159. The Real Source of Emotional Safety in Relationships

Speaker A: Hello and welcome to Respected and Connected, a podcast for couples who love each other but don't always like how it goes when things get hard. We talk about how to stop turning conflict into power struggles and start handling real issues as a team without blowing up, shutting down, or tiptoeing around the truth. If you want your relationship to work better and you know that moving through conflict together is better than avoiding your issues to keep the peace, you're in the right place, real partnership is possible.

Speaker B: Let's talk about what that actually takes. One of the most common things I hear in struggling relationships is this. I don't feel safe. And sometimes that's absolutely valid. But often what people mean when they say that they don't feel safe is, I don't feel comfortable. I don't like how you reacted, or I need you to respond differently so that I can feel okay. We might not name all of these things as unsafety or a lack of safety, but what we're saying is things aren't going right, and the way I'm feeling is not okay. So that must mean that there's something wrong with you and how you're handling the situation. And here's the hard truth. If you're waiting for your partner to make your relationship feel safe, you're outsourcing a sense of security. That's not partnership. And no adult relationship thrives when one person is responsible for stabilizing the other. So today I want to challenge some of the ideas that we've developed about safety, or maybe even what's right and wrong in a relationship, especially on this emotional safety level, and offer you a different way of thinking about it. Because when couples really understand where this sense of emotional safety comes from, they can create relationships that are more honest, more intimate, and much more resilient. And before we go further, I really do want to make an important distinction, because there are times when people are not being safe in relationships, when people are violating these standard boundaries. Um, so things like physical violence, sexual coercion, ongoing deception, humiliation, and contempt, these are situations that will require a different kind of intervention. Things that we're not going to be talking about on today's episode. Today, I really want to talk about couples who love each other, who want to make the relationship work, want to feel closer, but they're feeling stuck in some patterns, some dynamics that make the relationship feel more tense or emotionally unsafe. So in these situations, what we often call unsafety, or what we often call an unsafe person, is actually somebody who makes us feel emotionally off kilter or Uncomfortable. The reason why we tend to feel unsafe when we're feeling uncomfortable is because our relational history shapes what feels safe. The culture that we grew up in. Our family systems will really have a great influence on what feels good to us in a relationship. And also maybe the unhealthy ways that we might approach things that don't feel good. So if you grew up in chaos, calm can feel really unfamiliar. If you grew up having to monitor other people's moods, maybe you had a really reactive parent or caregiver. You may feel really unsafe when someone's upset. If you grew up without a caregiver that was nurturing and consistent, you may be hyper alert to signs of rejection or disconnection. So that feeling of unsafety is real. But the source of that feeling isn't always your partner's behavior. It might just trigger a memory or a, uh, knowing that you have that I'm not safe in this relationship. And the fact of the matter is, now as an adult, you have more resources to take care of yourself than you did as a child. And that really is going to be the key to feeling more safe in your adult relationships. So when we're in that state where we're reminded of something from the past, you know, uh, maybe a real valid hurt in our relationship becomes amplified because it reminds us of something that happened to us as children. So when that happens, m we reach for strategies to feel more powerful and protected. And in rlt, we call these losing strategies. They're the ways that we try and protect ourselves, but they actually damage connection. So I'm going to talk through some of these losing strategies. I want you to listen and see what you relate to and kind of think about how. Oh yeah, this really does help me to feel better in the moment. It helps me to feel less helpless, less attacked, less confronted. But it doesn't really create the connection I want with my partner long term. So one of the ways we do this is by being right. This is one of my favorite losing strategies because I feel like, uh, for one thing, I'm recovering from hyper vigilance. So for me, monitoring everything that's going on and kind of tracking everything is a very instinctive move. And so when somebody challenges my reality, that feels really unsafe and destabilizing. And I can really set into this being right strategy when we're trying to be right. And, uh, it can be a reaction to maybe our partner sharing something with us that feels like it challenges our sense of reality. We might say something like, you're exaggerating that's not how it happened. Or maybe even some of us, like really good relational students might say, well, Terry Real in this book said, this is not how you're supposed to apologize. We bring in some sort of expert or we say most people agree. I see this on social media all the time. I'm trying to settle an argument with my partner. How many people you know, what would you say? Is it this or this? So we try and settle arguments by being right. We try and eliminate conflict from our relationships by being right. And the problem with this is somebody wins and somebody loses. We're no longer on the same team. Our partner doesn't feel like we value their perspective or we can accept that we see things differently. So being right feels really powerful and protected in the moment, but it hurts our relationships. The next one is control. And I do see this sometimes as outright demands like m, you must do this for me. But more often control is a way of trying to manage your partner's reactions. So a lot of people might feel like they're walking on eggshells. They're trying to time or read their partner's mood and time the right time to bring things up. They really self silence because they don't want to have too much drama in their relationships is what I hear often. And that is a form of control because you're not bringing your full self to the relationship. Maybe you're just, you're unhappy, but you're not letting on that you're unhappy because you don't want your partner to be upset or defensive or unhappy with you because you're unhappy with them. All of this is control. Even if you don't feel like you're being controlling, you're controlling the mood of the relationship by editing yourself, which honestly, even if your partner can't like put a finger on what's happening, it feels really icky to be controlled and managed in this way. Even if your partner's really reactive, it feels really icky for you to be trying to manage their reactivity. The next one is withdrawal and that's pulling back emotionally or physically from the relationship. And this is more than just like, it's wise for me to step back right now because things are too hot to handle in the moment. That would be a healthy timeout. But it's like completely eliminating some part of the relationship that feels uncomfortable. I uh, do see this often with couples, especially couples who are in long term relationships, where they might withdraw physically, sexually in the relationship because all of the tension in the relationship is making it Hard for them to be open and vulnerable in that really intimate space. And trying to work through that is really difficult and uncomfortable. And it's just easier to withdraw from that part of the relationship. Or I withdraw. I don't try and have hard conversations anymore. I, uh, withdraw and I feel more resentment. You know, it's too hard for me to ask my partner to help out around the house the way that I think is fair and equitable. It always leads to a fight. So I just do everything myself. But then I resent my partner for not helping. Withdrawal is really common, and it doesn't mean that we are totally out of the relationship. We're just not dealing with parts of the relationship that, that are hard or even stonewalling. That's like a more extreme version of withdrawal where you might give your partner the silent treatment for two or three days or a week. But I think sometimes we withdraw because we think it's the only way to protect the relationship. What it does is it creates a very distant and lonely relationship without a lot of conflict, but really without a lot of connection either. And also, if you have a partner that withdraws and you don't, that's not a strategy of yours that can feel so destabilizing. So withdrawal makes sense. And there is a healthy way to withdraw for a time on a certain issue when things get too hot. But overall, it's going to create a lot of loneliness and unease in the relationship if it happens consistently over time. The next losing strategy is one that we call unbridled self expression. And this is just kind of unloading all of your feelings, all of your emotions, all of your grievances without any type of restraint. I see this often with a partner who doesn't feel heard. They try and maybe bring something up in a, uh, you know, the best way that they can think of. They feel dismissed, they feel misunderstood. They feel like their partner minimizes their feelings. And so this is kind of the next move. Like, let me tell you everything. Let me get this all off of my chest. And it feels nice sometimes to release all of that, you know, pent up resentment and frustration. But it doesn't help our partner to give us more of what we want. It's overwhelming to be on the receiving end of that. And then the final losing strategy, one of the ways we try and feel like more protected and powerful in our relationship is retaliation. So that's maybe hurting your partner because you feel hurt. And sometimes there is like a wish in this. It's kind of a misguided Fantasy that if I can hurt my partner in the way that they have hurt me, maybe they'll finally get it and they'll change their behavior. And I think that's what all of these unhealthy coping mechanisms, these losing strategies, they are a misguided effort to change our partner in a way that will help us to feel more connected to them. But it always backfires. It's a self defeating behavior. It comes from that immature part of us that probably doesn't trust that we can take care of ourselves, that if we manage things in a healthy and mature way, that our partner will show up for us in the way that we want them to. So we're prioritizing this power and protection over connection. It feels relieving in the short term, but it erodes the sense of safety that we're trying to create. So what can we do instead? If the losing strategies erode the sense of safety, emotional safety that we have in our relationship, what can we do to build more safety in our relationships? This is what we call the winning strategies. M so the first one is go after what you want. We don't often go directly after what we want. Most of us have adaptive children who have learned that if we just directly ask for what we want, we'll be shamed, we'll be dismissed, we'll be told that we're too much. So we don't go directly after what we want. We go kind of in these more covert ways, like being right, like managing the mood, like unbridled self expression, complaint and criticism instead of honest requests. So go after what you want instead of complaining, instead of just withdrawing. Maybe sometimes we withdraw because we hope our partner will pursue and say, hey, what's wrong? I miss you. What's going on? That's the hope. But it's, it's often better, more effective and more transparent to just say what you want. Hey, I miss you. Can we be a little bit more diligent about spending some distraction free time in the evenings? That feels so much better than saying all you care about is work. You don't even care about me. So go after what you want with that clear request. The second one is speak to make things better. We're not trying to win, which is what we do when we be right. We're not trying to prove a point, but we're trying to improve the relationship. So speaking to make things better comes from a place of thinking about what it's gonna feel like for your partner to hear what you have to say. And usually speaking to make things better, we have to come from a place of more humility, you know, so when we're speaking to be right, it can be like, hey, I've been listening to Terry Real. He says, this is the way that you're supposed to handle these tough situations. And, you know, we get really reactive and loud and complaining. Or on the other end, we get really withdrawn and avoidant. So speaking to make things better could be, you know, if you feel like your partner's criticizing you all the time, speaking to make things better could be, hey, I care about you, and I care about our relationship, and I think that you're really trying to get there with me. But when you complain and criticize, it doesn't feel good. It doesn't make me want to be closer to you. What would work better for me is if you start with a request, if you tell me what you need without criticizing me. So that phrase is kind of a magic phrase for a lot of my clients. What would work better for me is this, or, you know, I want us to have a better relationship with. Let's do this. It, uh, this way. So speak to make things better. The next is listen, to understand. So when you're listening to your partner, are you thinking about what you're going to say back to them, or are you being really humble and curious about what's going on for them and trying to understand that this is a hard thing for us to do when we're feeling attacked, but it really helps to diffuse tension in our relationships. And just remember that understanding your partner's point of view doesn't mean that you agree with. Just means that you value them enough to hear their perspective and hear what's going on with them. The next one, number four. This is a winning strategy. Responding with generosity. So even if their delivery is imperfect, being generous with them and assuming positive intent, you know, my partner must be feeling really upset about how lonely and disconnected we've been. What can I offer in the way of maybe assuming positive intent? Assuming that their poor delivery is just that they're having a bad day and not that they're being a bad person or that they are a bad person when they ask us for something, thinking about, what is it going to cost me to give that? And if the cost is low and the benefit is high, just giving that rather than holding on to that, no holding. Pushing your partner, uh, away again, as a way to feel protected and powerful in the relationship. But what can I give from a place of generosity that will help the relationship go better? And finally, the last losing strategy is cherishing. And I'm going to read this straight out of Terry Real's book, the New Rules of Marriage, because I think it's so powerful. So here we go. Cherishing is the deliberate cultivation of your capacity to take pleasure in and celebrate what you have. Cherishing your partner's progress by giving them specific feedback is the best way to engender more of the behaviors you'd like. You cherish your relationship by making time for it, putting energy into it, and by giving your partner gifts in word and deed that demonstrate your care. You cherish yourself through active self care. You cherish your commitment to continued growth and relationship practice by becoming partners in health, sharing information and inspiration. And you cherish abundance by stepping into your particular passions and gifts with no attempt to either own or disown them, but rather with joy and respect for your own success and a wish to contribute to the world. How powerful is that? How aspirational is that? And I think when we're struggling in our relationships, cherishing can be really vulnerable. I work with a lot of couples and I know, I felt this way too, that, that they have this belief if I let my guard down, if I step outside of complaint and distress and appreciate what I have, things might never get better. The will to change might weaken. And I think it's actually the opposite of that. You know, true, cherishing from a wise adult place has the power to really transform our relationships. A lot of times the reason why we feel unsafe and then from that sense of unsafety or discomfort we go into our losing strategies is because we want to feel protected and powerful. And what we really want underneath it all is to feel connected. And it's only from that wise adult part of ourselves that we can use the winning strategies in an effective way. A lot of times I hear also, and I wanted to make this note as I wrap things up today. You know, a lot of times when I present to a struggling couple some of these winning strategies ideas, they'll say, yeah, yeah, we tried that, but it didn't work. And the truth is we don't use winning strategies just to change our partner. If I hear that from a couple, what I would really try and get to with them is if you're saying it didn't work, you're coming from a place of control, it might not work. But if you're really using a winning strategy from a wise adult, mature part of yourself, you're doing it because you believe it is the best way to be in a relationship. Not because it's going to work 100% of the time to get you what you want. So when you're in that place, I want you to prepare yourself for the inevitability that your partner's not going to show up for you the way you want them to every single time. And if you can handle your disappointment in a mature way and, uh, keep going after what you want from that mature, wise part of yourself, keep cherishing and appreciating what you have, keep listening to understand your partner. Things will shift, you will change. And when you change, your relationship has a chance to change. If there's anything I want you to get out of this conversation today, it's that relationships are really hard. Being close to another person brings up all of our insecurities and all of our difficulties with being open and vulnerable. That is the deal. Our culture really worships this painless, uh, endlessly positive, tension free kind of a relationship that I don't really think exists. So when we do this work of living relationally, it's not that things get magically easier, it's that we learn how to do hard things better. So if you can reframe the way you're approaching your relationship in that way, my partner's not always going to give me what I want. I'm not even going to always be on my best behavior. But if I learn to do these well, this well, if I put in the reps, if I work through my own discomfort, that is going to be my best chance of being someone that I'm proud of in this relationship.

Speaker A: Thanks for listening to respected and connected. Remember, real partnership isn't about doing more

Speaker B: or getting it perfect.

Speaker A: It's about how you handle yourself when things go sideways. If you're ready to stop rehashing the same issues and start creating real change, you'll find ways to work with me in the show notes. I'm so glad you're here and I'll

Speaker B: see you next time.