Come As You Are

Why do humans tend to focus on negatives? Hint: *not* because we’re bad or unenlightened. 

Why do people cry? Hint: *not* because we're weak or failing. Let's take a look at both of these questions. 

When we were still early in our evolution, it was essential that a negative/dangerous experience be remembered so that it wasn’t repeated. Act, or don’t; life, or death. 

It was imperative that our ancestors felt anxious when they were in places that seemed similar to where that poisonous snake attacked, for instance. Our bodies had to privilege scary memories for our safety and survival. 

The emerging cult of positivity clamoring “no bad vibes” and "good vibes only" is really starting to wear on me because it implies that ‘negative feelings’ (pain, fear, distress, anxiety, etc.) are bad and to be overcome/avoided—like it’s wrong, weak, out of control, or irrational to experience these emotions. 

Fear is wisdom in our bodies that we’ve inherited over centuries. 

It makes sense that we sort of adopted this "positive/negative" language because emotions have valences, or charges, which are (+) or (-). Doesn't mean we can't work toward a shared language that reflects more nuance with less judgment. 

When we don’t work to train our minds, which wander by nature, we can tend to focus on negatives because that really helped us to, you know, *not* die and keep reproducing! 

You aren’t ‘negative’ because you’re bad, but because you’re human. 

When we remember our evolutionary heritage, it helps us be gentler with ourselves and others when we’re experiencing emotional movements. And with less moralizing and a deeper appreciation for our psychobiological wiring, we can be more mindful and intentional about tuning into ‘positives' and expressing appreciation and gratitude.

If we can see our bodies as wise and on our side, everything else changes. If we see our bodies as in our way and set on being inconveniences, we actually become threatening to our own bodies and nervous systems. 

But "good vibes only" tells us to police our emotions. We already live in a society where we're taught to disconnect from our natural body rhythms. If you have a pain, you're encouraged to pop an Advil to stop the pain

Think about something as simple as a pain response. 

The language of our bodies and subcortical (lower, unconscious/automatic) brains is not English, it's action and sensation and feely feels; it's experiential. The body can't say, "Pardon me, could you please warm up by stretching before you do push-ups to impress people?" It just says "OW!" after and has to trust that you'll catch the memo. 

You can tear muscles if you ignore physical pain. It's one of our body's intelligent ways of talking to us and making us pay attention and remember to make sure to not to do stupid or careless things again.

Memories encoded with pain stick. Like novelty. And threat. Or deep pleasure. 

It makes sense we evolved systems that organize information and energy flow based on experiences like pain, new things, and danger/threats. 

We needed bodies that could automatically scan for, tag, and encode repeated or crucial, life-threat things with certain codes like "danger," "pain," "pleasure," so we didn't have to waste precious upper brain energy on consciously thinking through every scenario which calls for various sets of approach and withdraw behaviors. Takes too much time, energy, and resources. We depended on having the fast, easy, automatic way as a default. 

So you remember for instance, red color on animals can mean bad bad death no AVOID. Your body acts to avoid danger creeeepily long before you consciously "decide" to move. Your brainstem and parts of the limbic system like your amygdala are super tuned into keeping on top of keeping you safe. 

Brainstem is always on repeat, multiples times per second, asking, "Am I safe?" It's got your back. But like, a grandma who gets up two hours early to check what the weather will be in your town so she can call and warn you if there's any risky-sounding weather that might come your way so you can bring an umbrella. 

Amygdala is also kinda like that sweet, worrying grandparent. It also notices sparkly and beauty; you can take it to the art museum. But it spends a lot of energy fretting about safety. 

Pain can be uncomfortable (emotional, physical, spiritual, sexual, existential) but it's crucial that we *turn toward* it with as much concern as a friend saying to us, "Help! I need you!" Pain is not to be ignored. And there are consequences for those who won't cultivate some tolerance for it; unless they end up lucky enough to lead a charmed, problem-free life. 

Pain isn't an "annoyance" or "weakness leaving the body" or "failure," it's an attempt at communication. 

If your body gets the vibe that you bulldoze pain, stuff/squash it, pretend it's not there, or will just ignore it, well, imagine what happens when you ignore a baby. You see a fit! Stress response. Protest. SOMETHING to make you pay attention!

You know what your body and a baby have in common? If you guessed language, you're right! The language is action, movement, behavior. 

Babies also cry and sob it out more, right? You know what sobbing really is? 

This is sad but also kind of awesome. So, sobbing basically helps enervate (give energy to) our muscles. Think about how it makes certain muscles clench and striated muscles tighten with crying heaves. 

Yeah sobbing can seem like a bummer, but it's one of the ways our body balances discharging energy trapped in our nervous system and lifting our bodies up out of a collapse response in an effort to maintain baseline. At times you've sobbed, your body physically worried that you might collapse, not have the energy to get up, and die.

Ever notice someone sounding like they're repeatedly gasping in-breaths as they sob and cry? Remember: in-breaths = sympathetic nervous system = fight/flight preparation. Your body is helping you mobilize energy to facilitate a change in internal state. Sobs get your core moving again. 

Many cultures around the world embrace this as a natural, healthy thing to do. In some cultures, people even hire others to come wail and weep at funerals to normalize it and encourage the funerary attendees to let loose. 

In some pretty heartbreaking animal experiments where they put lab animals through stress and then don't let some "shake" or "shake it off after," keeping them restrained and still, these animals suffer more distress, anxiety, and symptoms that go with trauma. The animals allowed to do their thing end up just fine; they literally shake it off. 

Language is where shame can be born. 

With language comes guilt. With language comes "stand up and brush it off you're fine" and "shut up, crybaby" and "you're being hysterical" and "you're acting like a child" and "pull yourself together" and "lock it up" and a zillion regional variations on this. 

But with language can also come, "it's okay to cry" and "you're safe here" "stay here with me, I've got you" and "there's no shame in crying" and "it's okay to express and feel your feels" and "just let it all out." 

If a friend is crying and I feel their pain, I sometimes cry too. It shows that we're human together and especially if they aren't used to feeling feelings in front of others, my face shows that it's acceptable to me to cry, that I will join and not judge. And I'll frequently join unconsciously, because we're connected. 

Oh and parents: crying in front of your kids is a gift for them; it's permission. 

Please note that although crying, even intense sobbing for short durations, can be health-promoting in response to stress and threat, you caaan get too revved up or spiral out of balance, especially if you also use particular substances or have certain genetic/psychological vulnerabilities. Call 911 if things feel out of control or get to the point of being unsafe. 

Never forget: crying is cool. Come as you are, and bring your whole self! All parts are welcome. 

Love, 
MJ

'The Grass is Greener Where You Water It'

Can we predict which relationships are likely to experience "infidelity?"

“Comparison Level for Alternatives,” aka: CL-alt, is a concept from Social Exchange Theory that refers to the lowest level of “relational rewards” a person will accept before they opt to be alone or accept rewards from other relationship sources. 

If you’re familiar with research from The Gottman Institute, you may already—knowingly or not!—be familiar with the beyond brilliant work of the late Caryl Rusbult. Honestly bless the Gottmans and Gottman Institute for honing in on her studies and measures related to trust and commitment. This lady was seriously one of the only people to ever get to serious statistical significance in predicting ‘betrayal,’ or to use Rusbult’s language, "relational norm violations."

Caryl Rusbult is probably best known for her “Investment Model” of relationships, which suggests our relationship stability is a function of three things: 1) degree of satisfaction, 2) quality of alternatives, and 3) magnitude of investments (e.g., time, energy, mutual friends). She also argued: “Dependence is greater to the extent that the most important needs in the relationship are better satisfied in that relationship than elsewhere."

You know that saying, “the grass is greener on the other side?” That speaks to comparisons for alternatives. Here, ‘alternative’ refers to someone/relationship other than your primary partner. 

Relational norm violations like “affairs” don’t usually just happen spontaneously. It starts with an openness and curiosity—a gradual turning away from the grass on your side of the fence, which is perfectly lush by the way when you’re watering it enough. 

Neil Barringham: "The grass is greener where you water it." 

Gottman observes that resentment is a relationship killer. If you begin to shift from “my partner did this thing and it kind of sucked but we worked through it” to “my partner always/never does this thing—I don’t deserve this shit and I shouldn’t have to put up with it,” the chances of a relational norm violation increase.

Sue Johnson would probably add that the degree to which partners feel that the other/s (well, she might actually say "other" and potentially sass me for adding the "/s") are 1) accessible, 2) respond when called, and 3) emotionally engaged, impacts the security of the bond, and so trust.

I would argue that the 'degree of satisfaction' in Rustbult's thinking likely associates with what Dr. Sue calls, the "A.R.E. you there for me?" question: are you Accessible, Responsive, and Emotionally Engaged when I need you? It definitely plays into how people consider 'quality of alternatives.' 

Lots of clients use language to describe their affair partner/s like: "He really listens to me and cares how I feel." "She always texts me back immediately when I'm feeling upset and knows just what to say." "We have this emotional connection that I just don't feel at home." 

It makes sense that if you (un)consciously estimate that another partner/s would be more accessible/responsive/engaged, we could predict that playing into a higher likelihood of relational norm violation/s occurring. 

I invite you to explore carylrusbult.com if you want to check out some of her instruments and papers! If you'd like to know more about the science around the relational processes that we tend to see unfurl when trust gets smashed, check out Gottman's Betrayal Cascade.

Some folks giggle when I talk about prevention in the domain of 'betrayal/infidelity' but there's actually a lot we can do when armed with wisdom and solid science! 

Love, 
MJ

Embody Apologies

Have you ever had an apology yelled or forcefully exclaimed at you? Have you ever barked an apology at an upset partner? 

It can be a major shortcut to feeling like a monster... You know, snapping at someone who is already vulnerable and/or crying. But you want so desperately to take the pain away! To make things right.

We can end up getting in a hurry about "getting our apology accepted," and that ends up getting us in hot water thinking that we have atoned, when really we just pressured someone into verbalizing relief for us. 

Fact which we don't learn soon enough here in the West: apologies aren't about us, they're about the person who feels hurt as a result of our behavior. 

I tell clients that no one has the right to tell anyone else if they should forgive, or whom, or when.

It makes sense that so many orient this way around apologies because they were presented, at least in the region where I grew up, as something you GIVE to another person. 

So next time you’re yelling, “I’m sorry OK?!?” at your partner, I want you to remember Harriet Lerner: “Perhaps the best motive behind an apology is the wish to restore one’s integrity, to heal the relationship with one’s own self.”

Well, you’ll be yelling so you probably won’t actually remember wise Harriet because your prefrontal cortex will be on vacation, so think about it now. To heal the relationship with one's own self. 

It makes sense that so many people across all kinds of relationships struggle here, because our culture gives us that vibe that we are supposed to “give” apologies. Like, POOF! Done. Hands clean. Almost like speaking some magic spell or something. And like there's only something external to us that is out of balance that needs to be "fixed." 

Anyone forced by parent/s to perform an apology through gritted teeth even if you were pissed? 

Harriet Lerner is a breath of fresh air in writing on atonement and the art of apology. If you need a really comprehensive guide to understanding the psychology of apology, try Why Won't You Apologize?

What I love the most is her focus on 1) delivering/"performing" the formal apology words AND following through with corrected behavior in the future, and 2) how internal and self-involved the best apologies actually are. 

I really don’t think there’s a more beautiful gift we can give someone we love than non-defensive listening and heartfelt apology. 

If you really hear and feel how you impacted someone, which takes courage and vulnerability—you can seriously grow yourself and your relationships. 

This seems so obvious to me now, but I’m not sure how I could get this notion through to younger versions of myself... That’s probably the point.

I think aging just makes it more likely we’ll be near someone whose happiness and safety matter as much as our own; when you experience that real, mature loving—I don’t know, it just makes it easier to be humble, shut up, listen, and take accountability with apology and through action. 

It's not smart to downplay how our sociocultural upbringings and contexts play into the ways we make rituals around healing wounds and re/building trust. 

In fights in love relationships, in the moment you want there to be a winner sometimes—a right and wrong. Especially if you've been going at it for a while and the parts of your brain/body/nervous system wired for war are activated. 

Only problem with that is, you’re connected. If only one person is right, everyone loses. 

I think it’s Stan Tatkin who calls it “throwing your partner under the bus;” you get the most temporary and hollow ‘victory,’ or what Sue Johnson calls “an awful boobie prize.” 

If you're looking for another model for apology, check out Magi Cooper's 3 Part Apology: 1) Here’s what I regret, 2) this is what I am doing to make sure it doesn’t happen again, and 3) is there anything else you need from me now?

What it really comes down to is that it's less about the words and "fixing" and more about embodying reparative behavior in a consistent way. 

The best apology is a behavior change that lasts. 

Now go drop some jaws with your fresh willingness to be sincere *and* sorry!

Love, 
MJ

How to Minimize Infidelity Fallout

It can be incredibly hard to find resources for relationships in the wake of a discovery of a relational norm violation, aka: "infidelity," or "affair." 

Especially if you're the one who went outside your relationship, or "cheated." And, you know, want to hear something helpful that's geared toward you and doesn't reduce you to a demonized cliché.

In the person-first, non-moralizing tradition of practitioners and researchers like Caryl Rustbult and Esther Perel, I use the following language and invite you to adopt the same: "involved partner" to replace words like, "cheater" and "adulterer;" "hurt partner" to replace words like, "victim" and "betrayed partner;" and "affair partner" to replace, well, use your imagination there. 

I want so share some tips for involved partners, because I observe that most resources online are geared toward hurt partners. 

First, I'd like to normalize an uncomfortable piece here. There's something you should know right from the get-go about Trust First Aid and psychotherapy geared toward repairing big hurts like "affairs." And I want to offer it from a seriously loving place. 

It's unfair. 

All the stuff that maybe you want to be able to do RIGHT AWAY, like get to insights and understand and apologize and take care of your lover and heal that enormous hurt—that doesn't tend to happen in Stage 1. 

If you'd like an amazing resource that can help you better understand the three broad stages of this work, check out Esther Perel's Infidelity Resource Guide. It has descriptions of each stage and questions you can use to guide safe, healing conversations that don't re-wound. I also find that it helps involved partners to print two copies and offer one to hurt partner, saying something along the lines of: "I know your mind has been racing with a million questions. Would you like to see if you'd like to ask any of these?" Just be sure not to jump to Stage 3 questions at first! 

Speaking of, want to know what else just sucks big? 

During Stage 1, we have to stabilize and take care of hurt partner and help them merge your secret timeline with the timeline of their reality and narrative. That's a doozie for hurt partners. Talk about a wacky narrative editing process. You've known about things since, well, you began doing them with affair partner/s, so try not to forget that hurt partner has to have time to make sense of everything. 

What does that mean for you as involved partner if we're doing counseling work together? 

I can give you some support with our therapeutic alliance and I can catch some of the nasty verbal bullets shot your way, but our focus has to be stabilizing and helping hurt partner find the ground and stop spinning so that they will actually be able to hear you when they're ready to go deeper. 

Hurt partner's brain can literally take them on loop after loop after loop until they have made sense of reality. They're not doing it to be annoying, it's just how our brains are wired to account for discrepancies. 

Regardless, for involved partner it can kind of end up feeling like your pain has to be put on hold for a little bit. And you know what's completely tragic about that? A lot of times, the involved partner was actually carrying the brunt of the emotional burden in a relationship and the other partner just had more willpower or fewer opportunities to meet sexy strangers. 

But guess what? If you want to keep your relationship, your best shot is to 1) find an experienced therapist who knows how to work in stages, and 2) keep reminding yourself that a time will come when you can be deeply understood by your partner, forgiven even—that time is just not yet. 

This is where a lot of people ask, "How long does it take to get to Stage 2?"

It depends. Frustrating answer: anywhere between a few sessions to six months, and sometimes longer, especially if one or more partners experienced Trauma in their life and already struggled with trusting others. 

I can tell you something that helps immediately as you start to navigate Stage 1! Brushing up on your sincere apology skills. Therapist and speaker, Harriet Lerner, is officially your new best friend here. She can guide you! 

In general, approach the entire situation with funerary reverence and a deep respect for the fact that something precious has been lost, and it’ll go smoother for you.

Think of the trust recovery process like surviving a storm together on a ship. The first task is to survive the most intense, dangerous part of the squall without capsizing. Once the ship is righted and the storm has passed, everyone can go about cleaning up, re-navigating and re-charting, and pressing on. Wait until you’re no longer bailing water out and putting out fires to address things like power differentials and unfairness that probably contributed to an emotional landscape with perfect conditions for infidelity.

By Stage 2, partners have started to tune into each other's feelings and real intentions and can begin to understand the story from multiple perspectives. They start looking into each other's eyes and crying together. They start moving to deeper insights and say things like, "I just had no idea you felt like that." A sort of next level of apologies can unfurl. Partners feel more security and start taking positive emotional risks and reaching for each other more. 

Once we're in Stage 2, little panics might still crop up here and there, and definitely grief as partners awaken into the full reality of times they weren't there for each other, but the giant crisis feeling has mostly passed.

This, dear involved partner, is when I'll start supporting you to help your partner get a deeper understanding of what set you guys up for this experience. All of your patience and courage and beautiful apologies will start to pay off when you get there. 

So. Let's get really practical. 

Here are 20 of my top favorite tips for involved partners: 

1. Try to keep the time between your actual infidelity—i.e., sexual activity, online relationship, phone sex, etc.—and your disclosure to your partner/s as short as humanly possible. Waiting a long time to disclose a secret relationship increases the complexity/difficulty and length of treatment to build trust again. (Queue: The Strange Boys, “Be Brave.”) 
2. If you’re still in that phase where you're convincing yourself you don't need to tell your partner that you violated an important norm/expectation in your relationship, I would invite you to remind yourself: 1) that secret isn't possible to keep, 2) that that kind of thinking is pretty grandiose and your partner is strong enough to handle the news, and 3) it’s demeaning to say you don't want to tell your secret for fear of hurting the other person—they deserve to be aware and know the truth so they can make conscious decisions that are best for them. 
3. Want to save your relationship? End your affair/s NOW. STAT. ASAP. Sever all connection—stop touching, stop joking about the difficulty of stopping touching, stop communicating absolutely. RADIO SILENCE. Finito. Dunzo. "Never ever ever ever getting back togetherrrr."
4. If you keep a secret bank account or messaging app, get rid of them. If you really don’t want to disconnect from affair partner, like with all of your being, consider seeing a therapist to do some "discernment" work and explore how much you *really* want to stay with your primary partner.
5. Please, please avoid repeatedly lying/avoiding answering your partner’s direct questions like, “Is there something I should know?” "Is there something going on?" or even, “Are you cheating on me?” It's called 'gaslighting' if you let someone think they're crazy when you know they're not and I’m pretty sure if we studied this in the lab, you could slap on 1+ month of therapy for every time an involved partner denied a true allegation from a hurt partner. "You're making a huge deal over nothing! It's probably your anxiety," takes forever to heal. 
6. Lying by omission can feel as bad or worse to hurt partners than bald-face lies because it can feel like pressure is now on them to be ever-vigilant for future signs of the unwanted behavior happening again—like it’s somehow their responsibility to police the situation for signs that they need to check in and make sure that you aren’t still deceiving. 
7. Tell the truth and nothing but the truth, but do use a helping professional to help navigate co-creating a shared version of “the whole truth.” Do NOT share the most explicit, sexual details of your affair—especially at first—with your hurt partner. Unfortunately hurt partners tend to seek answers to these types of painful questions when they're most unable to handle it, as Julie Gottman says. Typically, it never becomes necessary to explore these painful images.
8. It’s possible that sexual details won't be the most painful information for your partner to hear, though, so also be mindful of how you convey details about the emotional connection you had/have with your affair partner. Looking into someone's eyes as they wake up the next morning can be more painful to imagine than the preceding raunchy night of sex. 
9. Maybe your partner found out about your affair/s via a tech-based medium. In my experience, this can tend to go along with a lengthier treatment and more complex prognosis, especially if the hurt partner saw sexually explicit photos/videos/audio or written material like text exchanges over many weeks. It can be a horrific, Domino-like experience to see something that got built up over weeks/months/years unfurl before hurt partner's eyes in real time over a few hours. 
10. Consider mindfully limiting who you disclose details of the infidelity to and make sure to be on the same page with your hurt partner about who gets told what by who and when. I recommend finding ONE person you really trust who you can talk to, and encourage your hurt partner to do the same until you can get into a counseling session where you can have a longer version of this critical conversation and really make an actionable plan that limits pain for everyone. 
11. Steer clear of verbally defending your affair partner/s to your primary partner—espeeecially at first. Maybe you also lied to your affair partner and you feel guilty for what they are going through—that’s nice and humanistic of you, but keep this to yourself and don’t stick up for your affair partner if your primary partner bashes them because it feels like you're allying with affair partner. You have to repair your “couple bubble.” There might be a space in the future to make amends with your affair partner, but if your goal is to stay with your primary partner—keep quiet or talk shit, but don’t talk about how great your affair partner is or how undeserving of pain/wrath/etc. they are. 
12. Make it CRYSTAL clear that you wouldn’t go near this person with a 10-foot pole even if someone paid you millions of dollars. I’m not kidding. Maybe all you can think about is being in the arms of your affair partner right now, but if you really want to be with your primary partner—if you want a life with this person, you’ll do whatever it takes. Without hesitation. It’s moments of hesitation that you’ll look back on with regret.  
13. "Name it to tame it." Adopt a reflecting and validating style and try to postpone problem-solving and fix-it-oriented responses when listening to your hurt partner. Arguably one of the hardest things you’ll likely go through in the coming weeks and months will be the barrage of tears and/or "How could you?” "How could you?" is just "Why?" dressed up for a showdown. Validate, validate, validate: “You’re so hurt.” “I’ve caused you so much pain.” “It hurts and it doesn’t make sense.” “You feel afraid—I feel afraid too.” When we feel out of control, our urge can be to try to fix, but your partner needs to feel their feels so that their nervous system can discharge the energy and get back to being regulated and in balance. 
14. Can't soothe your partner? Our ability to soothe our partner/s is rooted in secure attachment; being accessible, responsive, open, and safely emotionally engaged. As the stability of the relationship is restored, you will find your efforts to soothe your partner more and more accepted/successful and eventually reciprocated. If you can just stick with your partner through this difficult time, there’s nothing more powerful you can do to demonstrate your commitment and ability to be trustworthy and provide a safe emotional home. 
15. If you feel angry, overly-blamed, resentful, or just plain pissed during the early stages of the trust recovery process, find a good counselor or trustworthy close friend who you can complain to when it's feeling rough. “It’s not like I killed someone,” and similar minimizing responses are best saved for a bestie or homeboy, NOT for the wounded partner whose nervous system might very much feel something along the lines of what happens during bereavement.
16. Attempt to see your hurt partner’s behaviors and responses through an attachment lens—look for the frightened little kid inside them who’s just plain scared to death that this all means you don’t love them and you’re going to peace out. What you have to remember through all this is: your partner's responses are protective and adaptive. Without any moralizing we can just agree that infidelity as a context (especially in the US where there’s a prominent Judeo-Christian heritage and monogamy-centered sociocultural values and norms) is ripe with conditions for both of you to feel what attachment theorists call "primal panic.” 
17. Try to give yourself some extra, gentle TLC throughout this process. Identify some activities that are health-promoting (e.g., go for a walk, do a yoga class, paint, take a hot bath) you can easily do in about 30 minutes or so that make you feel really relaxed and schedule them into your calendar. It can be easy for involved partners to stop taking care of themselves and if you aren't balanced and healthy, it'll be really hard to get the relationship flourishing. 
18. Think deeply about WHY you *really* went outside your relationship without your partner knowing. When you ask yourself, "Why?" don't settle for the surface bs answers your brain is likely offer up first… “I was drunk.” “Someone wanted me for the first time in years.” “I'm an idiot!” “I just couldn't say no.” “My partner deserves better than me anyway.” What needs have maybe been going ignored? When was the last time you felt close and connected? What do you believe a relationship is even for? 
19. It might be too early for this perspective, so table it if it feels that way, but these painful experiences can give us a golden opportunity to do some existential heavy lifting. If we can see it this way—a chance to reevaluate, learn, and grow—as individuals and together, it can become a powerfully transformative season for a relationship. Think deeply about your primary partner and what you adore, appreciate, treasure, and respect about them. If you're struggling, your relationship could be in what The Gottman Institute calls “Negative Sentiment Override,” which makes partners see things in a negative light. Speak with a helping professional before deciding to throw in the towel. 
20. Never forget: you are a whole, worthy human who is deserving of love. You don't have to be perfect, you have to show up. Breathe out. 

The last thing I want to leave you with is a saying in my industry: the grass is greener where you water it. Esther Perel said, "If people brought to their relationships 1/10 of the boldness + playfulness they do to their affairs, they might not feel the need to stray."

Love, 
MJ

Disrupt the Distance-Pursue Cycle

“When we fight, the same thing kind of keeps happening on repeat again and again in different variations—but it’s always the same damn things. I say something totally unintentionally, then she takes it the wrong way and blows up. I try to keep my cool most times or even just take it—and if I’m not exhausted and it’s not midnight already I usually do a pretty alright job—but eventually I can’t take it anymore and I put up my wall, or actually get up and go into the other room. A few times at it’s worst I’ve gotten in the car and disappeared for a day or two, just to clear my head. I try not to leave because it obviously makes her much more upset, but if I don’t get some space to let the pressure out, I just get angry and then we both say awful shit we don’t mean."

Does this sound familiar? 

"I can't take it anymore—what's been happening when we fight. It's the saaame thing every time! I end up looking like a crazy person, a person I don't want to be—someone I'm not! Except with him. I turn into this impossible, clingy tantrum. I'm so chill with everyone else, but when we fight I just kind of panic. He'll say something shitty that makes me wonder if he even likes me or wants me in his life, then I get upset and when I try to explain or get him to comfort me, I can feel this icy wall go up. When I can feel him pull back it freaks me out even more, so I think I get more insistent and pushy, which just makes him go farther away. I know he needs space, but it feels like I'm going to die when he leaves or turns his phone off. If I could just behave and stop chasing after him when he needs space, keep myself from sending eight zillion texts when I can just wait to talk face-to-face, but we're just stuck in this evil infinite loop."

How about this?

Together, like perfectly explosive puzzle pieces, that's what a lot of my work sounds like at the start when clients show up to couples counseling for conflict or intimacy that feels deflated. 

The short version of the above sounds like: "the more my partner moves toward me, the more I move away, which makes them move toward me more, which makes me pull back even farther until we're caught up in this spiral."

There are so so many articles written on this topic. 

I have to admit that most generally leave me feeling a little disappointed and left with some version of, “You have to just stop pursuing when your partner withdraws.” 

“Just stop it.” Figure it out. Don't you have any willpower? 

Well, that’s a lot easier said than done when you have a nervous system that’s wired to drive you TOWARD your person when you are afraid. 

We have cleverly wired bodies which know down to our core that if we're in danger, we’re safer if we’re not alone but in close proximity to others—others we love and who make us feel safe and cared for, in particular. So if you really think about it, it’s quite natural that we pursue.

Point is, that intense emotional movement you can feel in your body compelling you to move toward your partner: it's quite human. 

You're not a "psycho" or "crazy person" for moving this way in your emotional dances. I also want you to know that it's possible to shift how you experience yourself in the midst of this dance.

Emotional intelligence, in a sense, is being able to feel a rush of emotion and sort of opt out of natural selection—experience feelings of fear and anxiety, and stay present and grounded without running or receding inside ourselves. This would not have been a wise maneuver back when we were still hunting and gathering, but things have changed. 

Lovers can find themselves in an incredibly uncomfortable bind when they get caught up in what  Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy calls a 'Pursue-Withdraw' or 'Distance-Pursue' dance; everyone ends up feeling alone and unheard, and usually hurting.

There can be such devastating pain and excruciating hopelessness in this space that everyone in the relationship sort of gives up and the cycle shifts over time into a frigid 'Withdraw-Withdraw,' where a former 'pursuer' becomes a "burnt-out pursuer," and as Sue Johnson says, "There's no one on the dance floor." 

No one is reaching. No one is even fighting. Everyone is kind of frozen and running parallel until there's something everyone can agree to blow up over, stuff under the rug, then passively return to quiet tension.  

Usually if I ask a couple in this boat when the last time they remember having sex that was really connecting, they laugh. Touch at this point has usually become terrifying. 

I suspect that variations on this withdraw-pursue dance actually account for the vast portion of people experiencing the 'sexless marriage.' 

If you're a pursuer or burnt-out pursuer, the anticipation and fear around feeling rejection has often grown intolerable; you might find yourself getting snappy about sex when that's never really been your style, but the thought of risking more vulnerability only to get rejected AGAIN? No way. This can be a most heart wrenching type of avoidance to witness because the uncomfortable desperation-fueled desire at the helm gets sooo palpable. 

If you're a withdrawing partner, you might have a serious love/hate relationship with the power that you seem to have acquired in the relationship. There can be a lot of feelings mixed with guilt that come up as you're realizing that you're seriously not turned on by your partner's pursuit behaviors; you want to make them feel sexy and desired, but when they seem clingy and desperate, it's just anything but sexy to you. Plus, hearing a partner beg can get one asking, "Am I some kind of monster?!"

I can’t remember who said this, I think maybe Pat Ogden, but I love it and use it like a mantra: “There’s no such thing as ‘difficult clients,’ just people who don’t feel safe enough yet.”

When I'm working with clients doing these kinds of push-pull emotional dances, especially when there's a high degree of bitterness expressed, I remind myself that the dance floor stays empty until everyone feels safe enough to give it a whirl. 

Remember that the goal is not to completely eliminate this emotional dance, but to develop more mastery around noticing it and being able to disrupt and eventually avoid it. This dance uninterrupted can be harmful for longterm relationships. If it sounds like you, don't let it go unchecked. 

Now, in keeping with the spirit of practicality, here are some of the most useful and workable tips that seem to positively impact clients working on this in my practice. 

Tips for Disrupting the Pursuit:

• Rock the neutral language; try to say "move toward" instead of "pursue like a maniac," and "move away" instead of "get the hell out of dodge," for instance. Even pursue and withdraw can feel pretty loaded when things are tense. Keep it simple and focus on describing behavior and emotions rather than assuming motivation or intentions. 
• Make an agreement with yourself not to use the phone/text for emotional communication. Face-to-face or bust. If you never see each other, schedule times when you’re together to talk. And within this phone agreement with yourself, I want to offer an invitation for the brave… If texting or response time is part of your conflict cycle, ask yourself: “How am I being called to grow here?” In this case, there might be a lesson about tolerating ambiguity or having to go without knowing or patience and respect for others' process. 
• See the dance that’s happening, call it out, and stop it. It takes at least two people together on the conflict dance floor to inspire the band to continue playing that dreadful, alluring music. Especially if we’ve been with our partner/s for a long time without working on disrupting negative patterns, our main conflict dance can actually quite hard to resist. 
• Talk to yourself and to the parts of you that are feeling big feels. I mean it! Get in front of the mirror if it helps. I can do this quietly inside me even while I’m in the middle of an intense session, so it’s really practical. What I’m describing is from Richard Schwartz’s Internal Family Systems model, so you can also trust that it’s evidence-based. Everyone will have different language that soothes and reassures them most, but for me it’s something like: “I’m safe. I’ve got this. Sassy protector part, I can tell you’re all riled up, but I can take care of this. I’ve got us.” This works particularly well if your relationship has a history with some relationship norm violations, like ‘affairs,’ or other big breaches of trust. If a suspicious part was born during the hurtful times, it can help to verbally affirm and reassure that part: “You are feeling very suspicious right now because this is reminding you of our big hurt. I need you to trust that I’ve got us. Husband is at a meeting late just like we talked about, and he’s not the same guy who cheated on me back then. I’ve got a lot more information and knowledge now that we’ve been through this, and I’ve got us. As a special treat, we can watch some trashy TV later and you can go wild with the suspiciousness! Right now, we’re trusting and giving him a chance he deserves. We're safe.” 
• Language you can use to experiment with disrupting the escalation of your cycle: “We’re doing that thing!” or “I think I’m doing that thing where I start to shut down.”
• Name your pattern! In EFT, clients are invited to give a name to this negative cycle, or “dance.” Tip: pick something that is funny so that it’s a little harder to take yourselves too seriously when you’re doing that thing about, Ikea furniture or whatever you THINK you’re fighting in the heat of the moment. It can also help to have a physical signal or gesture that you can use to signal to your partner that you sense things are ramping up; this can be useful to have if you’re around family.
• Do some individual work to really discover what chills you out and helps you find the ground and your internal balance and stability. For some people it's mindful breathing or loving kindness meditation, for others it's a little physical activity or yoga. Learning to tolerate discomfort will just grow you.
• Take an experimental approach and treat situations that usually cause discomfort as mini-experiments that you'll get good data from. Every little experience you have where you wait through the anxiety and see your person return to you and feel that everything is okay, that provides counter-evidence to fears of abandonment and attachment rupture or betrayal; it builds trust.

Tips for Disrupting the Withdraw:

• Ask yourself, "What do I really need when I leave the room/move away?" Help your partner understand the unmet need (e.g., to believe that I'm a valued partner who is beloved, to feel capable and successful, to feel close and connected) that isn't being met, not in a blaming way, but to have constructive conversations on how to meet that need without escalating distress. 
• Make it more intentional instead of waiting for the boil-over to drive you to move away from your partner emotionally. Agree on a way that you'll ask for and take a needed break that takes into account everyone's feelings and sense of relational safety. It's a balancing act of how to say you're going away while making sure your partner/s know you're coming back for sure. 
• Announce verbally when you can feel the tension mounting in your body. If you aren't really sure what happens in your body when you're doing this dance, just start with a gentle intention to experiment with noticing. Do you get tight in the neck/shoulders? Do your palms get sweaty or clammy? Can you notice your foot tapping? What happens next? Just begin there, and share this with your partner. 
• Remember "name it to tame it." Practice calling out what you're doing when you notice it; "I'm doing that withdraw thing. I'm totally leaving the room because I don't know how to cope right now. I'm so withdrawing." It can be as simple as, "I'm feeling overwhelmed." 
• Invite the pursuing partner to help if you're struggling to notice the escalation that leads you to move away. They could say something like, "Would you like a little space for a bit?" you know, in that non-sassy way. Avoid: "WOW, you obviously need space (scoff)."
• You can also reassure the parts of you feeling overwhelmed by (here's where some of you laugh) talking to yourself. Some clients find that it helps to go to the bathroom and splash their face with cool water when they feel that pull to move away, so this can be a nice place to speak to those parts if you're concerned with people hearing you talking to yourself. Language that might help: "Hey, part that wants to run away right now, I can feel how overwhelmed you're getting. Right now we need to go make a repair so that we can get the alone time we need without hurting the relationship. I've got this. I can feel big emotions moving within me *and* I know I'm safe."
• Try "time-outs together" if you're not experiencing any violence. Sit side-by-side on the couch in silence, just focused on yourself and your breathing, allowing angry thoughts to just pass right on through without grabbing onto them or looping them. You can turn your bodies ~15 degrees apart to indicate that you're taking the time you need to calm. This tends to be 15-20 minutes for most nervous systems, and can be longer if you've experienced Trauma. When each person feels ready to make a repair and reconnect, they turn back facing forward. When both are facing forward, you can then turn and face eye-to-eye and do any further processing.
• Plan times throughout the week where you can really get some quality soul-replenishing time. It could be alone time. Maybe it's not totally alone but a supper club, or weekly show you go and dance at with your friends who aren't your primary partner, whatever you need to really get to feeling like yourself. If you have a partner who experiences anxiety, it can help to involve them in this calendar planning! 

I invite you to be extra gentle and tender with yourselves and partners as you embark to shift a pattern like this bad boy. It can take time if it's deeply and rigidly entrenched. Give each other some grace and patience. It will only grow you. 

Love, 
MJ