What Pattern Most Threatens Your Current Love Relationship?

The Negative Cycle Is Your Common Enemy - The Problem You Fight Together

We all have attachment needs to feel loved, cared for, accepted – to feel our bond with our partner is safe and secure – from cradle to grave. When our attachment needs aren’t met by the person we love, some of us fight to get our needs met and some of us disown the needs altogether. See if you can summarize the pattern that takes over your relationship when your needs are threatened by filling in the blanks in the following statements. 

When ___________, I do not feel safely connected to you.

Fill in what happens, the cue or trigger, that starts up the music of disconnection. This could be when your partner says they are not interested in sex, when you disagree about whom to confide in, when you don’t seem to speak about anything but logistics for days. No big, general statements or blaming allowed here. Be concrete and specific about a cue or trigger for disconnection.

I tend to ___________. I move this way to try to cope with the difficult feelings that are cued up from our disconnection.

Fill in the action word that describes your behavior. Some common pursuing moves are protest, criticize, blame, interrupt, demand, or point out how you let me down. Some common withdrawing behaviors are pull away, defend, refuse to talk, go into my head to problem solve or point out how irrational you are. You likely learned this behavior to cope with disconnection early in life or in other relationships.

I do my move in the hope that ___________. 

State the hope that pulls you into the cycle. Perhaps you hope to avoid more conflict or hope to persuade your partner to respond to you more. Maybe you hope to be seen or heard or understood better.

When I move in the way I described above, you seem to ___________.

Choose an action word for your partner’s move such as defend, shut down or push me to respond.

As this pattern or cycle keeps going, I feel ___________.

Identify a feeling. The usual ones that people can identify at this point are frustration, anger, numbness, emptiness or confusion. These are the feelings you show on the surface, feelings that likely protect you from softer, more vulnerable feelings below the surface like sadness or fear.

What I say to myself about our relationship is ___________.

Summarize the most catastrophic conclusion you can imagine. My partner does not care about our relationship. I am undesirable or unlovable. I can never please my partner. We will never be on the same page. These meanings will lead us to the more vulnerable feelings below the surface, the big attachment fears of abandonment or rejection or misattunement.

The more I  ___________, the more you ___________. We end up trapped in our pain and alone. 

Insert the words that describe your move and your partner’s move. The more I blame, the more they defend. The more I shut down, the more they demand a response. This is the circular pattern, your negative cycle, that makes it harder and harder for you to safely connect.

We can warn each other when this pattern begins. We can call it ___________. 

What’s a good description of your cycle? Maybe it looks like Find the Bad Guy, a Protest Polka or Freeze and Flee. Maybe it feels like a Merry-Go-Round or a Tornado? Once you identify these negative cycles and recognize how they trap both of you, you are ready to learn how to step out of them.

Adapted from: Hold Me Tight, Dr. Sue Johnson; Little, Brown & Company, NY 2008.