Episode #18 – How To Feel Safe And Secure In Your Relationship 

What happens when someone who feels “too much” falls in love with someone who feels “not enough”? For years, that was us – Joree, the anxious partner, and John, the avoidant partner – stuck in the push–pull dance neither of us fully understood. It created disconnection, frustration, and the same repetitive patterns… until we learned what was really going on beneath the surface. In this episode, we take you deeper into the understanding of attachment styles and why they matter; we share what it means to have attachment needs, and how when they are unmet, form attachment wounds and ultimately negative patterns in your relationship.

If you’ve ever wondered why you keep getting stuck, and want to know the best thing you can do to shift into a better connection, this conversation will change the way you see your relationship, and yourself, and ultimately guide you in how to feel safe and secure.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• What “feeling safe and secure” in a relationship actually means—and why emotional validation matters more than being right

• How attachment needs drive conflict (often unconsciously) and create the anxious–avoidant cycle

• Why emotional validation calms the nervous system and makes real problem-solving possible

• The difference between effort vs. outcome—and how appreciating effort builds trust and safety

• How anxious attachment shows up (fear of abandonment, people-pleasing, over-functioning, needing reassurance)

• How avoidant attachment shows up (shutdown, irritability, shame, fear of disappointing or being trapped)

• Why avoidant partners don’t avoid connection—they don’t know how to connect

• How shame fuels both anxious and avoidant patterns (“I’m too much” vs. “I’m not enough”)

• Why nervous system regulation is the real foundation of secure attachment

• How to stop personalizing your partner’s reactions and start responding with curiosity and compassion

• Practical language shifts that increase safety instantly (timing, tone, validation, asking for availability)

• How to move from reactive conflict to relational connection without abandoning yourself or your partner

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 an 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:

How To Feel Safe & Secure In Your Relationship – Transcript

Dr. John Schinnerer: Hey everybody, this is Dr. John here with my lovely partner Jory Rose, and this is Love Isn’t Enough. And today we are going a little bit deeper into attachment styles because the feedback we’ve gotten on our other attachment style episodes has been. Overwhelming, 

Joree Rose, LMFT: and this is such a great area to deepen because there is not one single couple out there that this doesn’t pertain to.

Joree Rose: And the more insight and understanding you have to your attachment styles, but more importantly, the negative patterns that result from usually an anxious and an avoidant partnered together. Is that’s what we see creating a lot of the challenges that many couples face. It’s what we faced. If you haven’t already listened to our lapis last episode, that will give you some great insight and some very vulnerable sharing on our part from our own relationship.

Joree Rose: I wasn’t anxious. John was an avoidant. We classically displayed those patterns and the good news is with awareness and time, attention and healing, we have developed a secure attachment, which is always the goal, to feel safe, to feel that we’re being seen emotionally and otherwise. 

Dr. John Schinnerer:  And one of the things which I think is amazing about the attachment style research and these patterns that we find ourselves in is how much of it is unconscious. We’re not aware of it and, so I like it because there’s this big movement right now to share these ideas with people. You see it all over social media and. Bringing awareness to this and the idea that we can actually change these patterns and move towards an earned secure attachment style is massive because what we’re really trying to shoot for here is a safe and secure relationship.

Joree Rose, LMFT: So what does safe and secure relationship really mean? Let’s just start there. I love this quote from Julie Manano, and if you don’t follow her, I would check her out on Instagram. She has a recent book that came out last year called Secure Love. Her Instagram account is the Secure Relationship, but she says Emotional validation.

Joree Rose, LMFT: Along with understanding is arguably the single most important element of a truly satisfying relationship. So John, when you hear that, let’s put that in our everyday relationship, meaning what would that mean to you to hear that statement? Emotional validation is the single most important element. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: It means that we’re not trying to win the argument anymore.

Dr. John Schinnerer:  We are trying to hear the emotions of our partner. What they’re saying, what the emotion is behind or beneath the words that they’re saying. Because really what we’re trying to do when we get louder, when we get angry, when we get hurt, is we’re trying to be heard and seen at an emotional level.

Dr. John Schinnerer:  It’s no longer about who’s right. And a lot of clients that I have, a lot of male clients get hung up on this, right? They, keep going back to we still have to have the talk about the dishwasher or who’s gonna pick up the kids, which is all true. But to me, at this point in my development, it’s the first step in any of these disagreements is.

Dr. John Schinnerer: Let’s speak to the emotion. Let’s hear the emotion. Let’s, let me validate how you feel so that we can dial down the intensity of the emotion so that we can have a constructive conversation on the backend or as the second part of the conversation. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: We love that quote. I think it’s Terry Rio who says it.

Joree Rose, LMFT: Do you wanna be right or do you wanna be married? Or I, shift that a little bit to say, do you wanna be right or do you wanna stay connected? 

Speaker 3: Yeah. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: Because if you’re arguing for who’s right and who’s wrong, it’s the relationship that loses no matter what. And what we’re trying to do is stay regulated enough to have a valuable conversation because if we’re disconnected and we’re arguing who’s right and who’s wrong we’re, gonna feel disconnected.

Joree Rose, LMFT: And then we’ve got layers upon layers to heal from the repair of those arguments. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: At the root of this, we all wanna feel seen, heard and validated. That’s a statement I’ve been saying for as long as I’ve been doing this work. And one of the best ways to understand this is again, through understanding our attachment needs.

Joree Rose, LMFT: So what is an attachment need? It’s a way that you feel safe and seen. So what might some examples of that be? For me to feel safe with John, I really value and feel my nervous system is relaxed when he has his best attempt at understanding and validating, which, and I’ll say what that sounds like, my emotions are my experiences, and so what that might sound like is, Hey honey, I see you’re really upset right now.

Joree Rose, LMFT: Or, Hey, Lev, that must’ve been really hard for you. Even if it was at something he did. So that’s the hardest part is to not get defensive. When you’re trying to validate your partner’s emotions. This takes an immense amount of emotional awareness and a regulation, which I think we talk a lot about the root of mindfulness.

Joree Rose, LMFT: Yeah. Paying attention, knowing what your nervous system is doing. Because if, John said something that hurt my feelings and I, say, wow, that really hurt my feelings. He has done a beautiful job over the course of our relationship to not get defensive to not overly explain why he said or did, but to stay calm in his own body enough to validate me.

Joree Rose, LMFT: So then once I feel validated, we then can have a different level of conversation. And that’s not even taken into account what your attachment need was in that moment to feel seen and heard in your emotional experience. 

Dr. John Schinnerer:  Yeah. In fact, I was thinking of saying next that one of the central themes in your life I think has been.

Dr. John Schinnerer:  To feel seen, heard and understood or validated. And then I was like actually that’s probably both of us. And actually it’s probably all of us. Yeah. Because when in our past have we truly had someone see, hear, and validate what’s going on in us, and by validating like really understand, respect and feel what we’re feeling like I, just don’t think it’s happened for the vast majority of us.

Dr. John Schinnerer: Very often, if ever. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: It makes me really curious, and I don’t know the research on this, but I’m gonna be curious. They say the research is about 50% of couples have a secure attachment. That’s what the research numbers are, somewhere about that. 

Dr. John Schinnerer:  Yeah. I am not quite sure of that, but yeah. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: I’m curious to what degree that it’s gotta be self-reporting in some capacity.

Joree Rose, LMFT: How much of that is actually stemming from true vulnerability and exposure of one’s emotions and needs, or how much is. People reporting a secure attachment just based on a superficial surface level relationship? 

Dr. John Schinnerer: A, again, going back to what I said at the beginning that a lot of this is unconscious.

Dr. John Schinnerer:  We’re not aware of these needs, we’re not aware of the emotions, we’re not aware of what’s going on, and we’re gonna talk to this and dissect that a little bit further. But if we’re not aware of it. Then how can I report having a secure attachment style? Truly, 

Joree Rose, LMFT: right? 

Joree Rose, LMFT: So some more of these attachment needs might be I, need you to understand me, right?

Joree Rose, LMFT: And that might be my thoughts, emotions, actions, values that lead to my behavior. The more I feel understood, the safer I’ll be to. Be vulnerable to express myself. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: And another one is I need to feel appreciated for my efforts. And by the way, keyword there is effort, not outcome, but Jory and I have gotten really good at this and, so much so that I think it can be nauseating to some people.

Dr. John Schinnerer:  We were in the car the other day with her aunt and uncle and I, my eyesight’s kind of messed up. So Jory does the majority of driving. And so I often will say, Hey honey, thank you for driving. And she’s thank you for not driving or whatever, and 

Joree Rose, LMFT: There was a couple break. Your uncle 

Dr. John Schinnerer: was in the back just being like, oh my God.

Dr. John Schinnerer: Yes. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: It would and I said to them, I’m like, Hey you guys, this is actually how we talk to each other. We’re not being performative right now just because you guys are in the back of the car. We actually look for opportunity to appreciate what the other one is doing. Yeah. And the Gottman’s recent research change from a five to one positive to negative ratio.

Joree Rose, LMFT: They change that from five to one all the time to being 20 to one. Then five to one during conflict, and I would say we hit that 20 to one. 

Dr. John Schinnerer:  We’re pretty close. Yeah. And we do an excellent job. I think at that, 

Joree Rose, LMFT: talk about this a lot with clients of can you appreciate the effort over the outcome? Because sometimes the outcome may not result from the efforts in the way that we’re seeking, but the effort is the work.

Dr. John Schinnerer: A lot of times we see this in change or desired change in couples where one of the partners will get upset because the outcome isn’t what they wanted, but the effort by their partner was still there. And we gotta learn to reward the effort because if we discourage the effort, because we didn’t get the account, the outcome we want, we’re gonna, we’re gonna kill the effort.

Dr. John Schinnerer:  And so the effort stops and then you never get the outcome you want. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: Another example of an attachment, I need to feel heard when I talk and that kind of can. Fall deeper onto some of the other ones. But does my voice matter in this relationship? That’s a big fucking deal. One of the things that we’ve over the years talked about is our ability to accept each other’s influence.

Joree Rose, LMFT: Do you wanna speak a little bit about that? Because I think this kind of maybe be a higher level attachment need, not a baseline, but this is one of the things I think about of the importance of what that shows in our safety and trust with one another. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: Yeah, I, I think one of the, Phrases that I will often share with clients is cognitive flexibility is a hallmark of mental health.

Dr. John Schinnerer: What does that mean? It means that you have the ability to change your mind based upon compelling evidence, and too many of us in this day and age are besieged by cognitive rigidity or rigid thinking. We get fixed in our beliefs and nothing. Can change our mind. And so when you look at a relationship, when you look at this through a relationship lens, we gotta look at am I open to my partner’s influence?

Dr. John Schinnerer:  So if they say something. Do I? Am I willing to take that in and am I willing to consider it? Am I willing to change how I think or perceive the world or them based on what you’re, what they’re saying? Now, it doesn’t mean that you have to change the way you think a hundred percent of the time. It does mean that you have to carefully and sincerely consider what they’re saying.

Dr. John Schinnerer:  And often be open to their influence. And I think we got caught in this a little bit early on in this relationship, and I think we’ve gotten much better over the years at being open to one another’s thoughts, feelings, influence. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: And I would argue that our ability to be open to each other’s influence, especially when it comes to feedback or decision making, is because we have such a secure attachment right now.

Joree Rose, LMFT: It’s rooted in safety and trust. You just said to me the other day, this again we’re, nauseatingly grateful for one another at times, and you came home and you said, I’m so grateful to have a partner I trust completely someone who has a hundred my back a hundred percent of the time that I don’t have to question.

Joree Rose, LMFT: So if you have that deep trust in me. I have your back a hundred percent of the time. If I give you feedback or a suggestion, you’re gonna take that suggestion more to heart than if you didn’t have a hundred percent trust that I had your back. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: And it’s funny ’cause going back to the Gottman’s in that 21 ratio, like why, one of the reasons that 21 to ratio is so important is because it fosters and builds trust, right?

Joree Rose, LMFT: So it’s like this positive upward loop. Yeah. The more you do going back to some more of these attachment needs, my needs are respected. One of the ones that makes me think about that is we’ve talked, I think before on the podcast about John loving and needing to take rest in his day. Yeah. And take naps.

Joree Rose, LMFT: And even if it’s just lying down for 20 minutes, meditating. Going upstairs, having a little reset, giving his eyes a rest, and that I honor and respect that’s in need of his, that’s not just I’m being lazy. And many people could perceive their partner lying down another day as, Hey, I’m out here working.

Joree Rose, LMFT: You’re lying down. What the fuck you doing? I’m working. You must be working. And we don’t have that dynamic. Never have. And I think this makes. You build deeper safety and security with me knowing I honor your needs. 

Dr. John Schinnerer:  Yeah, and you 

Joree Rose, LMFT: honor mine as well, but I like that example of the nap. We talk about that one.

Dr. John Schinnerer: I’m grateful for it. For the support. Yeah, because it just works well for me. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: I’ll get a better version of you if you’ve been rested. So it behooves me to support it. 

Dr. John Schinnerer:  Another attachment need is I need to be understood or feel understood when we have differing opinions, which is gonna happen, right?

Dr. John Schinnerer:  We’re not always going to agree on everything, but I need my partner to understand my side, my opinion, my position, even if they don’t agree. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: And to finish up. And I think this is in, in complete list, this is just some of our top ones that we wanted to highlight. But one of the things that I see, and especially women feel frustrated with this from their partner is when they come to their partner and they’re feeling sad and their partner just goes into fix it mode and.

Joree Rose, LMFT: Especially if this is your dynamic, if you’re the one who goes into fix it mode, it generally tends towards men. It aligns with how they’re socialized and how they’re wired. So don’t fault them completely, but be open to learning to it. But if you go in to fix it, when your partner’s feeling said you are missing an amazing opportunity at connection.

Joree Rose, LMFT: Just sitting with, we know that compassion translated from Latin is to sit with, so we’re not trying to fall fix or solve anything. We just want to have someone feel seen and being witnessed in whatever pain that is. It’s hard to do, and you can still go into problem solving mode at a later time, but it’s that initial response, or even if it just got shut down, like why are you sad about that?

Joree Rose, LMFT: Just to cut it down. So all of these things, these attachment needs are ways that we feel safe. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: The other thing on that point is I talk to a lot of men about you talked about the three H’s. So you know your partner’s venting about a bad day at work. Do you want me to hear you?

Dr. John Schinnerer:  Do you want me, do you wanna hug or do you want me to help? And a lot of times people will say, women will say, for example, I just need you to listen to me. Fair enough. And then the husband tries to listen. But because one of the hardest things to do because of our empathy is to hear our partner in pain, suffering, anger, sadness, whatever it is, because we can’t tolerate our own internal distress when our partner’s upset.

Dr. John Schinnerer:  We jump back to fix it mode. And so really important to pay attention to those internal physiological cues and to talk yourself through that. If you are the male in the relationship and get more comfortable with listening, with just listening, it’s a little bit harder than it is, than it sounds, 

Joree Rose, LMFT: but it, reaps relationship gold when you can do 

Dr. John Schinnerer: yeah. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: So it might be interesting if you’re listening to this and you’re thinking about your own relationship, maybe. Hit pause and write down a list, or maybe share this with your partner and come back together and say, Hey, let’s come together and figure out what are my needs that would help me feel safe.

Joree Rose, LMFT: Because in an ideal world, you had needs as a kid that your parents acknowledged, and hopefully that led you to feel safe, that your needs would be met. And our brain gets wired from that young age to help us see relationships in that same way as our early experiences. Now, most of us didn’t get that.

Joree Rose, LMFT: So we play that pattern out in our adult relationships. Now the good news is it’s not fixed at any time. John and I are in the same relationship and we change the pattern. But even from relationship to relationship, maybe when you had in high school or college is different than what you have now, or if you’re divorced and dating the one you have next, it can be different than what you had before.

Joree Rose, LMFT: You are able to change these attachment styles. It does take a good amount of internal awareness and work to understand. What your patterns are, how it shows up and to practice learning new ways of navigating relationship patterns without getting angry, flooded or externalizing. Easier said than done.

Dr. John Schinnerer:  So do you wanna go briefly into the attachment styles? I do. Just a brief overview. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: Did this before, but I think it’s important to, to give that reminder so we have the safe and secure attachment. That’s, I said as in you’re a kid, your childhood needs were met. You believe others are safe and trustworthy to get your needs met.

Joree Rose, LMFT: Insecure falls into two main categories. There’s some smaller ones that we won’t name ’cause they’re more outliers. And the majority of the population within this insecure attachment is gonna fall into anxious or avoidant. Generally about 75% for the research of anxious attached styled people are women being about 25% men.

Joree Rose, LMFT: On the converse, about 75% of men tend to be avoidant. We understand how this makes sense from their socialization, right? John talks a lot about man box, so that actually falls right into line. And why that would be the case of more self-reliant, more independent, not as open to influence fear that their emotional needs being met might make them seem weak unmanly.

Joree Rose, LMFT: And so we understand how that becomes the case. But in understanding the, dynamics, and this was as we were working on healing our relationship, the more we understood what our patterns looked like, the easier it was to not overly personalize the patterns. Recognize, oh, this is a pattern I can have self-compassion for why this was the pattern given our childhoods or previous marriages.

Joree Rose, LMFT: Now that we have the awareness, what we can do to do it differently. So if you’re an anxious attached, you likely did not have your relationship needs met as a child. Your primary caregiver was sometimes there, sometimes not. As a result, you didn’t have trust that someone would be there for you consistently.

Joree Rose, LMFT: I can speak to this with quite a truth. As someone who was anxiously attached, I had this like fervent need to make sure I felt emotionally understood. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: And I can look back to specific examples of my childhood in which I was just desperately trying to be seen and express myself.

Joree Rose, LMFT: And yet. Sometimes it can be feeling that I’m not, it’s not worth, I’m not worthy, or it’s not valid to express myself because those are the patterns that I, was in around. Now the, challenge is those who are anxiously attached are wanting other people’s validation of their emotional experience to be the thing to regulate them.

Joree Rose, LMFT: They tend to have, I tended to have a really hard time self-regulating. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: In 

Dr. John Schinnerer:  conflict. In disagreement as 

Joree Rose, LMFT: well. Not even disagreement, just anxiety. If I was feeling anxious or insecure, even if I had a thought that you might not be there for me or available, it’s hard to internally do that validation work.

Joree Rose, LMFT: I would need extra reassurance externally from you. And I give this example of when I was in high school. I think this is a, someone who’s anxiously attached when I was with my high school boyfriend, who became my husband, the ex-husband. I used to cry about him leaving for college when I was a sophomore and he was a junior, so I was, had a lot of anticipatory anxiety and he didn’t have that concern.

Joree Rose, LMFT: Didn’t understand why I would be sad about something that was gonna happen in three years, but that was how my brain worked and I would be desperate to try to be understood of why that was anxiety provoking for me. And I would cry and he would look at me with a blank stare. And so then I would have to teach him what to do with me because I needed him.

Joree Rose, LMFT: To be able to fix that in me. I had a really hard time fixing that within myself. It’s horrible. It was, yeah. And 

Dr. John Schinnerer: It does make me think, and this is a, phrase I would never use, but I think it’s used a lot to minimize, typically women’s emotions is you’re needy. And it, makes me think that this could be a large part of people being perceived as needy.

Dr. John Schinnerer:  Now, to me, this is just having emotional needs, which we all have because we’re human. So I would never denigrate someone by calling them needy. But I could see where this might be the genesis of that. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: Yeah, for sure. That idea and the, hard part is that it’s not rational. Like it’s not that this is logical when 

Dr. John Schinnerer:  it’s deep too, it’s not surface level stuff.

Joree Rose, LMFT: No, it’s, and oftentimes what fuels that anxious attachment is a fear of abandonment. So the mere thought of someone leaving or potentially leaving is incredibly dysregulating. And because those needs and emotional experiences don’t easily get met, one of the ways to try to get them hurt is to get louder and to get bigger.

Joree Rose, LMFT: Or some other things that I know I did was tend to be people pleasing. If I would self abandon in favor of connection. Even in the midst of those moments, like in high school, I know that me crying made him uncomfortable, but his discomfort about my crying became the primary thing.

Joree Rose, LMFT: So I would stop myself from crying and try to coach him on his own discomfort about my crying, and now I’m people pleasing. His discomfort completely abandoned my own sadness, which it never came back around to my sadness. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: So I think I can even look back and I can distinctly have memories. Oh.

Joree Rose, LMFT: That was where my people pleasing and relationship began. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: That also ties into the high functioning codependent 

Joree Rose, LMFT: very much, right? 

Dr. John Schinnerer:  That you’re giving up your own, you’re self abandoning your needs to take care of his emotional needs, which becomes a pattern for everybody in your life at some point.

Joree Rose, LMFT: Yeah, for sure. And so I can distinctly recall, oh this is this is where that pattern began. And the stupid thing is it didn’t work. 

Speaker 3: Yeah, 

Joree Rose, LMFT: I still didn’t get my emotional needs met to the degree of which I felt really safe, seen and heard, and yet I continue to enact the people pleasing patterns in hope.

Joree Rose, LMFT: Maybe I was looking for effort over outcome in hope. Maybe this time I will feel that sense of safety. Maybe this time I’ll be seen. Yeah. I think part of the anxious attachment style is, it maybe happens intermittently, right? I think of it like that slot machine of why do people stay there. It’s intermittent, maybe just enough or a small enough nugget to say, okay, I can feel regulated enough.

Joree Rose, LMFT: The hard part with being someone who’s anxious is my sense of nervous system regulation is dependent upon my partner. And there are times, and I have felt it a little bit lately and I’ve been voicing it to you in which I recognize like for John, like your mood can determine my nervous system and I’m working harder at not allowing that to disregulate me.

Joree Rose, LMFT: I think it’s partly I am quite in touch with your emotions and so I feel you deeply. For years in our relationship, we didn’t live together. John could send me a text in the morning. He was always the first to text. Good morning. He was usually up earlier than me. He could text the same words and emojis and I had an instant feeling in my body what his mood was, where he was at, if he slept well, like how?

Joree Rose, LMFT: I don’t know. I’m just very intuitive and attuned and. That also is not so great. 

Speaker 3: Because 

Joree Rose, LMFT: you’re allowed to be in a down mood that has nothing to do with me and it not to dysregulate me. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: But I’m working on some greater emotional boundaries within that dynamic so that I don’t get more dysregulated.

Dr. John Schinnerer:  Lemme bring up another interesting piece of the anxious attachment style, and that’s that they often think that they’re the one without a problem in the relationship. That they’re, Externalizing blame under their partner, and their partner has the problem because they’re the one doing most of the work, and they’re doing, they’re reading the books, they’re listening to podcasts, they’re going to a therapist.

Dr. John Schinnerer: They’re they’re doing all this growth work, the self-development work, and typically the partner, often the avoidant partner isn’t, and so it’s easy to point the finger at the avoidant and say, you are the problem. But typically, if everyone has to realize they’ve got a part in this dynamic.

Dr. John Schinnerer:  Can you speak to that at all? 

Joree Rose, LMFT: Yeah. And in fact I remember a couple months back, we were actually listening to a podcast episode on attachment and they were talking about this dynamic and I was self-promoting Lee laughing be like, okay, but isn’t at least the anxious person more relational.

Joree Rose, LMFT: Like they’re really trying to just get their partner to come towards them to come closer. Can’t I still win the point for being more relational in those pat in those patterns? And yes. And it’s not necessarily skillful and it’s not necessarily healthy because an avoidant isn’t turning toward the relationship as much.

Joree Rose, LMFT: So I can see how I thought I was doing better work, and yet it wasn’t healthy for us as a dynamic, 

Dr. John Schinnerer:  it feeds into the avoidance central issue. Their fear of not being enough. And that leads to shame, which leads to shutdown 

Joree Rose, LMFT: too much. I think for the anxious, it really goes both ways, right? Like for the 

Dr. John Schinnerer: anxious.

Dr. John Schinnerer:  Yeah. I think it’s often I feel too much The avoid. Avoid, yeah. Not being, it’s, I feel not enough. Yes. And, both are shame fueled, which is pretty interesting to me also. But for me, I would feel like. I guess I’m just no good at this relationship thing ’cause I just keep getting hammered with what I should be doing, or I’m not doing this enough, or I’m not doing this well enough, or I’m not saying this well enough, or I’m not using the right tone of voice, or I’m not asking the right question.

Dr. John Schinnerer: And I, was getting that with, some regularity and it, made me, it fueled my story of I’m just no good at this. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: And I had the misperception that if it was said slightly differently or at a better time or in a different tone, then I’d feel better. I think the root of that is me understanding there might be times that we’re just disconnected and that’s okay.

Joree Rose, LMFT: I am still learning the self-regulation practices to feel safe even when those moments come up. So I think when I go to the, if only you said it this way, that way or the other, I’d feel better. I think that’s a, misguided belief. I think it’s really about what can I do to regulate my nervous system when it comes up, period.

Joree Rose, LMFT: Because those who are anxious attached, and I think this is true of avoidance also, but hypervigilant to rejection, right? And so we’re always looking for the, right way to feel connected, to feel seen, and. If you see me and I tell you it’s not the right way to see me and you’re still seeing me, what’s the ultimate outcome?

Dr. John Schinnerer:  Yeah. And to me, I love the phrase from positive psychology, settle for good enough. Yeah. And whatever good enough is for you, 80%, 90%, 95%, but realize it’s never gonna be perfect. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: Yeah. And I think that the, struggle with the anxious is they’re often the ones rescuing the other. And over-functioning usually in the relationship.

Joree Rose, LMFT: And that also can create some really unhealthy dynamics and inequity in mental load, emotional load, relational load, household load, and that resentment. And, but thinking if I put myself in this position of being so needed and necessary in this dynamic, then they won’t leave me. Therefore, I have value.

Joree Rose, LMFT: And I know that’s true of how I have felt for a lot of my life, and you have been lovingly encouraging me to do less and to be less functioning for the family because it’s, not serving my nervous system. And I really you might, you’ve heard me say this a lot. I keep coming back to nervous system regulation because at the end of the day, we attach stories, we attach thoughts to our experiences, and we become.

Joree Rose, LMFT: Over identified with our patterns, but when we can recognize this is just my nervous system being dysregulated. It’s not about me being too much, me being overly emotional, I’m trying to seek that baseline of safety, security. I don’t have it. I’m not too much. I’m not bad. This is just a really old, ingrained pattern and the language in which we speak to our self matters.

Joree Rose, LMFT: And by saying my nervous system is dysregulated versus I’m overwhelmed. It’s subtle, but it’s a powerful shift. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: Oftentimes with all of that anxious attachment, those core wounds, right? Those attachment wounds that we talked about in the beginning, they likely were present before the relationship, but got activated by the relationship in some capacity. Like I said, fear of abandonment or that their partner leaving them being away apart for too long discomfort and being alone, feeling they’re just too much. So usually during conflict, the anxious person is gonna get a overly clingy is gonna step towards, which, if you’re stepping towards an avoidant, they’re usually backing up as you’re walking towards.

Joree Rose, LMFT: It creates this very uncomfortable dance and dynamic. They have a hard time feeling resolve in their nervous system until they’re reconnected. So they need that connection to be able to calm their body and their brain down. And again there’s, times when I actually went into what felt like I, I can think of one or two times what felt like a anxiety attack where I just, I couldn’t even breathe.

Joree Rose, LMFT: One of them was during our breakup, so I should be given a little credit for that. But that, was true. Abandonment happening in real time. And depending on the degree of dysregulation, breathing can be hard. And it’s it’s an interesting dynamic where it’s both the individual and relational work to heal this pattern.

Dr. John Schinnerer: So thank you for sharing that. Thank you. 

Dr. John Schinnerer:  And, let’s turn to my favorite topic, the avoidant attachment style. And I love this line. We’re reading at times from our handouts, from our masterclass, but the, so the avoidant attachment as a kid dealt with two layers of distress. The sadness due to their primary caregiver not being available for them, and the pain that they were alone in dealing with it all.

Dr. John Schinnerer:  And so they learn as a result to shut down their emotions, to disassociate from their emotions, which is fascinating to me because I’ve talked to a lot of avoidant avoidantly attached men who say, my childhood was great. There was nothing wrong with it. It was fine. It was perfect. No bad experiences at all.

Dr. John Schinnerer: And a lot of times what’s happening in these situations is because we’ve disassociated from our emotions at a very young age, we’ve just found that. We couldn’t get support. We couldn’t get relief, we couldn’t get help. In fact, maybe we got anger or shame or ridicule instead, because we don’t have attachment or because we don’t have a connection to our emotions, we don’t have the emotion necessary to burn the experience or the situation into our memory.

Dr. John Schinnerer:  And so we don’t remember a lot of the shitty stuff that happened to us as kids. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: I think that’s fascinating. 

Dr. John Schinnerer:  It It’s completely fascinating. Because I, can’t tell you how many men I’ve talked to that describe their childhood as perfect. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: And one of the things that I realized in my adventures of being a anxious avoidant or avoidantly attached individual is the prominent role of shame in it.

Dr. John Schinnerer:  And it. It blew me away because I didn’t think I had any shame in me, and it would only come up in disagreements. And I think I’ve said this before, but it would only come up for moments, like seconds to minutes. And the only way I could identify it is a, I shut down. I was getting overwhelmed. I didn’t wanna say anything in anger that would hurt Jo and I could rationalize my behavior to me, to myself in that way, which.

Dr. John Schinnerer: From the inside, sounds great, but from the outside it’s stonewalling. But in when I would go back and look at what was going on internally when I was a little bit more calm and regulated, I realized there was thoughts in me that sounded like, I guess I’m no good at this relationship thing, or she’d be better off without me, which is shame the belief that I’m unworthy of love, connection, and belonging.

Dr. John Schinnerer:  So I had to do some work with that part of me in order to heal that shame in order to get out of that avoidantly attached. Attachment style. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: Yeah. Yeah. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: And you know what we see in, and I know in our dynamic, like I would wanna talk about emotions and emotional experiences a lot. And I think I was seeking the, bringing the dynamics out into the open.

Joree Rose, LMFT: But oftentimes we see with avoidance, they just don’t wanna talk about emotions. They think that they don’t have them. They were, and they the, crux is truly how many of us were really role modeled how to talk about our emotions in a really helpful, easy way, which is why I really question the 50% security.

Joree Rose, LMFT: And how 

Dr. John Schinnerer: many of us had emotionally mature parents? 

Dr. John Schinnerer:  I just don’t think it was that common back then. And so as adults, the avoidance. We fear being a failure or letting down our partner or not being enough. I can’t tell you how many men I’ve talked to at this point that I said do you just hate to let your partner down?

Dr. John Schinnerer:  Do you just hate to disappoint your partner? Do you just hate to hurt your partner? And everyone’s oh yeah, absolutely. Worst thing ever. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: If you go back one second. Yeah. Of just where does anger show up in that dynamic 

Dr. John Schinnerer: in terms of. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: In, in terms of where the emotion of anger, if we combine all these different thoughts and ideas around anger being the emotion that is one of three, that men are usually easily able to express.

Joree Rose, LMFT: They might not be understanding what’s going on in their body and their own emotional experiences. 

Speaker 3: Yeah, I, I 

Joree Rose, LMFT: think, and from a physiological standpoint 

Joree Rose, LMFT: Are you or are, would you say most men who are avoided? I know we’re categorizing pretty broadly here. But would you even argue that maybe they don’t even know what’s going on inside of their body from a physiological standpoint to even know what they’re feeling, to even be able to know what to talk about?

Dr. John Schinnerer:  Yeah. I, think there’s a lot wrapped up in that. I think first of all, we had no role model demonstrating how to effectively deal with or communicate anger 

Joree Rose, LMFT: or sadness. Anger’s just one. Any emotion really? 

Dr. John Schinnerer: Yeah. If we were just talking about anger and, so we had no. There was no education there about oh, this is how I identify being angry.

Dr. John Schinnerer:  That I’m angry and this is how I communicate. The fact that I’m angry, calmly, respectfully, but in an assertive way to communicate, Hey, a boundary of mine’s been crossed, or You’re treating me in a way I don’t wanna be treated. ’cause that’s healthy anger and, that’s a positive use of anger. But we never saw that growing up.

Dr. John Schinnerer: Typically and you mentioned the three emotions that I argue men are comfortable with or are familiar with anger, lust, and stress. Those are the ones we’re allowed to demonstrate publicly without fear of humiliation. But then you you have to consider anger as a secondary emotion, which it is often, not always, but the question of what’s underneath the anger.

Dr. John Schinnerer:  Is it sadness? Is it hurt? Is it embarrassment? Is it shame? Is it guilt? Is it depression? Is it anxiety? All of which can be the case. And so I think for us, avoidance, most of us have cut ourselves off from interoception, that awareness of the workings of our internal organs. So we don’t have much awareness, first of all, we don’t put our attention in our bodies at all or very unless we’re in pain or unless we’re starving.

Dr. John Schinnerer:  So we’re not very aware of the internal workings of our body, so you need that as a basis, as a foundation in order to figure out what you’re feeling because emotions are embodied. They show up in our body. And so most of the men that I work with we start at a, at ground zero, with training or education about how do you know what you feel and, let’s get more, and more granular.

Dr. John Schinnerer: At these levels. So you can figure out, am I angry or am I resentful, or am I disappointed or am I hurt? 

Joree Rose, LMFT: I sad. Yeah. 

Dr. John Schinnerer:  And those are all helpful because the more emotional granularity I have, the more emotional awareness I have, the better I am at validating your emotions. ’cause rather than just saying, oh, I can see where you feel bad.

Dr. John Schinnerer:  I can say it seems to me like maybe you’re resentful or maybe you are upset or maybe you’re disappointed, or maybe you’re frustrated, 

Joree Rose, LMFT: which is part of the point I wanted to loop back around to make full circle is if my attachment need is to really feel seen and heard in my emotions and my experiences, and you are cut off from your own emotions and your own experiences, the likelihood of you being able to recognize mine if you’ve cut off from your own is gonna be really hard.

Joree Rose, LMFT: Yeah. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: And then the other part, the extension of that is if I don’t have any anger management skills, if I, when I get angry, I just blow my top and lose control and say things that are really hurtful and damaging. Then the next step is I go to shame. Once I come outta that, I’ve got shame. So then it creates this negative downward spiral of anger, shame, guilt, and so on.

Dr. John Schinnerer:  And then you can stay stuck in that for. Hours, if not days. Sure. At times. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: So before we go on, because I want you to add into what this avoidant patterns look like in adults and what the core wounds are, and you know what’s gonna happen during conflict, but just really quickly, it is an incredibly loving act for your partner to be able to look at your own shit and not just your shit, but to look at yourself, to understand yourself.

Joree Rose, LMFT: So that. You can deepen understanding of each other because what we’re seeking to do here is to create safety for both people. We’re not just trying to seek, create, seek safety for the anxious person who’s feeling dysregulated when not with their partner. Because the avoidant has a lot of unmet needs that they had as a kid or an earlier relationships and it, we’re all wired for connection and we wanna feel safe to do now, maybe some people might be perfectly happy, surface level, never expressing anything, and just having fun and getting along, and that’s great if that’s what you’re seeking. But most people feel quite deeply Yes. And seek greater connection.

Joree Rose, LMFT: Absolutely. We’re just really scared to do the inner work. Many people are afraid of if I look inside, what am I gonna find? 

Dr. John Schinnerer:  Yeah. And. I, think to me, it’s the most loving act you can do for your partner to have the courage to look at yourself and grow and lean into the relationship. Yeah.

Dr. John Schinnerer: There’s nothing more loving you can do. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: Thank you for doing all 

Dr. John Schinnerer:  that work. You’re welcome. You too. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: Thank you. You’re welcome. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: So as adults avoidance as I mentioned, fear of being a failure, fear of disappointing the other, fear of not being enough, fear of not being good enough, worthy, whatever it is, they tend to be disconnected from their feelings.

Dr. John Schinnerer:  And as I mentioned, if they don’t know how to feel their feelings much harder to validate their partner’s feelings. And a lot of times we’ll get into a bad mood and not be able to see it, though others can see it quite clearly. And the biggest example I can give of that is, especially for men, is irritability.

Dr. John Schinnerer:  So you get more impatient, you’re more snappy, you’re in a grouchy mood. Things through a negative lens. And in men irritability, when I hear irritability with a man, I think I wonder if he’s depressed because depression shows up as irritability in men. And 

Joree Rose, LMFT: that’s, can I just interject there for a second?

Joree Rose, LMFT: That’s where we have grown. I will say you have grown in accepting my influence. I think there used to be a point in time in our relationship that when you were irritable, if I try to point that out. It wasn’t gonna be received very well. And really, if I pointed out it was from a deeper question of, Hey, is everything going okay?

Joree Rose, LMFT: Like, how are you really? Because I’m noticing you’re not really yourself. And I think years ago, probably eight, seven years ago, you would not have received that question with the same level of self-compassion and curiosity as if I might see it now. And I now can be like, Hey, hun you are you aware that maybe you’re a little bit more irritable than normal? Like how are you? How’s your mood? Where are you at? And now you’ll be able to say it with me with much confidence. Hey Lev, you probably have a better tone on me than I do on myself at times. ’cause if you’re irritable, you may not have the awareness to see it.

Dr. John Schinnerer: Yeah, you can see it more clearly than I can. You can see it sooner than I can. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: And I have the safety to share that without fear of getting snapped at or rejected of. What are you calling me? An asshole? 

Speaker 3: Yeah, 

Joree Rose, LMFT: what not. You didn’t say that before either. But I could see how that could be very fearful to point a dynamic like that out.

Joree Rose, LMFT: Especially. Yeah. Again, a 

Dr. John Schinnerer:  non-defensive response versus a defensive response. Which is really hard to do when you’re irritable and depressed, by the way. But anyway and the other thing, the other main point about avoidance is it’s not that they don’t want to connect with their partner, it’s that they don’t know how.

Dr. John Schinnerer:  And that’s a big idea. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: As you say that I almost got teary eyed because as the anxious, my belief was that you just didn’t want to in those moments, like I, I literally feel this emotion coming up and if I knew that in the moment at some of those moments where you really needed the space, that could have helped my nervous system feel better.

Joree Rose, LMFT: Yeah. So say it again. I think it’s worthy of being repeated. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: So it’s not that they don’t want to connect with their partner, it’s that they don’t know how. Yeah. And that’s, a big deal. And as far as us in disagreement, where I would go is I would get flooded. I didn’t wanna say anything in anger, so I’m like, Hey, I, we need a time, I need a timeout.

Dr. John Schinnerer:  I need to take a break. I’m no good right now. And then Joy would pursue, ’cause she needed to reconnect in order to regulate her nervous system. And I’d be backing up. And she’d be pursuing, and we tried different things how about. I need a timeout and I’ll be back in 20 minutes.

Dr. John Schinnerer:  But eventually I had to get to the point of learning that it wasn’t just an anxious attachment style with joy. It was also some trauma on top of that, which allowed me to overcome my difficult, intense, negative emotions in the heat of the moment, to put her emotions first at times. And that was a big turning point.

Dr. John Schinnerer: I think 

Joree Rose, LMFT: it was a big deal because I felt like his avoidant needs always. Surpassed my anxiousness. They were primary. 

Dr. John Schinnerer:  Yeah. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: And I didn’t like that. Your needs took precedent over. Yeah, it 

Dr. John Schinnerer:  wasn’t fair at all. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: Yet I also came to understand if I was able to give him the space, then he will be able to be regulated enough to come back and meet, not meet mine.

Joree Rose, LMFT: But there, there was some negotiation there on some, 

Dr. John Schinnerer: yeah. And back and forth and it’s not perfect. And it’s an ongoing balancing act. With assuming positive intent. 

Dr. John Schinnerer:  So, as far as the avoidance go, the core wounds, the vulnerabilities that exist and usually these existed far before the relationship that you’re in now are feeling trapped or out of control.

Joree Rose, LMFT: Can I say something to that? Sure. If you know your partner’s an avoidant, do your best to not have a hard conversation while in the car. Because that one time gave John the perception that he was trapped. Yep. Because there was no escape route. And I’m like, same thing 

Dr. John Schinnerer:  for parents of teenagers, don’t have a conversation with them in the car or in the doorway of their bedroom while they’re in the bedroom.

Joree Rose, LMFT: Yeah. Yeah. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: Sorry, did you have more to say on that? 

Joree Rose, LMFT: No. I just, it was never my intention to trap you. It just, I didn’t, I, I never understood that sense of fear being trapped. And I think it’s important to name, yeah. Because it’s a very real dynamic. 

Dr. John Schinnerer:  And another core wound for avoidance is the fear of being intruded upon, or the feeling of being intruded upon.

Dr. John Schinnerer: Which is interesting because I could see this like in work situations when I was working from home, trying to write a book where I was deep into paying attention and working on this book, working on writing, and it, I would get irritable when I would get these constant interruptions from my kids or someone else.

Dr. John Schinnerer:  And because I have to pull myself out. Of what I’m attending to, which took a lot of effort, and then I’d have to get back there after the interruption. And so you’ll see this with avoidance. If you’re interrupting them in something they’re focused on that you might get some irritability. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: You still do that sometimes, and I’ve learned if you’re sitting on the couch working, I’ve learned to not just walk in the room and start talking.

Joree Rose, LMFT: Yeah, it’s helpful. I’ve learned to really come in and say, Hey, Lev, let me know when you’re available. I can share something with you. Because and, I think that an example 

Joree Rose, LMFT: Is really subtle and powerful. It helps in understanding the attachment need. Yeah. That is me understanding, having insight and compassion for John’s need to not be immediately interrupted.

Joree Rose, LMFT: And it’s the best way for me to be heard in my own attachment need. Yeah. So if I can just come and say, Hey, Liv, let me know when you got a second. You have the freedom to say. Gimme five, I can do it in one. Or Hey, I’m really busy, can this wait for an hour? 

Joree Rose, LMFT: And I don’t see that as rejection at all.

Joree Rose, LMFT: And Tone helps with that. Yeah. If we always want the, tone to match the intention. But these are subtle and powerful shifts that if couples can make this wonderful tweak, you’re gonna result in a lot more safety and security to speak up. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: And another core wound of avoidance is the fear of too much intimacy.

Dr. John Schinnerer:  And often it’s that we feel we’re gonna be swallowed up, we’re gonna lose ourselves, we’re gonna lose our individuality in it, but it scares the shit out of us partly because it’s like I had a hard time trusting the degree and depth of love that jury had for me. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: Oh, love. How long did it take you to really believe it?

Dr. John Schinnerer:  I don’t know, eight years. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: Nice. Nine 

Dr. John Schinnerer: years. Yeah. It was a while. And part of that was my own self-worth issue. Yeah. That I had to work on. And so yeah, just be aware that fear of too much intimacy can get in the way. And then the final one is the fear of being blamed. And we don’t want to disappoint, we don’t wanna let down.

Dr. John Schinnerer:  And so being blamed for something falls right alongside that. Yeah. And I’ve, talked to a lot of men that echo these same sentiments, and so really important to be aware of that. And then we talked a little bit about what avoidance do during conflict. We, shut down, we need space for regulation.

Dr. John Schinnerer: We withdraw emotionally. So on. And 

Joree Rose, LMFT: you could see where these create very opposite behaviors, which inherently are gonna cause blame and pointing fingers and assumptions of you’re stepping away right now. You must not love me. 

Dr. John Schinnerer:  Yeah. And or 

Joree Rose, LMFT: you smothering me. You’re too much. So then we adopt these belief systems.

Joree Rose, LMFT: We adopt negative sentiment towards our partners, but when we can understand what’s going on underneath it all. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: Curiosity and compassion, especially when you know your partner’s history to understand the dynamics that might have led to these patterns, behaviors, belief, systems, dynamics. You can get through a lot of those small little hurdles.

Joree Rose, LMFT: It’s not perfect. I think we’ve come so far. In the past two and a half, three years since getting back together after our short breakup. And yet sometimes these things still show up. 

Dr. John Schinnerer: On top of the attachment style, I think you have the dynamics of emotion. For example, with anger or hurt. We’re gonna go to black and white thinking, 

Joree Rose, LMFT: right 

Dr. John Schinnerer:  where you it’s so much easier to go to those all negative thoughts like, oh, he must not love me.

Dr. John Schinnerer:  Oh, I’m too much, or, oh, I’m not enough, or, oh, I’m not worthy, or whatever it is. So you wanna be aware of those, how the emotion that you’re in drives your thoughts as well. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: Yeah. 

Joree Rose, LMFT: There’s actually a lot more we wanted to share today. I think we’re gonna have to say for another episode, and I’m actually thrilled because I think going through these deeper levels of understanding this can.

Joree Rose, LMFT: Serve to create open conversation. That’s the ideal goal here, to create some small but yet significant shifts in how you relate to yourself, how you relate to your partner. And I think what would be a fun approach that we can, as we continue to unfold some of these dynamics, maybe we can bring in some IFS into how to talk about it.

Joree Rose, LMFT: Because relationships are fucking hard. I say it like that because it’s just that difficult loving someone. Is not enough. And it’s interesting. I see couples early in relationship. They’re like, oh my God, I love you so much. I’m like, wait, you don’t actually know each other yet? Yes, I appreciate you care for this person and you’re attracted to this person and you really like them.

Joree Rose, LMFT: And yet in three, four months of relationship, you don’t know really who they are. What makes them tick, what their dynamics are, how they’re gonna show up in conflict, what their core values are, driving behavior, like you gotta learn these 

Dr. John Schinnerer: things there. There was an old computer game called, you don’t Know Jack.

Joree Rose, LMFT: Yeah, I, that was, yeah, that was great. So I hope that this was helpful, supportive to your own insight of yourself, your partner and more importantly. What you can do to start stepping towards some of those more secure foundations at the very to bring it back full circle, emotional validation.

Joree Rose, LMFT: You don’t have to agree with your partner to see what they’re feeling and to validate it is real valid and true for them. 

Dr. John Schinnerer:  As always, please be sure to like rate, review, and share the ratings and reviews and shares. Help us to build the audience and if you want more information about how to work with us, you can go to our website at LoveIsntEnough.net.

Joree Rose, LMFT: Thank you guys so much for tuning in today.