she realized that her
9:12
mom wasn't really like other moms.
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She would come home from school excited about making an honor roll or burst
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through the front door. She's ready to share any kind of news.
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And she would often find her mom on the couch in the same position that she'd
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been in that morning, maybe just watching TV or reading a book,
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kind of staring at nothing, maybe her phone in hand, not really looking at it much.
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One day, Jill says, mom, I made the honor roll. And she waves a certificate.
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It. And her mom barely glanced up. She's like, oh, that's nice, honey.
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And then she returned her gaze into the middle distance or back onto her phone.
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And her mom had missed the award ceremony that can seem silly at times to a
9:51
parent, but it can be just so important to a kid.
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And Jill remembers feeling something deflate inside of her chest. She went to her room.
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She put her certificate in a drawer and she started on her homework.
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She told herself that it's no big deal. Mom was just tired.
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Two hours later, then her mom
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appeared in her doorway and her mascara was smudged and her eyes were red.
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I am such a terrible mom she said you made the honor roll
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and i barely reacted and i didn't even make it to your school today i really
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wanted to be there you must think that i don't love you you must think that i'm
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the worst mom in the whole world now jill stood up she felt so bad for her mom
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she crossed the room she put her arms around her mom no no mom you're not it's
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okay i know you're tired i know you have a lot of things going on it's fine
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really jill the seven-year-old held her mom while her mom cried and jill patted
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her back the way her mom should have been patting hers the honor roll certificate stayed in the drawer.
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This was the pattern of Jill's childhood. Her mom struggled with untreated anxiety and depression.
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She would oscillate between emotional absence and then sometimes being emotionally flooded.
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And when Jill was upset, sometimes her mom didn't notice at all.
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Sometimes she noticed, but she didn't really respond. And sometimes,
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most confusingly, Jill's emotions would then trigger her mom's complete collapse.
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And suddenly Jill would find herself managing her mom's feelings
11:02
about jill's feelings so jill never knew what version she would get but what's
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so important to recognize is this is what jill knew this was normal this was
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the familiar when she came home after not making a soccer team when she was
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around nine or ten her mom barely looked up when she got a b on a math test at ten her mom.
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Pretty upset, spiraled into self-recrimination about her being a bad parent
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who didn't help enough with homework. And then she went on to talk about how
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she was never good at math.
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And Jill ended up comforting her. When Jill's first boyfriend broke up with
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her at 15, her mom said, well, you'll get over it. And she went back to scrolling on her phone.
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Jill's father was physically present, but he was pretty emotionally absent.
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He was a kind man who worked a lot of hours and he seemed relieved to go into
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his workshop on weekends away from his wife's unpredictability.
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He never intervened. He never really modeled a different way.
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He just disappeared into what she would learn as she became an adult, safety.
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What Jill's nervous system learned, that connection is unstable and it could
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vanish without warning.
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When someone withdraws, it means I did something wrong. I need to pursue harder.
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I need to be more. I need to do more. I need to keep people engaged.
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What Jill learned was my feelings are either too much or they're not enough,
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and I really can't tell which.
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But I know that I'm responsible for other people's emotional states.
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If I can be attentive enough, if I can be just loving enough,
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if I can be perfect enough, then maybe people will stay.
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Now, by the time Jill left for college, her nervous system was wired for vigilance,
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hypervigilance. She scanned faces constantly looking for signs of withdrawal.
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She texted friends immediately, worried that if they didn't respond within an
12:37
hour, then something was wrong.
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She volunteered for everything. She helped everybody. She made herself indispensable.
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She was your go-to person because if she was needed, people wouldn't leave.
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Now, unfortunately, when she needed others, that wasn't always the same.
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There wasn't a lot of reciprocity.
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There's some fascinating work by a guy named Dan Siegel. But he says that deep
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in this neural circuitry, Dan Siegel describes the embodied and relational mind.
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Jill's brain had wired itself for one central belief. Connection equals uncertainty,
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and I have to work constantly to secure it. Now let's cut over to Jack.
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Jack was nine years old when he learned that showing vulnerability was dangerous. It was scary.
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He had been struggling with some complex math, long division for about a week or so.
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His teacher had explained it two or three times, but something about the concept
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just wouldn't click in his brain.
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And he felt dumb, which made it harder to think, which made him feel more, more stupid.
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And it was the cycle that he didn't have words for yet.
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His father would look over his homework one evening and his dad's face kind
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of hardened. What, what are you not getting?
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This is basic math. I mean, I was so good at this by the time I was your age. Are you even trying?
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Jack felt the heat flood his face and that horrible combination of shame and panic.
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His dad said, I don't understand how. I don't have time for this.
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And his father pushed the homework back across the table. You got to figure
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it out yourself. I'm not going to spoon feed you everything.
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You have to learn this yourself if you're going to be a man.
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Jack looked toward the kitchen where his mom was washing dishes and she had
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heard the whole thing. And he could tell by the way that her shoulders tensed.
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She never said anything.
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And Jack didn't understand why. That night, Jack heard his parents fighting
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behind their closed bedroom door.
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His mom's voice was pleading. It was barely audible. And his father's voice
14:21
was harsh and cutting. And then there was silence.
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And then for three or four days, his dad didn't speak except for very clipped, necessary phrases.
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And his mom tried to act like everything was normal, serving dinner with a bright false smile.
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Nobody acknowledged the fight. Nobody acknowledged how Jack's dad had acted to him.
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Nobody came back to repair. Nobody said, I was harsh or let's try this again.
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So what Jack learned was when things got hard, people either attacked or they
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disappeared, and sometimes both.
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This pattern repeated throughout his childhood. When Jack was cut from a basketball
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team at 12, his dad said, well, if you'd have practiced more,
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you know, I worked a lot harder than you did, and I made all the teams I tried.
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When Jack was nervous before a debate competition, when he got into high school,
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his dad said, hey, at this point, you're prepared or you're not.
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I don't know why you're worrying about things.
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When Jack struggled after he had a dog that was close to him die at 16,
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his dad told him, man up, it was just a dog.
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And his mother never really intervened. She was very kind in small, quiet ways.
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She would then try to pack his favorite lunch or leave notes in his backpack,
15:18
but she never stood up to his father and she never said, hey, that's too harsh.
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Or she didn't create space for Jack's feelings to exist without criticism.
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This is not to criticize his mom. It wasn't that his mom didn't try,
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but she would find that when she tried, things got worse for her and for Jack.
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So what Jack's nervous system learned, showing vulnerability invites attack or rejection.
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That other people's emotions are dangerous and they're overwhelming.
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So when conflict arises, disappearing is your only safe option.
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If I stay quiet, if I shut down, eventually things blow over.
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Being needed feels like being trapped. Feelings are weakness,
15:51
and weakness gets punished.
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What Jack learned was connection means somebody will either criticize me or fall apart on me.
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And Jack became the kid who seemed fine with everything. He didn't ask for help.
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He didn't share when things were hard.
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He learned to solve problems alone in his room with the door closed.
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He learned that his father's criticism hurt less if he didn't react to it.
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He learned that the safest place was inside his own head where nobody could see him.
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So by the time Jack left for college,
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his nervous system was wired for self-protection through withdrawal.
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Emotions, whether they were his own or others, they felt like threats.
16:24
Closeness felt like suffocation. Independence was the only thing that felt like survival.
16:29
So deep in his neural circuitry, in the place where interpersonal neurobiology
16:33
tells us our relational patterns get encoded, Jack's brain had wired itself for one central belief.
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Connection equals danger, and I have to protect myself through distance.
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So how did Jack and Jill find each other? They met at a professional conference
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when they were both in their mid-20s.
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Jill was attending sessions and networking actively and making conversation easily.
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And Jack noticed her across the lobby during this opening reception.
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She had a warmth that seemed to just draw people in.
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But unlike the other extroverts who seemed to be working the room,
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which was kind of off-putting to him, she actually seemed to listen when people talked.
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When they ended up in the same small group discussion, Jill asked Jack about
17:08
his work and she made eye contact. And she leaned in slightly and she remembered
17:11
details that he had mentioned earlier.
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So for Jack, who'd spent his life at this point feeling either criticized or
17:17
invisible, this attention felt like he was finally seen. Somebody thinks I'm interesting.
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Somebody wants to know about me. For Jill, Jack seemed different from other
17:25
guys that she dated. He was quieter. He was more reserved.
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He didn't dominate the conversations or perform for attention.
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He seemed solid. He seemed grounded.
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So after a lifetime of her mom's emotional chaos, Jack felt like peaceful waters.
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Finally, somebody who won't fall apart. Somebody stable that I won't have to take care of.
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Here's what's crazy, though. What neither of them realized, they were each attracted
17:48
to a familiar dynamic, but it was disguised as its opposite.
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When they exchanged numbers and they started texting each other,
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Jill was attentive and responsive and she replied quickly and she asked thoughtful
17:58
questions and she made plans and Jack loved every minute of it.
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After a childhood of emotional unavailability, Jill's attention felt like the
18:04
opposite of his parents. She seemed genuinely interested in him.
18:08
Jack's measured responses and his emotional reserve actually looked like secure
18:13
masculinity to Jill. He didn't dump his feelings on her.
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He didn't seem needy. He didn't appear self-sufficient.
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So Jill starts thinking, he won't need me to manage his emotions like my mom
18:21
did. It seems like he's got himself together.
18:24
There's some pretty fascinating research on this dynamic, and it's very consistent.
18:29
Researchers Philip Shaver and Cindy Hazen's groundbreaking work in 1987 was
18:34
applying attachment theory to adult romantic relationships, and it found that
18:38
people with anxious attachment patterns like Jill and avoidant attachment patterns
18:41
like Jack are often drawn to each other.
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And it's not random. It's unconscious pattern matching.
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Jill's anxious attachment made her hypervigilant to connection,
18:50
which initially looked like attentiveness and care.
18:53
Jack's avoidant attachment made him emotionally reserved, which initially looked
18:57
like stability and independence.
18:59
So in these early stages of dating, before real intimacy and before stress entered
19:03
the picture, these patterns hadn't activated yet.
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There was a researcher named Stan Tatkin. He worked in this psychobiological
19:11
approach to couples therapy, which has an acronym of PACT.
19:14
That work suggests that our nervous systems unconsciously seek what feels familiar,
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even if that familiarity is uncomfortable.
19:22
So, Jill's nervous system recognized Jack's emotional distance.
19:26
It was her father's workshop. It was her mother's withdrawal.
19:30
Jack's nervous system recognized Jill's intensity.
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It was the emotional flooding he had learned to escape from.
19:35
But in early dating, they couldn't both maintain the illusion.
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Jill wasn't yet desperate or pursuing because Jack was still responding.
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Jack wasn't withdrawn yet because the stakes were still low.
19:45
So they were running their best versions of the patterns.
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Now, when I first was a therapist, I started looking at couples therapy.
19:51
The first model I ever learned about was called Imago. And it was by a gentleman
19:54
named Harville Hendricks.
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And Hendrix's Imago relationship theory proposes that we unconsciously choose
20:00
partners who embody traits of our primary caregivers, both the positive also
20:05
and the negative, the familiar.
20:06
The unconscious hope is that this time with this person, we can get it right
20:11
and that will heal this original wound.
20:13
It's like we're subconsciously drawn to somebody that is familiar so we can
20:17
heal because we didn't have a healing relationship with our own parents.
20:22
So Jill then unconsciously hoped, if I can just be attentive enough,
20:25
present enough, perfect enough, he'll stay engaged.
20:28
Unlike my mom, he won't disappear.
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Jack unconsciously hoped, she seems warm but not overwhelming,
20:35
so she won't need a whole lot from me and she won't collapse or criticize like my parents.
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They got engaged after about a year and a half. The proposal was lovely, according to Jill.
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Jack planned it thoughtfully. Jill cried happy tears. Both of them felt that they had found safety.
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Neither one of them at that time realized that they'd actually found familiarity instead.
20:53
What does that look like in the present day? Jack and Jill have been married for a few years.
20:58
Now, from the outside, they look pretty good. Good jobs, nice home.
21:01
They're very friendly at social gatherings. But inside their relationship,
21:04
they're locked in this dance that is slowly suffocating them both.
21:08
And it's something that has happened the more that they have encountered stressors.
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So picture this. It was a Saturday afternoon, and here is where the pattern
21:17
starts to reveal itself.
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Jill comes home from a mechanic with news. Their car needs a couple thousand
21:22
bucks in unexpected repairs.
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She feels her chest tighten immediately, her thoughts racing. How will we cover this?
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Should I have noticed something was wrong with the car sooner?
21:31
Is Jack going to be angry? Definitely my fault.
21:33
She finds Jack in the kitchen and tries to keep her voice steady.
21:36
Hey, I just got some news from the mechanic and we need at least two grand for the car.
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What's happening for Jack? His body tenses immediately. His jaw clenches.
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Before he's even aware of it, his nervous system is activated into defense mode
21:48
because the money issue triggers something deeper.
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It's not just about dollars. It's about feeling trapped, responsible,
21:55
burdened, like he's going to be criticized, like he doesn't make enough money.
21:58
Just the very fact that Jill is expressing this must mean that she thinks he's not a good provider.
22:03
It's his dad's criticism wrapped up in this adult clothing.
22:08
He already thinks that you never handle things right. So what's his response?
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He says, seriously, are you serious right now?
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Oh, and his voice has an edge that makes Jill's heart rate spike.
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He said, I mean, I told you that we should have taken it to my guy.
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I swear I said that several times. Then Jill feels her panic rising.
22:26
This is her mom turning away, her dad disappearing into the workshop.
22:29
Jack is going to leave her emotionally, if not physically, and her nervous system screams danger.
22:33
I didn't know it would be this bad. I just, then Jack just finds himself just
22:37
interrupting without even thinking about it.
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He's like, you don't ever listen to me. I feel like you don't even know who I am.
22:42
He's not even looking at it right now. He pulls out his phone.
22:44
He's scrolling. I don't even know what to do right now. I can't deal with this
22:47
right now. So fine, do whatever you need to do.
22:50
He walks into the living room, sits on the couch, his eyes on his phone,
22:52
his jaws clenched. Inside, he feels overwhelmed.
22:56
Jill's stress is radiating off her in waves and his system can't handle it.
23:00
He needs space. He needs distance. He needs quiet. And he just thinks shutting
23:05
down is the only tool I have.
23:07
It's almost like he just needs to hunker down and let the storm pass.
23:10
And you know what? Jill, Jill can figure it out.
23:12
If he engages, he'll either explode or he'll collapse. So, he doesn't either. He disappears.
23:17
But for Jill, his withdrawal is unbearable because now it confirms every fear
23:21
her childhood wired into her. I am too much.
23:23
My feelings drive people away. This must be my fault. If I don't fix it right
23:27
now, he's going to leave.
23:28
So what does she do? She follows him into the living room. Hey,
23:31
Jack, please. I just need to talk to you about this.
23:34
He's silent. He's still scrolling. He's not looking up. So what does Jill do?
23:38
Her voice gets louder. It gets more urgent.
23:40
Hey, don't shut down. We have to handle this. Her body is doing what Dan Siegel
23:43
would describe as seeking co-regulation.
23:46
This is probably one of the biggest keys to today's episode.
23:50
Her nervous system is trying to co-regulate, is trying to connect with his nervous
23:53
system to find stability.
23:55
But his nervous system is in shutdown mode. It's unavailable.
23:58
So, her system ramps up higher, trying to bridge the gap.
24:01
She's trying to say the things, make the right gestures and use the right mouth
24:05
noises, whatever she has to do to get him to engage. Because if he doesn't engage,
24:10
she doesn't know what to do.
24:12
This is the pursue-withdraw cycle. This is what attachment researchers like
24:15
Sue Johnson, who discovered emotionally focused therapy, have documented extensively.
24:20
Jill pursues because withdrawal feels like abandonment.
24:23
Jack withdraws because pursuit feels like an attack. Each person's coping mechanism
24:27
triggers the other's core wound.
24:29
So this is a dance, not a healthy one. If we can find ourselves in a relationship
24:34
with someone with secure attachment, the other person's regulated nervous system
24:38
helps regulate our own. But when both nervous systems are dysregulated,
24:41
they can't co-regulate.
24:43
Instead, they amplify each other's distress. The more that she gets anxious, the more he shuts down.
24:49
And it's fascinating, and you can't unsee it. What's happening in their brains in this moment is.
24:55
Is that when we're in relationships with someone who
24:58
is securely attached then that person's
25:01
regulated nervous system helps regulate her own anxious
25:05
individuals become more anxious when their partner creates distance or becomes
25:09
more avoidant and then avoidant individuals become more avoidant when their
25:12
partner increases the pursuit or becomes more anxious and it becomes this self-reinforcing
25:18
cycle the more that one person becomes anxious the more the other one becomes avoidant.
25:23
And the more one becomes avoidant, the more the other one becomes anxious.
25:26
And it continues and goes on and on and on.
25:30
In this scenario, Jill finally shouts, fine, just sit there.
25:33
I'll handle everything like I always do. She storms upstairs,
25:35
she slams the bedroom door, and she starts crying.
25:38
Underneath her anger is a deeper pain. I am alone. I'm always alone.
25:42
Jack stays on the couch, tension slowly draining from his body now that Jill is withdrawn.
25:47
He tells himself, I'll deal with
25:49
it later. I'll deal with the situation tomorrow when she's calmed down.
25:52
He's a master at kicking the can down the road, and he believes it in that moment.
25:56
He tells himself, you know what? She just overacts everything and he doesn't
26:00
recognize that his shutdown actually made her panic worse, just like he doesn't
26:04
recognize that his panic about being needed made him shut down in the first place.
26:08
Later that night, they move around each other very carefully.
26:11
Jill makes dinner in silence. Jack eats it without a comment.
26:14
Jill tries another time.
26:15
Hey, can we please talk about the car? Jack sighs and says, I said,
26:20
I'll take a look at it tomorrow. Can we just drop it tonight?
26:23
Jill hears, hey, you don't actually matter enough to discuss this right now.
26:26
What Jack means is, I actually think I need time to regulate,
26:30
calm down before I can think about this.
26:32
Neither knows how to actually say what they mean.
26:35
This pattern repeats itself across their marriage. When Jill tries to discuss
26:38
feeling disconnected, Jack shuts down.
26:40
When Jack needs space, Jill interprets it as rejection and she pursues harder.
26:44
They've had the same fight in various forms hundreds of times.
26:47
They're not bad people. They're not even incompatible in some fundamental way.
26:52
They're two people whose nervous systems were wired for opposite forms of self
26:55
protection and those forms of protection now trigger each other's deepest wounds
26:59
so jill's pursuit confirms jack's childhood belief that people want too much
27:03
and he's never enough jack's withdrawal confirms jill's childhood belief that
27:07
she's too much and people always leave,
27:09
they're stuck in what stan tackin calls this insecure couple bubble their relationship
27:14
amplifies threat rather than providing safety and i cannot go much further past
27:18
that without saying try saying that one a few times insecure couple bubble insecure
27:22
couple bubble okay maybe it's not that hard.
27:25
But according to attachment research, couples like Jack and Jill have several
27:28
possible paths forward. This is where we start to sniff around a little bit of hope.
27:32
Now, first though, they could stay locked in this pattern and they slowly build
27:35
resentment and disconnection.
27:36
And what that looks like as the couple's therapist is they come in and they
27:39
can't even remember what the frustration or the argument was for the week.
27:43
That's what got me started down this path quite a while ago is when I'm stepping
27:48
back, okay, let's go full vulnerability here.
27:50
To the couple's therapist, Just, it's not about the nail.
27:54
If you've ever seen that video, which is so good. And this is why I find myself
27:57
talking about Taco Bell drive-thru experiences or something,
28:03
I don't know, somebody wanting to cut the wick of a candle or the other person
28:06
not, or somebody who wanted to buy new running socks and the other person saying,
28:12
what does that mean for me?
28:13
And then we end up having four-pillared connected conversations about these
28:18
seemingly trivial concepts.
28:21
And often one of the parties can even think, man, this is ridiculous.
28:25
I'm spending how much money to talk about a drive-thru or toe socks versus regular
28:29
socks because she wants to run a marathon.
28:31
It's not about the socks. It's not about the nail. It's not about Taco Bell.
28:34
It's about co-regulating each other's emotions.
28:38
It's really from when I'm stepping back, watching someone get really big and
28:43
emote and do different mouth sounds and hands gestures until they find the right
28:46
combination that all of a sudden feels okay.
28:50
And then I'm sitting here saying, no, you guys didn't really hear each other.
28:53
They made the right facial expression and made the right sounds out of their
28:57
mouth that made you feel like, okay, that makes me feel better.
29:01
So, we're co-regulating our emotions and we feel like that was a connection,
29:06
but we're not really learning anything more.
29:08
So, they can continue building this resentment, disconnection,
29:12
learning how to try to make better mouth sounds and arm gestures.
29:16
And that can often lead to things like divorce.
29:18
Or they can do the harder thing. They can recognize the pattern.
29:21
They can understand where it comes from. And they can begin to consciously work
29:24
to rewire their nervous systems together.
29:27
But right now, in several years into their marriage, they don't know any of
29:31
this. They just know that marriage feels exhausting.
29:34
And Jill feels constantly anxious and alone. Jack feels constantly criticized and trapped.
29:39
Neither realizes they're fighting ghosts from childhood that ended decades ago.
29:44
So that's where we're going to leave Jack and Jill, at least for now.
29:47
These are two good people. They're both doing the best that they can with the
29:50
emotional wiring that life handed them.
29:52
And their stories might sound extreme or they might sound really familiar.
29:55
But if you've ever found yourself stuck in a loop, saying the same things,
29:59
feeling the same frustrations, using the same hand gestures,
30:03
uttering the same mouth noises, and these things keep happening,
30:06
then you probably lived a version of this.
30:08
And what's heartbreaking is that neither of them is broken. They are just running
30:11
programs their nervous systems wrote decades ago, and they were protection strategies
30:15
that once made sense. But now it keeps them apart.
30:18
I love the work of Terry Reel and his Relational Life Therapy.
30:21
It's becoming a very big part of my couple's practice where he talks about the
30:25
things that were adaptive as a child are now maladaptive as an adult.
30:29
It's time to let the big kids learn the right tools.
30:32
And I promise that you can have a much deeper connection.
30:35
Because what if I were to say, you don't have to stay that way.
30:38
We're going to do a part two. And in part two, we're going to revisit Jack and
30:41
Jill's lives. Same people, same world. This time, though, we're going to see
30:44
what happens when their childhoods were different.
30:46
When parents modeled emotional safety or repair or consistency.
30:50
And you'll see how that changes the story, not just in their relationship with
30:53
each other, but in how they experience themselves.
30:55
Because a secure attachment doesn't mean perfection, not at all.
30:58
It means connection that feels safe.
31:01
And we're also going to talk about what you can do in order to get your marriage
31:05
in a better spot. I did not set out.
31:08
Starting this episode with any intent to sell a course or to pitch my own services.
31:13
But I do have an update coming of my Magnetic Marriage course.
31:17
And part of the reason why there's been such a delay in getting this update
31:21
out is because I can't stop learning about ways to help you connect better in your relationship.
31:27
So if you're interested, please reach out to me and let me know or follow me
31:31
on Substack or on any of the social media platforms, because there's a lot coming
31:35
that's going to not only add to my four pillars of a connected conversation
31:38
and the work on differentiation and emotional maturity.
31:40
But we're going to start talking about this co-regulating of each other's emotional
31:43
states because that's a significant part.
31:46
And if you are a couple, you resonate deeply with my work and you're interested
31:51
in possibly working with me, reach out.
31:53
Let me know a little bit more about your story because I do find some openings
31:57
from time to time. I love working with people that are eager to work.
32:00
So take a breath, sit with what came up for you, jot it down,
32:04
reach out to me and look for part two in the next week as we explore the other
32:10
path, what it looks like when love doesn't have to be earned and connection doesn't have to hurt.
32:15
Thanks everybody. I hope you have an amazing week. Taking us out per usual is
32:19
the wonderful, talented Aurora Florence with her song, it's wonderful because
32:23
man, when you get the right tools, that can be pretty wonderful. We'll see you next week.