Secure Attachments: The Felt Sense of Love with Julie Menanno

[MUSIC PLAYING] Hello and welcome to Reimagining Love. I'm Dr. Alexandra Solomon. Relationships have the power to wound us and the power to heal us. As a clinical psychologist, author, and professor at Northwestern University, I've devoted my life to studying intimate partnerships and family dynamics. On Reimagining Love, I'm here to translate complex clinical topics into tools and takeaways that you can use in your relationships today. If you're ready to develop relational self-awareness and create vibrant and loving relationships with the people who matter most to you, you've come to the right place. I'm so glad that you're here. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] Hi and welcome back to Reimagining Love, the place that we come to uncover all we can about love and relationships. And today, we've got a really good one. We are diving into a fundamental topic, attachment styles. Attachment theory has exploded in popularity. But a lot of the focus is on understanding anxious and avoidant attachment. Today's guest is here instead to focus us on the north star of attachment theory, secure attachments. What do securely attach relationships feel like? What can we learn from them and most important? How do we create and sustain them? And there is no shortage of information today, which is why I'm always on the lookout for competent and deeply rooted educators and guides on the topic of attachment. And today, I'm bringing you just the best of the best. You're going to love today's guest, Julie Manano. Julie Manano is a licensed marriage and family therapist who specializes in emotionally focused therapy for couples. You may also know her from her popular Instagram account at the secure relationship where she provides insight and advice for couples to her over 1 million followers. She lives in Bozeman, Montana with her husband and six children where she runs a Bozeman therapy and counseling clinic and the secure relationship coaching. And now she's the author of her debut and quite incredible book, "Secure Love," create a relationship that lasts a lifetime. Today, Julie joins us to discuss all things attachment styles. And yes, we explore how anxious and avoidant attachment styles show up in relationships. But Julie encourages us to learn about the attachment needs through examining what secure attachment feels like and how we can all attempt to get our needs met in relationships. And she brings this approach to her response to a really thoughtful listeners struggle with her and her partner's differing worldviews. Are they incompatible? Or is it an anxious attachment? Julie is such a wise, powerful presence. And I'm so excited to hear what you gain from this episode. As always, you can send me your thoughts or your questions by emailing me at [email protected]. dr-al-ex-a-n-d-r-a-s-o-l-o-m-o-n. com, or by submitting a list of questions using the link in the show notes. You're going to really enjoy this episode. Here we go. [MUSIC PLAYING] Julie, thank you for joining me here today. You are so welcome. It is wonderful to be here. Already, just after our little pre-show chat, I'm just feeling really good and filled up. So-- Be too. I'm like, can we just meet up and go for a walk together? I know. I know. I'm going to be like one of those people. Yeah, absolutely. Let's do it. Next time you're in Montana, which probably will be never. No, I'm obsessed with Montana now because I love Yellowstone and all of the Yellowstone things. I suddenly need to go see Montana for myself. Yeah, you'll need to come here to Boseman and use that as your home base. I love it. I love it. So I'm so excited to talk to you about your new book and all of your really rich offerings for couples. This is going to be a conversation that I know lands right in the bulls eye of why people come to the reimagining love podcast. So I think this is going to be fantastic. But I want to start with you. And I want to ask you the relational self-awareness question that I ask all of our guests. OK. So Julie, can you tell us about a way that you are reimagining love in one of your important relationships these days? Yes. This actually just came up yesterday. So I have a best friend, Jamie. We've known each other since middle school. We've been best friends since high school. We both moved to Los Angeles around the same time, randomly because we were both dating men from Los Angeles. We're very, very, very close. But we don't talk a lot about our relationship. And I think that's very common for people. And I've heard that the most vulnerable thing that you can do with another person is actually talk about your relationship with them together. And I've definitely seen this in my practice. That's what I do with couples. This helps them talk. But just the idea of expanding that outside of your romantic partnership. And we're always there for each other. I mean, I have such a felt sense of support, a felt sense of being understood and seen and loved and cared for. And I know she does, too. But it's not something that we talk about. And so I've been starting to feel just more sentimental. I don't know if my age, but I'm starting to feel just this deep, deep, sentimental-- I'm finding this deep, sentimental part of myself. I've always been very sentimental, but it feels like it's just becoming deeper. And so yesterday I was talking to her. And I just-- I think in the past, that's not a relationship that I would have been very vulnerable about my feelings for her so directly. I mean, like you write cards and things like that, because it's vulnerable to put your heart out there. Even with the safest person that you know is probably going to respond positively, for me, it's really vulnerable to get down to the deepest feelings. And so I'm really starting to tear up just going here, but I was talking to her and I just started crying. And I said, you are so important to me. I love you so much. And I said, I've always been so proud to be your friend. And that's true, because back in school, Jamie was like the queen of the school. She was a popular girl, the homecoming queen. I mean, and just as a heart of gold also. And I was a little bit on the nerdy side. And I kind of had a good sense of humor, and that's why people liked me. But just the idea of being her best friend, it was just so special. I'm friends with this really amazing person. And so I've always just been so proud to consider her a friend and to a best friend. And I just-- I opened up and told her that. And it was really vulnerable for me. But it also was something I just needed to say. And I feel like it can only deepen our relationship. And I also said, I don't have very many people in my life that I'm close to. I have six kids. So I don't have the capacity to have a big circle, nor do I necessarily want one. And I said, I'm 47 years old. Going forward, I just want to take very, very good care of my inner circle. That's my number one mission in life at this point, is just to really take good care of that inner circle. So that was my reimagination of love. I feel what you're saying so deeply. And I hear you around-- I think even as too therapist sitting here, we know the value of vulnerability. We know that our work with couples is to open up that vulnerable space. And then it's how fascinating that we can sort of forget the value of bringing that into other relationships. I think especially friendships, right, where there's something that is so extra precious about it, because it is such a chosen relationship. And so you were aware that even though you love Jamie, you know she loves you, you've been there for each other to talk directly about it, was, as you said, a deeper layer of letting your feelings really be seen and to show on the outside. Yes. Very, very well stated, that feels very much like how I was experiencing it. And at some point, someone needs to write a deeper book about attachment and friendships, I think, because there's a lot we said for that. So-- Yes, absolutely. There are some really beautiful books that are coming out now about friendship. And I think that you're right with really bringing that attachment lens to friendship is so important, because it's what you did. And this is a nice segue to your book. You name right up top. We have books about the role of attachment in the parent-child relationship. We've had a lot of attention on that. And Dr. Sue Johnson, who is a deep mentor to you, a really treasured teacher for me, and she built emotion-focused therapy on attachment theory. But what you've done with your brand new, fantastic book, Secure Love, is really take all of the beautiful work of emotion-focused therapy and basically turn it into a deep, rich, thoughtful, thorough guide for couples. So it's not just learning other-- about attachment theory, it's not just learning about the attachment strategies that you developed in your family of origin, it is about making that vital connection to, how does it show up in your intimate partnership and how do you create a secure relationship with your intimate partner? It's so valuable, Julie. - Yes, that is certainly where my mind was in the process. That's where I, you know, my hope for the book is just what you said, to really take this concept and put it into action. So why EFT, what drew you initially to emotion-focused therapy? - I learned about it in grad school, even though I was in a marriage of family program, it was very systems-focused. And so we had, then the marriage in family class, and I think we only had one, which is very random for a marriage in our family program. - Dirty little secret. - And we learned Gottman and we learned EFT, and something about EFT just hit me, it made sense, and I was already really consumed with attachment theory, kind of doing that on the side. We weren't learning a lot about it at that time, in grad schools weren't teaching a lot of attachment theory, object relations, you know, kind of the roots of it. And so I was already immersed in that. So then when I learned about EFT, I was like, yeah, this makes absolutely sense. I had zero interest in working with couples, none whatsoever. I was in an EFT program because that's the king license in Monten. I mean in California, where I was at the time, I mean, most masters level therapists in California are MFTs. It doesn't mean that you actually specialize in marriage in couples. And so I kind of resented that I had to have that license, because I needed to get it, because it's the bulk of the programs for MFT, but I kind of resented it, because I did not want to identify as a marriage in family therapist. I wanted to do this really deep psychodynamic work with individuals. Long story short, I had to see couples to get my full license and saw the first couple and thought, wow, this is incredibly difficult. You know, I've got it not just one person in front of me, but two people and their relationship. And I could maybe get into this. This is challenging. And there's a lot of emotional richness here. And I'm seeing so much of each individual in the context. And so after that first session, immediately, I looked, I got, I remember DFT, I got online, found the first EFT training in the country that was that first level, which happened to be in Boseman, Montana. I was living in Los Angeles. I could have waited a week or two to see Sue do it in Pasadena, but I needed it. So I just flew out here to Boseman, fell in love with EFT, walked in the room of all the EFT therapists that were there, and I really felt a sense of this is my group, this is my community. There's something very compassionate and accepting about people who do this work. I'm sure you can agree with that. And so I called my husband at the lunch break, and I said, hey, by the way, I love this therapy and we're gonna move here. (laughing) - It's not just the therapy, it's actually the therapy in this location. I'm gonna need both of those. - Exactly, exactly. And so five months later, we lived here, my six kids lived here, they were in school, my husband had a job, and I had a practice set up, and it just kind of felt in. And so that all is a lot of detail, but let me tell you what I really truly love about EFT. One, I was creating these really powerful bonds with my individual clients because of the emotional support, the nature of the emotional support of a therapist client relationship, which is not the therapy, but it is the platform on which you do the therapy as that safety. And it was just breaking my heart to see them go home and not have what I was building with them in their real lives. And so to me, it felt very complete. And also, it helped me feel that I was really seeing the person in the context of the relationship, what I really saw their issues coming alive in front of me. And for me, it's easy to work with in that sense, and it felt just very challenging, just the intellectual stimulation part of having to keep up with all the moving parts, it just feels very fulfilling. And just the depth that you go to with attachment work, I mean, you just go to the bottom and the transformative power of getting people down to those deepest places and helping them not have to be alone with it anymore - Yes. - Is almost addictive. - Absolutely. - Yeah. It is, it's what I have always treasured about EFT is that ability to hold on to the deep individual pieces as well as the dance between them. Like that was, I think I had a similar experience when I first learned about EFT and began to train, you know, and read in that area, was like, oh God, this makes, it helps it all make so much sense because sitting with a couple is, it's so stimulating and it's so chaotic. And so when we can just anchor in to the attachment needs, it organizes the entire conversation. I hear, I feel like I hear Su Johnson's voice in my head, all the time when I'm sitting with couples, you know, around resisting the urge to go down those content tubes and moving out of the content to the deeper place of the attachment longings. You say right up top that you want us to stop talking about what a healthy relationship looks like. And you want us instead to talk about how a securely attached relationship feels, what it feels like to have security in your relationship. Why that distinction? Like what are you trying to get us to move away from and move towards? Well, we're looking for the felt sense. That's what everybody's going for. Nobody is going for understanding on an intellectual level. That is the, you know, part of the journey, right? Is that understanding on an intellectual level? But nobody wants to stop there. We want the heartfelt sense of closeness. We want the felt sense of being understood, being held in our pain, not being alone, being validated. I mean, that's what humans thrive on. Those are the emotional needs. You know, we need those emotional needs as much as we need food to thrive. An example here is yesterday I was working with this couple and this Patreon group that I do. And they're having some issues around blended family, which is, as you know, incredibly difficult dynamics to work with. And the stepmother has a lot of trauma from her childhood. And so when the stepchild comes into the equation, she gets a trigger. I mean, she gets really flooded with a lot of anxiety, a lot of fear. It's a range of uncomfortable feelings which show up in her body as a lot of tension. And then that impacts the way she shows up in these moments. And she's working really hard on this. But it is very hard to show up as our best selves when we're feeling all of these yucky feelings in our body. And so I was able to help her tap in and tell me more about, OK, what's happening in your body right now? And she's like, well, my chest is tied. And my arms are tingling. And so then I was able to take her from there and down into using the therapeutic techniques to get her really down to that deepest place of this unexpressed grief, this place where she doesn't talk about very often that she's usually alone with. And both of these partners are very self-help therapy savvy. They work on themselves a lot. And they understand the problem. I mean, they could write a book on intellectually what is our problem here. We have all this trauma. These things come up. There's these attachment issues. And that's great. That is great for them to understand that through the lens of attachment. But when I was really able to get her down to this deepest part and have her share, here's what really happens for me in these moments. I'm stressed out and I get scared. And I get scared because I'm afraid that I'm never going to be able to get this right. And that all these terrible things are going to happen. And when I go into that place, I have been there. I've been in that place where scary terrible things happen. And it's sad and it's horrible. And then she's able to kind of bring those tears up around these grief. Every year, a rascal in that we have with growing up or in our lives where we felt dropped emotionally dropped, that's a loss. And there's grief surrounding that. And if it doesn't get taken care of in that moment, it's just going to build up. And so long story short, she was able to turn to her partner and talk more from that place of grief. With her, connecting the dots. And her partner was able to take that in. And it was this really powerful experience. And so what I did after that, as I said, tell me now, we led into this with you telling me about this tension in your body. What's happening right now, as you've just shared this part of you that you're not really used to having support with or talking about? And she said, I just feel so relaxed. I just feel so close. I checked in with her partner. Her partner was having the same experience. And that's it. That's the crux of this work is that felt experience. It is not an intellectual understanding, although that does help us get there. It helps guide us to how to find that place. But this was a really exaggerated, powerful version of that felt experience. But when we can really find secure attachment, we start to hold those experiences in our body. And they just become the background noise. Whether my husband's been in Canada for work for a couple of days, I still have a felt sense of life. love and attachment and safety with him. I'm not in the same room with him, but we've had so many of these powerful bonding experiences, sometimes getting there through conflict. So that I don't understand that you love me. I don't understand that, but I don't, they up in my head and go, oh, my husband loves me. I'm okay because my husband loves me. It's just a part of my inner being of the felt sense of being loved. And that's really what I'm helping couples move toward. And I think that's really missing in the conversation around a lot of relationship work. - Yes, yes. Well, that example is all the more powerful because you're naming very clearly that this partner has trauma in her background. She did not grow up with a capacity for secure attachment. And yet she and her partner are creating the conditions for secure attachment to build. It's the most profound finding, I think in all of the research that Sue Johnson has done, it's like the way that this work shifts our attachment because we are, we're in a moment. I mean, I think it's, I know it's probably the same for you. It's this sort of bizarre moment where we've known about attachment styles and attachment theory since graduate school. And now it's like the doors are open and the collective, it's public, right? And I think there's a risk of people in the public sort of sticking these labels on themselves and the other. He's a void and she's anxious, sort of. And what I love is that you want us to kind of understand the attachment that we've grown up with, but it is in the service then of the healing. It's not the label, it's to understand the attachment needs. So can you help us understand what our attachment needs and how that relates to our attachment style or our attachment strategies? - Absolutely. So at the core of it all is unmet attachment needs. And I like to say, you know, those are the needs that we have to feel safe and close with another person. It's not like we do have self needs. We need to have the ability to self validate, self regulate, self love. We need those things to connect with others, but we also have these relational needs. And sometimes it's hard for people to grasp that concept because they've been looking through that sort of codependency framework where it's like, I need to meet my own needs. So I like to say it in reverse, which is can you feel close to someone if you don't feel valued? Can you feel close to someone if you don't feel validated? It's pretty easy to say no, right? And so we need to feel close and safe with another person. If it's your employer or whoever, you know, and of course the emotional stakes and needs are much higher with our romantic partners. But so we all have these core attachment needs. It doesn't matter what your attachment style is, if you're avoiding or anxious or disorganized or secure. We all need in a relationship to have a felt sense of being valued, of being loved, of being cared for, of being validated, of being understood, of being seen, of knowing our needs matter, of being appreciated. And when those needs aren't met, either in the big picture of the relationship, kind of you're walking around not knowing those needs are met or in these moments of rupture. Something has been happened in your body. It doesn't matter if you're the most securely attached person in the world. You're getting the message, my partner isn't really able to understand or see me right now. You're supposed to have a reaction because that is now threatening. You're feeling of closeness in this moment. And then what are you going to do with that? What are you going to do with that fear? What are you going to do with that kind of unexpress feeling of loss or sadness that's happening in that moment? If you have an anxious attachment, you're going to get big, you're going to protest, you're going to blame, you're going to, you know, all these numbers of things that those with anxious attachment do. If you have an avoidant attachment, you know, you are just so disconnected from that need to begin with. It's there. Your body is holding it. But, you know, you're not going to consciously be aware of it. But you are going to go into shutting down, retreating, getting defensive, appeasing. If you have a disorganized attachment, any number of things can happen. And then if you have a secure attachment, you're going to be able to some degree to step back and go, okay, this is a moment, you know, what's happening with me? What are, what's my body trying to tell me right now? And then you're going to communicate in a way that's kind of drawing your partner and inviting them in to your world instead of accusing or just this engaging. And that's going to sound something like, okay, listen, something clearly something big is coming up for you right now. I'm over here kind of feeling not seen. How can we kind of work together on this, you know, because I need to feel close to you to go forward with this whatever, talk about money or sex or whatever. And it does require, you know, it sounds so easy, right? It requires the ability to self-regulate. - Yes. - And you can't skip that. It just does. I mean, co-regulation when partners are able to help each other is the gold standard of regulation. But it's impossible if we don't have two people who have some ability to self-regulate enough that one can be the co-regulator. (upbeat music) - You say pretty early on in the book that when we start to understand couple dynamics and conflicts through the lens of attachment, you'll begin to understand why your partner yells at you to try to draw you closer or shuts down during an argument in order to try to protect the relationship. I'm not excusing or condoning these behaviors, but understanding them to the lens of attachment is the key to finding better ways to achieve the same goals. So can you say a little bit about how you hold on to that distinction for yourself of understanding the roots of these problematic behaviors? And that's not the same thing as condoning them. Like why does that distinction matter? - The distinction matters because it helps make sense of things, it helps take things from this chaotic, either a lens of chaos where nothing makes sense or a lens of their bad and they wanna hurt me, right? And that in and of itself is regulating, information can be regulating. It creates empathy when you're really recognizing, hey, my partner isn't shutting down because they don't care, they just wanna leave me in the dark or they're trying to punish me. They're actually shutting down because they feel dysregulated in their way. And in their mind, they've learned that conflict hurts relationship, conflict is scary. I don't know how to do conflict. So their way of making things better, which doesn't really work, but their way of making things better is damage control. Let's not make it worse. And there are other reasons that might be driving that shutdown, but that's a big one. When you can, in these tough moments, kind of get yourself to a place where you can see that, it takes away, they wanna hurt me, they're the enemy, I don't understand what's going on. And from that platform, you know, it does help you show up in a different way. It softens your heart. And when your heart puffs, and you're likely to show up softer and safer. So do we want to just stay there and go, oh, well, you're shutting down and I get it and now we're fine. No, we want both partners to recognize, these are the reasons, the good reasons that I'm doing these things. They are learned strategies, they kept me safe. They're not keeping me safe anymore. And now we gotta figure out some things to do differently. I'm not trying to change that avoidant partners overwhelm. I mean, over time, I believe it will with the therapy, but I'm not trying to change it. I'm trying to meet it where it's at and help them communicate what's happening inside of them in a new way so they no longer need to shut down. - Yeah, yeah. You say that the hardest thing about working with somebody who has avoidant strategies is getting them through the door. But the hardest thing about working with somebody who has anxious strategies is getting them to see their part of the problem. So help us understand, and it fits right in with what you're saying about like for somebody who has more anxious attachment, it's really easy to see, but look what they're doing. They're getting defensive, they're pulling away, they're not meeting my needs. So tell us about that distinction for the avoidant person. It's hard to just get in the door to pick up the book, to listen to the podcast for the anxious person. It's hard to see that, oh shoot, my way of doing this has the exact opposite impact of what I wanted to have. - Right. - Yeah, so when you get an avoidant feeling safe and feeling like they're not gonna be seen as the problem, understood scene, they want to grow. It's safety is what helps them grow. What happens with anxious partners is they grew up in an environment where they had to get big and blamey, they had to protest to be responded to, and they couldn't trust they were gonna be responded to anyway, they might not, so there's just this constant nagging sense of, are you gonna be there for me, are you not gonna be there for me? And they had to learn to externalize to get my needs met. I've got to focus on you. I've got to focus on every move you're making. I've got to focus on somehow communicating the message to you that you're not getting it right and you need to respond to me. And sometimes it works. I mean, the squeaky wheel gets the oil. So, and sometimes it's even working in the relationship with the avoidant, the anxious partner learns if I get big and loud, somehow I might get my needs sort of met here, they'll respond to me. And so what happens is that they only know what they know about how they try to get their needs met, which is going toward close the distance, do something, So, that's what makes sense of them. They just don't have any other way to make sense of the avoidance, pull away other than if I'm pulling away, it's because I don't love you and care for you. That's what my experience as an anxious partner. So if you're pulling away, that's the only way I know how to make sense of it. They see themselves as working so hard when a lot of times what they're doing is watering the plant with gasoline. That does require effort. It requires a lot of energy to water a plant with gasoline. That doesn't mean that the plant is getting the help it needs. For them to look over at the avoidant partner and saying, "Well, they're not doing anything. They're not putting all this work in because it's not a parent on the surface." Again, they're making sense of it as you must not care. Then there's so much more where of their needs not being met. Avoidant partners tend to not ask. They don't get their needs met. Anxious partners ask and don't get their needs met. Nobody's needs are met. There's so many good reasons that on the surface, it does look like the anxious partner is doing all the work. When really, you said, they're doing opposite work. The anxious partner comes into the session and not only have their brains been wired around nobody's there for me, maybe I'm not even really lovable. Other people are the problem because that was my experience, my true genuine experience of being let down so much. Your brain has been wired to see through that lens and they see themselves reading all the books and putting all this energy in. It is very, very difficult to get them out of that mindset, very difficult, possible. I do it all the time, but you can see this dynamic so clearly play out on Instagram. It doesn't matter what the post I put up is the thing to do with avoidant. It's just a flood. It's all very, very other focused in my mind. I'm saying, don't you see right now that this blame is actually playing out in this comment? And there's no, it's very difficult for them to recognize that and not because they're bad or not trying. That's how their brains have been wired to really focus on changing the external environment to change the internal environment. And truly missing their own power, not understanding. That missing their own power, that when I speak this way, behave this way, approach my partner this way, it actually creates. I have the power to create the very thing I fear and dread. I think that's often where the missed opportunities as or missed connections is because of somebody who is more anxiously attached. They just have the experience of feeling so ineffective, so unseen, so unheard that it is really hard for them to start to really see, shoot, I am powerful. I am powerful enough to push my partner away. So now if you know that, then you know that you're powerful enough to start to position a bit differently to bring your partner forward. I love that wording, absolutely. It's a much more empowering position to get out of blame. I love also the way that you talk about people with avoidant attachment. You are super crystal clear. People with avoidant attachment have the same attachment needs that everybody else has. Avoidant attachment is not the absence of emotional needs, but you instead describe these three commonalities that you see across people who have avoidant attachment. You see a fear of failing. You see a disconnection from feelings and you see a fear of being engulfed. Which I was like, yes, underline five stars. That's it. Okay, fear of failing, just like help because I think that our audience, probably if we did a poll of the snares, our audience probably skews a bit more towards anxious attachment and people feeling very bewildered by the behavior of a partner who's showing up a bit more avoidant. So talk us through those three commonalities to really try to invite some understanding and compassion for avoidant. Yeah. So I mean, one in three, which are the fear of failing and the fear of engulfment and measurement are really at the core, a fear of weakness and if we take that a step deeper, it's a fear of not having personal volition. If I'm weak, I won't be able to have control over my life. If I'm seen as weak, I'll be rejected. So really at the end of the day, it's the same thing that the anxious partner is afraid of, which is rejection and not having volition. So anxious partners, they focus on other people doing things in a way that I can feel powerful. Avoidant partners, focus on what can I do in my inner world to feel safe and powerful. And so what they do subconsciously, they're wired from a very early age to do this, is they shut it off. They disconnect from it. If you disconnect from it, you don't have to feel the pain. You don't have to act on the pain. Then you don't have to feel weak. You don't have to let anybody in and take over you emotionally to where you're now even more weak and powerless. And so the first step is really inviting somebody who is more avoidant to start to tune into their inner world. It is. That is really key. It's so key. And it's so possible. It's like a, it's in that way, it's a reclamation. It's a reclamation of everything that you had to cut yourself off from in order to survive. It's like, thank goodness you did, because it makes no sense to walk around craving things that you can't have. So thank goodness you learned to do that. And thank goodness that you have a chance now to do it differently. Yeah. Yeah. I want to make sure that I don't let you go before I go through this question. We have a really beautiful listener question that I want to get you to weigh in on. So let's move in that direction. Okay. So we've got Evie from Israel. And she uses she/her pronouns. And what Evie says is, "Hi, Dr. Alexandra. I'm a huge fan of your work for a while now. I've been with my boyfriend for close to a year. And we're facing the choice of taking the next step of engagement or breaking up. We are very in love and want more than anything to make it work with each other. However, we are facing issues of compatibility that have left us feeling paralyzed. His worldview is very logical, preventative, and two steps ahead. I believe in rolling with the punches as they come and trusting my inner voice to guide me. Aside from this, I believe in a more individualistic, live and let live approach in relationships, preferring to directly ask for advice or insight from another. I often feel that my partner doesn't stay in his lane and overly involves himself in my choices. Of course, your content has taught me that culture and families of origin may explain our differences. Are our differences workable or should we give up now?" I mean, there are a lot of layers to that question. So, some of the things I think that she's making sense of is incompatibility are really anxious attachment issues and secure attachment issues, which can be healed when she says, my partner is very logical. That means that her partner is managing their own inner experiences and feelings with logic. That's not incompatibility. That's in secure attachment. Two people who are insecure attached, that doesn't feel good. That is its own version of incompatibility, but it's not classic incompatibility. If we can get that partner to move toward this balance of head and heart into a more secure zone, that would work itself out. And she might need to do the opposite. She might need to become a little more self-regulated and tough moments and heal her own insecure attachment. From that place, they can get to healthier communication and then the healthier communication also will breed more secure attachment. So, if I really give the shortest answer, you never know anything unless you start communicating in a healthier way about all of these issues. As a couple's therapist, it's very difficult to take all this information and say, okay, this and this because I don't know the bigger context. But as a couple's therapist, the first question I'm going to ask is, what happens when you try to start talking about these things? If I have them in the room in front of me, I'm going to see a come alive. They're going to go into a negative cycle instantly because we just put some stress into the equation. That's where I'm going to start. What's happening as you guys start to talk about these things are so much important stuff going on that they're missing. And I'm going to help them understand this in the context of a negative cycle and help them recognize that the way they're making sense of the problem, her whole question is her making sense of the problem in a certain way. And I'm going to help her reframe maybe what the problem actually is. And so then when we can get them through these negative cycles and we can get them communicating in a healthy way, by virtue of communicating in a healthy way, they now are becoming more securely attached with each other, then we can start to say what is really incompatibility here. We have different worldviews. Does this mean we want to raise our children in different religions or we see difference in the quality of men and women in a relationship or whatever that is. We can't really ever know what is incompatibility and what isn't until we clean up communication. Brilliant, I love that answer because she's coming in with a very kind of individualistic frame and she's owning. She's like, I orient in an individualistic way. So she's going to be like, "I want to see you." kind of saying, my boyfriend is AB and C, and I'm X, Y and Z, and I don't think that these fit. And what you're saying is you're less interested in fact in the sort of stated differences, and you're more interested in what gets activated in each of them when they're talking. And so this idea of a couple being incompatible, you really are challenging her and all of us to reframe incompatibility as potentially a cycle that is keeping them from having their attachment needs met, from being able to meet each other's attachment needs. And as that is they are able to feel a deeper felt sense of you understand me, you value me, you can see that we're different and you value me, that then from that place, then there may actually be some ways in which their vision of the future doesn't fit, but it's much easier to feel curious about each other's visions of the future, or as you're saying, the views of gender, it's much easier to feel curious about that when attachment isn't at risk. - Exactly. And then one thing I wanna point out too, is that she says I'm more individualistic, but then right after that she says, I'm more likely to reach out for help. So first of all, that tells me, her boyfriend is very logical, and now she's saying, I don't know how she defines the individualistic, but she's saying, I'm more likely to reach out for help, which is more of an anxious trait. So my theory, my working theory would be there a very classic, anxious, avoidant dynamic, and she, as the anxious partner, is trying to make sense of it in all these ways. And the question is quite convoluted, which is to me, a reflection of how convoluted she feels inside. And so they need to organize themselves around step one, which is, let's start bringing some of this emotionally supportive attachment from communication to the table and go from there. - Beautiful. Okay, so Evie, I don't know if Julie's book is available yet in Israel, but the very moment, you can get your hands on a copy of Julie's book, I would love, I just think it's a beautiful, like it is the book for the two of them to sit down with and begin to work their way through. Obviously, an emotion focused couples therapist would be a wonderful. - And there are a lot in Israel. - Yeah, that is a big movement in Israel right now. And it's a wonderful resource to bring. I think sometimes couples who are a pre-engagement can feel a bit hesitant to reach out for couples there. But I think it's actually an incredibly ripe time to be doing couples therapy because you're laying down, like to be able to create healthy, secure attachment, this early in a relationship versus coming to one of us, years and years down the road. I think it's just a beautiful, I love to be able to work with couples when they are early in their journeys. - I like to say, if you get a new car, learn to change the oil or learn how to drive to get the oil change, learn that the oil needs to be changed. Learn the right gas to put in it. Learn to fill up the tire if it's going flat. And you're gonna save yourself a lot of heartache later. If you don't do those things and your car starts to get damaged. So I am a huge supporter of five sessions when you decide that you wanna be committed to each other. - Yep, absolutely. Julie, this has been fantastic. Please tell people if they are not, I mean, you have literally over a million followers on the Instagram, so many people probably already know you for your Instagram following, but tell people how they can get to know you more deeply. And we're gonna have links in the show notes to your brand new book, which is called Secure Love, Create a Relationship that lasts a lifetime. But what else? What else can people do to get their hands on you and all of your goodness? - So two places. One is Instagram at the Secure Relationship. And that needs to have the blue check because there are some imposter accounts. And the Secure Relationship.com, I have a team of relationship coaches working for me to do more personalized help. And that's where you can find podcasts I've done and just anything else I have to offer, where you can buy the book and workshops. I do some workshops one every couple months. I'll do an anxious workshop or an avoidant one or one for couples. So wonderful. So thank you, Julie. And thank you so much for being here. - You're so welcome. Thanks for having me. It's been a pleasure. (upbeat music) - Thank you, Julie, for sharing your insights and your wisdom here on Reimagining Love. To connect with Julie online or to explore her new book Secure Love, Create a Relationship that lasts a lifetime. Check out the links in the show notes. And thank you so much, the Brave Listener, who wrote in with that expansive question. I hope that our responses gave you encouragement to connect with your partner in new ways and find that new path towards a secure attachment. You deserve nothing less. Until next time, be well. Reimagining Love is produced and edited by Emily Reeves. Our theme music was composed by Slade Warnkin. Do you have a relationship question that you want answered on the show? Visit ReimaginingLove.com to send in a written or audio question. Questions can be about intimate partnerships, family relationships, friendships, you name it. If you're looking for more love and relationship content, you can find me on Instagram at doctor.alexandra.solomon. Or visit my website, dralexandrosolomon.com, where you'll find my blog as well as the intimate relationships 101E course based off of the popular class I teach at Northwestern University. Thank you for listening and see you next week here on ReimaginingLove.