Read Online Insecure in Love: How Anxious Attachment Can Make You Feel Jealous, Needy, and Worried and What You Can Do About It by Leslie Becker-Phelps - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Leslie Becker-Phelps
Ads: Link
she was unlovable and expected him to reject her at any moment.
When others treat you in a way that fits with your self-perceptions, you feel validated and the relationship feels comfortably familiar, even if it is painful. You are also more likely to continue the relationship than if the person did not seem to really “get” you. For example, as you might assume, secure people who feel good about themselves want to be around others who think highly of them. However—and this is perhaps not as intuitive—anxious people with low self-esteem often leave when their partners persist in viewing them as precious and lovable. Instead, they tend to stay with and marry less supportive partners—which, of course, just reinforces their sense of being unlovable. This places them in a situation where there is legal and social pressure to stay in a relationship that is unhealthy for them.
Because such predictability is comforting, any changes in a relationship—even
positive
ones—are often met with resistance. People feel pulled by themselves, as well as by their partners and others, to return to more predictable ways. Although this draw to old patterns is strong, people
can
develop new ones. When a person does change, some old relationships accommodate to the change, others die off, and new relationships develop from the “new self.” Recognizing and accepting this ahead of time can ease the transition.
A good example of this was provided in the movie
Pretty Woman
(1990). I’m not talking about the title character, but about Edward (Richard Gere), a strong, capable, and extremely successful businessman whose approach to life is coldly calculating. When he meets a call girl, Vivian (Julia Roberts), she challenges him to open up. He resists at first, preferring to hold on to his more distant persona. But with time and the new emotionally intimate relationship, he becomes a warmer person. Then he begins to approach his work more humanely. These changes wreak havoc. His lawyer rails against this change, and the other “suits” who work for him balk. But in grand Hollywood style, the audience is left to believe that Edward is a changed man. He marries the woman who has changed him, and his employees must learn to adjust to the new him or find a new job.
Pursuit-Withdrawal: A Common Relationship Problem
One of the most common problematic relationship styles is the pursuit-withdrawal pattern, which emerges between an anxiously attached partner (more frequently a woman) and an avoidant partner. In fact, it’s so common that there’s a good chance that you’ve experienced it at some point. It works like this: Each time the anxious partner steps forward or leans in for closeness, the avoidant partner pulls back, which prompts the anxious partner to try to get close again. Sometimes it can be hard to see this dance of intimacy beneath everyday topics, discussions, and interactions. To get a sense of how this plays out, consider Lucy and Ken. After dating for about a year, they moved in together. Unfortunately, within just a few months, their relationship had become increasingly strained:
Lucy: When you come home, you barely even say hi to me.
Ken: Well, I’m tired and need a chance to just breathe. But after I’ve settled in, I do ask you about your day, and you give me the cold shoulder.
Lucy: Sure, you come down after having showered, changed clothes, and relaxed a while. Meanwhile, I’m stressing out getting dinner on the table for us. You never even offer to help. I get home from work not that long before you, so I’m tired, too.
Ken: (
weakly
) I’ve tried to help, but you don’t even like how I set the table.
Lucy: You call what you do setting the table? Dropping a napkin and fork near our chairs hardly qualifies. I have to go back and fold the napkin and put the fork on it. You do everything like that—halfway—and then I have to finish it up.
Ken: (
shrugs his shoulders
) No matter what I do, you’re not
When others treat you in a way that fits with your self-perceptions, you feel validated and the relationship feels comfortably familiar, even if it is painful. You are also more likely to continue the relationship than if the person did not seem to really “get” you. For example, as you might assume, secure people who feel good about themselves want to be around others who think highly of them. However—and this is perhaps not as intuitive—anxious people with low self-esteem often leave when their partners persist in viewing them as precious and lovable. Instead, they tend to stay with and marry less supportive partners—which, of course, just reinforces their sense of being unlovable. This places them in a situation where there is legal and social pressure to stay in a relationship that is unhealthy for them.
Because such predictability is comforting, any changes in a relationship—even
positive
ones—are often met with resistance. People feel pulled by themselves, as well as by their partners and others, to return to more predictable ways. Although this draw to old patterns is strong, people
can
develop new ones. When a person does change, some old relationships accommodate to the change, others die off, and new relationships develop from the “new self.” Recognizing and accepting this ahead of time can ease the transition.
A good example of this was provided in the movie
Pretty Woman
(1990). I’m not talking about the title character, but about Edward (Richard Gere), a strong, capable, and extremely successful businessman whose approach to life is coldly calculating. When he meets a call girl, Vivian (Julia Roberts), she challenges him to open up. He resists at first, preferring to hold on to his more distant persona. But with time and the new emotionally intimate relationship, he becomes a warmer person. Then he begins to approach his work more humanely. These changes wreak havoc. His lawyer rails against this change, and the other “suits” who work for him balk. But in grand Hollywood style, the audience is left to believe that Edward is a changed man. He marries the woman who has changed him, and his employees must learn to adjust to the new him or find a new job.
Pursuit-Withdrawal: A Common Relationship Problem
One of the most common problematic relationship styles is the pursuit-withdrawal pattern, which emerges between an anxiously attached partner (more frequently a woman) and an avoidant partner. In fact, it’s so common that there’s a good chance that you’ve experienced it at some point. It works like this: Each time the anxious partner steps forward or leans in for closeness, the avoidant partner pulls back, which prompts the anxious partner to try to get close again. Sometimes it can be hard to see this dance of intimacy beneath everyday topics, discussions, and interactions. To get a sense of how this plays out, consider Lucy and Ken. After dating for about a year, they moved in together. Unfortunately, within just a few months, their relationship had become increasingly strained:
Lucy: When you come home, you barely even say hi to me.
Ken: Well, I’m tired and need a chance to just breathe. But after I’ve settled in, I do ask you about your day, and you give me the cold shoulder.
Lucy: Sure, you come down after having showered, changed clothes, and relaxed a while. Meanwhile, I’m stressing out getting dinner on the table for us. You never even offer to help. I get home from work not that long before you, so I’m tired, too.
Ken: (
weakly
) I’ve tried to help, but you don’t even like how I set the table.
Lucy: You call what you do setting the table? Dropping a napkin and fork near our chairs hardly qualifies. I have to go back and fold the napkin and put the fork on it. You do everything like that—halfway—and then I have to finish it up.
Ken: (
shrugs his shoulders
) No matter what I do, you’re not
Similar Books
