Stop Sucking At Relationships

https://beacons.ai/justinavictoria

 In this episode of So Hard, psychosexual expert Justina Victoria dives into the key components often missing in relationships, especially for those struggling with insecure attachment styles. If relationships feel like an uphill battle despite your best efforts, this episode is for you. Justina reveals two essential pieces to creating the relationship you've always desired—vetting potential partners properly and mastering communication, particularly around feelings, needs, and boundaries. Learn how to break patterns that keep you stuck and transform the way you approach conflict resolution, connection, and personal growth in relationships. Whether you're frustrated with dating or ready to give up on relationships entirely, Justina offers a path forward with actionable insights that will help you thrive in love. 

Transcript

 What's up and welcome to So Hard. I'm Justina Victoria. I'm a psychosexual expert for men and couples.  And today we're going to be talking about the missing piece of having a relationship that works, a relationship that,  yeah, like you can actually thrive in for once. 

 So this episode is really for those of you out there who really struggle with relationships, right?

Like for some reason, relationships are very difficult for you. You have an insecure attachment style and really no matter how much you want a relationship, no matter how hard you try, it just seems like it's not Working for you.  So we get into this place a lot of the time where  if you fail so many times or things just don't work out the way that you're trying to get them to, we can  feel like.

giving up, or just saying, you know what, I'm just going to be single forever. I'm just gonna, give up on dating.  It's just not, it's not going to work out for me. I'm just not good at relationships. And you can listen to my red flag episode as well, which is helpful in, identifying  Healthy people to date, but even sometimes with people who aren't perfect, right?

Cause we're not looking for the most perfect secure attach partner. We're just looking for somebody who is invested. That's it. So we got to ask the right questions to vet somebody properly in the beginning. That's the first important piece we have to ascertain whether or not somebody is looking to create the thing that we're looking to create, not dance around and hide our vulnerability and our desires and our needs in hopes that person will fall in love with us and then give us whatever we want later on.

That is. that is the formula for failure.  So if you've listened to, my other episode on red flags and vetting and stuff like that I might make an updated one as well after this,  but if you've listened to me talk about that that's just one piece of the missing. Components to creating that relationship that you really want to have.

Now, I'm speaking from experience because I was a person who was so driven to have, what I didn't have, what my parents didn't have, they were always fighting and they were always in conflict and they just did not understand how to resolve things, how to get on the same page, how to just  create a relationship that made them happy. 

And that's all I've ever wanted. And for me, it seemed like no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get there. Even as  doing this for a living, it was like, still felt like I couldn't get there. Like what the hell? And you start to internalize that at some point of what's wrong with me?

There's something wrong with me, right? So I want to share the two missing pieces that they were missing for me and the two missing pieces that I see for  the majority of my clients that are struggling with relationships. So the first piece is yes, vetting not understanding how to properly vet somebody.

So that means that you understand what you want and need from a person and from a relationship. And you are asking questions that are in alignment with those wants and needs.  When you meet somebody before you get attracted and attached to them,  there is no point in continuing to see somebody, spend time with somebody, have sex with somebody, connect with somebody, find them attractive, try to get them to date you.

If  you have not had a conversation, several in depth conversations about what this person wants and how capable they are of meeting another person's needs. So that's number one,  but let's say you're at the point where, okay, now you found a person who is like that and they're invested and they want this. 

The second part is being able to communicate  your feelings, your needs, your boundaries,  and to be able to resolve conflict masterfully.  So let's talk about the first one. Okay.  A lot of the time  we have this idea, most people have this idea that  relationships are very 50 50. Both people have to be putting in the exact same amount and blah, blah, blah for it to work.

But realistically,  one person has to change. That's what it takes. This is going off the idea that you've vetted your partner well, and this is what they want and they're committed to it.  But one person has to change for there to be an effect. Okay. So one question that I live by  on a daily basis, literally every night I ask myself this question, I review my day  and I have my clients do this too, is.

Did I stay the same today  or did I change in relation to my partner, right? In how I behave in this relationship,  the outcome cannot change unless I change. I always remind myself of that, right? So if you do not change, meaning that. You don't learn how to communicate in healthy ways that you don't learn how to validate and communicate your feelings, validate and communicate your needs, validate and communicate your boundaries, have good conflict resolution skills, right?

Then you cannot experience a different outcome than what you have already experienced. There's no way  There's no way. The only way that could happen is if you end up with a person who has like really secure attachment, they're very patient, they're very understanding and willing to do the heavy lifting in their relationship,  but  that's very hard to find when you have insecure attachment.

Let's just say that. You're just with another person, insecure attachment, and you both struggle with feelings, needs, boundaries, communication, conflict resolution, right?  You can only get the same outcome that you've always gotten in the past  if you do not intentionally change. So what does that mean, right?

There's so much information on the fucking internet, right? It's can you just tell me what I'm supposed to be doing?  So what you're supposed to be doing to change  is  doing the opposite,  right? So if you're a person who typically shies away from their feelings and doesn't share what they're feeling with their partner, right? 

You keep doing that, you'll get the same outcome. So we have to do something different, right? To share vulnerably, what you're feeling, But this is a tricky one. I would say the feelings one is the most tricky out of all of them because feelings that biochemical output that's happening in our body can convince us, seduce us into believing that what we feel is true and accurate information. 

So what's necessary is to  be able to share your feelings in a way that  is  How do I want to articulate this?  is skeptical of the  factual  basis of them,  if that makes sense. So you want to be able to share like, Hey, here's how I'm feeling  and follow it up with, here's what I need.  Okay. A  lot of the time when you tell somebody like, start sharing your feelings, they can go into the pattern of sharing their feelings all the time.

But it's It's coming out as negativity or criticism for their partner. And this is a relationship killer.  Want to be able to share our feelings with our partner in a way that doesn't blame them or criticize them or tell them that they're being bad. What we want is to take responsibility.

These are my feelings and they're mine. And here's what I need to feel better.  And to,  in the same vein, the goal is to be able to listen and hear and understand and mirror back how your partner feels as well without making them wrong or bad.  This I would say is probably one of the hardest things to do when you have insecure attachment.

Very difficult to not go into defense, to want to fight your point, make them see that how you feel is so important and that, but we have to practice being able to share, Hey, here's how I'm feeling. Do you know what I really need from you? Is that something you can do for me?  And that leads us into needs and  feelings and needs really feelings, needs, and boundaries are one system.

This is something that you likely have never heard before, because this is something that I this is a way of thinking about this that I created  that feelings, needs and boundaries are one system that they cannot be separated off and  worked on individually. They're all one thing.

So your feelings tell you what your needs are and your boundaries protect your needs.  You can't have one without the other. So if you're just sharing your feelings let's say  since I'm speaking to men, in this podcast, I'm sure you think about what it feels like for a woman to just share a bunch of her feelings with you. 

You're going to be okay, I hear you. We might get pissed off or you might have some reaction to it. But you're hearing what this person is saying.  And then what? What are you supposed to do with that,  right? The feelings are important, and it's important to be honest and transparent with what we're feeling.

But what's more important than that is isolating what we need and sharing it. So you think about a woman who comes to you and says, I'm just really upset about this and that. And I don't really understand, like, why are you acting this way? And I'm just so sad. And I just feel all over the place.

And I just need you to know this. I just need to tell you this. I just want to be transparent about how I'm feeling.  You're going to feel like,  what am I supposed to do with this right now? Especially as a man. But let's look at that from a different perspective. Let's say your woman comes to you and she says, Very simply,  you know what, honey?

I'm feeling a bit sad  and I think what I really need is a bit of time for us to just really connect one on one without our phones and to just, I don't know, ask each other some questions that  we could just be present and laugh and that would make me feel so good. That would really mean a lot to me.

Do you think we could do that?  See how different that is than, dumping all the feelings out and being like, here they are. There's no, how do you resolve that right? Without understanding what the person needs.  So  feelings, needs, and then boundaries are really important as a system, as a structure, they go together.

You can't really separate them. So  now  let's talk about. The other piece of this, which is  conflict,  right? Actually, before I say that it can be very difficult to share your feelings, right? But I find even more difficult to share our needs. For me, that, that was true. Learning how to, just one piece of that puzzle is just learning what you need, right?

That's number one.  I just have to get connected and figure out what do I need? Second piece is,  how do I communicate this? That's a struggle. If you come from a background where your parents were always criticizing, and they were they wrapped their need up in a big ball of criticism,  it's going to be hard for you To figure out, how do I communicate this? 

And when you start doing this, you're going to feel so uncomfortable, totally  uncomfortable. Like I had a client who reached out to me  on Instagram and he was like, okay,  I need to.  Ask my very avoidant partner for more connection. And that really isn't what he said. It was more like,  how do I get out of this kind of thing? 

Versus at saying, Oh, I need to ask for this need to get met. And we had to work through it.  When I tell you it was so hard for him  first, he was able to identify his need pretty quickly. He was like I think what I need is just to hear from her more often. Like it would be nice to just get a few more texts throughout the day and stay in touch. 

I'm like, okay, cool. Ask for it. And he's and it took him, I want to say probably about 45 minutes to an hour  To be able to even write out a text to send to me  asking for what he needed as a dry run.  And this is the same for me, when I  started to ask for things in a healthy and vulnerable way  without any criticism wrapped around that or blame or passive aggression or  Whoa, my, my mentor was like, okay, cool.

Let's take the three paragraphs that you wrote out about what you need and turn that into no more than three sentences. It took me a full  hour  to write down three sentences, what  I feel, what I need and what that would do for me. Could you do that for me? Or what that would mean to me? 

hour.  So if you're somebody, if you have an insecure attachment, you are going to suck at being able to identify and ask for your needs without a whole bunch of trust on that. But when you start to see that your partner responds in a positive way, because you have changed,  you want to do more of it.

You're like, wow, this is actually doing something. This is actually amazing.  So now the second piece of this that I was going to get into is the conflict, right?  So  if you grew up with insecure attachment, you are  going to have high levels of dysregulation in your nervous system, high level of production of stress hormones throughout your life. 

And areas of your brain are going to be a bit  different than somebody who grew up with secure attachment. For example, your amygdala, which is the aggressive center of your brain is going to be a bit enlarged. And so when you get triggered, it's going to be extraordinarily difficult for you to communicate and resolve.

That conflict.  So we have to practice just like anything else, right?  When we, the number one way to start  bridging the gap and resolving a conflict is to just see what your partner's trying to share with you  and to explain to them that makes sense.  Not I agree with you or you know what you're right and I'm wrong or you know they not getting to share what you want to say or whatever this is so hard with somebody who has secure attachment  to say you know what  I hear you.

I see your point of view, and that does make sense the way that you're putting that  and whether I'm right or wrong is irrelevant. I'm sorry if I made you feel like that. And also here's what's happening on my end.  And I really want to resolve this with you.  Okay.  So  when we go into conflict. We are reenacting what we were modeled as children, whether that was with the way that our parents interacted with each other, the way they interacted with us, which is typically one thing, we are going to start reenacting that we're going to start modeling that to ourselves, to our partner. 

And we have to get out of that pattern, which again, is very difficult when you have altered brain function, soon as we get triggered, get upset, get worried, get stressed, get pissed off.  Brain function is changing and  access to our prefrontal cortex, the logical thinking adult brain becomes inhibited.  We have to learn this stuff when we're in a chill, calm, relaxed state.  And then when we get triggered, we have to help ourselves access that information. We need to take a timeout,  right? So some of the really important things that I've learned that really help with conflict  that are very different from what I used to do.

Typically in the past, what I used to do was get really pissed off  or really anxious. And then I would go away and wait for my partner to come to me. And the longer they didn't come to me, the more pissed off or anxious I would become. And then I would start acting out. And when we get into that state, we want our partner to be the one that fixes it.

We want our partner to be the one that bridges the gap that makes it safe for us to come out of that defense mode. But we have to practice being that first person. Okay.  So these are a couple of things to remember. And these were the things that have worked best for me. Number one,  Seeing things from our partner's point of view,  taking responsibility for our part, even if it's only 5%, 10 percent taking responsibility for that,  taking a time out, calm down, cool off.

Think about what you really want to say. What is really important about this? Find the need. Because we could go around in circles for fucking weeks about who is right and who is wrong, it's irrelevant.  And the reason it's irrelevant is because it has nothing to do with getting our needs met, which is why we're in conflict. 

We're not in conflict because one person is, right and the other one's wrong. We're in conflict because a need is not getting met.  And we haven't figured out how to identify and communicate that same.  Okay. So being able to take a time out, think about it, take some responsibility, calm ourselves down, and then come back, ask your partner, are you ready to talk about it?

I'd like to talk about this and  to try your best to touch your partner, hold their hand, look into their eyes and say, Look,  I'm really sorry for X, Y, Z. Tell me what you want to say. I want to listen to what you have to say.  It's so hard when you start doing this. And what's important about this process is we're not doing this in a way like this is a pendulum right on one end of the spectrum.

We tell our partner to go fuck themselves right and we ignore them until they decided they're going to take responsibility or say they're sorry for something right on the opposite end of the spectrum. We're so anxious because we hate having conflict to that. We'll just, whatever I need to do to suit this under the rug, that is not a resolution of conflict. 

Conflict repair is vitally important, not just for a healthy relationship, but for the health of your brain and nervous system. Conflict and repair are a necessary biological, physiological, hormetic, chemical,  um, like  process. That's what I was looking for process that the body has to go through in order to heal what was not provided to us as Children. 

necessary process. So we can't  be, we can't evade conflict and repair through being passive aggressive, or leaving the situation. And we can't repair through  trying to hurry up and repair.  Because it's freaky to not be connected to your partner and to sweep everything. Oh, everything's okay.

And I'm so sorry. And let's sweep it on the rug. We have to approach from the middle ground to go, you know what? Conflict is inevitable because we're two different people with two different life experiences. We are not going to see eye to eye on everything, but to be able to bridge that gap of saying, you know what, let me listen to what you have to say and what you have to say, it might piss me off,  but you know what?

It's okay that you feel that way. It's okay that that you're, you feel like I did something to hurt you, even though it's not true. I didn't do that on purpose. I can just listen and I can agree  with you  that you feel that way.  I can validate that. Versus saying, no, you're wrong. You're wrong.

You're wrong. We want to get to the point where we validate our partner's feelings as quickly as possible. So that conflict is not going on and on because we're damaging our systems. We're damaging the relationship. We keep conflict go ongoing for long periods of time.  So conflict repair is a, biological, physiological, hormetic, chemical process that is. 

necessary in order to rewire the brain and nervous system for secure attachment, rewire the brain and nervous system to hang out in ventral or rest and digest, which is vitally important for our health and wellbeing.  We have to walk through that. We can't shut down or try to hurry up and sweep it under the rug.

Okay. I know this is a bit of information in this one.  What I really want you to take away from this at the end of this episode is to ask yourself if you're in a relationship now or you're seeking a relationship I want you to ask yourself at the end of every day, did I stay the same today? Or did I change?

Did I do something different in order to produce a different outcome? And that different outcome may not be that your relationship is going the way that you want it to go.  That is not a sign of  progress  if the relationship is perfectly going the way that you want it to go. Progress is that we are getting  stronger and better at communicating our feelings, needs, and boundaries. 

Because if you haven't done that, and then you get into a relationship,  sometimes sharing the truth actually can cause conflict. It can cause  the end of a relationship, and that's actually a good thing.  That is actually progress, even though it's not what you want.  So comes in different forms. Did I stay the same today or did I change? 

And the outcome, thinking of the outcome as like the totality of that pattern. Did I make an impact in the big picture? And not looking for immediate results from what you're doing.  Noticing if you're strengthening your ability to repair conflict, to share your feelings, needs, and boundaries in a way that actually promotes harmony in the relationship.

So I hope this was helpful and I will see you guys in the next one.