Can you make a list of all the things this dance has taken away from you? We usually have glimpses of emotional closeness when we first become infatuated with a person and are willing to take any risk to be by his or her side. We will remember those moments just as we remember our hopes and longings. How has this negative dance eroded them?
As a final exercise for this chapter, can you identify which of the three patterns — Find the Bad Guy, the Protest Polka, Freeze and Flee — most threatens your current love relationship? Remember that the facts of a fight (whether it’s a fight about the kids’ schedule, your sex life, your careers) aren’t the real issue. The real concern is always the strength and security of the emotional bond you have with your partner. It is about accessibility, responsiveness, and emotional engagement. See if you can summarize the pattern that takes over your relationship by filling in the blanks in the following statements. Then edit them into a paragraph that best fits you and your relationship. Share it with your partner.
When _________, I do not feel safely connected to you. Fill in the cue that starts up the music of disconnection, e.g., when you say you are too tired for sex and we have not made love for a few weeks, when we fight about my parenting, when we don’t seem to speak for days. No big, general, abstract statements or disguised blaming is allowed here, so you can’t say things like when you are just being difficult as usual. That is cheating. Be concrete and specific.
I tend to _________. I move this way in our dance to try to cope with difficult feelings and find a way to change our dance. Choose an action word, a verb, e.g., complain, nag, zone out, ignore you, run, move away.
I do it in the hope that ________. State the hope that pulls you into the dance, e.g., we will avoid more conflict or I will persuade you to respond to me more.
As this pattern keeps going, I feel ________. Identify a feeling. The usual ones that people can identify at this point are frustration, anger, numbness, emptiness, or confusion.
What I then say to myself about our relationship is ________. Summarize the most catastrophic conclusion you can imagine, e.g., You do not care about us, I am not important to you, I can never please you.
My understanding of the circular dance that makes it harder and harder for us to safely connect is that when I move in the way I described above, you seem to then ________. Choose an action word, a verb, e.g., shut down, push me to respond.
The more I ________, the more you ________. We are then both trapped in pain and isolation. Insert verbs that describe your own and your partner’s moves in the dance.
Maybe we can warn each other when this dance begins. We can call it ________. Seeing this dance is our first step out of the circle of disconnection.
Once you can identify these negative cycles and recognize that they trap both of you, you are ready to learn how to step out of them. The next conversation explores more deeply the strong emotions, particularly the attachment fears, that keep these negative dances going.
Conversation 2: Finding the Raw Spots
“Attachment interruptions are dangerous . . . like a scratched cornea, relationship ruptures deliver agony.”
— Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini, and Richard Lannon, A General Theory of Love
We all are vulnerable in love; it goes with the territory. We are more emotionally naked with those we love and so sometimes, inevitably, we hurt each other with careless words or actions. While these occasions sting, the pain is often superficial and fleeting. But almost all of us have at least one additional exquisite sensitivity — a raw spot in our emotional skin — that is tender to the touch, easily rubbed, and deeply painful. When this raw spot gets abraded, it can bleed all over our relationship. We lose our emotional balance and plunge into Demon Dialogues.
What exactly is a raw spot? I define it as a hypersensitivity formed by moments in a person’s past or current relationships when an attachment need has been repeatedly neglected, ignored, or dismissed, resulting in a person’s feeling what I call the “2 Ds” — emotionally deprived or deserted. The 2 Ds are universal potential raw spots for lovers.
These sensitivities frequently arise from wounding relationships with significant people in our past, especially parents, who give us our basic template for loving relationships; siblings and other members of our families; and, of course, past and present lovers. For example, recently when my husband John’s eyelids began drooping while I was speaking to him, I hit the ceiling, enraged. He was tired and drowsy, but it sent me back to days when an ex-partner would fall instantly asleep every time I tried to start a serious conversation. Dozing off was a not-so-subtle form of withdrawing, disconnecting from the relationship. This experience made me hypervigilant — sudden sleepiness signals emotional abandonment to me.
Francois, one of my clients, is highly sensitive to any hint that his wife, Nicole, might not desire him or may be developing an interest in another man. In his painful first marriage, his wife was openly unfaithful to him many times. Now, he goes into total blinding panic when Nicole smiles at his accomplished friend at a party or when she is not home when he expects her to be there.
Linda complains that she really hurts when her husband Jonathan “holds back from telling me I look nice or that I have done a good job. It is like being instantly flooded with hurt, and then I get resentful and critical of you,” she tells him. Linda traces her sensitivity back to her mom. “She refused to ever compliment me or praise me for anything and always told me that I looked unattractive. She once said that she thought that if you praised people, they would stop striving. I hungered for that recognition from her and resented her for withholding it. And now, I guess, I long for that from you. So when I am all dressed up and I ask you how I look, and you just seem to dismiss me, it hurts. You know I need that praise, but you refuse me. At least that is how it feels. I just can’t see straight, it stings so much.”
People can have several raw spots, although usually one is paramount in terms of putting the spin in a couple’s negative cycle. Steve feels a double whammy when his wife, Mary, says she would like to have sex more often. This could be taken as a very positive request. But for Steve, her declaration is a guided missile that demolishes his sexual confidence; his amygdala screams “incoming,” and he hits the floor. Steve reacts to Mary by shutting down and shutting her out. “It’s like I am suddenly back in my first marriage, hearing that I am this big disappointment and getting real anxious about performing in general, but especially in bed.” An echo from his childhood also inflames this raw spot. Steve was the smallest kid in his class, and his dad constantly asked him in front of his brothers, “Am I talking to Steve or Stephanie?” That experience left him feeling that he was not “male enough for any woman.”
But raw spots are not always a reminder of past wounds; they can crop up in a current relationship, even a generally happy one, if we feel especially emotionally deprived or deserted. Raw spots can occur during big transitions or crises — such as having a child, becoming ill, or suffering the loss of a job — when the need for support from our partner is particularly intense, but it doesn’t come. They can also develop when a partner seems chronically indifferent, producing an overwhelming sense of hurt that then infuses even small issues. The failure of our loved one to respond scrapes our emotional skin raw.
Jeff and Milly had a great relationship until Jeff’s best friend got promoted to the job that Jeff had worked so hard for and Jeff fell into a depression. Instead of offering comfort and reassurance, an anxious Milly hounded him to “just snap out of it.” They had found their way through this crisis and back to being close, but the experience left Jeff hypersensitive to his wife’s reaction to any expressions of distress on his part. His sudden, seemingly irrational flashes of anger whenever he thinks Milly is unsupportive soon have her withdrawing into defensive silence and feeling like she is failing as a wife. You can predict what happened next. They got into their Demon Dialogue.
Helen was devastated when she found herself being bl
amed by a therapist for her adolescent son’s drinking problem. During an assessment session, Sam, Helen’s generally loving husband, echoed the therapist’s viewpoint. Later, when Helen expressed her hurt, Sam got caught up in justifying his opinion, and a series of painful arguments ensued. Helen then decided to put her “foolish” hurt aside and concentrate on the good things in her marriage, and she believed that she had done this.
But suppressing significant emotions is hard to do and often ends up being toxic to relationships. Helen’s hurt begins to leak out. She pesters Sam for his opinion of her every action, and Sam, unsure of what to say, says less and less. Suddenly they are fighting about everything. Sam accuses Helen of becoming more and more like her “paranoid” mother. Helen feels more and more lost and alone.
Jeff’s and Helen’s raw spots are being rubbed, but they don’t see it. Surprisingly, many of us miss the same thing. Indeed, we don’t even recognize that we have raw spots. We are only aware of our secondary reaction to the irritation — defensively numbing out and shutting down, or reactively lashing out in anger. Withdrawal and rage are the hallmarks of Demon Dialogues, and they mask the emotions that are central in vulnerability: sadness, shame, and, most of all, fear.
If you find yourself continually stuck in a Demon Dialogue with your lover, you can bet it is being sparked by attempts to deal with the pain of a sore spot, or more likely, sore spots in both of you. And unfortunately, your raw spots almost inevitably rub against each other’s. Chafe one in your lover and his or her reaction often irritates one in you.
Consider Jessie and Mike, who have done nothing but fight since Jessie’s twelve-year-old daughter moved in with them. Jessie says, “Suddenly, like overnight, Mike changed from this warm tender guy to this tyrant. He gives orders, makes all these rules for my kid. He is screaming most of the time he’s home. He looks just like all the abusive men in my family. I just can’t bear someone yelling and giving orders. No one protected me, but I can protect my kid.”
Mike flips between sad protests about how much he loves his wife, even though she refuses to speak to him for days on end, and loud indignant rants about how he never wanted to become a parent to her impossible, disrespectful child. He goes up in flames when he speaks of how he had pampered Jessie for years and then found that he “doesn’t exist when this kid is around.” Mike recalls falling ill with shingles but Jessie, he says, was too preoccupied with her daughter’s issues to “comfort him.” Smacking each other’s raw spots has trapped them in the Protest Polka.
Tom and Brenda’s raw spots sent them into a different Demon Dialogue, Freeze and Flee. Brenda is obsessed with their new baby. Tom’s attempts to draw some attention his way irritate Brenda, and one night she blows up. She’s tired of his demands, she says, and calls him “oversexed” and “pathetic.” Tom is stricken. Although he’s a dishy-looking guy, he is quite shy and insecure with women. He’s always needed to feel desired by Brenda.
He retaliates: “Fine, fine. Obviously you are not in love with me anymore, and all your stuff with me in the last years has been a sham. I don’t need hugs from you. I don’t need to be with you. I’m going out dancing, and you can just take care of the baby.” He leaves signs around the house indicating that he’s flirting with a woman in his ballroom dance group. Brenda grew up feeling like the plain girl and has always wondered why attractive and successful Tom chose her. Terrified, she withdraws more into the baby. Tom and Brenda barely speak. Constantly protecting their raw spots completely sabotages the loving responsiveness they both long for.
Stopping these destructive dynamics depends not only on identifying and curbing the Demon Dialogues (Conversation 1) but also on finding and soothing our raw spots and helping our lover to do the same. People who have grown up in the haven of secure, loving relationships will have an easier time healing these scrapes. Their raw spots are few and not so deep. And once they understand what underlies their negative interactions with their loved one, they are more able to step out of them quickly and soothe the hurts.
For others, though, who have been traumatized or badly neglected by those they have loved or depended on, the process is longer and more arduous. Their raw spots are so large and so tender that accessing their fears and trusting in a partner’s support is a huge challenge. Kal, an abuse survivor and army veteran, says, “I am just one big raw spot. I crave soothing, but lots of times if my lady really touches me, I can’t tell if it’s a caress or another cut.”
Still, we are not prisoners of the past. We can change for the better. Recent research by psychologist Joanne Davila at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, as well as others, confirms what I see in my sessions: that we can heal even deep vulnerabilities with the help of a loving spouse. We can “earn” a basic sense of secure connection with the aid of a responsive partner who helps us deal with painful feelings. Love really does transform us.
RECOGNIZING WHEN A RAW SPOT IS RUBBED
There are two signs that tell you when your raw spot or your partner’s has been hit. First, there is a sudden radical shift in the emotional tone of the conversation. You and your love were joking just a moment ago, but now one of you is upset or enraged, or, conversely, aloof or chilly. You are thrown off balance. It’s as if the game changed and no one told you. The hurt partner is sending out new signals and the other tries to make sense of the change. As Ted tells me, “We are in the car having this ordinary chat, and suddenly there is ice on the inside of the car. Like she is looking away from me out the window, her mouth in this taut line, and she is all glum as if she wishes I didn’t exist. Now where did that come from?”
Second, the reaction to a perceived offense often seems way out of proportion. Marla says, “We usually make love on Friday nights. So I was waiting for Pierre, but then I got all caught up in a call from my sister, who was upset. It was about a fifteen-minute call, I guess. Pierre came downstairs and went ballistic. We got into the usual fight. He is just being unreasonable when he does that.” No, it’s just that Marla doesn’t yet understand the logic of love and Pierre can’t quite explain his rawness to himself or his wife. He tells her, “My head says, ‘What are you getting all upset about? Just cool it.’ But I am already on the ceiling.”
These signs are all about primal attachment needs and fears suddenly coming on line. They are all about our deepest and most powerful emotions suddenly taking over. To really understand our raw spots, we need to take a closer look at the deeper emotions that are key to this sensitivity and unpack them in a way that helps us deal with them. If we don’t do this, we will speed right past them into a defensive response, usually anger or numbing, that gives our partner completely the wrong message. In insecure relationships, we disguise our vulnerabilities so our partner never really sees us.
Let’s break down what happens when a raw spot gets rubbed.
1. An attachment cue grabs our attention and turns on our attachment system, our longings and fears. An attachment cue is a trigger that plugs you in emotionally. It can be a look, a phrase, a change in the emotional tone of an interaction with your partner. Attachment cues can be positive or negative, bringing up good or bad feelings. An attachment cue that irritates a raw spot sets off an “uh, oh” alarm. “Something strange, bad, or painful is approaching,” says your brain. Your alarm might go off when you hear a “critical” tone in your lover’s voice or when your partner turns away just as you ask for a hug. Marie tells her husband, Eric, “I know you are trying to be caring. And you are right. You do talk to me about my problems. And it’s fine, until you say, ‘Look’ in that tone, like I am a stupid little kid who doesn’t know anything. That is like a needle in my skin. I get that you are exasperated with me. You think I am stupid. And that hurts.” This is news to Eric; he thought they were arguing because she didn’t like any of his ideas.
2. Our body responds. People say, “My stomach churns and I hear my voice go shrill,” or “I go cold and still.” Sometimes the only way we can know how we feel
is to listen to our body. Strong emotion mobilizes the body. It puts it in survival mode with lightning speed. Each emotion has a specific physiological signature. When we are afraid, blood flow increases to the legs; when we are angry, blood flow increases to the hands.
3. Our intellect, sitting behind our forehead in the brain’s prefrontal cortex, is a little slow. Now it catches up with our emotional brain, our amygdala, and goes looking for what all this means. This is when we check our initial perception and decide what the attachment cue is telling us about the safety of our bond. Carrie’s catastrophic conclusions roll out here on cue. She says, “When it seems like we’re getting ready to make love and you say you are tired, I get really upset. It’s like you have no desire for me. That I am just like one of your buddies. I’m just not special to you.” Her husband, Derek, says, “Can’t I just be tired?” Carrie answers, “Not when you have been flirting with me all night and setting up all kinds of expectations. Then if they are not going to work out, I need a little help dealing with that. I don’t want to just get stuck in being angry.”
4. We get set to move in a particular way, toward, away from, or against our lover. This readiness to act is wired into every emotion. Anger tells us to approach and fight. Shame tells us to withdraw and hide. Fear tells us to flee or freeze, or in real extremes to turn and attack back. Sadness primes us to grieve and let go. Hannah says about her fights with her husband, “I just want to run. I need to get away. I see his angry face and I’m gone. He says I dismiss him, but I hear his anger and my feet are moving. I just can’t stay and listen.”
All this happens in a nanosecond. Charles Darwin, who was fascinated by the power of emotion and its role in the struggle for survival, wanted to see how much control he had over his emotions. He used to stand at the glass wall in the London zoo where a giant adder was housed and try again and again not to leap back as the adder struck out at him. He never succeeded. His body always reacted in fear even when his conscious mind told him he was quite safe.
Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love Page 9