Hello everyone and welcome back to Needy No More, the podcast
dedicated to healing the anxious attachment style.
I'm your host, anxious attachment style coach and
author Chris Ratcliffe. I've helped thousands of people
across 6 continents to end the cycle of anxious attachment
through my books, workshops, digital downloads, and coaching
program. I'm excited to carry on that
mission here on the podcast, sharing tools and techniques,
principles and practices for you to explore on your journey to
growing more secure. Welcome back to the show
everyone. I'm excited to dive into today's
topic. It's something different that I
haven't covered yet, and that is what a secure relationship
actually looks like. As many of us know from
experience, because we struggle with anxious attachment, we
often haven't had a whole lot of healthy models for secure
relating in our lives. Without those examples of what
secure attachment and secure relationships actually look
like, we might unconsciously push away the very intimacy and
connection that we crave. So today we're going to do
something very interesting, which is to unpack what these
kinds of relationships actually look like.
One of the very first things that I have my coaching clients
do in the program is an exercise that I call secure role models.
And in this exercise, the client identifies a secure couple in
their life. Now, even hearing that might
make you struggle to think of a secure example or relationship
in your own life. That is not uncommon.
It happens all the time. One of the most common messages
I receive from my clients is when they do this exercise,
which is Chris. I can't think of a healthy
couple of relationship in my life that I want to model after.
That is not a coincidence. For many of us as anxious
attachers, we equate secure attachment or healthy
relationships with perfection. This is part of the problem.
So what we're going to do today and what the Secure Role Models
Exercise actually helps my clients to do is to get under
the hood and see what this actually looks like.
So we're not just talking philosophically or conceptually
about what a healthy relationship is.
We're actually getting up close and personal into the nitty
gritty of how couples actually make it work.
Between the two of them, what you might find is there's a lot
of messiness, there's a lot of imperfection, there's a good
amount of conflict and disagreement.
But these couples have found a way of navigating their
relationship that works for them now.
I went back through five years of these exercises that my
clients have shared with me, and I found some commonalities, some
patterns among the qualitative data.
So we're going to do three things today, and the first is
to walk through those qualitative insights, through
the patterns that emerged from analyzing these client exercises
and really examine how couples make their relationship secure
and build that security from there.
The second thing we'll do is to extrapolate some secure
relational principles. So we'll start by getting that
qualitative data, then we'll back into some of the principles
and concepts, and then we'll close with an audit that you can
do if you're in a relationship or when you get into your next
relationship that can indicate the level or degree of secure
relating or attaching. Very interesting stuff ahead.
Let's start with the evidence. Here's what secure couples
actually do in practice. They ask for consent before hard
conversations. They don't force any kind of
emotional processing or discussions.
One person in the data set described it this way.
When she wants to talk about something important and he wants
to process or decompress, first she journals everything and then
they come together to share the topic.
The time is usually decided beforehand with that question.
Do you have the space to talk about something big?
Another couple texts each other. Hey I want to talk about X
later. Not urgent, but when you have
the space this actually gives the other person time to
mentally prepare instead of feeling ambushed.
This was something that came up multiple times from this
exercise. People asking for consent and
alerting their partner before having a big discussion or
talking about something that fell perhaps heavy or
consequential. The next thing that came up in
the data is healthy partners slow down instead of escalating.
They journal before they talk. They write emails and then edit
them. One couple describes this
practice. At times.
We write a letter or e-mail to each other, sit with what we
said, edit it, and then share it with one another.
It helps us consider if what we're saying is worth it or if
it's just something charged in the moment.
It gives us space to sit on it. We write everything down, get
the feelings out, and don't send it until it feels right, ready,
correct. It also helps with words not
getting misconstrued. We did this a lot in the
beginning of the relationship. Another couple will take car
rides to discuss serious topics because it feels less
confrontational, they said. We found that being in the car
driving somewhere helps us communicate better because we
both focus on the conversation but also can't get too
aggravated. It's like a good balanced
environment for us. So there's a lot of
intentionality here when it comes to communication, whether
that's asking beforehand if they're in the right space or
slowing down to process through writing or in a different
environment. The third thing that came up
when analyzing the data from this exercise is these couples,
secure couples don't yell or name call.
This was almost universal across all of the interviews.
There was number verbal aggression, no public
humiliation. One person said they do not yell
when they disagree, but rather maturely discuss it.
They do not blame, they give each other the benefit of the
doubt. Another shared.
I used to pick fights and cause conflict because that's what I
grew up with. That was what I knew.
But because he is securely attached, I was able to
eventually settle out of that and slowly realized that life
didn't have to be this way. My relationship didn't have to
be up and down and all around like that.
So there's a good amount of goodwill here of positive
affection. Even in the midst of conflict or
disagreement, there's respect. That brings us to the next 1.
I actually use this word. They assume goodwill.
They assume positive intent. Instead of saying things like,
why would you do that? It's help me understand what
happened. There's an inclusiveness,
there's a desire to understand one another.
One person even said they give each other the benefit of the
doubt. They speak from their feelings
and use. I statements.
This is a big one that I have my clients do as well.
I statements over you statements.
You statements can feel like you're attacking someone or
criticizing them or just putting all the focus on them instead of
talking about your own emotional experience.
Another described it this way. When conflict comes up, I ask
myself, does this make sense or am I getting triggered?
Is there some underlying wound within myself?
There's a part of me that wants to avoid conflict, doesn't want
to hear what she's saying. I spend some time with myself.
Again, this is another note about processing and
intentionality. But there's usually an
assumption that the partner did not intend any kind of
maliciousness or that they had any male intent.
Next, they stay on the same team.
This is a big one. When conflict comes up in a
relationship, many folks will look at their partner as the
threat or the enemy or the villain, the person in the
wrong. But these couples, the ones who
were analyzed as a part of this exercise, they remind each other
consistently that it's US against the issue.
They actually soothe spirals, they calm chaos, they don't
embarrass each other in front of other people.
They also don't avoid the issue, but they recognize that together
they can make a lot more progress than fighting against
one another. One person shared if we're out
to brunch and one of them is stressed, the other will very
quickly pick up on it and talk them down before they spiral.
But they don't downplay what caused the frustration, they
just talked them through it. Give them space to calm down
whatever they might need. It's really awesome to watch.
And this is one of my clients describing from a third person
perspective what this dynamic actually looks like in practice.
Oh, this next 1 is big. They don't keep score.
Multiple couples through this exercise mentioned this
explicitly. Their needs are met without
tracking who did more than the other.
One person said they aren't super transactional or keeping
score. They keep each other mentally
stimulated and engaged and make sure they show up for each other
if the other person is struggling.
Nay, Brown herself, the queen of emotions and shame, research and
vulnerability. She actually says that 5050 is
bull. And I agree, it's never going to
be 5050. Someone's usually giving a
little bit more or at times a lot more than the other person,
but there needs to be that reciprocity.
If one person's doing that, they can't be doing it all the time.
The healthy couples here, they didn't keep track of this
because they knew that it would even out over time.
They weren't tallying who did what when and marking it down in
a book. They just keep a mental note and
they consider what the other person is doing for them next.
They protect independence. This came up a lot through the
data. Independence is massively
important for healthy, secure relationships.
They have friends outside of the relationship.
They spend time alone or in solitude.
They have separate interests and hobbies and passions and goals.
They recognize that security is not possession.
They can let go and let the other person have some space.
Let there be breathability. One person said they appreciate
that they are each independent people with things that give
them joy outside of the relationship.
They feel this makes them a better partner when they come
back to the relationship. It's true you're sharpening
skills elsewhere and feeling more fulfilled in your life when
you do this. Another shared.
One person needs space to enjoy his time alone, while his
partner would rather spend time at home.
Even though the two have different styles and functioning
independently, they're able to communicate their needs,
boundaries and accept what their partner is unable to provide
them and find other resources to fill that void.
That independence, that space, that autonomy helps with that
kind of emotional diversification, which we've
talked about on the show before. Who I love this one.
They move on from small conflicts quickly.
They don't stay mad about minor issues.
They don't make every disagreement existential or
about the future of the relationship.
One couple said communicating every feeling and emotion is
very helpful, but not always the easiest.
What has helped us the most is to move on quickly, not staying
mad for a long time. This is pertaining to simple
things. Another described sometimes you
win, but you still lose. We're better at dropping
something when we don't like where something is going.
We've realized that hitting the pause button is something that
we can do. It feels like we're letting
something hang. But it's good because it helps
us avoid getting into conversations that will
undermine our connection. So there's not a lot of
harboring of resentment. Again, this goes back to keeping
score because they're not tallying up the small stuff and
letting that add up to be something bigger.
They address it head on. They do so quickly, but they
move through the experience of conflict pretty quickly.
Next, they take responsibility for their triggers.
Several people in the data mentioned therapy, self
reflection, pausing when activated, noticing resentment
early, and taking time to process.
One person shared when there's an emotional reaction out of
proportion to what we're talking about, we figure out a way to
move beyond that and process it. We're both still individuals on
a journey of healing ourselves. We make space for ourselves, so
they're each taking responsibility for what
activates their wounds, for what is triggering for them.
This also hits another important point, which is they don't
expect their partner to be responsible for their feelings
and they have other environments in which they're able to process
those feelings. Oh I love this one.
They have mental lists of what the other person needs.
This was really a beautiful detail that emerged from
analyzing this set of exercises. One couple described it this
way. When one of them isn't happy,
they have lists for each other mentally in their heads on what
the other needs. And they asked lovingly, hey, do
you need XY's? Another said.
Both partners know to have lists in their head of what the other
wants to receive in terms of love language.
They're sensitive to each other's moods.
I love this because it's really considering what the other
person has shown you over the course of the relationship that
makes them feel appreciated and understood.
And that's kind of one of the beautiful parts of being in a
long term relationship, even non romantically, even platonically.
Having people in your life that recognize he prefers this over
this, that helps tremendously. Keeping tabs of this, not
keeping score, but keeping tabs of what helps the other person
is tremendously thoughtful and a huge sign of secure relating.
All right, this last one might seem basic, but bear with me
because it's super important. They genuinely like each other.
These couples were very playful and affectionate.
They had inside jokes. They enjoyed doing simple things
together. They genuinely appreciated the
presence of the other person in their life.
They recognize that security isn't just stability.
It's warmth, it's comfort, it's ease.
One person said they laugh at the inconveniences and moments
of stress because they are on the adventure together.
I love that they love similar things and it allows them to
explore their passions and interests together.
Another shared there is mutual respect and affection.
They seem at ease and relaxed with each other.
I didn't detect much anxiety. Now here's an interesting plot
twist. A few of these secure role
models still had avoidant patterns.
Some ignored issues until they were forced to address them, and
some needed therapy early on. One couple even went through
infidelity and reconciliation. It took months of processing
accountability and rebuilding trust.
So what I want to instill here, or drive home to everyone
watching and listening, is that secure couples are not perfect.
The lesson that this demonstrates is that secure
couples are committed to repair and responsibility.
And that means even when their patterns aren't ideal, or
positive for that matter, one person put it perfectly.
The first five years of their marriage was extremely tough.
They didn't know each other long before they got married, but
once they decided that divorce was off the table, they began to
put in the work. That's when they felt secure
enough to genuinely say what they were feeling, even if they
knew it would upset the other person because they each knew
the other person wasn't going anywhere.
But they also knew they needed to express their feelings in a
loving way, not a mean or cruel 1.
So there you have it. That's how five years worth of
secure couples that have been identified by the clients that I
have worked with have actually made their relationship secure
and built secure attaching and relating with one another.
This is the magic. So definitely pay attention, but
I want to actually distill this down into concepts that are easy
to understand and to take away things that really cut through
some of the qualitative examples I just provided that help you to
understand conceptually what actually makes someone secure in
terms of relating as a couple. The very first principle that
presented itself when I was analyzing everything was a sense
of trust. Now, when I talk to clients
about trusting, I always tell them that there are two
components to pay attention to. The first is trust that is just
freely given. It's a general assumption that
the other person means well. This is what it means to give
someone the benefit of the doubt, and trusting them until
they prove you otherwise is very important.
The second element of trust is earned, so you have freely given
there's kind of goodwill benefit of the doubt.
OK, until you prove otherwise, I'm going to assume innocence
until proven guilty, and then this part is earned.
So through someone's words and actions aligning over time, you
build trust. In general, this feels like not
bracing for betrayal, not being blindly optimistic, but not
constantly monitoring what the other person is doing.
There's a reliability here that's really important to under
score reliability, consistency. They build trust, but there's
also an element of this where we have to give them trust and
learn to allow ourselves to trust other people.
Many of us have been hurt a lot, so it can be hard to do this,
but we have to open up our heart once more.
Vulnerability is the cost of connection.
It's the price we have to pay to put ourselves out there and risk
our heart once again. OK.
The second concept or principle that emerged was emotional
safety, the ability to be yourself fully, to express your
full truth. Not every single feeling, not
every single infraction or thing that bothered or upset you.
There's a lot of grace that you can see in the examples that we
already went through and covered today, but generally they
understood, I can say this and will still be OK.
There's no avoiding of of hard topics, but the conditions exist
where the hard topics can actually be heard #3 it's going
to seem basic, but this definitely presented itself as a
commonality, and that is respect.
There's generally a lot of admiration and reverence in
these kinds of relationships. Respect is the minimum.
It is the floor or foundation. Without it, there nothing else
can be built on top of it. These couples dignify their
space, their shared space together in their relationship,
and it's beautiful to witness #4 reciprocity.
Effort flows both ways. Again, it's never 5050, but long
term it feels relatively balanced.
You're not the only one initiating, and many of us as
anxious attachers have done this.
You're not the only one repairing or planning or
apologizing or taking accountability or pursuing
connection. Secure Reciprocity feels like
I'm not alone in this. While the contribution is going
to look different from each person and will never be
identical, it means that both of you feel the other person is
invested #5 comprehension. I write about this in Needy No
More of the book, but communication without
comprehension is just words. There needs to be a shared
understanding, and this is something that emerged again and
again looking at the data from these exercises exercises,
there's a sense of feeling understood again, that sense of
safety. And for many of these couples,
they actually leave difficult, challenging, emotional or hard
conversations feeling closer, not further apart.
As we already kind of hinted at earlier, this isn't about
someone being right or they're being a winner.
This is about trying to understand one another's
realities, trying to understand one another's wounds and
triggers and what activates each of you.
There's this learning of each other that is so beautiful and
potent and something to take away from this.
This comes up again and again and again.
Repair is number six. Conflict in a relationship is
inevitable. Disagreements are going to
happen at some point or another, and that's because you're 2 very
different people coming together and trying to make a life, make
a shared space. That's what a relationship is.
But secure couples focus on repair.
They don't get it right every time.
There's always rupture, but they come back together.
They take accountability, they work through it, they talk about
it, they learn from these experiences.
Again, this is not about being perfect, it's about being
willing to come back to the table and work through things
together as a team #7 might be my favorite, and that is
consideration. It's been said that
consideration is the highest form of love, and I tend to
agree. This was actually a universal
thread that ran throughout every other concept.
Knowing the impact of your words or actions.
Understanding what will land as supportive versus critical or
pressuring. There's an intentionality,
insecure relationships that really hits at the point of
consideration. Each one is taking into account
what makes the other feel supported and appreciated and
loved and cared for. And that is such a beautiful
thing that leads us to #8 which is complementarity.
Relationships aren't about sharing everything in common.
That is not realistic at all or a healthy expectation to have of
a partner. You're not going to share
everything. And in fact, complementarity is
way more important than compatibility.
This is about how you shore each other up, where you might be
weak, or how you balance each other out.
Differences keep each of you on your toes.
Complementarity means that these differences actually add a
richness, not a friction, to the dynamic #9 is independent.
There's a lot of space and autonomy in these kinds of
secure connections. Secure couples are not enmeshed
or codependent. There is a sense of independence
that helps them to be interdependent.
And in fact, you can't spell interdependent without
independent. They each have their own
friends, their own hobbies, alone time, and to these
couples, distance doesn't equal danger.
I really want to share this one quote that I think really hits
home at this. I don't need him, I want him.
We're choosing to be here, fully standing, fully capable, and
choosing to be in this relationship together.
At first that made me feel wildly insecure, but then
embracing it made me feel very empowered.
This isn't about fusing your life with someone else's.
This is about two relatively whole people choosing one
another and continuing to make that choice.
Last, but certainly not least #10 is growth.
Both partners are willing to look at themselves and ask
what's mine here? Am I triggered?
Is this about my past? Is this about my wounds?
Is this about my childhood? My previous relationships?
Big points here. A sense of security in a
relationship requires accountability.
Multiple people mentioned therapy, both individually and
as a couple. Many people mentioned journaling
and meditating having self-care and or nervous system regulation
practices growing individually as a person and together as a
team is essential for secure relating.
All right, that leads us to the third and final part of today's
episode, which is a quick ten question self audit that I put
together that can help you to evaluate the extent of security
or the level of healthiness that is present in your current and
or future relationship. These actually tie back to the
concepts that we just addressed. So this will be a good refresher
or recap for the episode #1 And this ties to the concept of
trust. Do I trust my partner's
consistency and reliability? Yes or no #2 Can I bring up a
hard topic without fearing punishment?
This ties to emotional safety, yes or no?
Can you bring it up or no #3? Do we communicate respectfully
even during conflict? This ties to respect #4 ties to
reciprocity. Does effort feel relatively
mutual? Yes or no #5 ties to
comprehension. Do I feel understood after
serious conversations? Yes or no Number six ties to
repair. When conflict happens, do we
repair and reconnect? Yes or no #7 consideration.
Do we both show ongoing awareness of what makes the
other feel cared for and supported?
Yes or no #8 ties to complementarity.
This question can be challenging, so I'm going to
phrase it a little bit differently.
More often than not, do our differences strengthen us?
Yes or no? Again, that ties to
complementarity #9 ties to independence.
Do we both have lives outside of the relationship?
Yes or no? Last, but certainly not least
#10 ties to growth. Are we both willing to work on
ourselves and the relationship, yes or no?
Now, in terms of scoring, I want to provide some guidelines here.
If you answered no to two or fewer of the 10 questions, then
you have a very solid and secure foundation in your current
relationship. If you answered no to three to
four of these questions, these are areas to work on, but this
is likely still skills based and I'll talk about the difference
in a minute. If you said no to five or more
more than half of the questions, then there are significant
patterns worth addressing and examining here.
So let's determine the difference here.
It's important for you to ask yourself, is this a skill issue
where both partners are willing to grow but haven't learned how?
Or a compatibility issue. The foundation isn't there
because one person is unwilling to do the work.
Skills or compatibility. You can't create security with
someone who isn't interested in being secure.
But if both people are willing, chef's kiss, anything is
possible. There you have it, folks.
Trust, emotional safety, reciprocity, respect,
comprehension, repair, consideration, complementarity,
independence, and growth. Those are the 10 principles of
secure relating. I know many of us haven't had
examples of this in our lives. This is why I would highly
encourage you, just like I encourage my clients to do, to
find a secure example in your life.
Remember, secure doesn't mean perfect.
There will be messiness, there will be imperfection, there will
be conflict, and occasionally there may even be breaking of
some of what I talked about today.
It's always about how the couple comes back together, how they
learn one another over time that makes them secure.
And always remember, security isn't found, it is built.
This is why working to become secure yourself is so
fundamentally important for having healthier relationships,
because you can find someone secure and struggle with your
own insecurity and still have a lot of this lacking because you
don't know how to build it and you don't know how to accept it.
And or. That said, if you haven't had
this model for you or or you have never felt that sense of
relief, being able to breathe and a relationship, being able
to drop your suspicions, to soften your fears, to not give
in to a sense of abandonment, to give in to goodwill and to
trust. If you've struggled to do that,
that is OK. It is never too late to work on
being more secure. If what I shared today resonated
with you, I would be honored to help you build some of these
skills to grow more secure yourself.
You can learn more about my coaching program and my
philosophy when it comes to healing anxious attachment and
growing more secure at crackliff.com/coaching.
You can also set up a free consultation to speak with me
there. Powerful episode today.
Can't wait to share the next one.