Why you want a secure relationship not a healthy one.
Are you struggling with constant bickering and feeling exhausted about the work that your relationship is taking lately? As a couples therapist, I see work with couples who just want to stop feeling like their relationship is work. And I absolutely get it. In fact I think the key to a successful relationship is one where you don’t feel like it is a never ending house project.
In my online couples counseling practice, I work with people all over California and Arizona to work on their relationship, and I mean work. People come to me with a wide range of issues. Such as recovering from an affair, spending large sums of money in secrecy, and even before deciding to take the plunge into marriage. Something I stress to my couples is that the goal is not to have a healthy relationship but in fact to have a secure one. Keep on reading see why. Plus scroll all the way down for a useful relationship meditation!
As a therapist who practices Emotionally Focused Therapy, working from an attachment lens is what I do with my couples in therapy. I am a firm believer that our early attachments with caregivers can have lasting effects on our way of interacting with other humans for the rest of our lives, particularly romantic adult relationships.
When people think of a healthy relationship, they think of one where they don’t fight. Where compromise is something done often and where you just know how to navigate one another without triggering one another. Basically learning how to avoid conflict. This to me is not the best way to go about relationships, because the fact of it is you are going to fight with your partner. You are going to get ticked off from time to time by your spouse, and this is something that I tell my couples in counseling with me from the very beginning. I stress that the goal is not to not fight, but to learn how to fight. I stress to my couples in therapy the importance of feeling safe enough to fight. Let me say that again. In my therapy with my couples, I want them to feel safe enough to have a fight with their partner.
Goals for a secure relationship:
To show up 100% as you are
To have a fight in a loving way
To grow and
evolve continuously along side your partner
It Probably Started in Your Childhood.
Hear me out. Think about how maybe you grew up in a home where fighting was not allowed. You were probably punished, grounded, sent away to your room without dinner. “Don't you dare talk back to me young lady” or “Because I said so, end of story” are common ones many people can probably relate to. Many of us did not come from homes where we learned how to have a conversation where we did not agree with one another, in other words we did not learn how to have an argument. But think about how backwards this thinking is? I am so happy that parenting has come a long way and there are some great experts out there wanting to change the parenting game. Because this means we are setting up future generations to feel secure in their relationships, even if they don’t agree all the time.
Let’s apply this frame of logic to our present day relationship, particularly our romantic relationships. Instead of avoiding conflict all together, I teach my couples in my on California therapy practice how to have a secure and safe argument. One where there is no fear that love will be taken away. Because sadly, sending a kid away when they are having a breakdown or a rage fit, is sending messages that your feelings are too big, I don’t like that, go away. OUCH! Now in our romantic relationships it is no different. If you have chosen to become incredibly close with another human, my goal for you is to feel so safe that you can be you 100%. You can have disagreements and you don’t have to buy into that thought, that they will think you are being too much and that they don’t want you anymore. This way of thinking is what often escalates the arguments that couples who come to see me report. It often takes several sessions to help the couple see that they are recreating their past in the present. And when we do that it is a lot of work.
A secure relationship means that you can grow and change within the relationship. Ideally we want a relationship where we can learn, adapt, and grow, something that some people did not get to experience as children. Often the people that I work with report that they had expectations placed onto them at a young age or that their culture impacted how they were taught to view the world. If people are willing, I work with them in therapy to unpack some of the messages so that they can throw out what is not serving them, so that they can make space for what is serving them.
In my therapy work with couples, I work with people who want to have an “easier” relationship, one where they don’t feel like they are working on it all the time. I want it to feel like they can rest and recharge within the relationship, where they don’t feel trapped and exhausted. I want to share with you a visualization exercise that I do with my couples and even individuals who are coming with relationship issues they need to sort out.
Relationship Meditation.
Sit comfortably in a chair or lay on the floor. Breathe deeply and just focus on your breath for a few moments. Now I want you to picture a future you. I want you to connect with a happier future. I want you to notice the expression on your face and the way your presence fills the room. Now I want you to bring in your partner. A partner who is as happy as you are. I want you to picture and feel what this happy, safe, and nourishing relationship feels like. Notice any sensations that you have in your body and any thoughts that you may be having. Thank you brain and refocus on this future happy you and this future happy partner. I want you to picture what a day in the life of these two future versions of you and your partner looks like. Continue to breathe, and begin to ask yourself what you can do to help you get to that future you. Notice if your mind starts to point out all the things that your partner needs to do, thank those thoughts, and return to yourself. Breath and welcome this feeling of being in a safe, secure, nourishing relationship. Continue to breathe and when you are ready feel free to rejoin me here in this space.
Often people will struggle with imagining a future where their relationship is easier, after all we are taught relationships take work. I think that saying is almost a monomer and puts a negative light on relationships. Instead I teach people that relationships can be easy, nourishing, and like all things need attention. I find that thinking about giving your relationship attention instead of working on it, helps people reach the goals they want.
I hope you found this information to be useful. And I hope you can start to play around with some of the concepts I shared. If you are ready, struggling with a relationship. Know that you are not alone and you do not have to go it alone. You deserve a relationship where you can rest and recharge, a relationship where you feel secure and safe.
With kindness,