Yes, and no. It’s true that tiny infants are so in need of emotional and physical attachment that they would die if they didn’t receive it. (Studies of orphanages and other attachment-deprived environments for children have proven that.) But we don’t need a study to prove that, right? We know that babies and little kids need attachment. What’s harder to realize is that humans of all ages need it. And without it, they’ll die.

That’s why couples fight, and why they get so upset with each other. You sense that your lover, your beloved attachment source, is slipping out of your grasp, and so you protest that. Even if you’re the “distancer” in your relationship—the one who seems not to need others, the aloof one—even you have serious attachment needs. So serious that if you don’t have healthy attachment in some form, you really will get sick and die.

Lately I’ve been referring to the film “Cast Away” when clients ask about adult attachment needs. I hope you’ve seen it. I don’t want to ruin it, so—spoiler alert. (Though this bit of content won’t give away the ending, and the ending is fairly predictable anyhow.) The movie is about a FedEx employee who survives the crash of his cargo plane and fights to survive alone on an uninhabited island. Since the cargo plane broke apart when it plunged into the ocean, Chuck (Tom Hanks) finds FedEx packages washing up on the beach over the course of his time on the island. One of the packages contains a Wilson volleyball.* (Yeah, the product placement is pretty over the top, but it’s still a great film.)

As months stretch into years, Chuck finds himself talking to the volleyball, and paints a face on it, naming his new friend “Wilson.” Wilson provides a rudimentary form of attachment for Chuck, because it is intolerable (and life-threatening) for a human to be utterly alone. Chuck anthropomorphizes Wilson because he must do so to survive. And at one point later in the film, when Wilson floats away from Chuck’s raft and can’t be recovered, Chuck is racked with sobs, cracked in half by crippling grief at the loss of his friend. “I’m sorry, Wilson,” Chuck moans. “I’m sorry.”

…All this about a volleyball? No, it wasn’t a volleyball at that point. It was every bit as real a friend to Chuck as any of the human friends he left behind when he crash landed on that island. Psychologically, Wilson was a being for Chuck, not just a thing. Chuck was a full-grown man, not a little kid. He was resourceful, clever, determined, and, as he changed and hardened on the island, increasingly wise. By the time he dared to make an escape to the open sea, Chuck was almost fearsome in his physical and emotional strength. But his attachment needs still pulsed through him. And so he grieved the loss of his dear friend.

I believe that if something else hadn’t happened to save Chuck, he would have died, but not from starvation or dehydration or sunstroke. He would have died of heartbreak.

That’s why you fight with your partner. That’s why, when something goes wrong in your relationship, you can feel panicked, or feel deeply hurt. You have attachment needs. You need others. Can you talk about this and discern how to meet these needs in a healthier relationship?

*Correction: the original post incorrectly identified Wilson as a soccer ball. Sorry, obviously I’m not a sports fan!

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Too bad that not only doesn’t work, but often enough makes things worse. Specifically, when I go into fixit mode, I run the risk of communicating to my spouse some bad things. First, I’m probably communicating that I’m not there for him. This is counter-intuitive, so think about it for a minute. You might naturally think that because I’m trying to solve my spouse’s problems, I may be annoying, but I’m there for him. I have good intentions! I want to help! I have solutions! But the inadvertent message my spouse receives could be: “I’m so anxious about your [insert one] bad mood/difficult problem/emotional quandary that I can’t simply be present with you and allow you to work things out on your own. I can’t calm down when you’re upset. And therefore, I’m not really here for you.”

Second, I run the risk of sending my spouse the message that I don’t respect him, that I don’t think he’s a responsible adult who can “fix it” himself.

What would it be like if, instead of rushing into fixit mode, I said, “You look upset. I don’t know how you really feel. I do know I don’t feel connected to you right now. That’s okay, but I just want to let you know that I love you, and when you’re ready to talk, I’ll be here for you.” What would that be like?

It’s hard to say. But it’s possible that your spouse or partner would feel 1) relieved that at least for now, you know something’s wrong but you’re not trying to solve her problems for her, and yet you’re there for her; and 2) you respect her and know she can work most of this out herself. You still have to have The Conversation at some point, to clear the air and talk through the situation. But if you’re communicating to your beloved that as upsetting as things are, you’re okay and you’re here when s/he’s ready, it could give both of you a chance to calm down, get some perspective, and re-engage with each other in an atmosphere of gentleness and mutual respect.

You didn’t fix it…and that might be one reason why it gets fixed!

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Think about all the things you do regularly whether you want to or not: pay the electric bill, service the car, go to work, drive your mom to the doctor, and on into infinity. These are things you do because, well, because you do them. They have to get done. But if you’re like a lot of people, your relationship is not required. Everything about it is voluntary, and, therefore, open to being blown off. And then you wind up in my office! Here’s a primer on date nights, a Date Night 101:

1. Pick one night, the same night every week. (Yeah, I can already hear you saying, “We can’t! His rotation changes by the week and I’m a bartender so I never know when I’m going to be scheduled, and it’s always at night!” Even if one regular night is impossible, there’s got to be some block of time each week—3am to 7am on Sundays??—that will work for you both.)

2. During that special time, nobody gets in your way. If you have kids, you pay for a sitter and get out of the house. Maybe it’s okay for you to share date night with friends, but wait a bit before doing that. Get into the rhythm as a couple first.

3. Repeat 52 times. Then evaluate. How’s it going? What’s different about your relationship, about you, about how you feel about each other? Anything need to change, or be adjusted? Some of my clients come to counseling and then go on their date night. I recommend this. It makes the whole thing even more intentional.

Whatever you plan, set it in stone. It’s the Law. That way, your relationship is not completely vulnerable to the tyranny of your schedules, whims, emotions, and issues. At least this one block of time each week is immune from all of that.

Note to singles: this works for those of us currently not in relationships. No matter what your relationship status is, if you set aside one block of time each week just for yourself, what do you imagine might change in your life? Have you ever really done this? (I know it’s hard for me!) I’d hazard a guess that your blood pressure would be lower, you’d feel healthier, and you’d feel a lot less frazzled and crazy. And you could kick it off with a nice individual therapy session!

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So the first step I take is to understand that, and let you know that I truly understand it. You have a legitimate case against your partner.

But often enough, that’s not the whole story. For example, my partner has a preference for introversion, in contrast to me (I have a preference for extraversion). That means I’m much more outgoing, talkative, even (to use an old-fashioned word) gregarious. And yeah, there are times when I feel frustrated because my partner (like a lot of my friends, colleagues, and acquaintances) isn’t a perfect match for my special blend of extraverted personality. And it’s all too easy to pathologize that. You don’t like to talk as much as me? Well then, something must be wrong with you. You don’t want to stay up late talking about our relationship dynamics and making meaning of the nuances of our union? Well, why not?! It must be your fault.

And that’s where I—or, I should say, my own therapist—gets to say this: “It’s not your partner’s fault that you chose to be with him.” This means that I chose to hook up with an introvert, to cultivate a relationship with him, to open my heart to him. (And I don’t regret it one bit.) But that also means that when I feel frustrated about our differences, or wish my partner would be more like me, I have to remember that he wasn’t put on this earth to please me, or be like me, or make my own life easy. It was me who chose to be with him. Not him. So it’s not okay to expect him to be the person I want him to be.

I can invite my partner to be more like me. I can let my partner know that there is a lot to recommend the lifestyle I prefer. But if my partner insists on being himself, that is not his fault. And it’s not bad or wrong in any way. In short, it’s not his fault that I chose to be with him.

Once I realize that, and let it sink in, I then feel motivated to draw closer to this person who is so different from me, so wonderfully and beautifully different.

And who knows? We may rub off on each other. He may be more open and (shocking!) extraverted. And I may cultivate a richer inner life. I hope so. But for that to happen, we both have to get past the idea that the other person is “supposed to” be the person we want them to be.

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You can take the MBTI assessment online by yourself and come in for a 1.5-hour session with me to interpret it, or you could come in as a couple for a 2-hour session. (For couples, both of you would take the online assessment separately.) I’m also available to work with larger groups such as your work team. The online assessment will generate a detailed report personalized for you, based on your answers to 144 short questions about your personality preferences.

MBTI focuses on two basic human activities: the way we take in information (and the kind of information we tend to trust), and the way we make decisions. The first activity—taking in information—is about whether 1) you prefer to pay attention to the many here-and-now details and facts that you get from your five senses, or 2) whether you like to see broad patterns and tend to trust your ideas and hunches.

The second activity—the way we make decisions—is about whether 1) you prefer to make decisions using logic and a critical, principled method; or 2) you prefer to make decisions by listening to your values and your concerns about the impact of the decision on the people involved.

MBTI also helps you decide whether you put most of your energy out into the external world (extraversion) or whether you prefer to direct most of your energy inward, cultivating a rich inner life (introversion). Finally, MBTI helps you decide whether your attitude toward the external world is marked by a desire to be organized with lots of closure and certainty or a desire to be open-ended with lots of room for discussion and uncertainty.

All of this is intended to be useful in practical ways. You can use MBTI to understand how you behave in conflict, how you communicate with others, how you manage change, how your preferences affect your marriage/partnership, and more.

Again, you can take the assessment by yourself and come in for a 1.5-hour session with me to interpret it, or you could come in as a couple for a 2-hour session. I’m also available to work with larger groups such as your work team. Think about it, and stay tuned for more information about this useful tool.

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Often enough, I counsel people to break up … in small ways. If you’re not ready to end the relationship, then it’s possible there’s still something worth saving in the relationship. It’s possible. But it may take a while for you to discern whether that’s true. In the meantime, why not ‘break up’ with portions of your relationship—the smaller pieces of your relationship that you don’t like, that aren’t consistent with your values, that just aren’t you?

Here are some examples.

If you’re not ready to break up in a complete way, try ‘breaking up’ with these things—

—’Break up’ with behaviors of yours that undermine your happiness in the relationship. For example, when your partner says something provocative, something that seems to be an invitation for another unproductive fight, ‘break up’ with your instinct to go on the defensive, and choose instead to say, “I don’t want to fight like this anymore.”

—’Break up’ with shyness—with your tendency to sweep things under the rug, or silently tolerate things that truly bother you. Choose instead to tell your partner, “I’m sorry, but I can’t put up with this anymore. I need the two of us to change how we handle this…”

—’Break up’ with patience—with your (understandable!) habit of putting up with interaction patterns and relationship dynamics that get you down. “I know you’re going through a hard time,” you might say, “but I need to insist that we talk about some of our problems…”

Breaking up is hard to do. (Yeah, that’s another pop song.) And sometimes it’s not what you want to do. There might be many things worth saving in your relationship. But to do so—to save what’s working—you might need to ‘break up’ with a few of the things that are broken.

What are some pieces of your relationship that you want to break up with?

UPDATE: A reader writes, “Your examples sound a lot alike. Are they really different?” Good question. Answer: yes and no. Some people have trouble in their relationships because they behave automatically, unthinkingly, when they’re upset (the first example). Others have trouble because they’re being what I called “shy” above, but could also be called basic fear or anxiety (#2). Still others are impatient and their issue is more in the area of anger than anxiety (#3). In all cases, people can find themselves in the same general place: unhappy with their relationship, and wondering if it’s worth it. And in all cases, there’s likely at least one part of their relationship that they can “break up with” rather than ending the whole thing.

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But often people assume that it’s a bad thing to expect “too much” from your partner. But the research (and Gottman is a thorough, painstaking researcher!) disagrees. “I don’t know,” you might be thinking. “I’m probably too impatient, to idealistic. I should just be more accepting.” That sounds…kind, I suppose. You’re lowering your expectations because you don’t want to be “high maintenance,” or intolerant of another person’s flaws. To a certain extent, that kind of humility can serve you well. There’s certainly a place in any happy relationship for tolerance, discretion, and patience!

But… don’t take that too far. Don’t sell yourself short. And here’s a metaphor I came up with to explain what I mean. Whenever I go to San Francisco I try to make it to the Top of the Mark on Nob Hill for a cocktail. It’s the swanky bar on the top of the Mark Hopkins Hotel. (Usually I can afford only one cocktail!) The views are breathtaking, the room is light and elegant—it’s a fun San Francisco experience. And it’s my metaphor. Here’s my question: in your relationship, are you at the Top of the Mark? Or are you settling for the sleepy little bar on the main floor with no views?*

A ‘Top of the Mark’ relationship looks something like this (for me, I should say—your own definition might be different!): in my vision of a ‘Top of the Mark’ relationship, you’re with someone who builds trust with you over time, and you’re doing the same thing. You’re with someone who cares about your dreams. You’re with someone who delights you, attracts you, even ravishes you. You’re with someone who sometimes inspires ecstatic love that feels almost dizzying. You’re also with someone who’s a great friend, an ordinary partner, a comfortable old shoe. You can be ‘family’ with this person. The two of you are cultivating something beautiful, and something serene. You laugh a lot. You laugh at yourselves a lot.

And here’s the snag, the thing you and I could work on in counseling: to have a ‘Top of the Mark’ relationship, you have to be okay with your right to want one. You have to be okay with the idea that it is not unreasonable to expect this. And to do that, you have to see yourself as ‘Top of the Mark’ material. This can be hard because you may not have thought of yourself in such a healthy way, or you may have learned that when you have high standards, the number of people interested in dating you dramatically drops. And you may have failed to see that the biggest reason for that drop was probably that non-Top people sensed you were too good for them and pulled out of the race! But if you’re ‘Top of the Mark’ material, then being on your own is preferable to being with someone who doesn’t meet you at the highest level.

So… do you want to go to the Top? If you do, there are no guarantees that you’ll find a lot of people up there. Lots of people are settling for less, both in their relationships and in what they expect from themselves. And having high standards can be scary: it forces your partner to step up (or step out), and it requires you yourself to be a high-quality partner!

But it is one hell of a view.

—–
To be honest I don’t know if there’s actually a little bar on the main floor of the Mark Hopkins. I’m just taking a little metaphorical license here…

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Not long ago, as a client got up to leave at the end of the session, I said, “You know, this is the work of your life.” I’ve actually said this to several clients. People often go to counseling because they have a specific problem—their relationship is in trouble; they feel depressed; they have problems with anxiety; they don’t know what to do about their parents, or their kids. But I say that the deeper reason they come to counseling is to do the work of their lives.

Your relationship is in trouble? It’s a good bet that one reason for that is a missing piece in your own development: you’re still having trouble telling the truth when the truth hurts; or you’re still afraid to ask for what you really want because you think the other person will reject you; or you’re replicating patterns of interaction you learned from your first family, patterns that can sometimes be useful but often enough get you into trouble. For example, maybe you deal with conflict or stress by “shutting down,” and when you do that, your partner gets upset and pulls you into a fight. This is the work of your life. It’s something that, if you worked on it, could be a major step forward for you, something you remember at the end of your life as something new and significant and courageous that you finally learned how to do. “I learned how to stand up for myself,” you might say later on. That’s the work of your life.

So when you think about coming to counseling, by all means think about the immediate problem that’s upsetting you. We need to attend to that. But allow yourself to reflect a little more deeply. What is the Work of your life?

It’s an excellent birthday question!

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Here’s my take.

First, I mostly agree with Savage’s advice to this guy (“Do what you need to do to stay sane”) even though I would qualify that advice in a couple of ways. And I say this as someone who is in a long-term monogamous relationship and (as a couples counselor) appreciates the many benefits of sexual exclusivity between two people. I also work with non-monogamous and polyamorous clients, and can see the advantages to those arrangements too. But I admit that monogamy has always enjoyed a privileged place in my beliefs and assumptions.

Here’s what I would tell this guy. First, you are being harmed by this arrangement with your wife. Your needs are valid, and these many years of sexual dysfunction in your marriage have taken their toll on you. Let’s honor that, and honor it deeply. Second, your need—and your simple desire—for a healthy, fun, ecstatic sex life is also valid. It is a basic human need. It is not a sign that you’re shallow, and your vigilant adherence to the vow you took with your wife proves that you are not—you are not!—shallow. And finally, third, let’s talk about that vow. Did you really promise your wife that you would endure unending sexual unhappiness? If you’re like a lot of monogamous married couples, you promised something along the lines of “richer and poorer, sickness and health…” And the assumption everyone had on your wedding day was, well, that that’s that. But the bad news for your wife is that if “that’s that,” than that’s not healthy, it’s harming you, and you being harmed with no way out is unethical. Even immoral. So here’s what I think you should think about doing:

First, tell your wife that despite the frustrations and failures you’ve suffered in the past, you need to bring up the sex topic again. Tell her that you are not interested in simply complaining about your sex life, and that you are fully aware—and sympathetic—of her physical situation. But you also must express your legitimate needs and desires. You’re a man; you’re a sexual being. You love her—and you’re on record living that love for thousands of days despite all the troubles you two have had—and you have a legitimate need to talk about sex problems without being accused of not loving her. (Bringing this up is quite the opposite: it is another sign of your love for her!)

Second, tell your wife that you insist on doing this in a careful, planned way. If counseling has failed in the past, you may not want to try that again. (Or you could, but if so, tell the therapist that you failed in the past and are quite afraid you’ll once again be wasting your time and money.) Alternatively, John Gottman has well-researched ways for couples to talk about difficult problems like this. Order his “repair kit,” or better yet delve more deeply into his materials for couples. You’re not asking your wife to instantly transform herself into your ideal sexual partner. You’re not telling your wife that you don’t respect her dilemma. You are only saying that you also have a valid dilemma, and it needs to be addressed for the sake of both of you.

Finally, if you carefully go through this process and it leads to continued frustration (or worse, disaster), you can tell yourself that you did everything you could. You can then decide whether to end the marriage, or whether to “do whatever you need to do to stay sane.”

One last note: Dan Savage likes to say that monogamy is not natural. It’s a big theme of his. I both agree and disagree. I agree that monogamy is a social, cultural construct. It is not natural the way, say, a redwood tree is natural. It’s something humans created in their social, cultural contexts. But I do think that a desire to be with one person is, like all desires, natural. Not everyone feels that desire, and not everyone who feels it feels it strongly. But it is as natural as any other desire we have in our complicated, sentient lives.

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I think there’s one thing I can confidently say all of my clients are struggling with—because it’s something all humans struggle with: moving between the polarities of ‘individuation’ and ‘participation.’* That sounds dull, I suppose. But here’s what I mean:

Individuation is your natural instinct to be an individual, to have a unique self. It’s a normal and healthy dimension of your humanity. Even if you are happily married for decades, you want individuation! You want to be able to say no—or creatively say yes—and you want to be able to know that you would be okay if the other person fell apart, or left you, or died. You might care for them and worry about them, grieve their loss, or be angry with them, but you would be able to take care of yourself, both literally and psychologically. If you’re fighting with your partner, or having sex with your partner, or going on vacation with your partner—in short, if you’re doing anything in your relationship—your ability to individuate is essential.

Participation is your natural instinct to be a part of a group, to gain identity by participating in a social dynamic. I am me (individuation) but I am also us. It’s been said that if the planet were destroyed and only one human being survived, she would still be a member of the species homo sapiens, but she would no longer be a human being, because there would be no social referent that would tell her (and others) who she is. To be human is to be social, to be one of many. It is frightening, though, to participate with others in this way. The main fear is (naturally) the loss of self. If I marry you, will I remain individuated? Will I remain me? But to be in a happy partnership or relationship, I have to take that leap.

Ultimately, as the drawing says above, flexibility is the thing. If I get stuck in individuation mode, then I’m the stereotypical “commitment-phobe” you see in sitcoms. I’m Chandler Bing. If I get stuck in participation mode, I am emotionally fused with the other and I lose myself. Sound familiar? And if I’m stuck someplace in the middle—not moving toward either polarity, and more importantly, just not moving—then I’m at best confused and at worst pretty depressed. I can’t relate to others, and I can’t be in a healthy relationship with myself.

Our work together can help you be more flexible in these natural, human functions.

*It was Paul Tillich who called these polarities “individuation” and “participation.” They’ve been called other things, such as “individuality” vs. “emotional connection” (David Schnarch), but I prefer Tillich’s terms.

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