by Jessica Fern
The Gottman Institute has conducted decades of research on couples and found that the main difference between happy couples and unhappy couples is not that happy couples don’t have arguments or make mistakes, but that they are better and faster at doing the repair work when breaches have occurred.71 Couples that are described as the masters of relationships, versus what the Gottman Institute names the disasters of relationships, still experience episodes of yelling, being mean to each other, defensiveness, being critical or shutting down, but these couples are also willing to admit responsibility for their part in the conflict so they can begin the process of healing their bond. The masters of relationships are able to learn from what went wrong and see that repairing the relationship is more important than the problem itself. The Gottman Institute also found that how skillful someone’s repair attempt was did not necessarily predict how effective the repair was. Repairs didn’t have to be perfectly executed as much as they had to be genuine. I often tell couples and multiple-partner relationships that you can have all the communication techniques and conflict resolution skills in the world, but they do nothing if you still have an attitude of wanting to either be right or prove your partner wrong. I still recommend acquiring more communication and conflict resolution skills, but even without these, the right attitude—one of repair responsibility, humility and openness—goes far.
The Gottman Institute also found that resilience after conflict was related to how much a couple was making regular “deposits into their emotional bank account.” Repair attempts are much more successful when there is a pre-existing relationship culture of understanding each other, expressing gratitude and regularly doing nice things for each other, which supports the relationship in being better able to withstand the inevitable storms. Relationships that are regularly distant or disrespectful have much less success with their repair attempts, no matter how beautiful the attempt is. If you are already doing the HEAR of the HEARTS of secure functioning, you will find that conflict may still arise, but the repair work goes much more smoothly and even brings you closer together in the end.
Questions to Consider
Are there certain themes to the conflicts that you have with your partners?
When there has been a rupture, do you and your partners already repair well? How do you do this?
How are you at offering a repair? What comes easily to you and what feels difficult?
How are you with receiving a repair from your partners?
When there has been a rupture, what things could you do differently to better repair with your partner? What requests do you have for your partners around this?
Things to Try and to Experiment With
If a conflict begins over text, pause until you can either get face-to-face with each other or voice-to-voice, which will help in preventing further misunderstandings and spiraling out.
Don’t be afraid to take a time-out if things get too heated. Many people know that taking a breather when conflict is high would probably be a good idea, but they keep trying to talk or process anyway, even though it is getting them nowhere or already getting nasty. When disagreements and conflict escalate to a point where you feel stuck, when you are triggered, or when there is name-calling, criticism or blaming, take a pause. Just make sure not to walk away without saying anything to your partners. Instead, let them know that you need to cool off and together decide when you’ll come back together to address the issues at hand. What I’m describing here is the difference between a reactionary or habitual fleeing and withdrawing, which can be counterproductive, and consciously taking a breather, which can be very productive when conflicts get too hot.
Keep your desire to be right in check. Remember your desire to be in the relationship and as best as you can, try to stay rooted in being respectful to yourself and your partners, not just one or the other.
Check out the The Five Languages of Apology, by Gary Chapman.
If you experience regular conflict with a partner (or maybe it’s less frequent conflict but very destabilizing when it arises), when not in conflict have a conversation about what each of you needs, where you see sticky points that can be avoided or mitigated and what each of you needs for repair.
Seek the support of a third party if conflicts are recurrent or seem unsolvable.
Check out the R.A.D.A.R relationship check-in method as developed by the Multiamory podcast crew to support regular check-ins and conflict management.
In this chapter, we explored how to cultivate polysecurity in your multiple attachment-based relationships. Implementing the suggestions in this chapter could take months or even years. Because of this, I suggest that you start where you are. In an ideal setup, you would take a certain amount of time to focus on each letter in HEART (e.g., two weeks on being here with your partners and then two weeks on expressed delight, and so on), so that you can really dive in and get the lived experience of what each of these components feels like and looks like. You may find that you already do some of these letters really well but other letters, not so much. You can skip around based on the needs of your particular relationship, but I would not recommend skipping over a letter entirely. Each one relates to and builds upon the previous in ways that are important for you and your partners to be polysecure. Some of you may also need to begin with the next chapter, on creating secure attachment with yourself before you are ready to apply the HEART of polysecurity in a relationship.
* Since voice is so important to attachment, I don’t want to dismiss that there are people who have never met in person, but do fall in love or start to feel intense attachments to each other just by talking on the phone or even messaging. However, I would put those experiences into the category of new relationship energy, limerence or possibly idealization, rather than include them in the formation of actual secure attachment.
† The five love languages, developed by Gary Chapman, are Acts of Service, Quality Time, Words of Affirmation, Physical Touch and Receiving Gifts.
CHAPTER NINE
THE S IN HEARTS—SECURE ATTACHMENT WITH SELF
IT IS TREMENDOUSLY IMPORTANT to have relationships with partners where you are able to put into practice the HEART of being polysecure. Being seen, understood, appreciated and loved by another who is turning towards you with their presence and warmth is invaluable in its potential to offer the corrective attachment experiences that so many of us need. But healing attachment does not stop there. While I will not diminish the power that secure relationships with others have to heal our past and to bring alive our own secure ways, the establishment of a secure relationship with our self is needed to fully embody healthy attachment with others, so much so that it requires its own chapter.
When we have experienced attachment insecurity with caregivers—whether in childhood, in our adult relationships or as disruptions in any of the levels discussed in the nested model of attachment and trauma—our primary relationship with our self can become severed and the development of certain capacities and skills can become compromised. Attachment ruptures and trauma can also leave lasting marks on our psyche, distorting our sense of self through the beliefs that we do not matter, that we are flawed, broken, unworthy or too much while, simultaneously, not enough. This is what needs to be repaired, and in many ways it is the only aspect of our healing that we are truly in control of, since the HEART of being polysecure requires partners to practice with and the other levels require group-or collective-based processes that typically go beyond the individual level.
Internal attachment healing is needed for the HEART of secure functioning to become possible and then take root in our relationships. Even in the most remarkably secure relationships, being together forever is not a given. Your lives might still take you in different directions, partners can die, and even when partners are actively involved with you it is unrealistic to expect them to be there for you every time you are in need. When we are relating from attachment insecurity we can easily (and often unconsciously) put too much ont
o our partners. We can make our partners into the source of our hope, love, strength, ability to feel or regulate our own emotions, as well as the source of our meaning and purpose in life. Our partners can be the inspiration for these things, as well as the objects or focus of our love, but they should not be the source of it. You are the source of your happiness, love, courage, emotional regulation and purpose, and the sooner that you can release your partner from being the source of these experiences the better for everyone involved (metamours included).
Knowing how to stand securely on your own two feet and how to be your own safe haven and secure base is fundamental to building your internal secure attachment. I would say this to anyone practicing monogamy, but it is even more imperative in nonmonogamous relationships. In polyamory, we need the internal security of being anchored in our inner strength and inner nurturer to navigate a relationship structure that is considerably less secure. Inner security is also imperative because depending on a certain partner as our only go-to support system regarding our relationship with another partner, a shared partner or one of their partners can be triangulating, messy, inappropriate, divisive and even damaging. You must be a priority in your own life. Secure attachment with yourself means being aware of your feelings and desires, as well as being able to tend to your own needs and knowing how to advocate for them in relationships. In the absence of this, your relationships can be built upon a false premise, or, at the very least, will struggle to be sustainable.
Earned Secure Attachment
Those of us who did not experience a securely attached childhood or who have had significant attachment insecurity from our adult relationships can still develop earned secure attachment. Meaningful contact with teachers, friends, lovers, mentors, therapists, or other relatives who can empathically resonate and securely bond with us can all assist us in adjusting our attachment style towards becoming more secure. At the self level, one way to develop earned secure attachment is through making sense of your story.
According to Daniel Siegel, we can make sense of our attachment history by creating a coherent narrative of our past experiences.72 We do this by putting together the story of what we went through as a child and examining how our attachment history impacts our present sense of self and our relationships today. By telling the stories that have been previously unspoken, we allow ourselves to feel what has been unfelt and bring love to what has seemed unlovable. When we are able to describe our painful past experiences and craft them into a narrative that makes sense to us, healing occurs and our brains can literally be rewired for more secure functioning. Daniel Siegel’s research has also shown that the main predictor of a child’s attachment style is not whether or not their parents had an insecure or secure attachment style, but whether or not their parents were able to make sense of their own attachment history. When parents had trauma and attachment insecurity but were able to create a coherent narrative of what they went through, they were then able to break the cycle of attachment insecurity that can easily get passed down from one generation to the next and, instead, parent their own child from an earned secure stance. As adults, when we experience relationship traumas, painful breakups or losses, creating a coherent narrative about what happened is just as indispensable for our healing and integration.
Nonmonogamy can feature certain kinds of loss and breakups that don’t happen anywhere else in our culture. In discussing why or how a relationship ended, we may not have the same common language that is used in describing monogamous endings, or encounter the same level of acceptance and understanding. You may have more partners who could support you post-breakup, and many people definitely benefit from this, but I also see people who feel even more isolated and alone when their nonmonogamous relationship ends. Current partners may get tired of hearing about pain or drama from the relationship that ended, for instance, or it may be inappropriate to process the breakup with current partners (perhaps they are involved with the partner you broke up with). You may also simply not have relationships that you would turn to for this kind of emotional support. The loss of relationships with metamours or entire polycules that result from a breakup can also be confusing, disorienting and painful beyond measure. All of this can leave people feeling as if they are floating in outer space with no sense of what’s up and what’s down, nothing to ground them and help them move forward. In such cases, finding coherence to your story can be a profound support.
When crafting the stories of your insecurely attached past, it is important not only to be able to describe and allow the feelings associated with what you’ve gone through, but to also develop an appreciation for the attachment survival adaptations that you took on. Our attachment styles are a result of our response to how available connection was to us. When connection is unavailable, inconsistent, intrusive, dangerous or out of reach, the attachment system will either start to hyperactivate or deactivate as a survival strategy. Your attachment adaptations are what worked best in the environment that you were embedded in, and it is important to recognize the power and wisdom in the different styles that you constructed. As we give voice to our past, accept and allow our pain and even appreciate the ways we were shaped from this, we are better able to take responsibility for the ways that we still need to grow and show up differently for ourselves and in our relationships. We no longer have to be victims of our past, but can be victorious in the face of it.
Go HEART Yourself
The HEART of secure functioning is not just for your relationships with partners, but can be directly applied to your relationship with yourself.
H: Being Here with Myself
In order to create internal security, we must first inhabit our own being. We must fully occupy our bodies, which are the storehouse of our feelings, needs, pains, desires and longings. When there has been attachment insecurity or trauma, being in your body may not be safe or easy, especially when habits of defensiveness, dissociation or disconnection have been at play for years or decades. Traumas can limit our ability for presence. When we detach from ourselves, whether through pulling too far into ourselves or jumping too far out of ourselves into another, we lose access to our own internal states and therefore our own internal resources. We are not truly here in the moment, whether with ourselves or another.
Being our own safe haven and secure base requires that we first have the capacity to be with our self. To sit, to listen, to be available to whatever arises within us. Life occurs in the present moment and our healing needs the fullness of our attention in the here and now to take place. Through embodiment, we can learn how to tolerate the uncomfortable feelings and sensations that might be necessary to move through in order to heal. We can also learn to allow positive sensations and feelings that might have been previously exiled.
Questions to Consider
In general, how comfortable or uncomfortable do you feel being alone with yourself?
What are the subtle and overt ways that you avoid being present with yourself?
What does being present with yourself mean to you? How would it look?
What does being more embodied mean to you? How would that look?
If you were more present and embodied, what possibilities in your life or relationship could open up?
Things to Try and to Experiment With
Mindfulness techniques and meditation practices.
Body awareness practices (e.g., yoga, dance, walking meditation, body scan meditations).
Breathwork.
Emotional or energetic grounding techniques.
Working with a somatic practitioner or body-based psychotherapist.
Taking a walk or drive without making calls or listening to anything.
Sitting with yourself quietly and allowing yourself to be with whatever arises.
Singing or chanting when you’re by yourself without worrying about how you sound.
E: Expressed Delight for Myself
When applying the attachment need of expressed delight to yourself, we ar
e talking about an inner sense of joy, appreciation and pleasure in your own being and existence. As children, it is through mirroring, reflection and the expressed delight from our attachment figures that we are able to develop a positive sense of self and learn what we are capable of. As adults, we still need this and will typically get this through our closest relationships. When another is able to mirror us and take delight in who we are, we can get to know ourselves even more than we did before. But as adults, our positive sense of self cannot be solely contingent on the expressed delight of those around us. We need to cultivate expressed delight for ourselves in order to maintain a positive sense of worth and healthy appreciation for who and how we are that is sustainable and resilient.
Imagine making a mistake and your response to yourself is one of understanding and forgiveness. Imagine looking in the mirror and having thoughts of acceptance and self-compassion. Imagine looking forward to having some solo time because you enjoy time with yourself and are even pleasantly entertained with who you are. For those of you having flashbacks of the Saturday Night Live comedy skit where the character Stuart Smalley looks adoringly in the mirror at himself as he says, “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me,” don’t worry—I won’t suggest looking in the mirror as you say positive affirmations to yourself. I am talking about the importance of positive self-talk and being kind and loving to yourself in ways that you would probably treat a friend, but so frequently forget when it comes to your relationship with yourself. When we have experienced trauma and attachment ruptures, we can forget what it means to be kind to ourselves.