How to read each other clearly

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Child acts out when needs are unmet, bowlby calls it protesting as a bid for connection.  It’s when child cannot express their needs for attachment and miscues the parent, so the parent thinks theyre naughty.  But the child has no way to organise their emotions and is trying to elicit a care giving response in a way that actually repells the parent from understanding what the child needs. So, the child become more disregulated and distressed at attempts to reach the parent who ends up pushing the child away, before they finally shuts down and pushes the parent away because it is too painful to be rejected for their unmet needs. It’s is the exact dynamic that get plays out in Relationships.

When the fear of having needs unmet becomes stirred up in relationships, it brings on the fear of abandonment which causes the person to defensively react in ways to get their needs met ( cling, jealously, anger) so they can avoid these underlying feelings of abandonment . These defensive behaviours are ways to protect themselves being abandoned for their needs, but it is done so in a way that pushes away the partner so they can’t respond to their actual needs, so they end up reliving the feeling of abandonment, and build stronger defences to protect themselves.

Like a child, couples act out in ways to protect themselves from facing unmet needs,  to avoid these underlying feelings. But the ways they protect themselves get in the way of understanding each other’s needs,  while push each other away, so they each become misattuned to each other needs.

The partner who fears closeness feels exacerbated by these interactions and pulls away because they fear that any interaction will set off any unwarranted reaction and fears  being attacked for saying or doing the wrong thing. When they get the angry response it causes them to feel repelled from responding as they become imobilised from responding.  It’s like being shell shocked, frozen in time, like a dear in headlights because they are overflooded with emotions and can’t get out what they want to say, so they say nothing or stone wall to protect themselves so nothing can penetrate their wall which becomes a way to protect themselves from getting hurt by moving away from a percieved attack. ( sadistic exile)

So you yell or get angry at your spouse as a way express of your unmet need, by attacking their character, so in turn they feel bad about themselves and pull away from giving you the one thing you need.

Couples conflict is way to express unmet needs in the relationship  by discharging anger towards the partner who is deemed to have not met these needs, he becomes uncaring, unloving or selfish instead of saying I feel unheard, rejected. This in turn elicits a defensive reaction or a stone wall response  who feels attacked or accused. For more information contact 0449861147 or send an email