Couples Counseling For Parents
My Partner Has No Emotions!
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Ever wondered if an avoidant partner can truly connect emotionally? We examine how childhood experiences shape adult relationships, focusing on avoidant attachment. Stephen Mitchell, PhD and Erin Mitchell, MACP discuss what avoidant attachment is, how it impacts a couple relationship, and how partner's can stay connected if one of them is avoidantly attached.
Got a question, comment, or just want to drop some encouragement? Send us a text.
Ever wondered if an avoidant partner can truly connect emotionally? We examine how childhood experiences shape adult relationships, focusing on avoidant attachment. Stephen Mitchell, PhD and Erin Mitchell, MACP discuss what avoidant attachment is, how it impacts a couple relationship, and how partner's can stay connected if one of them is avoidantly attached.
Hello and welcome. This is Couples Counseling for Parents a show about couple relationships, how they work, why they don't, what you can do to fix what's broken. Here are our parents our dad, dr Stephen Mitchell, and our mom, erin Mitchell.
Speaker 2:Hello and thanks for joining us today on Couples Counseling for Parents. I'm Dr Stephen Mitchell.
Speaker 3:I'm Erin Mitchell.
Speaker 2:And you know what? It has been a really long time since we've done a podcast episode.
Speaker 3:It's been. There has been a lot going on. It's been a busy couple of weeks for our family, for our business.
Speaker 2:There has been a lot going on. Do you know why there's been a lot going on, Erin?
Speaker 3:There's a few reasons, but I know what you're going to say, and I think so do all of our listeners, guess what Our book is coming out.
Speaker 2:We wrote a book everyone and that book is coming out July 9th and we have been doing. I mean honestly, we've had the opportunity so cool to do TV interviews. We were on Daytime Chicago. That was such a cool experience to go into the studio and do this live daytime interview. We've done a bunch of radio interviews, like we just did one on I heart radio, kind of like the. I mean like the live thing, like where you call in the the you know radio personality is there, they're asking you questions, you're answering and it's going on the radio like in real time.
Speaker 3:It's just I mean this kind of podcast, yeah it's wild to me, it's really wild to me, but we have been it's been a lot of fun yes um, we really do enjoy those types of things, which is really it's good for us that we enjoy them, because we have had a lot of them.
Speaker 2:Well, and you know what, and I mean maybe this, I don't know, maybe this sounds a little strange, but also it like, the more we talk about the book and the ideas in the book, I'm like I think this is a really, really good book. And maybe, you know, you would think well, of course you would think it's a good book, you wrote it. But I do think sometimes I mean, we have all these ideas, we have all these things that we want to express and really ways that we do feel like we can really be helpful to couples, and sometimes you put it all out there and then kind of seeing the finished product and then talking about the ideas, it's been really neat to, I don't know, just have the feeling of like, oh, I think this is really meaningful, I think this is really useful.
Speaker 3:I think that's for two reasons, or it's maybe making me think of two different things. One the book lived in our minds and in our conversations and basically in our basement office for two years.
Speaker 2:Right and in our practical experience of talking to couples and interacting with couples. But the book itself, yes, yes, and so I think it just it lived in our basement. It did we?
Speaker 3:spent lots and lots and lots of midnight hours and the downstairs office, and so I think it just sort of we stopped there, stopped being sort of external influences, and then sharing with the editor having that feedback.
Speaker 3:Now it's a finished thing and every time we've had this interview, the people have typically read it yeah they get a pre-copy, like the publishing house sends a copy to them and they they're like this is really good. When we did the audio book, the editor was like hey Aaron, I just wanted you to know like I read the book. I really enjoyed it. And then I was like oh yeah, great Thanks, because, honestly, that's polite. So, even if he hadn't enjoyed it. I assume he would have said something along those lines.
Speaker 3:But at the end he was like hey, I said that earlier and you kind of didn't really hear me. I really enjoyed your book. It was really meaningful to me.
Speaker 1:Um, I know it's going to do great things and those are the moments, and I think that's some of what it is.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think some of it is like it's just out in the world, and then some of it is getting feedback. It's like, oh, you're really benefiting from this. That's really wonderful yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's the whole point of why we wrote the book.
Speaker 1:Yeah we think it's really helpful.
Speaker 3:And now we are hearing the feedback loop of like oh, we thought it would be really helpful and it is, oh great.
Speaker 2:Our desire more than anything. The reason we exist in the world is because we want more than anything in our life to have a healthy couple relationship. That's of utmost importance to Aaron and me.
Speaker 3:I know I was thinking is it Aaron and I or me?
Speaker 2:Aaron always corrects me on that grammatical. It seems important it does. I guess it is important it's not right now.
Speaker 2:Aaron and me, and so I mean I think it's reflective of our own desires in terms of wanting to have a healthy relationship. But we also really believe that couples can have these deep, meaningful, healthy, beautiful, loving relationships in the midst of life, which is stressful and which is beautiful and wonderful and hard and full of grief and loss and joy and all these kinds of things. And I think that sometimes it's really hard for couples to see that and sometimes it's just hard to have hope, I think in the midst of challenges. And you know we saw, you know our parents didn't have good relationships. You know, at the end of the day, you know they both ended in divorce and all of those kinds of things.
Speaker 2:And so I think for us, at least for me, I just remember always looking at my parents and being like it has to be better than this. It totally could, like there has to be a better way to do relationship. And maybe you know that little kid part of my heart has always been moving towards and working towards. You know a book like this where it's like, yes, it can be better than this. This is, I think, how you do it and you know so it's. You know it's really meaningful to hear, you know, people say it. It means something and I think you know, in some ways it's the, I don't know. It's like our life, our desires, our deepest hopes, like in a book.
Speaker 3:So well, that is very sweet and touching and, honestly, deeply meaningful. That's, that's really moving. I think that you're exactly right, um, that it it can and should be not you always say this all the time not perfect.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 3:We have not. We have met with a lot of couples at this point and no one comes in and says we want a perfect relationship. No one. We all no one's asking for that. It would be lovely, I imagine, Wouldn't it? But I think what we do want, what the point of the book is, what I think your little kid heart, I mean that part's never going to not get me is to be able to be present and enjoy what our days are Like, how they really are.
Speaker 3:Yeah, what they are, what our days are like, how they really are not waiting for them to be something else or feeling like we aren't allowed to engage. You know, one of the primary, like you know, points of the book is you don't have to just make it to bedtime.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You can engage yourself and your partner in your life in a way that will bring connection.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Anyway. But the little kid self made me think of what the podcast today is going to be about.
Speaker 2:Yes, so before all the way, right before we, so I had to. I have two floating thoughts. So book too tired to fight, coming out July 9. It's available available for pre order. You can find it on our Instagram. You can find it on our website couplescounselingforparentscom.
Speaker 3:Or anywhere.
Speaker 2:You can find it on. Oh, that's right, I forgot. Yeah, it's on. Yeah, go to Amazon.
Speaker 3:Target, amazon, barnes and Noble I forget all the places. Powell Books yeah, wherever you typically buy your books, all those kinds of things.
Speaker 2:Books a Million, which I didn't know still existed, but Books a Million online as well.
Speaker 3:Is that the thing that's Canadian too, right Is?
Speaker 2:that where we've no, in Canada, it's Amazon only, I think. Oh, I thought there was another one, but also but it would be really meaningful to us. You can get. Yes, you can get it in the UK as well, so the-.
Speaker 3:We've got the. The UK cover is different. It's through a different publisher.
Speaker 2:And it's through a different publisher, um, and it's really really cool. Yeah, so if you're in the uk listening like you can also pre-order the book. Um canada, us. Um, I think that that's where it is as well for for now. Um, I also believe it's going to be in romania, which is pretty cool, um, but uh. So, yes, it would mean a lot to to us if you get the book and follow along, and the pre-order incentive right now.
Speaker 2:Yes. So the pre-order incentive? We should. I need to figure out a way just to post that permanently. So the pre-order incentive is if you pre-order the book, you also get our couples communication workshop for free.
Speaker 3:I think you might have to do that through Penguin.
Speaker 2:Yes, but I will post. Maybe I'll make a permanent spot for that on our website.
Speaker 3:If you're interested in that and you can't find how to do it, reach out to us. Yes, info at Couples Counseling for Parents.
Speaker 2:Right, Because we're figuring it out in real time right now it seems.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just reach out to us, dm us and I can send you the link and I will also figure out a way to put the link up. But yeah, so little kid self. Oh, and then the other floating thought Sorry, aaron mentioned. We did the audio book Just from the standpoint of like a really another cool experience of sitting down in the in a recording studio with headphones on. You have this, you have a director. We worked with two directors. They were great. I worked with the um. I needed special attention, so I had to work with two directors, um, and they're like in your ear and you're sitting there reading the book and then they're giving you little prompts, they're listening to make sure it's all coming out right. It's just a really wild experience to do.
Speaker 3:It was really fun. Actually, I was thinking it was going to be nine hours of reading our book two days in a row my parts. It was really fun, it was engaging, it was dynamic and I'm really proud of it.
Speaker 2:And so for you podcast listeners, if you would prefer to hear our sultry tones coming through your speakers, as it does on this podcast, hearing us read you the book, you know what? Get the audio book, you can pre-order that as well. It's available. But those are all my floating, floating thoughts, and so now we can go back to the little kid self.
Speaker 3:Okay, do you want me to introduce the topic?
Speaker 2:Let's do it.
Speaker 3:To be perfectly honest, I'm not entirely sure where on it was an Instagram post I made a few weeks back where someone said I'm really loving that y'all are starting to post more about attachment and our childhood stories and, to be perfectly honest, one I hadn't necessarily realized. We don't do a lot of that before that, because that is a lot of what our work actually is.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's fundamental to how we think about relationships. Yeah, and how you repair.
Speaker 3:But when they said this I was like it is very difficult for me to sort of find an entry point in a post on something so complex.
Speaker 2:I don't yeah, it's definitely a nerdy topic attachment theory and the neuroscience behind it and all of those things. It is not the simplest thing to express in a post.
Speaker 3:I have a hard time and, um, I'm making it concise and readable. It's. I don't do great with that. And then also like childhood history stuff also very important. People don't like that, people want to like. I don't want to talk about the past, I want to talk about now I don't want to get stuck in the past.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we don't either.
Speaker 3:Good news no one wants to get stuck in the past.
Speaker 2:We all.
Speaker 3:we all want to be able to move forward and move through, and the way to do that is to incorporate and go ahead and say the thing that I always like that you say.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure what you're thinking I'm going to say, but what I think about in terms of the past is Coherent. Yes, you have to think about. If you think about your life in terms of past, present and future. If your past is painful or confusing or doesn't make sense, there's no way that that doesn't, no way that that doesn't also make your present confusing, painful, maybe nonsensical at times, which then also will impact your future.
Speaker 2:So the reason you think about your past is not so that you get stuck in it, but so that you can integrate it into your life, so that your present feels different than your past and you can move into your future with hope and choice and this kind of process of weaving your past, present and future together is this idea from interpersonal neurobiology, specifically where I've seen it from the neuroscientist Dan Siegel, who talks about every human being, to feel healthy and well, needs a coherent autobiographical narrative. In other words, we need a past, present and future that makes sense to us, and so it doesn't mean your pain makes sense, but it means that you Well, I would disagree, maybe the pain doesn't make sense. You don't say like oh sense.
Speaker 3:but it means that you why? I would disagree. Maybe the pain doesn't make sense. You don't say like oh, I really like that, that happened. Sure exactly, but you can understand how something that did happen is having current impact and, without processing that, you are going to make a future reaction based on either it feeling overwhelming or, onto today's topic, not wanting to feel it at all.
Speaker 2:Right and so, honestly, much of the work we are doing with couples is trying to help couples understand their story, their past, their present and their future.
Speaker 2:Because there's this interplay between your individual world and then your relationship with your partner, and you have to have an understanding of your individual experience and world and story so that then you can communicate all of that to your partner, so that then you and your partner can craft a narrative together as a couple that makes sense and has a vision and has a goal. And so when couples struggle understanding their own individual stories, they struggle in their communication with one another and then add the overlay of a very intense and beautifully complex and difficult experience, such as parenting, which also touches into building attachment relationships with your children but also reminds you of the attachment relationships that you had. It can be very confusing and as adults you can be kind of running into some of those old attachment stories that you've had, those old emotions, those old feelings that you've had, and you and your partner don't know how to communicate about them. It becomes very confused and then people end up talking to us.
Speaker 3:So I think that all makes a ton of sense. I think it's starting to get a little heady and swimmy, or at least for me.
Speaker 2:So let's get practical. Yes, so I think it's starting to get a little heady and swimming or at least for me. So let's get practical.
Speaker 3:Yes, so I think, a few things that stand out for me. One of the things you said is if we have these painful parts from our history, we are going to experience them in our present as painful, and I would just like to disagree with that entirely. I think that is true for a large subset of people, but I think at least half of the people we talk to would say absolutely not. I don't feel any pain about those at all.
Speaker 2:Oh, I see what you just did Y'all. I don't know if you saw what Erin just did, but what she did is she just explained two of the attachment patterns or styles of relating, by saying there's some people that say it again because I'm going to say it wrong.
Speaker 3:Well, so you made the comment that we have to have these coherent autobiographical narratives and I think that those are sort of it's a long string of relatively understandable words, but the idea is, if you read your kids a book at night and you rip out just a random page, the story will make sense, but you're missing something and everybody kind of knows it. That's what the idea is, and I think a lot of times and that's what painful experiences. We would like to rip them out, we're like you know what.
Speaker 3:That's one category of people. They want to rip it out. Go ahead.
Speaker 2:Good, well, so even maybe a basic like so some people are like you're talking about attachment. What are you talking about? I'll give just a really Okay.
Speaker 3:I think we kind of did that. Okay, fine, 30 seconds.
Speaker 2:Aaron says no, 30 seconds. So this is it. So attachment theory is a theory of human relationship and how human beings build bonds of connection and love with other human beings, and there's a whole field of neuroscience called interpersonal neurobiology that supports this theory, through brain scans and so kind of connecting the science with the theory that was initially developed by John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth. And so, basically, when we're talking about attachment, what we're talking about is how human beings build bonds of connection and love with one another, and that this is a system within our body, within our nervous system, within our brain, that helps us be connected to one another, and that this system is impacted by our life experience.
Speaker 3:So I think the one sure.
Speaker 2:Sure yes, not sure.
Speaker 3:Well, I, yes, I again I think. I think it's just kind of like theoretical and heady. So one of the ways that that a person and no one chooses their attachment pattern to be very, very clear, it's born out of experience.
Speaker 3:Yes, as a little tiny person, you're testing stuff out and it's like is this going to stick? Is that going to stick? So one of these options that we see present, say, 25, 30 years later in life, is the couple that comes in and the one partner says my partner won't open up, they never share. I try to share and they're-.
Speaker 2:They're not emotional.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they want to hear from me. It's not that they don't love me. I know that they love me, but I don't feel that they love me. I don't feel like when I express concern or sadness or anger that it resonates with them and vice versa.
Speaker 3:they are sort of like everything's fine, we'll make it through, kind of um steady eddie not a little more on the flat side, but I think steady eddie is a really good way of saying it, because I think the way that this person presents then is like why would I want to be stressed all the time? Why you're already elevated on every last thing? So when you come back to our childhood storybook that we were talking about earlier, I'm going to call Stephen, the Steady Eddie and Aaron.
Speaker 2:Well, she's going to call me that, because that's what I am.
Speaker 3:That is called an avoidant attachment, because this is how I present.
Speaker 2:I have a more dismissive or avoidant attachment those are the actual names for them, not just what it looks and seems like, but it is what it looks and seems like and so part of what that attachment pattern or style is like, like why that has developed in my life is because I realized at a very young age the way for me to handle stress and the stress that I was-.
Speaker 3:And again to be very clear, you didn't actually notice that. You realized this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is all on a subconscious, implicit level. But because I'm so healed and I've done so much work and I'm just the picture of wellness. I understand these things and Aaron's not affirming that part, that last part. But I agree but well, I'm not, I'm joking. Basically, it's, it's how I manage stress, and the way I manage stress is, in a way, to disengage from the intensity of feeling period.
Speaker 3:Yes, I think that's yes.
Speaker 2:I feel nothing intensely.
Speaker 3:Well, and if you think about that, so anybody who has this way of attaching they don't want to be stressed so saying, hey, let's go to couples work and talk to Steven and Aaron and we're going to talk about all these things all these hard things, all these deep emotions, all this stressful stuff.
Speaker 3:I mean very often these steady Eddie Stevens that come in are like okay, like I think really what we're going to end up talking about is that you're super stressed out and I don't really want to be so like, if that's what you need to do, fine.
Speaker 2:Or this idea of, like I think everything's fine. Yeah, are things stressful or tough? They are, but they're not that bad.
Speaker 3:We were just talking about this. So one of the ways that Steven and I sort of coped our way through our first year postpartum, when our oldest was born, was I was flailing relationally. I felt like we really could use some help again why we wrote the book, because it wasn't available. I was looking, I was really really looking and like this is not that. No, not this, not that. And Stephen's response always was yeah, it's really hard, this is really hard. We just got to make it through, we're making it. You just keep making it, just keep making it.
Speaker 2:I'm like I I Sounds like sound advice.
Speaker 3:It wasn't. It's not entirely untrue either, but you either make it out of something, feeling connected and together, or like you've just been dragged through 18 months where you've been trying to say you're not really doing well and your partner's like keep going, You're crushing, Like I'm not crushing, I'm being crushed.
Speaker 2:And so, if you see so, there's an understandable reason why that was my response.
Speaker 3:Absolutely to me and as a child.
Speaker 2:But right, but I think what we begin to talk with couples about, what we have had to understand as a couple, is that pattern has an impact on your partner and oftentimes that that impact from a dismissive, avoidant attachment is that your partner feels like you are not listening to them, like you don't care, like you're not trying to understand and like they are um you. You say this oftentimes, aaron to understand.
Speaker 1:And like they are.
Speaker 2:you say this oftentimes Erin All the time every day, all the time every day, because it's still a problem, stephen. It's like I'm trying to tell you I'm drowning and all you've done is said you'll be okay, keep swimming.
Speaker 3:And I think what you really say is we'll be okay. We feel everyone feels like that yeah, I'm sure you swim and and I think, and I I think it sort of is a spectrum like anything right, but I don't think all of the time that partners.
Speaker 2:And yes, there are other attachment styles, but today we're specifically focusing on the avoidant right and we will talk about the other ones in the next podcast episode um, but I don't, I think for the me's and I think most of the couples we work with.
Speaker 3:But I'm sure there I know there are others that do feel very unloved, but I think most of them like myself. I know you love me, but in those very stressed moments when Stephen's attachment takes over and my attachment takes over because that is the dynamic part that is hard to see it comes out like yes, I know you love me, but you know what I love is to be able to feel that to see that for that to express itself in ways that aren't just practical, because Stephen's like what else do you want from me?
Speaker 3:I cleaned the dishes, I packed the diaper bag, I got the car loaded and unloaded.
Speaker 2:I love our children and I love our kids. I love you, I love you. I make money, I go to work, I don't cheat, I don't have huge problems or other things that are hurting. I'm like this is love. What else could I possibly do to express love to you?
Speaker 3:And I'm like, wow, all of those things are very respectful, you're right, but so few of them actually feel like love. However, if we also take a step back and this is a really important thing to do if you happen to be in a relationship with an avoidant person, even if you are also avoidantly attached so that happens in relationships, too where two avoidant um people end up together. But it is important to say, like, if one of those things that I listed wasn't there, I would be hurt by that. So we, we begin to take the steadiness for granted, decided not to work anymore.
Speaker 2:Yes, that would be.
Speaker 3:Or if you weren't really helpful and if you didn't follow through with these tasks.
Speaker 2:I mean I can't tell you If I didn't love our kids?
Speaker 3:Sure, that I do. I do begin to take those things for granted, like yeah, you're right, those are great Big deal, but those are big deals. But because you're right, those are great Big deal, but those are big deals.
Speaker 2:But because they don't feel a certain way, they don't necessarily, especially over time they begin to lose, like, their meaning of um, yeah, and I think when they lose their meaning, then the message that I you know that I receive is like, um, not appreciated, like the things I do don't matter.
Speaker 3:Well, literally, you do nothing, right, it's all is lost, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so I think that it's important, and it really is important for both of us to understand this. So partners yeah, but since we're talking, about us?
Speaker 3:No, I hear you.
Speaker 2:So, because I think it allows for some generosity and some graciousness to one another. First of all, like Erin has every right in the universe to be upset or to be frustrated with the idea that she doesn't, or in the feeling that she's like I'm not feeling the love she doesn't, or in the feeling that she's like I'm not feeling the love. It's not that I don't appreciate these things, but also there are other things, stephen, that you could do, that communicate love to me in the way that connects with me, and that for her to express. That is important. And I have to realize how my attachment pattern can, um, yeah, it can, can be, it can miss. Well, there is impact, yeah. And so that's really important for me because I think that, um, that's been a struggle. I mean, I think in some ways as an avoidant person, it's been a real struggle for me to be able to listen to Aaron and not dismiss what she's saying.
Speaker 3:Okay, because and this is the flip side, sorry, were you finished with that thought?
Speaker 2:I think I am.
Speaker 3:Okay, your little kid self, that little part of your soul, that little person, and I'm looking at a picture. If you've ever worked with us sort of the couple to couple sessions I typically show the picture that I look at. I have a great deal of compassion for that little person.
Speaker 2:Stephen was this young and you have that picture to remember that little person because, he's the adult that frustrates you.
Speaker 3:Well, he is not.
Speaker 2:The adult. The adult frustrates me.
Speaker 3:Yes that little person, though he put, he him being a person that walked around completely vulnerable, trying to express his emotions. You know, asking for needs really like continuing to engage those deeper feelings would have been unwise.
Speaker 2:Right so.
Speaker 3:I understand that. I have great compassion, for I can see why and how you came to be a little person. Who, who wanted to stop that? Wanted to stop feeling who wanted to not know how alone you really were and how you really were your own best resource.
Speaker 2:But because that little kid, so that my, my little kid self existed in a scenario where things were very rigid, so there wasn't like you couldn't really express anything. It was like this is the way to do things. So if I had a separate thought, idea or feeling and it didn't meet, like whatever the rigid standard was dismissed, didn't matter. But also I had a very intrusive. So one of my parents was very rigid and then I had a very intrusive caregiver as well, so someone who was always kind of getting in my personal physical space but also my personal emotional space, just violating like personal boundaries.
Speaker 2:And so part of what that avoidant person can do at times is just shut things down to kind of protect from that intrusiveness. And so there were these two experiences that I had, which were rigidity and intrusiveness, and my kind of fix for that was just to say like okay, to deal with this, I just in a sense need to cut off engagement from these two people because there's not room for me in relating to these two people. It's either your way or the highway in terms of rigidity, or I need to fulfill your kind of intrusive you know needs all the time. And so that's how the sort of the disengagement happened, at least in my personal experience.
Speaker 3:And I think those are really common examples, honestly, and I think that those also exist on a spectrum. So many people come in and say like it was fine, there was nothing. You know cause you know we, we, we in our work, nothing bad really happened.
Speaker 1:You know that's the way it was you know it's not deep psychotherapy that we do.
Speaker 2:That's not what this our work is no, this is storytelling and understanding your story.
Speaker 3:Yes, and no one. You don't have to have these like horrific stories. I think a lot of times people think like it was fine, I knew my parents loved me, it was safe, you know whatever, or good enough, it was fine, like I know, like think people have it a lot worse than I did.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 3:I don't. I don't need to do this. Nothing has to be horrible for you to had to have adapted to the scenario you were in. Most of us had to do that, and so I think that those are pretty great examples, Stephen, of this very authoritative, authoritarian dynamic where that is a really common experience, especially for people of your age who were parented in this. No one really cares what you think and feel.
Speaker 2:My age is mid-40s, 46 to be exact.
Speaker 3:I think it can be a lot younger than that too that still were raised in that like because I said so and you respect me, because I demand it, that type of thing. And then that violating. And so many times the couples we see come in because they're still experiencing those parents, they're still in their world. And it's like they're still violating you. Why aren't you saying something? Do something, Stop that. Don't allow that. I am not allowing it.
Speaker 2:Or don't treat me like you treat. I'm not your mom or dad. Treat me differently. I'm your partner. You should be engaging me. You should be wanting to connect emotionally.
Speaker 3:The fact that you don't want to, that means you don't love me or that's hurtful or whatever it might be, and that part is true, right. So that's the work we have to do. We have to be able to understand how it came to be that this person developed as they did with this avoidant attachment, and then this couple needs to be able to choose their own path, which is and one of the questions we get all the time can an avoidant partner ever truly feel and or can an avoidant partner ever make me, their partner really feel known and loved?
Speaker 2:Those are deep questions. The answer obviously is yes.
Speaker 3:I don't think it's obvious if you're in it right, right, right I.
Speaker 2:I agree with that. I think that it just requires again that mutual kind of work and graciousness and generosity to one another. Like you have my picture here to to look at me and be like Stevens when my attachment pattern is feeling harmful to you or hurtful which, to be very clear, is when Steven is extra stress activated and you know when those things happen the most and parenting and I'm not saying feeling like when it just feels that way to you. I think it is.
Speaker 2:So like it truly feels. Man like this feels hurtful this is.
Speaker 3:This is yes this is hurtful.
Speaker 2:You look at that picture and you're like I know what's happening I know what's happening. In a sense, necessarily, this isn't personal to me, aaron, although it is personal to you, but that's the generosity and graciousness you have to offer to me. And then for me which is a process- yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, which is an ongoing process, always navigated day in, day out. Yeah, but I don't just extend that.
Speaker 3:I extend that because I know there will be action. There is accountability, If I do invite you like hey bud. Your stress is winning this day or your stress has won this week.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 2:I trust that you will do the work you have to do to come back into yourself and to come back out into our family you have to do to come back into yourself and to come back out. And that is me doing my work of saying because, again, that pattern is protective for me, it's in a sense, it's like one of my closest friends, it's like this is what's going to help that little kid feel okay, feel safe, whatever it is. And the work I have to do is recognize I am not in those same scenarios, I'm not in those same relationships. Aaron is different. I actually have the opportunity to have much more of a dynamic relationship and reciprocal relationship, like the kind of relationship you dream about, you hope for with Aaron. But what it does is it requires me to stretch myself and operate outside of my established pattern. And that can feel really hard, that can feel scary, that can maybe even feel threatening.
Speaker 3:But it can also feel pointless. I mean, how many couples do we work with where the avoidant partners like why, why would I just want to feel? More stress and talk about stress and you want to know what's happening in my internal world. I'm stressed.
Speaker 1:Like why?
Speaker 3:do I like? We have 45 minutes. Our kids have just gone to bed. I've been stressed all day. I don't want to spend the next 45 minutes being stressed, and that is what the invitation sounds like, I think, to the majority of avoidant people Do you think that's true, Like let's just be sad and stressed all the time and talk about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it just feels overwhelming, I think, and depressing. Well, you know what it feels so intense and again it's that idea of like I just need to disconnect and avoid the intensity, it's just so much.
Speaker 3:I think that's the honest thing, but I think the way most of the time, at least in the beginning phases that that partner would describe. It is why yeah, yeah, yeah. Like who would want that, Like why would I choose that? I have a good system going. I don't actually have to feel that much, but I mean to your point, it's any intensity?
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:It's intensity for excitement and good. It's intensity to show and demonstrate, through action and feeling, how much I love you, um, and those are good things. It's but it it is an overwhelming feeling of you might lose control, um, but I think that the invitation can feel threatening. That isn't what the invitation really is, though. No one wants to spend only 45 minutes in a day being sad and depressed and talking about stress.
Speaker 2:The invitation is always, I think, between partners, about connection, and the invitation is always like let's be close, let's love each other. And I think that that's part of the work that I've had to do, honestly, is realize your desire for me to engage in some of these ways that feel hard and challenging for me to step into. Some of that intensity isn't a threat, it's just a desire to connect, and that's's good and that's okay, and, of course, you want to do that with your partner, and so I think that these are the types of conversations and types of awareness and understanding that you come into as you begin to understand your attachment pattern or attachment style, and so I think that that's what we're. That's what we're talking about is couples need to be able to have a language to do this?
Speaker 3:Yeah, interdependence yes, not codependence.
Speaker 2:Correct Codependence is about enmeshed boundaries where no one has a self.
Speaker 3:Which is, I think, one of the fears of a lot of avoidant people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, especially if you have a very intrusive caregiver Talking about your stress isn't helpful.
Speaker 3:Now it's just like this thing we swim in and now you're in this very stressful place. Like that doesn't feel good.
Speaker 2:Or even a rigid caregiver. Both of those presentations are about that caregiver's self. I need you to be this way for me, rather than we are here for one another to support and kind of that interdependence, bolster one another.
Speaker 3:The interdependence I think is critical right, because as a little kid, you need any of us and our children need to borrow their parents. It's that free parental cortex.
Speaker 2:Yeah, borrow your parents strength, yes, and call them in like oh, attachment, I just told you this really terrifying thing.
Speaker 3:You're not that scared by it. Oh, okay, they, you, you've been through a lot more. I can trust that this is going to be okay and I can borrow your strength and dependence, and that's the same kind of idea for partners.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's the idea of co-regulation, this idea of I mean it's really reciprocal, loving, connected, Like we are both important people. We both have thoughts and feelings and emotions, we both have needs. We can express those and then we can mutually work together to try and figure out what's going to feel good for us both, realizing that we have to collaborate and give and take and be in a relationship. I mean that's it.
Speaker 3:That's one of the other things. And then I know we should probably wrap up, but a lot of times these avoidantly attached partners get characterized as not having feelings.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 3:I have watched the faces of so many partners just be really hurt by that stereotype, by that just you know, broad sweeping misunderstanding, and it's not shocking that partners feel like that to be honest, it does often feel like You've described me as robotic and mechanical. Absolutely, and it really does feel like that to me sometimes. So it's not like confusing why a partner would think that or feel that, but it's not true. We are all emotional, relational beings.
Speaker 2:That's why you have some particular ways Right. That's why you have an attachment pattern, because you are emotional.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:That's why you have an attachment trend because you are emotional. I am so emotional that one of the things I do to try and deal with my emotions is I'm dismissive and avoidant. Yes, because I'm emotional, and I think that that's what we have to understand about one another. But there is a different choice, right, and I think that's the part that we really want couples to know.
Speaker 3:And so back to what you said earlier obviously, yes, there is so much hope for these couples.
Speaker 1:There is hope what you said earlier, obviously, yes, there is so much hope for these couples there's.
Speaker 3:there is hope and it doesn't have to stay so lonely mutually.
Speaker 2:Right and I think that that's a really powerful statement. It doesn't have to stay so lonely, and I think that where the tenderness and where the empathy and where the connection comes is when both partners understand what that loneliness is, because I don't want you to be lonely, you don't want me to feel lonely, and and I think that the old, the thing that has moved the needle, uh at all for us is that there is a part, there is a slight understanding not a full understanding a growing understanding of. I recognize that my ways of coping and dealing with that stress and with life through my attachment pattern can leave you lonely, and I don't want that at all and I don't want to be lonely. I.
Speaker 3:I think. The part for me, though, is that what I can understand is I do see why you utilize.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 3:And I do see why that was helpful. And when it does come back up, because that's the thing we are all moving towards security. But life happens, stress interrupts. You know a great flow you've had here and there and hopefully what we always say and one of those interruptions is having kids- and then there are different ages and stages along the way that are different developmental disruptions for you. But I get why that comes back as a protective thing, Like you said, like that was a really close friend to you.
Speaker 3:So of course you would invite that back and again. These aren't intentional decisions but, like of course that would come back to protect you and my best route to finding access to that little or softer tender place in you isn't to criticize it. It's to say like hey, I get why this is here. I don't fully understand. I'd love to hear more and then for me to understand that that might be a one word answer, and I wish it was a novel, but um, but the invitation to generosity and compassion is.
Speaker 3:Through that I get it. But not here Like, hey, I'm here for, I'm for you, you're not alone here, you don't have to be lonely or isolated to make it here, and that is that is very helpful.
Speaker 2:And I think my best resource to have the courage to move outside of that pattern is to think about you and how you've expressed to me like I end up feeling lonely and my desire like when I think about you, and that is well. I don't want that for you either, you either. And so I think again, that's how these kind of understandings between one another, between partners, and understanding the attachment patterns and then having a language to talk about it really leads to that deep sense of connection and love that attachment is all about. Today's show was produced by Aaron and Stephen Mitchell. If you're enjoying the podcast, please hit the follow button and leave us a rating. This helps our content become more visible to others who might enjoy it and it lets us know how we can keep improving the show. And, as always, we're grateful for you listening. Thanks so much for being with us here today on Couples, counseling for Parents, and remember, working on a healthy couple relationship is good parenting.