Withholding emotional vulnerability in relationships

Relationships. Withholding emotional vulnerability. Why does it trigger you when someone does it in your relationship? The first thing I am going to say here is this:

It may not only be about them. It can also be useful to explore what is happening for you.

Hold up now!

I am not saying that you might not be putting up with unreasonable behaviour from a love interest or a friend, but let's take a deeper dive here, and remember that we cannot control others, but we can alter our own stuff.

This leaves us less in 'victimhood', and we can feel more in our own power.

So, back to the navigation.

It is not what is going on with them, not how they are failing you, where you can gain freedom, peace and happiness. When, without enough contact, an avalanche of fear-based thoughts throws you into a spiral of pain, self-doubt and catastrophic thinking.

Obviously, it is entirely normal to want to be with and be excited by being with the person you are in a relationship with; however, this is not what we are talking about here.

We are talking about something that takes over within you and is driven and compulsive, that makes you feel on edge, whereby you cannot think straight, or about anything else. It can feel frightening and overwhelming.

Whereby if you don't meet up, see each other, talk, or connect, that translates internally to something being lost, or 'felt' as lost.

No vocabulary around this for you, but it's familiar. Then the grieving experience kicks in. Your thoughts are fear-based, catastrophic and paranoiac. As well as what feels like a descent into sadness, you feel abandoned and not chosen. Meanwhile, your partner is totally unaware that this is all going on and they are just getting on with their day.

All because you don't receive a call or a message from them that signals connection.

This is wildly painful for you and calls shame into the felt experience too, when you can't seem to self-soothe or adequately distract yourself, and deep down inside you, your own inner critic tells you that you "should not" be feeling like this. On top of it all!

Then their call or message comes in, and you pretend that everything is fine, when it's not.

Is this sounding familiar?

They tell you they are going to have an early night or catch up on whatever it might be, but basically not get together with you. You play it cool, you don't feel good though, and once again something feels lost, and your thoughts are distracted.

The longing distorts reality.

Could this be about an attachment pattern?

For some people, intense reactions to distance or disconnection may be related to attachment patterns or earlier relationship experiences. When someone is unavailable or distanced, what is perceived is the threat of the disconnect. This triggers and lights up our nervous system. It interferes with our well-being and sense of peace.

"If only I had said this..." or "They need to do this..." Such discomfort, and off you go into a kind of hell.

This wears us down. It is not the other person's responsibility to save us here. It's ours, by way of educating ourselves.

So here we must try to work out what the reality is. Is it our inability to feel balanced and our safe normal self around someone who is reticent in their need to connect? Or is a relationship with this type of person going to work for us and be emotionally sustainable?

All good questions you will be desperate for the answers to.

This is not about them being a poor quality person by the way, or you for that matter, although you will feel a heady mix of anger one minute and consummate sadness the next, and may be driven to irrational behaviour.

One way around this is to tell them about your own needs around connection and explain why and where it comes from. However, here you risk their capacity for understanding as well as their willingness to meet your needs, most especially if these needs are something they cannot relate to, or call out as a neediness that is undesirable for them as they manage their own needs themselves.

Such discomfort!

Sick with worry.

You will want relief. It's normal to want relief from suffering. You might be looking to follow certain steps that will rescue you from this uneasiness. Do research for a successful way to behave to garner the reconnection.

But this is so not about what you can reclaim from them, and so much more about addressing the dynamic of your emotional origins. This is about the development of self rather than removing the obstacles that get in the way. Also your struggle with yourself and, in turn, others who trigger those earlier wounds. For some people, earlier experiences with parents or caregivers may be relevant here, although they won't explain every relationship difficulty.

Either way, it had nothing to do with you.

Understanding where some of these patterns may have come from can be an important part of exploring them.

Also, our first and most primary need is to be attached. We cannot and do not survive without physical attachment when we are infants as a species. Emotional attachment is also important to our development.

A big clue, though, is when and where you find yourself in recurring patterns and relationship disappointments that show up at your door and happen over and over again. This may be a sign that attachment patterns or earlier relationship experiences are worth exploring.

Each recovery will be unique. It is not one size fits all here.

For some people, exploring earlier experiences in therapy can be helpful in understanding where these patterns may have come from. Coaching can focus on the patterns showing up for you now and how you want to respond to them.

Attachment patterns can be influenced by our history, family system and childhood relationships. These early experiences may influence how we approach adult relationships, although they don't determine them. If we can name the patterns we're experiencing and give them an identity, through our awareness, we can begin to work with them.

This can depend upon our adaptability.

Change is not possible without awareness.

When we have these attachment patterns, and they get triggered, and they show up as longing, coupled with intrusive thoughts, we assume that it is about what we are not getting, and we focus on that.

It isn't always.

For some people, what they didn't receive in earlier relationships may influence what gets triggered in a relationship now. So how do we work with this? By becoming curious about our own patterns and responses.

This can evoke a feeling and need to reconcile no matter what, and even if, after risking the exposure of our own vulnerability in the sincere honesty of disclosure, the other still chooses not to meet us where we 'hurt'. Whereby we will then in turn choose to overlook this, as the suffering of losing them seems so much worse. We can often pick the short-term to kill the pain we are in.

This is our work, not theirs. It must be our choice to navigate our own wounds and learn how to self-care and self-soothe by way of examining our thoughts and beliefs.

This may help us respond differently to the assumed danger and the stories we tell ourselves. The observing rational part of our reasoning mind can help us step back and consider what is actually happening.

Separate the story from the intensity of the emotion

This is challenging work because the longing distorts reality. There is no magic 'one, two, three' solution that heals the not feeling seen, heard, known or understood that we may have experienced earlier in life. But it is a place where we can identify what may need attention, and we can choose to do that.

The alternative can often be seen as choosing a different kind of person, one that will and can make you feel 'safer'. Someone who does not get reciprocally triggered by your need for connection. Someone whose needs around closeness and connection are more compatible with yours might be a better choice.

However, with dating being as precarious as it currently is already, in the 'swipe' world, where being replaced super quickly can seem the easy option, coming across people whose needs around connection are compatible with yours, as well as finding and sharing chemistry with them that can translate into 'long-term', has never seemed harder.

We now have awareness of so many things that are unacceptable, as well as the vagaries of what they shouldn't do, and what you shouldn't do. Dating has become like an assault course where so many of the old ways of behaving have been replaced by not being accountable because there are so many ways to hide, block and disregard. As a result, truly relating has become flimsier and flimsier.

Your healing process also depends on your support system

Whether you work with a coach to explore current relationship patterns or a therapist to work through trauma or significant emotional distress, having appropriate support can help you feel less alone while you explore what's happening for you.

Feeling included, as well as a feeling of belonging, can be an important source of emotional support.

Like plants need water, we need the water of connection too to grow.

New skills and modalities can be learned.

Reciprocity between two people is a necessary part of a healthy, loving, caring relationship. The quality of this is felt; it is energetic.

Awareness, empathy, engagement and emotional connection maintain this felt energy. It is an invitation to closeness, and when it is received and responded to, there is a felt sense of completion through its reciprocity. It can be of equal response or of more, or of less, but it is the essence of 'relating' and has a feeling of nourishment and well-being about it.

When it is ignored by way of non-initiating or no response, it lowers the quality of the bond. If the invitation put out is not responded to, or picked up on, it is so confusing for the person who put it out and understandably will feel disappointing.

If it is discussed, and vulnerability is also risked by the person who is offering it, and it is still ignored, then valuing the vulnerability it took to bring it up will not only be ignored but felt as ignored, diluting the possibility of real closeness.

Maybe the reason here is a need to ignore other's vulnerability because it reminds them of their own which is uncomfortable for them or it is seen as a weakness.

Either way, it can be entirely reasonable to assume that the lack of response might be felt as lonely.

If a person finds vulnerability particularly difficult, they may also find it difficult to meet you in this place of openness.

That can feel incredibly lonely, and even when you are aware that dealing with your issues and discomfort around this is your responsibility, it can nevertheless provoke a sense of feeling like you are the only person actually in the relationship.

To conclude here, where the softening and the disclosure of one is met, yet ignored by the other, is it down to their ability and their willingness to accept and give what is needed?

I think it is... I believe it is a choice, and at the end of the day, it can be either lived with or lived without.

Please remember that connection is an important human need. When we do, our hearts can relax, and we can flourish. Like plants need water, we need the water of connection too to grow.