#149: Anxious, Avoidant, or In-Between: Is Attachment Theory Your Relationship's Compass or Crutch?

Imagine a dance where one partner leans in while the other steps back. It's a rhythm many of us know all too well in love. The dance of attachment, where one's need for closeness meets another's pull for space. If this dance feels all too familiar and the words anxious and avoidant resonate with you, then today's episode is a must. Listen. Welcome to Love Shack Live. It's a podcast that has been created for those navigating the intricate paths of relationships. For those of you feeling the weight of conflicts, sensing that widening emotional gap, and seeking to forge a bond that's both genuine and enduring. I'm Stacey Bartley, your relationship expert. Alongside me are my co host and lover, Tom, and our daughter, Brooke. Today we dive deep into the world of attachment theory in relationships. But here's the catch. Is it a window to understanding or a wall that's holding you back? Are you using attachment styles as a crutch or a compass? And when your partner asks for space, how does their attachment style play into this conversation? Stay with me today as we unravel these questions and more, offering you insights and tools to navigate the intricate dance of love and attachment. Let's dive in and discover how to turn insights into actions for a love that lasts.

Hey, thank you for coming. Welcome to the Love Shack.

Attachment theory. Is it a window? It is. It's not a wall. Today I want to talk with you about attachment theory and relationships and its implications because we feel like some people are getting so caught up in the details of attachment theory and it's truly keeping them stuck. Also, we want to create some understanding of attachment styles in the context of a partner asking for space. This is an example of some of the comments that we've had from previous episodes on our social media channels and in our podcasts. They say things like this. My partner always asks for space whenever we argue. Could this be because he's avoidant? Or this one. I find myself getting anxious when my girlfriend doesn't text back quickly. Is this my attachment style showing? Or another? I've told my partner he's an avoidant, but he won't listen to me. What should I do? And yet another My anxiety goes off the charts whenever there's a hint of distance in our relationship. How can I possibly cope? And the last that kind of sent me over the edge was, can people truly change their attachment style or are we stuck this way? That one hit me right in the heart. I'm going to give you this simple answer right now, but I'm going to Explain why I'm going to give you this answer. Attachment styles are not who you are. They're an experience that you're having. Now, I know that's not commonplace. Attachment styles have this allure about them that if I figure out what my attachment style is and it explains my life, it also explains me, and I'm going to say, no, it doesn't. It doesn't explain you. You are much more vast than an attachment style. So what is attachment theory and where does it come from? It actually is work that originated from John Bowlby's work that started in the 1930s. He was curious about why it was delinquent. Children had such a difficult time forming relationships beyond their families of origin with other human beings. He began this work and then he was joined with a research assistant by the name of Mary Ainsworth. And together they ended up coming up with a way to test and did further studies on expanding the concepts that they were finding. In this research study, it was actually Mary Ainsworth who took these concepts and finally did a study called the Strange Situation Test. And how this would roll out is she would take babies, typically 9 to 18 months old, and she would have their mothers primarily bring them into a research situation where they would leave the child with a stranger. The parent would leave the room and then she would watch and observe as the parent re entered the room. How did the baby 9 months to 18 months old respond to the parent when they re entered? Was it a place of comfort? Was a place of indifference or avoidance? How did this infant interact with the parent that was supposed to be the primary caregiver? What ended up happening from there is it was turned into a questionnaire. And the questionnaire originally was called the Experience and Close Relationships. The acronym for this is ECR. The ECR was first published in 1998 by Kelly Brennan, Kathleen Clark and Philip Shaver. And if that name rings a bell for you, for those of us who are a bit older, he was the author who published the original Love Quiz with Cindy Hazen. The ECR allowed for specific short questions that targeted particular aspects of adult attachment based on two main categories, anxiety in the relationship and avoidance. Later, Chris Fraley from the University of Illinois, together with Nils Waller and Kelly Brennan, revised the questionnaire to create what is now known as the ECR R, which stands for revised questionnaire. So if you truly want to take a questionnaire that comes from the historic VE of attachment theory, I'm going to encourage you to use the link in the show notes and take that questionnaire when you click the link, you're going to find there are two options for you. The first is if you want to log in and you want to give your email address. You can chart your own history with your attachment theory results. Otherwise, you can check option B or select option B and you can simply take a quiz and get the answers. I think that's important because right now, in 2023, when we're recording this podcast, attachment theory has become very trendy. It has also become something that everybody is up for interpreting on their own. So if you want to get to the heart of the matter, I think it's important for you to go back to the research, go back to the people who created it, and take the the original where it comes from.

Nothing like getting it from the actual source.

Exactly.

You bet.

So let's just briefly talk about what attachment theory is before we dive into how we're going to navigate this and some things that I want you to keep in mind about attachment theories. There are four attachment styles. Secure is the one that we all seem to be after. It's a place where we feel comfortable with intimacy as well as independence. We can be in our own skin, but we also don't have a lot of inversion in regards to connecting with others.

So that's kind of the goal that everyone is. Is shooting for in the attachment style world.

Yes. Okay. Yes. And then we step into the anxious. And the anxious typically crave closeness and intimacy. Yes. Brookie's waving at herself. They're often worried about the relationship. They spend a lot of emotional energy thinking about all the little nuances of it. Heaven forbid those that they're in relationships with have a bad day and it has nothing to do with them. They're going to feel like it absolutely does. Avoidant. An avoidant values independence over the relationship at all costs, even tries to minimize the idea of closeness, calling it silly and stupid, unnecessary at times. And yet within the cockles of their own hearts, they want nothing more than to be deeply, closely connected to another. Like that would be the Shangri La. And they question whether that's possible or not. The fearful avoidant is something that we call disorganized, and it's a mix of anxious and avoidant behaviors. It desires closeness, but is wary of getting close. And when I read this one about disorganized. Gosh, can I relate to that? With most of our listeners, maybe we're more disorganized than we think we are, but I'll leave that for a conversation for another day.

So it's Close but not too close.

Yeah, close, but not too close. And I, I think, you know, don't we all kind of dance with that? I want you close, I want you here, I want you in the space. I want to be connected with you. I want to special somebody in my life. But don't get too close. Right?

Come on, you're kind of smothering.

Smothering?

Yeah.

Don't smother me. Don't tell me what to do.

Like, what is it? What do you want?

And. And I just think that is the, the nuanced dance that we're all doing in our intimate relationships. I'm gonna take this further and just helping you understand why it is the anxious and avoidant so bloody.

Would you say that as a body work, in a family, this is what we run into. Most of the people that are very aware of their attachment style that they're paired with what you're suggesting here. So the anxious and avoidant is a very common pairing in this world.

Very much so. Okay. Very much so. And will forever be. And when you understand the nuances and principles of relationship, that makes all the sense in the world. Stepping outside, if you were to observe human relationships with adults, intimate lovers, romantic love, those kinds of things, you're going to see a push pull, which is going to be the proverbial, as we identify it through this theory, anxious, avoidant.

Okay.

The pairing is common because the anxious partner is going to seek closeness while the avoidant partner pulls away. This is creating a chase dynamic. Now when, let's just side note for a moment, when you think about relationships as a vehicle for growth, it makes all the sense in the world where I'm going to find that exceptionally attractive. Avoidance are going to find the ability of an anxious to profess their undying love and to be available and to extend and to give to them, even though it may not be convenient for them. Exceptionally magical and interesting. How do you do that? I've always kind of resorted to myself. Just take care of yourself, be independent. And yet here is this being, this creature that continuously tries to understand me, give to me, support me, love me, pour into me. And there's something that feels incredibly good about that. That was something I never received probably in my family of origin or did not allow in my family of origin.

So it was going to be a very magnetic component to that.

Yes. You're like, wow, okay, how do you do that? That's incredible. And the anxious is going to find this avoidant style to be exceptionally grounding. Like how do you just look at it from the perspective of yourself and just, just choose what's best for you? Like, that's amazing. Like, how do you do that? I'm constantly reeling about the thoughts and needs and desires and opinions and points of views and judgments of others and I have a really difficult time getting settled inside of myself. How do you do that? That is incredibly curious and mesmerizing to me. And so, as they say, the shoe the two shall twain only to find themselves in a place relationally where. Okay, let's side note again. Relationships that I co create with another human being are the most courageous acts of human behavior I will ever embark on. Why? Because when I say I'm going to co create with you, my physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well being is completely on the line. Like what you do is going to affect me and I don't have any control over that. I know it's a risk, I feel it's a risk and quite frankly, it makes me a little nervous. It does for all of us. And yet we take this leap of faith and we step into co creating with another human being only to find that the more I care, the more my fears and insecurities flash. And this is the proverbial cycle that are so familiar with anxious and avoidant. I get in. I love this. It's incredible. You're showing me things and helping me understand things about myself and about love and life I'd never considered or pondered, wandered before. And then I start wondering, am I too close? Am I too attached? Would I be okay if this person chose one day to not show up for me? And the avoidant goes, oh, hell no, I'm out of here. I gotta get out of here. This is not a safe place for me. I cannot be this attached to somebody that I will never be okay on my own. And they start to pull away as they deal with their own fears and insecurities. Which is a great setup for the anxious because the anxious starts going, hey, wait a minute, I'll be good enough, I'll do it. I got you, I'll love you. I'm a to show you the relationships are great, I'm great, the world is great, it's safe. Come on, come on, I'll do whatever you got to do. Which makes the avoidant go, whoa, this is even worse than I thought. Oh my gosh, this is crazy making nobody's ever said these things to me. I'm not safe at all. And so you start to see the more the anxious begins to plead in their own fears and insecurities, the more the avoidance starts to pull away, thinking, oh, wow, this is not safe. They need me and I need them. This is not good. We have to be rooted in ourselves. I just want to take a moment here and say, everybody's right. There's not a thing I've said here that's not true about relationships. The anxious is saying, it's safe here. You're okay, I love you. We can give, we can think of others, we can step outside of ourselves. And the avoidant is saying, whoa, man, this is kind of getting a little goofy. You don't know how to find your way back to yourself. We got to be independent here. We got to have our own rudder. We got to be a little independent here. This is going to wash us away. And I would say both are true. Both are true. Both have a contribution into the relationship. And so I want you to see a real life example is an anxious partner might constantly text or call, while the avoidant partner might feel overwhelmed and pull away, leading to the anxious partner feeling rejected and then increasing their efforts for connection. Which is the reassurance, oddly enough, or ironically, shall we say, that an avoidant is looking for to re engage in the relationship. It's like when you come after me and tell me it's safe and reassure me that it's going to be okay. That's exactly, exactly what I'm looking for in order to help me back into this relationship I truly want to be in. And so it works. And the anxious finally gets quieted down because the avoidant comes back. And then the cycle repeats, I don't know, hundreds, if not thousands of times until somebody says, I just can't do this anymore. It's emotionally exhausting me. The pulling away, the coming back together, the enrollment, the process, the stepping away of self, the not understanding how this all works. And so I hope you start to see why it is that an anxious and an avoidant are kind of like a hand in glove scenari. They play the polar opposites of the fears and insecurities that we all hold in our hearts. That of being able to be enough for our lover and please them, and that of not wanting to lose ourselves in the dance of romantic love. It is a scenario that, if you are being honest as a human being, we all dance with. And I'll even take this further and say, just think back to when you're creating a new relationship. That is probably where this experience is most highlighted. Until we find a foundation or a safe place in our relationships, isn't that the fear that's coming up for us? We meet somebody new, oh, I hope I'm enough. I hope they love me, I hope they choose me. I really like this person. They're amazing. They're everything I ever hoped for. And then we get together and then the fears and insecurities come up because of the reasons I've already cited. And then I start my horror picture of a fear. And then depending on how I cope, anxious or avoidant is going to determine what happens next in this hand in glove scenario. If I'm anxious and that's how I cope and I'm just going to outthink everybody and out anticipate everybody and I'm going to figure it out and figure out what I need to do to please you and get you to come back. I'm going to go anxious and if I'm going, whoa, it's time for me to step away, I can't deal with this and become an avoidant coping style, then I'm going to go that direction because that's what feels safe and comfortable for me. However, in order to transcend that, you've got to realize and understand it's going to take us finding a safe place that we can play our roles without taking it out on each other. And if we start to dive into the understanding of, like, neuroscience, you'll understand that as we start to create a secure, safe place for us to be that our literal brain changes, the neurology starts to shut down, literally crop off those places in our brain where I now can feel safe and secure and foundationally sound, where I am. Essentially, what I'm saying is secure attachment is not a place we arrive, it's a journey we take. It's a place that we travel to when we meet somebody. And I'm just going to be honest and disclosed here in this podcast episode and say, when Tom and I first came together, I'd literally shut down my life and moved to California. I had literally closed down my 47 year life in Salt Lake City and took a leap of faith because I loved this man and I wanted it to work, only to arrive here to find myself in a place where there were many things that were playing out with my own children in my own life that I did not anticipate. And all at once, Tom and I were forced to face a scenario where I was going to have to rescue a daughter of mine from a domestic, violent relationship. And quite frankly, because our relationship was a year and only six months old, Tom wasn't so sure that this was a place he wanted to venture. And guess what started to play out. Tom went avoidant, and I went anxious. I was in the role of trying to please and prove him that this is good. We can figure this out. It's going to be okay. Just tell me what you need from me. And Tom was like, back the hell up right now. I need some time and space to figure out what is true for me. Leave me alone and give me some space. And at that moment, we were at this precipice where many of us find ourselves in this place of space and separation. And in spite of his ask for space, I decided to spend a little more time. I was just sure he wasn't clear about how wonderful this was and how good I was and what a great catch he had. And so I felt the need to try and enroll him a few more times to get the same signal of, look, if you don't give me some space to figure this out, we're done. And then I had the moment of realization where I was like, maybe he should be done. If this is going to be something that he's going to have to enroll himself in and not be happy, I don't want him to do that. So I need to back the truck up a little bit and find myself a secure place with which to land so that I can give him the space to decide what is truly true for him. Because if he's going to be in this with me, I want him to want it. I don't want him to feel coerced, obligated, forced, manipulated, cornered, etc. Like, I know those don't work. I had had enough life experience at that point in time to know this wasn't going to take us anywhere. So I gave him some space, and I said, you know what? I'm sorry for what I did. I'm sorry for being pushy. I'm. I'm sorry for trying to enroll you into something that maybe won't work for you. And I'm now willing to accept and honor the truth that if this doesn't work for you, I'm gonna let go. I'm gonna honor that for you. And I want you to see the only reason why I'm sharing this story with you is to show you the journey through attachment theory. We start out, all of us do, in some form of avoidant and anxious. It is through the experiences of the journey that we find safe places within ourselves and within each other to create what we call a secure Attachment. And we can't just arrive there. And I'm going to tell you something else. We're going to have many rounds of being challenged here. We're going to have many moments when my fears and my insecurities flash and all of a sudden I find myself in some phase of avoidance or anxious. It's called life. And what we need to do with this idea is to be able to understand and know our triggers, but also be able to come back around and find a secure place inside of ourselves and to have the conversations that are absolutely necessary for us to stack and build a secure attachment on. This isn't something you're going to take a quiz and just figure out. It is a journey of a lifetime that you are going to embark on and be hopefully a part of you and your relationship with your lover for the rest of your life.

I just want to point out that the avoidant and the anxious are both coming from places of fear. In the comment section, there's a lot where the anxious is talking to all the avoidant people or the avoidant is talking to all the anxious people and they're not being very nice to each other because one is saying something about the other. They're both coming from the same place. They're just expressing it in the opposite way. The anxious person is saying, come closer to me. I need you right here so I can know what's going on. And the avoidant is saying, oh my God, I'm so scared. They're not verbalizing it. That's what they're thinking. I need to get away so that I can feel safe. And the anxious feel safe when you come close to them. It's the same emotion. It's just different behavior. Also, I know we're going to get into this, but I just really want to say that we get so boastful about our attachment styles when, let's just be honest, our anxious and avoidant attachment styles are not something to be proud of. Sure, you can say that's what I am, but it's not showcasing really good behavior. It's explaining your coping mechanisms, which are not great. They're coping behavior, but they're not secure. That's what we all want to get to. But attachment styles are kind of like a nice name for your flaws in relationships, if we're going to be honest, you know.

Yeah, it's a mechanism and we have many of them. When we have love languages and we have our astrology and we have all kinds of journaling prompts and things to help Us see and understand ourselves and where we're coming from and how we're wired and how we think. But none of these are who you.

Are or certainly I, like you say these are snapshots that can be helpful. They're snapshots. But think about it. Life is in our evolution is the most dynamic process we're going to undertake. And I can share with you what Stacy shared about our own journey. I had to come to a place of looking at this and realizing, is this what I want to step into? Not just some of it. You can't just pick the pieces that you want and then say, no, I want some of this. No, I don't want any of that. No, no, no. I mean you got to accept the whole package here to be.

I have a really important distinction to make about all of this right now. People in the comment section love to say all the people I've ever seen take space. One of them was either cheating or one of them is just waiting to file the divorce papers. Okay, so we know that's correct in some cases. We know that sometimes people use space as a cop out because they are being cowardly and they can't make the truth come out of their mouth. So they cheat. Okay, whatever. In my parents situation, my dad asked for space because he was feeling emotionally overwhelmed. Just like we say space can often be from. Not only was he not cheating on.

Her, I was simply freaking.

And I want to ask you as the avoidant because the avoidant. It's because they're quiet. There's a really great question we'll talk about here at the end. But avoidance are quiet and anxious are typically more expressive. Would you say that you didn't love me any less or any more when you asked for space?

Had nothing to do with that was simply the Do I have the capacity and the willingness to step in and undertake what I knew was fully going to be with us for a very long time.

Would you say during this time and space in our relationship history, were you in a tremendous amount of emotional pain?

When I was looking at that particular.

Yeah.

Decision. Yes. I mean the thought of. I mean. Yeah. But pain and just. Just unbelievably indecisiveness and anguish. Great. I broke. That's anguish. Like my gosh, I did not see this coming. This was not in my match.com profile.

Well and also you had me and Dustin questioning you to be fair. During this time too. Me and my brother are my dad's biological children. Stacy is our stepmom and we were.

Saying there's a lot more numbers on. On this side. Yeah, like, come on, we got 21 humans between children and grandchildren. And 19 is with this lovely lady here. I only got two of the 21. So this is a massive package, swirling hot mess making.

Let me finish the journey I was taking us all on. So we already got. You weren't cheating. You were in really a lot of mental pain and anguish. All you need to do was to ask for space. You took the space. Mom, too, respected your need for space, even though it was hard for her. And she had to come to a place of strength inside of herself and calm her own anxieties because it was pushing you away more if she tried to do that with you. And then eventually you had the space. You said that, I can do this. You came back together. You helped Brill from that situation. All the kids came. It was hard, took a lot of work. But things are much better today. Not only did the space not tear you apart, you guys are together now and you're married. I just want people to hear that space does not always mean the relationship is over, even though that's what we're continually told as a society.

And to be fair, in this, in our particular case, and we're working with our road road mappers right now, and some people are in the same physical place while they're taking space. And that was with Stacy and I. One of us didn't leave where we were. We cohabitated together at the same time, but it was a very different emotional experience while I was navigating it. It didn't take months, but I just needed to step back and think, man, is this because I'm sharp enough person to intuitively sense, okay, we're not going to move through this in a week or two. This is as we talk now, October 2023. This has been a 11 year project. And yes, I'm grateful to share everyone's doing much, much better. But just to give some clear distinction, Stacy and I did not separate where we lived, but we were definitely taking space within the same physical.

Yeah, absolutely. A lot of people do that. I just think it's interesting because we've done. This is our eighth episode on space and relationships, and we've never told that story about you guys before. So I just think that was a poignant point to make because you guys have real life experience with taking space in a relationship and you weren't even engaged when that happened and you became engaged and married after that. I just think that's a nice story to tell that also that Stacy was a relationship expert at the time all of this was happening. So like, like they're not immune to these life events or relationship problems happening. And also they still can have to take the space even though they have all the tools and skills in the world because we're human, you know, and these things can still happen. And also that you guys fell into your emotional attachment styles while that was happening. I just want to point this out to people that just because they know these things doesn't mean they're not going to default to their natural attachment style. And they did it. And the behaviors that we all know comes from them. They played it out. And this was only 10 years ago, guys. It's not like this was 50 years ago or 30 years ago. This is a recent event. And it just goes to show that we're all human. This can happen to anybody. But it doesn't have to be the end of your relationship.

And let me just share one more thing and then we'll move on is there's no question the fact that that challenged us and how it did was a absolute pivotal moment in for Stacy and I. And I don't know it could have gone either way and it wouldn't have been done well, however it would have gone. I know we had that emotional capacity capacity and IQ to do that. But my point here is it has made us infinitely 100x stronger because we're able to turn and navigate and work with and through this till we speak right now, today we're still now that working with and through it. There's more of the 21 that has come into the picture. I don't need to breach privacy. But it is like when you're dealing with. I always share people on my clarity calls. Ladies and gentlemen, that is a math problem. To have 21 human beings in your circle. You don't think there's going to be constant challenges and things to work through. Oh my goodness. Just run the 20% of 21 is about 4 plus 1. Some humans are constantly needing assistance in that. That's for real. And that is an accurate. I would say 20% or more is always there with us. So we're constantly navigating this. So it's tremendous and fuel for our growth.

Well, I would say, I guess there's two things I really want to point out here in Brickey. I love your summary of that because it is very good to point that is out very real that the avoidant is not in pain because we often think that it's the only, the anxious, the one that's expressing and talking and suffering and they're very openly about, expressed about that, that the avoidant doesn't care. We can make a up some terrible things.

Everyone thinks they're cold space, they're just.

Cold hearted, uncaring, don't care, they're not suffering, they can just lop it off and move on and there's not that inner turmoil. And I just want to say that they're not expressing it as though an anxious would be exteriorly but internally and I'm not going to speak for you, there's a tremendous amount of turmoil and conflict and anguish that's going on. You just hold it in instead of express it out.

Well, I mean most people that know me, I am an incredibly caring individual. I, I mean my ability to care is huge.

Yeah, you're just very, you're a little stoic. Yeah, but you're very stoic too. But I know my dad and I know what it's like when he's having inner turmoil. You just have to know the signs. But he doesn't really share it. He keeps it all in. He can share it if he needs to, but he's very good at being the rock for other people to share all of their emotional turmoil with him.

I just want to say often we think because they're not expressing it, that they're not suffering and they're not in pain and turmoil and they absolutely are. I just want to say this too for those of you who have maybe lived on both sides of this. It was only maybe five or a decade before Tom and I came together and I was actually the avoidant. I was actually in a place coming out of a 13 year marriage where I decided I wasn't going to give a damn about anybody. The relationships were going to be done on my own terms and when anybody got too close, that was my sign to run. Because in my previous marriage I had over given in my anxious attachment style. So I decided to try out the other side of the equation. And it wasn't until I met Tom that I, and I really wanted this to work that I all of a sudden found myself back in that anxious attachment style. So all that to say this attachment style is not who you are. It's not a set it and forget it. It's not a place where you just stay. It's actually a very fluid process. And given the circumstances and the dynamic of your own personal life and situation, you could find yourself on either the anxious or avoidant side in a way of coping that would be classified as normal. So some misconceptions that I really want to dismantle here. Perhaps you holding the belief that attachment styles are permanent labels. No, they're not. They're very fluid, just as you are as a human human being. They can evolve based on the experiences and your circumstances of where you might find yourself in any given moment in your life. And as Brooke pointed out, we didn't see this coming. All of a sudden, we just found ourselves here. And I can tell you that by going through this, we've actually found what I alluded to earlier, a foundation with which we can count on each other in profound ways. And over time, that is what has built our secure attachment with each other. The ability to recognize and realize that. I don't know, you could pretty much throw a lot at us right now and we have a confidence not only in ourselves, but in the us combination that we could pretty much get through anything. Right? And I'm sure, as life has it, that there will continuously be places to fortify and strengthen that, I. E. Meaning unforeseen challenges that we're going to have to do our best to navigate, just as we all do as a human being. So there is nothing stagnant about this process. Also, I just want to touch on this. The danger of using an attachment style is an excuse for your behavior. That's a defensive mechanism. That's not an attachment style. Oh, that's just the way I am. Get over it. That's defensiveness. That's not attachment. Okay. An attachment style is an opportunity for you to see what it is that's triggering you in this moment of time. And then for you to be able to, once you see it, decide what it is you want to do to navigate with it. It's a tool to help you understand what your triggers are and what's happening for you emotionally. And then you need to make some choices about how you want to work with that for your own sense of well being and who it is you want to become in the future. That's why it's helpful, not a set it and forget it not to be used as a defensive mechanism. Because you are going to have very dynamic patterns of behavior inside of yourself over time and they're going to change. At least that's my hope. So they reflect a coping mechanism that was developed in you and can absolutely be modified in adult life. It's important that you can experience being both, just as I had shared with you. And secure attachment is something that Is co created with another human being over time. No one relationship will start out being a version of secure attachment. It's going to have that blend of anxious avoidance because we're scared and then we care more and then we get even more scared. And when we see all of a sudden it's going to get messy. We reach for these attachment styles here and it is when it gets messy, we can start to develop those secure places inside of ourselves. So the goal is to move into secure attachment. We know that. So what are the characteristics of a secure attachment relationship? They include trust, comfort with intimacy, being able to make messes and be loved in spite of them. There's understanding that's available here along with effective communication, which allows us to talk about the tough stuff. Secure attachment also fosters mutual respect, intimacy and is going to need to be something that we consistently practice. And I'm going to say this with a huge exclamation point. This is going to require you to foster and practice skills not for a month, not for six months, not for a year, but for the rest of your life. Not talking about ideologies and theories and then debating on which one is better and then living behind those as a defense mechanism that's not going to take you anywhere. Your opportunity is to change your behavior, Understand what it is I'm doing currently that does not work, and then understand and practice what to do instead. Those are the two components of actually changing behavior. I have to know what's not working and I need to be able to see that I. E. My attachment style. And then I need to be able to decide how it is. I want to go in a different direction and work with this. To find a secure attachment inside of myself and then to be able to create a secure attachment with you. And that's something that happens again over time. This idea that we can transform is so within us, it is so possible for us. Attachment styles help us begin to understand our triggers and our patterns associated with ourselves. Where it is we get fired up, how it is we cope, what it is we do. But we always have the power of choice to decide what we're going to do instead. Our goal inside of ourselves is to finally be able to find a safe place with other people. For this is the single most important aspect of mental health. Safe connections are fundamental to meaningful and satisfying lives. That is our goal. That is a secure attachment, being able to feel safe with other people. And for some of us, it's going to be a journey. And that's okay for me and Tom And Brooke, it's still a journey that we embark on. And best I can tell, as I look at the landscape in my sixth decade of life, it's going to be that way for the rest of my life. And I'm good with that. So how about if we all just take an exhale, recognize and realize. Attachment theory is just a place to begin. And what if we were to actually roll up our sleeves and get better at creating what it is we ultimately want, which is, at the end of the day, feeling safe with other people, knowing that we can count on them and that we can count on ourselves to navigate the ups and downs of life. This is our greatest journey, and this is what we're about. Exhale, realize. Wherever you are and whatever you're dealing with, there's a way through. There's a place to get better, and we can do it together. Anxious or avoidant, we can all find our place to a secure attachment. I hope that helps you. There's a few questions here that we want to answer from our listeners and from our social media followers that I think are very profound and it will give us a way to integrate some of the things that we've talked about here in a principled level. Okay, so the first question is. I've read that avoidance tend to breadcrumb their partners. Why do they do this? And how can I differentiate between genuine vulnerability and breadcrumbing? And here's the reality. You can't. We can't know the intentions of a person. We can only see their exterior demonstration and behavior. And I would suppose to you that if you recognize their avoidant, you've probably already jumped to the conclusion that their intentions are not pure. But what if you're wrong? What if their intentions really are pure? And my fellow listener, that is a journey and a conversation you need to embark on instead of just jumping to the conclusion that there's a breadcrumb trail. Do you think avoidants want to leave a breadcrumb trail? I would say and ask you to invite. The reality of a breadcrumb trail is their indecision as to whether they can get all in or they can get all out. The breadcrumb trail means I care about you, I love you. This is really hard for me too. That's how I would interpret a breadcrumb trail. I can't decide whether to get in this or get out of this. Did you ever have moments like that we just described? I know, but I mean, even when we started to say, okay, I'm in.

Yeah, that one Certainly was the crux of that. The pinnacle of indecisiveness. You know, it was huge. And. And I didn't see that one coming. Coming. Even though I knew of these moving parts, these humans, I didn't. It wasn't this up close and personal that took it to a whole nother level. And I realized, like, gosh, this is going to be a part of my life, like, all the time again. Am I good with that? I just. I needed a pause, you know, just to check.

I think a lot of people view avoidance because they've read the books or they've read the articles and they've taken the quizzes and they've taken the quiz for their part, partner, and they've discovered that their partner is an avoidant. So then they're like, oh, God. I think a lot of times believe that avoidance have this huge master plan in their head. Like, they've gone to avoidance school and they learned all these terrible avoidant tricks. And. Yes. And so they're like, okay, I'm gonna leave the breadcrumbs for my partner now. But really, they're forgetting that the avoidant is just scared. They're scared to get all in because they don't know what that emotional intimacy feels like and because they're not used to it and they don't know how to securely attach to someone. So, yeah, an anxious may interpret it as breadcrumbing, but I don't think that's the avoidance intention. It's just that they sometimes are in and sometimes are out. But it doesn't mean that they don't love you. It doesn't mean that they think you're a bad person or that you don't deserve love. It just means that they're having a little battle inside of themselves. And what you're interpreting as breadcrumbing is just them having fear.

Yeah. I would be more concerned if they weren't leaving a breadcrumb trail, to be perfectly honest with you. That means that not only are they stepping away for space, but that they're done. There is nothing that's pulling them back into the relationship. So as frustrating as that can be, it just really highlights the conflict that's playing out inside of the avoidant. And I just want to say this. I think the greatest gift that we ever truly gave ourselves in our relationship, to be quite honest, in this dynamic, is that we allowed each other the space to truly choose in or choose out. Like, there was a very strong place of permission to say, are you in? And if you're not in. It's okay. I'm not going to judge you or hurt you or blame you. I'm going to be disappointed, but I'm going to be okay.

Well, and there is. I always share with people in our clarity calls that the two attributes, the two behaviors that we as a family and body work say that have to be present because before anything else can happen, our permission. We've talked a lot about this in previous podcasts. Number one is permission. The permission in this case for me to feel the way I felt, the permission for Stacy for her to feel the way she felt, and then the emotional safety for us to share about what was going on. It just played out in real time. And this is where we start with everybody. Before you can get to communication or any of the stuff that typically leads people to us because. And they're valid problems, but you've got to get this one right before you can even go and anywhere. And because, like Stacy shared, because we had that allowed us to navigate this very, very challenging, difficult place that was quite frankly scary too, because I think, gosh, all I thought I had could now maybe it's not what I thought. Like, that's freaked me out that much as well as what I was facing. It was intense, unbelievably intense, and I didn't see it coming. And I'm pretty aware of what's going on around me. And this one really caught me off guard.

I want to point out to everyone what my dad just said. He was fearful of the losing the relationship, which I don't think is a fear that we often associate with avoidance. A lot of the comments on these past eight episodes have been, the avoidant doesn't care about me. The avoidant could have the relationship or not. It doesn't matter to them. We make up all these assumptions that avoidants just don't care whether they're in a relationship or not. They could survive without me. But what you said, dad, directly goes against that. So my point earlier was that we never know what's going on in someone's head. And mom, too, the anxious was feeling scared that she was going to lose the relationship too. So you both were having the same fear. You just were expressing it in totally different ways. And it could be taken in totally different ways, but it was the same feeling inside of you, which I think is really important to note.

Well, I could not agree more. And ultimately what led me to. To that clunk and we talk about this a lot. For me, that clunk was I just had to look, can I imagine myself if I wasn't in this relationship, even with all this new in many moving parts and way more amount of complexity? No, I couldn't. So I'm going to step in and I have the confidence that we're going to be able to navigate this and it will make us stronger because of that. And so, yeah, the. The thought that I wouldn't spend my life with this woman that I had already grown deeply in love with, I just really had to look at, like, look, am I going to be okay with that? No, I'm not going to be okay. Okay with that. So, you know what? Hey, I didn't expect it, but I'm gonna affirm that's gonna make me a better man and a better person. Here we are.

I remember that moment actually, as we're reliving this moment very profoundly, where we talk. We called each other on the phone.

Because we weren't talking at the gas station.

I was at the gas station filling my car up with gas. And I think what we said was, I can't see my life in the future playing out without you.

And I agree.

And I said, nor can I. So I guess we're gonna have to figure this out, aren't we? And. And that was the moment where we. We were able to choose in again. We were like, okay, if that's the case, if I'm not ready to let go of this, then I gotta get in. I gotta get all in here. The next question is how to make the avoidant meet me in the middle. If they avoid confrontation. And that there's two words in there that tell the whole story. How to make the avoidant. You can't make the avoidant do anything. There is no special word or phrase or magic wand that I can give you to make another human being do anything. What you.

And just to be clear, you couldn't make the anxious do anything either. You're not simply speaking about avoidance here. You can't make your partner, no matter what attachment they are, do anything.

Yeah, tell me how helpful the words are of don't be anxious. Just calm down. Just. That's silly. That's ridiculous. When you're not thinking about this straight, you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, let me talk to somebody who can actually relate to me.

What else you got?

What else have you got? And so we can't make anybody do anything. I'm sorry, I don't have those abilities. I don't have magical tendencies to just wave a magic wand and say, do this, and then all your dreams are going to come true.

So what?

But what you can do is you can invite an avoidant to the table. And it's really, really important to create a safe place for somebody who is avoidant to choose in.

So how would that sound like in a question, that genuinely curious question, what would that sound like?

Well, you know where I stand. You know that I love you. You know that I want this. And when you're ready to talk about it and explore if this is true for you too, let's get together. And then I'm gonna have to wait because the worst thing I can do is smother or overwhelm or berate a person who's needing some space and time to decide where they stand in this situation and what they feel like they need to do. When you think about it, an invitation with that permission and safety that we've already touched on is exactly what the avoidant needs, not more pressure. Not feeling blamed, not feeling coerced, not feeling cornered, not feeling shameful or bad, which are all the tactics we tend to reach for, but just a simple place that says, I love you, I want this to work. And if it's possible and you'll consider it, then let's get together and see what we can create. Let me know.

I just. I say this every day in my clarity calls, but I ask people, think about it. When you're. Think of the difference when you're invited somewhere versus when you're told you have to be somewhere, I say, are those different emotional experiences for you? And think, oh, my gosh, yes, there you go. What Stacy just described and offered would be a very, very different emotional experience, I would assert is much different than what is taking place now. I'm not blaming. I'm just saying think about how invitational that was with how Stacy just gave you an example. What you could say way. It's the same thing as when you're invited somewhere versus when you said, you better be there tomorrow and don't you dare be late. That's how it comes across. So if we can get into this style and we. You can see these. None of those words that Stacy used were fancy, were they? None of them were fancy. But in the sequence of how she offered them and the tone and spirit of which they were offered is going to give that person that is very. Doing what they're doing in their style a much more invitational experience to consider what you're offering. Suffering. That's important distinction there. I cannot overemphasize that. And that's why it's effective because you're giving something from a place of invitation versus kicking their fanny. So just come on. It's really not that hard to understand why it's effective.

I love this next question. So much falls on the anxious and the avoidant is excused. Why? It doesn't fall on the anxious. It's just, it feels like for the anxious, it does. I'm the one trying to figure out how to get them to come home, get close, make love, have a conversation, engage with me. And so we spin out. What if we were to just stop doing that? And a lot of anxious would say, then the relationship is over. And I would say, no, you've just found a secure place inside of yourself to stand and that's what's missing. It doesn't fall just on the anxious. And the avoidant isn't excused. It looks like they are simply because they're not sharing. But remember what we've just said and highlighted here. The avoidant is in pain too, and none is inferior or superior to the other. They're simply different ways of coping with a very challenging situation where we've created a connection, a love connection, a bond, and now we're trying to decide what to do with it. And we're going to react in very distinct ways. Anxious or avoidant, okay, it's human of us. One is not right or wrong or good or bad. So nobody's excused. It's just the anxious is going to feel more responsible because you're the one that's sitting there stewing about it, trying to figure it out. The avoidant is too, but they're just doing it internally instead of externally. So here's one more. So what do you do when the avoidant person doesn't want to work on their behavior at all and only wants you to modify your anxiety? Well, your opportunity is to modify your anxiety. Regardless of what the avoidance avoidant person chooses to do, that's still your opportunity and your choice again to find that secure place inside of yourself. So I would suggest to you that's probably something you want to embark on as a journey, regardless of what happens in this relationship. And the avoidant, they're going to have to choose or not to work on their own side of the equation. That is not something you can affect any control over. I want to leave with the statement we can all affect our neutral pathways, we can affect our neural pathways and steer them in the direction of secure attachment. We are fundamentally designed to heal as a human being, even if our childhood is less than Ideal. And our secure attachment system is biologically programmed in us. Our job is to simply find out what's interfering with it and learn what we can do to make those secure tendencies more dominant inside of ourselves. Like, that is the journey and that is the value and benefit, in my humble opinion, of this beautiful work by so many individuals who have contributed to it. So please be mindful of what we're talking about here. An attachment style is not who you are. It is someplace that you currently are in your response to something that hurts. And you have the power to do something different. You have a choice. And my friends, this is exactly why we've created the 30 day roadmap. 30 day roadmap is a place where we can talk about and work on and explore these things we've talked about in here today in a very real and practical way. And you can do it with a community of people who are on the very same journey so that you don't have to just take my word for many of the things that we have said today. You can see it. I'm thinking of a couple of community members right now that says, gosh, we share the same name and we're on different continents, sense, literally. And yet we feel the very same way about a very similar situation we're going through. That's where we start to go, okay, there's nothing wrong with me. I'm a human being first. We're going to be okay. This is going to be okay. Those are the gifts that we can only give to each other in a community. So this is very profound, powerful place to come, and I promise you, it's going to change your life. If you will ride with us in that 30 day roadmap, I hope you'll join us. Let's turn the corner here and have a little bit of fun. And the fun that I came up with today was, of course, in helping us deal with this anxious and avoidant place that we might find ourselves in. And regardless of what area you might be in, we need to be able to focus and attune our thinking, our brain, into something that's productive and expressive. So I thought, what could be more delightful than maybe a paint by number or a mandala that actually requires my very, very, very intentional focus with the selection of colors and expression of where I might be and putting it on a canvas or a piece of paper? I want you to know you can Google paint by number, and there's a whole host of places that can take your photographs and turn them into something that's a paint by number for you, which would be an incred project for you to work on as you're working through anxious and avoidant coping skills emotionally, it would really help settle you inside of yourself. So I encourage you to check that out today. That's our little bit of follow the fun moment. Our song today was actually chosen by this handsome avoidant man next to me. It's Michael Buble. You don't know me. Which now hindsight is so fitting for the episode.

Yeah. Stacy said you. Stacy was very busy working on our show. She always does every. If you're listening live every Thursday, you know, and she said, honey, I need some help. Yeah, what you, I, you, you choose a song today. So I went back, I've got a number of songs that I just keep. And I looked right at that one. I said, that's the one right there. That's the one.

Yeah.

And.

And the words are you give your hand to me. I can hardly speak. My heart is beating so. Because I love you so anyone can tell you think you know me well but you don't know me. That's so true for all of us. So you can check this song out on our Spotify playlist. Love Shack live playlist. You can check it out on our website stacybartly.com and don't forget that quiz. The true attachment style historic connection all the way back from the creators from.

The source will be in the show notes.

It's here in these show notes. And if you want to check out the road map, if this is something that, that you feel like would benefit you in this place and time of trying to learn and navigate through attachment styles. Love to have you with us. And I'll check that out in the show notes as well.

I'll just share because I am the radar, the, the hypervigilant detail guy. Don't be concerned. You know, if you're listening live here. We're almost to the end of October. We've had an incredible pilot run with our first group of road. We call them roadmappers, the next one starting in January 14th. But we're going to be opening up enrollment. I think think we said November 5th. And we're going to allow you to get signed up, get in there because it's only going to be 75 people. But we're going to have not. We're calling early resources, early things, early assignments so you can get started. It's kind of the pre curriculum, so to speak, the pre experience. And that's going to be coming Brooke and Stacy, these ladies work hard. I've got them work them hard right now. So we're going to have some significant things inside the portal for you to get started on before it starts.

Okay, that's a wrap. Thank you so much for being here with us and spending some time with us today inside of the Love Shack. And if you found this information helpful, please help us spread the word that relationships, it's okay to have pain in them. It doesn't mean you're a terrible person or a bad person or your person that you're in love with isn't a monster. That relationships require us to grow and navigate ourselves. And what we need is more skills. So help us share this, subscribe us.

If that would be and just let me just acknowledge you from all of us. Our show is spreading and it's increasing and we really thank you for that. We're getting more downloads and followers than we ever have, so thank you so much for listening. Thank you for spreading the word. And podcasts are wonderful, but that's the really the way that they spread is by you helping us, that really is. And leaving us a review. They're really hard to kind of magnify outside of the other ways on other places that we show up. But in the the podcast space, it's reviews and you sharing are really the ticket for us to be exposed to people that don't know us.

And if you have a conversation that you would like us to have right here in the Love shack, don't hesitate to reach out to us and let us know. We're dedicated to have the conversations that are meaningful to you, our listeners. All right, bye bye for now. See you next time.

All right, it's time to leave the Love Shack. But before we part ways, we want you to know our door is always open and we'll leave the porch light on, ready to welcome you back whenever you need a dose of relationship wisdom. For more resources and tools, Visit us at loveshacklive.com to dive deeper into the topics we've explored and find additional support for your relationship journey. Stay connected by subscribing to our podcast. Thank you for being part of our Love Shack Live community.

Sam.