Creating A Secure Attachment With Your Partner
After a vast review of research and literature by relationship experts, psychotherapist Jessica Fern, author of Polysecure, indicates 5 ways you can cultivate a secure attachment with your partner. She uses the acronym HEART to list the specific ways to create a safe haven and a secure base in your relationships:
H: Here (being here and present with me)
E: Expressed Delight
A: Attunement
R: Rituals & Routines
T: Turning Towards after Conflict
Based on Fern’s attachment suggestions, with additional ones from relationship experts John & Julie Gottman and Bill Doherty, the following is a breakdown of each specific way to create a secure attachment with your partner using HEART.
HERE & PRESENT. Being here and present is the act of giving our partners our full attention. When we put distractions aside, make eye contact, and truly listen to our partners the message is profound:
I see you.
What you have to say is important to me. You are valid.
You are worthy of my undivided attention.
The impact is equally profound. The receiver of this type of undivided attention feels loved, valued, appreciated and seen. They feel attached, safe and respected by the attention giver.
Tips for being HERE & PRESENT:
Prioritize regular time with your partner where you are undistracted, here and present with them.
Create a sense of presence through mindfulness and intention.
Put your phone and smartwatch away.
Discuss realistic length and frequency of HERE time with your partner, communicate any restrictions that might come up and when you cannot be available.
Expressed Delight. Communicate with your partner the things you enjoy about them that is unique to who they are. Not what they do or have accomplished, but what you appreciate about them as a person. When expressing gratitude and enjoyment of our partners we cultivate an authentic, mutually vulnerable and joyful relationship. We can communicate expressed delight through our words, actions and eyes.
Tips for EXPRESSING DELIGHT:
Let your partner know in spoken or written word how they enrich your life.
Let your partner know how unique and special they are to you.
Let your partner know the positive impact their actions and behaviors have on you.
After spending time with your partner, let them know what you appreciated about that time together and the positive impact it had on you.
Attunement. Attachment bonds are emotional bonds. Attuning to our partners means empathizing with their various emotional states and communicating that understanding to them. Sometimes there is nothing more powerful than to hear “you make sense” from our partners when we are in emotional distress. It is equally important to celebrate our accomplishments with our partners and to feel their pride and pleasure in us.
Tips for ATTUNEMENT:
Listen empathetically to your partner, reflect back how you might imagine they are feeling (don’t worry they will correct you if you didn’t guess correctly :)).
When listening with attunement, postpone giving advice or problem solving.
Track the events of your partner’s week and follow up with them regarding a particular event, for example: “How did your work presentation go yesterday?”.
Show genuine interest in your partner by asking open-ended questions that allow them to explore their feelings and thoughts about situations versus simply reporting the outcome of events.
Rituals & Routines. Bill Doherty indicates in his book, The Intentional Family, the importance of Rituals of connection. He explores how these regular routines of connection are important tools for successful relationships. Rituals of connection are events we can look forward to that anchor us in reassurance that we have a point of time in our day, week or year to connect with those most important to us. For example each Sunday my family goes on a hike, each Friday my husband and I have a date night, and each New Years Eve my family celebrates by watching a homemade video of highlights of the last year. Of most importance for developing secure attachments with our partners, is a ritual for saying hello and goodbye. By making a point to greet our partners with a hug in the morning or a kiss when leaving the house we reassure one another of the importance of that bond.
Tips for RITUALS OF CONNECTION:
Discuss with your partner their preferred daily way to separate and reunite. Creating a ritual of connection for our coming and going indicates to our partners they are valuable, they are a priority, we miss them and we are happy to see them again.
Discuss what rituals you already have in place that make you feel loved and valued by your partner. Find out what rituals do the same for your partner.
Identify what ways you both like to celebrate and to be celebrated when it comes to annual events, such as birthdays, holidays, and anniversaries.
Discuss any relationship rites of passages that could be more deeply celebrated and identify meaningful ways to celebrate those.
Turning Towards after Conflict. In their 40 years of relationship research, the Gottmans found that a key factor in long lasting love is a couple’s ability to repair after a conflict. They also found that the couples that turn towards eachother’s bids for connection at least 86% of the time demonstrate unbreakable bonds. Conflict is inevitable, what is important is repairing after we experience a regrettable incident in an argument. A repair attempt can also take place during a conflict in order to de-escalate the tension. Gottman describes a repair attempt as any verbal or physical action that prevents negativity from escalating out of control. For some couples,
well-timed self-deprecating humor works great. For others, physical touch like a hug or hand
squeeze helps to ease the tension. Taking responsibility for your part in the argument can also help de-escalate the negativity.
Tips for TURNING TOWARDS:
Learn what an emotional bid for connection is and the three types of responses in my blog A Small Change That Can Have a Big Impact on Your Relationship.
Do not be afraid to take a time out from a heated discussion. Taking a 30 minute break from conflict to physiologically self-soothe can be an important step in getting to a place of resolution and intimacy.
Under every complaint is an unmet need. The more we can get to the root of our needs in a conflict discussion and communicate a positive need request, the better our partners can hear us without getting defensive and the more likely our needs will be heard/met.
If you find yourself stuck in a recurring conflict, consider asking one another the open-ended questions in this Perpetual Problem blog to better understand the dream or value underneath your position on the issue. Oftentimes couples get stuck in conflict because they have a core value under their position that has not been fully expressed.