The Secure Couple’s Guide to Conflict Resolution.

 

In the final installment of the Attachment series, we will deal with the subject of conflict resolution. One misconception about marriages & great relationships is that these couples’ don’t have conflict. Quite the contrary! It’s not the that they don’t have conflict, they just have the right tools to handle it. According to Attachment researchers conflict can serve as a way for couples to get closer and deepen their bond, not drive them apart like in anxious/avoidant relationships.

Individuals have a distinct way to deal with conflict that could be helpful to individuals that have a different attachment style.

These five distinct practices can help diffuse and resolve conflict.

1. Show basic concern for the other person’s well-being. (Our happiness is dependent on the other and vice-versa.)
2. Maintain focus on the problem at hand. (When there’s a willingness to resolve a specific problem, people feel that they’re being heard and it brings both parties closer together.)
3. Refrain from generalizing the conflict. (By keeping the argument restricted to the topic they avoid making disparaging remarks and blowing things out of proportion.)
4. Be willing to engage (When you are both willing to stay and deal with the issue do you find a resolution that you can both live with and the process helps them be more in-tune with each other.)
5. Effectively communicate feelings and needs. (Effectively expressing your emotional needs is even better than the other person magically reading your mind. By being an active agent it opens the door to a more emotional, richer dialogue.

Why can’t insecure couples adopt these practices.

Individuals who are anxious, or avoidants have several aspects that make it difficult for them to adopt these conflict resolution principles.

An anxious partner will have their basic concerns about their partners responsiveness to their needs about being rejected or abandoned. When a conflict arises, they experience many negative thoughts and react by using any behavior to get their partner’s attention. Their response is often dramatic, but ineffective.

An avoidant person is also concerned about their partner not really being their for them, but they will deal with concerns in a totally different way. They will suppress their need for closeness by shutting down emotionally and adopting a sense of independence. The more personal the conflict becomes, the stronger their urge grows to distance themselves from the situation.

Secure Principles can work for any relationship.

If you or your partner has an anxious/avoidant attachment style, you will have to work harder to make the relationship work especially when conflicts arise. Being centered on your own needs and hurts can cause a lot of trouble. You must keep these truths in mind when dealing with conflict.

• A single fight is not a relationship breaker.
• Express your fears! Don’t let them dictate your actions. If you’re afraid that s/he wants to reject you,say so.
• Don’t assume you are to blame for your partner’s  bad mood. It is most likely not because of you.
• Trust that your partner will be caring and responsive and go ahead and express your needs.
• Don’t expect your partner to know what you’re thinking. If you haven’t told him/her what’s on your mind, s/he doesn’t know.

I hope that this series will help you restore your faith in relationships and that they shouldn’t be left to chance. Relationships are one of the most rewarding of human experiences above and beyond other gifts that life has to offer. If couples can understand that a mismatched attachment style can lead to a great deal of unhappiness in relationships and work hard to tend to each other’s relationship well-being, you will give yourself the best shot at finding deeply, gratifying love.

Coach Keith

 

Material based on the book Attached. The New Science of Adult 
Attachment and How It Can Help YOU Find and Keep Love.

When the Trap can’t be escaped. – Nine Strategies on how to Survive a Breakup.

In the previous blog we talked about being trapped in an anxious-avoidant relationships. Well, what if you can’t escape that trap? Sometimes you can try everything to make a relationship more normal and secure, but overtime the interaction between two attachment styles can become truly harmful. Unfortunately, in these cases, anxious and avoidant people can bring out the worst in each other, “Abnormal” becomes normal. So in order to regain normalcy in your life, exiting this type of relationship may be the only option.

Here are Nine Strategies that will help you survive the breakup.

1. Ask yourself what life was like for you in the “inner circle.”  – Remember your life in his/her inner circle? It more than likely had some of these characteristics:
   1. When he/she was ashamed for you meet their friends.
   2. When you were the most likely the victim of his/her insults.
   3. When he/she couldn’t care less about your emotional, or physical health.
2. Build a support network ahead of time. – Let your friends and family know what the relationship is really like. This may help you reconnect with the relationships you might have severed.
3. Find a comforting, supportive place to stay for the first few nights. – You will need a strong support network to avoid the temptation to go back. Parents, siblings or your closest of friends.
4. Get your attachments needs met in other ways.  – Find other ways to quiet down your emotions like a massage, plenty of exercise and your favorite restaurant.
5. Don’t be ashamed if you slip up and reconnect with your Ex. – Don’t beat yourself up if you reconnect with your ex.  It’s important that you keep a level head because if you begin to feel bad about yourself, may cause you to want to go back.
6. If you’re having a hard time, don’t feel guilty. Remember, the pain you are feeling is real. – Pain is inevitable in these type of situations. Your friends will try to get you to rebound quickly. Let them know you will heal in your own time, but you will heal.
7. When you get flooded with positive memories, ask a close friend to zap you back to reality. – If you begin to paint your ex in a more positive light than it was in reality, give your friends permission to remind you.
8. Play the game. Write down all the reasons you wanted to leave. – The goal is to deactivate your attachment system. The best way is to continue to look at your list to remind you of all the hurt  you received.
9. Know that no matter how much pain you’re going through now, it will pass. – Greener pastures await.

I would love to hear additional tips on how you survived a break-up. Feel free to comment to add value to our Strivers.

Coach Keith

Material taken from Attached. The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find and Keep Love by Amir Levine M.D.

Learn how to Escape the Trap!

Just the other day, a young lady contacted me about last week’s blog post, “Does your man make you feel trapped.” She was hype-ventilating as she was beginning to realize that her relationship had the characteristics of what I mentioned in the post.

The first thing I did was to get her to breathe, relax and tell her that all was not lost. Anxious-Avoidant relationships usually stay consistent over time, but they can change. Today, we will discuss how this type of relationship can be more secure. Here are 4 tips that can help lead your relationship to a more secure future.

1. Model your relationship after someone in your life that has a secure mindset.
   1. Think of that person who gave you a sense of security.
   2. Remind yourself how they interacted with the world
   3. How did they respond in times of conflict
   4. What were the things they said to make people feel more secure.
   5. What did they choose to ignore or respond to.
   6. How did they behave when their partner was down.
2. Become an expert at analyzing your relationship. – You will have to figure out how to reframe the state of your current relationship in order to move to a secure model. You will have to think about what are the situations that get you going, what shuts you down, your attitudes and expectations and how you can make adjustments to become more secure.

        In order to get started the both of you must create some alone time and think about all your romantic         partners past or present and write them down on a sheet of paper. The names of those partners will           go in column 1.

In column 2 you will write down what was the state of each relationship; what patterns existed; what characteristics stood out the most.

In column 3, what event(s) can you recall that either activated your anxiousness or de-activated your investment into the relationship.

In column 4, ask yourself how you responded to those events: What did you do? What were your thoughts? What were your feelings?

In column 5, which is the most important, describe what was your behavior as a result to the attachment issues you had? For example, you might continuously attempt to re-establish contact at all costs if you are anxious or always try to make your partners feel jealous if you have an avoidant attachment style.

In column 6, figure out how these behaviors hurts you or gets in the way of your happiness.

In column 7, what positive characteristics could you have utilized to move those relationships to a more secure one.

It’s now at this point you should share your personal inventory with a relationship coach, i.e. Coach Keith, your therapist, or a personal friend that can withhold judgement and honestly give you a different perspective on how to move to a more secure model.

3. The path to a more secure relationship is a continuous journey. Whenever a new situation or conflict occurs use the chart from previous relationship.

4. Learn to always accept disappointment or accept that your partner has certain shortcomings and develop strategies help strengthen your life personally. Such things as:

• Admit to yourself that in certain areas, their mate is never going to be an active partner, and stop urging them to change.
• Stop taking personal offense when their mate pushes them away and accept that it simply his or her nature.
• Learn to do things on your own and don’t expect your partner will always join you.
• Engage with like-minded friends in activities that their mate doesn’t want to participate in
• Learn to be thankful for what your mate does do and not what he or she doesn’t do.

5. If those clashes continue to a source of intimacy collisions, and irreconcilable fights, it might be time to let go. 

In the next blog, we will analyze how these clashes can go from bad to worse and how to develop strategies to leave it behind.

 

Material taken from Attached. The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find and Keep Love by Amir Levine M.D.

Everyone can have Secure Partner! The question is do you want one?

Before I met, PG there was someone in my life that I actually adored. I really thought that she was “the one”, and I never could figure out, why she wasn’t.

We are good friends to this day and she was able to find the person that was right for her, but with the invention of FACEBOOK,  I was curious why we didn’t work out? Simply put, she wasn’t ready for the type of relationship I could provide; stable, secure, BORING.

Everyone can have a partner that is very secure about the relationship. The question is, do you want that type of person in your life? In this age of reality TV, and constant news coverage, it may be hard to fathom being with someone who has a secure relationship style. Due to the lack of drama in their life, it can be perceived they are emotionless, even boring. Quite the contrary, if you have an avoidant attachment style, or and anxious attachment style, a secure person is exactly the person you should seek.

Here’s why:

People that are secure have Buffering Powers.

According to Patrick Keelan as part of his doctoral dissertation from the University of Toronto found that individuals with a secure attachment style are more satisfied in their relationships, but what is even greater about them is they are able to decrease their partner’s insecure relationship satisfaction level.

What you see is not usually what you get!

Individuals with secured attachment styles come in all shapes and sizes. The might be the life of the party, but also the biggest wallflower in the room. One thing is for certain, they can handle any relationship as if it’s by magic.

They possess these superpowers that other attachment styles just can’t master.

1. Can diffuse most conflicts – during a fight, they don’t get defensive, and don’t try to escalate a situation by injuring or punishing their partner.
2. Mentally flexible – not threatened by criticism and can revise their beliefs or strategies if necessary.
3. Effective communicators – they are naturals at expressing their feelings freely and accurately.
4. Don’t play games – They want closeness, so if you are down with that..Step up.
5. They enjoy closeness  for what it is. – And aren’t afraid of it, which is difficult for the anxious if the closeness isn’t t their standards, or the avoid ants, who will bolt at the nearest indication of it.
6. Find it easy to forgive – Feel their partner’s intentions are good, even when they mess up.
7. They don’t try and separate intimacy and sex.
8. If you are in their inner circle, you are treated as such.
9. Secure in their power to improve the relationship.
10. Responsible for their partner’s well-being.

You won’t have time to make up you mind.

A person with a secured attachment style will naturally gravitate toward those people who make them happy. They will not fall prey to the emotional highs and lows that plague anxious individuals and they will not project a false fantasy that you are “the one” and then pull the rug from under your feet when you decide to show your true feelings.

Because they are effective communicators, they will let you know how they feel about you. It will be up to you to determine if you are ready to go the distance. They will take the chance.

So if you  are one of non-secure attachment styles, you must decide very early into the relationship if you can handle that because they will not be around very long for you to make up your mind.

Don’t take Secureds for granted.

You make think you have hit the lottery, when you are able to finally have that secured stable man/woman that you have longed for all your life. But don’t be fooled, you will have to make a concerted effort to move to a more secure frame of mind, which will take some work on your part. You will know if you have pushed things too far, if your once secured partner has taken on the traits that you possess. Let’s hope that never happens.

What do you think about this topic? Have you ever pushed someone who seemed secure out of your life based on your attachment style? If you were able to get them back, how did you do it? I would love to hear?

Coach Keith

To Avoid or Not to Avoid: 8 Tips You can do NOW to Learn to Love!

To avoid, or not to avoid! That is the question, for I have done it all my life because I just can’t meet the right person, or the person I do meet wants me to be “tied down” immediately. Oh, never have I reached down and searched my soul to determine if it was me that could not, would not love.

That is about the change. These 8 tips will help avoidant attachment style individuals take that one step closer to achieving true intimacy instead of relying on severe loneliness, a major accident, or a life changing event to get you there.  Before you begin to practice these steps while you are dating or in a relationship, you will have to acknowledge and understand that you are avoiding love first before you begin. These steps will be a little challenging at first because  it will require that you live in the moment and acknowledge these behaviors in order to change them.

1. Know and understand what deactivating strategies you use. – Look back and figure out why a relationship(s) ended. If you need to speak to your past boyfriends/girlfriends. When these strategies come up again, you will have to stop and think, “Am I doing it again.”
2. Stress mutual support with your partner. If you have a partner that falls into the anxious category, you will have to work so you partner steps back and creates a more secure base, while you  work on not trying to distance yourself. Knowing your styles is crucial at this moment.
3. Find a secure partner. – The more secure the better. It will mean less defensiveness, less fighting and less stress.
4. Don’t always focus on the negative. – When you have a tendency to want to gt out of a relationship, you will focus on any negative behavior in order to get out of it. When you recognize this, remind yourself that your partner isn’t perfect and that you are choosing to live with them as part of what makes them special.
5. Focus on what’s right about your partner daily. At any moment, you are ready to pull the parachute on the relationship. By focusing on what is right about your partner, will help shift your thinking more positively.
6. Stop using your EX as a pawn! They have moved on. – When you are in a different relationship it easy to compare the positive qualities your ex to your current partner. The problem is, while you where in the relationship with your ex, you never acknowledge their positive qualities, so why do it now.
7. “The one” isn’t going to fall out of the sky. A person becomes the one by choosing that person and actively engaging in their life and allowing that person to do the same.
8. Focus on activities and not just emotions. Allow activities to fuel your feelings of love. By doing things together that you both like, will allow your feelings of intimacy to bubble to the surface.

If you implore these coaching tips, you will be on the path of love in no time.

Coach Keith

5 coaching tips for the Anxious to be successful in dating!

People that have the anxious attachment style feel they are usually at the mercy of the person that chooses to date them. It’s understandable to believe that because your emotions usually go into overdrive after every successful date with that special person. The magazines and all of the self-help books don’t help in your journey cause you to act in a way that isn’t authentic to your nature. The books usually tell you to play it safe and don’t show too much emotion in the relationship. So what happens is you continuously attract those individuals that you need to reject, avoidants. Avoidant attachment styles will enjoy the aloofness you are trying to project, because that’s their style. As soon as you flip the script on them and bring out your true personality of wanting to get close, they will run for the hills.

In this coaching session, we will give 5 tips that will help you feel empowered on your next date.

1. Acknowledge and accept your true relationship needs. – You are who you are. If you clearly understand what needs you have an any relationship, it shouldn’t take long to decipher if your partner will be able to meet those needs. If he/she can’t, move on.
2. If you recognize your partner has an avoidant attachment style, cut them loose. You will never be satisfied and will expend a lot of negative energy trying to do so.
3. Be your authentic self and use effective communication.  – The play it cool attitude, the let’s just let the chips fall where they may mantra doesn’t work for you. Set your expectations up front, so there is no guesswork required.
4. Do the opposite! – Instead of thinking that every date you go on, he or she is “the one”, try dating several people without settling on one person very early on. This will allow you to evaluate partners more objectively and rule out those that can’t or won’t meet your needs.
5. Don’t overlook security. It may not be as exciting on the surface because there won’t be a lot of drama, but in the long run the relationship may be the most satisfying. So if you find a secure man/woman they may be a keeper.

By utilizing these 5 tips, you will empower yourself to be more successful in your dating life and will help you take your relationship to the next level.

Coach Keith

When it comes to Attachment – Opposites don’t Attract.

Have you ever noticed some of the articles in Essence Magazine, as well as countless others always ask the same question over and over, “Why do I keep falling for the same, unavailable, unemotional, unattached guy?” The complete opposite!

The problem, is when you have an anxious attachment style it’s almost unavoidable. There are three reasons for this.

1. There are just more of them around because they get over partners very quickly. An avoidant attachment styled man will usually go through multiple marriages.
2. People with secure attachment styles are usually content with their marital situation,so you won’t find many of those around.
3. A person with an avoidant style won’t date another avoidant. They already know the relationship is going nowhere for both parties, so why bother.

Even though, it’s almost inevitable that you as an anxious attachment style will find someone who is an avoidant attachment style, doesn’t mean there is no hope for you. You just have to be aware when your emotions start to kick in gear. Here are some reasons why you should be cautious.

YOU (Anxious Style)                                                    THEY(Avoidant Style)

Want closeness and intimacy.	Want to maintain some distance emotional and or physical.
Sensitive to any signs of rejection.	Send mixed signals that can come across as rejecting.
Can’t tell them what you need from the relationship.	Can’t read your cues (verbal/nonverbal) and want to.
Need reassurance and to feel loved.	Puts you down as a way to deactivate their attachment style.
Need to know where you stand.	Prefers to keep you guessing. Even if the relationship is serious, questions will linger.

So for all of you anxious people out there, how long are you are going to program yourself to fall for individuals that more than likely won’t make you happy.

If you have an anxious style, I would love to hear what you do to minimize your emotional rollercoaster, while dating.

Material taken from Attached. The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find and Keep Love by Amir Levine M.D.

Understanding your Attachment Style can solidify your relationship before it gets serious.

 

I know you may be wondering, “Why I should ask a baby about my attachment style?” Why should I even care. For one,  it’s about awareness. Usually when we go into a relationship, it’s based on an initial attraction, or a certain chemistry. When we break up, we don’t often analyze the reason. If we do, it’s usually based on extremes. Either, I wasn’t good enough, pretty enough, sexy enough, or he or she just couldn’t handle what I was ready to give.

According to the book Attached. The New Science of Adult Attachment and How it Can Help You Find and Keep- Love by A. Levine and R. Heller, our brain assigns our partner the task of being our secure base, the person we use as an emotional anchor and safe haven, the one we turn to in time of need when our relationship becomes serious.

Not knowing your attachment style can help hurt your relationship in these ways:

1. Can positively or negatively impact being your best in the relationship.
2. Can influence how you feel about yourself, or the degree to which you believe in yourself and whether you will attempt to achieve your hopes and dreams.
3. Can help you remain emotionally and physically healthier and live longer.

If the partner’s you choose or if you are unavailable and not supportive over time, the relationship can truly be demoralizing and debilitating. It can stunt and/or stymie your growth for future relationships.

Since this blog is about strengthening relationship, I have attached the link to the survey by Dr. Chris Fraley that will provide insight to your attachment style. If you are dating or you want to be in a serious relationship, this will proof very insightful.

http://www.web-research-design.net/cgi-bin/crq/crq.pl

I took the test myself and fell in the “secure” category. I am sure PG is happy.

Coach Keith

How Attached are you really? Ask a Baby!

If you read my last blog titled How dependent are you? A case study!, you read the story of Tamera and Greg and how one was dependent upon the other. As Tamera continued to get close, he seemed to push her further away. She pushed him so far that even though they both loved each other, in the end it wasn’t going to work.

Everyone has what authors Amir Levine,M.D., and Rachel S.F. Heller,M.A.  call an attachment style. The three attachment styles are THE SECURE, THE ANXIOUS & THE AVOIDANT.

As an adult you may know exactly who you are. If not, let’s go back in time by figuring out how you would’ve have acted as a baby.

Attachment styles were first defined by researchers observing the way babies usually( 9 to 18  months old) behaved during the strange situation test (a reunion with a parent after a stressful separation.

If you were the anxious baby you were extremely distressed when mommy left the room. When your mother returned, you would react ambivalently, you are happy to see her, but angry at the same time. You take longer to calm down, and even when you do, it is only temporary. A few seconds later, you angrily push mommy away, wriggle down and start crying again.

If you are the secure baby you are also visibly stressed when mommy leaves the room. When mommy returns, you are very happy and eager to greet her. Once in safety of her presence, you are quick to be reassured, calm down. and resume play activity.

If you are the avoidant baby when mommy leaves the room, you act as if nothing has happened. Upon her return, you remain unmoved, ignore her and continue to pay indifferently. This act of yours doesn’t truly tell the whole story. Inside you are neither calm or collected. In fact, your heart is just as elevated as the other two babies.

So which baby are you? Better yet, which baby is your partner? You will find out in the next blog?

Coach Keith

Excerpt taken from Attached. The New Science of Adult Attachment and How it Can Help You Find and Keep –Love.

How dependent are you? A case study!

This excerpt is taken from the book Attached – The New Science of Adult Attachment and How it Can Help you Find and Keep Love.

A few years ago, our close friend Tamara started dating someone new:

I first noticed Greg at a cocktail party at a friend’s house. He was unbelievably good-looking, and I found the fact that I caught his eye very flattering. A few days later we went our for dinner with some other people, and I couldn’t resist the glimmer of excitement in his eyes when he looked at me. But what I found most enticing were his words and an implicit promise of togetherness that he conveyed. The promise of not being alone. He said things like, “Tamara, you don’t have to be home all by yourself, you can come and work over at my place,” “You can call me an time you like.” There was comfort in these statements: The comfort of belonging to someone, of not being alone in the world.

If I’d only listened carefully, I could have easily heard another message that was incongruent with this promise, a message that made it clear that Greg feared getting too close and was uncomfortable witht he commitment.  Several times he’d mentioned that he’d never had a stable relationship –that for some reason always grew tired of his girlfriends and felt the need to move on……

As we got closer, his messages got more erratic and everthing started to fall apart; he began telling me that he was too busy to meet on this night or that. Sometimes he’d claim that his entire work week looked “crazy” and would ask if we could just meet on the weekend. I’d agree, but inside I had a sinking feeling something was wrong, but what?

After a while, the ups and downs started to take a toll and I could no longer control my emotions. I didn’t know how to act, and despite my better judgement, I’d avoid making plans with friends in case he called. I completley lost interest in everything else that was important to me. Before long the relationship couldn’t withstand the strain and everything soon came to a screeching halt.

One of the reasons dating can be so challenging is because of scenarios just like this. One person becomes attached before the other partner catches up emotionally. Over the course of the week will be helping singles understand their attachment style and how they can use it to their advantage to find the mate of their dreams.

We will first start by analyzing the excerpt.

What do you think of her behavior? Is there something she could have done differently in order to receive a different result.

What about him? Was he being true to himself, or was he just playing her?

Coach Keith