The Relationships We C.R.A.V.E.

In December, I wrote about “Four B.I.G. M-istakes We Make in Relationships” (you can read about them here), which focused on factors that can derail our relationships, and promised a Part 2 on factors that can instead fortify and deepen them. Of course, I saved Part 2 for the month of love and connection.

When you are able to find a quiet moment to sit alone with your eyes shut, breathe deeply and ask yourself: “What do I really want?” “What do I truly long for?” What is the answer?

When we get to the level of deeper longings, most of us yearn for four things: Love, joy, freedom, and peace (Martha Beck, 2021). As social beings a deep sense of love and belonging is central to our happiness. While love and belonging is not confined simply to romantic relationships and can include friendships, familial connections, work, and other social relationships, it can still feel tremendously elusive.

Paradoxically, I believe a deep sense of connection is even harder to cultivate in the current culture of constant “connectivity” created through technology and social media; while we now have immediate and fairly unlimited access to people across the globe in a way that was never before possible, the increased demands on our time and attention mean we can only have micro bandwidths of attention available for any specific relationship. I am not sure we can grow very deep connections in ground that shallow. There is always a point of diminishing returns where more, becomes too much.

The connections we need and CRAVE, are those where we feel a deep sense of care and closeness, love and belonging, where we feel safe, seen, respected, and feel we matter. While perhaps not a comprehensive list, I believe there are five important contributors to cultivating those relationships: C- Curiosity, R - Respect & Power, A- Attention & Turning Towards, V – Validation, E – Empathy & Care.

CURIOSITY:

According to relationship therapist and guru, Esther Perrel, the central paradox in relationships is that while we have a need for safety and security, “we also have a need for discovery, novelty, growth, freedom, adventure, mystery… a sense that there is still something to look forward to.” (Link to Podcast)

All of our fundamental relational needs, as well as our relationship styles (but that is another topic), are mirrored from our primary relationship, i.e., parent-child. Think about raising children, children with more secure attachments to their parents, are more likely to venture out and explore their environment, always using their parent as a secure base to check back and return to. If you have a toddler, watch how they run away to explore a new environment only to keep looking back, or running back, to confirm that you are still there and watching. It is a dance between the need for separation and individuation, and connection.

This is what we also need in our later relationships; a secure base, a sense of safety and security but also room to grow, evolve and change. I’ve always felt in adulthood there are two roads,one is stagnation and atrophy, the other is growth. In order to thrive, we need to continue to learn and evolve, but often in relationships that have lasted many years, we tend to get lazy in how we see our partners, we think of them as always being the same, and when we do that we box them in, or worse, we lose our connection with them because we are no longer relating to who they NOW are.

So, how do we support growth in our relationships over time? Remain curious (Curiosity Blog). Don’t assume you know everything there is to know about a person. Approach them with not knowing, with openness and curiosity, and a sense of exploration and discovery in learning what’s new about the person you are with. Not only will you be providing space and support for your partner or friend to grow, but you will also bring much needed mystery, novelty, and adventure into your relationship.

One more point: the biggest turn-on in a relationship – feeling seen. Ask your partner questions, explore who they NOW are, their dreams, thoughts, fears, wants…get to know them again and see what happens. By the way, you are welcome.

RESPECT & POWER:

According to Perrell, every argument between a couple is the same argument, and most conflicts come down to three things: 1. Respect and Recognition, do you value me? 2. Power and control, whose needs do we pay most attention to, whose priorities matter? 3. Care and closeness, can I trust you, do you have my back? (I will address this third aspect below).

Regarding respect and power, we all want to feel we are living a life of meaning. We want to be able to contribute value. We also want to feel like we matter and that our needs matter.

A relationship that feels full, is one that allows each person in a partnership to contribute fully. A very simple way to create space for what your partner has to offer is by taking time to notice and appreciate your partners positive qualities and contributions. Appreciation and positive noticing are like flashlights that illuminate your partners value within the relationship, and this not only increases space for their contributions, but also helps increase a sense of mutual respect and ultimately value and fondness towards each other.

Equal distribution of power is trickier; Even in the most egalitarian of relationships, it is difficult to accommodate the needs of both individuals equally ALL of the time. But in an equal partnership, needs and priorities are considered equally OVER time; one person’s needs may take center stage at one point in time but needs of the other will be prioritized another time. Equal distribution of power and control is, however, the equal responsibility of each partner; both need to develop an awareness of who is making most of the decisions, whose needs and priorities seem to take precedence, who controls the relational or family narrative, who takes up more of the emotional space, and subtle or subconscious tendencies to both manipulate to gain power or give away power to avoid the anxiety of responsibility.

There is no simple hack to creating equality within a relationship, it takes a constant effort at building awareness and checking in with each other. One technique I’ve written about in an earlier blog could also be useful here: live in the in-between . Our human need for efficiency in decision making and function often compels us to compartmentalize people into limited roles and definitions. Becoming more comfortable with ambiguity allows more room within relationships for the wholeness of each other.

With increased room for each other’s needs and contributions, both partners can experience an increased sense of meaning, wholeness, and mattering.

ATTENTION & TURNING TOWARDS:

According to the Gottmans, a husband-and-wife pair who are also pre-eminent relational psychologists and researchers, conducted longitudinal studies comparing successful couples with those who were distressed and unhappy or did not last. They found the number one relationship hack is something they call turning towards.

Turning towards is the act of noticing your partners bids for connection. For example, imagine you are working furiously trying to finish writing a blog and your husband walks into the room to show you a funning Instagram video disrupting your concentration. You could get annoyed that your partner did not notice your state of anxiety at trying to meet a deadline and disregarded your needs at the time, OR you could notice that your husband was actually trying to connect with you and take a 30 second break to connect and watch the video together.

Over many decades of Gottmans’ research, one of their most significant findings is that successful couples turn towards their partners’ bids for attention 86% of the time, compared to 33% of the time in unsuccessful couples. They explain that not recognizing a partner’s bid for connection can leave them feeling invisible, unimportant, unloved, or alone.

What is most powerful about this finding is that the solution is so simple and does not require much time; these small bids for connection may take just a few seconds or minutes to fulfill, but the impact they have on a relationship is so significant.

VALIDATION:

I talked a lot about invalidation as one of the BIG mistakes we make in relationships. I wrote:

“While we choose our partners in part because we feel we share similar values, dreams, and other commonalities, our partners are separate beings from us with fundamentally different histories, temperaments, biology, needs, longings, drives and fears… [W]e can never truly understand the life of another until we have walked a mile (or more likely 1000) in their shoes. As close as we are to our partners, as much as we believe we know them, we are not them and they are not us.  This means they will make different decisions, will load the dishwasher a different way, have opposing perspectives and goals, react unexpectedly, love differently, experience an event (or life overall) in a unique way, and sometimes evolve to want different things. Yet both perspectives in a partnership are valid.” 

There does not need to be a winner in a relationship. There does not have to be one right way. If we can approach each other as doing the best we can with what we have, and hold room for differences, validating each other’s needs and processes, the greater the sense of safety within the relationship. Safety means reduced need for armor and self-protection, and reduced defensiveness; the walls can come down and barriers to closeness & connection are lifted.

EMPATHY & CARE:

Ultimately, we need each other. Relationships are about care and connection. From birth, attachment is what we are wired for. Our survival depends on the attachment bond between mother and child. Later in life, overall happiness depends on a sense of belonging and the health of our relationships. Connection is what we long for.

We want to feel there is someone on our side. There is someone we can trust that will have our back.

Sometimes, however, we do not see what’s there.

A study by Robinson and Price found that couples who were distressed and unhappy only noticed 50% of what they were doing for each other as counted by an independent observer. Successful couples noticed the other’s actions in giving towards them almost 100% of the time.

Imagine if the reality is not that our partners do not care about us, but that we feel they don’t because we are missing it. Sometimes we miss our partner’s acts of love because they are different from how we express, and therefore receive, love.

Maybe it isn’t even that complicated, maybe it all just comes to noticing: Noticing love, noticing acts of giving, noticing positive qualities of our partners, noticing their bids for connection, noticing their needs, noticing who they are and that they are doing the best they can…if we can do that, our relationships will fill us.