Dealing With Attachment Styles + Will They Ever Change?

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Amica, empathy is our best policy. Welcome to the Love Life Podcast with me, Matthew Hussey, Jameson Jordan, Stephen Hussey, and almost Audrey Hussey.

Hello.

Maybe there's a TV show called Almost Audrey that feels like a sort of 90s sitcom.

What's the plot?

It's Audrey is repeatedly for... I don't know.

I was really in then. I was waiting. I was waiting for something good and it's just nothing came.

It's a classic like 90s, almost Audrey. She's almost got it together. She's almost got a boyfriend. She's almost got the right job, and can she hold on to it?

Oh, it sounds really quite depressing.

It does, yeah, it really does. What happens to me at the end?

She gets everything she ever wanted. It's like a sort of Willy Wonka ending.

Okay, well that's good.

Well, welcome to this here episode that we're doing. We're talking about attachment styles today, everybody. And it's sort of endlessly interesting, isn't it, talking about attachment styles? which one are we? What attachment style is the person that we're dating? What are the perils of different attachment styles? And also, if you've got someone that you're dating or in a relationship with and there are certain things about their attachment style that are difficult to deal with, will they ever change? Are there things we can do to shift them more in the direction that we might like them to be. And of course, you know, the obvious answer to that someone's going to say is, no, no one ever changes. People don't change, don't expect them to change. That's a bad idea. But we do actually have, I think, a more nuanced answer to this, especially in early dating, when you find yourself with somebody who maybe shows you some things that you don't quite like. And that's often the case, right? We date someone, we like a lot about them. That's why we keep seeing them. But then we see something we don't like. They do something that upsets us, that makes us feel afraid, that makes us feel like we might get hurt, or that just exhibits a behavior we don't very much appreciate. And it sends this kind of big, it sends the relationship or the potential relationship into question. And we don't know whether we're a fool for keeping going. or whether actually the relationship can evolve if we approach it the right way. So we're gonna be talking about that today as well. You know, can people change and when is the right time to proceed versus cut and run? Now, before we go any further, I wanna make sure everybody knows that coming up this month on July the 19th, We have our now renowned live training, Dating with Results, happening. This is where I spend nearly two hours working with you on how to avoid the traps of modern dating, from time wasters to love bombers to people who want your attention, but they don't have the intention of actually taking it somewhere. People who communicate badly, people who won't commit, and how you can actually get off of this merry-go-round of games and time wasters and fruitless dating to a real relationship, which is what so many people who come to us want. They want a real, meaningful relationship, and they're sick of The ways that modern dating seems to just land them in this endless loop of casual on and off situationships. So, if you want to do that with us, I will be joining you on July the 19th for Dating with Results. It's free. Did I mention this? It's completely free. You can come and join us, bring your friends, bring a family member you know is struggling right now or just likes our tips and information. All you need to do to sign up is go to datingwithresults.com but make sure you do because once it's over, it's over. And every time we have thousands of people, literally thousands who wish they could have been there but didn't see it quite in time. And we've had how many have we had come through this now? It must be 30 or 40,000 people who have been through Dating with Results. So it's been wildly popular and it's helped a lot of people. So come join us by going to datingwithresults.com All right, Stephen, as is customary, we like to read out a little review from iTunes to kick us off. What's the latest? What have people been saying?

We have a review from someone who calls themselves Ginger Librarian. and he or she says that their bestie and I text each other when we're having dating issues and they ask, what would Matthew do? We also say, Did you, Matthew, hussy it? Your advice for women is invaluable. I have learned so much from you and grown as a person and a dating woman through your advice. I appreciate you.

That's really lovely.

Yeah, that is lovely.

It's going to get more complicated as people begin saying, What would Matthew, Jameson, Stephen and Audrey do?

I think keeping it to Matthew Hussey is good.

Okay. Or everyone can pick. They can pick their person.

If you put all our names together, you can make the word jams. What would jams do? Does it roll off the tongue? Does it roll off the tongue? Not exactly. But does it put Jameson first? Yes, it does.

We are Jamison. Well, thank you for that, Ginger Librarian. You can leave us a review on iTunes. It would very much help us if you did help spread the word. And every episode we read one of these reviews. So let us know what you think over on iTunes. All right. Let's get into it. The attachment styles. Before we go any further, maybe we can just kind of, you know, highlight the different attachment styles and talk about what may be some of the difficult things about different attachment styles are. So, Audrey, you have, I mean, you've said it yourself publicly, you relate to the anxious attachment style. So you're fairly fluent talking about this one. We'll throw to you to talk about this. But there are, of course, three attachment styles, four attachment styles, is that right?

Well, there is anxious avoidant.

Oh, anxious avoidant, of course, is a fourth one. So there are four different attachment styles, anxious, secure, avoidant, and anxious avoidant. Audrey, maybe you can speak to the anxious attachment style and maybe the anxious avoidant.

I'm not sure about you guys, but I first heard about attachment styles when I read the book Attached, which talked about attachment theory. And as you rightly said, it breaks down four different types of attachment styles. So anxious attachment is, I guess, where you are perpetually looking for danger within your relationship or danger within your connection. So I suppose people who have anxious attachment are always looking for ways the relationship's going to fall apart. A lot of it is tied into feeling sort of fears of abandonment and fears of rejection. You can get very, very reactive. in arguments because you get very flared up within those kinds of ways. But also, I think even when the relationship is going well, you're still looking for ways that it could fall apart, even in the best moments. With anxiously attached people, my personal experience of it anyway is that you.

Can.

Sort of end up wanting to... you can end up stepping over your own needs in order to just make the relationship be okay. Because ultimately, the idea of compromising the relationship and the idea of compromising the connection and therefore potentially risking that person leaving you is the worst possible thing you can do. And that can have you do many things. It can have you, I suppose, people please can have you, like I say, not, not necessarily listen to your own needs. And it can also have you act in manipulative ways or have protest behavior, which are when you basically start going, you know, for instance, you go quiet on someone after an argument in order to try and get them to come back to you, where you're sort of manipulating the situation in order to get a reaction from your partner. I think if you if you're not aware that you're anxiously attached, you can cause some real damage in your relationship. And the problem with it is that you can almost, it can be a self-fulfilling prophecy where you're so worried about someone leaving that you almost do everything in your power to try and prove the fact that you're not safe in that situation, to try and almost prove to yourself that you're right in thinking that the relationship isn't secure. And it can just be very damaging and it comes from a very hurt place. But, yeah, that's how I would describe it.

What for you is the worst part about being, having that anxious attached style, that anxious style?

Well, I actually, I've got much better over time with it. I definitely related to it more a few years ago, but I think the hardest part is that you... I suppose it's not being able to enjoy it, not being able to just feel safe.

Not being able to enjoy the thing you have.

Correct. Yeah. Not being able to just enjoy the relationship. And it can be the most, you know, beautiful or non-confrontational non-argumentative relationship. Yet you still somehow have this underlying feeling of everything's going to go wrong and everything's gonna go to. So I think that's probably the hardest thing. And I think accepting that you are safe is something I've personally had to do a lot of work on, as you know. And I think that once you can do that, you do just sort of find a new peace in your relationship, and that's really, really lovely. But I think until you can sort of, you can accept the fact that no one really ever is safe, truly, right? We can all, at any given moment, we can all get hurt. something can go wrong. People can leave, people can die. And I think if you spend your whole time living there, it just destroys the experience. And yeah, I think for me anyway, when I was feeling more that way, that would be the thing that I would struggle with the most, is I would just be existing in this alternate universe that was just filled with fear, filled with doubt, and it just occupied too much of my mind. It's anxious, right? So you're anxious, so you're thinking about it and trying to mitigate it and trying to work out what you would do if this happened and what about this happened? It's almost like you always have your exit strategy and the bags are packed, you know, and you're kind of ready to flee if you need to. And yeah, it stops you from just being in the moment and enjoying what you're actually what you have in front of you. Yeah.

Stephen, as someone who perhaps relates to the opposite end of the spectrum, or not, you tell me, is it fair to say you are on the avoidant side of attachment styles? Or is that an oversimplification of you?

Slightly, yeah. I probably lean, I don't relate so much to the anxious attachment one, the avoidant one more so. There is one that's kind of a bit of both. It's called disorganized and there could be bits of that because in some ways I do crave intimacy or I don't have crave intimacy is the word, but I can really feel a sense of like, I don't know, maybe anyone does. If you're alone for a long time, you can feel a sense of like, oh, I don't want to be abandoned. like I want to, you know, being a bit feared of being abandoned because I'm a natural. I enjoy my own company a lot. I do have a natural sort of loaner tendency. I have historically gotten scared of being trapped in relationships and feeling like relationships are a large demand on my time and energy.

And so that's the avoidant part of you.

Yeah.

And.

And perhaps feeling resentful at times when I have to. I feel I have to do things for too many things for the relationship, or I'm very scared of someone becoming emotionally dependent on me for their needs. And I think that's the crux of it. That's the grand fear is this person will now depend on me for their happiness. And that's a, that's a scary thought, I suppose, for someone with that tendency.

What do you find most challenging about the, about the avoidant? attachment part of you?

Well, I think it's, I think at times it's the fear of thinking, you know, it's the battle between, is this just the rational part of me that maybe hasn't been ready for a long-term relationship or for marriage or for these things? And just that's a natural part of my life. or worrying, oh, is there a repeat tendency that will always be there where I will always be wanting to keep someone's arms length or will my space always be threatened if I want intimacy in my life? Will I always feel like it's a great trade-off of my... It's not even like freedom, like, oh, I would want to sleep with other people or something. It's more like literal freedom, like, freedom to choose what I want to do with my day or my time and feeling like, oh, I can't do that anymore. Like this person's going to need all these things and I'm going to have to, you know, do that. And I suppose the fear is like, oh, is that the cost of being in a relationship for someone with that frame? Now, the one caveat I will say is I have historically also had occasional anxious tendencies where I don't think I do this much anymore, but I used to think, oh my God, I said something that, you know, we had a small argument and I would use to catastrophize in my head of like, oh God, it's going to ruin the whole relationship and I need to fix this as soon as possible and, oh no, maybe I've offended them or something's wrong and having like anxious thoughts about desperately needing to fix that quickly or are they, you know, whatever. But I don't have that anymore. And I think that may have been a confidence thing. And I don't really have so I don't have anxiety the way I did when I was in my teens and early 20s. That's kind of gone away a lot.

What I want to know is which one you guys relate to. Matthew and Jameson. I bet Jameson is secure. I can just see it. securely attached. Is that the one you most relate to?

Yeah, actually, I do relate to being securely attached. But I have to say, I mean, I'm sure we'll probably get into this because going off of the book attached, remember when I read it, I thought it was a very solid theory and it felt very like, this is pretty insightful about people's different experiences of relationships. But that book seemed to think that it was pretty you were pretty much just cut from that cloth. Like you were in one of these categories. And I think it's easy for me to relate to being secure now because I've been in a long-term relationship that's just based off loyalty and trust and I'm just very secure there. But I can just imagine that if things went a different way, I'm definitely wired for all kinds of, there's just definitely a spectrum. Yeah, lucky enough in this relationship I feel secure. But I could imagine feeling anxious. I could even imagine feeling avoidant, you know, if I didn't have, if I was just suffocated like a lot of what Steven is saying. But yeah, certainly right now. I think of it almost as different types of dogs. Not to simplify it too much. But like, I had a golden retriever. who was very happy to see me when I got home, also very happy to just do his own thing. He was literally blind, so I would come home sometimes he wouldn't notice, and I'd just watch him wander in the backyard sniffing stuff. I was like, Baggio is very secure, a very secure golden retriever. He's happy when I'm home, he's happy when I'm gone. He's not like a shaking chihuahua. You know, you leave some dogs, there's like some awful footage I've seen on Twitter of just like, Some dogs see their owners leave and they have the security camera at home. And the dog's just whining for hours by the window. And it's just like, that is such an anxiously attached dog. It's just pure suffering.

It's awful. Don't say that because then Matt won't want to get a dog because he won't want to leave it.

And then just, you,'re ruining my chances, Jameson. I already, he doesn't, no one needs.

To push me over the edge to not wanting a dog.

Okay, let's change the subject. But that point, Jamison, about it potentially being fluid is interesting because I think the risk of a book like this is you can, people can get in sort of diagnose, I don't know, constant diagnosis mode where you explain everyone's behavior as a function of attachment styles. And, you know, the truth is some people, maybe they're avoidant, but there's also people who are just selfish assholes. and don't want to compromise on anything. And they don't need to be diagnosed as, oh, if they're avoidant and I just figure out and understand that. Or there's people who are, you know, who are really anxious to an extent where it's toxic and they're toxically needy. And it's like you can't just get off the hook by it being, well, I'm an anxious type. But you're like, some forms of anxiousness are genuinely, like, toxic. Like they are someone who immediately smothers someone and completely sort of almost uses them as a, you know, as a, you know, just kind of to get all their emotional needs met and to feel like I'm now subsuming my life into yours. And these are not just healthy tendencies, right? So there can be a way people maybe use it as a way to kind of explain those parts of themselves a bit too much or over diagnose as it's just my style?

Look, the catharsis of a diagnosis of any kind is that you have a diagnosis. I mean, anyone who's ever had any kind of illness or pain knows that having something diagnosed, emotional or physical, can be very cathartic. I now know why I am the way I am. I have some kind of closure on myself. The danger of a diagnosis is that it becomes an excuse for whatever we do.

And.

If we diagnose ourselves as an anxious attachment style, and then anything we do that is anxious in our behavior, any way we treat someone, any way we unnecessarily accuse someone or act out, we say, well, I can't help it. I have this anxious attachment style. That becomes a very dangerous thing. I think that we have to separate what our tendency may be from what behavior we are going to choose to model, because that's always a choice. What we decide to do is a choice. I could be anxious, but say, I'm going to do better than this feeling I have right now. I feel it, but I also know what my nature is. I know that my nature is to be overly afraid. of losing someone, to believe that I'm not going to be okay if I lose someone, and then to overcompensate for anytime I think I've made a mistake, to get overly guilty anytime I do something that I'm not proud of, to create stories anytime someone doesn't text me enough or leaves me alone for five minutes. To imagine kind of things in the book, rustling in the bush is a lion when it's nothing, it's the wind. You know, I know that's my nature. So I'm going to do better than that nature in the way that I behave. That is a choice. You know, you, Stephen, could know that it's kind of, there's a part of you that trends towards feeling suffocated or feeling like, you're afraid of becoming responsible for someone's needs and emotional well-being and. And catch yourself and go, I know that's where my mind goes naturally. It doesn't need any help to go there. That is where my mind goes. But I also know that about myself and. and so I, and, and given that I know that about myself, I know that I have a tendency to, you know, overly keep people at arm's length instead of just setting healthy boundaries and, or even just communicating about the fact that I really like having some alone time in my week or my day, or I really like being able to go to a quiet corner and just kind of read and do my thing. I really think that what can be useful about these kinds of heuristics is that the ability to know which way the wind naturally blows for us doesn't become an excuse for all of our behavior. Instead, it becomes a recipe for self-awareness so that we can mitigate our own behavior.

To add to that, I think if you're someone who suffers from either, you know, being with someone who has a particular attachment style which is detrimental to the relationship, or if you yourself can recognize that there are certain patterns you exhibit in relationships or in dating, which are leaning towards either of those attachment styles. And it's also having an effect. I think it's recognizing that in order to heal these parts of us, it requires, as you say, a level of self-awareness, a desire to want to grow, an action to be taken, and also the right person in front of you who's going to work with you to soothe those parts of yourself. Because if you are naturally anxious or avoidant, but let's take anxious for a second, because it's an easier example. If you are naturally anxious, for instance, and you have someone who continuously flares up that anxiety by, although they know and you have accurately communicated to them, that you feel this way, they still go off the radar for a day at a time, they still just do lots of different things which flare you up and, you know, really kind of make it very difficult for you to not, for that demon inside of you, not to just constantly come back to the surface. Then you have to ask yourself, is this really going to be a situation that's going to make me happy? And the same goes for somebody who is avoidant and for instance, does require to have their space in their room. If somebody is overbearing and demanding way too much of them, although they already know that about them, then that's also not going to be the thing that's going to make things better in that department. So I do think for people who feel almost, what's the word? Almost kind of defeated by their attachment style and they feel defeated by the fact that they feel like, they're never going to change and things are never going to get better for them. I do think so much healing happens, first of all, within yourself, but also with the person who understands those parts of you and works with you to get better.

And I don't. That can't happen unless you've got two people who are really willing to communicate and.

And.

And I think communicate their in. where those things are coming from. Because I actually think that you can overcome a lot of differences in attachment style if you know where your partner is coming from in wanting something. So, what happens a lot in relationships is someone who, for example, does like their own space is with somebody and just kind of has this growing resentment that they don't have any time to themselves. And they feel like someone is kind of monopolizing their time, someone is being very kind of needy, and they start to just quietly resent the fact that their life has really changed to a point where they now no longer have some of the things that are really crucial to their happiness. but they don't communicate those things to somebody else. So what happens is there ends up being an argument and the person who, let's say, is more anxious or wants to spend more time starts to feel like they're just not loved. You don't want to spend time with me, so you must not love me as much as I love you. you must not care about me as much as I care about you. You must not have as good a time with me as I have with you. And, you know, I know that I probably exhibit both anxious and avoidant.

Oh, my God. We have a full house.

Would you say that's fair that I kind of exhibit both at different times?

Yes, I do. I think that's fair. I think you're probably more anxious than you are avoidant, but. I feel like you, especially previously when we're both.

But I definitely, even with us moving in together, there was like, I would say, kind of funny things, like, you know, just talk about like, wanting to like play video games by myself.

I think the funny one was, well, you know, I also just need time to listen to my podcasts. And, you know, I like to listen to my podcast. And I said, well, that's fine. You, you do that. And, and what's funny is that now.

I'm very protective about that as well.

Well, what's really funny, though, is that, you know, moved in, and now it's, he comes up to me and says, do you want to listen to this podcast together? And, yeah, it's, it's, I think sometimes, though, It, you know, you worry about the idea of what it will be like to have that space taken away, not just you, but people in general.

Yeah. And, but, you know, what I think has been a real point of growth for us is that by talking, well, A, by talking about it and B, by you getting to know me better, you're able to look at those needs for alone time or space as having nothing to do with you personally.

Yeah, of course. Yeah. And I think, you know, something that's interesting, which is actually an attached, is where are your arguments stemming from? Is it because sometimes, you know, if you take that as an example, you would have a person who, for instance, would go off and spend their alone time. And for instance, they would, there was the example in the attached, I should just give that particular example, is a.

Couple.

The guy in the relationship wants to get a washing machine and the woman in the relationship says, no, our apartment's too small. They should live in New York. They live in New York together. And I don't want to get a washing machine because it will be too crowded. And they argue over this washing machine over and over again. Now, if you peel back the layer, what happens is the woman goes and gets her washing done at her sister's house, and that is time that she gets to basically leave the flat and be on her own. She has a more avoidant attachment style, and she actually really enjoys once a week going off to do her laundry away from him. But he has an anxious attachment style, so whenever she leaves, he gets anxious and they're arguing about this washing machine, but really their argument is about the time that they want to spend together and how the other feels when they are together or apart. So I think just to circle back to the point you were making now, I think you can, if you really understand your partner's needs and where they come from, like you're saying, you can actually avoid having a lot of surface petty argument, which feel like you're somehow not compatible, but we take these things very personally, don't we? He will feel like, you know, she leaves and she doesn't want to be with me, and that's kind of partly true, but it's not because of him, it's just to do with her needs in that situation.

Is it just me who feels like it's easier to shit on anxious people than it is the avoidance? Like, the avoidance sound like they're the, there's almost like the avoidant has that sort of almost slightly cool thing. Like, they're just, there's a bit of an indifference there. They're like, I just, I just want to go to my sisters and have a chat with her. I don't need to be with you right now. And the anxious person just inherently just seems kind of more annoying. I'm not, and I say this as someone who suffers more from the probably the anxious side of things. But you do know what I mean? It almost feels like they're not equivalents of bad in that sense.

I see a lot of people criticize avoidance because they blame them a lot. Like, I almost feel like in the attachment literature, I almost feel a bias the other way where they're like, it's not your fault, anxious person. It's these horrible, aloof, cold avoidance you've been dating. It's not your, you're not needy at all. It's not your fault.

Well, and I do think Well, I think that that's kind of, there's something necessary about that because I do think that there are plenty of avoidance out there who sort of gaslight anxious people into thinking that there's something terribly wrong with them for wanting intimacy and for wanting to be close to someone. So I do see it from both sides, but if you take the washing machine example, she sounds a lot more reasonable to Upfront than he does in that situation. Do you know? I'll tell you what makes me think that thought is that if you, if you look at that situation and you go, because I, I, what I worry about with attachment Styles is that everyone just uses them to justify their worst Behavior. Right. Like, I, I hear that story about the person who's the guy who's afraid of the the woman leaving to go and be with her sister, he gets anxious. And immediately, if I'm coaching that person, I say, look, you need a partner who understands you, who sees you, and who is cognizant of the fact that you can sometimes have an anxiety around whether you're loved. And who makes you feel safe.

But.

You also need to take responsibility for the fact that you, your partner leaving to go be with her sister for a couple of hours might, and, and therefore your anxiety flaring up in that time might be a symptom of the fact that you haven't made enough friends, that you haven't got enough going on in your own life because your anxious, your anxiety would not have nearly this much room to breathe if you had other things, other places that this longing was going. If it was going into great relationships with your friends and really quality time with your friends, If it was going into certain hobbies that you love, it just wouldn't have this much space to breathe. So I look at that and I go, that's a problem there. It's harder to find the equivalent on the other side, isn't it? It's harder to take the woman who wants to go and hang with her sister for a couple of hours for a break and say, you really need to understand that you shouldn't leave the apartment to go be with your sister for a couple of hours.

Well, what if I gave you another example that said and attached, and that might change your mind about this? Please do. So another one is a man and a woman who go away on a romantic break. And when they get to the hotel, they get offered either a room which has two single beds with an amazing view, or a room which has one king-sized bed with an average view. The man says, oh my God, we have to get the one with the two single beds and the amazing view because we're never away. We sleep together every night of the week. But we're never here and this is our opportunity to have the better room. So obviously it's a no-brainer we get the one with the two single beds. The woman says, well, I don't want to not sleep in bed with you. I'd rather not have the view and share a bed and he doesn't understand where she's coming from. She doesn't understand where he's coming from. Now, obviously, again, the deeper layer is that, you know, she has a. Well, it said she had a more anxious attachment and he had a more avoidant attachment. But I actually think that's just quite normal for her to want to share a bed with him. But maybe that's my point. Maybe that's because Maybe other people don't think that they have to share a bed with their partner on a romantic weekend.

Sounds like a great night bus situation, if you ask me.

I could imagine secures. I could imagine secures. What would they do? Secure, because I might, Matt, our cousin Billy is a pure, I'd say him and his fiance are secures. Is that fair?

Yeah, I think they're definitely secures.

I feel like they would both just sort of, if it was like single beds, they would just both go, oh, cool. Like, okay, let's like, like they probably would be like, oh, we sleep together every night. Maybe let's let's get the singles. Cool.

You know, they've also been together a very long time. And I'm not saying that as an excuse for less passion. I'm just saying that as if when you've been together for a long, long time, you, you may you may just kind of go We are like we are in bed together all the time like it's okay like if we get this really cool room Then that's all good. I I Look, I have a couple of things on this. I firstly if anyone was confused about the night bus comment I made that's because It's confusing. It's confusing that if you've seen Harry Potter you know that there's a what Harry Potter is it in?

It's in three. Ooh, the fifth one. The one where he gets, oh my God, Order of Azkaban.

I thought it was Prisoner of Azkaban.

No, it's not Prisoner of Azkaban. It's Order of the Phoenix.

Order of the Phoenix, I think.

It's where Harry Potter gets picked up in his home. You're right, no, no, no, it is.

A Prisoner of Azkaban. You're right, sorry. It's a Prisoner of Azkaban. It's where Harry Potter is in his, like, suburban home, and he needs to go into London. in the middle of the night and the night bus, this magic bus appears to take him there. And it's this big purple kind of London bus, but inside it doesn't have chairs. There's these beds. And I always just thought the night bus looked like an incredibly cozy place to be, even though the beds are all sort of swinging around while the night bus is going. But it has a chandelier in it. and these beds and it just looked like a really... Yeah, hot chocolate. Yeah, hot chocolate. Just looked like a really great place to be. But the beds look, they're single beds and they're, they look uncomfortable and whatever. But we basically, from that point, anytime Audrey and I would be on a trip and we would see, like, if there's ever a Airbnb, you know, like sometimes you get an Airbnb and there's like the family room where you actually stay, like the master bedroom. But then there's like the kids bunk beds next door. I always secretly want us to go and sleep in the bunk beds, which we call the night bus. So anytime there's like some weird sleeping situation, whether it's a floor or bunk beds or a sofa situation, we always just call it the night bus.

Basically, it sounds an awful lot like you're the man in that relationship and I'm the woman who wants to share a bed.

No, but this is my point. This is my point.

By the way, considering I've been sort of labeled and avoidant on this podcast, I actually probably would rather share the bed. Like, I would rather probably rather have a cuddle and share the bed. If I took my girlfriend away on a vacation, I don't think I'd want to sleep in separate beds.

I think you just have to share the single bed.

Yeah, that's what I think. I'd be really hurt if you were like, let's take the one with the view. and not at least try sleeping in the same bed?

Yeah, I probably would be as well.

We'd probably figure out after a minute that it's a lot. Maybe I'd annoy you in a single bed, but I'd be hurt if we didn't at least try.

I think the key is you have to know your significant other enough to know how they'll react. So maybe you really want to stay in the beautiful room with the view. But I'm actually thinking about my relationship. I know exactly what I would do, which is be like, babe, let's put these mattresses together somehow. And we'll like create a little love nest bed anyways. It's very nice. And so then it's like, if that doesn't work, then okay, we switch. We'll switch to the room. But at least try, you know?

Yeah.

See if you can, you know, 'cause I just know, I just don't wanna, I know her attachment style enough to just be like, how do we make this work? How do we navigate this? How do I make you secure in this situation too?

You say, imagine the sex we'll have with that view.

What's the view of?

No, but you know what I mean? Because I do think that if you're going on vacation, if he's saying we sleep in the same bed every night, that in a way, I also think that's partly missing the point. of a vacation, which is that we're not here to just like do what we always do. We're here to have... What are we here to do? I'll tell you when we get upstairs. What vacation have I come on? I... No, but you know what I mean. Like it's quality time. It's true intimacy. These are things that we don't always get at home. You're busy with work. You're, you know, people get in bed stressed. They have to get up in the morning. They, you know, to say that, well, we'll just sleep in separate beds. It's fine. We sleep in the same bed every night is, I think, to miss the point. Yeah.

You don't want to pay for a nice hotel and not, you know, have a bed together.

You want to pay for a nice hotel and not get late. Do you?

This isn't one of your Tokyo love hotels.

Dave.

Now that is defamation. I have not stayed in a Tokyo love hotel.

For anyone listening, Tokyo, there's a sort of culture for a lot of people that you can just go and rent a hotel for a couple of hours. Called a love hotel.

Yeah.

Well, it's a family podcast. It's not anymore, is it? But We can still say it.

We should probably get back on track because we've been talking about this bed situation for a while now.

We have. So I have a question for you, Matthew. If you are with someone who has an attachment style which you find very difficult to deal with, and you find yourself wondering, will they ever change? What would you say to that person?

I think the values that really help in a relationship are growth and teamwork. If you can, if two people both have those as some of their highest values, then you can overcome an awful lot in difference in styles. And And so the real question becomes, and we talked about this, Audrey and I did a two-hour session for our Love Life members just earlier today, which was really powerful and it was kind of based on these ideas of how do we sabotage relationships with our styles? How do we deal with that? How do we make sure we don't sabotage situations? How do we argue better? And when we do kind of see something we don't like in someone, how many opportunities do we give it to change? And how do we know whether to keep going or to cut our losses? By the way, if you aren't a member of Love Life yet, you can go and become one for 14 days for free by going to askmh.com, and if you do that, you won't miss out on these deep dive sessions that we do For members. So we would love as many of you as possible to graduate from the podcast to the Love Life Club, which is where we do real coaching every month with our members. That's at askmh.com and when you're there, you can sign up to a 14-day free trial. But one of the things that we talked about in that session was if someone does something you don't like, and you bring it up, albeit in a constructive way, and that was one of the things we talked about. How do you know whether to say, okay, this is not going to work between us because we're too different versus there's progress here, there's something to hold onto here. So we talked about six different ways, which I thought were really, really great, and maybe we can just blitz them right now and just do a kind of summary version of this session that took us nearly two hours. So the first point was, are you enabling their behavior or helping someone grow out of it? And what that point was getting at was the idea that if every time someone does something we don't like, we're passive about it, or we argue about it, but then we don't actually do anything. There are no consequences to it. We just forget it ever happened after the argument. Then in a sense, we're always enabling that behavior because we're either being passive and not speaking up, or we're arguing but showing that ultimately they can keep doing that thing and all we'll do is kick up a fuss but then happily go back to normal afterwards. There's a difference between enabling a behaviour and helping someone grow out of it. Audrey, what did you mean when you talked about helping someone grow out of it?

I suppose when you have an argument over a certain behaviour I think we should, we'd be best to use an example in this. So somebody, for instance, is jealous and lashes out over jealousy in a situation like that. If you can identify that their jealousy doesn't come from a bad place or them being a nasty individual, but rather from a place of insecurity and a fear of getting hurt or a fear of being cheated on or left or deceived or whatever it might be, which more often than not stems from their past experiences. I think if you identify that in them, being able to approach that behavior with compassion and kindness can be a very healing thing for that person. However, it also needs to be approached with compassion, kindness, and a really, really high standard and a lot of boundaries for yourself. Because ultimately, in a relationship, whether it's dating or long-term relationship, in an argument when somebody is being out of line, your job is to, of course, be compassionate and understand where that comes from. But more than anything, your job is to protect yourself and to let that person know that, you know, their insecurity that part you welcome and you want to get to know and heal and help. But their behavior, them lashing out, shouting at you, berating you, insulting you, giving you what we call protest behavior, which can be, you know, going cold or being passive aggressive or whatever it might be, all those behaviors, it is our job to say, you know, you can't get away with doing that. You can't get away with treating me like that. I'm going to be very, very clear with you on the fact that I understand that's where it comes from, but you don't get to talk to me like that. And if it happens again, we're going to have a problem.

Okay, so that's how to help someone grow, is that combination of empathy for. For why they are the way they are, but. pairing that with a standard around their behavior. So I'm gonna show compassion for why you are like this, but I'm also not gonna accept the behavior that comes with it right now.

Yeah, and I think what you're saying to someone is, you know, you can do better, right? It's like, it's not just saying, I accept you fully with all your flaws. No one's perfect. okay, you're not perfect, neither am I, but how can we make ourselves better for each other? Which any relationship that wants to succeed over time should be looking to do. You should always be looking to try and be the best version of yourself. There's always work to do. There's always ways that we can grow and be a better partner, be a better friend, be a better colleague, be a better parent, whatever. There is always room for that and It is our responsibility to let our partner know that that's also what we expect of them, albeit in a compassionate and safe environment where they don't feel like you're gonna leave if they regress or make a mistake or show a vulnerability and an insecurity.

Okay, so, and a reminder we're talking about here, whether to stay or leave when we see something we don't like. and we said the first thing you have to do is ask yourself, am I enabling their behavior or am I helping them grow out of it? And those tips were about how to help them grow out of it, which brings on the second thing that you have to do, which is monitor whether the fights get better. And that doesn't mean that you say to yourself, Do the fights still exist? Because the idea that someone's trauma is going to go away overnight and that fight is never going to happen again is way too idealistic. The question really is, does this fight happen less frequently if it was a monthly fight? Before, is it now once every six months? Do we only have that fight once a year? Is it less frequent? And has the nature of the fight changed a little? You know, is it now something that's less charged? Is it something that feels more like a vulnerable conversation than a full-on battle when it comes up? Is the fight shifting? in nature, in a positive direction. Okay? So, number two, next time you argue, do you find that the fight has gotten better? And are you arguing less frequently about this thing? The third one is, is there something that we can do on our side that doesn't cost us anything that might actually actually help stop this person feeling so activated by the thing that we're doing. And now this can't be something that compromises your essential nature or the values that are really important to you. But if it's something that's not that important, why wouldn't you sacrifice that thing for the relationship. There may be times where we'd hope someone would do the same for us. And a relationship is about teamwork. So in the spirit of the first, the first two are about growth, right? Are you helping the person grow out of this behavior and are the fights improving? That's about growth. The third one is there something I can stop doing or start doing for that matter that might help lower this person's nervous system. That's about teamwork.

Yeah. Also, it's about being humble enough to realize that we all have our unreasonable traits and no one is, no one scores a perfect score on every front all the time. And by nature, if you want to make someone feel as comfortable and as happy as you possibly can, which you should do when you're in a relationship with them, that might mean that certain things that you don't think are a big deal are really big deal to them and you have to change them. It's no different than if somebody has a preference in their living arrangement, whether it be with cleanliness or whatever, and you might not be very tidy, but if somebody really, really cares about that, you would look to change that. Even if you don't in that moment think it's really that important to put the glass in the dishwasher, if you know that it's going to cause them a disproportionate amount of, you know, uncomfortableness or stress or discomfort, I should say, or stress or whatever, to not do it, you should be you should always be compromising to see how you can make the other person feel better.

I think the paradox, if we were to return to attachment styles, the paradox.

Is.

If I want someone, let's just use the anxious and avoidant, if I want someone to understand and make peace with the avoidant parts of me, I need to understand and work with and make peace with the anxious parts of you. And it seems paradoxical because you kind of think, how can we do both, right? If at one point, at any time, it feels like we'd be serving one or the other. And, and to an extent, that's true, right? You'd, at different moments in a relationship, you service different needs. To me, what it comes down to is I could, I can relax if I know you have my back on the things that are important to me, and you can relax knowing that I have your back on the things that are important to you. And they may not all be, it may not be possible for those things to always be happening at the same time by the very nature of things. But if we both know we've got each other's back on the things that make us happy, then actually we can relax. What stops someone from being able to relax is if you have my back on the things that make me happy, but I'm not willing to extend the same to you.

And I think knowing that when you bring these things up and knowing this for yourself, don't, I think a younger me might have overreacted to things really quickly. I've been, oh my God, this is behavior that makes me feel trapped and that, and I can't do this. And you flip over the table, you know what I mean, metaphorically. speaking. And as you get more mature, you should be able to pause in those moments and have the space to go, ah, I'm getting that familiar feeling. Let me explain what that does for me.

Yes.

And talk to you about that. And then it makes a huge difference. I know it's made a huge difference in my life just being able to say, here's a feeling I'm identifying myself feeling right now. and it's because of blah, blah, blah. And, you know, then you've just, like, depersonalized a bit. You haven't gone into tiger mode, and I got to protect myself. You've. You've come at it from a very different place.

Agreed. So we have, number one, are you enabling their behavior or helping them grow out of it? Number two, next time you do fight, Has the fight gotten incrementally better, more productive, and is it happening less frequently? Number three, is there something we can stop doing or start doing that would help our partner that doesn't cost us nearly as much proportionately to how much it would do for them? And vice versa, of course, on their side. Number four, can they apologize? and I think that one is pretty self-explanatory everyone knows the pain of being in a relationship with someone who cannot apologize. It is a deeply destructive habit when someone cannot admit fault or when apologizing has to be clawed out of them.

It.

It can leave you feeling so burnt out. at the end of it that it's just not a relationship that's enjoyable to be in. And you're always then trying to find a way that you were wrong so that you can apologize and move on, which isn't an equal relationship. So if you're in a relationship with someone who won't apologize, then you're basically playing a game with someone where you both have different sets of rules. and that's a problem. Number five, are they actually trying to understand their behavior? Are you with a person who's willing to be introspective and actually be self-aware, understand why they are the way they are, understand the effects of that behavior, or is someone utterly uninterested in self-reflection? That's another, again, I would go back to the values of growth and teamwork. If someone is not interested in self-reflection, then they're not interested in their own growth and they're not interested in being a great teammate to you. And then number six, and this is really, really important, you ask yourself, is this simply too hard? Not just today, but is this going to be too hard in the future? It's a really important question. And Audrey, you mentioned earlier today in the Love Life Club that the ultimate barometer for that is, can I actually be happy here? The ultimate barometer is my own happiness.

And am I happy?

Yes.

You know, consistently over time, am I happy or? Am I just fighting? Am I happy with the situation as it is today, or am I only happy when I think about the situation getting better?

Yeah. And what would it actually take for this situation to get better?

Yeah.

And is that a mountain I'm willing to climb? Because it might be a mountain. It might be insurmountable for them. I think a business analogy is kind of good here because there are people that I've had to let go in the past who, in letting them go, it was not me saying they could never change. It was an admission and an acceptance within myself that I didn't have the time or the energy or the inclination to help them get with how big the gap was between where I needed them to be and where they were. So I may have thought this person might be able to get there, but it's going to take them probably years, years of training, years of work, years of working on the parts of them that I think don't allow them to perform at the level I want. And I don't have years. I need right now, I need that salary and that investment to go to someone who's more capable of doing the job right now, today. That doesn't mean the person that comes in will be perfect, but whatever investment I make in them will be the appropriate amount. We can see that feels cut and dry in business because we go, well, yeah, of course, you know, We only have a limited amount of time. We only have a limited amount of money in the bank to spend on employees. It needs to be the right fit.

Yeah.

We're less cut and dry in our love life. But you might ask yourself why that is because we still have a limited amount of time and we have goals that we're trying to reach. We have things that are really important to us, whether it's just finding a long-term partner, whether it's being happy, God forbid, right now in the decade that we're actually in, not planning for happiness with someone in the next decade, whether it's building a family, getting married. So we have goals. And I'm not a fan of kind of getting overly attached to a timeline in our love lives, but there's also very real stakes when it comes to time that we have to consider. And so you have to consider if so much has to change in this person for me to be happy. And if I'm being honest, and if you even look at your own growth and how hard that's been, right? Anyone who's been through any kind of coaching or therapy knows that real change takes time and a lot of effort and it can take years. And that's if you're actually doing that work. For someone that you're with, if they're not doing that work and they're not committed to that process, then years turns into maybe never. So you have to be honest with yourself and say, Am I willing to spend years trying to get this person where I need them to be? and even if I was, are they actually motivated to do this? And I also have to be real with myself about the fact that there's a good chance they never will change, even if they wanted to.

I want to add an extra layer to what you're saying. It's really true. And I think sometimes we're with people who say they're avoidant, for instance, you know, we end up tracing the dream of one day being with them in a capacity where they give us everything we want. and we're always sort of starving for their attention. And as a result, their value gets elevated. Or if somebody's, you know, very anxious, they're very jealous and controlling, and we almost live in this, again, quite addictive, toxic sort of trying to manage them and feeling incredibly loved and incredibly kind of almost love bombed. by their anxiety in a way. And if you're not an avoidant person, you can actually not find it overwhelming, but find it quite addictive to be in that sort of controlled environment with someone. And I think we have to suspect ourselves if we actually feel quite attached, pardon the pun, to people's bad behaviors towards us, because sometimes that can actually speak to just our, you know, sometimes we can be gravi- gravitate towards toxic situations, I think. And, you know, the goal doesn't need to be to conquer and slay the beast in someone and finally live happily ever after with them. The goal should be to be happy today, because life is today and our life is happening today. And it's important to ask yourself, am I addicted to this relationship or am I happy in this relationship?

I love that. Very, very important distinction. Well, let us know what you thought of this episode. Podcast@matthewhussEy.com We've been really enjoying, we've been getting a lot more emails recently. I don't know if you noticed. Stephen, have you noticed that?

Well, you know, we are crossing soon, perhaps the millionth month mark, Matt.

She's amazing. Amazing.

I really enjoy the spelling of Jameson's name by different people. Sometimes we get Jameson with an I, Jameson with an ER, Jameson with a Y. No, I'm joking. Just no Y. Jameson is great.

I suspect that's because of the way we, the English, say your name. Jameson.

Yeah.

Quite like the way the English say it. They just linger on the three syllables a bit more.

Well, email us podcast@matthewhussy.com, we are reading them and we're really loving them.

And also leave us a review on iTunes.

And do please leave us a review on iTunes. And also, I do want to just remind everybody that on the 19th of July, my live training, dating with results, is happening and it Jameson, we could charge a lot of money for it and it's free. So if you haven't been to this event already, and even if you have, come join us on the 19th of July for Dating with Results, my two hour live training for anyone who is serious about finding a relationship this year. Go to datingwithresults.com www.lettersfromsteve.com to sign up for free and we will see you there.

Matt, shall I read an email from Debbie?

Please, Stephen, let us know the sort of stuff that's coming in.

Debbie says, I just have to say that Stephen, you have the best laugh I have ever heard.

Now, has Stephen been picking the emails again?

There's more.

So can I just confirm it was it you, Steve, who picked this email?

So all the team just picking these out. So thanks team. So Debbie says, I just have to say, Stephen, you have the best laugh I've ever heard. And Matthew, you start the funniest banter around Pickles. I think you must keep it because your conversations around this topic are making me laugh much needed. Love you guys. Thanks for being there. There is no topic Matt doesn't give his all to, including Pickles, which makes it even funnier. You all, Matthew, Stephen, Jameson, with an eye, and the amazingly astute Audrey, are all bringing me peace, comfort, and comic relief during difficult times. I know that I speak for so many others on these topics of gratitude for all you do. Thank you, Debbie.

Thanks, Debbie.

Thanks, Debbie. I'm not bringing up pickles again because we've done enough. We've done enough around pickles.

Give the people what they're asking for.

No one's asking for it. No one's asking for it.

I mean, that's, you're just contradicting the.

Evidence, but I mean- well, you're picking the emails.

So I take some as I get some.

I hope you're enjoying this van today. This is exactly what she was referring to.

Next time I'm picking the email, Stephen.

You do that, Matt. You reach in there and you see what you find. Because I'm telling you, mate, It is Pickle City.

I mean, I can't believe we've ended on that. All right. Goodbye. Thanks, everyone. Hey, we'll see you next time. Thank you, Audrey. Thank you, James, and thank you, Stephen. And thank you to all of you for listening. We'll see you in the next episode of Love Life.