How attachment styles play out in your marriage
One reason that you are having so much trouble in your marriage is because of how important you are to each other. Most of the dance moves you and your spouse make are variations on the theme of "Pursue/Withdraw." Anxiously attached people tend to do more of the pursuing. Ambivalently attached people tend to do more of the withdrawing. Let's look at an exchange:
Alex: "I was hurt by what you said last night."
Bethany: "Okay." (Getting quiet, with an expressionless look on her face. She's withdrawing.)
Alex: "Do you have anything to say about how hurtful your words were? Did you even hear what I just said?"
Bethany: (Turns her head slightly down toward the floor.) "Yes, I heard you."
Some notes:
Bethany is responding to his facial expression and tone of voice FIRST. And if in phone or via text, you are imagining it even more. You respond to tone of voice in 1/10 of a second. You aren't even hearing words yet. She is afraid. Does she know she is afraid? No, because the portions of her brain that say "you are afraid right now," have not yet come online. She's avoidantly attached so she goes to her typical response which is to withdraw.
Is Bethany really unmoved? No. But on the outside it looks like she is unmoved. Her inside experience is "I'm on high alert, and I'm working very hard to get smaller so this is not worse." She is hyper-aroused, but she is withdrawing so she doesn't make it worse. So why is her face without expression? Because her nervous system is freaking out. The way her brain has learned to respond to hyperarousal is by withdrawing. She knows if she says anything, the conflict is going to get worse. Alex is already upset. So she has to not make anything worse.
Ultimately, Bethany's amygdalia is afraid that Alex will leave. That's what her amygdalia's job is to do. You may think that they aren't afraid of that. But they are afraid of that! They have experiences of disconnection when they needed someone. Your partner's amygdalia is on the lookout for relational disconnection or abandonment.
We are attachment creatures thru-and-thru. The deepest need we have is to know that the person we are married to is going to be there for me when I need them. Your left brain may say that you are afraid of that. But your right brain is afraid of that.
Bethany looks like she is shut-down but she is going nuts inside. They are responding this way because you are super important to them.
The way your spouse responds to you may not be because they are indifferent.
The pursuer often feels to their partner like they are an attacker.
Secondary emotions like anger are an attempt to cope with the primary emotion.
The emotional part of your brain comes online before the thinking part of your brain.
We keep fighting about the same thing over and over again because we aren't really getting at the primary emotion of fear, sorrow, alone. We are dealing in the secondary emotion. Why. not? Why don't we just say THIS IS WHAT I AM FEELING. Because ... feeling primary emotions like fear connects you to very young and wounded parts of yourself.
1. DYSREGULATION caused by connecting to parts of yourself that are very young and very wounded.
2. MISINTERPRETING what's going on inside your spouse. Misinterpreting their response to you.
3. REFUSING TO SHARE PRIMARY EMOTION -- i.e. not eltting yoru partner know what is actually happening internally.
The greatest gift a man can give his wife is SELF-AWARENESS. More self-aware and less defensive especially as we reach mid-life. Women spend the bulk of their years attuning and raising their children. We've done so much work to attune and be responsive to our children. And we get to mid-life and there is a gap with a lot of men where that same growth point hasn't been reached yet. For most men, this ability has atrophied.
The single greatest gift for your marriage is SELF-AWARENESS. You can't have a candid discussion with another person if they aren't candid and vulnerable with you.
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