Love Life with Matthew Hussey - 172: Dealing With Attachment Styles + Will They Ever Change?

Episode Date: July 6, 2022

It's normal for us to date someone with a different attachment style from our own. But how do we know if someone is compatible with us longterm? And are there certain behaviours that tell us the relationship is ultimately doomed? In this episode, Matt, Stephen and Audrey discuss attachment styles, how we can communicate with someone who shows a behaviour that makes us unsure about them, and if your partner can ever change. --- Join Matt's FREE 2-hour "Dating With Results" live training at DatingWithResults.com --- Email us! You can get in touch with the show and give your feedback/thoughts at [e-mail] --- Follow Matt on Insta @thematthewhussey Follow Stephen on Insta @stephenhhussey --- ►► FREE guide to download: “3 Secrets To Love” → 3SecretsToLove.com

Welcome Welcome to the Love Life Podcast with me, Matthew Hussey, Jameson Jordan, Stephen Hussey, and Almost Audrey Hussey. Hello. Maybe there's a TV show called Almost Audrey That feels like a sort of 90s sitcom Hmm What's the plot? It's Audrey is repeatedly

I don't know I was really in then I was waiting I was waiting for something good and it's just nothing came it's a classic like 90s almost Audrey she's almost got it together she's almost got a boyfriend she's almost got the right job and can she hold on to it oh it sounds really quite depressing it does yeah it really does what happens to me at the end she gets everything she ever wanted it's like a sort of willy wonka ending okay well that's good well welcome to this here episode that we're doing we're talking about attachment styles today

everybody uh and it's sort of endlessly interesting, isn't it? Talking about attachment styles. Which one are we? What attachment style is the person that we're dating? What are the perils of different attachment styles? And also, if you've got someone that you're dating or in a relationship with, and there are certain things about their attachment style that are difficult to deal with, will they ever change?

Are there things we can do to shift them more in the direction that we might like them to be? And of course, you know, the obvious answer to that someone's going to say is no, no one ever changes. People don't change. Don't expect them to change. That's a bad idea. But we do actually have i think a more nuanced answer to this especially in early dating when you find yourself with somebody who maybe shows you some things that you don't quite like and that's often the case right we date

someone we like a lot about them that's why we keep seeing them. But then we see something we don't like. They do something that upsets us, that makes us feel afraid, that makes us feel like we might get hurt, or that just exhibits a behavior we don't very much appreciate. And it sends this kind of big, it sends the relationship or the potential relationship into question. And we don't know whether we're a fool for keeping going or whether actually the relationship can evolve if we approach it the right way. So we're going

to be talking about that today as well. You know, can people change and when is the right time to proceed versus cut and run? Now, before we go any further, I want to make sure everybody knows that coming up this month on July the 19th, we have our now renowned live training, Dating with Results, happening. This is where I spend nearly two hours working with you on how to avoid the traps of modern dating from time wasters to love bombers to people who want your attention, but they don't have the intention of actually taking it somewhere. People who communicate badly, people who won't commit, and how you can actually get off of this merry-go-round of games and time wasters and fruitless dating to a real relationship, which is what so many people who come to us want. They want a real meaningful relationship and they're

sick of the ways that modern dating seems to just land them in this endless loop of casual on and off situationships. So if you want to do that with us, I will be joining you on July the 19th for Dating With Results. It's free. Did I mention this? It's completely free. You can come and join us, bring your friends, bring a family member you know is struggling right now or just likes our tips and information, all you need to do to sign up is go to datingwithresults.com. But make sure you do because once it's over, it's over. And every time we have thousands of people, literally thousands who wished they could have been there but didn't see it quite in time. And we've had, how many have we had come through this now? It

must be 30 or 40,000 people who have been through Dating With Results. So it's been wildly popular and it's helped a lot of people. So come join us by going to datingwithresults.com. All right, Stephen, as is customary, we like to read out a little review from iTunes to kick us off. What's the latest? What have people been saying? We have a review from someone who calls themselves Ginger Librarian, and he or she says that their bestie and I text each other when we're having dating issues, and they ask, what would Matthew do we also say did you Matthew Hussey it your advice for women is invaluable I have learned so much from you and grown as a person and a dating woman through your advice I appreciate you that's really lovely yeah that is lovely

it's gonna get more complicated as people begin saying, what would Matthew, Jameson, Stephen and Audrey do? I think keeping it to Matthew Hussey is good. Okay. Or everyone can pick. They can pick their person. If you put all our names together, you could make the word jams. What would jams do? Does it roll off the tongue?

Does it roll off the tongue? it roll off the tongue not exactly but does it put jameson first yes it does we are jameson uh well thank you for that ginger librarian you can leave us a review on itunes it would very much help us if you did help spread the word and every episode we read one of these reviews so let us know what you think over on itunes all right let's get into it the attachment styles uh before we go any further maybe we can just kind of you know highlight the different attachment styles and talk about what may be some of the difficult things about different attachment styles are so Audrey you have I mean you've said it yourself publicly you relate to the anxious attachment style so you're fairly fluent talking about this one we'll throw to you to talk about this but there are of course three attachment styles

four attachment styles is that right well there is anxious avoidant oh anxious avoidant of course is a fourth one so there are four different attachment styles anxious secure avoidant, of course, is a fourth one. So there are four different attachment styles, anxious, secure, avoidant, and anxious, avoidant. Audrey, maybe you can speak to the anxious attachment style and maybe the anxious avoidant. I'm not sure about you guys, but I first heard about attachment styles when I read the book Attached, which talked about attachment theory. And as you rightly said, it breaks down four different types of attachment styles. So anxious attachment is, I guess, where you are perpetually looking for danger within your relationship or danger within your connection. So I suppose people who have anxious attachment are always looking for ways the relationship's going to fall apart. A lot of it is tied into feeling sort of fears of abandonment and fears of rejection. You can get very, very reactive in arguments because you get very flared up within those kinds of in those kinds of ways

but also I think even when the relationship is going well you're still looking for ways that it could fall apart even in the best moments with with anxiously attached people my personal experience of it anyway is that you can you can sort of end up wanting to, you can end up stepping over your own needs in order to just make the relationship be okay because ultimately the idea of compromising the relationship and the idea of compromising the connection and therefore potentially risking that person leaving you is the worst possible thing you can do.

And that can have you do many things. It can have you, I suppose, people please. It can have you, like I say, not necessarily listen to your own needs. And it can also have you act in manipulative ways or have protest behavior which are when you basically start going you know for instance you go quiet on someone after an argument in order to try and get them to come back to you where you're sort of manipulating the situation in order to get a reaction from your partner I think if you if you're not aware that you're anxiously attached you can cause some real damage in your relationship and the problem with it is that you can

you can almost it can be a self-fulfilling prophecy where you're so worried about someone leaving that you almost do everything uh in your power to try and prove the fact that you're not safe in that situation to try and almost prove to yourself that you're right in thinking that the relationship isn't secure and it can just be very damaging and it comes from a very hurt place but um yeah that's how i would describe it What for you is the worst part about being, having that anxious style? Well, I actually, I've got much better over time with it. I definitely related to it more a few years ago.

But I think the hardest part is that you I suppose it's not being able to enjoy it not being able to just feel safe not being able to enjoy the thing you have. Correct, yeah. Not being able to just enjoy the relationship. And it can be the most, you know, beautiful or non-confrontational, non-argumentative relationship, yet you still somehow have this underlying feeling of everything's going to go wrong and everything's going to go to shit.

So I think that's probably the hardest thing. And I think accepting that you are safe is something I've personally had to do a lot of work on as you know and I think that once you can do that you you do just sort of find a new peace in your relationship and that's really really lovely but that I think until you can sort of you can accept the fact that no one really ever is safe truly right we can all at any given moment we can all get hurt something can go wrong people can leave people can die and I think if you if you spend your whole time living there it just destroys the experience and and and yeah I think for me anyway when I was

when I was feeling more that way it would be that would be the thing that I would struggle with the most is I would just be existing in this alternate universe that was just filled with fear filled with doubt and it just occupied too much of my mind it It's anxious, right? So you're anxious. So you're thinking about it and trying to mitigate it and trying to work out what you would do if this happened. And what about this happened? It's almost like you always have your exit strategy and the bags are packed, you know, and you're kind of ready to flee if you need to.

And yeah, it stops you from just being in the moment and enjoying what you're actually, what you have in front of you yeah steven as someone who perhaps relates to the opposite end of the spectrum or not you tell me uh is it fair to say you are on the avoidant side of attachment styles or is that or is that an oversimplification of you? Slightly. Yeah. I, I probably lean, I don't relate so much to the anxious attachment one, the avoidant one more so there is one that's kind of a bit of both. It's called disorganized and there could be bits of that because in some ways I do crave intimacy or I,

I don't have crave intimacy is the word, but I can really feel a sense of like, I don't know, maybe anyone does. If you're alone for a long time, you can feel a sense of like, oh, I don't want to be abandoned. Like I want to, you know, being a bit feared of being abandoned because I'm a natural, I enjoy my own company a lot. I do have a natural sort of loner tendency. Um, I have historically gotten scared of being trapped in relationships and feeling like relationships are a large demand on my time and energy. And so that's the avoidant part of you. Yeah. And, and perhaps feeling resentful at times when I have to, I feel I have to do things for too many things for the relationship, or I'm very scared of someone becoming emotionally dependent on me for their needs. And I think that's the

crux of it. That's the grand fear is this person will now depend on me for their happiness. And that's a, that's a scary thought, I suppose, for someone with that tendency. What do you find most challenging about the, about the avoidant attachment part of you? Well, I think it's, I think at times it's the fear of thinking, you know, it's the battle between, is this just the rational part of me that maybe hasn't been ready for a a repeat tendency that will always be there where I will always, uh, want to be wanting to keep someone's arm's length or will my space always be threatened if I want intimacy in my life? Will I always feel like it's a great trade-off of my, it's not even like freedom, like, oh, I would want to sleep with other people or something it's more like literal freedom like freedom to choose what I want to do with my day or my time and feeling

like oh I can't do that anymore like this this person's gonna need all these things and I'm gonna have to you know do that and and I suppose the fear is like, oh, is that the cost of being in a relationship for someone with that frame? Now, the one caveat I will say is I have historically also had occasional anxious tendencies where I don't think I do this much anymore, but I used to think, oh my God, I said something that, you know, we had a small argument and I would used to catastrophize in my head of like, oh God, it's going to ruin the whole relationship. And I need to fix this as soon as possible. And, oh no, maybe I've offended them or something's wrong. And, and having like anxious thoughts about desperately needing to fix that quickly,

or are they you know whatever um but that I don't have that anymore and I think that may have been a confidence thing and I don't really have so I don't have anxiety the way I did when I was in my teens and early 20s that's kind of gone away a lot what I want to know is which one you guys relate to, Matthew and Jameson. I bet Jameson is secure. I can just see it, securely attached. Is that the one you most relate to? Yeah, actually, I do relate to being securely attached. But I have to say, I mean, I'm sure we'll probably get into this

because going off of the book Attached, I remember when I read it, I thought it was a very solid theory and it felt very like this is pretty insightful about people's different experiences of relationships. But that book seemed to think that it was pretty, you were pretty much just cut from that cloth. Like you were in one of these categories. And I think it's easy for me to relate to being secure now because I've been in a long-term relationship that's just based off loyalty and trust and I'm just very secure there. But I can just imagine that if things went a different way, I'm definitely wired for all

kinds of, there's just definitely a spectrum. And yeah, lucky enough in this relationship, I feel secure. But I could imagine feeling anxious. I could even imagine feeling avoidant, you know, if I didn't have, if I was just suffocated, like a lot of what Steven is saying. But yeah, certainly right now. I think of it almost as different types of dogs, not to simplify it too much. But like I had a golden retriever who was very happy to see me when I got home also very happy to do his own thing he was literally blind

so I would come home sometimes he wouldn't notice and I just watch him wander in the backyard sniffing stuff I was like Baggio is very secure a very secure golden retriever he's happy when I'm home he's he's happy when i'm gone he's not like a shaking chihuahua you know you know you like you leave uh you leave some dogs there's like some awful footage i've seen like on twitter of just like some dogs like see their owners leave and they have like the security camera at home and the dog's just whining for hours by the window and it's just like that is such an anxious anxiously attached dog it's just whining for hours by the window and it's just like that is such an anxious anxiously attached dog it's just pure suffering it's awful don't say that because then matt won't want to get

a dog because he won't want to leave it and then just you're ruining my chances jameson i already he doesn't no one needs to push me over the edge to not wanting dog okay let's change the subject but that um that point jameson about it potentially being fluid is interesting because I think the risk of a book like this is you can, people can get in sort of diagnose, I don't know, constant diagnosis mode where you explain everyone's behavior as a function of attachment styles. And, you know, the truth is some people, maybe they're avoidant, but there's also people who are just selfish assholes and don't want to compromise on anything. And they don't need to be diagnosed as, oh, if they're avoidant and I just figure out and understand that. Or there's people who are, you know,

who are really anxious to an extent where it's toxic and they're toxically needy. And it's like, you can't just get off the hook by it being, well, I'm an anxious type, but you're like, some forms of anxiousness are genuinely like toxic. Like they are someone who immediately smothers someone and completely sort of almost uses them as a, you know, as a, you know, just, just kind of to get all their emotional needs met and to feel like I'm now subsuming my life into yours. And these are not, these are not just healthy tendencies, right? So there's, there can be a way people maybe use it as a way to kind of explain those parts of themselves a bit too much or over diagnose as it's just my style look the the catharsis of a diagnosis of any kind is that you have a diagnosis

i mean anyone who's ever had any kind of illness or pain knows that, that having something diagnosed, emotional or physical, can be very cathartic. I now know why I am the way I am. I self. The danger of a diagnosis is that it becomes an excuse for whatever we do. And if we diagnose ourselves as an anxious attachment style. And then anything we do that is anxious in our behavior, any way we treat someone, any way we unnecessarily accuse someone or act out, we say, well, I can't help it. I have this anxious attachment style. That becomes a very dangerous thing. I think that we have to separate what our tendency may be choice. What we decide to do is a choice. I could be anxious, but say, I'm going to do better than this feeling I have right now. I feel it, but I also know what my nature is. I know that my nature is to be overly afraid of losing someone, to believe that I'm not going to be okay if I lose someone,

and then to overcompensate for any time I think I've made a mistake, to get overly guilty any time I do something that I'm not proud of, to create stories any time someone doesn't text me enough or leaves me alone for five minutes, to imagine kind of things in the book, rustling in the bush is a lion when it's nothing, it's the wind. You know, I know that's my nature, so I'm going to do better than that nature in the way that I behave. That is a choice. There's a part of you that trends towards feeling suffocated or feeling like you're afraid of becoming responsible for someone's needs and emotional well-being.

And catch yourself and go, I know that's where my mind goes naturally. It doesn't need any help to go there. That is where my mind goes. But I also know that about myself. And, and so I, and, and, and given that I know that about myself, I know that I have a tendency to, you know, overly keep people at arm's length instead of just setting healthy boundaries or even just communicating about the fact that I really like having some alone time in my week or my day or I really like being able to go to a quiet corner and just kind of read and and do my thing i i really think that what can be useful

about these kinds of heuristics is that the ability to know which way the wind naturally blows for us, doesn't become an excuse for all of our behavior. Instead, it becomes a recipe for self-awareness so that we can mitigate our own behavior. To add to that, I think if you're someone who suffers from either, you know, being with someone who has a particular attachment style, which is detrimental to the relationship, or if you yourself can recognize that there are certain patterns you exhibit in relationships or in dating, which, you know, are leaning towards either of those attachment styles and it's also having an effect I think it's recognizing that in order to heal these parts of us it requires as you say a level of self-awareness a desire to want to grow an action to be taken and also the right person in front of you who's going to work with you to soothe those parts of yourself because if you are naturally anxious or avoidant but let's take anxious for a second because it's an easier example if you are naturally anxious for instance and you have someone who continuously flares up that anxiety by although they know and you have

accurately communicated to them that you feel this way they still go off the radar for a day at a time they still um just do lots of different things which flare you up and you know really kind of make it very difficult for you to not for that demon inside of you not to just constantly come back to the surface then you have to ask yourself is this really going to be a situation that's going to make me happy and the same goes for somebody who is avoidant and for instance does require to have their space in their room if somebody is overbearing and demanding way too much of them although they already know that about them then you know that's that's also not going to be the thing that's going to make

things better in that department so I do think for people who feel almost uh what's the word almost kind of defeated by their attachment style and they feel defeated by the fact that they feel like they're never going to change and things are never going to get better for them i do think so much healing happens first of all within yourself but also with the person who understands those parts of you and works with you to get better and i don't that can't happen unless you've got two people who are really willing to communicate and and i don't that can't happen unless you've got two people who are really willing to communicate and and and i think communicate there in where those things are coming from because i actually think that you can overcome a lot of differences in attachment style if you know

where your partner is coming from in wanting something. So what happens a lot in relationships is someone who, for example, does like their own space is with somebody and just kind of has this growing resentment that they don't have any time to themselves. And they feel like someone is kind of monopolizing their time. Someone is being very kind of needy. And they start to just quietly resent the fact that their life has really changed to a point where they now no longer have some of the things that are really crucial to their happiness, but they don't communicate those things to somebody else. So what happens is there ends up being an argument and the person who let's say is more anxious or wants to spend more time starts to feel like

they're just not loved you don't want to spend time with me so you must not love me as much as i love you you must not care about me as much as i care about you you must not have as good a time with me as i have with you and you know i know that i probably exhibit both anxious and avoidant oh my god we have a full house would you say that's fair that I kind of exhibit both at different times uh yes I do I think that's fair I think you're probably more anxious than you are avoidant but I feel like you especially previously when we're both But I definitely, even with us moving in together, there was like, I would say kind of funny things like,

you know, just talk about like wanting to like play video games by myself. I think that the funny one was, well, you know, I also just need time to listen to my podcasts and you know I like to listen to my podcast and I said well that's fine you you do that and and what's funny is that now I'm very protective about that as well well what's really funny though is that you know moved in and now it's he comes up to me and says do you want to listen to this podcast together and yeah it's it's I think sometimes though it you know you worry about the idea of what it will be like to have that space taken away not just you but but people in general yeah and but you know what I think has been a real point of growth for us is that by talking well a by talking about it and b by you getting to know me

better you you're able to to look at those needs for alone time or space as having nothing to do with you personally of course yeah and i you know, something that's interesting, which is actually an attached, is where are your arguments stemming from? Is it because sometimes, you know, if you take that as an example, you would have a person who, for instance, would go off and spend their alone time.

And for instance, they would, there was the example in Attach, I should just give that particular example, is a couple, the guy in a relationship wants to get a washing machine. And the woman in the relationship says, no, our apartment's too small. She lives in New York. They live in New York together. And I don't want to get a washing machine because it will be too crowded and they argue over this washing machine over and over again now if you peel back the layer what happens is uh the the woman goes and gets her washing done at her sister's house and that is time that she

gets to basically leave the flat and be on her own she has a more avoidant attachment style and she actually really enjoys once a week going off to do her laundry away from him but he has an anxious attachment style so whenever she leaves he gets anxious and they're arguing about this washing machine but really their argument is about the time that they want to spend together and how the other feels when they are together or apart so I think just to circle back to the point you were making now I think you can if you really understand your partner's needs and where they come from like you're saying you can actually avoid having a lot of surface petty argument, which feel like

you're somehow not compatible. But we take these things very personally, don't we? He will feel like, you know, she leaves and she doesn't want to be with me. And that's kind of partly true, but it's not because of him. It's just to do with her needs in that situation is it just me who feels like it's easier to shit on anxious people than it is the avoidance like the avoidance sound like they're they're the there's almost like the avoidant has that sort of almost slightly cool thing like they're just there's a bit of an indifference there. They're like, ah,

just, I just want to go to my sisters and have a chat with her. I don't need to be with you right now. And the anxious person just inherently just seems kind of more annoying. I'm not, and I say this as someone who suffers more from the, probably the anxious side of things, but you do know what I mean?

It's, it almost feels like they're not equivalents of bad in that sense i see a lot of people criticize avoidance because they blame them a lot like i almost feel like in the end in the attachment literature i almost feel biased the other way where they're like it's not your fault anxious person it's these horrible aloof cold avoidance you've been dating it's not your you're not needy at all it's not your fault well and i i do think well i think that that's kind of there's something necessary about that because i do think that there are plenty of avoidance out there

who sort of gaslight anxious people into thinking that there's something terribly wrong with them for wanting intimacy and for wanting to be close to someone. So I do see it from both sides. But if you take the washing machine example, she sounds a lot more reasonable to upfront than he does in that situation. Do you know, I tell you what makes me think that thought is that if you if you look at that situation and you go because i i what i worry about with attachment styles is that everyone just uses them to justify their worst behavior right like i i hear that story about the person who's the guy who's afraid of the woman leaving to go and be with her sister. He gets anxious.

And immediately, if I'm coaching that person, I say, look, you need a partner who understands you, who sees you, and who is cognizant of the fact that you can sometimes have a have an anxiety around whether you're loved and who makes you feel safe but you also need to take responsibility for the fact that your partner leaving to go be with her sister for a couple of hours and therefore your anxiety flaring up in that time might be a symptom of the fact that you haven't made enough friends, that you haven't got enough going on in your own life because your anxious, your anxiety would not have nearly this much room to breathe. If you had other things,

other places that this longing was going, if it was going into great relationships with your friends and really quality time with your friends, if it was going into great relationships with your friends and really quality time with your friends, if it was going into certain hobbies that you love, it just wouldn't have this much space to breathe. So I look at that and I go, that's a, that's a, that's a problem there. It's harder to find the equivalent on the other side, isn't it? It's harder to take the woman who wants to go and hang with a sister for a couple of hours for a break and say you really need to understand that you shouldn't leave the apartment to go be with your sister for a couple of hours well what if i gave you another example that's said and

attached and that might change your mind about this so another one is a man and a woman who go away on a romantic break and when they get to the hotel they get offered either a room which has two single beds with an amazing view or a room which has one king-size bed with an average view the man says oh my god we have to get the one with the two single beds and the amazing view because we're never away we sleep together every night of the week but we're never here and this is our opportunity to have the better room so obviously it's a no-brainer we get the one with the two single beds the woman says well I don't want to not sleep in bed with you I'd you know I'd rather not have the view and share a bed and he doesn't understand where she's coming from she doesn't understand where he's

coming from now obviously again the deeper layer is that you know she has a well it said she had a more anxious attachment and he had a more avoidant attachment. But I actually think that's just quite normal for her to want to share a bed with him. But maybe that's my point. Maybe that's because maybe other people don't think that they have to share a bed with their partner on a romantic weekend.

Sounds like a great night bus situation, if you ask me. I could imagine secures. I could imagine secures. I could imagine secures. What would they do? Secure, because our cousin Billy is a pure. I'd say him and his fiance are secures. Is that fair? Yeah, I think they're definitely secures.

I feel like they would both just sort of, if it was like single beds, they would just both go, oh, cool. Like, okay, let's like, they both just sort of, if it was like single beds, they would just both go, oh, cool. Like, okay, let's like, like they probably would be like, oh, we sleep together every night. Maybe let's, let's get the singles. Cool. You know, they've also been together a very long time. And I'm not saying that as an excuse for less passion. I'm just saying that as if when you've been together for a long, long time, you, you may, you may just kind of go, we are like, we are in bed together all the time. Like, it's okay. Like, if we get this really cool room, then that's all good. I, I, I have a couple of things on this. I, firstly, if anyone was confused

about the night bus comment I made that's because it's confusing if you've seen Harry Potter you know that there's a what Harry Potter is it in? it's in the the fifth one

the one where he gets I thought it was Prisoner of Azkaban no it's not Prisoner of Azkaban Oh, Order of the Phoenix Order of the Phoenix, I think It's where Harry Potter gets picked up in his home No, you're right

No, no, no, it is the Prisoner of Azkaban, you're right, sorry It's the Prisoner of Azkaban It's where Harry Potter is in his suburban home and he needs to go into London in the middle of the night and the night bus, this magic bus appears to take him there. And it's this big purple kind of London bus. But inside it doesn't have chairs.

There's there's these beds. And I always just thought the night bus looked like an incredibly cozy place to be, even though the beds are all sort of swinging around while the night bus is going. But it has a chandelier in it and these beds and it just looked like a really hot chocolate. Just looked like a really great place to be. But the beds look, they're single beds and they look uncomfortable and whatever. But we basically from that point, anytime Audrey and I would be on a trip and we would see like if there's ever a Airbnb you know like sometimes you get an Airbnb and there's like the family room where you actually

stay like the the master bedroom but then there's like the kids bunk beds next door I always secretly want us to go and sleep in the bunk beds which we call the night bus so anytime there's like some weird sleeping situation whether it's a floor or bunk beds or a sofa situation we always just call it the night bus basically it sounds an awful lot like you're the man in that relationship and I'm the woman who wants to share a bed no but this is my point this is my point by the way considering I've been sort of labeled an avoidant on this on this podcast I actually probably would rather share the bed like I would rather probably rather have a cuddle and share the bed if I took my girlfriend away on a vacation I don't think I want to sleep in separate beds I think you just have to share

the single bed yeah that's what I think I'd be really hurt if if you were like let's take the one with the view and not at least try sleeping in the same bed yeah I probably would be as well we'd probably figure out after a minute like that it a lot, but maybe I'd annoy you in a single bed. But I'd be hurt if we didn't at least try. I think the key is you have to know your significant other enough to know how they'll react. So maybe you really want to stay in the beautiful room with the view, but I'm actually thinking about my relationship.

I know exactly what I would do, which is be like, babe, let's put these mattresses together somehow. And we'll like create a little love nest bed anyways. And so then it's like, if that doesn't work, then okay, we'll switch. We'll switch to the room. But at least try, you know? Yeah. See if you can, you know, because I i just know i just don't want to you know

i know her attachment style enough to just be like how do we make this work how do we navigate this how do i make you secure in this situation too you say imagine the sex we'll have with that view what's the view of no but you know what i mean because that that i do think that if you're going on vacation if he's saying we sleep in the same bed every night that in a way i also think that's partly missing the point of a vacation which is that we're not here to just like do what we always do we're here to have what are we here to do i'll tell you when we get upstairs what vacation have i come on i know but you know what i mean like it's quality time it's true intimacy these are things that we

don't always get at home you're busy with work you're you know people get in bed stressed they have to get up in the morning they you know to say that well we'll just sleep in separate beds it's fine we sleep in the same bed every night is I think to miss the point yeah you don't want to pay for a nice hotel and not you know have a bed together you don't want to pay for a nice hotel and not get late do you this isn't one of your tokyo love hotels steve now that is defamation i have not i've not stayed in a tokyo love hotel for anyone listening tokyo there's a sort of culture for for a lot of people that you can just go and rent a hotel for a couple of hours called a love hotel yeah well it's a family podcast it's not anymore is it but

we can still say it we should probably get back on track because we've been talking about this bed situation for a while now we have so i have a question for you matthew if you are with someone who has an attachment style which you find very difficult to deal with and you are you find yourself wondering will they ever change what would you say to that person i think the values that really help in a relationship are growth and teamwork if you can if if two people have both have those as some of their highest values then you can overcome an awful lot in difference in styles. And, and so the real question becomes,

and we talked about this with Audrey and I did a two hour session for our love life members just earlier today, which was really powerful. And it was kind of based on these ideas of how do we sabotage relationships with our styles how do we deal with that how do we make sure we don't sabotage situations how do we argue better and when we do kind of see something we don't like in someone how many opportunities do we give it to change and And how, you know, how do we know whether to keep going or to cut our losses? By the way, if you aren't a member of Love Life yet, you can go

and become one for 14 days for free by going to askmh.com. And if you do that, you won't miss out on these deep dive sessions that we do for members. So we would, we would love as many of you as possible to graduate from the podcast to the love life club, which is where we do real coaching every month with our members. That's a ask mh.com. And when you're there, you can sign up to a 14 day free trial.

But one of the things that we talked about in that session was if someone does something you don't like and you bring it up, albeit in a constructive way, and that was one of the things we talked about, how do you know whether to say, okay, this is, this is not going to work between us because we're too different versus there's, there's progress here. There's something to hold on to here. So we talked about six different ways, which I thought were really, really great. And maybe we can just blitz them right now and just do a kind of summary version of this session that took us nearly two hours. So the first point was, are you enabling their that if every time someone does something we don't like we're passive about it or we argue about it but then we don't actually do anything there are no consequences to it we just forget it ever happened after the argument then in a sense we're always

enabling that behavior because we're either being passive then in a sense, we're always enabling that behavior because we're either being passive and not speaking up or we're arguing, but showing that ultimately they can keep doing that thing and all we'll do is kick up a fuss, but then happily go back to normal afterwards. There's a difference between enabling a behavior and helping someone grow out of it. Audrey, what did you mean when you talked about helping someone grow out of it? I suppose when you have an argument over a certain behavior, I think we should, we'd be best to use an example in this. So somebody, for instance, is jealous and lashes out over jealousy in a situation like that if you can identify that their jealousy doesn't come from a bad place or them being

a nasty individual but rather from a place of insecurity and a fear of getting hurt or a fear of being being cheated on or left or deceived or whatever it might be, which more often than not stems from their past experiences, I think if you identify that in them, being able to approach that behavior with compassion and kindness can be a very healing thing for that person. However, it also needs to be approached with compassion, kindness, and a really, really high standard and a lot of boundaries for yourself. Because ultimately, in a relationship, whether it's dating or long-term relationship, in an argument, when somebody is being out of line, your job is to, of course, be compassionate and understand where that comes from. But more than anything line your job is to of course be compassionate and understand

where that comes from but more than anything your job is to protect yourself and to let that person know that you know their insecurity that part you welcome and you want to get to know and heal and help but their behavior them lashing out shouting shouting at you, berating you, insulting you, giving you what we call protest behavior, which can be, you know, going cold, or being passive aggressive, or whatever it might be, all those behaviors, it is our job to say, you know, you can't get away with doing that, you can't get away with treating me like that. I'm going to be very, very clear with you on the fact that I understand that's where it comes from, but you don't get to talk to me like that.

And if it happens again, we're going to have a problem. Okay. So that's how to help someone grow is that combination of empathy for why they are the way they are but pairing that with a standard around their behavior so I'm gonna show compassion for why you are like this but I'm also not going to accept the behavior that comes with it right now yeah and I think what you're saying to someone is, you know, you can do better, right? It's like, it's not just saying, I accept you fully with all your flaws. No one's perfect.

It's okay. You're not perfect. Neither am I, but how can we make ourselves better for each other? Which any relationship that wants to succeed over time should be looking to do. You should always be looking to try and be the best version of yourself. There's be looking to do. You should always be looking to try and be the best version of yourself. There's always work to do. There's always ways that we can grow and be a better partner, be a better friend, be a better colleague, be a better parent, whatever. There is always room for that. And it is our responsibility to let our partner know that that's also what we expect of them albeit in a compassionate and safe environment where they don't feel like you're going to leave if they regress or make a mistake

or show a vulnerability and an insecurity okay so and a reminder we're talking about here whether to stay or leave when we see something we don't like. And we said, the first thing you have to do is ask yourself, am I enabling their behavior or am I helping them grow out of it? And those tips were about how to help them grow out of it, which brings on the second thing that you have to do, which is monitor whether the fights get better. And that doesn't mean that you say to yourself, do the fights still exist? Because the idea that someone's trauma is going to go away overnight, and that fight is never going to happen again, is way too idealistic. The question really is, does this fight happen less frequently? If it was a monthly fight before, is it now once every six months? Do we only have

that fight once a year? Is it less frequent? And has the nature of the fight changed a little? You know, is it now something that's less charged? Is it something that feels more like a vulnerable conversation than a full-on battle when it comes up? Is the fight shifting in nature in a positive direction? Okay. So number two, next time you argue, do you find that the fight has gotten better? And are you arguing less frequently about this thing? The third one is, is there something that we can do on our side that doesn't cost us anything that might actually help stop this person feeling so activated by the thing that we're doing? And now this can't be something that compromises your essential nature or the values that are really important to you. But if it's something that's not that important, why wouldn't you sacrifice that thing for the relationship? There may be times where we'd hope someone would do the same for us. And a relationship is about

teamwork. So in the spirit of the first, the first two first two are about growth right are you helping the person grow out of this behavior and are the fights improving that's about growth the third one is there something i can stop doing or start doing for that matter that might help lower this person's nervous system that's about teamwork yeah also it's about being humble enough to realize that we all have our unreasonable traits and no one is no one scores a perfect score on every front all the time and by nature if you want to make someone feel as comfortable and as happy as you possibly can which you should do when you're in a relationship with them that might mean that certain things that you don't think are a big deal are really big deal to them and you have

to change them it's no different than if somebody has a preference you know in their living arrangement with whether it be with cleanliness or or whatever and you know in their living arrangement with whether it be with cleanliness or or whatever and you know you you might not be very tidy but if somebody really really cares about that you would look to change that yeah even if you don't in that moment think it's really that important to put the glass in the dishwasher if you know that it's going to cause them a disproportionate amount of you know uncomfortableness or stress or discomfort i should say or stress or whatever to not do it you should be you should always be compromising to see how you can make the other person feel better i think the paradox if we were to return

to attachment styles the paradox is if i want someone let's just use the anxious and avoidant, if I want someone to understand and make peace with the avoidant parts of me, I need to understand and work with and make peace with the anxious parts of you. And it seems paradoxical because you kind of think how can we do both right if at one point any time it feels like we'd be serving one or the other and and to an extent that's true right you at different moments in a relationship you service different needs to me what it comes down to is i could i can relax if i know you have my back on the things that are important to me and you can relax knowing that I have your back on the things that are important to you. And they may not all be, it may not be possible for those things to always be happening

at the same time by very nature of things. But if we both know we've got each other's back on the things that make us happy, then actually we can relax. What stops someone from being able to relax is if you have my back on the things that make me happy, but I'm not willing to extend the same to you. And I think knowing that when you bring these things up and knowing this for yourself, I think a younger me might have overreacted to things really quickly. I'd be like, oh my God, this is behavior that makes me feel trapped in that. And I can't do this. And you flip over the table, you know what I mean? Metaphorically speaking. And as you get more mature, you should be able to pause in those moments and have the space to go, ah, I'm getting that familiar feeling. Let me explain what that

does for me and talk to you about that. And then it makes a huge difference. I know it's made a huge difference in my life, just being able to say, here's a feeling I'm identifying myself feeling right now. And it's because of blah, blah, blah. And then you've just depersonalized a bit. You haven't gone into tiger mode and I've got to protect myself. You've come at it from a very different place. Agreed. So we have number one, are you enabling their behavior or helping them grow out of it? Number two, next time you do fight, has the fight gotten incrementally better, more productive, and is it happening less frequently? Number three, is there something we can stop doing or start doing that would help our partner that doesn't

cost us nearly as much proportionately to how much it would do for them and vice versa, of course, on their side. Number four, can they apologize? And I think that one is pretty self-explanatory. Everyone knows the pain of being in a relationship with someone who cannot apologize. It is a deeply destructive habit when someone cannot admit fault or when apologizing has to be clawed out of them um it it can leave you feeling so burnt out at the end of it that it's just not a relationship that's uh enjoyable to be in and you're always then trying to find a way that you were wrong so that you can apologize and move on, which isn't an equal relationship. So if you're in a relationship with someone who won't apologize, then you're basically playing a game with someone where you both have different sets of rules. And that's a problem. Number five, are they actually trying to understand their behavior are you with a person who's willing to be introspective and actually be self-aware understand why they are the way they are

understand the effects of that behavior or is someone utterly uninterested in self-reflection that's another again i would go back to the values of growth and teamwork. If someone is not interested in self-reflection, then they're not interested in their own growth and they're not interested in being a great teammate to you. And then number six, and this is really, really important. You ask yourself, is this simply too hard? Not just today, but is this going to be too hard in the future? It's a really important question. And Audrey, you mentioned earlier today in the Love Life Club that the ultimate barometer for that is, can I actually be happy here? The ultimate barometer for that is can i actually be happy here the ultimate barometer

is my own happiness and am i happy yes you know consistently over time am i happy or am i just fighting am i am i happy with the situation as it is today or am i only happy when i think about the situation getting better yeah and and what would it actually take for this situation to get better yeah and is that a mountain I'm willing to climb because it might be a mountain um it might be insurmountable for them the I think of I think a business analogy is kind of good here because there are people that I've had to let go in the energy or the inclination to help them get there with how big the gap was between where I needed them to be and where they were. So I may have thought this person might be able to get there, but it's going to take them

probably years, years of training, years of work, years of working on the parts of them that I think don't allow them to perform at the level I want. And I don't have years. You know, I need right now, I need that salary and that investment to go to someone who's more capable of doing the job right now now today. That doesn't mean the person that comes in will be perfect, but whatever investment I make in them will be the appropriate amount. We can see that feels cut and dry in business because we go, well, yeah, of course, you know, we only have a limited amount of time. We only have a limited amount of money in the bank to spend on employees. It needs to be the right fit.

We're less, we're less cut and dry in our love life. But, but you might ask yourself why that is because we still have a limited amount of time and we have goals that we're trying to reach. We have things that are really important to us, whether it's just finding a long-term partner, whether it's being happy, God forbid, right now in the decade that we're actually in, not planning for happiness with someone in the next decade, whether it's building a family, getting married. So we have goals. And I'm not a fan of kind of getting overly attached to a timeline in our love lives. But there's also very real stakes when it comes to time that we have to consider.

And so you have to consider if so much has to change in this person for me to be happy. And if I'm being honest and if you even look at your own growth and how hard that's been, anyone who's been through any kind of coaching or therapy knows that real change takes time and're not doing that work and they're not committed to that process then years turns into maybe never yeah so you have to be honest with yourself and say is am i willing to spend years trying to get this person where I need them to be. And even if I was, are they actually motivated to do this? And I also have to be real with myself about the fact that there's a good chance they never will change, even if they wanted to. I want to add an extra layer to what you're saying. It's really true. And I think sometimes we're with people who say they're avoidant for instance you know we end up tracing the dream of one day being with them in a capacity where they give us

everything we want and we're always sort of starving for their attention and as a result their value gets elevated or if somebody's you know very anxious they're very jealous and controlling and we almost live in this again quite addictive toxic sort of trying to manage them and feeling incredibly loved and incredibly kind of almost love-bombed by their anxiety in a way. And if you're not an avoidant person, you can actually not find it overwhelming, but find it quite addictive to be in that sort of controlled environment with someone. And I think we have to suspect ourselves if we actually feel quite attached, pardon the pun,

to people's bad behaviors towards us because sometimes that can actually speak to just our you know sometimes we can be um we can gravitate towards toxic situations i think and you know the goal doesn't need to be to conquer and slay the beast in someone and finally live happily ever after with them the goal should be to be happy today because life is today and our life is happening today and it's important to ask yourself am I addicted to this relationship or am I happy in this relationship I love that very very important distinction well let us know what you thought of this episode podcast at matthewhussey.com we've been really enjoying we'll be getting a lot more emails recently i don't know if you noticed steven have you noticed that well you know we are we are crossing soon perhaps the million

a month mark matt this is amazing amazing i really enjoy the spelling of jameson's name by different people sometimes we get jameson with an i jameson with an er jameson with a y no i'm joking there's no y jameson is great i i suspect that's because of the way we, the English, say your name. Jameson. Yeah. I quite like the way the English say it. I just linger on the three syllables a bit more. Well, email us, podcast at matthewhussey.com.

We are reading them and we're really loving them. And also leave us a review on iTunes. And do please leave us a review on iTunes. And also I do want to just remind everybody that on the 19th of july my live training dating with results is happening and it jameson we could charge a lot of money for it and it's free so if you haven't been to this event already, and even if you have, come join us on the 19th of July for Dating With Results, my two-hour live training for anyone who is serious about finding a relationship this year. Go to datingwithresults.com to sign up for free, we will see you there matt shall i read an email from debbie please steven let us know the sort of stuff that's coming in debbie says i just have to say

that steven you have the best laugh i have ever heard now has steven been picking the emails again there's more there's more so can I just confirm it was, was it you, Steve, who picked this email? So all the team just picking these out. So thanks team. So Debbie says,

I've just have to say, Stephen, you have the best laugh I've ever heard. And Matthew, you, Matthew, you start the funniest banter around pickles. I think you must keep it because your conversations

around this topic are making me laugh much needed love you guys thanks for being there there is no topic matt doesn't give his all to including pickles which makes it even funnier you all matthew stephen jameson with an eye and the amazingly astute Audrey are all bringing me peace, comfort and comic relief during difficult times. I know that I speak for so many others on these topics of gratitude for all you do. Thank you, Debbie.

Thanks, Debbie. Thanks, Debbie. I'm not bringing up pickles again because we've done enough. We've done enough around pickles. Give the people what they're asking for. No one's asking for it for no one's asking for it

no one's asking for i mean that's you're just contradicting the evidence but i mean well you're picking the emails so i take some as i get some i hope you're enjoying this banter debbie this is exactly what she was referring to next time i've read next time i'm picking the email steven you do that matt you reach in there and you see what you find because i'm telling you mate it is pickle city i mean i can't believe we've ended on that all right goodbye thanks everyone hey we'll see you next time thank you audrey thank you james and thank you steven and thank you to all of you for listening we'll see you in the next episode of Love Life.