Heart Versus Head
A podcast that helps couples fight better and connect again.
Heart Versus Head
Halloween is a Relationship Holiday
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Is Halloween a relationship holiday? In this episode, Randy and Beverly explore the horrors of relationships, including the topic of attachment styles. If you've got ghosts of exes past, skeletons in the closet, or a mask you wear, this one is for you... because after Valentine's Day, Halloween might just be the 2nd best holiday to think about your relationship.
Heart Versus Head is a podcast about relationship styles and how those relationship styles influence communication in the most important relationships. The hosts - Randy Hampton and Beverly Craddock - are a married couple who are sought-after relationship coaches, award-winning authors and regular people who (like everyone in relationships) are just trying to stay connected through all the noise of life in the modern world. You can learn more about the couple and their work at HeartAndHeadCoaching.com, where you'll learn to fight better and connect again.
Welcome to Heart vs. Head, a podcast that helps couples communicate and fight better. Here are your hosts, Randy Hampton and Beverly Craddock.
SPEAKER_01:Hey everybody, it's Beverly and Randy from Heart versus Head. Welcome to the podcast. What are we talking about today, Randy?
SPEAKER_02:Well, super exciting. I think, you know, we the big event this week, we ought to be talking about the second biggest relationship holiday on the calendar. Halloween. Oh! That was a dog. I just don't know what you're gonna come up with sometimes. I don't know where she's gonna go with these things. I think Halloween is a great relationship holiday. I know everybody out there is kind of like, what's what's this guy talking about? You know, Halloween is not a relationship holiday. I didn't get you any candy. I I think it is a relationship holiday. Um, in fact, I I would say it's the second biggest relationship holiday after Valentine's Day. Here's why. Because in all of our relationships, we have these ghosts of our past relationships, we have skeletons in our closets, we have masks that we wear, and Halloween is a celebration of all of those things. So in my book, Halloween is a relationship holiday. So uh grab your partner, celebrate however you wish. Uh, enjoy your wonderful relationship holiday.
SPEAKER_01:Sounds like a lot of hooligans over there.
SPEAKER_02:A lot of hooligans over here.
SPEAKER_01:Um thanks for not calling me a witch. I appreciate that. Just some fun today. But you know, if you hang on till the end, we've always got some tips for you.
SPEAKER_02:That's right. We're gonna help you with some of these things about uh relationships, some of the scary things in your relationship. So real stories. Where where do we want to start, Beverly?
SPEAKER_01:Well, it's interesting because uh the fears that we feel, and let's face it, Halloween is all about those underlying fears. Told you a relationship holiday. Fears really come from the way you know our childhood, the way that we are programmed, usually as children, around uh how our our caregivers are. So a lot of times you'll look up and find uh attachment styles would be how counselors, and we're not counselors, but one of the ways that they can look at someone and put a label out there or or uh explain someone's uh behaviors or fears. So if you if you subscribe to that stuff, there's uh three or four different attachment styles. This is not uh our bailiwick, it's not really what we do as coaches, but it is interesting to to look over the fears. I like the way that it kind of sums them up into categories. And what we're all aspiring to, in theory, is being that secure attachment.
SPEAKER_02:So we're gonna talk about attachment styles today, some great work that is out there on it, and it can be really useful. You know, take what you can from everybody. There's things that that we may have completely wrong. There's there's certainly different ways, different perspectives to look at your relationship. Attachment styles is one of them that can be really useful to have some good conversations with your partner about how they are, how you are, and how everybody's feeling in your relationship. So attachment styles, Beverly, you said there's there's about four of those out there. You already talked about secure, which is the the the unicorn of relationship styles. Um, I would argue it probably doesn't exist. But Beverly, what are the what are the other attachment styles?
SPEAKER_01:So yeah, there are three others. Uh basically anxious attachment, which has a core fear of rejection or abandonment. Uh there's avoidant attachment, the basic fear is losing independence or control. And the third being disorganized attachment, which is the core fear of love being dangerous. I want it, but it hurts. And then obviously, just to cover the secure one, instead of having the fear, wouldn't it be nice to just know I'm worthy of love and others are reliable?
SPEAKER_02:Well, doesn't that sound nice? Secure unicorn. My little secure unicorn. Beverly is I actually a secure attachment style, so I get a I get a secure unicorn. And I think Beverly said it best when we talk about the fact, you know, we're not therapists, we are not psychologists or psychiatrists, we are social scientists who kind of take a sociological view of a lot of the things that go on in relationships. And so it's a it's different that way. But one of the challenges that I think we have as people that have have helped people for years is just the labels. And so don't get caught up in the labels. Beverly and I were talking about this this morning as we were prepping for the podcast and we were talking about me. Um, and I got a little bit caught up in the labels because if if I take the test, maybe as I am now, I'm probably I may lean a little bit more toward secure, but that doesn't mean I'm I'm fully out of there. I'm actually disorganized. I'm anxious, anivoidant, and completely impossible to predict sometimes. It's it's not about the label. Don't don't get consumed by this. This is not some kind of, you know, there's there's 75% of you out there that because there's three out of four, 75% of these are a mental illness. That is not the case. These are just our attachment styles, and they are created at a time when you really don't have a lot of control over it in your life uh as a kid with the attachment that you often need from the people in your lives that are supposed to give it to you, mom and dad. So we all develop attachment styles based on our lives and how we grew up and all of those things. The goal really, I think, when it comes to attachment styles, is to understand yours, understand your partners, and try to find ways to draw yourselves together. Now we were talking about some examples. We wanted to talk about maybe couples that that we've worked with that that are examples, and I I I picked one that that I thought, oh, this fits with the Halloween theme because it's the super scary dark one. Um and I'll tell it really quick. Uh, had a couple years ago that uh came in and uh there was some infidelity, he was cheating, she was angry, understandable, and everything seemed to be as presented as we were all sitting there all four of us together, and we split up and and and broke out into groups, and uh, and it was it was me and the guy, and he was talking, and he said, Yeah, it's not just that I've been unfaithful, it's that I've actually been unfaithful with this other person for a long time, and we have two children together. And that was his surprise that he he had never talked to her about. He eventually, in in true avoidant fashion, said, Well, I think you know, they're all crazy. I just need to get out of both relationships and start over.
SPEAKER_01:No, no, no. No, no, no.
SPEAKER_02:Holy cow. Um, thinking somehow it was it was them.
SPEAKER_01:I'm sure I'm surprised you didn't avoid us and just run out of the office at that point.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Well, once you, you know, once you once you hear the the the end of it. But um, that is not the story we've chosen because what we're not trying to do, this that one is scary. That one's a that one's a completely unlikely scenario. And your relationship is probably not that way. So let's come up with a an example of some of these attachment styles, how they they kind of function in relationships, Beverly, that may be a little bit more useful.
SPEAKER_01:So a couple comes to mind, uh, not from here, but what they were talking about is their relationship was going pretty smoothly for a few years, and then uh one was forced to go for a career change, the other one could not join them for uh another year or so. So doing the long-distance dating, which is always challenging, we know that it uh it comes with those challenges, but when they were apart, what happened was the anxious partner became very insecure, was starting to want more control over their partner's phone and locations, and where are you and what are you doing? And if you tell me something and it doesn't line up, I'm an investigator and it sounds like you're lying to me now. And are you cheating? And that all happened very quickly, and this other partner was actually an avoidant, and all they were doing was kind of running away from things and kind of white, white lying a little bit, not not full disclosure on some things, feeling very overwhelmed by an anxious partner who used to not be this way, but now wants to know my every move, and that felt a bit smothering. Very classic uh attachment styles here, and we could we could see it from the objective outside of you that, okay, this is this is really obvious what's going on.
SPEAKER_02:You probably see it maybe in your own relationship or with people around you, you certainly see it more more commonly, you know, as there's typically kind of one anxious partner and one avoidant partner is the most common kind of matching. Maybe it's that we see something in that that opposite. Maybe we see some some strength in an avoider. If we're anxious, we go, oh, they don't get anxious. Well, no, that's because they're not they're running away. And and so, you know, and then the the avoidant one says, Oh, I need somebody that can cling to me. And well, guess who's gonna cling to you? The anxious one.
SPEAKER_01:Also, I would say we're drawn toward the familiar. So if we grew up that way, somebody avoided us all the time, we're gonna go out and find a partner that avoids us without really realizing that's what we're doing.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely, you will recreate your chaos in a lot of these situations. The the purpose, I think, for Beverly and I to even have this conversation today, and I don't know, this is maybe my head perspective, kind of looking at it. It's not about going out and finding another person. It's just it's not gonna be any easier to figure that other person out because everything you figured out with your person now is probably going to be very, very different in them. What it's about is being able to step back, both of you, and say, okay, wait, I know a little about me, and I'm messy and crazy and anxious and avoidant, and and being able to say, I recognize those things in myself, I recognize what my partner brings to the table, now how do we both help each other get to secure?
SPEAKER_01:Right. And and just a quick way to imagine that if one partner is running and the other one is chasing, guess what? You're anxious and avoidant.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and that's so common. That's yeah, that's so common that we that you know that we see so much. The one partner is just overwhelmed and the other partner is like, Where'd you go? Tigger. Um, so it's it's a it's a challenge in relationships that you need to be mindful of.
SPEAKER_01:Right. How do we deal with this stuff? Um, there's a lot of different ways to to look at it. Uh very in specific relationships, we we provide that advice. But generally, the keys to breaking these cycles would be some self-awareness, recognizing your own triggers, like, you know, these these triggers of of things that that come up, the maybe the patterns, your skeletons in the closet per se, the things that are there in your past. And when this feels like that, then you're you're responding that way. Also paying attention to working on yourself first, that grounding and breath work, calming, when we can slow things down with our physical body and then also mentally with our thoughts. Now we're in a better space where maybe we can talk as two adults with our partner and begin to understand one another instead of accusing or freaking out about something. We can come at it very calmly and say, gee, I I I didn't hear back from you on that text yesterday. Was just curious, uh, what was up? You know, what's going on? Is there something wrong? Or uh which sounds way better than why the hell didn't you return my text?
SPEAKER_02:Well, curiosity will go a long ways. Ask some questions, not in an accusatory way, but in the way that they help you kind of flesh out in the relationship your own worries, your own insecurities, your own fears, as well as helping your partner kind of deliver some of those things. So curiosity will go a lot farther than accusation, always, especially if you're dealing with an anxious or an avoidant partner.
SPEAKER_01:And what's interesting is that because usually we're not the same, usually two anxious people are not together, two avoidance, that seems pretty logical. You're you're both running away from each other. That's probably not going to end up in a relationship, right?
SPEAKER_02:Two two avoidant people in a relationship are always headed in opposite direction.
SPEAKER_01:But so because we're opposites, which again is is the whole heart and head uh philosophy, when we're opposites in this way, we we really can actually help the other person. We don't have to trigger them and seem to make it worse. That's really one of the main points we try to get across with heart and head, is that being opposite is a a plus in your relationship. Because as Randy said, I tend to be a little more secure. I do have some signs of a bit of uh a little bit of avoidance, and some of that in a bit of anxious, it comes from being married to the alcoholic. If you followed our story, um, and and that was a long time ago, however, it was an experience that I went through, worked on it a lot. Uh, it can show up in stress moments. So one of the things is that obviously, if I'm a bit more secure, I am gonna be more stable with Randy. I'm going to provide more of that safety and secure open environment to where he can feel safe and therefore he's less triggered and so forth. But we also see it with avoidance. Um, they can also look over at anxious and they can realize that we really need to be consistent with one another and we need to communicate. And it's gonna boil down to those two things showing up with love, reassuring, reminding, talking about it, and doing that over and over with consistency. And you will eventually make a difference. So now I get to bring in my metaphor like I do.
SPEAKER_02:Um, great, a metaphor.
SPEAKER_01:Several years ago, as a single mom, we got this kitten, and my daughter had uh broken her arm, and I felt real bad for her, and she wanted a kitten, so it was my one thing I could do to help, I guess. So bring home this kitten, and it was fun and great, and we were playing with it, loved a kitten. It was time to eat lunch, so we we put it down so we could explore the house and it ran under the couch. And we were like, that's weird, okay, you know, so we pulled it back out of the couch, played with it some more, uh, let it go, it ran back under the couch, and it just kept doing this. And it seemed very odd because in the past, had a lot of kittens in my life, grew up on a farm, more kittens than probably most people, and just never really saw this response. I guess the kittens that I was used to were more secure, but this avoidant response was pretty crazy. So eventually we thought about it and we kind of figured out that we remembered when we got the kitten, the guy brought out a box, and in the box were this this mother cat and kittens, and he said he did it because he also had puppies and a dog. It was a college student, he hadn't spayed any of these animals, was surprised by the fatherhood of all of them. Anyway, so we were helping him out, taking this kitten, and uh it dawned on me, oh my gosh, this kitten was raised in a box. That is a pretty darn small environment to spend six weeks of your life never going into a house beyond a box, beyond a room, beyond a house. And when we took that kitten outside, holy cow, is that intimidating. I guess, you know, when you hit we see it in an animal, right? You see this animal that is uh avoidant, had never been out in the real world, it was going to respond that way. Nature kicks in, and this animal just doesn't, it's overwhelmed, it doesn't know. So, long story short, over a lot of years with this cat, its name was June, and we loved the cat, of course, and gave it a very safe environment. It it really learned and it and it got better over time. But it did take really a couple of years before that cat fully would relax around all of us, feel very comfortable in its environment. Uh, it was surprising that it would take so long, but it it did learn. And that is something about humans as well, is that whatever we experience in our past, we can't overcome that programming once we're given a safe place, an opportunity, and people who love and care and are consistent, it it did completely change that cat.
SPEAKER_02:Well, that said, I guess there's hope for me after all. I'm very glad about that. Thank you, Beverly, for saying that there is hope for for all of us that are messed up out there in the world. That is Heart versus Head for this wonderful relationship holiday week of Halloween. Hopefully, you and your partner are doing something special. Don't forget the couple's rule book on Amazon is on sale for the next few weeks. We're looking for some of you to maybe go check out that Kindle ebook at 99 cents, a mere 99 cents. Write a review. If you like this stuff, we're we're trying to pump up the reviews on the book because we're trying to start the next book. Actually, shh, don't tell anybody. We're working on the next book. Uh for a limited time. The paperback 999, the couple's rule book on Amazon. Beverly.
SPEAKER_01:Less than a cup of coffee.
SPEAKER_02:Less than a cup of coffee.
SPEAKER_01:Which one would help your relationship?
SPEAKER_02:A cup of coffee might keep me awake to have conversations sometimes. That said, Couples Rulebook is the answer to Beverly's question. Everybody have a great week. We will talk to you next time on the podcast. Thanks for tuning in.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks for listening to Heart vs. Head. You can learn more at Heart and Head Coaching.com and check out new podcast episodes every Wednesday. If you have a question for Randy and Beverly, send an email to info at Heart and Head Coaching.com.
