In this 3rd part of their series on attachment styles and how they impact romantic relationships, Joree and Dr. John take attachment theory off the page and into real life. They break down behavioral patterns into real world examples of how anxious and avoidant attachment styles play out in the heat of an argument. As we know, arguments in love are never just about the dishes or the eye rolls; they’re often old wounds and hidden fears playing out in real time. A very common pattern underneath the dynamics is the anxious partner’s fear of abandonment, the avoidant partner’s shame and shutdown, and the painful stories of being “too much” or “not enough” that fuel painful disconnection. With humor, vulnerability, and hard-won lessons from their own marriage, Joree and Dr. John unpack how to slow down anger, spot the deeper patterns, and ways to practice repair that leads to true secure attachment. This isn’t theory — it’s the messy, human reality of how fights can either break you apart or bring you closer.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• What anxious and avoidant attachment styles look like in the middle of an argument, not just in theory

• Why conflict activates old attachment wounds, often within milliseconds and outside conscious awareness

• How anxious partners pursue connection to regulate their nervous system—and why avoidant partners need space

• Why the anxious–avoidant dynamic isn’t personal, even though it feels deeply personal

• How shame sits underneath both attachment styles (“I’m too much” vs. “I’m not enough”)

• What’s really happening beneath everyday fights (like dishes, tone of voice, or sighs)

• How unconscious stories distort reality during conflict and fuel disconnection

• Why anger is often a protective emotion, masking hurt, fear, sadness, or shame

• How body sensations (interoception) reveal emotional triggers before words or actions do

• How to slow down the trigger-response cycle and widen the gap between stimulus and reaction

• Why secure attachment is about safety—not happiness

• Practical ways couples can move from reactive conflict to emotional safety and connection

Connect with Joree & Dr. John and Love Isn’t Enough:

• Website: www.loveisntenough.net
• Instagram: @loveisntenough33
• Subscribe to their podcast: Love Isn’t Enough
• Join our relationship Master Class series: https://loveisntenough.net/masterclass/

Connect with Joree Rose:

• Website: www.joreerose.com
• Instagram: @joreerose
• Subscribe to her podcast: Journey Forward with Joree Rose
• Join the Podcast Membership: https://joreerose.com/

journeyforwardpodcast/

Connect with Dr. John Schinnerer:

• Websites: www.GuideToSelf.com | www.TheEvolvedCaveman.com 
• Instagram: @theevolvedcaveman
• Subscribe to his podcast: The Evolved Caveman

If this conversation resonated, here are a few ways to go deeper:

• Subscribe to the Love Isn’t Enough podcast
• Leave a review—Scroll down and click Write A Review. It helps more couples find this work
• Join our Monthly Relationship Masterclass on building an emotionally safe and thriving ‘ship 
• Work with us directly in couples counseling or coaching. Email (below) to inquire about availability 

 About Your Hosts:

Dr. John Schinnerer is a psychologist and executive coach out of U.C. Berkeley specializing in emotional intelligence, anger, the evolution of men, and relational health. He has worked with men and couples for over 30 years. He was an expert advisor on the academy award-winning movie, Inside Out. His online anger management class has taught over 25,000 people how to reduce their anger for a happier, calmer life.

Joree Rose, LMFT is a marriage and family therapist focused on emotional safety, attachment, and healing relationship wounds. she has focused on guiding women to greater life satisfaction and purpose and has written several books. 

Full Transcript Here:

What Attachment Styles Look Like In The Midst Of Argument – Transcript

Joree Rose, LMFT: Hello and welcome back to Love Isn’t Enough. I am Joree Rose here with my partner in life and love …

Dr. John Schinnerer: Dr. John, and I’m not giving you my last name in case I say something offensive. 

Joree Rose: Huh? You always like to start something off that just throws me off from where we’re headed. You often say things offensive and you’ve already given your last name, so you’re already busted.

Joree Rose, LMFT: Anyhow, we have been doing the past couple episodes on attachment styles and breaking it down to what it looks like in relationship, and we focus a lot on the anxious and avoidant patterns that many couples get stuck in. And we’re gonna give a quick overview in case you haven’t listened to the past few episodes to highlight what these patterns are.

Joree Rose: But today we’re gonna take it from the conceptual into the actual – What does this look like in the middle of an argument? What are the patterns? What’s going on internally? And hopefully through this, give you some better insight into your own patterns, but more importantly, what you can do about it. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: So …attachment styles.

Dr. John Schinnerer: Attachment styles. Go back to Winnicott who was an attachment researcher back in the forties and fifties, right? 

Speaker 3: Correct. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: It goes back a ways and. And Mary Ainsworth came up with the strange Situation test, which was they started thinking that how babies attached to their primary caregiver, usually their mom was significant in how they developed down the road.

Dr. John Schinnerer: And they came up with this kind of crazy experiment called the Strange Situation Test, where both a researcher and the mom would come into this room with the mom’s baby, the child, and occasionally the mom would leave at planned periods of time and they would see how the baby would react, usually zero to two years of age, or six months to two years of age.

Dr. John Schinnerer: They would see how the baby would react when the mom returned to the room after a two or three minute absence, as I recall, and the securely attached child had no big deal with this. No emotional outburst, not overly clingy, not overly angry or disconnected, just rolled with it. The anxiously attached child would get.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Best Relationship Counselor Near Me:  Flooded would get, would begin to cry, would reach for their mom. When the mom came back 

Dr. John Schinnerer: More dysregulated, the avoidant child would turn his back on the mom and disconnect to some extent. And so that’s the basis for these attachment styles where we started finding out about them 70 plus years ago.

Dr. John Schinnerer: And only in the past 20 years or so I would say, have we realized that these attachment styles typically are traditionally or. Generally have huge impacts on our romantic relationships. And the thing that’s really cool about it is often this stuff is operating at a subconscious level, so we’re not even aware of it.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Best Relationship Counselor Near Me:  But with greater awareness, with greater practice, you can move and evolve from, let’s say, an anxiously attached style or an avoidantly attached style. To a securely attached style, and that’s the goal for all of us. A relationship where we feel safe and secure, where we feel our partner has our back.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Best Relationship Counselor By Me:  Become hell or high water. 

Joree Rose, Best Marriage Therapy By Me: So what does this look like in patterns? 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: The anxious child usually will develop a brain pattern in believing what love looks like, and they can get flooded when not with their partner. They can get anxious and insecure. They can trust that their person’s gonna be there for them.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: This can tend to lead towards approach. Techniques during conflict, meaning stepping towards usually they need connection to feel regulated, to feel safe. And at the root of an anxious attachment is a fear of abandonment. The avoidant attachment and, oh, let me do the 

Dr. John Schinnerer: avoidant. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: Oh, great. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: Since that was my forte the avoidant attachment style, typically in conflict, which is where these attachment styles rear their ugly head the most.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Best Relationship Counselor By Me:  The avoidant wants space and distance. They get emotionally flooded. They don’t know what to do. They want space and time to cool down, which is a reasonable request, except that. The anxious attachment style person will pursue because their physiological system can’t rest until they reconnect. Whereas the avoidant needs time and distance and space to calm themselves down.

Dr. John Schinnerer: It’s not a great pattern, but the avoidant, their biggest fear is disappointing their partner, letting their partner down, which results in shame. And the other thing that’s fascinating to me about avoidance is if you ask avoidant skew, 70% male, and a lot of men that I’ve worked with over the last 30 years, you can ask ’em about their childhood and they’ll say, my childhood was great.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Best Relationship Counselor By Me:  It was fine, idyllic, no problems. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Best Relationship Counselor Around Me:  But what happens with US avoidant, attached individuals, avoidantly attached individuals, is that we learn at a really young age that our emotions not only don’t matter, they don’t help us to get our needs met. They can even be met with anger. Or disconnection. And so we learn at a young age to disassociate from our emotions and we attempt to turn them off.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Best Relationship Counselor Around Me:  The problem with that is we need emotions to see our memories into our mind. So without the emotions, we don’t remember a lot of the bad stuff that happened in our childhood. And so we grow older and we say no. My childhood was fine, and the problem with that is we’re not even aware of the difficulties or traumas that we had at a young age, which may have resulted in.

Dr. John Schinnerer: This avoidantly attached style. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: And at the root of it, I think one thing you didn’t mention yet was that primary caregiver not being there, their brain got wired for not believing anyone’s ever gonna be there. So that is why they turn to isolation. They go inward. They want the space is because they’ve learned to not trust someone’s gonna have their back at all and become ultra self-reliant.

Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor: Whereas the anxious has that intermittent belief that someone’s gonna be there, which is why we, and I say we as me being a recovering anxiously attached person can tend to feel clingy. It’s if you’re here, I’m gonna hold on really tight because I don’t know that I can trust that you’re gonna be there in the future.

Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor: As John said, the avoidant trends towards men, anxious trends towards women. 

Joree Rose, Relational Counselor: And it is common for an anxious and avoidant to be in partnership, one with one another. Two anxious people are gonna be a little explosive. With each other trying to vie for that attention of who’s if they’re both approaching and both feeling insecure, that’s gonna be hard.

Joree Rose, LMFT: Often we don’t see too anxious to avoidance. It’s gonna be hard for connection ’cause they’re gonna be in separate corners and who’s gonna be the first one to step towards. We talk about these dynamics most commonly in that anxious avoidant partnership and the patterns we call. Get stuck in this anxious avoidant trap or the anxious avoidant damps.

Joree Rose, LMFT: And John and I had a good handful of years of our relationship in which this is where we got stuck and. It was really helpful to understand, oh, like we’re not alone in this dynamic. You mean this is actually normal for many people and this is common and there’s a reason why, and we can actually relate to the reason why when we look at our childhoods and our traumas and our previous relationships, that helped our brain continue to form that belief.

Joree Rose, Relationship Counselor: But most importantly. 

Joree Rose, Relationship Counselor: There’s a way out of it. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Best Relationship Therapist Around Me:  And I think one of the biggest things for me is the idea that, oh, this really doesn’t have anything at all to do with us, you and I. This has to do with my childhood. This, it wasn’t about you at all. It was just a blueprint that had been laid for me for relationships in my earliest years, 

Joree Rose, Relationship Therapist: and that was really hard for me because I showed up from day one with you as someone who was very trustworthy and present and available and consistent and accepting, and that was not easy for you to receive, and at time was even, rejected.

Joree Rose, Relationship Therapist: I was very patient in reminding you I’m not going anywhere. Like I when I say I accept you, I actually mean it. And that’s the interesting thing was it wasn’t about what I could have been doing differently to help you see that it was partly your work to recognize the pattern of the wound to do the internal healing work that allowed you to receive what.

Joree Rose, Top Marriage Therapy By Me: I was present for. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: Yeah, it it’s fascinating to me because I’ll just speak about it generally, that if we as infants or toddlers learn really early on that our primary caregiver isn’t going to meet our emo emotional needs, then how can we grow up and have a romantic relationship where anyone else possibly.

Dr. John Schinnerer: Has a chance of meeting our emotional needs or why would even they, why would they even consider it? 

Joree Rose, LMFT: And it’s really easy to interpret that as I’m not worthy of having someone meet my needs. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Best Relationship Therapist Around Me:  And by the way, this is not to blame anybody’s parents, anybody’s mom, but I, just wanna be clear about that.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Best Relationship Therapist Near Me:  Maybe a little that sometimes, 

Joree Rose, Relationship Expert: but I don’t think, we’re not the subject looking to blame. It’s, 

Dr. John Schinnerer: about finding an explanation for what’s going on and unearthing. The dynamics and then setting about fixing those dynamics. 

Joree Rose, Relationship Expert: And part of the, fixing is an internal job and part of it is relational.

Joree Rose, Top Marriage Therapy Near Me: Part of it can only be practiced when you’re in relationship. And so that’s an interesting quandary for some is that some of this work can only be worked out with a partner because that’s where you get to practice new tools. Adopting new belief systems, putting them into a day-to-day communication repair, arguing differently and finding what is safe.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Best Relationship Therapist Near Me:  And that’s also why we set up our couples counseling the way we did. Because we realized that it’s not enough to just do the individual work, nor is it enough to simply do the couple’s work, the relational work. You have to do both simultaneously if you want to get out of these dynamics.

Joree Rose, Relationship Expert: Yeah. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Expert: And it takes a lot of courage because it’s really easy to externalize to your partner. If only you didn’t fill in the blank either. If you didn’t approach me when I needed space, or only if you didn’t take space when I needed to connect. We could easily externalize. If only you didn’t do that, I’d be fine.

Dr. John Schinnerer: Yeah. If only you’d stop nagging me. I wouldn’t be so angry. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Expert: If, only you didn’t just. Turn off your location and go for a walk and block my, your phone for two hours. I would feel safer. If this, 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Best Relationship Therapist Near Me:  yeah. And then it goes back and forth the other way too. If only you wouldn’t be so angry, then I wouldn’t be so needy.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Best Relationship Therapist By Me:  Or I wouldn’t be so anxious or I wouldn’t be whatever. Fill in the blank. 

Joree Rose, Top Marriage Therapy Near Me: So we can see how this easily gets externalized on to blame of the partner and we gotta have. Accountability. We gotta be able to have the courage to look at ourselves, our wounds, our patterns, and be asking ourselves, what am I doing to contribute to these patterns?

Joree Rose, Marriage Expert: Because I, challenge clients a lot of, what’s your role in this? And not everyone’s willing to look at themselves. And I sometimes have clients who just stop coming back because that question is too confronting. Yeah. Because it might feel like I’m not believing that the other person in their life isn’t causing the problem.

Joree Rose, Best Marriage Counseling Near Me: And yet it is a co-creation. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: It’s always a co-creation in relationship. And, I get it’s scary also facing some of this stuff and taking accountability for your own shit. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: It’s really scary. One thing I do wanna say is. We focus a lot on the challenges, but we’re gonna end this episode with some more of the uplifting, like tangible ways to step towards a secure attachment because I think it’s equal part of understanding it and then having action items of, what can I actually do to step towards that?

Dr. John Schinnerer, Best Relationship Therapist By Me:  And I wanna go back and revisit something I just said. I said, you know that it’s scary to take accountability or face your own shit, and that’s true. And it’s also highly empowering. It’s also a way to take back your power and stop playing the victim, because that’s one of the things we’ve all gotta work on, is stop playing the victim and start taking charge of our own life.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Relationship Therapy By Me:  And this is one of the ways you do it, is by having the courage to look at your own. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist Danville CA: I think that we will do a whole episode on just that, because I think that’s a conceptual idea that many people don’t know how to actually step into. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: Yeah, it’s vague 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist Danville CA: and I think it’s an integral piece and probably the hardest piece to start.

Joree Rose, LMFT: And the truth is, I believe if you want something bad enough, you will work to create the change to get there. You don’t get what you wish for. You get what you work for and. You and I have worked for the secure relationship we have now. We worked hard, we worked very hard for it, and I wish, and we faced our 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Relationship Therapy By Me:  own shit.

Joree Rose, Best Marriage Counseling Near Me: We I’ve wished for this relationship my whole life. I’ve wished for this relationship for the first part of the many years that we’ve been together. And what I wished for was that secure attachment in which I felt safe, seen, accepted, heard, validated. Secure and in which I could give that to a partner who was able to receive and feel the very same things that I was seeking to feel.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Relationship Therapy Near Me:  Yeah. It’s funny you say you always wished for a relationship like this as the man in this relationship. Yeah I’m pretty sure I’m the man. As the man in this relationship, it, it’s. What I am, 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist Wanut Creek CA: sometimes you just throw me for such a loop that you derail my ability to be present, to focus, to stay composed.

Dr. John Schinnerer: I’m speaking here, 

Joree Rose, LMFT: John, it is very clear you’re the man in this relationship, so there’s no fact checking needed 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Relationship Therapy Near Me:  back to my gravitas. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist Wanut Creek CA: You just made me snort 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Relationship Therapy Around Me:  as the man in this relationship. I can safely say that I never wish for a relationship like this because I couldn’t conceive of a relationship like this.

Dr. John Schinnerer: ’cause I didn’t have any blueprint. 

Speaker 3: What’s 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Relationship Therapy Around Me:  for it? So that’s it’s interesting to me, right? But what’s the phrase you can’t wish for? What you don’t even know it exists. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist San Ramon CA: So we, we say this to each other actually with some regularity. What, was it I say to you, I say, you’re everything I ever dreamed of.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist San Ramon CA: You’re everything I ever hoped for or something. And you always respond, you’re everything I didn’t know existed. Yeah. Something like that. Like we, we give it back to one another of you’re what I’ve wished for and you didn’t even, didn’t know what was possible. Sorry, 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Relationship Therapy Danville:  I thought we were talking about warning, constitutional

Joree Rose, Best Marriage Counseling Near Me: deadpan silence. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: When you said something we talked about regularly. I win three to two.

Joree Rose, Best Marriage Counseling Around Me: I don’t think you’ve had an up today, have you? No, 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Relationship Therapy Danville:  I’m very punchy punch. I tell 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist San Ramon CA: you, it’s mid-afternoon. This is why they put me 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapy Danville:  down. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: There’s still more clients to go. I’m sorry. I’m not sorry. I accept all of you. I don’t need to apologize. Okay, wait. Let’s get to business 

Dr. John Schinnerer: here. Stop sticking around. Geez.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapy Danville:  Okay, so we’re gonna go over two examples, two very common examples I think, and at first we’re gonna talk about what’s evident consciously to the people involved, the two people involved. And then we’re gonna peel back the layers of the onion and talk about what’s going on underneath the surface.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapy Walnut Creek:  Underneath the surface unconsciously. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist Dublin CA: Do you, are you sure about that? 

Dr. John Schinnerer: I think so, as far as I can 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist Dublin CA: speak. All right, so this is breaking it down, and we invite you, as you hear this as always, if you are recognizing yourself in these patterns, if it’s bringing up shame, embarrassment, or you find yourself getting flighted or overwhelmed, breathe through that you got this.

Joree Rose, Best Marriage Counseling Around Me: There are times that actually we listen to some podcasts that we. Get a little flooded and overwhelmed and ah, shit, I can’t believe I got stuck there. That really hits home. So we know what that feels like to need to perhaps hit pause, take a few deep breaths, recognize this is us learning and growing.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist Dublin CA: So I want that caveat there. And if 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Therapy Walnut Creek:  you’re overcome by shame, embarrassment, or guilt, just rest assured that we’ve already felt that for you, 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist Pleasanton CA: for ourselves. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Counseling Walnut Creek:  Is basically what we’re talking about here is what does a trigger look like? Let’s break down what happens and, a trigger is gonna be milliseconds to seconds when it happens.

Dr. John Schinnerer: And it’s usually over something stupid, which always cracks me up, but it seems to frequently be the case. And so you’ve got stimulus and you’ve got response. And ideally there’s a gap between stimulus and response. That gap at first might just be a third of a second, but with practice, with awareness, you can extend that gap.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Counseling Walnut Creek:  So you can do things like take a breath, you can question the automatic interpretation story in your head. You can do I need to go to the bathroom, or I need to take a break, or can we restart? There’s different things you can do, but in order to do that, you gotta slow this whole process down and be aware of what’s going on in the process.

Dr. John Schinnerer: So let’s take the example and this actually happened to us where. Years ago, Jo would actually had the great idea of revisiting our disagreements, but at first I wasn’t completely on board because I was afraid that it I’d get triggered again, or she’d get triggered again, more likely me, and it would lead to further disconnection.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Counselling Walnut Creek:  And so we’d get into a disagreement and three days later, let’s say we’d be on a walk and she’d be like why don’t you say it? So then I can. 

Joree Rose, Best Marriage Counselor Around Me: Hey, honey I’m, not really feeling resolved in what we talked about. Can we talk about that some more? 

Dr. John Schinnerer: And at first, I did not respond super well. It was like a sigh or an eye roll 

Joree Rose, Best Marriage Counselor Around Me: or, 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Counselling Walnut Creek:  oh my God, seriously, do we have to do this shit again?

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Counselling Danville:  And you know what, I, we’re all 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist Pleasanton CA: three at the same time. What I 

Dr. John Schinnerer: didn’t know at the time is this is a highly effective way to figure out what’s actually going on and to heal some of the patterns that. All of us find ourselves in. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist Pleasanton CA: So what I would hear that si the, ugh, here we go again. I would get hurt, right?

Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor Pleasanton CA: I would. I would feel like I’m trying to deepen our connection, our understanding, our inside of each other, and I. I wouldn’t really get angry, but I would feel a little bit let down. Like here I am turning towards trying to learn and grow and I would often preface by saying, look, I don’t care if we disconnect.

Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor Pleasanton CA: I don’t care if we fight. I just want it to be useful for us to learn and grow from it so we can not get stuck there again. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Counselling San Ramon:  Okay. Maybe you’re a bad example. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: What would you feel? 

Dr. John Schinnerer: I, think most people will go to anger. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor Pleasanton CA: That was before I actually got tapped into my anger. But my hurt, I think is, I’m just trying to make this No, I know.

Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor Dublin CA: I, for 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Counselling Pleasanton:  most people, 

Joree Rose, Best Marriage Counselor Around Me: well, and, but I also didn’t know how to tap into anger. So hurt and let down was a form of anger, but it was a way of not, I was never gonna turn towards you and be like, you asshole, why did you do that? But many people might. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: Right? And what, and I think. The purpose of this is to talk about the conscious versus unconscious, right?

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Counselling Pleasanton:  Emotions and stories, right? And, I think for most people, the hurt and sadness is those are the more, more vulnerable emotions underneath the surface that the anger’s covering up, right? And so you might be a little bit more evolved in the average cave bear and the 

Joree Rose, Best Marriage Therapist Around Me: evolved cave woman. So starting a new podcast.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Counselling Near Me:  So I, I think for most of us. Most of the couples we hear it’s anger’s the first, right? It’s the kneejerk response. It’s a third of a second. It’s we have a story immediately that comes up and we get angry based on that. But one of the things we wanna do is slow this down because the anger’s just gonna lead to disconnection.

Dr. John Schinnerer: It’s gonna lead to hurt. It’s gonna lead to. Problems, depending on how frequently that comes up, 

Speaker 3: right? 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Counselling Near Me:  And so it’s a far better conversation if you can access the vulnerable emotions underneath sadness, embarrassment, guilt, shame, anxiety, whatever you have. And you can speak to those emotions or that emotion versus the anger.

Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor Dublin CA: Ironically as, we’re talking through this, I think I would be quicker to anger now that we are more securely attached as the anxious person. The anger, if I expressed anger, my fear would’ve been if I get angry, he’s gonna shut down and withdraw. So I wouldn’t have stayed angry very much because that would’ve been my strategy to help try to stay connected.

Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor San Ramon CA: But underneath, like I think I would still be frustrated. I just wouldn’t get to that anger level. That wasn’t a safe place for me to go to yet ’cause I was trying to stay connected. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Counselling Around Me:  To what extent do you think the deeper story there at sometimes was? If I share my anger, he’s gonna leave. 

Joree Rose, Best Marriage Therapist Around Me: Oh, a hundred percent.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Counselling Around Me:  Because I, I think that’s the deepest 

Joree Rose, LMFT: Oh yeah. A hundred percent story. And it, that feeds into I think, what was a relational core belief for some time. That was, if I express my emotions, it pushes people away. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor Danville CA: And so I was much more invested in staying connected than being authentic with my emotions for the majority of my life.

Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor Danville CA: Because to me, connection was the highest goal, not necessarily authentic emotional expression, because that never got me where I wanted to be. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: And, I think for me is the avoidant. I didn’t want to go back to these disagreements because if I did anything wrong, if I let you down, if I hurt you in some way that we found out later was bringing up shame for me, but initially it would come out as anger or defensiveness.

Dr. John Schinnerer: And so I’d explained my position. I would get. Upset because I can’t do anything right. Or that kind of thing. 

Speaker 3: And 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Counselling By Me:  then so to get below the anger, it was a bucket of cold water in the face to realize oh my God. There’s actually shame 

Joree Rose, LMFT: Yeah.

Dr. John Schinnerer: Down there. And the shame makes me believe I’m unworthy of love, connection and belonging. And the only way I, someone told me that shame is not an emotion. And I was thinking about that. I was like, yeah, I could actually see that, that. Shame could be more cognitive because the, only way I could identify it I was flooded in those disagreements, but the only way I could identify that it was shame was thoughts.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Marriage Counselling By Me:  I guess I’m just no good at this relationship stuff, or she’d be better off without me, both of which argue for disconnection. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor Danville CA: Yeah. And when I would hear that sigh, my conscious thought was, I’m not worthy of him repairing with me. I’m not I’m not worthy of. Talking through something hard, I’m not enough or I’m too much.

Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor Danville CA: We talk about this on the spectrum of on the shame side of the avoidant is generally I’m not enough. On the shame side of the anxious is, tends to be I’m too much. But I would argue it’s, equal for both because 

Dr. John Schinnerer: the shame is equal, 

Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor Alamo CA: the shame is equal. But I would feel those things simultaneously consciously.

Dr. John Schinnerer: Yeah, and that was an interesting point for me too. ’cause I thought at first that as the avoidant, I was the only one that was dealing with shame. Come to find out there’s shame at the bottom or the root of both of these styles. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor Alamo CA: Right? 

Dr. John Schinnerer: And, I like that simplification of I’m too much or I’m not enough.

Dr. John Schinnerer: Because I think that really. Hits home and, explains a lot. 

Joree Rose, Best Marriage Therapist Near Me: And I think people can relate to that thought really quickly. But on that conscious level there’s gonna be a reaction and then there’s usually some sort of protective emotion or strategy for, to dealing with that that might be, going into fight or flight. Some patterns that we develop to deal with that frustration or that overwhelm when we get triggered and as we’ve been talking about, we develop strategies, right? And one of the hallmarks of something I’ve been saying a lot lately is we develop strategies within a certain context and then as the context changes, we don’t necessarily change our strategies.

Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor Walnut Creek CA: And that’s part of the challenge in relationship is that we are bringing old strategies. To new situations that may have nothing to do with the situation at hand. 

Speaker 3: Yeah, 

Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor Walnut Creek CA: but they’re familiar in their old, so consciously there’s a reaction. There is a productive strategy, but underneath it one of the things to tune into on the underneath part is the body sensations, because sensations in our body is a great indicator of our emotional state, and it’s a deep practice of mindfulness.

Joree Rose, Best Marriage Therapist Near Me: How aware are you of what’s arising inside of you? And if you pay attention to those bodily sensations, you will be well informed of your emotions, tightness, tension pit in the stomach, lump in the throat, clenching of the fists. If, you feel the, tension headache, those are gonna be indicators, 

Dr. John Schinnerer: clenching of the sphincter.

Joree Rose, Marriage Counselor Walnut Creek CA: There you go. Again, just throwing me off course, 

Dr. John Schinnerer: that’s a physiological symptom 

Joree Rose, Relationship Counselor  Walnut Creek CA: of something other than what we’re probably talking about. Thank you for the face. 

Speaker 3: Thank you. 

Joree Rose, Relationship Counselor  Walnut Creek CA: And so what also happens unconsciously is we create stories around what we interpret as going on. And you, touched on that a little bit, but if I heard you or saw you sigh or give the eye roll, the story I would tell myself is he doesn’t care about repairing.

Joree Rose, Best Marriage Therapist By Me: He doesn’t care enough about me to care how I feel. Right now, he’s focused only on himself.

Joree Rose, Relationship Counselor  Walnut Creek CA: I’m trying to think of more, but those two co come to top of mind and because I would then have that belief, I would then feel really vulnerable, exposed, insecure, a little bit more anxious. And over time if I over focus on that, then I would tap into more of the anger or the frustration. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: And can we go back to the physiological symptoms or cues abouts?

Dr. John Schinnerer: Are you talking about your 

Joree Rose, Relationship Counselor  Walnut Creek CA: speak through some more. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: No, I was gonna be serious this time. Although that’s, that is a physiological symptom. So that was completely serious. 

Joree Rose, Relationship Counselor Alamo CA: You’re such a little boy today. I think you’ve referenced poop at least like three times. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: I love scatological humor. 

Joree Rose, Relationship Counselor Alamo CA: What Scatological means 

Dr. John Schinnerer: poop.

Dr. John Schinnerer: Humor means poop. Such 

Joree Rose, LMFT: a little boy. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: God, you’re taking me off track. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: So the bodily sensations, this is really interesting to me because. It all hinges on a sense that we have called interoception, which is our awareness of the internal workings of our bodily organs. And some we, differ on this sense, and some of us are like at a one or a two on a 10 point scale and don’t know, couldn’t tell you what’s going on inside their body if it were to save their lives.

Dr. John Schinnerer: Some of us are at a nine or a 10 and there’s people in between, but the people that are a nine or a 10 are highly tuned in. To what their heart rate’s doing, what’s going on in their GI tract, what’s going on in their sphincter, what’s going on in their muscle tension there, it’s what’s going on in their jaw and they, pick all this stuff up and it almost takes on, it takes on too much meaning.

Dr. John Schinnerer: And one of the one of the studies that I love that I shared with a client this morning is it’s a classic study on anxiety. And there was two groups the first group. A control group, normal people, whatever the hell that is. The other group had an anxiety disorder and they eat one by one. Give ’em each a piece of paper and have them go up on stage and do a five minute impromptu speech in front of two audience members who are trained to be.

Dr. John Schinnerer: Negative evaluators. So one person gave zero feedback. The other person was giving nonverbal cues, like shaking their head and sighing and just rolling their eyes and that kind of stuff, which this situation stresses out everybody. And they did pre and post measures of both groups, like skin conductance, how much sweat was on their fingertips, the amount of cortisol, the stress hormone in their saliva pulse rate or pulse and heart rate and that sort of thing.

Dr. John Schinnerer: And they compared these physiological measures at the end. And what was most surprising to me is both groups, the control group and the anxious people. Were identical in their physiological symptoms. Now, I would’ve thought that the anxious group, their physiology would’ve been more elevated, right? Heart rate up higher, cortisol, increase more sweat on the skin, on the skin.

Dr. John Schinnerer: But it was exactly the same, which tells us that the only difference is in how we interpret those physiological symptoms. So I just wanna bring that up. As a caveat and perhaps a warning to know where you are on that interoceptive scale and interpret your bodily symptoms accordingly. 

Joree Rose, Relationship Counselor Danville CA: Can I share my quick story?

Joree Rose, Relationship Counselor Danville CA: Yeah. To make that a personal experience. I once was at a women’s conference. There’s about 200 people there, and there was a motivational speaker and she gets up on stage and she says, okay, so I’m going to pick someone’s name. Out of a hat at random, and if I call your name, I’m gonna have you come up onto stage and you’re gonna speak for two minutes.

Joree Rose, Best Marriage Therapist By Me: And as soon as she said that, you heard this collective groan run across the room and it immediately, women were getting anxious of, oh shit, what if my name gets called? And the motivational speaker, she said, just shout out what are you experiencing right now? And all those physiological symptoms. I’m starting to sweat.

Joree Rose, Relationship Counselor Danville CA: My heart is racing. I get a pit in my stomach. My mind is racing, and she said, everything you just named is simply energy moving through your body, that you are in a habit of identifying and labeling as anxiety. She says, what if you were just to name it as energy and use the energy to plug it in to do with what you wanted?

Joree Rose, Relationship Counselor Danville CA: Because anxiety will then shut us down. It’s gonna not propel us forward, but if we plug it in, we can be propelled towards what we want or what we seek. So she then went on to say. So I’m actually not going to pull someone’s name out of a hat at random. You heard this collective relief of a sigh, and she said, but if you want to practice plugging in your energy, I’ll allow you to come up on stage.

Joree Rose, Relationship Counselor San Ramon CA: And in order to do we’ll give you a standing ovation. So I, and I actually raised my hand and I got up on stage ’cause I decided to label my physiological symptoms as energy. Rather than nervous or anxious, it allowed me to get past it in a better way. So if you can have that awareness and choose a different interpretation, then you have a much better chance of stepping into new patterns.

Dr. John Schinnerer: Yeah. Great story. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: Thank you. 

Joree Rose, Relationship Counselor Dublin CA: Okay, so moving on to another example of where we often see chi couples getting stuck in these really simple everyday experiences and what’s happening underneath it all. So you wanna start off on this one again? Sure. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: So let’s say we’ve got a couple, and one of the classic examples is the, let’s say typically the female is like, why didn’t you do the dishes?

Dr. John Schinnerer: And it could be in any tone of voice. It could be annoyed, could be angry, but it could be calm and loving. It could 

Joree Rose, Relationship Counselor Dublin CA: be neutral, even if it was in a neutral tone. It implies some frustration underneath that. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: Yeah, and but I remember you would bring up stuff to me in a very kind, calm tone of voice and I still at times had a hard time receiving it.

Dr. John Schinnerer: Like I would go to shame. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: That made it really hard 

Dr. John Schinnerer: Yeah. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: To give you any feedback. Yeah. Sometimes, because it didn’t matter what I said. You’re welcome. Or how I said it. It was it was really hard. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. 

Joree Rose, Relationship Counselor Pleasanton CA: So I, I’m just validating this experience, like even if you see it really gently, it can still feel like a sting to the other person.

Dr. John Schinnerer: Yeah. 

Joree Rose, Relationship Counselor Pleasanton CA: It’s hard. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: And I think that’s why I brought it up, just because the tone of voice. At some level didn’t seem to matter. Like I was, there was a sensitivity there. That was, it surprised me. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: It’s not my nature to be bitty or snappy. Yeah. Or accusatory. So I don’t think I would’ve ever said that to you.

Joree Rose, Relationship Counselor Pleasanton CA: So if I, if let’s say the woman in this example says why did you do the dishes? A common response from her partner might be like, what’s the big deal? I’ll just do them later. So this is a really interesting, very simple dynamic that has some clear things on the front end, right?

Joree Rose, LMFT: She’s clearly frustrated, he’s clearly annoyed, but there’s a lot that goes on underneath it in the unconscious zone that is much more vulnerable underneath that. So 

Dr. John Schinnerer: what’s the story for the female here after she’s oh my God, the dishes weren’t done. Like, why didn’t you do the dishes? 

Joree Rose, Relationship Counselor Pleasanton CA: I think one of I think there’s a couple of stories.

Joree Rose, Relationship Counselor Near Me: One could be, I feel overwhelmed in doing. The house tour is all on my own. Or when I say I need help, he doesn’t hear me. He doesn’t value me. What can I do to feel heard? I think there’s a couple of different stories that could be going on, underneath it. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: Yeah. And I think for the man it can be like, I think we’re pretty quick to externalize.

Dr. John Schinnerer: Blame and so like, why are you always nagging me? In, in your head. But also I think. And I’ve talked to many men about this, and almost every one of us are like, yeah, I hate to disappoint my partner. I hate to hurt her. I don’t like to let her down. And so when we go at it that way, a lot of men will realize yeah, there, there might be some shame there that I need to look at.

Dr. John Schinnerer: Because there of the things that we try and do is we’re trying to get our partner to see, we’re not the bad guy in this situation, but it’s interesting how even. In that interpretation, you go from not having done the dishes to I’m all bad, which that in and of itself is shame, 

Joree Rose, Relationship Counselor Near Me: right? 

Dr. John Schinnerer: And so that’s on the surface.

Joree Rose, LMFT: Yeah. And going deeper, getting more vulnerable. There could be beliefs of, I feel alone, I feel the burden of the house or the chores or the family. Are my needs even valued? Does he even care about me? Am I important? Does how I feel matter to him? Am I worthy of being supported?

Joree Rose, Relationship Counselor Near Me: There’s shame in that. It’s about worthiness again. Part of it can be not feeling seen or understood, right? Can you not see how much I’ve got going on or what it would mean to me to have this help? It could feel like abandonment, right? So there can be a sense of, if I’m doing this all on my own, you’re not there.

Joree Rose, Relationship Counselor Around Me: Can I trust? Can I rely on you to be there for me? There’s a lot that’s underneath it and we even just the other day, were having a conversation one morning and it’s interesting in which you had said something to me. I had a completely different interpretation and we talked about it the next morning.

Joree Rose, Relationship Counselor Around Me: The comment was made the night before. We talked about it in the morning and I said when you said this is what I heard. And you said, that’s not at all what I said. I said, I get that, or what I meant what you meant, but it even wasn’t what the words you said. But I, and my feeling was.

Joree Rose, LMFT: But from my wounded place, here’s what I heard. Here’s what, how I, and 

Dr. John Schinnerer: That’s a good key. 

Joree Rose, Relationship Counselor Around Me: Here’s how I interpreted that, even though that wasn’t what you said and wasn’t what you meant. I’m coming from an insecure, vulnerable spot and this is what I heard and that feels really overwhelming, or I, just felt really vulnerable and so 

Dr. John Schinnerer: I, really appreciate your phrase from the wounded place that I was in Do dot ’cause that changes everything.

Dr. John Schinnerer: It’s, and it’s one of the things I’m always trying to get clients to be curious about is how being in a particular feeling state, emotional state, mood, state, how that impacts. Everything, including how you interpret the world around you. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: And it has a huge impact. And I, think we’re too quick to dismiss it.

Dr. John Schinnerer: We’re too quick to just think we’re rational beings, especially us men. We’re too quick to not wanna see ourselves as having an emotional side. We don’t wanna embarrass ourselves, there’s all these reasons tied up in that. But to have the curiosity and the courage to look at how do I interpret things?

Dr. John Schinnerer: When I’m upset, angry, fearful, stressed. Guilty ashamed. And how is that distorting what’s actually going on? ’cause that’s what it does, 

Joree Rose, Relationship Counselor Around Me: right? And so even using this example, and we’ll get to some of the more vulnerable parts that the, partner might feel in this example. But I even hear with clients a variation on this.

Joree Rose, Relationship Counselor By Me: The first comment or question might not be, why didn’t you do the dishes? It might simply be. Is the dishwasher clean or dirty? 

Joree Rose, Relationship Counselor By Me: And that implies for the other partner who the question was asked to. Why should I be in charge of everything? How come I’m the one who’s supposed to be all knowing and that’s overwhelming and the burden, and so we misinterpret a lot of these clue cues and the reactions, what we’re trying to get to here is the reactions are generally reflective of the negative pattern based on the attachment style and the original core attachment wound.

Dr. John Schinnerer: And so those interpretations and those emotional reactions have little to do with your partner, right? Consider that. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: And I wanna say that again. The reactions have to do with a negative pattern based on an attachment wound that has led to a particular attachment style. When we see things through that lens, it changes everything.

Joree Rose, Relationship Thearpist By Me: Yeah. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: And the attachment wound typically happened between zero and two years of age, 

Joree Rose, Relationship Thearpist By Me: and it could have also happened in a previous relationship. True. You know that relationships are. Opportunities for different attachment styles. So even if you had a secure attachment, but your first significant relationship cause a lot of anxiety or avoidance it is relationship dependent even based on that early childhood stuff.

Dr. John Schinnerer: So let’s go to what’s going on underneath the male in this horrible dishes example. 

Joree Rose, Relationship Therapist By Me: So gendered. But, 

Dr. John Schinnerer: but you see how it’s like it’s over the dishes, right? There’s, it’s so insignificant and yet it happens to us frequently. The men in the man’s mind. It’s something like, and I don’t know that these are even conscious thoughts while they’re unconscious I feel unseen, I feel defeated, so there’s a sadness there potentially.

Dr. John Schinnerer: Does she even appreciate me or respect me? So there’s some fear there of I’m not respected, she doesn’t appreciate me at another level, it’s what does this mean about me? What if I’m a failure? What if I’m just no good at relationships? And that’s the shame piece. And then I can’t feel close if she sees me as a failure, if she sees me as less than a total man.

Dr. John Schinnerer: And we just wanna bring these examples up so you can consider the possibility that maybe there’s something more going on than meets the eye. Maybe there’s something more going on beneath the surface. It’s that old photo of the iceberg, right? You only see 10% of the iceberg. We’re only seeing 10% of the emotions here, which is typical.

Joree Rose, LMFT: And I, wanna point out that some of these examples are from our own relationship experience. Some are what we see with clients, and some are also from the work of Julie Manano, who’s written a beautiful book called Secure Love, which takes this topic and delves into detail in a really beautiful, compassionate, informative, and helpful way to understand these dynamics further.

Joree Rose, Relationship Therapist By Me: I, think we’ve highlighted over the past few episodes a lot of the patterns and tangibles of what this looks like. 

Joree Rose, Relationship Therapist Near Me: But let’s just wrap this up over the next few minutes with what can we do, what can couples do to Yeah. To really help to get to that secure attachment. And we ha we, we’ve done this. I am like, beyond.

Joree Rose, LMFT: Amazed to both be in it and witnessing simultaneously. It’s like the awareness and the meta awareness of our relationship. It has been the most beautiful test case for us in our work and for me personally to watch the transformation occur in real time. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: Let’s, talk for just a second about that in terms of what’s different now and what does it mean to be securely attached?

Dr. John Schinnerer: Because to me, I used to be shooting for a happy and fulfilling. Relationship now, at this stage of my life and my learning, I’m shooting for a relationship that feels safe and secure. And part of that’s because if you don’t feel safe and secure, you’ve effectively eliminated half of the positive emotions known to us.

Dr. John Schinnerer: And that’s a real problem for a relationship. What, other pieces do you see in the secure relationship? 

Joree Rose, Relationship Therapist Near Me: Oh gosh, there’s so many. It’s, I am safe to be vulnerable. It’s, I’m safe, period. It’s really trusting you’re not leaving me and. Even within that’s a really interesting one because I have to come to trust it, to accept also you have free will.

Joree Rose, Relationship Therapist Around Me: And the more I feel the safety, the more I can accept the free will. It’s not as clingy or graspy. So it’s this weird paradox there. I remember we were just having this conversation with a client about working with this couple of the fear of one partner leaving and it’s and they might and you’ll still be okay.

Joree Rose, Relationship Therapist Around Me: But for me. I feel a lot more secure than I have ever felt in knowing that I can express myself really vulnerably and I will be heard and validated and accepted for what I say, even if you don’t get it or don’t agree with it. And that’s one of the big differences because in our first iteration of our relationship, the first seven years, I think you would validate my emotions or my emotional experience.

Joree Rose, LMFT: If you understood it, but sometimes you didn’t. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist Around Me: And it was when you didn’t get why I was so sensitive or why something hurt me, that’s when you would get defensive or shut down more, or even sometimes precise. Yeah. It was harder 

Speaker 3: for me. Yeah. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: Why? Why did that bother you? It’s why does it matter?

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist Around Me: Why it bothered me? The key is that it actually bothered me and I’m trying to talk about it. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: Yeah. And I think one of the things for me that I’ve realized between the two iterations of our relationship is. We now have a relationship where my nervous system can truly relax into this relationship. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: Like it’s where I go to relax. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: And so it’s, that’s the degree of safety that I feel that I’m not mistrusting, I’m not skeptical, I’m not pessimistic, I’m not seeing things through a negative lens. It just. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist Near Me: I have your back implicitly. Yeah. Whatever I might bring to you, you have an assumption, a positive intent from me and that I have our, if not your best interest in mind.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist Near Me: If I bring something up that’s hard. I, 

Dr. John Schinnerer: I also know you’re open to my influence and that it’s something I really appreciate that you’ll listen to what I’m saying if I have a, an opinion on something. You’ll consider it, it doesn’t mean you have to do it. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: But we’ll hear each other and we’ll consider it strongly 

Joree Rose, LMFT: And vice versa.

Joree Rose, LMFT: That’s been a, big piece of the safety here. You have done a great job. I’m I’m still getting better. This is, it is been highlighted for me that this has not been the easiest one for me as well as you have. So I’m gonna give you some good props here on being non-defensive in your listening. 

Speaker 3: Thank you. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist Near Me: That, that was harder for me. I still get really sensitive. To hearing feedback at times and I’m working on that and I think that’s the root of just my deep insecurity of being anxiously attached. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: Yeah. And so let’s turn, just come to some of the things we can do here and one of the things that I’ve.

Dr. John Schinnerer: Worked hard on that we’ve worked hard on is communicating with each other as gently as possible, particularly around areas of insecurity or hurt. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist By Me: Yeah. Or sensitive topics. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: Yeah. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist By Me: I that gentle communication is a softened startup. It’s the tone, it’s the timing, it’s all the things together.

Joree Rose, LMFT: And I think we’ve also learned sometimes it’s never gonna be perfect and that’s okay too. I don’t think we ever. I can’t say never. I think now we are really, good at honoring each other’s needs and not judging. Why do you need that? Why? Why is that important to you? And I think anytime you’re coming from a place of judgment, it’s gonna lead to some sort of insecurity, right?

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapy By Me: And insecurity encompassing both the anxious and avoidant styles. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: And I think another one to me is coming at. Situations, particularly disagreements with curiosity and compassion. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: Not leaving behind the need to be. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapy By Me: Yeah. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: That bites so many couples in the ass. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapy Near Me: Yeah. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: And it’s just, it’s not about being right.

Dr. John Schinnerer: It’s about hearing your partner. I, think the extent extension of this is being open to their being two competing truths that may not reconcile. Yeah. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapy Near Me: I think one of the things that has helped us develop greater security is helping understand kinda what we did in these examples was breaking things down to really get to what was underneath that for you, and having that insight into each other’s inner world was a big component of developing safety because we were able to share that inner world in a way that gave the argument or the disconnection some meaning to help have greater.

Joree Rose, LMFT: Excuse me. Insights and understanding into the deeper wounds, which allowed for greater compassion, which would grout allowed for greater in personal healing and then relational healing. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: Another one that I love is kind of acceptance of your partner’s emotions writ large, but also, or in particular anger.

Dr. John Schinnerer: I, I think to realize that emotions are. Irrational a lot of times that they’re not rational, they’re not logical, but they all have a purpose and they’re all messengers. So to look at them from that angle and to know that there’s something there that needs to be desperately heard in my partner and let me do my best to hear it and validate it is a big deal.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapy Near Me: Yeah we could keep going on with this, but in, in wrapping up, a secure attachment is possible. It is a hundred percent possible, but it does take two willing participants to be courage. Or to have the courage to be courageous. To have the courage to look at themselves and to get uncomfortable because we didn’t get to where we are.

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapy Around Me: By staying comfortable and staying in those negative patterns for many people is a comfortable place to be because it’s familiar. 

Joree Rose, Marriage Therapy Around Me: And we had to be willing to get uncomfortable so that we could break those negative patterns and then rebuild from the ground up. The relationship that we needed for who we are right here and now, and we got there.

Joree Rose, LMFT: So if this is inspiring to you, we’ve got more resources to help support you in developing the secure relationship, you seek our Relationship Masterclass series. You can check us out@levaenough.net, and of course we do our relationship coaching in which. I work with the woman, John works with the man.

Joree Rose, Best Marriage Therapy Around Me: Then we all four come together in the couple’s work. It’s an extremely effective and supportive healing environment and we’ve had great success with the couples who’ve worked with us. So if you enjoyed this podcast, we would love a rating, a review, a share, send it to someone who you think might need to hear it.

Joree Rose, Best Marriage Therapy Around Me: And I really appreciate you tuning in and I really appreciate you. For doing the work with me to heal our relationship so that we can actually authentically role model this out in the world. So thank you 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Best Marriage Therapist In The Area: and I’m grateful for you. And what’s the email that they can get ahold of us if they want to? It’s info at Love isn’t enough.net, correct?

Dr. John Schinnerer, Best Marriage Therapist In The Area: Correct. Okay. So info at love isn’t enough.net and we’ll see you next time. Thanks for your time and attention.