Insecure in Love: How Anxious Attachment Can Make You Feel Jealous, Needy, and Worried and What You Can Do About It (11 page)

Because being curious about your experiences means wanting to know more about them, such curiosity will naturally help you to stay open to your emotions, despite some anxiety. This, in turn, will enable you to explore them more thoroughly, and to find and integrate meaning from your newly recognized feelings. This positive focus can help you to develop a greater tolerance for distressing emotions. One way to develop curiosity is by simply completing the previous exercise, “Identifying Your Emotions”—but with a decision to approach it with an open and curious mind.

Exercise: Befriending Your Emotions

As you develop an ability to tolerate your emotions, you can work on being more open to them—and even befriending them. To befriend your emotions is to invite them into your life because you see value in them. No, you wouldn’t actively want to feel upset; but you could be grateful for the benefits that a particular situation and its related emotions bring to your life. For instance, you might appreciate your loneliness because it motivates you to get moving on trying to meet new people or a new special someone.

You can begin the process by thinking about specific emotional situations and considering the following:

• Do your emotions help you understand the situation or your interaction better?
  
• Are your emotions a warning that there is a problem you need to attend to?
  
• Are your emotions an expression of empathy, helping you connect with your partner or others?
  

Through these questions you can approach your emotions as you would a friend—with an open heart. It helps to remember that emotions are part of being human, even when they are painful. It also helps to be patient with yourself; learning to befriend your emotions can be a long-term project and a skill that you will have to practice for the rest of your life.

As explained in the last chapter, your thoughts influence you on many levels. If you pay attention to, and increase your awareness of, your attachment-related anxious thoughts and their effects, you might begin to question them. Sometimes you can simply substitute new, healthier thinking for the old, self-destructive thoughts.

For instance, you might choose to focus on your tendency to repeat, “I haven’t had a girlfriend in so long; I’m such a loser.” You can start by being aware of every time you say this to yourself, and then replace that thought with a more positive message: “I’ve had a dry spell for a while, but I’ve been in relationships before and I can find someone special again.” If you believe this new message at all, you might help yourself to think it more automatically by consciously practicing it.

Don’t be hard on yourself if this doesn’t work. The approach has its limits. If the new statement is in direct conflict with your self-perceptions, repeating it will never be wholly convincing, just as you will never convince yourself that night is day, no matter how many times you label the moon as the sun.

What’s most important now is that you become more aware of your thoughts and how they affect you. By doing this you are establishing a solid foundation for understanding your feelings and beliefs about yourself and your relationships, and for relating differently to those feelings and beliefs. For instance, again consider awareness of having the frequent thought, “I haven’t had a girlfriend in so long; I’m such a loser.” You might also come to realize that every time you have that thought, it’s as if you are giving yourself an injection of despair and hopelessness. Once you realize this, you have a better understanding of how your emotions work. Making this connection is an important step in relating more positively to yourself.

Exercise: Changing Your “Thought Bubble”

Your negative thoughts—either in the form of self-criticisms or in the form of perceptions that your partner does not sufficiently value you—perpetuate your attachment-related anxiety. To directly change these thoughts, or at least lessen their effect on you, complete the chart on the following page.

As with so much else I’ve addressed, it’s very important to be patient with yourself. You are working to change a way of being that has probably been with you since childhood, so it will take time to establish a new way of thinking and feeling. Spend some time reviewing the chart. Journal about it. Talk with a supportive friend. Think about it until you understand the ways that your thinking has
previously
caused problems in yourself and your relationships—and until you are conscious of when and how your thinking is
currently
creating problems for you.

To begin, make a chart that you can fill in each day. Label five columns: Date, Situation, Attachment-Related Anxious Thoughts (related to your partner and you), Effects of Thoughts on Feelings and Behaviors, and Disconfirming Evidence.

Chart 2 Exercise: Changing Your “Thought Bubble”

Date:
Noting the date will help you keep track of patterns, especially if you complete this during different periods of time.

Situation:
Write down details about the situation related to your current, past, or potential partner that triggered you to become upset. For instance, you might be upset when your boyfriend goes out with the guys.

Attachment-Related Anxious Thoughts:
Ask yourself, “What thoughts reinforce my attachment-related anxiety?” It can be helpful to note thoughts related both to yourself and to your partner. Some examples are:

• If only I were more interesting, he’d feel stronger about our relationship and spend time with me instead of the guys.
  
• If only I were prettier, he might want to stay with me.
  
• He’ll leave once he really gets to know me, or once he finds someone better.
  
• He doesn’t want to hang out with me, so there must be something wrong with me.
  
• He doesn’t care how I feel.
  

Effects of Thoughts on Feelings and Behaviors:
Once you are clear about what you say to yourself, think about how this makes you feel, and how it influences your behaviors. For instance, if you are always thinking about how your boyfriend is going to leave you, you will probably feel frequent anxiety and easily triggered jealousy, and may act possessively. This is a no-win situation. If he really is committed to the relationship, you won’t see this and will be unhappy. If he isn’t committed, you might still cling to the relationship, remaining immersed in a desperate need to prove your value to him.

Disconfirming Evidence:
Pay attention to how your reactions unfold in daily life and how they are a consequence of your flawed thinking rather than the likely reality of your situation. Your tendency to self-verify attachment-related anxiety can make this a tricky assessment. But try playing devil’s advocate with yourself. For instance, if you worry that your boyfriend’s going out with the guys means he’s not very interested you, you might consider these questions:

• What evidence is there for the idea that he might be happy with me? (For instance, he tells me he loves me; he texts or calls me every day; he took care of me when I was sick.)
  
• In what ways am I critical of myself? (For instance, I view myself as boring or stupid for thinking he’d want a future with me.)
  
• If my best friend were in the same situation, would I think the same thing about her and her situation? If not, what
  would
  I think? (For instance, I’d think his wanting to go out with the guys has nothing to do with how interesting she is. He shows her that he cares, so it’s clear that he wants to be with her.)
  

What you are looking for is, as they say in court, “a shadow of a doubt” for you to use as a reason for considering other ways of thinking about yourself and your partner. If there is no realistic shadow of a doubt about your negative perceptions of your partner, it may be time to address them with him—or to move on. If you are unable to take action in either of these ways, or if you have no realistic doubt about your negative self-perceptions, you will benefit from adding self-compassion to your developing self-awareness. If that is the case, you may simply move on to the next section.

If the disconfirming evidence does instill some real doubt and the realization of the negative effects of your thinking, you might naturally develop a more positive perspective as you continue to fill out the chart. You can help this process along by actively reminding yourself of the disconfirming evidence when you are aware of mounting attachment-related anxiety. Choose to focus on the more positive and realistic ways of seeing your situation. For instance, when you feel anxious about your boyfriend leaving, you might note that he texts you daily and seems happy to see you when you go out together.

If your attachment-related anxious thoughts remain entrenched, or change seems to be coming too slowly, you might need a little more help. You can find this help by actively developing your capacity for self-compassion, which I will discuss in the next chapter.

Mentalizing involves a clarity of heart and mind. It’s an emotionally connected, intellectual understanding of why you and your partner feel and act as you do. With it, you can reverse your usual self-centered perceptions by seeing yourself from the outside and understanding your partner from the inside. More specifically, it provides you with insight that helps you to understand:

• The causes of distress
  
• The impact of growing up in your “family of origin” (your mother, father, siblings) on your relationship
  
• The impact of other experiences on your relationship
  
• The obstacles to a healthier, more intimate relationship
  
• The reasons you become unreasonably upset at times
  

Remember that your attachment-related anxiety is associated with your instinct to survive. So, given its importance, it can sometimes overwhelm you and make mentalizing particularly difficult. However, you can gain access to insights about your mental states, or those of your partner, by considering thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. For instance, you might be tipped off to your level of anger with your partner by your spontaneous outburst or your fantasy of hitting her. You can also improve your mentalizing by consciously “playing” with different ideas, developing stories about why you are feeling and acting some particular way, or why your partner is. Feedback from your partner or trusted others can help in this process. But gaining this kind of perspective is not easy, so, again, be patient. Expect it to take time and effort. If it’s just too hard, consider seeing a therapist who can help you.

Exercise: Choose to Be Curious

One of the best ways to strengthen your ability to mentalize is to consciously become more curious about yourself or your partner. In this exercise, you will focus on developing different ways of viewing your partner. Importantly, the goal is to consider multiple views, not just to find the “right” one. This will help you to develop a style of remaining open to possibilities rather than instantly clamping down on them with one judgment, like a steel trap. Do this in four steps:

1. Choose a situation.
   Pick some behavior or interaction—positive or negative—to focus on that you have questions about, or that you
   could
   be wrong about.
   

   Example: Sybil’s neighbor Russ invited her out on a date. Because she struggles with low self-esteem and because he knew she hadn’t gone out with anyone in some time, she figured that it was a “pity date.”
   

2. Check in with what you are feeling and thinking.
   Do a thorough job of this—you might even want to consult the “Identifying Your Emotions” exercise earlier in this chapter.
   

   Example: Sybil might first be aware of feeling insecure, confused, afraid, and anxious. Then she might realize that, in spite of herself, she was excited, felt wanted, was attracted to Russ, and was intrigued by the possibility of a relationship. She might also realize that she was critical of herself—thinking she was a fool and feeling angry that she had gotten her hopes up.
   

3. Consider possible explanations.
   Once you can connect with and identify your emotions and thoughts, consider the possible reasons why the incident happened, using what you know about yourself and your partner.
   

   Example: Sybil might think that Russ possibly asked her out because he was bored, because he pitied her, because he wanted to just be going out as friends, or—maybe—because he liked her.
   

4. Find out the truth.
   For the purposes of this exercise, this last step is not necessarily very important—that is, what’s essential here is not that you guess correctly about the motivations of your partner. Instead, the purpose of this exercise is to open yourself up to considering possibilities as you remain connected with how you feel. That said, once you are more open, you might find an answer that is supported by the evidence around you and that resonates inside you as accurate, even if it is not comfortable.
   

   Example: While Sybil might choose not to ask Russ outright why he asked her out—despite really wanting to—she could look for signs of his intentions. For instance, it would mean one thing if he mentioned that his other friends were all out of town this weekend, but quite another if he confessed that he found her attractive and had wanted to ask her out for a long time.
   

Note: The examples in this exercise focused on trying to understand someone else. But you can also complete this exercise by focusing on yourself. As I’ve noted, we can be blind to our own intentions and struggles.

Exercise: Getting to Know Your Partner from the Inside Out

Mentalizing can help you to become emotionally closer to your partner because it can give you a window into her world. It does this by providing you with a more detailed understanding of her experience.

Your goal is to really see the world through your partner’s eyes, including what she observed, felt, and thought. Keep in mind that you don’t have to agree. Also, you don’t want a grainy home-movie view, but rather more of a highdefinition, being-in-her-shoes experience.

Keep the following in mind when your partner is talking with you about an experience (it could be anything from going fishing to mourning the death of a parent).

DO:

• Give her all of your attention—no multitasking.
  
• Tell your partner you’re interested in hearing about the topic.
  
• At appropriate times, ask for more detail or explanation so you can really “get it”—the facts
  and
  her thoughts
  and
  her feelings.
  
• Note nonverbal cues for a better sense of the intensity and quality of her experience.
  
• Be open to her perspective, particularly when it doesn’t match yours.
  

DON’T:

• Multitask—not even to just look at that incoming text.
  
• Interrupt, unless you are confused and need clarification.
  
• Assume you know what she is thinking or feeling.
  
• Try to solve a problem (unless you are asked to).
  
• Tell her she’s wrong about the facts or her experience.
  

With time, your efforts will pay off. You will feel closer to your partner and she will feel closer to you. This will also go a long way toward alleviating any unnecessary fears of rejection.