How not to drive your partner insane

00:00
[Music]
00:07
so have you ever felt like
00:09
once you got into the relationship that
00:11
your partner changed at some point in
00:13
time
00:14
when i have couples coming in to see me
00:16
it's a really common thing that people
00:17
say you know i because i'll ask them
00:19
about you know how did you meet how did
00:20
you fall in love and then uh and there's
00:23
often this really big contrast between
00:25
the issues that they're experiencing now
00:27
and the way that they experience their
00:29
partner in the honeymoon stage and so
00:31
they you know they'll be saying well you
00:33
know um
00:35
you know he's he's so cold now he just
00:37
like he shuts down he withdraws he
00:39
doesn't talk about stuff or you know
00:40
she's so emotional so clingy and it's
00:42
not always those genders but that's a
00:44
fairly common pattern that will come up
00:46
and so
00:47
um and so one of the things that that's
00:50
really important to to understand is
00:52
that when the honeymoon drugs wear off
00:54
what it actually does is is it exposes
00:58
uh some secret wounds that we tend to
01:01
carry in the relationship and so in this
01:04
section what we're going to do is i'm
01:05
going to give you a really
01:07
handy tool to help you understand some
01:10
of your your partner's behavior
01:13
particularly when they're under stress
01:15
and to give you some strategies that are
01:16
going to be really powerful and
01:18
effective and again it's stuff that you
01:20
would have been probably doing naturally
01:22
in the honeymoon stage and
01:25
but if you can continue this behavior
01:27
what you'll find is it's really going to
01:29
help your partner calm their nervous
01:31
system down which means that they
01:33
they're going to be more able to access
01:35
their kind of loving more more connected
01:38
self
01:39
so we call this dynamic the pursuer
01:42
avoider dynamic and it it's basically a
01:44
universal thing so i've i've studied six
01:47
different approaches to working with
01:48
couples this dynamic is covered in all
01:50
of them because it's always something
01:52
that we need to deal with
01:54
now
01:55
i'm going to be using uh
01:58
examples that are gender-based and
02:00
they're not always true but they are
02:02
mostly true so when i'm talking about
02:05
the avoider i'm mostly going to be
02:07
referring to them in the male gender
02:08
because about 80 of avoiders are males
02:10
and when i'm talking about pursuers i'm
02:12
going to be talking about female
02:13
pursuers because about 80 of the time
02:15
the pursuers are female
02:17
so in order to have a good relationship
02:20
you need to balance two different
02:22
uh
02:23
aspects uh or ways of relating that are
02:26
kind of in tension with each other
02:28
and so the first one of them is the idea
02:31
of sovereignty so it's kind of like you
02:32
know i'm me you know i'm in charge of my
02:35
body my mind my thoughts you know if you
02:36
view me like an island you know i i'm
02:39
the island of stephen
02:41
and my partner is also a sovereign
02:44
different
02:45
being who's also in charge of her island
02:48
okay
02:49
and so i don't get to decide what her
02:51
thoughts are she doesn't get to decide
02:53
what my thoughts should be uh we may try
02:56
and that will cause problems but but
02:57
basically we're in charge of our own um
03:00
our own selves
03:02
now if we are in a relationship then we
03:04
kind of have this bridge that connects
03:06
us these two islands
03:08
and um so and uh and so that's our
03:12
connection okay and and so in order to
03:15
be in a relationship we are trying to
03:17
balance both our separateness and our
03:20
togetherness and we call the balance of
03:22
that when it's done well we call that
03:24
differentiation and differentiation
03:26
means they can be connected to you
03:29
without violating your sovereignty which
03:32
basically means i can go and enjoy and
03:34
explore your craziness
03:36
the way that your world is different
03:38
from mine and i don't need to fix you or
03:40
change you or tell that you you that
03:42
you're wrong or any of those kind of
03:43
thing i can just appreciate that that's
03:45
you and i also don't need to let go of
03:48
me in order to come into connection with
03:50
you
03:57
now in most relationships there is one
04:00
person who is kind of more of a
04:03
specialist
04:04
at
04:05
sovereignty you know they've got a more
04:07
clearer sense this is me i'm kind of
04:09
more independent and
04:11
80 of the time that guys because we tend
04:13
to be socialized to be more like that
04:15
that you know that you can't necessarily
04:17
rely a lot on other people around you
04:19
you're responsible for yourself you need
04:21
to look out for yourself because other
04:23
people aren't going to do that and so
04:25
what kind of happens is we tend to be so
04:28
i'm an avoider we tend to be more
04:30
sensitive to to feeling intruded on to
04:32
feel like someone else is kind of coming
04:34
in and i'm trying to you know take over
04:36
or take in charge or or or controller
04:39
and so when that happens we're quite
04:40
sensitive to kind of invasion
04:43
and so we see that as a safety threat so
04:45
we want to build a wall
04:47
and
04:48
and so when we feel threatened that's
04:50
basically what we're going to do
04:52
now as avoiders we tend to fall in love
04:54
with pursuers because two avoiders don't
04:56
tend to meet each other that well
04:58
and um
05:00
and pursuers are people and what's
05:02
really important to pursue is is to be
05:04
connected and their secret fear is about
05:07
being abandoned so what i want to do to
05:09
try and make this clear is i'm just
05:11
going to bring the board in them and i'm
05:12
going to illustrate what happens when
05:14
avoiders and pursuers start interacting
05:17
and we're going to see some of the
05:18
problems that occur then
05:24
so
05:25
if we imagine so we have the uh the
05:28
world of you and for this purpose
05:31
we'll say this is the avoider
05:34
and we have
05:36
the world
05:37
of them
05:39
and we'll say for that purpose that's
05:41
the pursuer
05:44
um
05:45
the in this world you are sovereign
05:51
okay so you're in charge of your world
05:53
they're in charge of their world
05:56
okay
05:57
and because you have a relationship
06:00
you have a connection
06:06
and that connection enables you to cross
06:08
from one world to the other
06:11
now when everything's going fine that's
06:13
going to be totally okay
06:15
but the avoider bear in mind has a has a
06:18
secret fear about being criticized
06:24
or shamed
06:27
okay because part of our socialization
06:29
that's something that we grew grew up
06:31
with and so we try and protect ourselves
06:33
to keep us safe from being criticized or
06:35
shamed
06:37
and
06:38
and so and the pursuer has a fear about
06:40
being abandoned
06:45
okay
06:46
and um and so they're going to try and
06:48
protect their relationship and so the
06:50
way that they they try and protect
06:51
themselves is to try and make sure that
06:53
the connection's okay that we are in us
06:56
so in most cases pursuers are going to
06:59
kind of start fights um from this is an
07:02
avoider perspective because what will
07:04
happen is they will see a breach in the
07:05
connection of some kind
07:08
and then what they're going to want to
07:09
do is they're going to want to come on
07:11
over
07:12
into the avoider's world and say hey you
07:14
know something's gone wrong we need to
07:16
solve this problem and as the avoider
07:17
we're like whoa you know what the [ __ ]
07:20
is going on and um you're kind of
07:22
alarming because you're anxious and so
07:25
we tend to respond automatically by
07:27
putting up a wall
07:30
and when you do that as an avoider
07:31
that's going to freak the pursuer out um
07:34
because they're they're trying to get
07:36
some reassurance where and elsewhere in
07:37
this and you're like oh what do we need
07:38
to talk about what do we why do we need
07:39
to do that you know stop making such a
07:41
big deal about that and so when we do
07:43
that we're totally freaking them out
07:45
now the pursuit is really committed to
07:47
the relationship so they're like oh my
07:48
god there's a wall that's no problem we
07:50
will try drilling through the wall or
07:52
climbing over the wall
07:54
and that's when the pursuer starts
07:56
freaking the avoider out because oh my
07:58
god it's an invasion and not all of them
07:59
are nice people and so we want to send
08:02
our troops to the border you know put up
08:04
some barbed wire
08:06
and um
08:08
you know so we become more prickly more
08:09
defensive more shut down and so when we
08:12
do this this tends to hurt the pursuer
08:14
so the pursuer then starts lob and
08:16
grenade oh you know you know you don't
08:18
care about me you know you've got
08:19
emotional problems you know this is all
08:21
about your mother you need to go to
08:23
therapy stuff like that at which point
08:25
in time the the uh the border is kind of
08:27
like [ __ ] this [ __ ] they
08:29
blow up the bridge
08:32
okay
08:34
so this is what we call
08:37
the avoider wall
08:42
and
08:44
and so basically what what needs to
08:46
happen at that point in time in order to
08:47
make things better is when you see this
08:50
wall come up
08:52
what we basically need the pursuer to do
08:54
is just back off
08:56
and wait here um for a moment to just
08:58
give us a bit of time to just calm down
09:01
and say oh hey um
09:04
are you feeling like i'm criticizing you
09:05
like can we talk about this because it's
09:07
important but you you look pretty
09:09
stressed and they were like uh can we
09:11
talk about it later or whatever
09:14
but if you can give a bit of space
09:16
and make it clear that you're not
09:18
telling the avoider what to do that's
09:20
going to make things quite a lot better
09:23
but what tends to happen is at this
09:25
point in time the the pursuer feels
09:27
really hurt you know the uh you know
09:29
really upset so they're then going to go
09:32
back into their world
09:34
you know screw you you know um i don't
09:36
care about you do what you want and fine
09:39
and uh and the avoidance like oh thank
09:42
god you know she's finally gone away
09:44
things are gonna get you know better at
09:45
that point in time
09:47
but after a while we start to feel
09:49
lonely
09:50
okay
09:51
and so
09:52
this is going to be a very messy drawing
09:54
so i think what i'm going to do is i'm
09:56
going to turn the sheet over and
09:58
and we're going to look at what the next
10:00
stage of what tends to happen
10:05
okay so still got the two worlds
10:08
still got bridge
10:10
um and so and so this is still the
10:12
avoider
10:15
the pursuer
10:18
so what happens here
10:20
is they uh so then the avoider sort of
10:22
you know
10:23
wants to get laid you know wants to
10:25
reconnect wants to make things better so
10:27
they
10:28
come over
10:30
to try and make uh make a connection
10:33
attempt
10:34
and uh they are going to get met by
10:38
potentially
10:40
if they're out of the honeymoon some
10:41
version of oh awesome now you want to
10:43
talk to me oh you're just saying that
10:45
because you just want sex oh you've
10:47
finally come to apologize for being a
10:49
total douchebag whatever there'll be
10:51
some version of that so and so there'll
10:53
be a wall
10:54
now as avoiders we know what to do when
10:56
we get a wall we're like oh okay fine
10:58
this is a bad time so we'll just go and
11:00
back off so we'll just go go here
11:04
and at that point in time the pursuit is
11:05
going to get really pissed off with you
11:08
okay
11:09
because in their world they're still
11:11
sitting with that wound of abandonment
11:13
and they like came into our world and
11:15
they were trying to make a connection
11:16
and then we just totally blew them off
11:18
and so they
11:19
they're really hurt and i'm like why the
11:21
[ __ ] should i just let you straight back
11:23
into my world and pretend that
11:24
everything's okay you need to work for
11:26
it
11:27
okay
11:28
and so this is the uh the um the process
11:32
that that basically what they're needing
11:34
for you to do is to stay in contact with
11:37
that wall and drill your way through
11:40
and in practical terms what this looks
11:42
like is you're saying hey yeah i i'm
11:45
totally doing this because i want to
11:46
make love to you because you're the most
11:48
gorgeous person in the entire world and
11:49
i i love you and i want to be close and
11:51
i'm really sorry that i was behaving
11:53
like a douchebag and i do want to be
11:54
connected you know would you be open to
11:57
seeing if we could try and do this a
11:58
little bit better you know stay in
12:00
contact and what you will tend to see
12:04
um
12:04
is that the pursuer will tend to soften
12:07
soften down like wall but you always do
12:09
this and it's like yeah i kind of do do
12:12
this a lot
12:13
you know it's like it's really hard you
12:14
know and what you'll see is they'll move
12:16
from anger you know to sadness and um
12:19
and then if you can make space for that
12:21
emotion
12:22
emotion to be there
12:24
and you you continue to do that
12:26
reassurance then what's going to happen
12:27
is the um
12:29
you're going to see the softening and
12:31
that wall that wall will tend to start
12:33
start to melt away
12:35
and um
12:37
and so
12:38
what you're basically doing here as the
12:41
avoider is you you're really doing the
12:43
work to reassure the pursuer that you do
12:46
want to be in the connection with them
12:48
and the sooner you do this and the more
12:50
powerfully you do this you will still
12:53
get some some resistance you're
12:54
definitely going to get get some
12:56
resistance but um what will happen over
12:58
time is
13:00
um it becomes a lot quicker to make the
13:02
repair
13:03
you can do that
13:04
that kind of oh gosh sorry i totally did
13:07
that thing again hey can we make up and
13:09
it's like you know you need to
13:12
make me a cup of tea or you know you
13:14
need to take me out for dinner it's like
13:15
great i can do that and and then go
13:17
bigger you know so if you want to make
13:20
pursuers better
13:22
there's a there uh there's a couple of
13:24
things you can do that will be really
13:26
helpful for them
13:27
so the first thing you want to do is you
13:29
want to flood them
13:32
not with bad feelings but with good
13:34
feelings because remember pursuers have
13:35
got really good
13:37
contact with their emotional brain
13:39
there's a deep kind of implicit need
13:41
that they have for emotional validation
13:43
that says you know your feelings matter
13:45
your feelings are important that they
13:47
make sense and in particular most
13:49
pursuers need that from someone who's an
13:51
avoider because bear in mind you know as
13:54
as kids the things that are painful for
13:56
us are the things that our parents
13:57
couldn't do for us really well so if
13:59
you're a pursuer and you're super
14:01
emotional and your parents aren't really
14:02
available
14:03
then you're going to continually have
14:05
that feeling of being pushed away and so
14:08
that will be a familiar feeling which is
14:09
what's going to attract you to an
14:11
avoider and so
14:13
so the thing is that the pursuit you
14:14
don't need love from someone who's
14:16
already super available and emotionally
14:18
present and all of that you need someone
14:19
who's kind of self-involved you know but
14:21
withdrawn emotionally not super um
14:25
comfortable saying you know really kind
14:28
of trying and listening and then saying
14:30
oh
14:31
yeah i can i can see why you're upset
14:33
about that that that is important i'm
14:34
sorry i missed you i'm i'm going to try
14:36
better at doing that and that will be
14:38
super powerful and so it's so amazing
14:40
when i get to work with couples and
14:43
and you see the avoider doing this and
14:45
they're like their plan is just like
14:46
totally melting you know at that point
14:48
in time it was one of the coolest things
14:51
the other thing that kind of goes with
14:52
this and in some ways actually the
14:54
probably the first thing you should do
14:56
when they are in distress
14:58
move towards them
15:04
now
15:06
as an avoider that seems crazy
15:09
you know why are you going to move
15:10
towards the crazy because what you need
15:13
to do is when you see your partner upset
15:15
you need to be thinking not adult
15:17
partner you're looking at a distressed
15:20
five six seven year old
15:22
okay so if my wife is really distressed
15:24
or really upset about something you know
15:26
she's in her child brain
15:28
and if one of my daughters was that
15:30
upset about something very emotional i
15:32
wouldn't turn around and walk out the
15:34
door and leave her alone for a couple of
15:35
hours
15:37
okay so you move towards them
15:39
look touch gaze soft tone all of that
15:42
kind of stuff and and that will create a
15:45
sense of safety and then you can jump
15:47
into the flooding a bit so those are the
15:49
the two things you can do that are that
15:51
are real kind of super power uh
15:53
behaviours for you as an avoider
15:56
now if you want to make avoiders better
15:58
the superpower for you as a pursuer is
16:01
to use invitations
16:06
so basically what happens is avoiders
16:09
overuse a thing called um autoregulation
16:12
which is um it's sort of a habitual
16:15
thought-based process where we kind of
16:17
like doing things in a routinized way so
16:20
that we don't have to feel a lot about
16:22
them
16:24
now autoregulation is a super efficient
16:28
um function of the brain that doesn't
16:29
require a lot of the prefrontal cortex
16:31
so it's the kind of thing you do if
16:32
you're making breakfast in the morning
16:34
you walk into the kitchen you grab the
16:35
cereal from there you get the milk from
16:36
the fridge you get the cup remove over
16:38
there you get the
16:39
the spoon the bowl you know all of that
16:41
that kind of stuff and you make the
16:43
breasts and you're not actually thinking
16:44
about it as avoiders we overuse that
16:48
stuff
16:49
and so if you come in and you want to
16:52
say hey we need to talk about blah blah
16:53
blah we're not in the part of our brain
16:56
that will enable us to deal with that
16:57
very efficiently or effectively and so
17:00
what we actually need is we need at
17:02
least two and a half seconds to push
17:04
blood from the middle of the brain up to
17:06
the top of the brain
17:07
and so
17:08
if you come in and say hey babe
17:11
um can i talk to you about that letter
17:14
we just got from the bank um
17:16
the
17:17
that's a fairly simple thing because
17:19
it's a yes no answer and we know that if
17:21
we say no
17:22
then we're going to have to make up
17:23
words to explain why we why we're saying
17:26
no so that's not really a really great
17:28
option
17:29
so um so it actually tends to become
17:32
easier to say yes and if we do say no
17:34
you can say ah
17:36
okay can you tell me why
17:37
um you're saying no so again it's giving
17:40
us a little bit longer so then we can
17:42
martial our reasons and you're gonna
17:44
listen listen to what we're saying and
17:46
often what you'll find is that we will
17:48
actually change our mind at the one time
17:50
that you've heard our objection
17:52
um so invitations are a superpower it
17:54
gives us enough time to uh to reset to
17:58
know what the conversation is
18:00
and invitation should be really specific
18:02
so this is the second skill
18:06
is to practice being specific so if you
18:08
say honey we need to talk
18:11
most avoiders are like [ __ ] you know
18:13
like that's pretty much like the worst
18:15
thing you can say to us now if you say
18:17
honey i need to talk to you because i
18:19
i'd really like to have a lot more sex
18:21
in our relationship
18:22
or honey i need to talk to you to tell
18:24
you how you screwed up at dinner last
18:27
night we're a lot more interested in one
18:29
of those conversations
18:30
and so
18:32
when we do a specific invitation it
18:34
often acts as a prompt
18:36
to um to us to let us know what's
18:39
happening but also to you that if if
18:41
what you're actually wanting to talk
18:43
about is not something that
18:45
is
18:46
kind of appealing to anyone um you might
18:49
it give you an opportunity to rethink
18:52
the way that you're going to approach
18:53
the conversation
18:54
so those are the two two skills that um
18:57
that you you want to be working on um
19:00
and
19:00
and that will
19:02
help mean that you don't automatically
19:04
trigger that wall going up when it
19:05
doesn't need to and
19:08
and so and what you're also going to do
19:10
is create a space that's going to feel a
19:12
lot safer for the avoider
19:21
so
19:22
if we want to manage the um
19:26
that pursue or avoid a dynamic on a
19:28
regular basis what you basically need to
19:30
do as the avoider
19:32
is to initiate a series of interactions
19:36
where you cross the bridge into the
19:38
world of the pursuer and so this is just
19:40
one of these daily regular habits that
19:42
if you do this well
19:44
in general you're going to be helping
19:46
the pursuer not
19:48
feel anxious and you're going to help
19:50
them reassure them that you're connected
19:52
that you're in the relationship and what
19:54
this is going to mean is that when they
19:55
get triggered because they will still
19:57
get triggered the intensity of that is
19:59
going to be a lot lower they're going to
20:00
be easier to soothe and all of that's
20:02
going to work really well
20:04
and from the pursuers perspective what
20:05
you need to do is you need to create um
20:09
a safe conversation so that the avoider
20:12
uh starts to develop a sense over time
20:15
that conversation with you is going to
20:18
be a safe thing that in general
20:19
conversations will go to a good place
20:22
and that even if conversations are
20:23
difficult that they're still going to
20:25
have a good ending
20:26
and so the exercise that we have for
20:28
this is a simplified version of the
20:30
daily dialogue and what this is going to
20:33
do is this is going to take that the the
20:36
pretty common interaction that couples
20:38
often have at the end of the day like
20:40
hey hon how was your day yeah it was
20:41
fine hey how was your day yeah it was
20:43
fine which is pretty non-satisfying for
20:46
a pursuer and and so that's going to
20:48
leave them feeling a lot more anxious
20:51
and and so then what will happen is
20:53
they're going to then start raising
20:54
problems later which is then going to
20:57
create that message for the avoider that
20:59
you know when we hear honey we need to
21:01
talk
21:02
bad things are going to happen and so
21:04
the daily dialogue is going to teach you
21:06
a way to uh to get more emotionally
21:09
connected in a more structured way
21:11
because the structured process will help
21:14
the avoider and and the regularity of
21:17
that process will help the pursuer
21:19
experience the avoiders
21:22
interesting care for them
21:25
[Music]
21:34
you