Ep 3 - Why Do We Fight or Avoid Talking About The Affair?

Here's the thing that people need to understand whether you've had an affair or not in a negative cycle. People fall into this because they care about each other, not because they don't care. When you go through this slow, you don't feel cared for. Right. Anything you do to try to fix a negative cycle when you get in it, it almost feels like it's only making it worse. Anything you say or do, just keeps propelling it forward, makes it worse. And so these negative cycles are very tricky and getting out of. Hi guys, Morgan Robinson here with the Healing Broken Trust Podcast, we lay the foundation for healing after infidelity. Thank you so much for investing in yourself and your relationship by joining us here. This podcast has been downloaded now over 2 million times, and we're always looking for ways to help you guys take your healing journey to the next level. Brad has taken what he's learned as a marriage and family therapist after working with over 5,800 couples, one-on-one, and has put it into a workshop setting. Why a workshop, you ask? Because it allows us to deliver personal help to you specifically. It gives you the opportunity to hear from other couples who have made it through the struggle, and offers a private community of like-minded people trying to heal broken trust and change their family's future for the better. We extend the support far beyond the 3-day workshop and meet with you weekly to make sure you're getting everything you need. Remember the Master Class? We include that too. And don't worry, it's offered virtually as well for those of you who live anywhere in the world. Visit HealingBrokenTrust.com to learn more. That's HealingBrokenTrust.com. Morgan, we have a listener question today that we're going to jump into. Yeah, let's jump into that listener question. A listener from Bixby asked my wife and I have improved a lot after seeing their therapist but seemed to get stuck in the same arguments. How can we pull ourselves out of the pit that we're in? It's a great question. We can't read the whole email when couples email us and that was specifically about infidelity that the rest of that email. So they're really talking about the negative cycle that they get into and working through the affair. To answer that, if you don't address the negative cycle that you get into that you had before the inaffair, that's the negative cycle you're going to have when you try to heal from the affair. When you try to talk about it? The main thing, and this is something that we haven't addressed and that we're addressing today, it's really how to get out of a negative cycle. So you can heal from the affair because like we've said repeatedly on the show, the best way to heal from an affair is really in the arms of your spouse. The person you love, which is your spouse. Yeah. The feeling close with them is how we heal. Just a little bit of background on negative cycles. Generally, a negative cycle looks like this. We're going to get into a little bit of detail on what the negative cycle looks like for the injured spouse. And the next time we're going to get into the negative cycle, what that looks like for the one who had the affair. Generally, what the negative cycle looks like for the average couple, a fair or no affair, is there's a pursuer and then there's a distancer. The pursuer is somebody who blames, criticizes and demands, and the distancer is somebody who avoids, withdraws and gets defensive. And in these negative cycles, pursuers blame, criticizes and demand, because they don't feel like they're getting a response out of their spouse. They don't feel like they're being heard or listened to, and so they escalate. They may go from asking kindly, asking nicely, and it just escalates from there. And then the distancer, because they want things to be better, to smooth over. And maybe because I had somebody earlier this week say, "I distance because we're both strong, wild and strong headed." If I don't distance myself, if I don't avoid, then we're both just going to keep clashing. And that's kind of how distancers think. And here's the thing that people need to understand, whether you've had an affair or not, in a negative cycle. When you go through this low, you don't feel cared for. Right. Anything you say or do, just keeps propelling it forward and makes it worse. And so these negative cycles, they're very tricky in getting it out of. One of the best ways to get out of them is what we're going to talk about today. And it's very important that if you find yourself struggling with negative cycles like this, that you get help. Because the more these go on and you can't get out of them, the less you care about your marriage. And these negative cycles, the average couple, it takes them about six years before they show up in a counselor's office for help. Wow, yeah. And so you need to get help really before it's too late. Because these things can kind of start small and then they just kind of grow and grow and grow. And here's the problem too Morgan is people care less about their marriage. Like, you know, we've talked about before. I don't know the exact number, but you know, I think it's about five years from the time before they see a chiropractor. They can live with that. You know, they hurt their back a little. Some, you know, it's going to do some harm. They're going to destroy their back, but it's going to feel uncomfortable for those five years. You know, it's going to do some harm to their back, but it probably not harm that can't be treated. And for hearing doctors, it's about 10 years before somebody comes in after they started hearing loss before they actually get help marriage counseling. It's about six years before people come in. The problem that people have if they wait too long is they care less. There's so much fighting they just start checking out. And so in the state of Oklahoma, one out of six couples go to somebody in private practice for marriage counseling. It's really not that good before they divorce. And we've actually seen people a lot of our couples, you're typically their second or third and sometimes their fourth counselor. Yeah, we've had that. If they make it. Sometimes they just assume that first counselor is the only example of couples counseling and then they quit. And it's just not good. And really that's why we've started marriage solutions. Yeah. Because it's a place that churches can partner with businesses can partner with and send their congregation to know they're getting the best help. Yeah. They're getting the best help they can get with therapist who respect clients beliefs and who work with those beliefs and really help them get out of these, these negative cycles. Yeah. And it's really like a pit that they fall into. They can't seem to pull out of on their own and they just need someone to help them. Really pull out of these negative habits, these negative patterns of behavior and conversation. Yeah. And these negative cycles are really things that we do because we don't feel cared for. We care about our spouse, but we don't feel cared for. So we get into this. We're going to have six components of a negative cycle. Yes. I want to jump into. And then we're going to jump into what the negative cycle is like for the spouse who's been betrayed. The injured spouse are on a fair. So basically what there's six components that keep us stuck in a negative cycle and it makes it difficult to get out of the cycle. And these six components are triggers, brazos, behaviors, primary emotions, secondary emotions, and attachment needs. There's six things here. And sometimes we see those secondary emotions before the primary emotions. Yeah. I'm going to kind of go through and explain each one of those. Okay. But Morgan, you're exactly right about that. With these triggers, triggers are anything that can set us off into a negative cycle. And these triggers can be things such as, you know, a root comment, a root remark, facial expression, facial expression, tone of voice, anything that rubs your spouse's wrong way. So it's a fantastic comment. Yeah. Anything. It could be anything like that. It could be here we go again, even that kind of feeling. And then there's appraisals. And appraisals are what we're thinking about our spouse when this happens. And what we're thinking about ourselves when we're in a negative cycle. They're kind of your perception of the situation. Yeah. Exactly. And so these perceptions could be here she doesn't care, here she is cold, here she is controlling, et cetera, those kinds of things. And appraisals of yourself could be I give more. I'm getting then I'm getting back in return. I feel as if I'm not good enough. I see myself as weak. I think we shouldn't have gotten married. Wow. Things like that. The other thing that's a part of negative cycles is behaviors. These behaviors in a negative cycle tend to be things like yelling, screaming, criticizing, insults, or just playing avoiding your spouse. Or you could be doing things like fighting yourself getting busy with distractions or no longer disclosing information with your spouse. Keeping secrets. Yeah, keeping secrets or not confiding. Not confiding. You know, for fear that they might get angry or retaliate or just put you down or kind of think so. Yeah. And that's the classic blame criticized the man that we do. And then avoid withdrawal. Get defensive that we do. Those are the behaviors. Now here's the emotional part you're asking about Morgan. Okay, so we've got the triggers. We've got appraisals. We've got behaviors. Now we've got like you're saying the secondary emotions. Yeah, secondary and primary emotions. Primary emotions. I'm going to get into this first primary emotions are emotions that are really what we this is why we get caught in negative cycles. It's because of three different emotions we cannot share. We're either not showing them because of our past childhood growing up or there's not enough safety in the in the marriage or relationship to share these emotions. And these emotions are sadness. These emotions are fear and shame. Feelings of unworthiness. And so the action tendency of shame when people experience shame is to hide or withdraw when we experience fear you know we leave or we fight back and we experience sadness that can that can show up as anger that can show up as feeling powerless that can show up and feeling rejected. And that's how people talk about it. That's secondary emotions as people talk about it as anger instead of sad or I feel ashamed or I feel lonely or I feel like I'm not good enough for you. You know they may do that. They don't really say those kinds of things. And instead what they what they do is they talk around it. They get mad. You're never here for me. They get accusatory. They do talk about some of these things is I feel lonely. I feel this. I feel that they don't really get there and they don't really share these with their spouse. So you've talked about the primary emotion is that iceberg under the water but the secondary is really the tip of the ice. Yeah, that's the part that we show. We show the secondary emotions that tip. There's really this giant primary emotion iceberg under the water. Yeah, I had somebody in my office last week and they were saying to me I'm really sad. You know where we're at this lack of connection. We don't feel close. We're not connected. It really makes me sad. And his wife was like, "Say what?" Yeah, yeah. I never see you sad. I see you angry. And that's what I'm talking about. We can't show these emotions that sadness, fear, shame. And so what we do is we act out in secondary emotions. And here's why this is so important. When we're able to share our sadness and share our fear, share our feelings of shame, that causes us to start deescalating. That causes us to start getting out of a negative cycle. And what that does is it causes our spouse to begin to see us differently. And because they see us differently, they begin to treat us differently. Like that example of the wife who saw her husband as only angry, what is she going to do when she's only angry? She's going to distance herself from him. she's going to start protecting herself distancing. And if she sees him as sad, she can begin to have empathy for him and compassion and move towards him. >> Kind of reminds me of your toddler. When your toddler throws a fit, throws a fit, you kind of have this instinct you know, they're really just tired. But if you can think, well, they're tired, they're not just throwing this fit in Walmart, you know, banging their head against the counter or whatever, then you can tolerate those upset emotions a little more when you know, really underneath, they're really just tired. >> Yeah, I think that's exactly right Morgan. And when we hear these primary emotions, we hear somebody we care about that sad or afraid or they feel like they're not good enough, we want to be there and comfort them. >> Yeah. >> Yeah, and that's a big part of moving out of negative cycles. The other component of this, the last component is attachment needs. And these are the final piece in the negative cycle. Attachment needs are often, you know, need such as I need to feel needed, I need to feel wanted, I need to feel accepted, I need to feel listened to, I need to feel like you want me, I need to feel that you care. And that you care, that I'm valuable to you, and this is common, you know, the reason we got married, is because you really wanted to be with me, not because we were pregnant or you felt forced. >> Right. >> And so, you know, those needs, that's a big part of this. We're going to examine those six components with couples who have been through an affair. We're going to get into the negative cycle, what it's like for a spouse who has been betrayed, the injured spouse and an affair. >> And we've talked about triggers, which set you off, right? >> And this, and Morgan, let me say this briefly. >> Okay. >> This is the typical negative cycle. This is not every couple, this is your typical couple who experiences this. And so, we have, obviously we're going to have some people listening to this and they're going to say, this doesn't fit my experience. You might be one of the outliers, but this is the typical couple where both of them are trying to work on this. This is not the negative cycle for couples where somebody has left their spouse. The negative cycle might be avoidance at that point. This is couples, we're both of them are trying to heal from the affair that they go into. And so. >> Good to know. >> Yeah, that's important, that's an important distinction. So the triggers for injured spouses, it activates the negative cycle. >> Activates, right? Because triggers are really the activation points, right? >> So start button. >> So, what sets off the negative cycle for the betrayed spouse, that trigger? What is that? The silence or emotional or physical distance of the betrayers, that one? >> Yeah, that would be it. Anything that causes the injured spouse to feel like, here we go again. I've seen this when the affair was happening. And that could literally be a thousand different things. I've seen this before, this was happening when the affair happened. >> I saw that look that he gave before. He came home late, he was texting, he's not telling me who's talking to. She is hanging out with her friends, and she was doing that, and the affair was going on. And those can literally be anything. So anytime the injured spouse gets that, here we go again. >> That trigger? >> That feeling, that's going to trigger a negative cycle. It could trigger a negative cycle. Obviously when the betrayer is being mean and rude, and of course when trust is being broken again, even in smaller matters. And I would even say when the injured spouse is wanting to bring up the affair and wanting to talk about the affair, but finding the spouse, the betrayer, unwilling to talk about it. You betrayed me, I'm going to you for reassurance, I'm wanting to talk about this. But then you won't talk to me about it. That's a trigger for getting into that negative cycle. >> Maybe yelling or getting upset or that kind of thing. >> Yeah, just it creates a negative pattern because it going to you to talk to you about this. You're the one who can help me and you're not. You refuse to talk to me about this. It just brings up a lot of strong feelings for the betrayed spouse. And then of course there's a quick appraisal there, but we'll move on to that in a minute. What do they believe about their spouse during this negative cycle? >> Yeah, that's a good question. What they believe about their spouse during this part is they feel like, gosh, I've got to do a lot of guessing to try to understand this person because they're not really talking to me about it. Or I don't feel like I'm really getting straight answers. So they have to do a lot of guessing. It's kind of a jigsaw puzzle. They're trying to piece everything together, understand it. And because they don't feel like they know they're having to guess and having to guess and keep the spouse who's been injured alert, hyper-vigilant. And it creates a feeling like there's no safety in the marriage. And really what they're needing is, is things to be predictable. Because my environment with you is not safe, you're not safe. I don't know if you're going to be here or you're going to leave. I don't know if you're still talking to that person or not. Because I'm not safe. I am vigilant. I am alert. I am terrified. And so what they think to themselves or what they say to themselves is, I must protect myself. I must keep protecting myself because you're not here trying to help me. It's only feeds more into the negative cycle. And that's an important distinction. The other part of this is what they're believing about, their spouse is, their heart really isn't in this to help me heal. Maybe they're only here for the kids. Maybe they're only here for finances. They're not really here to help me heal when we get stuck in this negative cycle. I don't think they're honest. So I can't let my guard down. Yeah, they're not, they're not being honest with me. They're not helping me. I can't let my guard down. They're thinking, also, when will this happen again? Why did it happen? Yeah, they're definitely thinking that I don't really understand why they won't talk to me about this when it makes me feel so much better. Why are they withholding talking about this from me when it makes me feel so much better to talk about it? Yeah, and we've talked about the betrayer usually is like, well, it seems to be making this so much worse. So I should probably stop talking about it. Yeah, that's what goes on in their mind. It's like, I care about you. I've already done enough damage from trying to get us to heal. Talking about this is not going to help us get better. And it's quite the opposite in many cases. Yeah, but that's part of that typical negative cycle that couples get into. And this is why we have to address the negative cycle with couples. Yeah, definitely. And that's what we do. We do have a couple of things that we do. And these are -- And these are what's called detachment injuries where when we feel abandoned or we feel shattered by our spouse, the person we love, it puts a wall up between us where we basically tell ourselves, never again, never will I, depend on this person and let them injure me this way. And so it really, at that point, if you have walls that are up in your marriage and you're trying to heal from an affair, you're really going to struggle with healing that wall until you deal with a negative cycle. And that's why we encourage couples. If you're listening to this, really getting help dealing with that negative cycle and not just any help, you need somebody who specializes in this and that's why we're here. We specialize in this. We have a therapist here that our office has advanced training. And we've worked with the people who are in the top of the field from different places all over the country and North America on how to work with couples through infidelity and through negative cycles. And they kind of -- They have any kind. And sometimes this is helpful in knowing what's going on and hearing what your spouse is experiencing. Because sometimes we can't see the force from the tree. No, you cannot. You cannot. You need to be able to clearly hear them and know what's going on. As we move along here. Yeah, the primary emotions after they're -- or the fear, the sadness, the shame. And so because we can't share that fear, sadness, and shame, it comes out as it -- we're angry. It comes out as us feeling powerless, us feeling humiliated, us feeling resentment, worried, anxiety. And this is from the trade spouses perspective. Yeah, feeling something bad is going to happen. Physical sensations in your body, just your stomach is in knots, can't sleep. Those are some of the secondary emotions. That iceberg tip, the tip of the iceberg. Yeah, I just listed maybe five or six different emotions there. There is a lot more emotions in that that people go through. These are just, again, typical -- and these are also examples that people go through. But the primary emotions, emotions at the bottom of the iceberg is fear. Am I wanted? Will this happen again? Can I depend on them? Yeah, can I depend on him or her? And having to guess only makes us fear worse. Right. I don't feel safe. I distance myself. I protect myself. Makes it more important for the betrayer to actually come and talk and be open and honest. Right. Yeah. And so the other is sadness. This isn't what I expected my life to be. I didn't expect this to happen to us. There's a deep sadness there. And also shame. Shame is, gosh, I guess I'm not attractive enough. I guess I'm not good enough. If I'm not good enough, then they're going to leave me. I've got to make myself better to keep my spouse around. I feel unworthy. There's that shame there. And then Morgan, the last thing, and this is the final part of this is attachment needs. And attachment needs are things that again, we cannot express because we don't know how we've never had anybody we could really talk to about things. Or because of our past, we can't talk or because of where things are at the marriage, we can't talk. And so sometimes we either avoid or we can demand these things. Neither one of those is the best approach. And so the attachment needs are the injured spouse. This is what they need from the betrayer. They need honesty. Yes. Because honesty takes out the guest work and it helps the betrayer become more predictable. I know who you are again. Right. I'm piecing together who you are. I can start to trust you again. Yeah, I can start to trust you again. It is when the betrayer is perceived to be unpredictable that most negative cycles develop for the injured spouse. And by unpredictable I mean not just, you know, doing this and that. You can be very predictable. Come home at five o'clock every day. Texts every day, bring flowers every Friday, go on date nights after you've had an affair. But there's still a little bit of unpredictability is his heart with me. And so what betrayers need is they need to see the remorse. They need to know that you really care. They need to know that you're remorseful. They need to be able to see the consistency. Yeah, they need to see consistency. But what they need to see is the remorse of the one who had the affair. Yeah, they need to see their guilt. They need to see the remorse. They need to see your sadness. They can peer into that and see that. That's what helps them heal. And not sad that you got caught, but sad that you hurt your spouse. So deeply. Yep. Hey, real quick, real quick. If you want help getting out of the negative cycle, go to our website, healingbrokeintrust.com and join our program. Don't let the negative cycle take over. Let us help you. Yeah, they need to see that you're in pain because you're the one you hurt isn't pain. And then the last part of this is constant reassurance hugs, kisses holding my hand just be close to me, things like that. I need you to talk to me. Ask me how I'm feeling. Ask me how my day is. Call me, text me, et cetera. I need you to talk to me about the affair. I feel like because you do that, I feel like you're more predictable. It lowers my need to protect myself because I feel more secure with you. And then I need you to choose me. I need you to want us. And I need to see you remorseful. Hiding your remorse doesn't help me heal. Morgan, let me just back up and say why this is so important that we're talking about this. This is very important because I've done a lot of research on this as a marriage counselor. This is one of the most difficult topics and all my research quite honestly. There's been very little that deals with the negative cycle that couples get caught into when they're trying to recover. And so no, it's not very common. And about the only information you get is information that talks to you about how to talk about an affair. When we've given that information out, but this is really important because what keeps people from healing is the negative cycle. They get caught into these negative self reinforcing patterns, almost like a negative figure eight, where everything that their spouse does impacts what they do. And it's just a nasty cycle. They get stuck in and they then begin to feel like their spouse is evil, the villain, and they can no longer heal and repair. And that's what they need to be able to heal is they need to feel like they can really count on their spouse again and depend on them. And more than that, it's to get to that level of feeling like you can depend on them, you need to feel like you have an emotional connection again. And this negative cycle that people fall into when trying to recover keeps blocks that emotional connection. And so communication techniques and ways to talk about this isn't enough in dealing with a negative cycle. They can't talk about it very well because they're stuck in these horrible patterns communication. And let me just briefly say this, what keeps people stuck in a negative cycle is I'm going to go over these six components. Some of these six components is going to help us understand what keeps people stuck. But primarily what keeps people stuck in a negative cycle, couples stuck in a negative cycle, whether they're recovering from an affair, or they're just an average couple who has no affair, what keeps people stuck is is we cannot share the primary emotions that we feel. We can't share our sadness, our fear, and our feelings of unworthiness with each other. We can't share that. And so what we do is we act out those feelings. We're sad or we're afraid. We act out in anger. And if we feel unworthy, we just hide or withdraw. And so you can't have too much emotional connection when you feel like your spouse is always angry at you or they're always withdrawn. It's hard to be vulnerable. Yeah, they're not accessible. There's a breakdown in that accessibility. You're not there for me because you're withdrawn. Or I'm not there for you because you're always angry. And so that's why people get stuck in this. But there's six components. I want to go over that because we're going to get into what is really in the mind of the person who had the affair when they're trying to recover from this. And I think this will be insightful. The six components of a negative cycle. Basically, there's triggers triggers are could be rude remark facial expression tone of voice or cast a comment. Really anything that rubs your spouse the wrong way. It's something that sets the negative cycle off. And there could be literally hundreds of these could be anything. And in an affair when you're recovering from that, it could be anything that reminds you of the affair for the injured spouse. And for the one who had the affair, trigger could be just seeing their spouse hurting the one who had the affair just seeing them hurting. And we'll talk more about that. Yeah, we're going to get more into that. Then there's appraisals perceptions. This is how you see yourself or you see your spouse in a negative cycle. How you perceive each other in a negative cycle. And often that's negative. You know, I'm giving more than I'm getting back that kind of thing. There's obviously behaviors. This is how we act during a negative cycle. Commonly, this is a six basic moves blame criticizing demanding is usually what one person does. And the other kind of withdraws avoid gets defensive. Those six basic moves. Like we talked about earlier, there's a primary emotion, fear, sadness, feelings of unworthiness. Those are the primary. And then we act those out, usually an anger or avoidance or withdrawal or even being numb. And we talked about the iceberg. Yeah. The second area is the tip of the iceberg. The primary is all the meat underneath. Yeah. Because we can't share the sadness, fear, feelings of unworthiness, we act out in different ways. And that's the secondary emotions, which is usually what we see. And then there's the attachment needs. This is the need to feel needed, the need to feel wanted, need to feel accepted. And those are the basic components that keep us caught in the negative cycle. We went into great detail on what is going on in the mind of the spouse who's been betrayed, the injured spouse from an affair. And we're going to get into the mind of the one who had the affair. But let me briefly say this. What's important about this is this is kind of the typical or average couples cycle of a fair recovery. This is not every couple's cycle. This is definitely not the cycle that happens when an affair is going on. This is when people are both trying to recover. Now, Brad, what keeps people stuck in these negative cycles? What keeps people stuck is that they can't share emotion, the primary emotion. They can't share that. And so the fear, anger, sadness, feelings of unworthiness, and that's what keeps people stuck. Gotcha. So let's talk about, let me say this again, this again is not the negative cycle of people currently experiencing a fair. This is the negative cycle of people who are trying to rebuild from an affair. This is what happens when they're not getting out of that negative cycle. Okay. So do you want to look at those six negative components that are? Yeah. Let's walk through the trailer gets. So what sets off the negative cycle for the betrayer? What are those triggers for the one who had the affair? Usually what the triggers are. And this is just kind of average things. Obviously, this list is not inclusive. Usually when there's the emotional or physical withdrawal of the injured spouse of the spouse who's been betrayed, if when they start avoiding them, if I cheated on you and you start avoiding me or were drawing from me, you know, that could trigger a negative cycle because it brings out fear. Oh my gosh. I'm losing them. Oh my gosh. I feel unworthy. I'm not sharing that with you. I'm acting it out. I'll never be able to get them back. I've done the unthinkable. I've done the unforgivable. I'm a horrible person. So it triggers a lot of different things. The other is being judged or condemned by their spouse, just being attacked relentlessly. And they expect some of that. But when it's just over the top and it's harsh and it's not stopping it, there's no end in sight. That really does it being blamed, criticized. That's also part of that being judged or condemned. injured spouses bringing up the same questions over and over again, which is very common because they need to find meaning. Yeah, which is very, very common. And they process things kind of different at different times, different read. Primarily because they don't feel like they can trust their spouse. And they may be trying to catch them in a lie. That's how they see it. You're trying to catch me in a lie. That's why you're asking. See how your story changes? Yeah, we'll see. Well, that's how the one who had the affair perceives them asking the questions. Okay. You're asking this only because you don't trust me and you're trying to catch me in a lie. Okay. You know, and like we've mentioned before on this program, they ask questions repeatedly because they're trying to make sense out of it. Right. Yeah, I'm sure people do it also because they're trying to catch them in a lie. But very often it's more this just is blown the roof off my head. Like this is blown my mind out of, you know, I'm shocked with this. I'm trying to figure this out. And it's more about reassurance than it is about catching them in a lie. Feeling shut off from their spouses as a trigger. Yeah, just feeling shut off. Feeling like they can't make them happy. Feeling disapproved. You know, you don't approve of me. When it's their actions that are not being approved of. Yeah. And those are just typical things that you'll see that that are triggers that get the person who had the affair into a negative cycle. And they're obviously there's more than that. But there's a typical. So what does the betrayer think about their spouse while they're they're in this negative cycle, trying to heal from this affair? What are they thinking about their? Yeah, they're thinking I can't make him or her happy or pleased. And they're thinking that because, you know, I've really committed the unforgivable here. Yeah. You know, or they maybe even thought that before the affair, I can't make him or her feel better. And what happens with that is is they feel like they can't make them feel better. They don't even try when they feel that way. They kind of pull back. They don't even try to help. And that's really dangerous because that just then reinforces the negative cycle more because we get stuck. We're not changing our dance. We're doing the same dance patterns. Same polka. Yeah. Yeah. So seeing their pain hurts them, right? It makes them sad. So I withdraw. They withdraw when they see it. Yeah. They don't think that just being kind, loving will help. Yeah. A lot of this is based on, I wouldn't say ignorance, but a lot of it is based on nothing can help us. I'm just I'm living on a prayer right now. They don't think that anything can come in and help. But what they don't understand is that being kind and loving helps tremendously. Yeah, it does a lot. It shows even when their partner is pushing them away. Yeah, oh yeah, it's a big deal. Showing love and kindness. But they don't think that it'll help. They don't think being honest will help. Yeah. They think I've got to lie about this. They don't think that being honest will help. They're constantly thinking, you know, I'm not doing anything wrong. I want them to know I'm not doing anything wrong, right? So they just need to be honest. Well, here's the thing too. Yeah, they don't think they're doing anything wrong. But they also think that if I am honest, I'm going to cause them more pain. So they just choose not to talk about the affair. I don't want to cause any more pain. I'm just going to back off. They're worried that a random trigger will pull their spouse back into re-experiencing the affair, reliving the pain of the affair. Which it does. I'll take it. Yeah, it does. So they're often, you know, they're worried that, you know, to be honest with you Morgan, if you could put it in a nutshell, they're really worried about the safety of their spouse. You know, they're thinking about themselves steering the affair. But when the affair is over, trying to rebuild, they're really thinking about the safety of their spouse. And they care about them. Yeah, emotional. Yeah, they don't want them to be hurt. They don't want to hurt anymore. It's almost like they feel responsible for their child drowning in the pool. And they're living with all this guilt. And they want to try to forget about it and not live with it anymore. And anything they can do to get past it, they're going to try to do, you know, whatever it takes. They're going to try to do that. But they don't think that being honest and loving and kind will help. I'm talking about it will help. I'm getting ahead of myself. But one of the things that really keeps betrayers stuck is this intense amount of shame, that feeling of unworthiness. The guilt there, the shame there. And this is a big deal with trying to recover from an affair. You do not see that shame. You don't see the guilt. What you see is, is that person not talking to you because the action tendency when people experience intense amounts of guilt and shame is the hide and what you're all. It's not to show that. People try to get out of dodge when they experience that. They don't want to feel it. And so it's incredibly painful for them to think of themselves as this person who's done the unforgivable, supposedly the unforgivable, this horrible thing. And living with that in their mind is very hard to discuss it, to think about it. And so they, they, they would draw, they would draw. Yeah, they hide. Yeah. Now that's, I would say probably eight out of 10 experience that in your typical recovery cycle, then you have others who, who it hasn't hit them yet. They're angry about getting caught. Maybe that is guilt and shame, but they're angry about getting caught. And they're more worried about themselves and they're licking their own wounds at that point. But most people have worked with, because their integrity is, yeah. But most people have worked with. It's more that guilt and shame. And occasionally you see people who are angry because they got caught, but usually there's even shame there. And so kind of moving on, you know, they're thinking, how long will this go on? How long are we going to get stuck in this? They want to move on because the guilt and shame they, they hate seeing their spouse hurting. Yeah. They feel like they're a punching bag because there's so much criticism and blame going around. Right. They feel like, you know, gosh, you're in so much pain. I don't want to share mine with you. They don't feel like they have any needs. I don't see how me talking about how I'm hurting because you're hurting is going to help you. Right. So, so that kind of leads us into the next question. You know, what does the betrayer think about themselves when they're working through this negative cycle, this trying to heal from the affair? What are they thinking about themselves? Yeah. And some of that, I guess I kind of covered earlier, but they literally don't know what they can say or do to help their spouse. They really feel completely inadequate. Whatever they have to offer, they don't feel like is enough. They don't feel like they deserve their needs recognized. Yeah. They feel like, you know, gosh, I'm such a huge disappointment to him, you know, my spouse, him or her. I want to hide. I hate disappointing them. And that's that shame element. Okay. And let me say this Morgan, they don't feel like they're entitled to have any needs usually. And early on, they don't feel like they can voice anything. If they have a need, it's like, don't be mean to me. Don't argue. Don't you don't attack me. So they don't feel like they have any needs because they feel like they've screwed up. They feel like it's their own guilt and sadness that causes them to want to avoid talking about the affair. When people are getting out of a negative cycle, typically, and this can take some time because this is a big deal, but the betrayer is working to become the healer, nurture, supportive, and getting out of a negative cycle. And the negative cycle isn't something that necessarily lasts all day, every day, seven days a week. It can happen just when they talk about this. Yeah. When they talk about it or other moments, that negative cycle that they found themselves in before the affair happened is the same negative cycle that they bring. Yeah. I'm glad you mentioned that because Morgan, that's exactly right. When people are trying to recover from an affair, if they don't deal with the negative cycle, they're going to try to heal with the same negative cycle that was a part of the affair. Right. Yeah. That maybe even created the affair. Right. In some instances, so you have to deal with the negative cycle because if you're not, you're both, you just caught the negativity and neither one of you is healing. There's no emotional connection, which is what you need to heal. The behaviors of the betrayer in a negative cycle, they avoid talking about the affair really because they don't want to hurt their spouse or they avoid talking about it because they know their spouse is going to get mad at them. Yeah. So they don't want to talk about it. And it's really based out of caring. I don't want to hurt you anymore. I'm going to tell you things. You're asking to hear things that are going to devastate you. I really am very uncomfortable sharing. And so that's common. Obviously, they would draw a lot. When this negative cycle isn't dealt with and it keeps going on and on and on. And I can't tell you the percentages. I don't know the percentages, but it's not uncommon. It does happen that the one who had the affair, they feel hopeless in this. We're not getting anywhere. All we're doing is fighting. I'm wanting to repair this. I want to rebuild this. We're not doing that. I feel hopeless. They can go back to the affair partner. Oh, so they just fall back into it? Yeah. That could be something that happens. And if the negative cycle isn't taken care of. Yeah. The next part of this, I'm going to go to primary emotions and I'm going to pick up on secondary. Okay. The primary emotion. And these, again, are the emotions that keep somebody caught in a negative cycle. That they don't necessarily express. Express. Yeah. And because they're not expressing them, it keeps them stuck. And let me explain why expressing fear, sadness is so important because when you hear somebody you care about saying they're sad or afraid, they're to comfort them and reassure them. And it also means you're opening up to them. You're accessible. I'm open to you. And it's the basis of creating an emotional connection between two people in that openness and sharing that. And so sharing the sadness and fear and even the times, feelings of and worthiness, that can help us recreate an emotional connection, reestablish that. But we don't share it. And so what we do is we act out other emotions. And so, again, here's the primary emotions that betrayers face sadness. I can't believe I did this to you. They're just horribly sad. And one of the things I've noticed is that usually betrayers aren't very emotionally expressive. They have a hard time expressing things. They have a hard time asking for what they want or need and opening up. And so showing sadness, they can show that, but it's not, it's very hard for them to do that. And part of that sadness is there is a remorse there, but that shame, that other feeling that's there, it doesn't let them show it. They feel like I'm unworthy, I'm worthless, can't face myself or what I've done. I can't show this. And it sometimes puts them in that depressed guilt, shame cycle, depression, guilt and shame. Yeah, it's really, it's really negative. And then the other is fear. I'm scared of doing anything that causes him or her more pain. And that's why sometimes they don't want to talk about it. I don't want to cause you more pain. They feel powerless, they feel overwhelmed. Kind of this hopeless feeling. So how do I do this? They feel horrible, feel a kind of a panic feeling, anxiety, kind of this oh crap feeling. Yeah, there's anger there. They get upset and mad about feeling grilled. Just constantly ask questions over and over. And there's pain from knowing I broke his or her heart. And usually what you'll see is the secondary emotions. If you're not seeing sadness, fear, shame, feelings of enworthiness, what you're commonly seeing. And this isn't everything, but this is kind of a nutshell. Some of them, you see that person maybe shut down. Yeah. And just I wouldn't say I have a flat affect, but they don't really display a lot of emotion. What's happening in that negative cycle because you don't see a lot of emotion is the one who was betrayed the injured spouse thinks they're not sorry. It's that shame that keeps them from showing that, but they don't express it because of shame there. Yeah, and they might even get angry like if you're asking questions, why do you have to ask many questions? Why do you have to ask many questions? But that's just a secondary emotion. Well, they're they're tapping into the feelings of enworthiness, but they're acting it out with anger because they don't know how to they feel enworthy. They don't and they don't want to hurt their spouse anymore. Yeah. And this is really important because this is where so many couples get caught up in this as they feel like you're not helping me. You're not showing me any of the remorse. I need to see you hurting and broken and sad about this because I know you care about me then, but the shame is there. The guilt is there and the action tendency of that is to hide and withdraw. And so what the spouse who's been betrayed needs, the injured spouse needs to see that that sadness that's there. Yeah. And the betrayer, commonly like I mentioned earlier, they don't know how to be emotionally expressive. They don't know how to ask for what they want or need. They're usually very nice people, but they don't know how to open up emotionally. And it's either because of the climate of the marriage words that or because they never really did growing up. They don't really show these kinds of things naturally. So let's look at maybe what the betrayer needs from the betrayed spouse so that okay. they can get what they need in this process. - Yeah, it's okay. Basic needs, kind of attachment needs that we talked about, they need acceptance. I need to know I'm not a huge disappointment to you. They need to feel that feeling like I'm a disappointment, it's demotivated and causes me to distance myself from you. So I need to know I'm accepted. Even though I believe I am, I distinct you to tell me I'm not. I need you to listen to me. I need you to validate me. I need to feel needed and useful. I need to know you can trust me. I need to know that you are going to be okay. I need to know that we're gonna be okay. - Right. And real complete trust, it will take time. - Let me just briefly describe this before we get off here. If you're caught in this negative cycle, the way to get out of this is to share the sadness and fear with each other. You talk about this, oh I'm sad, but you're not showing the sadness. Maybe you're talking about I can't trust you, I'm afraid. But you're not showing that. You have to access it. I hope this has been very helpful for you. Again, there's different emotional realities that the betrayer has and the injured spouse has. To each of you, they're very logical and they make perfect sense. - Brad, you wanna kind of tell us again, what are these negative cycles? What is it? - Yeah, these negative cycles that couples get into. It's been described as an absorbing rigid pattern of interaction. And because it's rigid and it's an absorbing pattern of interaction, it's very hard to get out of. - Okay, so when you say it, an absorbing pattern, so that they get stuck in these ways of communicating. - Yeah, they get stuck, it's very rigid, it's very difficult to get out of. - And it's the way they communicate, it's kind of put here. - Yeah, it's more what they do to try to fix this lack of closeness. - Oh, okay. - And there's different types of negative cycles are very destructive. I wanna kind of briefly describe these types of negative cycles. I want us to go through here and describe these. I'm gonna give examples of a couple of them. It's been described as criticism, defensiveness, stone-walling contempt. It's kind of the classic pursuer, distancer cycle that most couples fall into. Every couple to a certain extent has a negative cycle. Even couples who are done with marriage counseling and are healthy. - Healthy? - Yeah. But here's the difference between healthy and unhealthy couples. Healthy couples are able to repair their negative cycle much easier. They're able to exit out of it and repair it much quicker. And they're able to avoid it altogether. So they're fighting less and when they do fight, it's less intense. - Yeah, and that's the big difference. - They're repairing much easier. - Yeah, and I wanna go through the different types of negative cycles and then we're gonna have time today to talk about what the pursuer in negative cycles typically experiences. And every relationship, the most common type of negative cycle is the pursue withdrawal pattern. Commonly referred to as pursuer, distancer. Today we're gonna talk about the pursuer as well with the psychology of why someone pursues. Pursuer, distancer is really probably the common pattern and common theme throughout all these different types of negative cycles that we're discussing. And this is where there's a demanding spouse who's interacting with a withdrawing or avoiding or distancing spouse. And this pattern, the distancing or stone-walling position by the withdrawal is their shutdown. And they're in non-response mode. And that often queues a panic or aggression and the other spouse. And the pursuer, it makes the pursuer say, I will make you respond to me. And so most negative patterns are a variant of this basic pursue withdrawal pattern. They typically start here. And everybody does, but this is where typically most couples start. When trying to identify a couple's negative pattern, you wanna keep in mind when you're identifying your pattern that the positions that couples typically are in, their default options. They are what the partners want to do when they feel threatened or vulnerable. And so pursuing and distancing are ways to make themselves feel protected. And so with negative cycles, I think I might have mentioned this moment ago, but it's worth repeating. People fall in the negative cycles because there's a lack of closeness in the relationship. And they don't feel cared for. They don't feel like they matter. And so they either withdraw, get defensive, defend, avoid, kind of shut down emotionally. Or they don't feel like they matter and so they'll pursue. They'll blame, they'll criticize and they're trying to get a response out of their spouse. - So is it kind of like the fight or flight mode? There's one that's trying to pursue kind of the fight mode and the one that's distancing kind of the flight mode. They're kind of in flight. - Yeah, I think that's a good way to put it 'cause you counter separation, distress, and you're either gonna fight it or you're gonna withdraw. Typically you're gonna see a female be the pursuer and you're gonna see a male be the withdrawer. - It's kind of a typical mode. 'Cause it's a different. - Yeah, that's kind of the typical pattern is the guy is more the distancing and the female is more the pursuer. - Okay, so the next one we talked about is withdraw with draw. So both of them are fleeing from conflict or issues, right? So in this pattern both partners are hesitant to engage emotionally and in the face of conflict both will further withdraw. So while this appears to be the couple's basic pattern, it's more likely that a pursue withdraw pattern underlies it. So in these cases, the pursuer may be a soft pursuer who is hard to recognize because he or she does not show the overwhelming anxious energy scene and a lot of pursuers and who, you know, despite being a pursuer gives up easily. So the other possibility which is more common involves a burnt out pursuer who has now given up breaching for the other partner and withdraw then can be the beginning of a grieving and detaching from the relationship of the face. - Working your right, withdraw can be a part of the grieving and detaching from the relationship. But I just want to highlight in a sense, there's the possibility of two different types of withdraw withdrawal or this could also be called silent silent where couples just hate conflict so much that they don't bring things up. And like you said, it's a person who is once a pursuer who is, you know, they start to feel burned out and now they've given up trying to pursue their spouse and their partner anymore. - And I think it's really interesting the soft pursuer. I had heard of a lady she was talking to me about. She said that when I asked for this little thing, it was so subtle that it was actually a soft pursuit but he just totally did not even see it. But to the therapist I looked like they were totally withdrawn with drawn but she had made these small little - Tempts to connect. - Yeah, but it was so subtle that even the therapist had trouble seeing that she was giving some kind of pursuit. - Yeah, and that's common as well. - The third most common type is attack attack or kind of fight fight. Typically when I observe couples who have attack attack sequences when they generally escalate, these fights and escalations, they're really deviations of the pursuit draw pattern that we mentioned a moment ago where the withdrawal, they feel like the person who's a distancing, they feel like they have their back against the wall. The withdrawal has their back against the wall and so they'll turn and fight, they'll erupt in anger at specific moments. And then after the fight they're likely to revert back to a drawing until they feel provoked again. And so this is somebody who they're really in a pursuit withdrawal pattern or a pursuer distancing pattern and what they do is is they just get their back against the wall temporarily or for a while. And then when the fight's over, we'll get back to. - Go back to withdrawing. So they flee as much as they can until they have no choice and then they fight. - Yeah, until they're cornered then they go to fight. - Yeah, interesting. - Okay, and it seems like sometimes the pursuer is looking for that, they're looking for them to engage. - Yeah, they want a response. That can't happen, not every pursuer is that way but it can happen, yeah. - We'll probably talk more about that in a minute. - And then the final type of negative cycle is the reactive pursu would draw cycle. And let me explain this, you have a reactive pursuer and then you have the withdrawal. And this cycle occurs when a couple reverses a previously long standing pattern. We're gonna moment ago you were talking about withdrawal withdrawal where they become withdrawal withdrawal because the pursuer gets burned out and they've given up reaching for the other partner. - Oh, right. - And that withdrawal can be seen as the beginning of grieving and detaching from the relationship. Now this is what happens after that withdrawal, withdrawal period. - Oh, okay. - Let me explain it this way. You have a wife who's a pursuer who gradually gives up and begins to limit her investment in the relationship. She's withdrawing. Her distancing, husband who's just consumed with work. He's obsessed with that. It doesn't notice. And I've seen couples like this, they come into therapy because the husband finally realizes that the wife is beginning to be done, beginning to check out. The husband is then pursuing his wife because he notices her distancing. He's trying to prevent a separation from the wife. This is a type of negative pattern that really follows the one that you mentioned earlier that would draw a withdrawal pattern. This is what happens next after the person becomes a burnt out pursuer. They feel like they're no longer getting a response. They get burned out. And what they do is they start to distance themselves. That withdrawal begins the detaching process, the grieving process that you mentioned a moment ago. And the original distancing then becomes the pursuer. They're the one that's wanting marriage counseling, wanting to work on things because they sense that the one who was the pursuer is no longer wanting that closeness that affection and they become obviously very concerned. But the person who was a pursuer is now really burnt out and they're really tired and they're very hopeless because they've done everything they know how to try to get that connection there. And so they're really frightened of that. And so that's something that we see a lot of in counseling is couples like that. - That withdrawal starting to engage. - Yeah, and that's kind of where they pursue her. just kind of tired to burn out and they don't really want to work on the marriage and we see that often. Yeah. Yeah. So what does the pursuer want? The pursuer, that's a great question. The psychology of pursuer. Basically, what they're trying to do is they're trying to bridge the distance they're experiencing in the relationship. And at the same time, the ways that they do that, they tend to drive away their distancing partner. They're withdrawing partner. When because they do that, it's just proving to themselves that the withdraw is not that safe to be close. So the harder they try to get close to the withdrawal or the pursuer does, the more the distanceer is going to distance. And so it's really a negative cycle. And we talk about that with couples in our office. They just get stuck there. Yeah. And let me give an example of this. Okay. There's a couple. Let's call them Josh and Lizzy. Lizzy is the pursuer. Josh is the distanceer. Lizzy got on to Josh about not paying the cable bill. Lizzy's complaining to Josh, hey, I would just want you to the other room to watch TV and it says there's no service. And Josh is, you know, apologetic. I'm sorry. I totally forgot. Lizzy gets upset. How could you forget? I texted you before you left work. We need to pay our bill. And he says I was in a hurry because you knew we're going to eat pizza at seven o'clock. And he's basically saying I was so concentrated on that. I didn't have time to do it. So I forgot. And Lizzy gets upset saying that you know, I texted you. I tried to let you know. I warned you. And the more that she tries to get at him, the anger is she gets the more she's trying to get a response at him, the more he defends, the more he distances, the more they get cut into this negative cycle. It's really hard to get out of that. And of course, the more he distances, the more she gets angry. Right. It's a cycle. It's not her getting angry in the way she's approaching them necessarily. That is an issue. But the issue is the negative cycle. It's both of them. It's not just the pursuer and the way they pursue. It's the distancing and them distancing. Obviously, there's things that both people could change. Because both people come from a valid place. The way they handle things makes sense to them. It makes sense to them. So do we want to go ahead and talk about? Yeah, let's go ahead and talk about understanding pursuing a little more. Okay. So pursuers respond to distress by trying to maintain contact with their partners. We would say that's pretty nice. Yeah, I'd say an argument or disappointment can trigger a pursuing person to look for reassurance and support. That's how they tend to cope. That's what they do to try to get reassurance. You know, you look at that on the surface. You're like, why would you try to argue or, you know, to get support reassurance? Yeah. It doesn't make sense. You know, just doesn't. But that's just kind of a natural emotional response. So that's what's going on in their mind. It's like a person trying to ice skate, learning how to ice skate. As this person begins to lose their balance, they reach for the wall surrounding their ring or they cling onto another person that regain their balance. And so in a moment of relational distress, that cannot pursue her off balance. And in those moments, they'll reach out to their partner to try to regain stability. So they're not feeling close and they're feeling kind of vulnerable. Yeah, they're looking for support. Yeah. Support. That makes sense. So when you pursue for connection, you're looking for response or an acknowledgement, some evidence that you matter in your partner's world. You hope that being seen and comforted will calm the swirl of negative emotions swirling inside of you, right? Yeah. The more they feel connected, the calmer they feel, the safer they feel. Yeah. The more secure they feel. So they're kind of latching on, clinging on to anything. And so that's why they're pursuing. And sometimes that turns out to be arguing. The negative emotion that's triggered many times is really triggered by and these rapid feelings of disconnection and uncertainty and ironically pursuing often has the negative effects of what was intended. You know, you're trying to get opposite. Yeah. Yeah. And it's really unfortunate because they're trying to get closer, but they're actually causing that person to get more distant. So basically this easily, this easily occurs because the negative emotions that are common in conflict often build walls of defensiveness between partners. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And those barriers getting the way of being able to reach and respond. When a pursuer relies on making emotional contact, this emotional contact's blocked, pursuer tries harder to get through with more desperation. And that's often perceived as an attack rather than an attempt for connection. And that's what's happening in the distance. So they're seeing this as an attack, not an attempt for connection. And so inside the pursuer, their emotional world, it's churning often with fear over time, it leads to desperation. As the situation unfolds between partners, the emotional messages seeking comfort or contact are garbled by other emotional responses like frustration, anger, fear, hurt. The panic and confused messages often push the other partner to increase his or her distance or to attack back to gain space from the pursuing partner's anxious distress. And that of course makes the fears and worries of the pursuing partner even greater. Interesting. So with drawers, perceiving their need for connection differently, they're perceiving it as an attack. When really it's just, I need closeness, I need you to be here, I need connection. So it's coming across completely different. Yeah. Here's the goal that pursuers are after. The goal of pursuing is really to gain a response from their partner. I'm pursuing because I need you, you're my calm, feel better, I need your connection. Yeah. I'm trying to get a response from you. It's the way to stay connected. And sometimes no response is worse than a negative response. And so even a positive or negative response is better than nothing. Yeah, and feeling like you're on your own. Yeah, that's the worst. Yeah. Even though they want a positive response, a negative response will do many times. Yeah, interesting. Yeah. And so times of relationships distress, pursuers have common types of thinking, things that they think to themselves. One of those is, I'm invisible. My needs mean nothing. I can never get through. Yeah. No matter what, it's up to me. And my feelings don't matter. Yeah. Yeah. No matter how hard I try, I can't get close to my partner. And when we're together, I still feel alone. Right? Yeah. And then here's a common one, two, I know I push and prod, but how else will I get a response? That's really the thought process of pursuers. And again, the goal of pursuing is to maintain an emotional connection. Whether positive or negative, right? Yeah. Yeah. This connection provides a way of relieving unwanted emotion felt about oneself or one's partner, pursuing is a powerful response to fears of being left alone, rejected or abandoned. These fears become powerful, organizing forces that motivate the pursuer to relentlessly seek care or contact and response to a distressing experience. So it's pretty straightforward. If I can connect you, I'll feel better. Yeah. So because I feel distress and my relationship with you, I'll do what I can to make this better. And I need you to respond to me whether positive or negative. If I give up, that's kind of what they're thinking. If I give up, I'm afraid you may leave me alone, which is basically the fear that keeps them pursuing. And so in pursuit mode, a person says to themselves, if I can just get close, if I can just be acknowledged, know that I matter, I'll be okay. Whether it's positive, negative, it's just they want to feel that heartbeat in their spouse. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's alive. Yeah. They do. And Morgan, you really hit the nail on the head with that last comment. You know, they say, if I can get close and I can just be acknowledged in no amount or I'll be okay. And not knowing that is what drives their pursuing behavior. Interesting. Yeah. And when a person finds himself pursuing, there's usually two layers of emotion going on at the same time. We're going to talk about this right now. We're just describing what a negative cycle is, the types and what's going on in the mind of the pursuer. But there's different types of emotion. And the secondary layer of emotion, they're most often feeling the anger, frustrated, or anxious. And that's the more obvious, right? Yeah. It's the more obvious. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Surface emotion. And they're trying to get an answer. So for example, they're thinking to themselves, why won't they respond to me? Why won't they answer me? And the more you try to get a nervous answer or solution to that problem, a hand, the louder their voice tends to get in response, the other person tends to get quieter and withdrawal. And that in turn amps up the frustration and anxiety of the pursuer. And they get louder and louder. Yeah. And it takes two to tango. Again, the negative cycle is the issue. It's not the pursuer that's the issue or the withdrawal. It's just dance. We're going to look at it that way. It really becomes obvious that there are two people responsible for pursuing actions. You know, because you got a person who's withdrawing that creates more from the pursuer. Not just the pursuer's, you know, responsible. Right. And so, but then here's the other type of emotion. We talked about the obvious surface level. Then there's that primary emotion and a pursuer is really pursuing for closeness. And that may seem hard to believe because they usually demonstrate frustration or anger. But when you really begin to see that primary feelings and you get in the way from the secondary anger, and you're really seeing that they feel hurt. They really feel alone. They really feel sad. They really feel afraid. It makes you move closer towards them. So, so basically recognizing that there are more vulnerable primary emotions behind the secondary anger. Like you said, that reactive emotion. It can help you both in seeing through or beyond the anger. As As one client said the other day about his pursuing partner, when she gets angry at me, now I don't react. Like I used to, you know, because I can see through it to the hurt she's experiencing behind it. So he doesn't just see anger, he sees that she's hurting. And because he understood the difference between secondary and primary emotion, he's able to, in his words, basically, weather the storm. Yeah, he was able to really, in fact, when you hear someone talk about, "Oh, I'm sorry, not really the primary emotion." And we're going to get more into that. We're just touching the surface with it now. But when you really get into that primary emotion of the hurt, fear, sadness, it makes you more tender as a distancer. When you hear that this person fears being alone or abandoned or that they're not cared about, whatever the vajrawa is doing, they want to change that when they really hear that. And sometimes pursuers have a hard time really sharing that. Sometimes they're not really in touch with it or they don't know how to share it. And that creates more of that negative cycle. And we're going to get more into that. But that's kind of what's going on. That's a little taste on how to get out of it. But what pursuers do, they, this is kind of how you know they're trying to gain a response. This is what they do. They will request or make appeals for answers. They make appeals for answers. What about they demand with an increasingly louder voice that get louder and louder? Yeah, they'll definitely do that. They blame point fingers. Yeah. And they physically will follow their partner around around the house. Yeah. Yeah. Right. How about criticism? That's a big one. Yeah. They definitely criticize. And again, that's how they try to gain that response. And all of those things tend to cause the distancer to distance more. Yeah. There was a lady who said the other day that she would go in the kitchen and slam cabinet doors. She wouldn't talk a lot, but she would slam cabinet doors just to get them to get out of his bedroom and come in there and see what's happening. And of course, there was an argument, but it was her way of gaining a response of pursuing even though there was very few words, but yelling. Yeah. She would start it out with slamming the cabinet doors. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And let me say this, you know, hope this doesn't sound like we're demonizing pursuers. Every relationship has a pursuer. Every relationship pretty much has a distancer. The whole intent of people pursuing is really to get on the same emotional page. They want to be close. They want to feel connected. Remember that it's like they're trying to regain their balance when they're learning how to ice skate. And they're starting to fall. The pursuing partner is reaching out to try to establish equilibrium. Yeah. They're trying to keep their balance. Kind of stable at it. Yeah. And the equilibrium in these close relationships that occurs only when they feel emotionally connected and supported. Unfortunately, that's even though they have a good intention of this type of behavior, usually guarantees distance and disconnection. It's the opposite of what they're intending to happen. Yeah. And they just don't know how to ask for their wants and needs. Well, they know they ask, but they demand for it. Right. And they don't ask in a way that helps them get it. And they get it by focusing on that primary emotion, which is what we're going to focus on. And again, the negative cycle is the issue. It's not the pursuer that's the issue or the distancer. Both people are doing things that make complete sense in the moment to try to fix that emotional connection. Right. The issue is the negative cycle. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Healing Broke and Trust Podcast. If you're ready to take the next step on your healing journey, head over to healingbrokeandtrust.com. In addition to information about our workshop, we have several goodies to help you through the process. Go to healingbrokeandtrust.com. And remember, as always, this podcast is for information purposes only. It is not to be construed as therapy to good advice and is not counseling. It's just for education purposes only.