Attachment Styles - When You Constantly Seek Reassurance

Attachment styles developed in childhood influence how we connect in relationships. Recognising these patterns and working through them creates healthier, more secure dynamics and builds stronger emotional connections.

Transcript

Your anxious partner constantly seeks reassurance.

And I want to give you three signs how that might look like.

So not examples,

We'll come to that in a bit,

But signs.

So a sign for being or needing that reassurance,

Seeking for it,

Is low self-esteem.

That can show up in thoughts like,

I'm not good enough.

And because you believe you're not good enough,

You want the external validation,

Want your partner to tell you,

You are good enough,

Or I'm here,

Even though you're not good enough because you believe that.

Can also show up in low self-trust.

And that often happens,

Particularly when you have betrayal in your past.

When your partner betrayed you,

Your friends,

Family,

Whoever it was,

And you felt hurt and there was also this shame coming with it that you didn't see the signs,

You didn't see the red flags or you saw them and just ignored them.

And then that self-trust in yourself that next time you will behave differently,

You will think differently,

You will see them,

Those red flags,

And you will act on it.

That self-trust is very low when you show the behavior of seeking constant reassurance.

Another sign is that you have low self-connection.

And this might be new to you what self-connection means,

But what it is is that you have low self-awareness of why you do the things you do and low self-acceptance.

So self-awareness plus self-acceptance equals self-connection.

And when that is low,

You're not aware that you're even doing it,

That you're constantly seeking this reassurance and you're not accepting it.

You probably have excuses,

Reasons for why you're doing it.

And one reason might be,

Yeah,

My partner,

My ex-partner,

He betrayed me,

So now I need this reassurance.

But in the end,

It comes down to low self-connection.

You're not aware that you're doing it and you don't accept that you're doing it.

So let's move on to give you proper examples so you know what we're talking about.

And I've done a mix of you are the one seeking that reassurance and your partner is seeking the reassurance.

But just to give you an idea.

So my first example is you constantly text your partner for reassurance when you're out,

Fearing abandonment,

Yes,

And that they forget about you.

I had clients who told me if I don't text my partner when they are out or when I'm out,

I believe that they will forget about me.

I believe that they will meet someone else and then they run off with that person because I didn't give the attention.

And yes,

And that,

Of course,

Is because due to low self-esteem,

Due to low self-trust,

Due to low self-connection.

Another example might be that your partner avoids deep conversations because they are uncomfortable with emotional vulnerability.

And this comes down to low self-esteem because sometimes people believe that if I show my true feelings,

The other person might see me as weak and then they don't want me anymore.

So I need to be strong.

I need to show that I'm amazing,

That I'm strong,

That nothing can face me,

That I can handle this.

But what you actually do with that is you disconnect emotionally.

Another example is that you push your partner away when things get too intimate,

Fearing you'll get hurt.

Now,

This,

When you hear it at first,

It might sound contradictive because why would I push my partner away when I need that constant reassurance?

And that could be because you push away,

So they give you the reassurance again.

You know,

You have learned from previous relationships,

From this relationship,

That when I push away,

They will come back and tell me that they want me,

They need me,

They're here for me.

So this is your go-to behavior,

Your go-to pattern,

When it's like,

I don't want to get hurt,

So I do this.

And then they give me the reassurance that I need,

That external validation that I can't give myself.

So I want it from anyone around me,

And you get that by pushing them away.

The thing is,

Though,

If you don't become aware of your behavior,

Of your doing this,

Or your partner isn't becoming aware of it,

What happens,

You get emotionally exhausted because you're constantly in your mind,

There's constant stress.

So the body is stressed because you're constantly in that mindset of,

Where do I get my next fix?

Literally,

Where do I get my next reassurance?

Because at this point,

You might not be able to give it to yourself.

So you're seeking it from the outside.

And however your behavior is,

There's so much thought going into your behavior that you might not even be aware.

And that is exhausting.

And like I said,

Of course,

It's your mind and your body,

Because you're probably in a constant fight or flight situation with your body.

And if you're someone who seeks this reassurance and your partner is out,

Or you are out,

And you want to text them constantly,

You,

Of course,

Don't connect with the people you are with anymore.

So that's exhausting,

And it can leave you feel alone.

And you don't want that.

It can also make you very codependent because of that need for that external validation,

For that external reassurance.

And that means if there is a breakup and your partner leaves you,

For you,

That is proof that maybe you are the reason because you are the way you are,

That's why they left you.

And now you have that assurance that,

Yeah,

It's you in your head.

And even if your partner,

Ex-partner tells you,

It's not you,

You don't believe them.

You only believe them when they say it's you,

Because that's how your brain works.

It believes what you believe.

And so you're depending on the situation,

You're depending on the other people,

You're depending on your partner,

On your family,

Your friends,

That they give you that reassurance.

And it can cause reoccurring misunderstandings and distance because you don't talk about your insecurities.

And that comes back to the low self-connection when you're aware that you're doing this.

And when you accept,

This is me,

This is me,

I just do this because I seek this validation,

I seek this reassurance.

When you're aware of that and you talk about it because you have accepted it,

It becomes okay to talk about it and seeing,

Okay,

What happens next?

But if you don't do it,

You try to find a way around it,

You try to justify your behavior.

And what often happens is you blame your partner that they don't give you enough reassurance and they don't give you enough attention.

So that's why you have to react like this.

And so you're going into this,

In German,

You call it the Teufelskreis,

Literally translated,

It's the devil's circle.

It's probably differently called in every country,

But that's where you get into,

In this constant blaming and shaming cycle.

And getting out of that is on the one hand easy because as soon as you accept it,

That you do this,

Everything gets clear and you can move forward.

So my next three points is what if you change?

What if you become aware?

Of course,

You increase your security in your relationship.

Like I said,

As soon as you become aware,

As soon as you accept,

This is where we are,

This is ground zero and we can build from here.

That's where the magic happens because now your body is calm,

Your brain is a bit calmer and you can find solutions a way forward.

And it also makes you more independent,

Which is the beautiful thing when you don't depend on other people to give you the reassurance,

To make you feel safe and comfortable and loved and enough.

When you can do that to yourself,

Amazing,

It doesn't mean that you don't want to hear it from them every now and again,

Or it's beautiful and you feel,

Oh my God,

It's so nice when they say it.

It just means you don't depend on it.

And when you have that independence and can give it yourself,

It makes you more attractive,

Not just to your partner,

But to the whole world.

And of course,

There will be people who are afraid of that,

But you don't need these people who don't accept you the way you are.

And what you can also do is to set clear,

Respectful boundaries.

This is an important one because boundaries are important.

There is a whole process for these boundaries because setting boundaries,

It's often easy if you define them properly so that everyone knows what you mean,

Not just,

Oh,

Let's give me one.

I had one for my partner and I said,

I'm not ironing,

Full stop,

Nothing.

I'm not ironing.

And for them,

It meant,

But every now and again,

You could iron my shirt.

And I said,

No,

I'm not ironing means I'm not ironing,

Full stop.

I won't put my hand on an iron.

I won't put an iron board out and iron your shirt even once.

I'm not doing that boundary.

This is how it looks like.

I'm not doing it,

No matter in any way.

So be clear when you set a boundary,

But we come to that later with practical steps or actually just move there because that's the third point here,

Set healthy boundaries and reinforce them.

And the reinforcing is the tricky bit because when you come to the point where you have defined your boundary and you talk to your partner about your boundary and you both are clear how this boundary looks like,

When it comes to the point,

Like it came to the point where my partner said,

But hey,

You could iron this shirt.

And no,

No,

No,

I'm not doing that.

And he said,

Oh my God,

You're not supporting me.

You have the time,

You have the skills and you're not doing it.

Why can't you do it?

How can you leave me hanging?

And all the shame and blame he gave me.

And I was thinking like,

Yeah,

I could do it.

I could do it.

And then I thought,

But if I do it,

I will stand on that iron board and I will feel so ashamed of myself for doing it because I would probably hate every second of it.

And I thought,

Do I want that?

Don't I want that?

I don't want that.

So that means I don't want to have that feeling standing on that iron board.

This means the consequence is,

I have this argument with my partner.

We sit it out until he's ready to talk about it,

Until he's ready to accept it.

And that is the hard part because he was hurt.

When you reinforce your boundary,

It could be that the other person gets hurt and they feel pushed away.

They feel left alone.

They feel unsupported.

But give them time.

And that is the hard part about the boundaries.

Not all the stuff before.

That reinforcement,

That's the hard part to be okay with how your partner feels.

And another practical step to move away from this constant reassurance that you seek from the outside is that you identify your fear.

Now I've written here literally,

Yes,

You've got low self-esteem,

Et cetera,

But what are you afraid of?

And what I want you to do is ask yourself this question,

What am I afraid of?

And then your brain will come up with something.

And then you ask again and you ask again and you ask again,

Five times,

10 times.

It doesn't matter.

Just ask again and again.

At one point,

Something pops up in your head that feels different.

And that means you stroke a nerve,

However you say that.

So there is something.

Now we're on the right track.

Or it might be that you just draw a blank,

Like my brain doesn't want to go there.

And then you know as well that,

Okay,

Now we're heading to the right direction.

Behind that blank,

That's where the answer lies.

And then you give your brain some time,

A day or two or two,

A week maybe.

And then you start asking again,

What am I afraid of?

You need time as well to move towards that fear,

To see it and to become aware and accept it.

So give your brain that time,

But ask yourself,

What am I afraid of?

And your brain loves to answer questions.

So it will find answers.

Another thing you could do is to reflect on past patterns in relationships.

And you want to do that because you want to become aware of your behavior and accept it.

And that leads again to self-connection.

As soon as you become aware,

Oh my God,

This is how I do it.

This is how I've done it.

And this is okay.

Now again,

Acceptance for me,

For me personally,

You define it for yourself.

For me personally,

Acceptance means this is grand theory.

This is the foundation.

And from here,

We can choose what we want to do with it.

We don't push it away,

But we can either change it,

Improve it,

Leave it for now.

We're just treating it as,

Yeah,

We have all the building blocks,

But we don't know how the house should look like.

But this is what we're working with.

That's how I see it.

Maybe that helps you.

And that brings me to the end of today's lecture.

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