#48 5 Questions to Assess the Emotional Health of Your Relationship
In this episode, we're talking all about emotional health & safety in relationships. We'll be discussing some guiding principles and questions you can ask to assess how emotionally healthy your relationship is, and most importantly, what you can do to improve the emotional safety of your relationship.
In this episode, we're talking all about emotional health & safety in relationships.
If you've ever wondered what "emotional safety" actually means, look no further - we'll be discussing some guiding principles and questions you can ask to assess how emotionally healthy your relationship is. And most importantly, what you can do to improve the emotional state of your relationship - because let's face it, this is going to be a work in progress for most of us.
WHAT WE COVER:
the importance of feeling safe to voice needs, concerns & boundaries
why we should aim to navigate life's challenges as a team
the ability to safely & effectively repair after conflict
why we should be feeling loved, cared for & respected (most of the time!)
how your nervous system can give you insight into your relationship's emotional health
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
0:00:28.33 → 0:01:03.33
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. In today's episode, I'm going to be sharing with you five questions to ask to assess the emotional health of your relationship. So this is going to be diving into some of the hallmarks of emotional safety, emotional wellbeing, and we could say emotional green flags. Insofar as your connection with your partner is concerned, I think a really important thing to foreground at the outset is, first, that this topic is not intended for people who are in abusive situations or unsafe situations.
0:01:03.43 → 0:01:44.71
If that is the situation you're in, I really encourage you to seek support. That's not something that I can speak to in a podcast episode. It's not the scope of my work. So please take good care of yourself and be discerning. If that's you outside of that situation, please know that if you fall on what we might call the wrong side of the line in terms of the questions that I'm going to pose to you today meaning that you feel like you have a lot of room for improvement on the emotional health front, know that that doesn't mean that you are doomed, that your relationship is terminal, that you are in a toxic dynamic.
0:01:44.76 → 0:03:47.56
Any of those things that might feel stressful to realize, I would encourage you instead to take it as room for improvement, areas for growth, things to focus on, cultivating. Because the unfortunate reality is many of us, dare I say most of us without the knowledge and the tools will have had experiences with these less than perfect emotional safety kind of situations as we'll get into shortly. So those are just some caveats at the outset.
0:03:48.25 → 0:04:50.75
The first question is, do you feel safe and able to express how you're feeling to set a boundary to voice a need, or to give someone feedback without worrying that it's going to blow up or spiral into a fight, or that there will be some other adverse consequence? For example, that the relationship is going to end, that they're going to say they're going to leave, that they're going to say, oh, it's too much, let's not bother. Do you have a level of safety in bringing to your partner whatever it is that you're feeling or needing without having that fear of adverse consequence? So this is obviously really important to the emotional health of a relationship to be able to have that container of whatever is within me - of course, we don't need to give our partner the raw, unfiltered, high charge version of that - but being able to take what we're thinking and feeling to our partner to the extent that there's a conversation that needs to be had, I think this is really foundational.
0:04:50.85 → 0:05:50.46
Because in the absence of this, if we don't have that safety, then what happens? We tend to internalize that, suppress it, get increasingly frustrated, resentful, hurt, lonely, and then usually it comes out sooner or later, but it might look more like a volcanic eruption than a regulated conversation. So when we have that kind of dynamic, it really erodes the emotional health of the relationship and the sense of trust and safety. There something I should say on this one is that sometimes that's anxiety driven on one side. So for anxiously attached people, for example, they may very much struggle to voice those things, not because it actually would blow up into a fight or that their partner would leave them, but there is so much fear and anxiety around being too much, around being a burden, around pushing people away.
0:05:51.25 → 0:06:56.02
A lot of that is kind of mindset stuff and wounding around those stories that it prevents them from ever trying, from ever actually putting that out there, from sort of a hypothetical worst case scenario or fear. So I think it's important, and this probably goes for all of the questions we'll be talking about to ask is this a real thing relationally, or is this predominantly or at least partly my own individual work to do, and it's probably going to be a combination of both. So irrespective of where it's coming from, if you don't feel like you can bring things to the relationship because you think there's going to be some sort of adverse consequence associated with that, that is really going to impede your emotional safety in connection with one another. Okay. The next question is, do you trust that when life gets challenging, you'll be able to tackle those challenges as a team?
0:06:56.63 → 0:07:44.58
Or do things that are hard tend to divide you and turn you into enemies or competitors? So the kinds of things that I'm thinking in this question might be one of you loses your job unexpectedly or you get a challenging health diagnosis, or you have to juggle caring for kids or aging parents or anything like that just the vicissitudes of life. The things that do get in the way, that do make life more stressful and unpredictable, do those things tend to unite or divide you? If they unite you and turn you into a team, brilliant. That's a really good sign for your emotional health, safety and connection in your relationship.
0:07:45.27 → 0:08:59.83
If those things tend to divide you, then that's probably a good sign that when you do get stressed, your tendency is to feel again, if we're going to talk about this through an attachment lens, on the anxious side, you probably feel emotionally abandoned in those moments like you're not getting enough support from your partner. And on the avoidance side, you probably have stories around when things get hard, my impulse, my instinct is to go it alone because that is what I know at my very core, that when things get hard, I turn a bit insular and I just try and tackle that on my own. So if that is your tendency overall in the relationship, that rather than coming together when things get hard, you tend to be divided and sort of in your own lanes, that's something to be aware of and maybe talk about saying, hey, I noticed that when things get hard, it really impacts our connectedness and our sense of collaboration in our relationship. Would you be open to working on that? What are some ways that we could be more supportive of one another when things get hard rather than siloing ourselves and then feeling really alone?
0:09:03.84 → 0:09:37.96
Because I think that that can be a really disconnected experience. Okay. The next question I want to offer you is when you have conflict, as all couples will, if you never have conflict, I would say that is more concerning to me than if you fight regularly, are you able? To safely repair? Or do you tend to have a big fight and then run out of steam and then have some sort of half assed Band Aid apology, sweep it under the rug and then kick it down the road until you have the same fight again?
0:09:39.29 → 0:09:53.91
This is a really good example of most, maybe not most, a lot of couples do this. So if that's you don't panic, don't feel, oh my God, my relationship is terrible. What am I going to do? Should I break up with my partner? No, we can learn these things.
0:09:53.95 → 0:10:23.35
This is skill based, but it is really important and it's an important skill to learn if you want to have a healthy, secure, lasting relationship. So what does safe repair look like? I could do a whole podcast episode on that, and I probably should, but it's things like, oh, okay, can we hear each other in conflict? Can we engage with what the other person is saying? Can we validate their perspective even when their experience of the situation is different to ours?
0:10:23.45 → 0:11:11.87
Can we negotiate and find a healthy middle ground that acknowledges and respects both of our perspectives and our needs? In this situation, are we able to substantively engage with the underlying issues that might have triggered a surface level rupture? So these sorts of conversations, are we able to actually stay in the discomfort of rupture and repair? Or do we just tend to have these big explosive fights and then we kind of run out of steam and don't do anything to actually solve or at least address the underlying concerns? Because I think, as I said, if we don't do that, we will continue to have the same fights.
0:11:11.95 → 0:11:24.77
They might be triggered by different things. So one time it might be, oh, you're home late from work. And the next time it might be, oh, you didn't do the washing up or whatever. Right. It might be the most mundane things and they might be different every time.
0:11:24.89 → 0:12:00.27
But the underlying emotional complaint will be the same until you engage with and address that emotional complaint and it's accompanying need. Okay, so the next question is on the whole, and that's an important introductory qualifier to this question, do you feel loved, cared for, respected, and listened to in the relationship? So this is really a foundational right to secure relationships. We all want to feel loved, seen, understood. I could add those in there cared for, respected, listened to.
0:12:00.47 → 0:12:35.77
That is really at the heart of healthy relationships, of secure relationships. The reason that on the whole is important is that you aren't going to feel all of those things in every moment of every day actively from your partner. But when we can zoom out and go, what is the overall feeling tone of this relationship? Do I feel loved and cared for? Do I trust that my partner loves me, cares for me, respects me, and will listen to me, sees me, understands me?
0:12:35.89 → 0:13:24.99
Those really are such foundational needs as humans that I think having that overall impression of your partner and your connection with them in the relationship is important. I think when we don't feel all of those things on balance again overall, then that's a sign that we either have some real work to do around that going, okay, what would I need to feel loved, cared for, respected, understood? What are the things that are preventing me from feeling that? And how can we take really actionable steps towards me feeling that? And if you're not feeling that, there's a good chance your partner is not feeling that either.
0:13:25.14 → 0:14:14.72
Because these things, I think oftentimes when we're not feeling any of those things, we might be withholding that from our partner, from a place of self protection. So getting really honest with ourselves and this is probably a harder question to be honest about, depending on where you fall. And then if we are committed to the relationship and we do really want to work on the relationship, taking this one pretty seriously because I think it's going to be hard to sustain a relationship in which you don't, generally speaking, feel loved, cared for, understood, respected, listened to, et cetera. Okay, last but not least, how does your nervous system feel in their company? You know, I love looking at and working with the nervous system and weaving that into an understanding of our emotional experience.
0:14:15.57 → 0:15:17.76
So I think that when our nervous system feels at ease, feels safe, feels regulated in their company, that they are a natural co regulator for us, meaning that our systems sort of soothe each other and are a signal of safety to one another. That's a really good sign because our nervous system, our autonomic nervous system is subcortical, meaning it sits below our thinking brain, our prefrontal cortex. And so underneath all of the analysis and all of the thinking and overthinking and ruminating that we can do, there is this fundamental question of how does my nervous system perceive this person? Now, again, some of this will be historical. Meaning if you have had difficult relationships in the past, if you have trauma, then there might be a lot of projection going on there.
0:15:17.81 → 0:16:10.90
You might feel relationships broadly are unsafe, and therefore your nervous system registers your partner as threatening or unsafe, even if that is not in fact the case. So the fact that your nervous system perceives your partner is threatening and you feel anxious or shut down in their company, that's not necessarily a sign that your partner is in fact dangerous. But I think it's a really good sign in terms of the emotional health of the relationship. If your nervous system feels at ease in their company and if it doesn't, again, it's not terminal. There's absolutely things that you can do both individually and relationally to work on that, to provide more evidence of safety so that your nervous system can settle and that you can reap the rewards of that beautiful nourishing co regulation that we all need.
0:16:11.59 → 0:16:33.64
Okay, so that was five questions to assess the emotional health of your relationship. I hope that that's been helpful. I'll just quickly recap those. The first one was do you feel safe in expressing how you're feeling, setting a boundary voicing needs, and giving feedback without worrying that it will blow up into a fight? Do you trust that when life gets challenging and throws unexpected things your way, you'll be able to tackle that as a team?
0:16:33.69 →0:17:00.83
Or do those things usually divide you and turn you into enemies or competitors? When conflict does occur, are you able to safely repair or do you usually sweep things under the rug and put a bandaid on them until the next time you have the same fight? On the whole, do you feel loved, cared for, respected, and listened to in the relationship? And does your nervous system feel at ease in their company? Okay, guys, I really hope that this has been helpful for you.
0:17:00.87 → 0:18:06.82
As I said, don't despair if you feel like you've got some work to do based on those guiding questions. This is kind of the whole point of this work, right? That a lot of us do have work to do there, and it is ongoing work, but it is really fruitful, worthwhile, rewarding work, and it is within reach for all of us if we're willing to put in the time and effort to make it so.
#47 ‘We’ve been together a year and I’ve just seen he’s still using Tinder. Can trust be rebuilt?”
"We've been together a year and I've just seen he's still using Tinder. Can trust be rebuilt?" Today's episode is a community Q&A, and I'm answering a hard question about rebuilding after discovering a breach of trust.
Today's episode is a community Q&A, and I'm answering a hard question about rebuilding after discovering a breach of trust.
WHAT WE COVER:
things to look for when deciding whether to stay & rebuild after infidelity
the importance of the other person taking ownership & responsibility for the harm caused
what it really takes to rebuild trust
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
For a deeper dive on deciding whether to stay or go, check out Episode 19 of the show (Should I Stay or Should I Go?).
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
0:00:29.13 → 0:00:43.45
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. Today's episode is a Q and A, and I'm answering the question. We've been together a year, and I've just seen he's still using tinder. Can trust be rebuilt?
0:00:43.95 → 0:01:16.26
So this is a big one, and whoever's question this was, I got this one via Instagram. I'm sending you out a lot of love because obviously that's a pretty shitty situation to be in. So I'm going to be diving into that can trust be rebuilt? And the circumstances under which you might want or not want to go through that process with someone. Some questions to ask yourself, some things to look out for, and some guiding principles in my mind on how to make that decision and how to embark on that process together.
0:01:17.43 → 0:01:47.96
Before I dive into that, I just wanted to share the featured review, which says tell everyone you know Stephanie is the voice you've been looking for. She's distilled the weightiness of attachment theory into easy to digest chunks that can be applied to real life immediately. Though I previously felt I understood attachment, I was operating with an incomplete image for the first time. I not only know my attachment style, but what I can do about it to connect and empathise more deeply with those I care about. And honestly, I would listen just for a voice more regulating than any meditation I know.
0:01:48.06 → 0:02:13.73
I've told everyone I know about this podcast, and I think you will, too. It's truly important work, and Stephanie brings wonderful clarity and compassion to this project. Thank you so much for that lovely review. I really do appreciate it, and I appreciate you sharing with the people in your life. Word of mouth goes such a long way for those of us putting our work out into the world and trying to build small businesses, so I really do appreciate it so much.
0:02:13.85 → 0:02:54.16
If that was your review, if you could just send an email to podcast@stephanierigg.com and my team will set you up with free access to one of my Master classes as a way to say thank you. Another quick announcement is just to let you know that I'm running a flash sale on all of my Master classes and my Higher Love course. So you're able to save 50%, which is the biggest discount I've ever given on these with the code loveyou. One word that includes my better boundaries masterclass, sex and attachment, how to navigate anxious, avoidant relationships. Those three are all recordings of Live Masterclasses that I ran late last year.
0:02:54.21 → 0:03:19.88
They're about 2 hours each. And also my Higher Love course, which is a breakup course. It's six modules it's very comprehensive and equips you with everything that you need to get through a breakup and emerge stronger and more confident and more sure of yourself. So all of those are really great options. And as I said, those are the lowest prices that I've ever offered those for.
0:03:19.93 → 0:04:01.02
So if you've been thinking about going deeper with my work, now is a really good time to do that. Okay, so let's dive into this question of can trust be rebuilt after an infidelity, after a betrayal, in this case, having been together for a year and finding out that your partner is still on Tinder. So I think there are a couple of threshold issues here. Obviously, the first one is not can trust be rebuilt, but do I want to rebuild trust? The reality is that, unfortunately, betrayal infidelity dishonesty and relationships is shockingly common.
0:04:01.95 → 0:05:01.84
And unfortunately, it's something that many of us will have to deal with if we haven't already, through the course of our lives and relationships. I think what that means is that in reality, a lot of people do stay together and work through breaches of trust, betrayal, infidelity, and it can be done. I very much believe that it can be done, but I think we also have to be really clear about what that rebuilding process takes because it takes a lot. And in your case, you've been together for a year, and if your partner has been on Tinder that whole time that you've been together, query whether that is a breach of trust that you want to be working through. And I say that with curiosity for you and not knowing any more about the situation than what was included in the question.
0:05:02.37 → 0:05:21.35
Some of the things I'd be looking for personally are what's the context for this? What's the explanation? Did you discover that by sort of seeing the app on their phone? What have you confronted him about it? And if so, what is his explanation
0:05:21.45 → 0:06:12.22
Is he apologetic? Has hed any light on why he decided to do that and what that's actually led to, whether he's been meeting up with people, whether he's been sleeping with people, all of these things. I think we need to understand the gravity of the situation. I think one of the most important things to be considering when thinking about going through that repair process after infidelity is how much responsibility is this person taking? And if their response is to explain, to justify, to defend, to minimise, to downplay the severity of that, to come up with reasons why it's not that bad, that would be a red flag for me.
0:06:12.24 → 0:06:44.93
That would be something that would signal to me they're not really taking this seriously. They're not going to be willing to put in the work that it's going to take to rebuild trust here. And the work that it will take will be big. The reality is that the person who has done that, who has breached trust, has to go over and above to repair. They have to own their mistake, they have to own the consequences of their poor decision and the pain that they've caused.
0:06:45.03 → 0:07:47.85
So they have to be willing to maybe sacrifice some freedoms and some privacy and they have to bear the consequences of you not trusting them for a while, because that is the natural consequence of their behaviour. So if that means that you are uncomfortable with certain things, if you're suspicious, if you want lots of details and you want transparency I think that they need to be open to those conversations and they need to really realise that it's not status quo, it's not ordinary course kind of boundaries and negotiation, that they might not get as much privacy for a period of time because they've lost that right to privacy on account of their behaviour. And it's really on them to help you to be able to trust them again. I think a lot of people are hard on themselves and go, oh, I have trust issues because I was cheated on and that's a me problem. Yes and no, right?
0:07:47.94 → 0:08:27.68
We can do our own work around that, but a lot of it is going to be on the other person to help you to feel safe again, to ask you, what would you need from me by way of behaviour actions? Reassurance accountability in order to know that this isn't going to happen again and that you can trust me. And that needs to be a process that's really led by them. It shouldn't be coming from you, you being the one that's leading the charge on rebuilding the trust. I think they've got to, again, take ownership and responsibility for the harm that they've caused and be the one to lead that process.
0:08:28.37 → 0:09:18.01
So I'd be looking for signs of responsibility, taking signs for acknowledgement of the gravity of what they've done and willingness to engage, to talk about it, to repair. And that takes a lot, right? That's not an easy thing to do because I'm sure that they feel most people would feel a lot of shame and guilt and we tend to shy away from things that leave us in a shame and guilt spiral. That's not nice for anyone to have to sit with and to have to look at the impact that our poor choices have had. The shame that comes with that is not comfortable and so it's going to take a level of emotional maturity on their part to be with their own guilt and shame around what they've done, rather than to shy away from it, to dismiss it, to not want to talk about it.
0:09:18.13 → 0:09:49.11
Because I think for a lot of people, that's what happens, they just don't want to talk about it. They say things like, can't we just move on? Can't we just start fresh? And while we can understand why they would want that, it's really not sensitive to the other person's experience, who has been betrayed, who has had this real breach of trust and all of the pain and hurt that comes with that. So I hope that that gives you something to work with and to think about, things to look for in their response.
0:09:49.53 → 0:10:49.26
And I guess the hard truth is in the absence of those things, in the absence of this person taking responsibility and being willing to go above and beyond, to repair and to sacrifice certain things in order to support you in getting back to a place of trust and safety, then it may be that they're not really ready to be in that kind of relationship. And the hard truth is that it may happen again because if they're not really engaging with the severity and the magnitude of what they've done, and if they're not willing to face their guilt and shame, they're not willing to do the work to inquire around, why did I do that? What drove me to think that that was okay? All of these patterns, so much of the time, infidelity is driven by our own shadow and our own demons. And if someone's not willing to look inside and go, why did I do that?
0:10:49.71 → 0:11:16.82
What drove me to do that? What's going on for me that compelled me to behave in that way, then there's a good chance that it will continue to happen. Because as I said, I think so often infidelity is driven by our own woundedness. And so until they're ready to do the work there, there's a good chance that that will continue to happen. As I said at the start, I'm sending you so much love.
0:11:16.87 → 0:11:33.32
It's not a nice situation to be in. It's painful, it's hard, it's confusing. But I hope that this has given you something to sit with and some support. And I think the most important thing for you is to honour yourself here. Honour what you need.
0:11:33.37 → 0:12:25.27
And try not to agree to something less than what you truly need to rebuild trust just for the sake of holding onto the relationship because that's ultimately going to work against you in the long run, and it's going to cause you more hurt and pain in the long term. So try and stand your ground, try and honour yourself, get really clear around what you would need and then if this person is not able to meet you there, then maybe it's not a relationship worth persisting in and pursuing. I hope that this has been helpful for you. The question asker and for anyone else listening who has wondered about rebuilding trust or has faced a similar situation of infidelity, if it has been helpful, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a rating, a review. As always, it's much appreciated.