The truth is, no one takes the risk of being rebuffed by disclosing, like Charlie has, unless the other person really matters. And sometimes disclosing partners have to be willing to hang in there and keep repeating their message until their loved one gets used to seeing them in a new way. Couples stuck in a Demon Dialogue can also get moving again by doubling back through Conversations 1, 2, and 3.
Happily for Charlie and Kyoko, she responds in a supportive way to his overture. “I understand much more now how you go into that cold rational place and end up giving me instructions,” she says. “I never knew I mattered enough to you to hurt you that much. I respect you for doing this kind of sharing. It makes me feel closer to you.” Charlie simply grins at her and gives his chair a twirl or two.
The ability to attend to our partner’s deeper disclosures is the beginning of mutual responsiveness and engagement. The word attend comes from the Latin ad tendere, which means to reach toward. Kyoko has reached toward Charlie.
Now, it’s Kyoko’s turn to unpack her emotions and see if Charlie can attend to her. She goes back to the Rocky Moment, and tells Charlie, “When you came home, I told you I was upset and you said, ‘Now don’t get all crazy on me,’ that if my outbursts didn’t stop you might need to leave. This was the bottom for me. I cannot always be calm and logical.” Charlie looks uncomfortable and mutters “Sorry” under his breath. He admits that he doesn’t really understand her hurt at these times.
Kyoko hits the emotional elevator button and goes down a few more floors. She begins, “I feel so very sad, we cannot seem to come together anymore.” Charlie nods his head and responds, “But you should not be, because we are working on our relationship.” He catches himself, shakes his head, and continues, “I think I will try to learn about your hurt. What was the worst moment, the worst feeling for you?” This was a very good question, and by asking it, Charlie helped Kyoko get to the heart of the matter.
But Kyoko cannot answer. She sits silently, and large tears roll down her face. Charlie pats her knee. “I only say you are crazy because I get scared of the bad feelings between us,” he whispers. Kyoko tells him, “The worst moments were when you put the phone down, and later when you said you would leave. I was so ‘unreasonable,’ you said.”
Charlie, now very worried, says, “I don’t know how to make this better. What shall I do?” he asks, turning to me. “To make it better, Kyoko needs to feel that you are here with her,” I reply. “To let her know you care about her pain.” He opens his eyes wide in disbelief. She continues, “If I am sad or scared or upset with you, you just turn off. You don’t comfort me. And now you don’t make love or hold me either. Just when I need you, you go off in your disapproval. You turn away and discard me. I am not the wife you want.”
It is hard to listen to Kyoko’s outpouring of rejection and abandonment. No wonder she sometimes loses her balance and gets stuck in angry protests or in depression. But here she is clear and precise. “It kills me when you pass over me, turn to your rules. I have never been more alone.” Now she looks up directly at him. “Charlie, you are not there for me, with me. So I panic. Do you hear me?”
He reaches for her hands and holds them in his. He nods again and again. “Yes, yes, yes.” Very quietly, Charlie tells her, “This is sad, to hear this. I am sad.” And he is. His emotional presence is as tangible as the chair he sits on. Kyoko has turned her clear awareness of her deeper emotions into a clear attachment signal to her lover. She has distilled her deepest pain, the primal code of loss and panic that sounds when our loved one is not there for us, and he has heard her.
Both partners have connected with their own emotional realities and opened up to each other.
PLAY AND PRACTICE
Charlie does a number of things that make a real difference in how he connects with and shares his deeper emotions. See if you can recall or go back and find examples of the following:
• Charlie starts to examine the present moment and how hard it is to connect with his feelings. What’s blocking him from saying how he feels?
• Charlie identifies some handles from previous conversations and holds the images, phrases, or feelings up to the light. When he looks at them closely, he can see that they are really descriptions of fear, shame, or sadness and loss.
• Charlie identifies Terrible Ifs, the worst things that might happen if he acknowledges his partner’s feelings. Listing catastrophic consequences uncovers his worst core fears: that he’ll be helpless and alone. This is a key part of Conversation 4.
• Charlie reveals his fears to his wife and reflects on what it is like to share these deep feelings with her.
• Now look at Kyoko’s revelations and try to answer these questions:
• What was the worst moment for Kyoko?
• What is the catastrophic conclusion she comes to?
• Name four things that Charlie does when Kyoko is sad and scared that heighten her attachment fears. Kyoko describes them in simple action words.
• What are Kyoko’s two core emotions?
Go back to a Rocky Moment in your current relationship and find your own handles and write them down. Ask your partner to do the same. Then sit with your partner. Which one of you is the most withdrawn? This partner begins the conversation. This is because it is harder for more actively protesting partners, who are usually more tuned in to their hurts and fears, to begin reaching out without some sign of engagement from their more reserved lover. If you are the more reserved partner, follow in Charlie’s steps and tune in to your core fears, share them, and say what it feels like to reveal them.
If you are the listening partner, respond by saying what it was like to hear the disclosures. Was it easy or hard to understand the message? If it was hard, at what point did it become difficult to listen? What feeling came up then? Examine the feelings together.
Now the listening partner repeats the disclosure process.
This conversation will be especially beneficial for distressed couples, but it is also valuable to those in secure relationships. We all have attachment fears, even if they have no edge or urgency at the moment.
Above all, keep in mind that this is a sensitive conversation; you are both exposing your deepest vulnerability. You each must respect the risk the other is taking. Remember, the two of you are taking this step because you are special to each other and are trying to create a very special kind of bond between you.
WHAT DO I NEED MOST FROM YOU?
Being able to declare our core attachment fears naturally leads to a recognition of our primary attachment needs. Fear and longing are two sides of the same coin.
The second part of Conversation 4 involves directly stating the attachment needs that right now only your partner can satisfy.
This conversation can be smooth and easy or it can be fraught with doubt. It is one thing to acknowledge and accept your own emotional reality, but another to open it up to your partner. This is a great leap for those of us who have had little experience of real safety with others. So why do it? Because we long for connection, and remaining defended and isolated is a sad and empty way to live. The author Anaïs Nin expresses the idea beautifully: “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
Rosemary, a client, puts it another way. In Canada, we play hockey. Sometimes we even think of life as a hockey game! Rosemary, an avid player, turns to her partner, Andre, and tells him, “I am wearing this face mask. And I have to drop it if I want you to understand what I need and ask you for what I want. Some part of me says that opening up like that is just asking to be smashed in the face like I was in that hockey game last month. Keeping the mask up is not because I don’t love you or that you are a bad partner. It’s because I always play defense. To turn and ask. That is a whole new position. That is scary. But if I’m honest, I’m empty behind the mask. Can’t win the game that way either.”
Let’s return to Charlie and Kyoko and see how
they wend their way through this crucial part of Conversation 4. I prompt Charlie, “What do you need from Kyoko right now to feel more, as you put it, ‘safe and sure’? What do you long for, Charlie? Can you tell Kyoko exactly what you need from her?” He considers for a moment, then turns toward her and begins. “I need to know that when I am not the perfect husband and get confused, do not know what to do, you still want to be with me. Maybe that you want me even if you are upset. Even if I get overwhelmed and make mistakes, hurt your feelings. I need to know you will not leave me. When you are depressed or very mad, it seems like you have already gone. Yes, this is right. I have said it right.” And then, as if suddenly realizing the risk he has taken, he turns away and nervously rubs his knees. He says quietly, “This is very hard for me to ask. I have never asked anyone for such a thing.”
The obvious emotion on Charlie’s face moves Kyoko. She responds softly but firmly, “Charlie, I am here with you. That is all I want, to be with you. I do not need a perfect husband. If we can talk like this, we can be close again. That is all I have ever wanted.” Charlie looks relieved and a little dazed. He giggles and says, “Oh, now that is good, that is very reasonable indeed.” She giggles with him.
When it is Kyoko’s turn to state her needs, she starts by discussing how she now knows that her desire for reassurance and comfort is “proper, even natural.” This helps her think about what she needs from Charlie. But then she veers off course. Looking at the ceiling, she speaks in the third person. “I think I want him to . . .” I stop her, and ask her to listen to her deepest feelings, turn her chair toward Charlie, and look and speak directly at him.
Kyoko turns to Charlie and takes a deep breath. “I want you to accept that I am more emotional than you and that this is okay. It is not a flaw in me. There is nothing wrong with me that I do not find comfort in reasons and shoulds. I want you to stay with me and come close, to show me you care when I don’t feel strong. I want you to touch me and hold me and tell me I matter to you. I just want you to be with me. That is all I need.”
Charlie looks completely stunned. He says, “You mean you just want me to come close?” Kyoko asks him, “What is it like to hear me say these things?” He shakes his head. “It is like I have been working so hard to keep us on this one track that I have not seen the simple easy way just off to the side here.” Then he smiles softly. “This feels good. It is better. I can do this. I can do this with you.”
Both Charlie and Kyoko are now tuned in to their core needs and can give coherent signals about these needs to their partner. They can do what securely attached partners can do. By knowing and trusting their own emotions and reaching past their fears, they are stronger, individually and together. When couples can do this, they can more easily repair conflicts and rifts and shape a nurturing, loving connection.
Charlie and Kyoko have not only become accessible, responsive, and engaged with each other, they have also expanded their sense of who they are individually. Kyoko is more assertive, and Charlie is more flexible. Now that they know how to invite each other into an A.R.E. conversation, they can help each other grow on a personal level.
Let’s take a look at key moments in the Hold Me Tight conversations of two other couples. These pairs have more troubled personal histories and a more fragile sense of emotional safety than do Charlie and Kyoko. Yet they, too, are able to make this call from the heart.
Diane and David have fought for their relationship for thirty-five years, through the fog of fear, deprivation, and depression left over from their histories of abuse and violation by those they needed the most. At the beginning of our sessions, Diane told David, “I have to leave. I can’t be badgered every time you get scared. Going to my room for days on end doesn’t work anymore. I can’t live behind this wall.” Now, in the Hold Me Tight conversation, she says to David, “I love you. I do want to be close but I cannot be pushed into closeness. I want to feel safe with you. I want you to give me the room to move, to hear when I tell you I am getting overwhelmed. You trying to move my feet in tune with yours doesn’t work. After all these years, I want you to believe that I won’t let you go, us go. When we dance together, it’s lovely. I want you to help me feel safe with you and then to ask, to reach for me. Then I can turn to you and we can dance.”
When it is David’s turn to talk about his needs, rather than channeling his attachment anxiety into hostile comments about Diane, he talks about his fear of loss and the other side of this fear, his longing for connection. He has a coherent message, one that takes his wife into account and that clearly reflects his deepest emotions and needs. This is “secure talk.” There is no flipping into reactive anger or avoiding by intellectualizing. He can now reach for his wife.
“I don’t know how to say this,” he begins. “It’s like when I was in the military and I was jumping out of planes. Except here there is no parachute! I am a fearful person, Diane. I have learned to watch for danger all the time. I guess, it’s so hard for me to not go straight into take-charge mode. But now I know how my taking charge has made it hard for you and pushed you away.” He is silent for a few moments, then continues. “So some part of me is always afraid that you can’t really love me. I am always pushing for that acknowledgment, that I matter to you. I am always wanting that reassurance. Wanting to know that I am loved, even with all my problems, my temper. But it is so hard for me to ask. I am in free fall here! I need that certainty. And it is so hard for me to ask. Can you love me, even with all my problems?”
Diane’s face shows that she sees his pain and fear, and she leans toward him and says very slowly and deliberately, “I love you, David. I have loved you since I was sixteen. I wouldn’t know how to stop now. When you talk like this, I want to hold you forever.”
Huge smiles erupt on their faces.
Phillipe and Tabitha are very different from David and Diane. They both had unhappy first marriages and are heavily invested in their very successful, high-profile careers. The crisis in their five-year relationship is that each time they go to move in together, Phillipe changes his mind. They are both highly intellectual, accomplished people who tend to withdraw whenever any tension arises. Phillipe pulls his expensive fedora hat down over his eyes and retreats into his religion and platonic friendships with other women, while Tabitha shops for more elegant suits and artwork or immerses herself in a frenzy of work projects. Both are a little surprised that they cannot seem to walk away from each other, and Tabitha has finally given Phillipe an ultimatum. Move in, or the relationship is over.
Phillipe’s initial position is captured by his statement, “I do not believe in needing people. I decided long ago that this was just foolishness. I have many friends and I am best on my own. I have never known how to do all this lovey-dovey nonsense.” Now he tells Tabitha, “I understand that every time we get really close, when commitment comes up, some part of me goes into panic and slams the door. I think I decided a very long time ago never again to put all my eggs in one basket. Never to give anyone that power to hurt me, to crush me again. It is very hard for me to admit that I want your caring, to place myself in your hands. Even now, as I say that, there is an ocean of weeping waiting for me here. I need to know that you will not ever just turn away and shut me out. I can see myself as a small boy being told to go away when my mother became ill. In a sense, that little boy is the one who tells me to run when I begin to feel this need for you. I want to let you come close. Can you help me learn to trust? Can you tell me that you will not turn away no matter what?”
Tabitha is able to do just that and to keep doing that as this couple move into deeper connection. When it’s her turn to engage in an A.R.E. conversation, she is able to say, “On some level, I know that you get pulled away from me by your fear. But I have to know that I am important enough to you that you will fight that fear. I cannot deal with all this uncertainty. It hurts too much. I want you to invest in us, in our connection. I love you, and I think you can trust me. But I need that stability, a pl
ace that I can count on with you. It’s hard for me to say this. I get afraid that I am not good enough, perfect enough to make this kind of claim on you. I get caught in how it is maybe my fault that you are still afraid and that maybe I want too much. I think in the past this has stopped me drawing this line. Do I really deserve this? Am I entitled? Well, whether I am or not, I want your commitment that you will let me matter to you! I can’t risk any more without that safe place. It is too scary, too painful. I want you to risk and open up to me. I won’t let you down.”
Phillipe, visibly moved by her words, replies in a soft voice, “Yes. I think you want to be with me. And you do deserve for me to take this risk. I have been caught up in my own fear, too afraid to really open up. But I cannot lose you. So I am investing, and it’s scary and I’m here.”
Once Phillipe is able to give her this reassurance in an engaged, loving way, this relationship opens out into a secure base for both of them.
THE NEUROSCIENCE OF HARMONY
My research shows that every time a couple has a Hold Me Tight conversation, a moment of deep emotional connection occurs. Physicists speak of “resonance,” a sympathetic vibration between two elements that allows them to suddenly synchronize signals and act in a new harmony. It is the same vibration that I hear in the climaxes of a Bach sonata when one hundred musical tones come together. Every cell in my body responds, making me and the music one. When I observe similar moments between mother and child, between lovers, between people who reach for and find a deep connection, my response is always the same: I feel a sudden joy.
That sense of connection is expressed not just in our feelings, but also in our very cells. As partners respond empathetically to each other, I know from recent research that specific nerve cells, called mirror neurons, in the prefrontal cortex of their brains are buzzing. These neurons appear to be one of the basic mechanisms that allow us to actually feel what someone else is experiencing. This is a different level of understanding than grasping someone’s experience through our intellect. When we watch a person act, these brain cells fire off just as though we were performing the action ourselves. Mirror neurons are part of our general “wired to connect” heritage, and they prime us for love and loving.
Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love Page 14