Entering the Attachment Dimension Part II

Partner A: Did you remember to pick up the bread on your way home?

Partner B (who forgot): Crap, I forgot. I’m afraid my partner sees what a truly awful person I am and no longer want to be with me.

Imagine Partner A “sees” Partner B’s deep insecurity. Because Partner A cares deeply about Partner B, Partner A experiences compassion for Partner B’s pain. Certainly  Partner A still feels frustration at not having the anticipated bread. But Partner A additionally sees Partner B’s insecurity fear and cares about it.

Further imagine that Partner B “sees” Partner  A’s compassion (in addition to the frustration). Imagine that there is a message in the eye contact, something like: “the situation isn’t great, but we are still each other’s special partners.” The connection has been re-confirmed. This puts the partners in the best place to problem-solve the dilemma. Together.

Box That Up for You?

How do you feel about this? Does it seem melodramatic or childish? We live in a culture that values independence and self-sufficiency, and these cultural values can make it hard for people to appreciate how very very deeply interdependent they become in intimate relationships.

We all have fears and insecurities, myself included. We all have a critical voice that tells us some version of “you really aren’t worth being loved and cared for.”

In over twenty years of counseling people, I’ve yet to find a way to make this voice go away for longer than a short time.

Most of the time we get through life okay despite this critical voice. We box it up, or put a fence around it. You aren’t going to let a casual acquaintance see that you might really be a monster who couldn’t possibly be cared for. Sometimes we box it up so well we might not even be that consciously aware of it ourselves.

Who is YOUR Oxytocin Dealer?

Which wouldn’t be a problem…except. Except that almost all of us want more than casual acquaintances. At least one! And, oh god it feels wonderful. That dizzying intoxicating feeling that somebody is seeing you, and liking it. And you are seeing them, and you are liking it. It’s the hormone oxytocin, the most powerful drug on earth.

I guess there is a price for everything, though. Remember those boxed-up, fence-encircled insecurities? Kinda hard to maintain those fences when you’re falling in love. Love wants. It wants and wants and wants. Love despises boxes and fences. Love wants to open the boxes and pull the contents out and love them.

Is it safe to trust your partner to do that though? To you, the thing in the box is gross hideous unlovable monster. How do you know your partner will, or even COULD, love that hideous monster? Such a risk to take!

Don’t Look Down

Ever belayed over a cliff on a climbing rope? Talk about terrifying. You stand at the edge of the cliff with your back to the void. You have a harness on and there is a rope attached to the harness which THEORETICALLY is supposed to keep you from plummeting to your death when you lean backwards over the edge of the cliff. Should you trust your life to that rope? How about to the person who set up the rope?

Is your gut clenching as you imagine this? Good, because that is EXACTLY what it feels like to let somebody see inside your boxes. A desperate gamble. Love and exhilaration on one hand; death and abandonment on the other.

ALL of us, to some extent, resist those boxes being opened, even, or especially, by our intimate partners. The anxiety is too great. We react with defensiveness or anger, with criticism of the partner or with withdrawal. Nope, not going there.

Even that might not be the end of the world. Unfortunately, and inevitably I’ve found, when one partner hits against the fence around another partner’s insecurity, that fence triggers the FIRST partner’s fears. Why are they shutting me out? Am I undesirable?

Because it’s Just a Box of Pain

Are you willing to step over the cliff edge? Risk  letting your deepest fears be visible to your partner? Trusting that they will love those parts of you too? Maybe that they will love parts of you that you can’t love yourself?