Five Basic Elements to Understanding Relationships
Before we start working on the 10 Habits of Happy Couples, it’s important to review foundational elements about relationships, so you read with the proper context. There are five basic components of relationships that you need to keep in mind so you can better understand your bond with your partner and how things are working “under the surface.”
Have you ever looked at a couple that appeared really happy and wonder how they got there? Maybe you were thinking, they’re “lucky” because they love each other so easily. Maybe they just have that “spark,” and that’s what’s missing in your own relationship. We know some couples like this. In fact, we believe we are one such couple. But what we know is that when you do a “deep dive” into how couples get this way, you won’t discover a magical connection that makes everything easy. Instead, you’ll discover a set of basic foundational elements or “ways of being” that they buy into and live together. These are core relationship elements that are running the show underneath the surface.
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We like to think of this scenario as an iceberg—where what people see (the peak of the iceberg) are the Habits and daily practices, but what guides them are the basic elements (the largest part of the iceberg, which is mostly under the surface) that provides a foundation for successful Habit building. (The visual graphic of the iceberg, and all other graphics from this book can be found on our website for you to download for free).
We believe there are five basic relationship elements that once learned and lived can provide the base for building happy relational Habits.
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1. The Role of Adult Attachment
“Attachment” is the word researchers use to refer to the emotional bond we form with the people that matter to us. Essentially, it’s the theory of how relationships work. British psychologist John Bowlby and American psychologist Mary Ainsworth pioneered our understanding of attachment and taught us that humans are wired for attaching, although it may look different for different people, cultures, and groups.
Bowlby and Ainsworth showed us that attachment is the safety and connection involved when two people move closer or further away from each other. And, when they feel emotionally or physically safe or unsafe with each other. It’s also when they feel calm or feel anxious with each other. And attachment can also be seen as the patterns of action that develop over time when they try to connect through this calmness or anxiety.
We start our attachment styles or foundation when we’re young, often centred around our parents or guardians. Our attachment is often strongest with our primary caregiver, who is often our mothers, but not always. And, no, your attachment troubles are not all your mother’s fault!
The way of relating to our parents sets the stage for the next relationships in our lives and how secure we feel in them. As we develop important relationships with other people, we either reinforce what we learned at a young age, or we challenge that learning and move away from it.
So you bring into your adult relationships what you learned about attaching growing up, as well as what you learned from your previous romantic relationships. And your partner also brings in their learning about how safe or dangerous it is when we let people in or reach for them.
There are a lot of variables at play when you meet your partner. No wonder things seem so complex at times!
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John Bowlby, often considered the first attachment theorist, saw attachment both as something we are born to strive toward, and something that we learn. It’s learned young and can stick to us like Velcro.
But, fortunately, we can unlearn certain attachment habits, and we can learn new ways of being with others. We can move from feeling insecure to feeling secure. We can learn to move from feeling anxious with our loved ones to feeling calm with them. We can learn to move toward people when we are in pain, and we can gradually learn through practice to allow our loved ones in when we’re in pain.
Dr. Sue Johnson, a prolific researcher and couples’ therapist, has done a lot of work understanding the role attachment plays in our romantic relationships. We both have learned a lot from her important research and professional training and try to apply her teachings to our everyday practice as therapists, in our own marriage, and in our relationships with our boys.
When it comes to your adult romantic relationships, attachment plays a key role in how intimate and connected you feel with your partner. Since what you bring into your romantic relationship is largely what you learned along the way, if you have a history of needing someone and them being there for you, you may feel more secure and safe in your relationship. However, if you have a history of needing someone but discover they’re not there for you, you may feel a sense of anxiety with your partner and tend to protect yourself through a variety of strategies. You can also experience a combination of these where you feel secure with some and anxious with others.
Do you look at your partner with delight or with disdain? With openness or closedness? Do you really “see” them and allow them to “see” you? Or, do you keep them at arm’s length so they never really get a look at your inner world?
Several other researchers over the years have contributed to our understanding of how attachment works and the “styles” that can develop. Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, and Wall, as well as Brennan, Clark, and Shaver worked to create a visual to see attachment that
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is helpful to explain how we as partners show up for our significant other, or how we don’t show up.
It’s helpful to view our attachment to our partners on two different dimensions: what we feel and how we act on the feeling. We can feel either safe and calm, or we can feel unsafe and anxious when it comes to intimate connection (like when we are feeling vulnerable, in an argument, or feeling hurt). And we can act on these feelings by either avoiding or approaching our partners. With these two dimensions, each with a different side, it creates four quadrants.
The aim in a healthy relationship is to always feel “secure” with our partner. Secure is a combination of safe and high approaching. This is in the top left quadrant. This is the quadrant we hope to live
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in when it comes to our relationships. This would be when being close and warm feels easy. When we enjoy our intimate time and don’t feel too worried and can be flexible with relationship issues.
Secure partners can share when they’re upset and don’t get overly anxious about how their partner will respond. They also consistently receive their partners when they’re upset. Secure partners want to share when things are good and want to share when things are not good. In the end, there is a low level of anxiety when being close.
Ask yourself—when you are in pain or struggling with something, who do you reach for? Do you not reach for anyone? And when your partner reaches for your emotional support, do you receive them without anxiety?
Interestingly, when partners are working toward establishing a solid attachment, they don’t need to be perfect with these habits. It’s okay that couples are not 100% attuned to each other all the time. In fact, researcher Dr. Edward Tronick indicates that even being tuned into each other for 30% of the time is enough for a healthy, secure attachment. But this is only the case when the other 70% of the time partners are working through the rough patches by repairing regularly. “Always Repair” (Habit #2) is a skill you can learn.
Attachment styles
There are generally considered three alternatives to a secure attachment style (for more on this dynamic read Attached, by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller). They show up when we feel some sort of threat and feel anxious, distress, or in pain. These are ways that we have learned to cope with distress to regulate our emotional world. These three coping styles are a) an anxious style; b) an avoidant style; and c) a mixed version (not surprisingly called “anxious-avoidant style”). You can see this in the next graphic.
People who have an anxious attachment style find being emotionally close to people easy, but they’re fearful that their partner might not want to be as close as they would like to be.
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Anxiously-attached people use more approaching behaviors like initiating intimate conversations and seeking out reassurance that “we are good.” When they get really scared due to a lack of their partner’s response, they might escalate to being more active in their pursuit in the form of perceived “nagging” or “poking.”
People who are more avoidant are focused on keeping their autonomous and self-sufficient way of being. They are not as tuned into their attachment needs as much as someone who has an anxious or secure style. They generally want to be close but are uncomfortable with being too close. They tend to prefer keeping things lighter and remain emotionally distant or intellectual.
When people with an avoidant type of attachment are asked to be vulnerable, they often feel anxious and might withdraw even further than usual out of a need for self-preservation.
People who have a mixed version of anxious and avoidant likely grew up in a chaotic home environment, and one style wasn’t enough for them to feel safe—as though nothing seemed to work.
They bring both a sense of caution and worry when being emotionally close and can keep their partner guessing and anxious. It’s a sort of “come here, go away” scenario. This style is the least common in people and is generally more difficult to find a sense of security without professional support.
Throughout this book, we refer to the two most common attachment types of anxious and avoidant. For the people with an anxious attachment style and who are more actively seeking a connection with their partner, we refer to them as the “Connection- Seeker.” We call them this because often their “first move” is to seek connection.
For the partner who is more avoidant and aims to find a sense of emotional safety first, we refer to them as the “Safety-Seeker.” We call them this because often their “first move” is to seek safety from feeling too much, or from possibly creating conflict with their partner. Feeling too vulnerable, or creating conflict are the two things Safety-Seekers aim to avoid the most.
But while this is their most common move, it doesn’t mean that 5
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it’s their only move. Connection-Seekers also need to withdraw at times, and Safety-Seekers will initiate connection moments at times because they feel even more anxious when they realize that their partner is not engaging as they usually do.
We’ve noticed in our work that in most heterosexual couples, the female partners are more likely to be the Connection-Seekers and the male partners more likely to be the Safety-Seekers. This is a generalization that has less to do with gender than what they were exposed to in younger years (i.e., parenting, societal expectations) that led to the creation of their particular attachment style.
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Connection-Seekers and Safety-Seekers
Connection-Seekers
Main feelings during times of emotional intensity or conflict: unheard, not important, disregarded, exhausted
Wish their partner could open up and actively seek emotional connection
More likely to actively pursue emotional depth and connection
Get anxious when sensing intimate disconnection
Have a strong need to feel understood and to understand their partner’s inner world
More likely to want to “talk things through”
Can nag, poke, or criticize when trying to engage and connect
Want to work through conversations when emotions intensify
Can become a safety-seeker and pull away when exhausted from always being the one seeking emotional connection
Safety-Seekers
Main feelings during times of emotional intensity or conflict: never good enough, criticized, blamed, treated like a child
Wish their partner could ease off on the pressure to engage emotionally
More likely to be content with less emotional depth and connection
Get anxious during or in anticipation of intimate connection
Sharing their inner world is challenging and want to do so when they are “ready”
More likely to get anxious with the thought of “talking things through”
Get defensive or withdraw when feeling nagged or poked by their partner
Often enter avoidance-mode and shut down when emotions intensify and can’t tolerate the feelings
Out of anxiety can become a temporary connection-seeker when partner withdraws and becomes a safety-seeker
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When you look through these two columns, which moves do you usually take with your partner? You may find that some of the items of both columns explain your move, but more likely you can see yourself in mostly one or the other. Determining whether you are a Connection-Seeker or Safety-Seeker is valuable information to keep in mind when reading this book. That’s because it will help you see why you do or say certain things, and can also guide your way when trying to figure out what to do or say differently to deepen your relationship with your partner.
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2. The Role of Emotion in Relationships
We are emotionally-focused therapists. That means we believe that emotions play a key role in what gets couples stuck in their negative communication cycles, how people change, and how couples can move from feeling unhappy to feeling happy.
We discuss emotions in all of our Habits because we believe they are the underlying motivation behind most of what we do, or don’t do, in relationships. And to help you deepen your understanding of how emotions work in relationships we want to share our take on the role they play.
Emotions rule. They drive our thoughts. They drive our actions. While thoughts are important and changing them is critical for growth, we believe that they are fueled by our mood and our emotions. Emotions are the guiding force in relationships, and shifting them can shift your relationship.
Many emotion experts like Dr. Leslie Greenberg (Changing Emotion with Emotion, 2021) like to think about emotions as being divided into two groups—a small, core group called “Primary Emotions,” and another group outside of the first referred to as “Secondary Emotions.” Understanding how to tap into your core emotions can transform your relationship with your partner.
The core group of emotions is often the engine that drives your mood and physiological state - and is often out of our awareness. They are deeper, more vulnerable emotions that generally draw couples closer when they share them. When we are hurt, we’re able to show our sadness. When we are anxious, we’re able to show our fear.
But these primary emotions also can be the most painful to feel, so many people often do their best to avoid them. We avoid them by either numbing out, or by feeling a secondary emotion, which can divert our attention away from the deeper pain.
Secondary emotions are more reactive and tend to push our 9
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partners away. Since they’re often out of our awareness, they seem to just “pop up” automatically as protection from feeling the primary, more painful emotion.
In trying to improve our connection with our partners, distressed couples can get caught in a negative interaction cycle where partners express secondary emotions rather than getting to the core emotions. They get angry instead of sad or get resentful instead of feeling the abandonment that simmers underneath. They nag or “numb out” instead of expressing their emotional pain.
In this book, we work to help you become aware of and get in touch with your primary emotions. Most people do their best to avoid tapping into them. One of the best ways to avoid feeling the core, vulnerable emotions is to feel the secondary emotion first. We will explain in great detail how you can share your primary emotions with your partner regularly so that this relationship-changing process becomes habitual and part of “what you do” as a couple.
We also aim to guide you to be present with your partner’s vulnerable emotions consistently so they get into the habit of feeling safe when doing so.
It will be important that you know how to identify which secondary emotions show up for you (e.g., when you feel threatened— often during fights or when one person shuts down) that work to protect you from your core emotions. When you know which ones are there, it helps you recognize them and move underneath to the softer, more relationship-deepening core emotions.
First, let’s review which emotions are secondary and which ones are primary.
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Primary (Core) and Secondary Emotions
Primary emotions: Sadness, Fear, Shame, Loneliness, Hurt/Pain, Joy, Surprise
Secondary emotions: Anger, Jealousy, Resentment, Frustration, Tired, Overwhelmed
Even though many emotions come up for us daily, there are also situations where we don’t feel our emotions at all—when we go numb, shut down, or tune out. “Numbing out” is not an emotion— it’s the lack of emotion. It’s a state our nervous system moves to when we’re overwhelmed and need to go into preservation mode.
This “numbing out” also plays a habitual role in the negative interaction cycle of many couples that we discuss in Habit #3: Understanding Your Negative Communication Patterns. Unpacking the emotional process of numbing out is very important, so you can understand the core emotions that are creating the overwhelm in the
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first place. Once you have a grasp of the core emotions, you can shift out of that numb state and move into more proactive and meaningful states that bring value to your relationship.
One of the cool learnings about emotions is the concept of the “90-second emotion.” Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a Harvard-trained neuroscientist and author of Whole Brain Living, indicates that ninety seconds is how long it takes for an emotion to run its course through our body. She describes that the chemical process of feeling emotions takes ninety seconds from start to finish.
This means that you can begin and complete an emotion in ninety seconds if you stay present with it to see its completion. If an emotion sticks around much longer it’s because we’re restarting the loop over and over again due to the story we’re telling about what caused the emotion in the first place.
When it comes to couples, there are many stories through the years–unresolved issues–that can pop into our heads and allow the emotion loop to keep going. This 90-second emotion concept is very helpful when trying to stay with your emotions, or trying to stay present with your partner as they feel theirs—especially when trying to unhook from your emotions when you get into an argument with your partner. Imagining “I only have to stay with this uncomfortable feeling for a minute and a half” is much more manageable than “This feeling is going to last forever!”
We encourage you to buy into the process of becoming knowledgeable about your own emotions, how to become more aware of them, tune into them, how to unhook from them when necessary, and see the benefit of sharing them with your partner. We will dive into that more in Habit #1: Talk Openly and Tune In.
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3. Individual “Connection Styles”
Each person brings what we call a “Connection Style” to relationships. Connection Styles are preferences for how we want to connect to our partner. While we all can connect in different ways, we have more “natural” ways that seem to take less energy and make us feel safer and more engaged. When truly feeling relaxed these Connection Styles show up.
Sometimes our connection styles line up well with our partners, and sometimes they’re the opposite. Couples that have different connection styles can still be very happy, but we can make our relationships even better when we can honor our partner’s preferences.
Some couples both love to touch and feel physically connected. Some love to sit and chat about their day. Some love to go for long walks together. Some couples feel most connected when they talk about deep, emotional issues and clear emotional “baggage.” And some couples prefer to keep things light and playful.
We come into relationships with different learnings and beliefs about how we both feel safe and connected. We can identify our preferred Connection Style by the level of calm and safety we experience, along with the sense of attachment to our partner. If we feel safe and connected while interacting with our partner, it’s a sign that it’s one of our preferred styles. If we feel anxious, it’s a good sign that this is going to take energy from us to stay connected, even though our partner is calm.
Our mood and the circumstances of the moment also come into play as to what we need to feel safe and connected. If we’re tired and hungry, trying to meet the connection style of our partner could be a real task. If we just heard some troubling news, it might influence what we need at that moment to tune into our partner’s needs.
So, when you factor in our connection style, our mood and the current moment, we can either agree on what we need to feel close, or we can have different ideas.
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How do you “reach” for your partner for connection? How do you express your attachment needs?
It’s important for each partner to know their own preferred moves and those of their partner. If we have this knowledge in our back pocket, it gives us the opportunity to ask for our own needs to be met, and to meet our partner’s needs, without conflict or frustration. It gives us a chance to come to an agreement that we do our best to honor our partner’s needs as much as possible and find a middle ground when it comes to connection habits.
The question to ask is, “When you feel safe and connected with your partner what is your usual move?”
It’s important to acknowledge that there is no “right” way to connect. In fact, it’s good to have a variety of connecting habits. If we are open to hearing from our partner about when they feel most connected, we can let go of needing our connection time to look the way we want.
For example, the partner who is always searching for deep conversation as the ideal way to connect needs to understand that their partner might have a different connection preference. And the partner who feels most connected when having sex needs to know that their partner might feel more connected doing other things. And the partner who would rather stay light and laugh together needs to know that their partner might have trouble with that at times if there are things on their mind they feel need to be discussed first.
What is your preferred Connection Style?
Do you usually want to have a deep conversation? Does that make you feel connected? Or do you usually want to do something lighter? Do you want to be alone together, or do you want to socialize as a couple? Do you want to be present with each other without talking, or do you prefer to be engaged in constant conversation? Do you
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prefer to do fun things? Purposeful things? Maybe a combination of these? Maybe you feel most connected when you pray together? Maybe when you go on a date?
Each of you can make a list of the ways you prefer to connect with your partner. Then chat about your list. See where things line up. See where the differences lay. Then commit to honoring your partners preferences, and have them commit to honoring yours.
Awareness of what you need to feel close to your partner and asking for it is key for any happy couple. We need to feel we’re connecting in a way that’s easy and natural for us if we’re going to be truly safe and relaxed with each other. And we also need to honor our partner’s way to connect so they feel the same.
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4. The Power of Vulnerability and Compassion
The next basic relationship element is bringing an openness to allowing yourself to be vulnerable and tuning-in to a sense of compassion as you read this book.
While we cover these two topics in various Habits along the way, we don’t include “Take Risks to be Vulnerable” and “Be Compassionate with Yourself and Your Partner” as specific relationship habits. But we believe it’s important to acknowledge the significant role they play in happy relationships.
Vulnerability
As we’ve mentioned, we believe that emotions rule. And we believe that taking emotional risks are the key to creating a sense of connection with our partners. Emotional risk-taking is harder for some of us than others. Some of us grew up with parents who modeled that emotional vulnerability is a healthy part of life. And some of us grew up learning that taking emotional risks is dangerous and has negative consequences. These learnings eventually became our attachment styles.
Many relationships have one partner who is more comfortable taking risks than the other. When you have this situation, there can be some misunderstanding about how much risk-taking is possible. For the partner who struggles to take emotional risks, they might be working hard to be vulnerable, but it might not appear that way to their partner who shares more freely. Be patient and expect smaller steps if this is the case.
When it comes to being happy as a couple, there’s no way around taking emotional risks with your partner if you want to deepen your connection through truly “seeing” your partner and being “seen” by
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them. It may take a lot of practice, but you can establish risk-taking as normal and expected.
Throughout this book, we encourage both partners to tap into their emotions and share them with their partner at a pace that pushes your abilities, but not so much that you panic or bolt. This is likely one of the greatest habits you can develop in your life and in your relationship. Tuning in and sharing at a deep level will transform you and your relationship.
Compassion
As for compassion, we want you to consider compassion for both yourself and your partner.
When it comes to reading with compassion for yourself, be gentle with some of the things that may come up for you—especially with things you’ve said or done that might have caused your partner pain. While we always aim to do better next time, it’s not helpful to beat ourselves up for the things that we’ve said or done. Some of us developed a habit of using “self-beating” as a means to work harder when we were young. And that strategy must have worked at times, which is why we continue using it. But over time, this strategy becomes ineffective and, even worse, harmful.
Instead of beating yourself up, try seeing yourself as a human who has made mistakes. Instead of entering what we call a “shame storm,” try forgiving yourself for things you’ve said or done out of anger. Try letting go of the shame you might have for times when you couldn’t be there for your partner when they needed you. Try allowing yourself the benefit of the doubt for not being able to help them the way they needed.
Bringing gentleness to yourself can help you make the changes you want to make, and make the repairs you want to make. Forgiving yourself doesn’t mean you now believe it was okay. It simply gives you some room to be able to shift your attention to doing what you need to do to make things right, which may involve showing that “shame” to your partner. As Brene Brown shows in her research, the
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only way to make shame smaller is to talk about it. Sharing it with your partner helps them understand your world better and helps you let go of that shame.
Compassion for ourselves also can come in the form of holding boundaries and standing up for ourselves. This is what Dr. Kristen Neff calls, “Fierce Self-Compassion.” Holding boundaries can be a gift we give ourselves. We can view our boundary as a sacred space at the center of us—a space where people have to be let in, and where you get to determine who that is. We discuss this in Habit #7, Respect Each Other.
There may be times when you wish you would have held your ground on how your partner treated you. There may be times when you wish you had worked harder to get your needs met. Allow yourself to feel the pain from that lack of self-advocacy, and work to forgive yourself for that pain. Work to see yourself in a light that you were doing your best at the time.
And when it comes to your partner, work to see them as a member of your two-person team and someone whom you love. Start with viewing them from this perspective of openness and acceptance. When you can see them from that angle, it will help you to unhook a bit from the anger and frustration around their behavior and words or their lack of behavior and words.
Showing compassion for your partner doesn’t mean that what they’ve done or said is okay. It doesn’t mean that you’re going to let them do or say whatever they want. But it does mean that you’re deciding to see them with compassion while also holding them accountable to being better in the relationship.
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5. The Relationship Growth-Mindset
Stanford University psychologist, Dr. Carol Dweck, along with some of her colleagues, became interested in how some people bounced back from setbacks and moved toward their goals, while others seemed to get distraught and quit their goals.
Dr. Dweck developed the term “growth mindset” to describe those who were resilient and rebounded from setbacks and “fixed mindset” to describe people afraid to fail and anxious about taking learning risks. Our mindset comes down to how we think about our own ability to learn, and what we are willing to do to reach “success.” When people believe they can get smarter and build skills, and they see failure as a stepping stone to success, they’re more likely to put in the extra time and effort to reach their goals.
We believe that a “growth mindset” is essential for couples to adopt in order to stick with the skill-building process of establishing healthy habits. We have developed 10 Relationship Growth Mindset statements to use as a foundation as you focus on your daily work and to help you bounce back from relationship difficulties:
Love is a journey: Spend some time learning from your past and planning for your future, but focus mostly on now and today’s steps to a deeper connection.
Daily progress is the goal: Slow and steady work on your connection will pay dividends in the near future. Progress often comes with setbacks, so expect them and be ready to view them as part of the growing process.
Growth comes from emotional risk taking: If you’re a Connection-Seeker, take the risk of being patient, allowing space for your partner, and giving positive feedback when your partner takes the initiative. If you’re a Safety-Seeker, take the risk to initiate emotional connection, to listen to the emotional need underneath your partner’s nagging or
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reaching, and work toward interdependence rather than
independence.
“Successful failing” leads to a deeper connection:
Failure is a “comma,” not a “period.” Do the work to frame difficulties and failures as stepping stones to opportunities for growth. Major relationship gains may start out as failures. The key is to switch from viewing setbacks as negatives to seeing them as mechanisms for making breakthroughs. Use the tough situations as education for what to do, or not to do, next time.
Not where we want to be yet: Yet is a magical word. It means we’re on our way to reaching our goal. When things look grim, remember that you’re not where you want to be yet. Keep the hope that you can make progress if you stick with a daily focus on the basics of your relationship: Staying emotionally engaged, remaining available when your partner reaches for you, owning your step in your negative interaction cycle, and always repairing.
Keep an open mind when your partner is identifying their needs: Sometimes it sounds like criticism, but even then, it’s not just about you. It’s about their needs not being met. So, work hard to be present with them and help them get to the core of what’s missing.
Consistency matters: Steady effort goes a long way with our partner. When they see that we are reliably working on our “stuff” they can be more patient and understanding.
Celebrate successes: Take time to celebrate your progress and positive moves in your relationship. It could be a small reward like ordering in your favorite food, or a larger reward like going on a date.
Be open to your partner’s feedback: Suspend your defensiveness and view what they tell you to work on as valuable information that you can use to strengthen your bond and deepen your connection.
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Appreciate each other’s strengths: What can you do to build upon your partner’s strengths and boost them? The better we are individually, the better we are as a couple.
Conclusion
So take these five basic relationship elements as lenses or filters through which you can read this book and view The 10 Habits. Keep them in the back of your mind as you figure out which habits are working for you and your partner and which are not. Keep them in mind when you are figuring out what sort of things you need to do with your partner to incorporate these habits into your life.
Consider how attachment plays a role with you both. Consider the role of emotions. Consider how each of you prefer to connect. Consider the role of emotional risk-taking and how to bring compassion to mind when learning about The 10 Habits. And, lastly, consider The 10 Growth Mindset statements that can give you hope when you face difficulties and want to pack it in.
Now, let’s get to The 10 Habits of Happy Couples!
