Conquer Self-Sabotaging Behaviors and Break Free From Unhealthy Relationship Cycles

If you clicked on this video because you expected something like, you know, why do I always attract the worst men? Why do I always surround myself with narcissists? You know, why am I always in this certain bad, dysfunctional relationship? Then you might have clicked on the wrong video. Because this isn't about why this other person or this other pattern of person that you're bringing into your life is the problem. This is a video where we're going to look at ourselves and what positivity and negativity that we bring to our own relationships. Now, you may have a pattern relationships. You probably have a pattern relationships. Most of us do. And it's quick to say, I always, you know, am attracted to people who are lazy. I'm always trying to. People are narcissistic or whatever, and we put that blame on them. We blame ourselves for saying, I must attract this kind of person or always, like, allow this person. But we're not really taking responsibility for maybe how our interactions trigger certain other interactions in other people. And I'm not saying that it's your fault someone has an addiction. It's your fault someone's a narcissist or whatever. But I will say that our behaviors, our reactions influence the behaviors and reactions of other people, even if those other people are addicts. So this video is for you. If you are willing to look at your own toxic interpersonal patterns, not just think about how someone else does it all wrong, but yourself and analyze that. And if you'd like to make a change in that, maybe focus on your own self growth so that you can make all of your relationships better, then this video is definitely for you. For those of you who are new here, my name is Amber Hollingsworth. I'm a master addiction counselor. I've been helping people and families overcome addiction for a really long time. And this channel is all about helping you understand the science and psychology of addiction. Today we're focused on a slightly broader topic, though. We're focused on overcoming unhealthy, toxic relationship patterns. And this applies to anybody in a relationship with someone who has an addiction, anybody who has an addiction in relationship with someone else, or just anybody in general. And when we think about the recovery process, we typically think about that mostly for the addicted person. We say they're in recovery, but we kind of all need to be in recovery from something, right? We all need to be our better self and focus on our own self growth. And that's what this is all about. So want to take a look at what typically happens in your Relationships that are destructive. A good place to start is from what this guy named Gottman, who's done a lot of research about couples, particularly married couples. He calls them the four horsemen, meaning these are the four things that symbolize that this marriage or relationship is getting to the end. And his research is so in depth, he's figured out a way to pretty accurately predict which people, which couples will get divorced and which ones won't by measuring these four. Four things. The first one is criticism. I'm going to tell them to you real fast and then we're going to talk about a lot of different variations of them, examples, how it comes out, that kind of thing. So the first one is criticism, then it's contempt, then it's defensiveness, and then it's stonewalling. Most of us have heard of most of those terms, but we may not recognize it in ourself when we're doing it. Or the more common thing I think, is that we may recognize that we're doing it, but we blame the other person for the fact that we're doing it. They made me act that way and they made me feel that way. And if we ever want to break the pattern and break the cycle and get out of it, we have to take a look at are we engaging in these behaviors. I'm going to break it down for you a little bit more specifically. I feel like way too often these days people are, especially the word narcissist. People are super stuck on that. But people feel like, oh, like I'm with the narcissist and he's this or she's that or whatever. And they're so abusive. And I don't want to downplay that. That can be a thing. I'm probably going to get a million comments about how you know what I'm saying isn't right because people really suffer and I'm sure that they really do. And maybe your partner acts narcissistically, but that's different than if they are a narcissist. Sometimes our patterns of defense can trigger patterns in defense of other people that come across like narcissistic or at least like non empathetically. Right. They act like they don't care about our emotions, they don't care that they've upset us. And in order to really figure out what you're dealing with, we have to figure out, is that a defense mechanism there? There's a way that they're reacting to something coming from me, typically it would be kind of a reaction to criticism or Are they really like a narcissist? It's so easy to just throw your hands up and say it's the other person for all these reasons. And it's not me. Hey, maybe it is, but probably it's at least part us, right? I'm including myself in that. So let's take a look at some of these really negative ways of thinking, ways of being, and especially ways of reacting in our relationships. A big, really super common one is what I would call the pursue and withdraw dynamic. A lot of times in relationships you have the pursuer, the chaser, and you have the runner or the avoidant person. And, and it feels, it feels like someone's always trying to, trying to talk. The pursuer is always trying to talk things out, always trying to work on things, always trying to get more love, more attention, hold on to the relationship. And the other person tends to either be passive in that or, or even just sort of outright, almost like run from that. Like literally leave the relationship either physically or emotionally. Or maybe they have a habit of always saying, fine, then let's just get a divorce. That's a common thing, right? That's a withdrawal thing. And when you're stuck in this pattern of pursue, withdrawal, pursue, withdraw, it' it can be very tied to, like our attachment. If you haven't heard of the attachment styles and you feel like you're either of these two, the pursue, the withdrawal, you may want to take a look at those because those are, those are hardcore wired into us. And if you want to overcome one of those two dynamics, you may want to take a look at. Why am I doing that? Right. I've got a video on this channel about attachment styles, but there are also a lot of YouTubers that talk about attachment and like, that's their whole channel's about it. And they're really good. So take a look at some of that if you want to. But anxious people that are anxiously attached tend to be pursuers. People that are avoidantly attached tend to be withdrawers. Right on the surface. But all of us can engage in this sort of pursue withdrawal dynamic, even if we're not very like crazy avoidant or crazy anxious attachment styles. When someone's over pursuing, honestly, no matter what your attachment style is, you're probably going to engage in some avoidance and vice versa, right? If we don't like the fact that our partner over pursues or our partner over avoids or withdraws, then we, we need to sort of take up the opposite end of that and bring that more to the middle. If you're over pursuing the other person is going to naturally feel overwhelmed by that and put some walls up, which is only triggering you to over pursue more. Right. So we have to look at where we're at in that dynamic and change our interaction. And it'll probably soften that tendency in the other person. It may not make it go away completely because like I said, a lot of it's wired to attachment, but it'll definitely soften it up a whole lot, which makes it a lot more manageable for you on your part. Another toxic relationship pattern. This is really kind of a thought pattern that I see in, in the couples that we see at Hope for Families is that sometimes a defense mechanism might be to automatically interpret the other person's intentions as negative. So whatever happens, it's like you want to assign a negative attention to it. I know you're just trying to control me. I know you don't really want to be with me. I know you're just trying to manipulate me. If you, you jump into kind of a conclusion or an assumption that the other person's intention is negative. Now, they may have a behavior or something that they're doing that's bothersome to you, but it doesn't necessarily mean their intention is negative. For example, like if someone drinks too much, you may assign a negative intention to that and say you just don't even want to be around your family. You don't even care about your family. You don't even love us. Like, you just love the alcohol more. Right. And that's an. It's an assumption of why they're leaning on the alcohol more than they're engaged with the family. And I'm not saying that's not happening. I'm saying that that might not be why. In fact, I'm saying that's probably not why that that's happening. But if you, if that's a, if that's an assumption that you have, it's going to cause you to be critical of the other person, withdraw from the other person, over pursue the other person, which is going to eventually create that reality that you thought in the first place. Eventually they probably are avoiding you. They probably do like the alcohol more than you. They probably are trying to manipulate you because they're trying to make it stop. When we have those automatic thoughts, we actually manifest that in our relationships. So if we're automatically assuming someone's unfaithful, we're automatically assuming someone thinks somebody's better than us. Right? It's this automatic negative motivation thing that we assign to other people. If you have that, you know, take a look at where that comes from, it's probably coming from some kind of non productive way that you're trying to protect yourself, right? You're trying to make sure no one gets anything over on you. You're trying to make sure you catch every little lie, misdeed, whatever, and you're maybe over vigilant for someone being inauthentic or trying to do you wrong. And maybe that comes from your childhood. Maybe you come from a family who didn't treat you well, who had negative intentions towards you, right? Or you saw that in a parental relationship and because of that you've developed this automatic reflexive way of doing that. And it's a protective mechanism, but it's probably harming you more than it's actually protecting you. Another one that you can pretty commonly see is a, is a pattern of invalidation. And this is a tendency to. When someone else maybe has a concern or a complaint or they're bringing something to your attention, you know, they're saying, you know, I really need you to help around the house more or really want to have more time with you more date night, whatever. Whatever an invalidation might be to, is to minimize the other person's concerns is to say it's some kind of way of saying you're always, you're overreacting, making too big of a deal about it. Sometimes we invalidate another person because we think we're trying to make them feel better. And we can do that in real subtle ways by saying it's really not that bad, everything's going to be okay. And in our minds we're soothing the other person. But it can feel very invalidating if someone's really upset about something and we say everything is going to be okay, or you know, tomorrow is going to feel better. We say some of those things that we think is comforting, but it's really not really invalidating. And it's okay to comfort someone, but first we need to try to understand them before we try to change the way that they're feeling or the way that they're reacting to something. Another big dynamic that you see oftentimes in couples or really in any kind of relationship. It could be parent, child, it could be work relationships. Is is this dynamic of over functioning, under functioning. And you with couples, you can typically see this like maybe a really common way you see this is in couples at home, maybe the, the wife or the caretaker of the house over functions when it comes to taking care of the Household needs and the kids needs and that kind of thing. And you feel like your partner isn't stepping up to the plate, they're not helping you the way they should, they're not giving you the support that you think you need, that kind of thing, because you feel like you're doing more than they're doing. In any relationship, there probably is person that does more than the other person's doing. And particularly if you break that down into categories, maybe one person's doing more to contribute financially, maybe one person's doing more to take care of the household or the kids. But that leads us to feeling resentful inside, like I'm having to carry way too much burden or way too much of the load in this relationship. When we get into this over functioning, under functioning. And what happens, particularly if you're the over functional functioner, that's hard to say in their relationship, is that you build resentments, you criticize the other person, you kind of like hound them into doing more, whatever it is you feel like they should do more. But then they don't do it to your standards. They don't do it. Right. They don't fold the towels. Right. They didn't empty the dishwasher. Right. They didn't get the kids ready for school. Right. And so then you criticize them about the way that they did that and then they stopped doing it. And now we get back into this over functional, over functioning, under functioning dynamic, where it's this power play of who's doing more. It's a scorekeeping kind of thing. And it leads us to a lot of criticism, a lot of withdrawal and a lot of unhappy relationships. Another thing that we see, and I see this particularly in addicted relationships, is obsessiveness. And oftentimes in addictive relationships where one or both people are addicted is somebody's obsessed about a drug or substance or gambling or something, right? They're addicted to something, so they're obsessed about it. And the other person is obsessed about this person's problems or, and I don't talk about this one as much on the channel, but they're obsessed with the past. Bad things that this person's done. An obsession tends to be. It's another one of those ways we're trying to protect ourselves by foreseeing the future, by getting in front of bad things. It's a type of anxiety, right? But it's non protective. And when we obsess about things and we roll things around in our mind over and over and over, they tend to get bigger and bigger and bigger. So if we're reminding ourselves of the things that our partner's done to us in the past and we're obsessing about them and we're allowing ourselves to ruminate on them as we're doing that, not only are we retraumatizing ourselves, which isn't fun, but we're, we're getting angrier and angrier and angrier and we're going to, that's going to come out of us in some way either in a passive aggressive way like a withdrawing or in a making snarky comments, which I call like a drive by knifing is what that's like, or an over criticism or we just bringing it up all the time over and over and over. And this can be a particularly difficult hurdle for couples to overcome in early recovery because the person who's maybe early in recovery and they're trying to be sober and they're trying not to obsess about the things, we see that as normal, but the person that's the family member is still obsessing about either the bad things that have happened, the bad things that could happen, whether or not the person's relapsed. And so even though this recovered person is trying to change the other person and they're not doing it on purpose, like I said, it's a protective mechanism that quite naturally develops but is counterproductive. They're obsessive and so they're obsessively checking, they're obsessively asking you questions, they're obsessively reminding you of what you did wrong. And, and then that creates more of a pursue avoidance dynamic like we talked about earlier. That's particularly hard to get couples and parents and kids through in early recovery process because the family member actually doesn't see, doesn't even realize that they need to stop obsessing about that. Like they feel like they, they're supposed to be vigilant, they're supposed to be watching you like a hawk or whatever. And they don't even know that they need to stop doing that. Now if you ask the person in early recovery, they'll definitely tell you that their loved one needs to stop doing that. But it's hard thing to stop because you feel like you're protecting yourself, but you're not. All you're doing is causing more damage. You're pushing someone away that you really don't want to push away because really what you really want is you want the, the person more connected to you. But your behavior Is very likely a pushing kind of behavior. Another one that develops specifically in addicted systems, but in all kinds of systems is you get like a parent, child kind of dynamic going on in a couple relationship, which is super unhealthy. And it's where this can happen in the over functioning, under functioning dynamic and can happen in an addicted dynamic. Or it can just happen where maybe one of the people in the. One of the partners in a relationship tends to be a bit more of a perfectionist or something like that. You get this person who's like a I know best kind of dynamic, and it's sort of like a bossiness, right? It's like a, you need to follow my rules. You need to do what I say you need to do, Because I know how to do it best. Some subtle ways I see this in relationships, like when you have a couple and maybe that couple has children, and maybe one of those partners is the primary caregiver to the children, and the other partner tries to. Then it's like, you're not doing it right. You need to do it my way. And I'm the one that knows exactly everything. And then you start being parentified over your spouse. And what you're really wanting in that circumstance is you're wanting your spouse to sort of step up with you and be your teammate. But how can they step up with you and be your teammate if you're parenting them? Because what happens is they begin to get resentful towards you. They probably start avoiding you. They probably start not doing what you want to do just purely to tick you off as a power struggle. And then we get in these unhealthy relationship dynamics. Passive aggressiveness can be a really bad habit to break. If. If you struggle with passive aggressiveness, you might not know it. You might not even know that you're being passive aggressive. Sometimes I'm talking to clients and they'll tell me something. They said they're fast. And I'll be like, oh, that was passive aggressive. They were like, really? I was like, oh, yeah, that was a total jab. And they're like, nuh. And I'm like, you know that when you said that, you meant blah, blah, blah, blah. Oh, I guess. I guess I was implying that. Like, yeah, I guess you were. But it's. We don't know it. And a lot of times passive aggressiveness, it's like it comes out when we're trying to. Like a lot of times we're trying not to start an argument or we're trying to, like, stuff our feelings in which we think is the right thing to do for the relationship. Because we think, well, I'm not criticizing them. I'm not starting a fight. I'm just going along. I'm trying to just keep everything happy, right? But then it seeps out in these little ways, right? We do purposeful things to aggravate people. We do purposeful things that we know is going to upset someone else. We give them a taste of their own medicine, right? Like if maybe we're mad at our spouse because they never pick up, we just decide we're just going to leave the house trashed. That's a real passive aggressive way to interact with someone. When I think of passive aggressiveness, I think about that show as any of you guys, probably some of you have watched, like, Everyone Loves Raymond. I like that show. It's old. I've seen all the episodes seen a million times, but I like it. And the mom, Raymond's mom, is super passive aggressive with Deb. Deborah, which is the wife, she's always coming over and trying to act like she's helping or trying to be nice or whatever. But really it's like a dig at the wife about you're not a great housekeeper, you're a terrible cook. Like, you're not taking care of these children, right? And it's coming out in all these little side snippy, little critical comments. And when, if you have this tendency, the chances that you're kind of blind to it are pretty high, right? You don't even quite realize that you're doing it. It's almost like this hostility, this judgment that you're trying to cram down is seeping out. Like sometimes in ways you don't really want it to. It's just kind of sneaking out of your pores or something. It's an energy that you're putting out. Sometimes it could be a look like you don't even have to say something. It can be an eye roll, eye roll, total passive aggressive move. Right? As we're going through these and I'm identifying them, put in the chat or in the comments, if you're watching the playback, what's your number one bad go to move? I'll. I will. When we get through these, I'll tell y' all what mine is. We all have one. So don't, don't be afraid. Go ahead and. Go ahead and throw it up there. Secretive relationships is definitely a problem. And I don't necessarily even mean so much so as it's like it doesn't even have to be like an affair or something like that. But. But when you have secret relationships with others, especially if you're. If you go to other people and you're talking about your relationship and your partner a lot, that can be super disruptive. Maybe it's just your buddy and you just complain and vent all the time. That can be a problem. And the relationship may not be secret, but the dynamic is secret. Like, what's going on is pretty secret, right? The other thing that I see, and I see this in the. The addicts and alcoholics that I see a lot, in fact, I would say it's almost always there, is that there's this sort of secret fantasy escape, this relationship thing that's going on. Like, most people who see me have an addiction really feel like the main problem is their marriage or their parent. I would say 95. And that might be an underestimate of people who see me. They have a substance problem, but they feel like the real problem is the other. And even when they realize they do have a substance problem, they feel like they have a substance problem because of the other thing is the issue. And it's the relationship they feel like that's the problem. And they may not say this to their partner out loud. In fact, they usually don't, but they usually will tell me. They have, like a secret fantasy of, man, it would be nice to be living the bachelor life, right? Or they have a secret fantasy of, I'm just with the wrong person, I just married the wrong person, and if I could just get out of this relationship, I could find somebody who I fit with better, who's my true soulmate or something. When. When you're allowing yourself to have these sort of secret fantasies, the more you allow yourself to go down that rabbit hole, the more you're probably subconsciously breaking the relationship. And you may not be aware that you're doing it, but if you're constantly fantasizing about something else over here, you're going to be sort of pulling yourself in that direction and sabotaging oftentimes the relationship. Because really, you think grass is greener somewhere, either in another relationship, being single, whatever it is. And it's this whole idea, you have this sort of escape fantasy that you have, and you think that's going to solve everything. And so when you have that going on, you're not trying in the relationship. A lot of times people come to couples counseling and one, one of those persons has given up, if not both, they're just doing the couples counseling as a way of, like, acting like they're trying to fix it, but they're really just sort of going through the motions of it. And if you got this sort of secret thing going on back here, then you're probably doing that. Even when you. Even when you're trying to fix it, you may not be wholeheartedly coming into it. And so it's like you try one thing once, it doesn't work, and you're like, see, I told you, Amber, it didn't work. I told you she just can't stop doing that or whatever. And then you just give up and throw your hands up. That's a good indicator that that's. That's really what's going on with you. I got my notes here. If y' all see me looking at them. One of the patterns that you can see is either being too dependent or too independent. And again, this one kind of stems usually from attachment. It's like if you're too dependent, it's like you need that other person to emotionally regulate you all the time. And it's okay to do what's called co regulation, which is where we help regulate each other. Co regulation is a good and healthy thing. It's not codependency. It's healthy interpersonal dynamics where we help each other regulate. And we can get to that point. We'll talk about how to get to that point. But if you feel like you're always leaning on this other person to regulate you, you always need them to say the right thing or do the right thing, you're going to create a lot of friction in the relationship. You're going to be over pursuing, you're going to be over criticiz. They're interacting with you, and all the things you're doing is probably actually going to be pushing them away. Or you may be overly independent, which can cause the same kind of problems just from the opposite end. Let's see here, what's next on the list not communicating your needs. This is kind of in the stonewalling category we talked about earlier. You're probably, if you're a stonewaller, which, if you don't know, that means it's kind of like the person that just shuts down and won't communicate about it and just gets quiet. If you're a stonewaller, then you're probably telling yourself that you're the one that's just trying to save the argument. You're probably telling yourself that you're the one that's sacrificing your own wants, needs, thoughts and feelings for the relationship. You can't. You probably have a little bit of like a martyr thing going on in your head and you think that that's making the conflict better because you're shutting down. Sometimes you're really doing that because you're giving the other person the silent treatment and you're just ticked at them. And you know, the thing that gets under their skin the most is to just shut down and not talk to them. So you got to ask yourself, am I really giving this other person the silent treatment? Or maybe you're not intentionally giving the other person the silent treatment, but you, you are refusing to communicate your wants and needs in relationship. And when you're doing that, like I said, you're probably convincing yourself that you're sacrificing somehow, that you're being the bigger person or whatever, but you're not. Because if you're perpetually not, your needs met and you're not addressing something, maybe that's happening in the relationship that's causing you to be unhappy more and more and more again, that is going to build up on you. This is one of those passive aggressive things and it's going to seep out of you. This resentment is going to seep out of you in some kind of really dysfunctional way. It could be drugs and alcohol. It could be another relationship. It could be just totally shutting down and disconnecting from the other person and punishing them in these little ways that you won't even acknowledge that you're punishing them, but you're stonewalling, you're shutting down. If you are in these kinds of patterns, welcome to being human. We, all of us probably have done all of these things at one point or another. But most of us have like a go to one, right? It's like our go to weapon that we pull out. These are mostly defense mechanisms. Mostly we're trying to protect ourselves, but they do the opposite of protecting us. Most of the time when we do these things, what we're wanting from our partner is we're wanting more closeness or more empathy or more help. Those are the big things that a lot of times we're needing or wanting more of. But the ways we're trying to go about getting that is getting us the exact opposite of that, a defensiveness. A thing that I see a lot in the addicted families that we see is, especially in early recovery, the family member really wants to feel reassured or wants some empathy or wants to know that the other person understands how that addiction hurt them. But the way they're going about trying to get it, they're reactive, they're policing, they're criticizing, they're controlling. It's like that. Those are the best ways to ensure that you do not get any empathy, any help, or any connection. And so we do this so fast, you know, when we get emotionally triggered, we jump into these modes and we're not thinking clearly and what we do, and we say things that we probably know after the fact we shouldn't have done or said, but we make an excuse for it. Well, that's because of all the years they did this to me. That's because they never helped. That's because they ignore me. That's because they won't show up and leave me alone. You know, I had to blow up with them. And we make an excuse. If you want to know more about that and how and why that happens, this sort of excuse making. Look at the video Kim and I did on the drama triangle. It's an older one, but it's a good one. And it's like when we feel like someone's done us wrong, we use that. That's the victims. When we're in the victim part of the drama triangle. And then we use that as an excuse to do something not okay to the other person, whether it's to say something aggressive, passive aggressive, mean name call, whatever it is. And we feel totally justified in doing that. And what I would say is, you're probably not justified, but even if you are justified, it doesn't really matter because it's not productive. Ask yourself what it is that you want from this relationship. Is it you want more empathy, you want more connection, you want more help, you want more trust, whatever that is. Ask yourself, what is it that I really want and what's the best way to get it? And if we can get out of these patterns where we're sabotaging ourselves in our relationships because we're getting the opposite of what we want, need, and say, what's most likely to get this person to feel more connected to me? What's most likely to get this person to be more helpful or to understand my point of view? It's none of those things that we just named. Those are. When we're. When we're doing that, we're kind of in what we're sort of in an angry mode, usually, or in a scared mode. These things usually come from fear or anger. And those are. Those can especially. Anger can come out as what they call like a hard emotion, a hard negative emotion. A better way isn't to necessarily suppress all this, it's to not that feeling this way is a problem. It's that communicating this way is a problem. So if we take those negative emotions that we're having, we, the best thing to do is sort of acknowledge them and then find more of the softer, more vulnerable ways of communicating those emotions. Like instead of saying, I was really pissed off, you can say I was disappointed, I was sad, I, I felt hurt, or I was thinking that you were rejecting me, or I took it this certain way. It's communicating your frustration in a way that's more likely to get your needs met. And just because we feel justified to be angry at someone, you're still not getting what you need. You're so much more likely to get a narcissistic response, an unempathetic response, a non caring response when you're trying to force that out of your partner. A lot of these things stem from our childhood, childhood needs that were over met or under met, or the ways that we watch the adults in our lives interact in their relationships. These things go deep, they're not easy to fix. But once you understand what's going on and once you can take responsibility for your part of the dynamic, you can change your relationship. Because relationship is very interactive. What one person does affects the other person and how they react, and back and forth, and back and forth. You can absolutely affect your relationship, almost any relationship, by taking a look at what are your toxic behaviors. How can I do differently in the moment? It's really hard. So my number one piece of advice to you is do not try to communicate when you're triggered because you won't do a good job of it. When you're upset, hurt, resentful. When your button has been pushed, you need to take some time and that you need to take that time to figure out what's really happening, what, what button is being pushed and how do I want to, what is it I'm needing and how do I want to communicate that to the other person and then come back to that conversation. It's not that you cram it in because like I said, it'll seep out. It's that you're stepping back to think through. A lot of times people feel like, you know, it's healthy to have arguments and we need to hash it out and it is healthy to have conflict, but it's not healthy to treat each other crappily. And it never gets us what we want. So step back, analyze it, sleep on it, for gosh sakes. I always say, you know, people tell Couples don't go to bed mad. And I'm always like, no, always go to bed mad. Like, if you're mad, go to sleep on that. Because tomorrow you're probably like, I don't even know why I'm so mad. And even if you're still kind of mad, you're, you're in a lot better place to be able to think these things through. Why am I feeling like this? Is this, what's, what's the fear that's happening here? What am I trying to protect? Is this coming from my childhood? Is this really even happening in this relationship? Or am I projecting it onto the other person? Like for example, criticism. If you tend to be critical, that criticism is actually a projection of a perceived weakness. That means it's something you're scared is a weakness of yours and you're projecting it onto the other person. That's what's happening. So if you got to step back to be able to think through these things and come into your relationship in a more soft manner to better get what you want, if you find that your partner's already been triggered and they're doing one of these things, once you're in that state, it's hard to communicate. They're probably not going to communicate with you. Great. But if you will back up and realize what's happening and get a hold of it, you can help de escalate that thing. So the key is you need to back up and self regulate first and then step back into the relationship or the conversation and then you can co regulate each other. But if you don't self regulate yourself first, it's not going to work. You're going to say a bunch of hurtful things or you're going to shut down in a hurtful way, or you're going to be passive aggressive in a hurtful way way. That is then just going to add to the pile of crap that's going to come up in the next argument. I know we know that this is true. So we have to find a better way to work this out and a better way to get our needs met in our relationships. I've given you a lot. I feel like I've been talking non stop. Those of you who are watching live, thank you for being here. I can't wait to hear what you guys have to say about this. I'm going to be taking questions and comments here and just a second, if you're watching on the playback, definitely join the conversation. No, there's no one of us. That's. That is Immune from this. I would. And I promise you, I would tell y' all that my top thing that I do is probably contempt. When I was looking at the four Horsemen, I was like, it's probably contempt. And contempt is, like, coming from a superiority place. It can kind of get you in that parent, child kind of dynamic. It comes from I know best, or I'm more responsible, or I behave best. And it's kind of like a looking down at the other person. And it's. It's one of the ones that Gottman says, like, especially in women, if. If. If you see a high rate of contempt in women that's consistently there, the chances that that relationship's not gonna work is real big. It's real big. I see mostly husbands. Y' all know that. I see mostly a bunch of husbands. And I find it interesting because when you talk to women, most women complain about. This is a generalization. Okay? So, of course, there are times it's not the case, but most women are complaining their husbands are not emotionally available. They're not sensitive. They don't help enough, this and that and the other. Most of the men that I see, I can really only think of one or two examples that it was not this way. Their complaint about their spouses being criticized. They don't really complain about any of the other stuff so much is. It's feeling criticized. And I think a lot of times men respond to that by shutting down or by stonewalling. It can be the opposite, but that's just a real general type of dynamic. A lot of these skills, these abilities to communicate differently, these are actually the things that we teach you inside the invisible intervention. So not only are these good relationship healing mechanisms, but if you use these skills in the right way, you. You can help other people get out of denial, help them make changes towards recovery. Because what you're doing is you're creating a safe environment, a safe enough environment that someone can look at maybe the problems they're bringing. Whether that problem they're bringing to the relationship is an addiction or that problem they're bringing to the relationship is being overly reactive or being overly critical or whatever it is. When you can back up and respond differently, people. People will feel more safe to take accountability for what they're bringing in. That's a problem. These are. Like I said, these are things that we teach in the invisible intervention. We talk a lot about these things in our. Like in my recovery coaching that I do with clients, because the getting sober part, usually by the time people see me, most of Them, by the time they're in coaching with me, have kind of decided they need to get sober. But they really need help on these other defense mechanisms because they keep being in these negative relationship patterns with their spouse or their parent or somebody in their life. And just if we don't address those, it keeps triggering the, the addiction back. All right, Bri, let's take a look at the comments and questions. Let me get my glasses, my granny glasses. How to reach a person who became super passive after getting sober. A lot of times when people get super passive, our connection dissolved with his sobriety. A lot of times. And, and I'm just making an assumption here, Patricia. I could be assuming around. That's the. Let me say this. That's the problem with these live questions is I get a few sentences and I have to interpret a lot. So I probably guess wrong sometimes on these. It's really better to have like a one on one conversation. But if, if someone is being passive, it's kind of that pursue withdrawal dynamic. And what you want to do, you want to harness your own instinct to pursue. When you're dealing with a passive person, instead of going towards, you have to back up from and create room for that person to come in. And you have to figure out why is it they're being so passive? Are they cramming their feelings down? Are they feeling like they shouldn't have an opinion because of all the bad things they've done? Are they what. What's going on behind that? And, and it's hard. The hardest thing is to get people to talk and open up. The hardest clients for me are the. Are the really quiet ones that don't want to talk. I love when my clients come in, someone come with a list. They got a list for you today. And I'm like, where do you want to start? That's easier to handle. It's hard to get people to communicate. But you can't over pursue. You definitely won't get it from them. Let's see, question here. How would you communicate your needs to someone who is not sober? Definitely a stonewaller for that reason. I'm wondering, Kim, if you're saying you're the stonewaller or they're the stonewaller, probably they're the stonewaller because you're asking about how to communicate your feelings. And stonewallers typically don't ask that. They. Their instinct is to cram it down. The more empathy you show for them, the more safety you create for them, the more empathy they'll show for you and they'll care what your feelings are. So before you try to communicate your feelings to someone else, whether they're sober or not sober, you, you have to focus on understanding them first. If you want to be understand. If you want to be understood, you have to understand first. So try that. Now, when you say not sober, I'm assuming, Kim, that you just mean like they're in active addiction somehow. But if by not sober, you, you mean they are like in the moment, fall down drunk, there's no communicating. So if someone's like super intoxicated in the moment, nothing you say or do is going to work in that moment. So I'm assuming that you just mean like they are, they have an addiction in General. What's next, Ms. Bree? Shari says, what's a healthy response when they want to pick fights and won't let things drop and won't allow you to talk? I try to remove myself, but sometimes it feels like that seems like a tantrum. Even if I feel calm, how can I approach if they respond poorly to us trying to share feelings healthily as you described, this is what drives me to either bothering bottling up or passive aggressiveness, which I don't want to do. So what you're describing here, Shari, is someone that their defensive is to get, to escalate, to get loud, to get angry, to criticize. So they're sort of coming at it, right? And what you're describing here is you're saying, and a lot of times that makes you want to shut down or bottle up. If you're trying to communicate your feelings to someone that's in that state, once someone's in that state, you're not going to be able to communicate very effectively anything about your side of things. So either you need to get space from that and take some time, which can be hard to do because people, when they're reactive, they're like. What you're saying is like they want to fight about it. In order to buy yourself time and space, you can say something like, like, hey, I know we need to talk about this. This is really important. I'm just feeling overwhelmed by the conversation. Like, let me, you know, let me think about this for the rest of the day. We'll talk about it tomorrow. So if you assure them that you are going to come back and talk about it, that works. For some people, if they're so escalated that that won't work and they're just so mad, like they're not open to reason, which happens, then what you need to do is move into reflective listening mode. Because when people are mad and they're being loud and they're saying the same thing over and over and over, it's an indicator that they don't feel heard. So you need to move into hearing them mode instead of trying to express your side mode. And so you say statements like and we talk about this in Invisible intervention a lot. But you say statements like so what you're saying is so what Your feet, it seems like, is. It sounds like this. And you keep doing that. And when you say that, it sounds like you're saying it seems like this. Whatever it looks like this is the situation. They'll tell you more. And you just keep doing that until they finally pause. It's almost like I think of it like there's this giant container full of frustrations and feelings and thoughts. And when you're doing the reflective listening, you're just sort of taking one and setting it down and taking one and setting it down. And you just keep doing that until the container is empty because the other person is not going to be receptive to anything until they. That container is either all the way empty or at least mostly empty because it. It will de. Escalate them and put them in a place of being able to hear or at least put them in a place of being able to table the conversation until later. Hopefully that's helpful. Stephanie says, how do you communicate with a now sober adult daughter who will use a moment of vulnerability against you, the parent, or if you say your needs and then ignored, criticized. I'm going to. I'm going to speak to the second part of the question because it feels like there's a. There's a couple of pieces here. One is the first thing you're saying is they'll use your vulnerability against you. And I'm not sure if that's the same thing as what you're saying in the other part, which is you get ignored or criticized when you express your wants or needs or feelings. I would go back and examine. Is there a way that you're communicating them that's for some reason hitting some kind of defensive button right in them? Is it. You're bringing up their past? Is it. It's making them feel shameful. So. So definitely analyze your side of the street first to see if you could communicate it differently in a maybe more, I call it, hearable way. So do that first. That. That might not be it, though. If that's not it, then I would move into. And you guys hear me talk about this on channel a process comment and say, hey, it seems like it upset you when I said, blah, blah, blah. You know, when I told you my concern about this or whatever it is. And so what you're doing is you're moving up into the dynamic of the conversation, which is, why is this interaction happening this way? And when you say that, it's kind of like a reflective listening statement. It's reflective listening. It's listening deeply. It's listening to what is happening here more than just what is someone saying. And then the person will probably say, yeah, because. And then they'll tell you why they're reacting negatively to that. And now you know what is. What button is getting pushed. And that will help you figure out how to maybe communicate and with like a softer emotion or something like that in a way that they can hear. Hopefully that's helpful. May. May says, the hiding and unpredictable nature of my husband's drinking has me walking on eggshells. I never know what version I'm going to get or how drunk he will be. My nerves are shot. I communicated to him in his sober state. I would appreciate communication that he just let me know what his plans for the day are, what he's thinking, so I know what to expect. Is that the end of that one, Bri? I think there's a little bit more. I see something else down here from Mei Mei. It says. Oh, here it is. He agreed, saying he was cutting back to a few drinks on the weekends and then proceeded to drink the remaining three beers and then bought a six pack and became very drunk and often drinks liquor without something else. Okay, so there's a lot of pieces to your question. So they often drink liquor without letting me know. But anyway, I'm watching two toddlers at the same time. Is that a fair ask? Is it a fair ask? Is it fair? Yeah, it's fair. Is it gonna happen? No, it's not gonna happen. Because what's happening, May. May, is you're dealing with someone who's in denial about their own drinking problems. So what's happening isn't. Is probably isn't as much that they're trying to intentionally throw you off or not be honest with you, but they're promising themselves that they're only going to do X, Y or Z and they're going beyond their limits. And the reason I say that is because he's what? Because of what you said about. He has agreed to cut back a few on the weekend. And so you're saying, can you give me a heads up when you're going to be blasted drunk. You're saying it nicer than that, but that's what you're saying, right? The problem is, is he doesn't know when that's going to happen. I don't think he can predict it that accurately. So what you want to do is you want to, if it comes to kids in child care, you want to plan on the fact that he. That he's probably not going to be able to be responsible for the kids or responsive to the kids. So just go ahead and set yourself up for. I'm not gonna be able to rely on him to watch these kids. And that sucks. And that is not fair. But just playing for that, right? And then let this play out where he. So he can see that it's unpredictable, right? That's what you. That's what you want to do. And the more you're telling him that, the longer it'll take for him to see it. What's next, Bree? Ella says, I don't know how to communicate my needs with someone. That gets defensive right away. Question. I've been taught not to talk about anything important when someone is under the influence. So what should I do if they are almost always under the influence as soon as they get home? This probably isn't like the official response or other people tell you different, but there are definitely degrees of intoxication, right? Especially when it comes to alcohol. I get what you're saying, because it's a. It's a real concern is like, well, they're always drinking. And when you're dealing with someone far in alcoholism, if they're awake, they're drinking. So I agree with you. But you probably know, are there times when they're more sober? If someone is fall down drunk, intoxicated, you can tell when it's like, it's not gonna go anywhere. You may have to pick a time when they are less intoxicated or more soberish. So you may have to do that, Ella. And your concern is, is correct. Other substances, they can be high on, like, like maybe if they have an opioid addiction or something, they're pretty rational. Unless they're like, to the degree like they're nodding out or something. So you could actually have a conversation with someone on opiates or some of the other drugs and they may remember it. The problem is with alcohol, a lot of times, like they're literally in a blackout and they don't remember it, and that's why you don't want to have a conversation. And the other problem with it is it shuts down their impulse control. So their ability to communicate back to you in any kind of protective way is hampered. So you gotta think about what the substance is and catch them at the more soberish time and figure out a way to communicate your needs or thoughts or feelings in a way that's. That's gonna try not to hit, not to feel like a criticism. Michael says my addicted loved one is self sabotaging, has deep abandonment wounds, anxious avoidant, attachment style. His drinking and his behaviors keep us in a trauma bond drama triangle. Okay, first of all, Michael, you're literally saying like, like a bunch of like big time counseling words. So I don't know if you're. I don't know, you must have watched a lot of videos or study a lot because you're saying like these are big psychological words. How do I get out of the triangle? Even though you're telling me these big psychological words, which I understand what they mean, I need more of a specific example. Like he does this or says this or I say this and then he thinks that. I understand what you mean by abandonment wound. But how is that playing out? Because it could mean that he chases, or it could mean that the person chases. It could mean that the person shuts down because they have an abandonment. So. So I need a little bit more on what's happening there. Here we go. How do you connect with an alcoholic, either boyfriend or best friend, who withdraws and doesn't reply because of fatigue? Drunk or just managing to go to work seems like shame or guilt. I don't want to be the drinker and I don't care about. I don't want to be a drinker and don't care about me. So this, you actually made me think of something. This is actually a good point because just a minute ago I was talking about not talking to someone when they're not trying to communicate with someone when they're super intoxicated. Maybe more importantly than that is not trying to talk to someone when they're super in withdraw or super hungover, which is what you're. This is the question you're asking here. My answer to that would be not to pick that time. If possible, you'd be better to pick a time when they were slightly messed up than when they're in withdrawal. Because no matter how nice you are, I mean, when someone, they're sick, basically like they're feeling like crap and they're probably not responding to you because they literally just don't have the brain power to think of a response or they just default to being upset or something like that. So the answer is try not to communicate when they're in that state. If he gets the slightest sense of abandonment injury, he lashes out and becomes belligerent. This is kind of the answer. I gave this to somebody earlier, Michael, but plan A, see if you can buy some time by validating the concern, validating the importance of the conversation and saying that you just need some time to think about. Let's talk about it at X. That's plan A. That may not work. If it doesn't work, then you need to move into that reflective listening thing where you're emptying the container. When I used to work at the psychiatric hospital, we had to. You had to get trained every year in fact on, on de escalating situations. You had to get trained physically on like how to take someone down, like if you had to, which rarely happened. I mean, I never had to do that. I saw it done, but I didn't have to do that. And you also had to be trained on how to verbally de escalate situation. And you always verbally de escalate at first in the psych hospital. But it's these techniques that I'm teaching you. It's literally reflective listening. And you're just emptying the container until they feel totally heard. And you'll just watch. It's like you, it's like you'll watch the, the tank just calm down. And that will de escalate them. And then you say, hey, you know, it's really important. Let me gather my thoughts. I really need to think about these points you made. Whatever. Can we talk about this later? Whatever. But empty the container. And the reason I said the thing about psych hospital, if this works on people who are flat out out of their mind, this can work. It works. Beauty Tube with Babs says love all this, but how does alcohol and substance use play within these dynamics? I've been following all the Gottman and attachment styles for years, but it feels useless because of the problem of alcohol. I definitely see what you're saying here and you make a good point because you're trying, if you're just trying to work on the relationship but and the alcohols in the mix, you're not going to get, you're not going to get very far in fixing the relationship with these tactics. If someone is like an alcoholic or an addict. But you can use some of these tactics to. With the goal of getting them out of denial. So I guess the, these tactics will work. But you have to shift your goal and instead of saying, I'm trying to fix the relationship, say I'm trying to. Trying to figure out how to address this alcohol problem. And you can use these same skills to try to get someone to figure that out and deal with the alcohol problem so that then you could come back to and. And work on the relationship. Because it's like trying to work on a mental health problem when someone's addicted. It's like trying to go to marriage counseling when someone's addicted. Like, those other things are a problem, but you're not going to get to them when there's substances on the top. So you're absolutely right. All right, I think we are close to the end of our questions and comments for today. Thank you. For those of you who are hanging out and who are willing to look at your own stuff and, and to see how you're interacting negatively to the cycle, I hope that this was helpful for you. I'll see you everybody, next Thursday at one for our live. As always, bye. Have a good day.