More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Sue Johnson
Read between
April 25 - May 12, 2020
When they felt secure with their lover, they could reach out and connect easily; when they felt insecure, they either became anxious, angry, and controlling, or they avoided contact altogether and stayed distant.
When we feel safely linked to our partners, we more easily roll with the hurts they inevitably inflict, and we are less likely to be aggressively hostile when we get mad at them.
when we feel safely connected to others we understand ourselves better and like ourselves more.
Can I count on you, depend on you? Are you there for me? Will you respond to me when I need, when I call? Do I matter to you? Am I valued and accepted by you? Do you need me, rely on me?
we withdraw and detach in an attempt to soothe and protect ourselves.
“I won’t let you hurt me. I will chill out, try to stay in control.”
neither partner feels safe, both become defensive, and each is left assuming the very worst about each other and their relationship.
If we love our partners, why do we not just hear each other’s calls for attention and connection and respond with caring? Because much of the time we are not tuned in to our partners. We are distracted or caught up in our own agendas. We do not know how to speak the language of attachment, we do not give clear messages about what we need or how much we care.
The more Carol blames Jim, the more he withdraws. And the more he withdraws, the more frantic and cutting become her attacks.
The demand-withdraw pattern is not just a bad habit, it reflects a deeper underlying reality: such couples are starving emotionally. They are losing the source of their emotional sustenance. They feel deprived. And they are desperate to regain that nurturance.
When marriages fail, it is not increasing conflict that is the cause. It is decreasing affection and emotional responsiveness,
Partners acted like they were fighting for their lives in therapy because they were doing just that. Isolation and the potential loss of loving connection is coded by the human brain into a primal panic response.
When safe connection seems lost, partners go into fight-or-flight mode. They blame and get aggressive to get a response, any response, or they close down and try not to care. Both are terrified; they are just dealing with it differently. Trouble is, once they start this blame-distance loop, it confirms all their fears and adds to their sense of isolation.
One partner will frantically try to get an emotional response from the other. The other, hearing that he or she has failed at love, will freeze up.
Accessibility: Can I reach you?
Responsiveness: Can I rely on you to respond to me emotionally?
Engagement: Do I know you will value me and stay close?
acronym A.R.E. and the phrase “Are you there, are you with me?”
no one can dance with a partner and not touch each other’s raw spots.
THE A.R.E. QUESTIONNAIRE
EXPLORING YOUR EMOTIONAL CONNECTIONS
Once we get caught in a negative pattern, we expect it, watch for it, and react even faster when we think we see it coming.
I am waiting for his put-down. I have my gun ready. Maybe I pull the trigger when he isn’t even coming for me!”
By being wary and anticipating being hurt, we close off all the ways out of this dead-end dance. We cannot relax with our partners, and we certainly cannot connect with or confide in them.
I am either numb or seething mad. I think I have lost touch with all kinds of feelings here. My emotional world has gotten smaller, tighter. I am so busy protecting myself.” This reaction is especially typical of men.
We begin to see the relationship as more and more unsatisfying or unsafe and our partner as uncaring or even defective.
The more you attack, the more dangerous you appear to me, the more I watch for your attack, the harder I hit back. And round and round we go.
Stay in the present and focus on what is happening between them right now. • Look at the circle of criticism that spins both of them around. There is no true “start” to a circle. • Consider the circle, the dance, as their enemy and the consequences of not breaking the circle.
“We are starting to label each other, to prove the other one is the bad one here. We are just going to get hurt more if we get stuck in this dance. Let’s not get caught in an attack-attack dance with each other. Maybe we can talk about what happened without it being anyone’s fault”?
One partner is demanding, actively protesting the disconnection; the other is withdrawing, quietly protesting the implied criticism.
“I can never get it right with her, so I just give up. It all seems hopeless.”
“I feel numb. Don’t know how I feel. So I just freeze up and space out.”
“I shut down and wait for her to calm down. I try to keep everything calm, not rock the boat. That is my way of taking care of the relationship. Don’t rock the boat.”
feeling hopeless and lacking the confidence to act; dealing with negative feelings by shutting down and numbing out; assessing oneself a failure as a partner, as inadequate; feeling judged and unaccepted by the partner; trying to cope by denying problems in the relationship and attachment needs; doing anything to avoid the partner’s rage and disapproval; using rational problem solving as a way out of emotional interactions.
move away, shut down, get paralyzed, push the feelings away, hide out, space out, try to stay in my head, and fix things.
numbness, and lack of feeling, or a sense of hopelessness and failure.
What their partner usually sees is simply a lack of e...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
both people have to grasp how the moves of each partner pull the other into the dance. Each person is trapped in the dance and unwittingly helps to trap the other. If I attack you, I pull you into defense and justification. I inadvertently make it hard for you to be open and responsive to me. If I stay aloof and apart, I leave you separate and alone and pull you into pursuing and pushing for connection.
The more I _________, the more you _________ and then the more I _________, and round and round we go.
In moments of disconnection when we cannot safely engage with our lover, we naturally turn to the way of coping that we adopted as a child, the way of coping that allowed us to hold on to our parent, at least in some minimal way.
Strong bonds grow from resolving to halt the cycles of disconnection, the dances of distress.
When _________, I do not feel safely connected to you.
hypersensitivity formed by moments in a person’s past or current relationships when an attachment need has been repeatedly neglected, ignored, or dismissed, resulting in a person’s feeling what I call the “2 Ds” — emotionally deprived or deserted.
Constantly protecting their raw spots completely sabotages the loving responsiveness they both long for.
They are all about our deepest and most powerful emotions suddenly taking over. To really understand our raw spots, we need to take a closer look at the deeper emotions that are key to this sensitivity and unpack them in a way that helps us deal with them.
In insecure relationships, we disguise our vulnerabilities so our partner never really sees us.
Strong emotion mobilizes the body. It puts it in survival mode with lightning speed.
Emotions tell us what matters. They orient and direct us, like an internal compass.
What was happening in the relationship? What was the negative attachment cue, the trigger that created a sense of emotional disconnection, for you? What was your general feeling in the split second before you reacted and got mad or numb? What did your partner specifically do or say that sparked this response?
As you think of a moment when your own raw spot is rubbed, what happens to your body? You might feel spacey, detached, hot, breathless, tight in the chest, very small, empty, shaky, tearful, cold, on fire. Does this body awareness help you give the experience a name?
