Addressing Relationship Insecurities and Abandonment Fears

This episode was pre recorded as part of a live continuing education webinar on demand. CEUs are still available for this presentation through all CEUs. Register@Allce.com Counselortoolbox you I'd like to welcome everybody to today's presentation on relationship insecurities. I AM your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. This course is based in part on a book called Love Me, Don't Leave Me by Michelle Skeen. Really, really like this book. And you know, I typically review books for people and some I like, some I really really like, and some not so much. But this is one of those that I think is really worth the read and it's helpful book for clients to use in terms of self help. Or you can base their treatment plans in part off of the activities in the book if you want to. A lot of the stuff in this presentation isn't from that book, but some of it is. So I did want to make sure that she got credit for that we're going to identify signs of relationships insecurities, explore causes of relationship insecurities, and identify at least five interventions to address relationship insecurities as we move into the holiday period. You know, we've got Thanksgiving coming up this week and then we're going to move into Christmas and it seems like not too far after that is Valentine's Day. But so it's, you know, every month or so it's kind of a whammy for people who have challenges with their family or are not in relationships. Because there's a lot of stuff I know right now I turn on the television and it is Christmas hallmarky movie after Christmas hallmarking movie about, you know, happy couples. And when you aren't in a relationship or not in a happy relationship, that can be really stressful. We want to be sensitive to that. And for people who are insecure in their relationships, you know, they're not experiencing those hallmark moments. They're experiencing stress and tension and fear. Fear a lot more of the time. Signs of relationship insecurities difficulty trusting your partner, comparing yourself to your partner's exes or random people in the community. Some of these things we start to see around the holidays rear their heads even more because holiday parties come up and not every significant other wants to go to every holiday party. But sometimes when people do have to go to holiday parties, their significant others get jealous of their co workers. Or if the person wants to go to their holiday party, their office holiday party by themselves, the significant other may wonder, well, why don't you want to take me why can't I go? You know, know what are you hiding? But this can start to rear its ugly head. Additionally, when you go to family reunions, when you go to different family activities over the holidays, sometimes people's insecurities come up because maybe they feel like, you know, your mother doesn't like me or your dad doesn't like me, and then they start to sense and feel rejection. People who require frequent reassurance that they are enough, that is a relationship insecurity. You know, if you're driving to a party or to a family event or something and the partner is needing to consistently reassure you, that could, that may indicate some insecurities. There's anxiety when separated from your partner. If I can't see you, or at the very least if I cannot get an immediate text response, when I text you, then I am going to be anxious. Internalizing negative thoughts and creating self fulfilling prophecies is another insecurity. You think I am boring, you think I am a nag, you think I am whatever. When we tell ourselves that enough, when we tell people, or tell ourselves that people perceive us a certain way, we tend to often create that self fulfilling prophecy and push people away. A feeling of distance or detachment can actually be a sign of relationship insecurities. That's when you, when a person just kind of cuts that tie, cuts those losses early in order to prevent getting hurt, they're going to be the dumper, not the dumpy. They're not going to get attached. That way when the relationship inevitably fails, they won't get hurt. Or reading something negative into everything your partner says, and we have all probably interacted with people who have a habit of reading negative into things. If somebody says, I really like that outfit you're wearing, or you know, I like that outfit you chose for the, for the party this year, then the person wearing the outfit may say, oh, so you didn't like the outfit that I chose for the party last year? Is that it? What? Where did that come from? Paying attention to taking your own insecurities and shading everything or a lot of things that other people do with those insecurities. If you look for rejection, you're probably going to find evidence of rejection. Even if you know somebody didn't mean it, that's how you may interpret it. So that's what we really want to help clients see is how their perception of insecurities and how their feelings of insecurities can affect how other people interact with them and also affect their perception of situations. They can perceive something like A holiday party being very threatening, when in reality it's very benign. Relationship bricks. Often past relationships cause us to build a wall around our heart. You know, think about each one of those fights or arguments or hurts from past relationships being a brick. You know, a lot of us would have a pretty, you know, sizable wall because, you know, stuff happens. Have people write the name of their prior relationships or people who have cause them trauma or feelings of distress on bricks and put them in a backpack. You know, this person cheated on me, this person was verbally abusive. This person, whatever, write them on bricks. And I mean every. Like actual bricks, not little paper bricks. I want them to be heavy. Put those bricks in a backpack. Have the person or the people. This is a great group activity. Put on the backpack and go on a nature walk for 15 minutes if you have that. Where I used to work, we were on a multi acre campus, so we were able to go out and walk around and look at birds and squirrels and whatever, get out of the therapy room and still be in a confidential area. But have people put this backpack on for 15 minutes. For most of our clients, that backpack is going to be pretty heavy, and they ain't going to want to walk around for more than 15 minutes. When you get back from your walk, ask people about all of the things that they noticed on the walk. You know, what did you notice while carrying this backpack? And then discuss how carrying that heavy backpack kept them from being mindful and noticing all these other things. You, as the facilitator, are noticing a lot more because you're not carrying a big old backpack. And the goal is to point out to them that when we are carrying a heavy emotional load, we tend to be less aware of other things that are going on around us because we're focused on the pain and the distress that that heavy emotional load is causing us. Causes of relationship insecurities. Well, insecurities indicate anxiety or fear of being hurt or abandoned. Insecurity is another way of saying anxiety. So what happens? How does this come to be? Prior learning, for the most part. So we want people to start unpacking those bags. And this is another activity you can do. You can create paper bags for each relationship brick. So building off a past relationship, write a pros and cons list of that relationship on and put it in the bag. Write a good goodbye letter to that person or relationship detailing what happened, how you felt, and how it impacted you. Put all that stuff in this bag. This is the bag for that relationship. And, you know, it also is correlated with Those relationship bricks and the things that hurt you. One bag per person per session. You don't want to have somebody who has 20 bricks and 20 past relationships because that could take the whole session and nobody else would get anything. Any lightening of their load. So go around the circle and I have somebody share one bag each session. In sharing what's in the bag, the person is able to take that back. Their power. I encourage them to use words such as you. Instead of saying, you made me feel, they say, I felt. They're taking ownership of that. I'm not letting you make me feel. Anyway, I felt. That's how I felt. And this is how I am choosing to feel now. Instead of a narrative of abandonment and betrayal because of personal inadequacies, I encourage people to explore other reasons that the problems in the relationship occurred. Why did this abandonment potentially occur? Why did this relationship end besides personal. Your personal inadequacies? None of us is perfect. We all have faults. What other reasons might exist? And encouraging them to realize that takes two to tango and that whoever that other person in the relationship was probably had a lot of their own reasons for leaving the relationship. And finally, we wrap up unpacking that bag by exploring forgiveness in terms of choosing not to allow that person to continue to hurt you. And forgiveness is a power play. Forgiveness is when you say, I accept that this happened. I don't like that it happened. But I am not going to continue to hold on to the anger because that just uses a bunch of my energy and. And you're not worth my energy anymore. Bada bing. When people are ready to let go of the anger and hurt, they take the brick out of the backpack. You know, so like I said, these two activities build on each other. They may have multiple bricks for the same relationship. So, you know, we could get a really light backpack really quickly. But if important, to help them feel the actual lightening of the load. And each week, have the clients notice how much lighter their backpack feels and how much less energy it takes to tote it around. Insecurities can also indicate that we are trying to master a prior failed relationship. And one of the activities that we do sometimes is creating a Venn diagram. Great thing about whiteboards, they are easy to do. Venn diagrams on. In one circle in the Venn diagram is Tom. And we're going to write down all the things about Tom that are different than what is true in our relationship with Sam. So we're going to identify how these two relationships are different. And then in the middle, we're going to identify how these two relationships are actually the same. And it could be they both started out with a whirlwind courtship or something, I don't know. But we generally. And a lot of times I'll start out with similarities and then we branch out into differences with the focus on helping people see that Sam is not the same person as Tom. And we shouldn't expect Sam to do the exact same things that Tom is going to do. We don't know what Sam's going to do. And it's important not to project onto Sam all of the wrongs that we believe that Tom inflicted upon us in that relationship. People can also have relationship insecurities due to low self esteem and they are looking for self validation. They are needing somebody to tell them that they are good enough, smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like them. And I use the two old cranky guys from the Muppets because they typically degrade our self esteem for self esteem activities. You know, there are. Those are a dime a dozen. You can have people do collages. The best friend activity. I encourage people to identify all the characteristics they look for in a best friend. And once they do that, I say, all right, now let's look at that. And how many of those characteristics do you have yourself? Encouraging them to recognize that they can be their own best friend and that they do have a lot to offer. The values activity. They write down the things that they value in life and in other people again and then reflect upon themselves. Which of these values do I currently embody? And the last one is the sell yourself activity. And this one is a little bit more creative. But the goal is to have someone act like they're going in for a job interview and tell the interviewer why they are awesome. You know, they are interviewing for this position as, you know, part of a relationship. What makes them awesome and best suited for this relationship. Many people have difficulty developing self esteem based on that pathological inner critic. We can also help people develop thought stopping techniques. When they start telling themselves that, you know, of course this person's gonna leave you because you're useless or you are lazy or you're whatever. What can they do? How can they stop those thoughts? They need to learn how to handle the hecklers in their head. When the hecklers start saying negative things to them, how can they stop those thoughts? Silence the hecklers. Sometimes it's easier to view it as hecklers. Both thought stopping and handling hecklers are basically the same thing. We can encourage people to validate those thoughts in the present, if they're having a thought about themselves, look for the facts. What facts exist to show that you can objectively point to that. Say that you are useless, that you are lazy, that you are this, that you are that. Let's look at those objective facts and check for accuracy. And generally they're not going to find many. And we can help people address their cognitive distortions there and embrace imperfection and synergy. And what I mean by that is, as I said earlier, we are all imperfect beings. None of us. I think I can say this with certainty. None of us is perfect at everything, all the time, which is why synergy works so well. My husband and I couldn't be more different on so many different things. But the nice thing is we complement each other. What my strengths are not his strengths, and his strengths are not my strengths. Instead of seeing myself as imperfect and not lovable because I don't have his strengths, I appreciate the fact that he brings to the table the things that I don't have, and he brings and he appreciates the fact that I bring to the table the things that he doesn't have. And we work synergistically that way. Poor communication can also cause relationship insecurities. Encourage clients to stop assuming they know and expecting mind reading. Stop assuming you know what your partner is thinking. You know, don't assume you know that your partner is bored or unhappy. Don't assume you know why your partner has been distant lately. You know, if you assume that you may be and probably generally are going to be wrong. So it's important to encourage clients to start effectively communicating if they sense that their partner is pulling away or if they sense that there is conflict or stress in the relationship. It's important for them to be able to be assertive and sit down and say, you know, I am getting the sense that this is going on because of whatever I'm observing. Let's talk about it. Is there a problem? And encouraging clients to put that out there right away, instead of dwelling on it and wondering and twiddling their thumbs and going, you know, I think he's really unhappy, or I think she's really unhappy. She's probably getting ready to break up with me. I don't know what to do. Let's talk about it. You know, better to get it out there because it might be something that can be addressed. Going along with that. Encouraging clients to stop expecting mind reading. This is one of those things that comes up during the holidays a lot. It comes up a lot. Not during the holidays. But people want their significant others just to know what the perfect present is for them. And some people are just not good present getters. It doesn't mean that they don't care. It doesn't mean they don't love the other person. It means that they're just not real observant or creative in figuring out what people want. But mind reading goes so far beyond presence. Stop expecting the other person to quote, know that you feel insecure. Stop expecting the other person to, quote, know how much attention you need. You know, if somebody gets upset because their significant other is not texting them enough, instead of pouting about it, have an open dialogue about how much communication is enough and how much is. You know, the other person may feel that it might be a little too much. So figuring out what that happy medium is, instead of saying, well, he never texts me, so he must not like me. He may not know that you want him to text you. And that's one of those things that I've been going over with my daughter as she's started dating, figuring out how to communicate what she wants instead of just walking around with her phone going, I'm gonna wait for him to text me. And then when he doesn't text, getting upset because her, her little person did not know that he was supposed to text her. Like, okay, that's gonna create insecurity because you're going to feel rejected when he fails to do something that you wanted him to do but you didn't tell him to do. That's kind of setting him up to fail. And encourage people to practice mindfulness. And this is so important for communication. In order to be in a healthy relationship, we have to know what we need. We have to know what our own needs are. And that starts with mindfulness. What is it that I am needing now from myself, for myself and from you? Then how can I effectively communicate it? Lack of connection is yet another cause of relationship insecurities. One of the activities that I do is called the intentional activity. And I have people make a list of all the things that they like to do, Just make a laundry list of things that you like to do, and intentionally spend time with each other. Each day. There may be 15 minutes. You know, you may not have a lot of time someday, some days, but what can you do during that 15 minutes that is intentional instead of just sitting there? My husband and I, a lot of times in the evening, you know, we, we have a very intentional family dinner, and we communicate with each other and all that kind of Stuff. But then afterwards, we go downstairs, we start watching tv, he's playing on his phone, and I'm doing my crochet and watching tv, and. And we are in the same room. But it is not intentional time. It's not what I would consider quality time. We both just happen to be breathing the same air. And a lot of times people think, well, we're spending all of our time together. And I say, how much of that is intentional time? I try to stay away from the word quality because that moves over into the five love languages. But. But how much time do you spend together is intentional, where you're focused on one another as opposed to just happening to be in the same room? When we engage intentionally, we tend to develop more of a sense of connection because we are hearing and interacting with the other person. An imbalance in power can also create relationship insecurities. Somebody can feel like they don't do anything in a relationship, or there could be an imbalance in power. My stepfather, right after my mother passed, kept lamenting, she did everything. I'm totally lost now. He wasn't insecure before she died, but once she passed on, he was kind of a wreck because he realized how much she did. Take that to another relationship where somebody does realize ahead of time that, you know, this person pays all the bills and manages the household and does all this stuff, knows who the pediatricians are. I would have no idea if that person suddenly disappeared. I would have no idea how to keep everything moving along. That can create a lot of insecurity because there's such a dependency. Encouraging people to address anxieties about dependency or helplessness, making sure that they don't feel like they would be completely powerless and unable to function if the other person left. Evaluating what the other person brings to the table, you know, if it's, you know, like in Walter's case, it was paying the bills and managing other accounts and stuff. I mean, a lot of it was paperwork, administrative household stuff, but it was stuff that he had never handled, hadn't handled in 20 some odd years. So he was kind of thrown for a loop when he had to all of a sudden take over everything. We want to have people have a backup plan, you know, make sure that everybody or both partners know what the account numbers are and what bills need to be paid and all that other kind of stuff. I'm a spreadsheet person, so, you know, we have our lives in spreadsheets. In the unlikely, unfortunate event that something should happen to one of us, the other person could sort of Follow directions. And it's important to help people develop support systems, strategies and disaster plans. You can't. And relationship insecurities can happen. Generally, we're worried about somebody voluntarily leaving, but there's also that insecurity of what happens if you're on your way home and get in a car accident and are killed and I never see you again. What happens if you're on that business trip and the plane crashes? You know, lots of anxiety. Having disaster plans can help. But support systems are also important too, because relationships provide more than practical support for us. Yes, in relationships we typically share duties, but in relationships, we also provide one another emotional support and companionship and love and belonging and all that other kind of stuff. It's important for people to have support system systems that they can, you know, reach out to that provide similar types of support. Who else can you call when you're having a bad day? If you know something happens? If something happens and this relationship ends, you know, who can you reach out to if you can't reach out to that person and talk about your bad day? Who, who else could you reach out to? That way everybody feels like they've got backup plans or support systems in place or whatever you want to call fail safes. Jumping to conclusions and personalization can also be a big problem. And I like to use the Family Feud format for relationships assumptions. And you know, how, oh, gosh, I can't think of his name. The Family Feud host, Steve Harvey. Now, I guess starts out by saying, we surveyed, you know, so many people. We surveyed a bunch of people. What are the top three explanations for? And then put, put something in there. So what are the top three explanations? That John comes home smelling like perfume. And have them answer, what are the top three explanations? That Sally's late getting home from work. What are the top three explanations? That Sam doesn't text back right away? And you can see you can add a lot of these on here, but those are those relationship assumptions that typically start causing people to go down this rabbit hole and make assumptions about what the other person is thinking, feeling, or doing. And usually they're not good assumptions, this can be a fun way to do it because it helps people brainstorm. And in this format, since people are having less time to think because Family Feud is one of those, you know, time sensitive things, especially at the initial, you know, question, there's less of a filter on which enables people to tap into some of those subconscious assumptions. So it can be fun. Encourage people to address emotional versus factual reasoning. If they are. If you have a client that comes in and she says, or he says, I really think that my partner is unhappy with me. And you know, I'm worried that they're going to leave. Okay, tell me what facts you have to support that. What are you observing? What are you seeing? What do you actually know that supports that notion? And then how much of your reasoning is just based on emotions? You feel anxious about this relationship for some reason. A lot of times when people have been hurt or abandoned in the past, when they start getting close to another person, it can trigger those past traumatic relationships and they can start projecting and getting nervous that it's going to happen all over again. That fear that the abandonment is going to happen all over again. The body and the brain try to make sense of it and go, okay, why am I feeling this way? Must mean that it's getting ready to happen again. A lot of that is often anxious and emotion based reasoning. Just like when people get on an airplane and they're afraid of airplanes, they're afraid of flying. Well, let's look at the facts for how safe it is to fly versus commercial versus the emotions associated with it. A lot of times people's emotions, I'm afraid to fly because flying is scary, therefore it must be dangerous. Same sort of thing. Encourage people to grieve past losses. This can include partners, partners who have died, who have broken up. It doesn't matter if you were the dumper or the dumpee. Grieving those losses, figuring out how to write that into your narrative. And we've talked about this so many times before. I like narrative therapy for this reason and it doesn't have to be this long written out thing. I'm not a writer. I don't like writing long prose sorts of things. People can narrate it into a recording device if they don't want to write. But I want them to write that script for writing out a particular character out of the, out of the series and writing in a new character. And we see that in our series all the time. And sometimes, you know, when you have a favorite character that leaves, it takes a while to warm up to the new character. That happened with, for me with ncis. But recognizing that we get used to those things and having people distance themselves by making it into a series can help them see how they can integrate what they know, what they remember, what they want out of life. Grief, past losses that include friends. Some of our relationship insecurities just come from. It's not necessarily losing an intimate relationship, but losing friends when we have Friends, especially close friends, we tend to make ourselves vulnerable. And when those people leave, for whatever reason, it can also be very hurtful. People may be left wondering, why aren't we friends anymore? Or why did we have this falling out? Grieve losses of parents and losses of parents can be again through death, but it can also be through abandonment. The parent just leaves for some reason and encouraging people to work through those losses. When people are abandoned by a parent or a caregiver, that strikes so much at their core, it's important for them to really explore why that happened and explore all the potential possible reasons why that might have happened. Besides the personal reasons. One thing that one activity you can do is called the heartbreak pot. You get a big terracotta pot and gently, gently break it, if that's even possible, into large pieces. And if you put it in a pillowcase and hit it with a rubber mallet just once, you know, you don't whack it, you tap it, a lot of times, it will fracture. Another thing that I found out the hard way you can do is put water in it or let it get wet, good and wet, and then leave it outside when it freezes, because evidently terracotta is not all season. Learned that a couple years ago when we moved to Tennessee. You can do the same thing by getting it wet, putting it in the freezer, letting it freeze, and then thaw and it will crack. Using paint, pens and markers, write on the inside of the broken pieces your feelings about the loss, betrayal, heartbreak, depression, whatever. On the outside of the pieces, name or draw sources of support. And this can be practical support, emotional support. It can be things that they do that make them happy now and have them glue it back together. What you get is a pot on the outside that shows the strengths and things that they have that help them overcome despite things that have happened on the inside. Encourage people to love themselves and believe they deserve love. And this is one of those that's really, really hard for a lot of people because they feel guilty for loving themselves and we have to overcome some of that guilt. And believing they deserve love is also challenging. And by using some of the prior activities they've done, the self esteem exercises, etcetera, we can help people identify, you know, what characteristics do you have, what makes you worthy of love? Or you can just brainstorm in class, what makes someone worthy of love? That's one of those esoteric questions that you can put out in a group and have a good group discussion and then people throw things out and you can put it back to them and you say, okay, if your child had that characteristic or didn't have that characteristic, would it make them more or less worthy of love, putting it on something besides them? Because it's easier for a lot of our clients, especially clients who have low self esteem or don't like themselves. It's easier for them to see why a child, not necessarily even their child, but why a child deserves love. And then you can turn it back around on them. Encourage people to know Love languages this helps people communicate so well. I'm not usually a huge fan of different. Well, yes, I do like different techniques. I guess I shouldn't say that, but love languages. I really like this technique because people do share such different love languages. And when we don't communicate with our partner in our in the partner's love language, they may not feel as appreciated or secure. The love languages are touch. Some people need to be touched. They need to hold hands, they need to have hugs, they need to have that physical contact. Other people, not so much. I grew up in a family that rarely touched one another, so that's not one of those love languages I ever really learned. Quality Time Some people really feel appreciated and feel connected to their significant other when they spend quality time together. The challenge is defining what quality time looks like. Because my idea of quality time and my best friend's idea of quality time and my husband's idea of quality time and my kids idea of quality time are all extremely different. If I want to spend quality time with them, I have to spend quality time with them in a way that they perceive is quality time. If they think quality time is watching a movie together, well then more power to you. Let's go ahead and do that. If they think quality time is going somewhere where you can actually talk, whether it's hiking or coffee or whatever, then that's. If I want to communicate with them in their love language, I need to communicate with them in a way that it represents quality time to them. If that's their love language. Acts of Service for some people, that can mean breakfast in bed. For other people, that can mean making the bed and putting your dishes in the dishwasher, picking up the kids. Whatever it is, acts of service are typically things that help the other person out. Again, it's important to communicate with your significant other. If that's their love language, what acts of service would they find helpful and meaningful? Not everything is going to be the same for everybody. You might think that an active service for your partner would be giving them a long massage after a long day. And that might be your preferred act of service, but that might not be theirs. They might prefer if you take the kids out to a movie so they can have some quiet time to themselves. You know, who knows? That's where the communication comes in. We can't just assume the acts of service that we want would be the same acts of service that our partner would want. Words of affirmation. This one's pretty easy. Words of affirmation are compliments. You know, good job, you can do it. Encouragement. My daughter, when I was studying for my NCMHCE many years ago, she was just a little bit of a thing. And let's see, I think she was 8 at the time. And I'm not big on cards and notes and those sorts of things, so I have no idea where she got this from. But when I was preparing to go take my test that morning, I found little notes all over the house, encouraging me, telling me that I had this and I was going to be able to pass the test and all that kind of stuff, which was so sweet. You know, she's very. Was very encouraging and that's one of those things. Words of affirmation are one of her love languages. She needs those words with regularity. We can notice a lot about our significant others love languages by the way they communicate with us because generally they try to communicate love to us in a way that's meaningful to them. It may not be meaningful to us or it may not be our preferred method, but it's in a way that's meaningful to them. So it's important for us to recognize that and that can serve as a foundation to open a discussion. And gifts. Some people, gifts like flowers or cards or whatever are important. Core principles of relationships. We want to look at the uniqueness of the relationship from others and celebrate the uniqueness. How is this relationship different than others? Yes, others have had their positives, but they've also had their negatives. You know, let's look at this relationship and look at its positives and look at how it's different than in the past. Are you communicating more openly? Are you in a better place? Mentally, physically, spiritually, etc. Help people integrate their beliefs, behaviors and motivations, remembering that relationships are about synergy. We're not necessarily going to share the same beliefs or motivations for things. And again, no HIPAA issues here. I can highlight my relationship with my husband. If you look at our Myers Briggs, we are about as opposite as you can possibly get. He's a T. I'm an F, I'm an E, he's an I. You know, there's just a lot of things, ways that we are different and we are motivated in different ways, but it's about synergy. We balance each other out. And recognizing that and appreciating, appreciating that can be really powerful. Encouraging people to look at what beliefs, motivations and behaviors that you do share, because most people who are in a relationship at least share something. So you can also do that Venn diagram for you and your current partner. And what beliefs, motivations and behavior do you each have that complement each other? Like I just said, if you want to look at temperament, you know, have somebody fill out the Keirci is a lot shorter than the Myers Briggs. Have people fill out the curesi and look at the difference and similarities between themselves and their partners. Help them understand their different tendencies and their different values and look at ways not that they, instead of looking at them as conflicting, look at them as complementing and balancing. If one of you is conservative and the other one is liberal, that doesn't mean it's a deal breaker. It means that you may complement each other in certain aspects and you may be able to come to a new middle ground. If you will look for a mutually envisioned trajectory, what are your relationship goals? If you're getting in this relationship and expect to get married and be together, together for the next 85 years and have 17 kids, you know, okay, you want to make sure that you both share that idea and you're not looking at it as, you know, something to do for the next three months. You want to look at an envisioned trajectory for activities. What do you enjoy doing and how much time do you spend together? And this also goes with relationship pace. Some people get into a relationship and they want to be moving in with the other person in a month or less. Other people are in a relationship and they want to maintain their own space for a significant period of time. And what does that look like? So you want to have a mutually envisioned idea of where is this relationship going and how fast is this train going? You know, what kind of benchmarks are we looking at here? And yes, that sounds terribly unromantic, but it can help a lot of people because how many times have you heard somebody talk about, well, I don't know how much longer I'm going to wait around to see if this ends up going somewhere? Well, we need to talk about what that trajectory looks like and talk about whether we both envision it going down the same track. Positive and negative evaluation of relationships. It's important to have people recognize that all relationships have positives and all relationships have negatives. We want to emphasize the positives, the strengths, the synergy, and mitigate those negatives. There are going to be things that are not ideal. When you put two distinctly unique human beings together, There are going to be areas that you clash a little bit. So how can you mitigate those negatives if one of you is a neat freak and the other one is not? You know, okay, is that a deal breaker for most people? It's not. If it's not, how can you mitigate that negative so it doesn't end up causing some little festering problem in the relationship? What can happen to make that happen? My mother, when she met my stepfather, typically, you know, she wasn't a slob by any means, but she wasn't a neat freak. And he was, and I use that term with love, he is a self proclaimed neat freak. And so when they first got married, they had to figure out, how do we make this work in the same household? And she eventually embraced the idea that everything has a place. And you know, it may not be the place that he would have envisioned it, but everything had a place. And that was how they mitigated that negative. She changed a little bit and he relaxed a little bit. Responsiveness. It's important to pay attention and responsive to your own needs in a relationship. Oh my gosh. Knowing, identity, identifying, being mindful of what you need in a relationship, that will change. Sometimes in a relationship, you may need more emotional support. Sometimes in a relationship, you may need more practical support. You know, think about when you have a new baby coming home. You know, at least in our household, practical support was a premium back then, whereas emotional support wasn't nearly as important at that point. I just wanted sleep and somebody else to feed the baby sometimes. But in other times, like when my mother passed last year, I needed a lot more emotional support. I was able to do the practical stuff, but dealing with that loss was not something I was prepared to do. It's important for you to be able to communicate that though, and say, this is what I need right now. And it's important for you as a partner to ask people because sometimes they're not going to think to volunteer it. What is it that you need right now? How can I best help you? Whether it's a crisis point or a stress point or just a random day, you know, how you doing? How can I make your day a little brighter again? That sounds terribly unromantic. But it goes to the notion of not expecting one another to read each other's minds. You know, sometimes I'll take a stab in the dark and, you know, baked brownies or his favorite cornbread or something, because I know that that generally is a win every time. Is it exactly what he needs that day? You know, maybe, but probably not. But it is going to be noted that, you know, I was at least trying to do something, and he can add on to that if he needs me to do something else. Communication and challenge resolution is another issue in relationships. People need to have rules for discussing and resolving, and I use the word challenges instead of problems. Whether it's parenting challenges or work challenges or you're not picking your clothes up off the bathroom floor challenges, whatever those challenges are, it's important for people to be able to have a way that they can effectively open a discussion, have a calm, meaningful discussion and maintenance. Both partners need to engage in self and relationship maintenance activities. When we get in a relationship and we lose ourselves in the relationship, then a lot of times our self development and our self maintenance goes by the wayside. When those relationships end or if those relationships end, the person is kind of left floundering, going, I don't know who I am. If I'm not so and so's significant other, I don't know anymore. It's been 20 years. I have no idea who I am. Which is why self maintenance is important. It doesn't mean you're planning on leaving. It means you're still developing yourself as an individual. But we also need to engage in relationship maintenance activities with that intentional time. We need to make sure that we are spending time, effort and energy maintaining our relationship. And not just getting up, you know, seeing each other in the morning, saying, hi, how you doing? Coming home after work again, hi, how you doing? I am going to bed. And that is it just cohabitating. Because relationships tend to grow apart when you are not spending intentional time when, which is where those maintenance activities come in. That intentional time can be 15 minutes each day. It doesn't have to be long. And a lot of times, even if it can't be, you know, a lot of time together. Using each other's love languages is another way to maintain that relationship or maintain that connection by saying, hey, don't forget, I love you. Recognize the importance of self maintenance in preventing or mitigating relationship insecurities. When we're doing self maintenance, we're maintaining ourselves. When we maintain ourselves, then we are looking at ourselves going, you know what you, me, I am lovable. I am worth energy. I am worth what I'm putting into myself. When we care enough to take care of ourself, then we feel we put that energy out and communicate to others that we are worthy of love and attention and all that kind of stuff. Make sure we have shared goals and needs and check discuss those in the beginning of relationships. We are not going to share all the same goals, but you don't want to have two completely different goals. If you want to retire and go travel the world and your partner wants to retire and get a cabin in the mountains and never leave, that might be a problem. You got to figure out how you're going to work on that. So discussing those shared goals and needs and compromising on differing goals and needs, including how to spend money, sex and different activities, how do you bridge that gap? If your partner wants to go travel the world and you want to live in the cabin in the mountains and not be bothered, how can you still stay together? How can you still make that work? Maybe you get a cabin in the mountains and you both travel one week out of the month or who knows? But talking about compromise is really important. Instead of saying I don't want to do that so I don't know how this relationship can continue. We also want to know and exceed relationship expectations and standards. This means we need to know what a good relationship looks like for us and our partner and strive to exceed those expectations. This is what a good relationship looks like to me. And then my partner puts out this is what a good relationship looks like to me. We say, okay, these are our shared relationship expectations and standards. How can we exceed that? How can we push it beyond the minimum necessary? Because that is not what we want to be in for our lives. We don't want the minimum necessary. We want to have a glorious life. Mindfulness Questions for Clients what am I feeling? What is triggering it? So if they are starting to feel insecure in a relationship, what is triggering it? What changed? What am I observing? What? What am I feeling? What am I thinking that is causing that feeling? Am I safe emotionally and physically now? And if not, what do I need to do? If I don't feel safe emotionally, maybe I feel like my partner is critical and getting ready to abandon me. Then I need to figure out what I need to do in order to maintain emotional safety. A lot of that will probably, hopefully result revolve around communication. Is this bringing up something from the past? Is this reminding me of a relationship? Something that happened in a relationship in the past that didn't end so good. How is this situation different than that past bad relationship? How am I different now than when I was in that relationship before? And if necessary, how can I silence my inner critic that's back there going, see, I told you this was going to happen again. How can we make that work? What would be a helpful reaction that moves me more toward my goals? Maintaining this relationship, feeling loved, whatever that goal is, and moving me toward a more positive emotional experience. So I'm feeling insecure right now, feeling insecure in my relationship. What can I do that will move me toward a more positive emotional experience? Probably that's going to involve having some communication with my partner. But what else can I do? You know, I don't want to. Ideally, you know, we don't want people to start taking online quizzes and, you know, whatever. We want to start addressing the issue and finding the facts. Low self esteem and failed prior relationships can cause problems in future relationships. Transference, you know, having the person project onto this new relationship things that happened in the past, cognitive distortions, low self esteem and poor relationship maintenance can all contribute to relationship insecurities. If you're in a relationship and your partner is not engaging in sufficient relationship maintenance or you don't feel like they are, that's important to have a discussion about that instead of assuming that they're not invested in the relationship. Maybe that's just something they've never done. Maybe that's something they don't know how to do. It's important to not assume and to open that dialogue in order to begin addressing those and ameliorating those insecurities. Are there any questions. Between writing notes, filing insurance claims, and scheduling with clients, it can be hard to stay organized. That's why I recommend Therapy Notes. Their easy to use platform lets you manage your practice securely and efficiently. 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