Understanding Fearful Avoidants with Thais Gibson

One time I walked in my kitchen, it was middle, it was like lunchtime, and my wife said something and I said something back to her, and then she just looked up, "Who have you been seeing? You've been cheating on me, haven't you?" Like, what? Like, how did you? There's nothing, zero truth to that. But it was like she just jumped to the wildest, craziest conclusion of because some sort of incongruency of I don't remember what it was, but it was something so minor and she's— I just misunderstood what she was asking. I'm curious since my wife is kind of a wrapping question almost. My wife's a fearful avoidant and she's Brilliant, getting healthier and healthier as we both are. But I'm curious what, how, as a partner of a fearful avoidant, how do I meet her needs? How do I create a safe space? And, and that actually, I guess we both can move towards a, and we are moving towards a more secure attachment style. And fortunately our daughter has a very secure attachment style, so we can see that. And after reading your book, I'm like, boom, she's, she's secure. We're good. We're doing that part right. Um, But how can I, as a partner of a fearful avoidant, how can I create a safe space for her to become more and more attached? What would that look like?

Yeah. So I, I wanna say one thing really briefly, which is just that you can see like in your discussion, you know, that you are both moving towards secure attachment, even like your argument that you had and you sort it out and you talk it through. Like you can see so much, which is beautiful. Yeah. Cause I think it's nice for listeners to witness and, and know that, right? And lead by example. But, but yeah, so the big things for fearful avoidant— fearful avoidance, in order to trust it, you know, and you may not realize how much fearful avoidants distrust because they don't often present as distrusting. Yeah, but it's almost like they like distrust society, the future, what could happen in 10 years, you know.

They're more susceptible to conspiracy theories.

Maybe, maybe. Listen, I like a conspiracy theory. But, but what you'll see is they tend to have this dynamic of like kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop, right? And like never knowing.

Yeah, that's what it was last night.

So they need in those particular cases— so I mean, we can talk about like in that particular case, but in general, like from just partnership, they really need from partners Transparency. I call them the 4 C's of trust. The first one is, instead of transparency, we can call it context. If you were to cancel time that you have, let's say, I know you're married, you live together, you have your child. Let's say you have a date night planned. And let's say you decide at the last minute you don't feel like going because you're feeling really tired. If you're like, hey, I don't feel like going tonight, it'll probably really trigger her unless you say, hey honey, I'm really tired. I really care about the relationship. I'm really not feeling up to it and I want to be present with you. Why don't we try tomorrow instead of tonight? If you give context for something, why you're doing what you're doing, it really helps if your whole body can feel like, okay, I understand now. And when I understand, I can let my guard down and trust. Context is huge. Consideration is the next most massive thing. If somebody's considerate of your feelings, you trust them to take you into consideration. If you say, I'm thinking of doing this, how would you feel about it? Or, you know, you're just being considerate of their emotions, validating their emotions in general. We trust people who consider us.

And I was not very good at validating emotions a couple years ago, so I'm still— I would give myself a B- right now, but I'm moving towards a B, and I'll eventually get to a B+.

But, but it's beautiful that, that here you are doing this work, you know, like that's so powerful as it is, because a lot of dismissive avoidance their whole system is built around really not facing feelings or interacting.

I didn't touch feelings.

Yeah, exactly. So B- is amazing. That's huge growth. So consideration is huge. Congruency is another really big one. So if I say I'm going to do this thing, or oh, I tell you a story of what happened last Saturday, and then later my story changes, it's like the biggest alarm bells ever for fearful avoidance as a whole.

Yeah. One night, one time I walked in my kitchen, it was middle, it was like lunchtime, and my wife said something and I said something back to her. And then she just looked up, "Who have you been seeing? You've been cheating on me, haven't you?" Like, what? Like, how did you? There's nothing, zero truth to that. But it was like she just jumped to the wildest, craziest conclusion of because some sort of incongruency of I don't remember what it was, but it was something so minor, and she's— I just misunderstood what she was asking.

Totally. And that's like, that's the huge— that's so important for everyone to heal their core wounds. Because if I have a core wound, I will be betrayed, which is a huge FA core wound, and then I notice the incongruency, then guess where my mind jumps to? It doesn't jump to like, well, maybe you told the story wrong. It jumps to like the worst-case scenario core wound, because that's how our mind works, right? So, so Absolutely. So, so that's huge. And then also, um, consistency. Consistency goes a very, very long way with trust. So building trust by giving those 4 things is huge. I really want to stress that like a fearful avoidant especially, they do have to do the inner reconditioning work. Like, you know, it'll be unlikely that somebody does everything perfectly in a relationship and then they just heal. They have that interdependent piece, which means they have the relationship to self too. But it's super important to get those things first. So trust, those 4 C's of trust go a very long way. Validating feelings goes a very long way. And if you can make sure that when you do, if there is something that hurts her, right? Like let's say something, you forget something or, you know, a human thing that we do. If you can make a strategy to prevent it from happening in the future, It's like that's when they'll actually feel resolved. So that goes a very, very long way too. And then, you know, I would definitely, if I were you, I would definitely encourage her to communicate her needs because sometimes she won't. And a lot of fearful avoidants get resentful because they put a lot of pressure on themselves to show up like 10 out of 10 and the people they love. And then they forget that like, hey, not everybody puts as much pressure on themselves for how to show up in a relationship. Sometimes I have to, first of all, not put so much pressure on myself, but second of all, if something does feel missing, I have to share it. I have to open up about it. I have to ask for it. Encouraging that in the relationship, "Hey honey, I can see you're upset. I want to know what's going on. I want you to tell me what happened. I'm here to listen and do whatever you need, but you need to also talk to me. I can't mind read." That's an important thing to do in the relationship. I'd say those are some really great places to dive into.

I love that. And it's one of the things I've seen with my wife for the fearful avoidant is like recognizing that her needs are valid and boundaries issues. Like she had so many boundaries issues and of course, you know, narcissistic parents and all that jazz growing up. And so now she's more comfortable with instead of hitting the fall off the cliff point, acknowledging, hey, I'm, I'm exhausted here. I'm heading towards this. I can't do this. And I'm better at recognizing when she's about to or Also acknowledging her feelings when she's at that point so that I don't just brush past the feelings, right? Because she might say, I'm— I don't— I kind of need to go to bed or whatever. And I would be frustrated. I'm like, why are you so tired? It's only 9:30 or whatever. I'm like, I was looking forward to hanging with you and now whatever. But now we're learning to trust. I'm learning to trust and recognize her feelings more. She's learning as well to recognize her own feelings, and that's okay for her to express her feelings, and also okay for me to express mine.

I love that. That's really beautiful.

Yeah.

And the boundary part you said is so important too, because, you know, that's such a good example. Like, if you grow up in a household with a narcissist— like, and I don't mean like a throwaway term, like, oh, narcissistic, you know, the way people are like throwing that term around— but like narcissistic personality disorder. Yeah. You know, like your boundaries are unsafe. You know, it's unsafe to set boundaries because you'll get too severe of a punishment. So even though boundaries are supposed to be the exact thing that keep you safe, if it's the inverse, then you think that having a boundary will be what makes you unsafe. And so there's a lot of work that she'll, you know, that goes into that, but it's really, really powerful work to be doing. And it's beautiful that she has you supporting her and like doing that work together.

Yeah, well, love it. Tais, I could talk to you all day. You've got such great wisdom and joy, and I'm curious though, where can people go to find out more about Personal Development School, all the work you do, your books? Like, what are next steps that if this is resonating with you— and by the way, I've already bought many of your books for my clients. My next retreat, everyone's getting Learning to Love. But curious, where should they go to find out more?

Yeah, so, um, I put daily content out on YouTube, so it's personaldevelopmentschool-taisgibson. And then we have a free attachment style quiz on personaldevelopmentschool.com, where you'll get a little report of your attachment style and your core wounds and needs. And then last but not least, I actually run a quarterly certification program to become a certified relationship coach in integrated attachment theory, the, the published and trademarked body of work that we have. So people can check that out all at personaldevelopmentschool.com as well.

Love it. And everywhere on social media, is it, uh, where your YouTube handle again?

Yes, it's Personal Development School Tyese Gibson. And then also Instagram is Personal Development_School.

Okay, sounds great. Well, all the links will be below, guys. Thank you so much for being on, and it was just an honor to connect with you. I can't recommend her book enough, and her YouTube videos— I've already been sending them out to clients, guys. Some of her best ones will also be in the links here down below. And so excited to have you on and honored to have you.

Thank you, I had a blast hanging out with you and this was so sweet. Thank you so much.