How many times have you looked at your relationship partner and wondered, “Why do they do that?” Have we got an episode for you! Julie Menanno’s “The Secure Relationship” (@thesecurerelationship) Instagram account is a touchstone for many folks in the TMST community. In a sea of glib, pop psychology, and low nutrition, feel-good content, she's taken her work as a couple’s therapist and scholar and turned it into a feed that’s operating at a much higher level. In recent years, the concept of attachment styles - anxious types, avoidant types - has crept into our consciousness. Julie brings these concepts, and other ideas like attachment needs, emotional safety, and healthy vulnerability, to life in a smart, accessible way for almost half a million followers. Her first book, The Secure Relationship, and her latest, Secure Love, are shining a light on ways we can be more centered in our relationships - and how we can enjoy them more. Julie Menanno: https://www.thesecurerelationship.com/ The Secure Relationship IG account: https://www.instagram.com/thesecurerelationship/ Tell Me Something True is a 100% independent podcast. There are no corporations or advertisers backing this community. We are 100% funded by the TMST community. Support TMST today so you can hear the uncut interviews, attend private events with Laura and help keep TMST ad-free: https://tmst.supercast.com/
Tell Me Something True with Laura McKowen
Julie Menanno on The Secure Relationship
[[00:00:00] Laura McKowen: Hey, it's Laura. If you're listening to this, you're not hearing the complete unedited version of this conversation. If you want in on that, you can get it by becoming a TMST Plus member. Just head over to our website @tmstpod.com and click support. All right. Enjoy this.
[00:00:30] Hey there it's Laura. Okay. Today, a calming voice from your Instagram feed becomes real. Julie Menanno’s @thesecurerelationship Instagram account is a touchstone for many folks in the TMST community. You told us it's a place where you get real tools and come away smarter. I think that's pretty great because let's be real here, there's a ton of glib, pop psychology and low nutrition feelgood stuff out there. Julie Menanno has taken her deep work as a couples therapist and scholar, and turned it into a feed that's operating at a much higher level. In recent years, the concept of attachment styles, anxious types, avoidant types, have creeped into our consciousness.
[00:01:18] Julie brings these concepts and other ideas like attachment needs, emotional safety, and healthy vulnerability to life in a smart accessible way for almost half a million followers. Her book, The Secure Relationship and her latest, Secure Love, are shining a light on ways we can be more centered in our relationships and how we can just enjoy them more.
[00:01:41] I loved spending time with her. And I hope this conversation gives you fresh inspiration in your relationships. Enjoy.
[00:01:57] Laura McKowen: I was just saying before we started, I have a very deep interest, as I'm sure every human does, in relationships and what makes them healthy and what makes them break. So attachment theory. Can you explain it and how it fits into the field of relationships study?
[00:02:16] Julie Menanno: Sure. So attachment theory is looking at relationships through the lens of the human biological drive to feel safe and connected to close others.
[00:02:31] I won't go too far into this, but you know, early humans needed to stay close to stay alive. And we still have that in our DNA and I don't know that that would ever change. For evolutionary purposes, we still need to experience closeness and safety in our relationships to be truly happy. It's more than just biological. I personally think there's some sort of spiritual, whatever that means to everybody, component of it.
Laura McKowen: What does that mean to you?
It means to me the expression of some greater love that exists. It's bigger than ourselves. It's very fulfilling to express that energy and to receive it. And I think underneath it all, we all crave that. It's just how aware are we that we have that craving and how do we go about getting those needs met. And so according to attachment theory, in order to feel safe with another person and close to them, you need to have certain needs met. You need to feel cared for. You need to feel valued. You need to feel wanted, and like your needs matter to them and not just emotional needs, but do my opinions matter, do my perspectives matter to you, even if we don't agree. You know, are you going to be there for me when I need you. That’s a big one. Can I get it right for you? Can I be successful for you? You know, if we have a relationship where the bar just keeps raising, that person never gets to experience success in the relationship and that's demoralizing. So we have these human attachment needs and when they're met and there's a climate, and I'm when I say met, I mean, a climate of met needs.
[00:04:20] So San Diego has the greatest climate, you know, in the country, in my opinion. And it still has periods of weather though. It still has storms. And so I want to see that climate of met attachment needs and knowing that there's always going to be storms and earthquakes or things that kind of come up and disrupt that and the couple can repair from that and go back to their climate. So if we start having storms and unmet attachment needs storms let's say begin to be the norm, then we no longer have a climate of safety. My goal is to use the theory to help people reach each other and maintain a steady state of met needs.
[00:05:01] And when those needs are met, we feel safe and close with an individual and you feel safer with someone in general when you feel validated by them or understood, or like your opinion matters to them.
[00:05:14] Laura McKowen: And in attachment theory, there are types. Maybe a spectrum? Would you say it's more of a spectrum?
[00:05:25] Julie Menanno: I think that in a given relationship, most people who are insecure are going to fit one category more than others. And yes, I do think it's a spectrum, but I think that spectrum is more like the anxious has a spectrum from highly anxious/disorganized, anxious to secure. Not to avoidant. And within that anxious attachment, you might see some isolated avoidant behaviors, but underneath that, the anxious partner has a deep fear of abandonment. And the avoidant partner has a deep fear of not getting it right, not being seen as successful.
[00:06:05] Laura McKowen: That’s the biggest myth or the biggest misunderstanding, I think, about avoidants.
[00:06:10] Julie Menanno: Oh, right. Yeah. They're really misunderstood. It's really hard for me to take that sometimes.
[00:06:16] Laura McKowen: Yeah. Yeah. Maybe we'll dive a bit into that. And it's all based on attachment theory, it's based on early experiences?
[00:06:26] Julie Menanno: For the most part, you know, you have to think of it like this- a child is going to be with a highly impactful other person or other caregivers for, you know, 18 years. Let's say 14 to 18 years during the highest period of development in their life, so we can't ignore that level of it. However, we do also go on to have other relationships that are impactful and those can play a part, absolutely. And those can shift things around. But what I see in my clinical practice is that the vast majority of people are carrying this stuff from childhood. When you're raised in an insecure environment and you have an insecure attachment, you're more likely to get involved in relationships that reinforce your insecurity anyway.
[00:07:14] Laura McKowen: how is this area of study different than other fields of study in relationship. And why do you like it?
[00:07:23] Julie Menanno: I think it's different than other perspectives because we're really able to understand the true motivations and intentions of conflict and relationships. And without attachment theory, we don't have that reference point. I mean, we kind of have a vague idea that people aren't happy, but we're not honing it down to the real nuts and bolts, which is these attachment needs. This is why when in any given moment where I feel invalidated by you, my nervous system is going to react to that because something feels really unsafe.
[00:07:56] Because I need to know that you can validate me and see me to feel safe with you. And if I'm not safe with you, I'm feeling threatened and that's scary, and I'm going to have to do whatever I can to get that safety back. And really, an avoidant person is going to do something different to get safety than an anxious partner or a secure partner or a disorganized partner.
[00:08:20] So when we're talking about the attachment styles, we're talking about how they are going about getting their needs met and not just that, but also what's underlying their drives? What kind of fears are they dealing with? What kind of meanings are they making of events? And that's just as important as what we're seeing on the surface.
[00:08:37] Laura McKowen: Yeah. The meaning making, yes.
Julie Menanno: And a lot of times when we talk in more surface level attachment education, maybe online, they're kind of focusing in on surface level behaviors and there's a lot more going on with that. And that's why some people can have a hard time figuring out what their style is.
[00:08:57] Laura McKowen: Why did it speak to you as a therapist? What was your education? What sort of schools of thought did you study in your education and in your practice?
[00:09:09] Julie Menanno: Before I went back to grad school, I was a stay-at-home mom for 10 years to six kids.
[00:09:17] Laura McKowen: Oh wow, I knew the six kids part, but I didn’t put together the stay at home for six kids. Like, wow.
[00:09:24] Julie Menanno: Yeah, no, I was home and it was a lot and I was really overwhelmed. I had them all in a 10 year span so I did not know what I was doing with my first two. Had no idea. I was really overwhelmed. I didn't grow up in an environment where I really learned a lot of communication skills. And so I really got into attachment parenting and my third, fourth, fifth, and six, I wore in slings all day. I slept with them. I just really fostered that secure attachment. It really worked too. And so that was kind of my first familiarity with attachment. And then I went back to grad school in 2011. Most masters programs were not teaching attachment theory so I was just kind of learning their stuff on the side, getting through it, which was cognitive behavioral. Then I was just immersing myself in my own time with object relations theory, which is like the precursor to attachment theory, psychodynamic theory, just really learning all I could.Then that really kind of segues into attachment theory. In my second year of grad school, I read Attachment in Psychotherapy by David Wallin and that changed everything. I wanted to do individual work, but I had to see couples to get my license.
[00:10:41] So I saw a couple and I was like, this is crazy. I don't know what I'm doing .Immediately I flew out to Bozeman, Montana to get the first round of EFT training that existed. You know, the first one I could find in the country. And never took another individual client on after that point. I fell in love with couples work because it works. EFT works from an attachment theory. It's amazing the progress you can start having with a couple really early on, even with relatively little skill. I mean, you're not going to save a couple that early on, but you start realizing when you go from having sessions where you're not in control of the session and nobody's feeling heard and you're there fighting and it's all over the place to having these beautiful connecting moments. I'll just say all of the attachment based therapists that I know, we all feel like it's just very addictive.
[00:11:35] Laura McKowen: Yeah. Can you explain EFT for people?
[00:11:37] Julie Menanno: Yes. EFT. It's emotion focused therapy for couples and it was developed by Sue Johnson. She and another man, Les Greenberg, they're no longer affiliated, but together in the 1980’s, they took attachment theory and turned it into a couples therapy modality. She's absolutely brilliant. I mean, she was able to say, here's what you do. Here's the steps. You know, it was like an instruction manual, but much more complicated than that for using attachment theory to treat couples. And so I studied and learned EFT and I use that in my practice.
[00:12:23] Laura McKowen: If there are limitations that you see in this framework, what are they?
[00:12:27] Julie Menanno: I'm going to be really honest. I think the limitation of the framework is that EFT is easy to learn, and extremely difficult to master. And so you can only go so far with it and until you start mastering it. And I think what happens is a lot of times, EFT therapists learn great validation skills, great connecting skills, and they're really able to provide these beautiful experiences for couples, but they're not sustaining it outside of the session and things can start to stagnate. And so I think it takes a very, very, very high level of training to really get the job done with EFT. It also depends on the distress of the couple. You can't use EFT in situations where there's really extreme abuse taking place that's very one-sided. I mean, a lot of couples that are in distress are abusing each other, little a abuse, emotional abuse, verbal abuse and fighting.
[00:13:27] Laura McKowen: Unconsciously or consciously or both?
[00:13:28] Julie Menanno: Well, I think when nervous systems are escalated, we're going to do things very impulsively. I think it's not subconscious because we know we're doing it. I think there are a lot of ways to be abusive subconsciously, but that even some physical violence is tolerable with this model, as long as it is even, and it's not causing real serious harm, and the kids aren't involved, you know? There's always that weird line of like, where does this cross and where is this not appropriate anymore? If that's happening with my couples, I'm going to refer both of them to some individual work, which I always refer to somatic experiencing, because that helps them regulate.
[00:14:19] So I would say, if a couple is not invested in the emotional health of the relationship and staying together, EFT isn't the best modality. And if there's that level of serious abuse, or if someone has an addiction, they're not able to participate. And then we call that competing attachments. An active affair, anything that's getting in the way.
[00:14:43] Laura McKowen: An addiction would be called a competing attachment?
[00:14:46] Julie Menanno: No, no. Well, an addiction could be a form of a competing attachment. Competing attachment could be workaholism. It could be an active affair. Anything that's taking so much emotional energy out of the relationship, the relationship can't connect while that's going on.
[00:15:05] Laura McKowen: Oh, I have so many questions. Okay. So can you give an example of a sort of setup for EFT just to give people an idea? I know for me, I need to imagine how something might work. Like an exchange. Like you have a couple sitting there, they have X problem. How do you set it up?
[00:15:25] Julie Menanno: If they're saying to me, “This happened, we had this fight…”?
[00:15:30] Laura McKowen: Can you pick an example of a fight just to give people a taste of it? I want it to feel real while we go into it.
[00:15:37] Julie Menanno: So what I'm going to do is I'm going to hone their experience down to a moment. I work with moments. Okay. So, because I want to dissect that moment and know everything about what was going on inside of that person that led them to react in the way that they did. And then I want to understand how that impacted their partner. And then I want to understand how the impact of the partner was now a trigger that, you know, set into motion, a cascade of events on the partner. So I'm going to say, all right, right there, you hear him say, “why didn't you take my clothes to the cleaners?”. This is such a stereotypical, sexist example.
[00:16:16] Laura McKowen: That's okay. We'll go with it.
[00:16:16] Julie Menanno: It has to be something else I can't do it.
[00:16:22] Laura McKowen: No, I know it's kind of painful for all of us. How about “you spoke over me at dinner with friends”?
[00:16:31] Julie Menanno: Okay. All right, so we have to have a trigger, right? So I'm going to work with the trigger of being spoken over.
[00:16:38] So I'm going to say, all right, help me understand what that meant to you right there. You're sitting there and things are well and then all of a sudden, BAM, you're getting spoken over. What goes through your mind right there? And they're probably gonna say something like, “well, I just felt irrelevant”. If it's an avoidant partner, they're going to say what they thought. Well, I am asking them what they thought. Sorry. Later when I say, “what did you feel?” That's when they're going to say what they thought. So they're going to say, “well, I felt little. I felt disrespected.”
[00:17:11] And then I'm going to really validate that. I'm going to say, I really get that. Like we all know what that feels like. I mean, you’ve felt disrespected. I’ve felt disrespected. So we all know what that feels like. And I can see how feeling disrespected is going to cause some stuff to get stirred up inside of you, especially from your close person. You want to know that you're out with these people and that you guys are a team and you're connected. And when that happens, it's devastating. And then I start validating that and really just trying to say, what else is coming up with that disrespect? What do you notice in your body?
[00:17:46] One technique I use that I learned from my supervisor, George, is what is it like for you when you feel respected by your partner? Give me a moment when you feel respected and then they might say, “When they bring the coffee in the morning” and I'm gonna use that one for real because my husband brings me coffee. That’s a big one for me. right? I feel loved.
Laura McKowen: Yes. Pure love.
[00:18:03] Julie Menanno: What's happening in your nervous system right now, as you think of this experience of having this loved one, your person in life, your man bring you coffee? What does that feel like? Oh, it feels warm. I can feel it in my body. I'm sure that you can feel it, that zone that's really good for you. That warm place where you're feeling loved and respected and wanted and cared for.
[00:18:33] And then I'm going to say, so shift over with me to those moments when you don't feel respected and immediately their nervous system is going to follow that and go up. I'm going to say, this is how painful it is for you when you're feeling disrespected and then just to give the fast version, I'm going to say, what do you do right there?
[00:18:52] When all this is welling up, you're feeling disrespected, your chest is tight, your muscles start to feel tingly, you feel hurt and sad... what do you do right there? “Well, I shut down. I stopped talking.” All right. I get that. Because what are you trying to do there? You're trying to say you’re hurt or you don't know what to do with these emotions, so you just kind of slink away, right? You go into a cave to be safe. Depending on where they are in the therapy, if they're later on, I might say the problem is what happens. How does that land on Michelle? You know, when she doesn't know what's going on and she just sees you retreat? And because they've been validated and understood, they're far more likely to be able to step into their partner's world.
[00:19:37] Whereas if I would have just started and said, “Well, why were you upset? What did she do?” “Well, she just ignored me.” I mean, they're not going to be able to see their partner. They're not going to be able to step into their partner's world until they do that.
[00:19:53] Laura McKowen: Yup. Yup. They’re not going to see.
Julie Menanno: I'm going to say, I want you to tell her what we just talked about. I want you to say, when you saw me shrink away from you, when you saw me shut down, what was really happening is I was hurting because I didn't feel seen by you. And then that partner, if that's an avoidant partner, by saying that they're showing up emotionally in a way that they may never have in their life. And so their anxious partner is going to just melt.
[00:20:24] Laura McKowen: Because they've been craving this. So I want to go into the types and sort of the high-level behavior in relationships. Before you work with a couple, do you assess their attachment type or do you sort of absorb it through observation? Do you tell them, look, you seem like an avoidant type or disorganized type?
[00:20:47] Julie Menanno: I don't know. 80-90% of my couples, maybe more I instantly can see it, you know. Once you get to know the signs...
[00:20:59] Laura McKowen: How do you see it? What is a really common way?
[00:21:01] Julie Menanno: A really common way is who's calling me. There's some caveats and twists that I won't go into, and I don't mean to shame any people who go into therapy or my couples or anything, but it is really common where they come in and they sit down and I introduce myself and I say, “Well, what brings you here today?” And the anxious partner looks at their avoidant partner and says, “Why don't you start?”. And they're saying, “Are you going to show up, are you invested? I don't want to be “the too much one” and take up all the energy. I'm used to being too much.”
[00:21:43] Then what'll happen is the avoidant partner will kind of stammer through and then the anxious partner will start talking and then continue talking for a lengthy amount of time. That's a really common way. And that's not always the case.
[00:22:01] Laura McKowen: Sure. Of course we know. There's no always. We will say that up front. How does an anxious partner show up? What does that look like? And what are their motivations? Let's do that and then avoidant and then disorganized.
[00:22:20] Julie Menanno: Okay. So the anxious partner is trying to close the distance in the relationship. That's their overriding goal. The avoidant partner's goal is to keep things from getting worse. Let's just maintain, right? Yeah. So the anxious partner is very aware, hypervigilant, very connected with the state of the relationship, very aware of anything they avoid, what it might be doing. Kind of implying an abandonment on any level, usually filtering for the negative, seeing what they're doing wrong and kind of missing the cues of what they might be doing right.
[00:22:54] Like they might miss the coffee every morning and focus on the fact that they didn't text right back. And so they are going to try to get their needs met in kind of predictable ways, which is protesting, telling you what you're doing wrong. Like if I can just get you to see what you're doing wrong, you'll change and it will be okay. It doesn't land like that.
[00:23:17] Laura McKowen: It sounds like nagging or complaining or attacking, or being frustrated all the time.
[00:23:22] Julie Menanno: Yes. Yes. And for good reason, too, and just the strategies don't work, but for good reason. Some anxious partners have a hard time with physical separations and are just really aware of anything that might kind of imply an abandonment or a let down. There's a spectrum, but with some there's a lot of testing behaviors because they grew up in environments where they could never know if their caregiver was really going to be there for them. It was inconsistent. Sometimes they were, sometimes they weren't. And so they're testing. They're saying, are you going to be there for me? Are you going to be there for me? They’re trying to get this emotional safety, but they can really only feel that safety for five minutes and then they need to test again because they don't have the capacity to hold security. Most of the time they’re in a relationship with a partner who's avoidant and also can't really show up for them. I'm always looking at what is coming from the individual partner's past and what is coming from the reality of the relationship. And it's always a combination of both.
[00:24:28] Laura McKowen: Right. Because often there are actual behaviors that even objectively are threatening.
[00:24:35] Julie Menanno: Absolutely. They come into the relationship with this kind of baggage for lack of a better word. And then they reinforce what they're coming in with, and then it takes a life of its own. So my job is to pick all that apart, figure out where's this all coming from and work through those blocks.
[00:24:54] Laura McKowen: Great. Avoidants.
[00:24:57] Julie Menanno: All right. So the avoidant is going to be very sensitive to criticism or being seen as not getting it right. That's their core fear is I need to be seen as getting it right for you.
[00:25:08] I need to know you see me as successful for you. And if I don't, then I start to kind of shut down and get demoralized and don't know what to do. They get overwhelmed by the expectations of the anxious partner, even realistic expectations. They have very little contact to varying degrees with their own internal world.
[00:25:27] So it's very difficult for them to show up for anybody else's internal world. Their strategy is just stuff it away, move on, pretend it doesn't exist. And then when they get in a relationship with an anxious partner who can't do that, they don't know what to do. Yeah. So they get overwhelmed. They might shut down. They might stonewall to express anger. Some avoidant partners can be kind of explosive, but a lot of times what happens is they hold it in, hold it in, hold it in and then it comes out sideways and passive aggressiveness or even kind of biting humor. You know, one thing I needed to help avoidants do is just start finding their emotions and putting words to them. Even negative ones. When I'm really doing good work and the avoidant partner is able to say “I was really mad”, the anxious partner actually likes that because they know it's not going to come out at them later. And they're showing up.
[00:26:24] Laura McKowen: What are the conditions in early childhood that contribute to avoidant versus say, you explained anxious attachment as they couldn't count on it. What does that look like for an avoidant?
[00:26:37] Julie Menanno: For an avoidant it's more consistent ignoring of needs. And so when the child is reaching for connection or comfort, they're just not going to get it back. And a lot of times, avoidant parents are really good at taking care of external needs, school needs, physical needs, but they're not able to be emotionally available because they don't know how. The anxious one kind of always has a little bit of hope, right? Like maybe this time I'll get a response. I can get what they have sometimes.
[00:27:02] Laura McKowen: It's like, they've had pieces of it. There are moments of it or days of it, or weeks of it or whatever, but it's not consistent. So they've been to the top of the mountain, but they don't stay there.
[00:27:14] Julie Menanno: Absolutely. They never stay there. And so they get just really hyper-focused on it. What anxious partners learned to do to stay safe is constantly be in a state of awareness. I keep saying hypervigilance. With the avoidant partner, they learn to stuff it down. Don't have the needs, don't be in contact with the needs, but still maintain some physical proximity. This is for the younger child, you know, just kind of sit next to the mom and play, but be really quiet. Don't demand. Deal with it on your own. And so they're getting safety from that. It's the second best safety.
[00:27:57] But at least they're having some sense of safety and strategy, and that's why we consider anxious and avoidant to be organized attachments even though they're not. They’re at least organized where there is some strategy where they can stay safe.
[00:28:13] Laura McKowen: It's consistent, their strategy is consistent. I'm going to go towards you trying to bridge the gap or I'm going to pull away. Am I right in this idea or maybe I'm making it up that avoidant behavior could also come from overbearing, enmeshed caregivers?
[00:28:31] Julie Menanno: Yes. Thank you for bringing that up. It can come from intrusive parenting that demanded that they share their feelings. And then that avoidant child just starts to feel icky and it's too much. It's too much. And so they start shutting down and shying away from that. When there's an intrusive piece there are ways that's going to show up later on in adult relationships. It’s going to be like an aversion to connection, as opposed to just an inability to connect. I mean, this is interesting, but a person can be healthy, kind of globally healthy and still have an avoidant and anxious attachment. It's when we start getting into disorganized attachment that we start finding lack of health.
[00:29:24] Laura McKowen: Okay. So, let's talk about disorganized.
[00:29:27] Julie Menanno: All right. So we go back to the anxious and avoidant. They have strategies that kind of work. They develop an organization inside of them. Disorganized kids don't. They don't have any hope. They're constantly in a state of nervous system escalation because they have a conflict between their intense biological drive to seek connection and comfort from their mother or father or caregiver, and this fear of doing so. Because by doing so, they're going to get a really negative response.
It's either going to be a frightening, angry response, just complete rejection, a dissociated parent, a punitive response, and sometimes even if the parents are not grossly negligent or grossly abusive, they might be in a social situation or an economic situation that creates chaos in their environment. And the parent can't be available and they can't reach the parent. There's no one to even reach for and so they're just kind of stuck in this state of inner turmoil. That's just at a higher level than what we're going to see with anxious and avoidant children. The number one factor of a caregiver that creates a disorganized attachment is unresolved trauma. And so if their trauma is resolved, meaning that that person can manage the feelings, can talk about the trauma, can not dissociate from the trauma then they're not going to have those trauma triggers. Those trauma triggers are going to show up in the parenting.
[00:31:03] So not everybody with unresolved trauma is going to create a disorganized attachment style as a child, but that is a very common feature. Predatory behaviors of parents where they're growling at their kids or showing teeth, that's very scary for children, especially young children. Parents who use the child as an attachment figure or sexualize the child, because that takes away their wiser, stronger other.
[00:31:30] They have no one to reach for. We want a wiser, stronger other that children can go to for comfort and protection. Children are resilient. Children can handle trauma, they can handle a lot more than we think, as long as they have comfort and it's processed with them in a healthy way. And so disorganized children aren’t getting that, or they're watching their parents hurt each other, but they're not getting any comfort.
[00:32:14] Mikel Ellcessor: Hi, I'm Mikel. I'm the executive producer of Tell Me Something True and I co-created the show with Laura. We built TMST and our online community with the hope of creating a sane spot on the internet. We're really passionate about the ad-free nature of this work. Our belief is that this project works best if we're not hustling to keep advertisers happy, and we keep our attention on you, the TMST community, and this is where you can play a major role. TMST Plus is the membership group that helps to keep this podcast going. Whether it's through a monthly membership or a one-time contribution, TMST Plus members are vital to this experiment. As a TMST Plus member, you get to join Laura for member only events, send in questions for the guests, hear the complete unedited interviews and connect with other TMST community members. You know, sometimes we feel like we can't make a difference in the world. With the TMST Plus membership, you can be keeping this space alive and thriving for a one-time gift or for as little as 10 bucks a month, you can find the link in the show description and then please head over to tmstpod.com right now to support the show. And thanks.
[00:33:44] Laura McKowen: Do you see people change significantly over time? What are the trajectories that you usually see when you're successful and they're successful? And what happens in the cases typically where they're not successful?
[00:34:02] Julie Menanno: So a successful avoidant is going to be able to recognize an emotional experience, put words to it, show up with their thoughts and feelings in an authentic way. They're going to learn how to comfort their partner's distress without trying to fix it, without shame spiraling. “I know I'm so terrible. I shouldn't have done that.” You know, they're just going to be able to show up emotionally, give comfort, and not feel distressed by their partner's distress. Now, we want empathy where you can feel some of it, but we don't want them to get overwhelmed to where it’s “Oh my God, I don't know how to do this. I don't know what to do. You're too much.” They're not going to need to escape from conflict. They're going to be able to hang in there. They're going to be able to just know more parts of themselves, access more parts of themselves.
[00:34:51] As people approach secure attachment, they do start playing around with other behaviors. So you might see an avoidant start becoming critical or blaming, but it's going to be at a lower level. That's them showing up and learning about this other part of themselves. They're trying it on until we can kind of balance it out and we might see anxious partners do the same thing. Both partners are going to start co-regulating each other, meaning that they can get into that window of tolerance. When they do that, they help the other partner do that. I have to be the one to do that at the beginning. I have to be in that window and then I'm co-regulating them. Then they start to co-regulate each other. And so the anxious partner is going to become better at self-regulation. Like, “I'm feeling irritated and frustrated. Let me get my nervous system down. Let me get myself out of this panic mode before I show up and try to initiate this conversation” because if they don't, they're going to blow up and be spinning out and it's going to get them into their negative cycle.
[00:36:02] The anxious partner is going to start to have more realistic expectations, start to feel lovable, start to trust love. This is really important. Both of them are going to be able to reach for reassurance when they're triggered by old stuff. So let's say the anxious partner comes to the avoidant and this is in later stages of therapy. And they say, “I want to talk to you. I'm kind of triggered by something, but at the same time, I'm afraid if I bring it up, you might think I'm too much for you. So can I just get some reassurance right now that sometimes I can have complaints and have requests from you without being too much?”
[00:36:44] And I've worked with them enough that the avoidant partner is going to be able to say yes. “Yeah. I can give you that reassurance. You're not too much.” And the avoidant version of that is going to be, “As you're bringing this up to me, I'm starting to feel that urge to kind of just shut down on you. I don't want to do that anymore so can I get some reassurance that even though you have a complaint, you don't see me as just a global failure?” “No, I don't see you as a failure.”
[00:37:10] Laura McKowen: The failure piece kind of blows my mind with the avoidant. It's got to be really hard to have compassion for the avoidant behavior for how it looks because it seems so cold and dismissive and all of that, but the fact that they feel like such a failure really helps me have some compassion.
[00:37:32] Julie Menanno: Yeah. That's the whole goal is to have compassion, empathy and really understand these little children that are kind of running the show in these triggering moments. And in other ways, avoidants are like a hamster on a wheel inside. You don't see that, but when they did the original attachment studies with babies, the avoidant children were more escalated because at least the anxious kids are expelling their energy. And so they're like exercising, you know, they're giving it out, they're using it. The avoidants are just holding it in. They have high blood pressure, heart attacks. Both of them are doing this, but it just feels more appropriate to say this about avoidants, they're always trying to stay one step ahead of shame. It's just right there, lurking and they're always just kind of staying one step ahead of it. Whereas the anxious partners are definitely shame driven also, but they're trying to stay one step ahead of losing connection and abandonment at all times.
[00:38:40] So As we build up their communication skills and ability to reach each other, they start to become secure and that security starts to bring resilience to the relationship in and of itself. They begin to get stuck in these patterns and negative cycles less often and can interrupt and repair from it fast when it happens.
[00:39:02] Laura McKowen: If you identify that one or both people have a severe or even a moderate addiction, what do you do? Will you work with them? Is it possible?
[00:39:15] Julie Menanno: Depends. Yeah, it is possible. I have worked with a lot of different types of addictions from porn to alcohol.
[00:39:25] One thing that I kind of require is that if it's getting in the way of that person's functioning, and if it's getting in the way of their ability to be present enough in the relationship to actually work on the relationship, then I will have make sure that they have some sort of management strategy going on outside of the couples work. Sometimes it's 12 step. I do have some complaints about the 12 Step because sometimes I think they might be kind of shifting out of that shaming perspective, but whether it's a 12 step or whatever works for people to keep the addiction stable, to keep them from drinking. Sometimes it's individual therapy, then I can do the couples work, but obviously I can't do couples work if someone's using in the session because they're not there. They're not present.
[00:40:17] Laura McKowen: Do you think couples can actually heal if one person is in active addiction?
[00:40:24] Julie Menanno: No, I don't. I mean, I think it depends on the degree of the addiction, but if that person isn't able to be present, that's not healing. Can they stay together and kind of function together? Sure, but they're going to have a real challenge to feeling close. And again, we're talking about degrees because people who have active addictions might have periods where they can be close, but there'd be so much stress in the system that it would be very difficult to have optimal health.
[00:40:55] Laura McKowen: How often do you see addiction show up?
[00:40:56] Julie Menanno: I don't see tons of it. And that could be the community I live in, the demographic of who I treat. I would say maybe 10 to 15% of my client load, I would consider having an active addiction. Addictions are intimacy disorders. When you're lacking intimacy and you grow up in a home with no real connection and none of the good emotional stuff, you're either empty for it and you use alcohol or drugs as a way to get it or as a way to feel good or to distract from the pain of not having that. When I can get couples really strong with each other and connected and getting that good stuff in the relationship, we start to have less need for the addiction to play that role of numbing the lack of intimacy or the pain of the relationship.
[00:42:04] Laura McKowen: Johann Hari said the opposite of addiction is not sobriety, it's connection and that’s like on the homepage of my company website, the sobriety support community that I created. What we talk about constantly is connection and connection and connection. And we know intuitively what that means, you hear that statement and you go, of course. But when you add that extra context of an intimacy disorder or disordered intimacy it's so fascinating. The ways that we resist intimacy are so many and so complicated and so real that it's amazing we ever get there.
[00:42:54] Julie Menanno: Well, the resisting intimacy paradoxically is trying to get intimacy.
[00:43:03] Laura McKowen: I know. Yeah. Especially in our culture, I want to do it alone. I want to do everything alone.
[00:43:09] Julie Menanno: I want to step into the world of a person that wants to do it alone. What do you think that person's going for or trying to feel by doing it alone?
[00:43:18] Laura McKowen: Oh, I know I am that person and I've gotten a lot better. For me, it is that I don't want to need you. If I need you that means I'm weak. I don't want to be weak. Being weak is dangerous. It's shameful. It's embarrassing. And if I need you, I depend on you and I can't do that. That will disappoint me at the very least. At the worst, it puts me in danger.
[00:43:56] Julie Menanno: Right. You're risking rejection.
[00:43:59] Laura McKowen: Yeah. And that was the thing above all to avoid for me. I can't handle you rejecting me.
[00:44:06] Julie Menanno: So let's shift that around and say, how is all of what you said an actual drive to feel connected? How are those avoidant tendencies driving to feel relationally connected? And if you can't answer it I'll answer it for you.
[00:44:22] Laura McKowen: No, no, no. This is great. Like I know intuitively what they are, but I want to be able to say it. So give me a second.
[00:44:29] Julie Menanno: Take your time.
[00:44:34] Laura McKowen: Well, one thing that comes to mind is if I'm perfectly self-sufficient and whole and perfect enough, you will want me.
[00:44:48] Julie Menanno: Yes, there you go. I'll be acceptable.
[00:44:51] Laura McKowen: I'll be acceptable. You won't be able to reject me.
[00:44:56] Julie Menanno: Yeah. I'll be acceptable and I don't have to risk being abandoned, so I'll be safe. Right. So it's like we have all these twisted strategies for getting closeness that can even look like a rejection of it. I mean, at the end of the day, that's what it does. Circling back to what I do with couples is I would have you verbalize that to your partner and say, you know, can I get some reassurance right now that if you see this kind of weak part of me or if I ask you to help me with this that you're not going to see me as weak and unacceptable to you?
[00:45:35] Laura McKowen: Getting to that point, like you said, the avoidant sometimes can't even get there because it's too shameful to even say those words. It's just awful. I wouldn't have been able to get there at some point.
[00:45:47] Julie Menanno: I want to just put this out there so we don't feel hopeless around avoidants. The vast majority of avoidants can get there. So I just want to put that out there. Avoidants are really actually easy to work with most of the time, once you get them in the door. The reach for reassurance is what you missed out on in childhood. Had you had a relationship with your parents, had they been able to give you that support they would've already been telling you that and you would have developed core beliefs around knowing that everybody needs help. This is normal. We all need help.
[00:46:22] We all reach. That’s how I'm helping these partners be secure bases. I don't want to say secure parents because we don't want parent-child dynamics in a romantic relationship, but we're helping them be the secure base for each other. You are acceptable to me. I love this weak side of you that needs my help, you know? I love that part of you as much as I love your strong part.
[00:46:47] Laura McKowen: Let's just end with you telling us about your upcoming book.
[00:46:52] Julie Menanno: Okay. Well, I have The Secure Love and it should be released late fall. I decided not really to do a long narrative about what attachment theory is because I think most people just need the basics and have a felt experience of it anyway. And then I go into explaining the different attachment styles and graphs, as far as how the environments can create the style, the caregiver behavior, the messages picked up by the child, how's this going to show up later in adult relationships to help people really connect the dots.
[00:47:26] And then I go into a step-by-step program of how I’m ushering a couple through therapy. So what I'm trying to do is take the process I use with couples and put it into a written format where they can go through that on their own. I can't say how effective that's going to be. I'm going to have to assume that it will be really effective for a lot of people because of the feedback I'm getting from my posts. So it's kind of like taking all the information on Instagram, consolidating it, organizing it and expanding upon it in a book. And then I have at the end, people love scripts. I mean, again, they're controversial. I get a lot of comments about them sounding inauthentic. I'm like, look, guys, you gotta use your own words here. I mean, I can only put it out there generically.
[00:48:14] Laura McKowen: Scripts can be really helpful just to have an idea of the words that you could use.
[00:48:24] Julie Menanno: I mean, it's so helpful. I remember when I was a parent, I didn't know what I was doing. I just needed words to say. I didn't need to know the idea. I need to validate them. I need to blah, blah, blah. I need to help them regulate. I needed to know what I was supposed to be saying because I never learned these words. So that's really my motivation there. The last part of the book I really loved because it just goes through like any kind of a situation. Your partner is annoying you?. Here's five options for what to say! I hope it's good. I mean, I’m pretty proud of it and I hope that it's really helpful. I'm sure you can agree, it’s hard to be vulnerable and hard to put yourself out there. One of my daughters is a really good artist and I was like, imagine if you entered an art contest with the stuff you made three years ago? Like, you've learned so much since then!
[00:49:17] Laura McKowen: Well, I will look for it. And thank you so much for coming on. This was so wonderful.
[00:49:25] Julie Menanno: It was! This was great. Thank you!
[00:49:34] Laura McKowen: Alright, thank you so much for being with us today. If you want more TMST head on over to tmstpod.com and become a member. Members get access to the full uncut versions of these conversations, previews of upcoming guests, invites to join me for members only, and access to our members only community where I hang out a lot, especially now that I'm not on social media. We decided from the beginning to make this an independent project. We don't have sponsors and we don't run ads. This means that we can make the show all about you and not what our sponsors or advertisers want, but it also means we're a hundred percent reliant on your support. So my request and my invitation is simple. Support the show by becoming a member, or you can simply make a one-time donation of as little as $5. I cannot stress this enough. You can make a huge difference for as little as $5. Please head over to tmstpod.com right now. Tell Me Something True is engineered and mixed by Paul Tufo. Mikel Ellcessor and I dreamed up this show and we're looking forward to joining you online and next time on Tell Me Something True.