Kevin Thompson [00:00:00]:
Hey, welcome back to Change the Odds, the podcast where marriage and family were never meant to be. A game of chance. My name is Kevin Thompson. Blaine and Adrienne are back.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:00:06]:
Hello.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:06]:
Yes. Everybody good?
Blaine Neufeld [00:00:08]:
We're great.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:09]:
Okay. Yeah. No, no fights on the way here. No, let's just dive into that.
Blaine Neufeld [00:00:12]:
This with kids.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:00:13]:
Oh, it was a tough morning with kids. Yeah. But we're good. Yeah, we don't like our kids right now, but. No, I'm just kidding.
Blaine Neufeld [00:00:20]:
We united. We're united front to get them in the vehicle.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:23]:
Isn't it interesting how kids, sometimes parenting can completely separate you, and you have one theory, and they have another theory. And I mean, literally, there's few things that maybe cause Jenny and I more angst than parenting, and then other times, you're like, these kids have no chance. Like, we are united in this. They are wrong. We are right.
Blaine Neufeld [00:00:41]:
Yes.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:42]:
I love that.
Blaine Neufeld [00:00:43]:
Yes.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:43]:
All right, Blaney.
Blaine Neufeld [00:00:44]:
Love it.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:44]:
What's your opener?
Blaine Neufeld [00:00:47]:
Today's opener is. Is it important to have habits together or habits separate? Hobbies. Sorry, not hobbits. Hobbies.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:56]:
Hobbits. What about hobbits?
Adrienne Neufeld [00:00:56]:
Let's try that again.
Blaine Neufeld [00:00:57]:
Hobbies. Do we need our own hobbies, or do we need shared hobbies? What do we need as a healthy couple?
Kevin Thompson [00:01:05]:
Yes. I think both.
Blaine Neufeld [00:01:06]:
Okay.
Kevin Thompson [00:01:06]:
Absolutely. I think both. So if I get concerned whenever you see couples who do everything together, that, to me, is leaning toward enmeshment. So think about relationships. Here's what we want. We want, basically, the mean between. You can get it wrong on one polar extreme in. In that you're never together.
Kevin Thompson [00:01:28]:
You were living two parallel lives. That's disaster. You can swing it too far the other way in that you are just totally enmeshed. There's almost no difference between you and her, anything like that. Instead, you want this in between where there is this sense of us. Right. This is the book I'm writing right now. There is this sense of us, but there's also this individualization that happens.
Kevin Thompson [00:01:54]:
I am different than Jenny. There are things Jenny likes that I don't like. There are things I like, she doesn't like. So we'd spend time apart, but then we also spend time together. We have these things. Matter of fact, I think one of the best things a couple can do, specifically, if friendship has kind of waned a little bit, and, you know, you're raising kids and you got careers, and you've just gotten away from that initial friendship, one of the best things you can do is find a hobby that neither of you are good at and learn It.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:02:23]:
Yes. Like a shared experience.
Kevin Thompson [00:02:25]:
Exactly. Learn it together, and I think that becomes gold. What about y'all? How do y'all handle that?
Blaine Neufeld [00:02:31]:
Well, first off, what are. What's the hobby together that you guys love doing?
Kevin Thompson [00:02:34]:
So for me and Jenny, it is. It was tennis.
Blaine Neufeld [00:02:37]:
Okay.
Kevin Thompson [00:02:37]:
And now that we're older, it's pickleball.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:02:39]:
Which apparently is a sport that will make you live longer.
Kevin Thompson [00:02:43]:
Okay. Oh, there you go.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:02:44]:
That's great.
Kevin Thompson [00:02:45]:
I can buy into that. I can totally buy into that. So Jenny does not play golf. She thinks golf is. She has no problem with me playing golf. In fact, she probably likes me playing golf. Like, get out of the house. But she thinks it's a waste of time for her.
Kevin Thompson [00:02:56]:
Oh, too long. Takes too long. Too expensive. I got too many things to do to play golf.
Blaine Neufeld [00:03:00]:
Yes.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:03:01]:
Jenny, preach.
Kevin Thompson [00:03:03]:
So I play golf. You know, she does not. But then pickleball, tennis. That's our together thing.
Blaine Neufeld [00:03:09]:
I like that.
Kevin Thompson [00:03:10]:
What about y'all?
Adrienne Neufeld [00:03:12]:
We like to eat.
Blaine Neufeld [00:03:14]:
We like to. Yeah. Do we do too much together? That's my only question here.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:03:20]:
Yeah, maybe.
Blaine Neufeld [00:03:20]:
I don't know.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:03:21]:
I mean, you golf, though. You have your golf things.
Blaine Neufeld [00:03:25]:
Trips.
Kevin Thompson [00:03:26]:
There are. There are trips. But we don't have to talk about the fact that you tore your Achilles right after you went on a golf.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:03:32]:
Trip that you shouldn't have gone on our anniversary. That's a whole nother story. But that's.
Blaine Neufeld [00:03:35]:
You got your comedy thing. That's your thing.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:03:37]:
Yeah, but I like it when you're there.
Blaine Neufeld [00:03:39]:
I know.
Kevin Thompson [00:03:39]:
Yeah.
Blaine Neufeld [00:03:39]:
Yeah. We like to be around each other.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:03:41]:
We just like to hang out with people.
Blaine Neufeld [00:03:42]:
Yeah.
Kevin Thompson [00:03:43]:
Yeah, I think.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:03:44]:
And. Yeah. I don't know.
Blaine Neufeld [00:03:46]:
To come back to that.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:03:48]:
Yeah.
Blaine Neufeld [00:03:49]:
Think we do too much together.
Kevin Thompson [00:03:50]:
Oh, there we go. Oh, I did. I didn't even. I didn't. It's the opening. I didn't even mean to edge into an issue. Now I feel like you're going to have to pay a copay.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:03:58]:
You feel that way because you haven't been able to golf? Probably.
Blaine Neufeld [00:04:01]:
Oh.
Kevin Thompson [00:04:01]:
Oh, that's. That would make sense. Trapped, too. Oh, there we go.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:04:04]:
I've sucked you into mine.
Kevin Thompson [00:04:06]:
Okay, here we go. We got a topic today that is probably the biggest topic in secular psychology when it comes to marriage. Parenting. It's just the hot topic. And a lot of people in the church know about it. They've heard about it. Others have not. And that is the concept of attachment theory.
Kevin Thompson [00:04:25]:
Do y'all have. Have y'all heard about attachment theory? Do you know about attachment theory?
Blaine Neufeld [00:04:28]:
Heard people talk about It. I don't know. It.
Kevin Thompson [00:04:30]:
Okay. Yeah.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:04:31]:
I have a. A degree in family social sciences, so.
Kevin Thompson [00:04:34]:
Oh, there we go.
Blaine Neufeld [00:04:35]:
Just a small flex.
Kevin Thompson [00:04:36]:
So why. Why am I teaching this? Why can't you.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:04:38]:
I don't. I didn't. I don't use my degree.
Kevin Thompson [00:04:39]:
Because you didn't pay attention.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:04:41]:
I basically went to school to learn how to become a stay at home mom. I paid to become a stay at home mom.
Kevin Thompson [00:04:46]:
That's good.
Blaine Neufeld [00:04:46]:
She's killing it too, by the way.
Kevin Thompson [00:04:48]:
Very useful. So, all right, so let's kind of walk through. I'm going to walk you all through a scenario, and y'all tell me what you would expect to happen, and then we can take this and get into attachment theory. So imagine you have a room that's set up and it has a chair, clearly, for an adult. Little table there, but then it has a smaller chair and some toys that are there. Right. A room. You could say the size of room that we're in at this moment.
Kevin Thompson [00:05:12]:
So an observer brings in a parent and a child. We're going to say mom and child because it tends to be the mother, not always, but primary caregiver. Right. Kind of shows them around the room, gets everybody comfortable, and then the observer leaves. So let's think about. You have a mom and a child in a strange room. What kind of behaviors do you expect from this child now in this room that they.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:05:36]:
If they go to, like, check out a toy, they'll probably look back at their mom, be like, is it okay if I do this? Well, I know that one of them is a good attachment. Whether what they do or don't do depends on if it's strong or.
Kevin Thompson [00:05:48]:
Well, let's just talk about what we would expect. In a healthy scenario. You'd expect exactly what you're talking about, Adrienne. That child walks in, probably a little clingy, new space uncertain. The observer leaves, things begin to calm. The child's kind of reading. The parent goes and might go explore, might come back. Always kind of reading the parent, what's going on? To get a read for what's going on.
Kevin Thompson [00:06:10]:
Right. Okay. So stranger walks in. What does a child do? Healthy situation.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:06:15]:
Probably goes to the parent just to be like, is this safe?
Kevin Thompson [00:06:20]:
Trying to figure it out. Is this safety? Gonna read again. What's the scenario? What's the situation? Stranger stays for a while. The mom has a very intentional good interaction with the stranger. So what's happening to the child in this scenario?
Adrienne Neufeld [00:06:34]:
Oh, it's safe. I'll go back and play.
Kevin Thompson [00:06:35]:
Experiencing some calmness. Right. Mom leaves. What happens?
Adrienne Neufeld [00:06:40]:
And the kids. With the stranger. Yes, for my kids, tears.
Kevin Thompson [00:06:43]:
Yes, some panic.
Blaine Neufeld [00:06:44]:
For my kids, tears.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:06:46]:
Oh, sorry, our kids.
Kevin Thompson [00:06:47]:
Our kids. Let's talk about that. So, yeah, so now even the child was calm, but mom left. And now there is this angst of what's going on. Right. So mom walks back in the room. What does the child do? Runs to mom, runs to mom, runs to dad, gets calmed. Right, Those kind of things.
Kevin Thompson [00:07:09]:
Stranger leaves the room, and the child now calms, hopefully, maybe even returns back to play. Mom leaves the room. Now the child's alone in the room. What happens?
Adrienne Neufeld [00:07:20]:
Tears, probably.
Kevin Thompson [00:07:22]:
Probably more panic, more uncertainty, maybe goes to the door, might try to open it, those kind of things. Mom returns and the child gets comfort and eventually calmed, Right? So this is called the infant Strange syndrome. The strange syndrome in which they're taking a child and they're beginning to see what's the interaction between mom and this child in a strange place. And when a stranger is introduced and what Mary Ainsworth, John Bowlby are the kind of the founders of attachment theory, what they begin to find is about half the time what y'all described is exactly what would take place. But about half the time there were these other interactions that were just kind of unique and they're trying to figure out what's going on. So they would bring some children into the room, and the child would just never really calm, wouldn't go play. And even if they went and played the first time, once the stranger was introduced, they were clingy to mom, very difficult to calm. So when the mom walked back in the room, that child was more difficult to calm down, would stay, maybe cling completely to mom in the lap, those kind of things.
Kevin Thompson [00:08:30]:
Other children, when they walked in, they had no problem to go in a play. Matter of fact, when a stranger walked in, they would look at the parent to get a sense of what's going on, but wouldn't actually come all the way to the parent. So might get close. But some children would go in the lap. This child wouldn't maybe even touch what's going on. Right? And so they saw these two main interactions. And then on occasion, there was a very unique interaction in that they would walk in the room, the child would have very little to do with the parent at all. Stranger would walk in, they would run to the stranger.
Kevin Thompson [00:09:05]:
And then you're like, hang on now, what's going on here?
Adrienne Neufeld [00:09:08]:
That's concerning.
Kevin Thompson [00:09:09]:
Yeah. And so from this kind of test, early on in childhood, what they found, again, John Bowlby Mary Ainsworth begin to develop what they call attachment theory, which is this idea that how our needs were met in our first two years of life begins to determine how we view ourselves others. And then we would say from a theological standpoint, even God. And if our needs were generally met and our brains interpreted the things in a proper way, then we're going to have what's called a secure attachment. So we're going to begin with this concept of just two different types, and then we'll break it down from there. So you're going to have secure and non secure. It's going to be that simple. Secure and non secure.
Blaine Neufeld [00:09:55]:
I'm with us so far.
Kevin Thompson [00:09:57]:
We're going to simplify this for Blaney. So in secure attachment, it is this idea that your needs were reasonably met. Now, nobody's needs were perfectly met, right? We're all raised in a fallen world, but your needs were reasonably met and you begin to learn, my needs matter. I can depend upon others to meet those needs. Even if they don't meet them this time, they probably will meet them the next time. And so you create basically a proper view of yourself and others, how you can lean on people and depend on people. You learn how to recognize your feelings, get vocabulary for that. You will actually say what your feelings are because they're valuable and other people care and can maybe assist you in some way.
Kevin Thompson [00:10:39]:
Basically, kind of the way I think about it, in my mind, you have the ability to, right, place yourself in a situation. You're not overvaluing yourself, you're not undervaluing yourself. You kind of have a viewpoint of this is my place, right? So that's secure attachment. Non secure attachment is you've kind of have written a story that's incomplete. It's not wrong, it's just incomplete. And what happens here is you will either overvalue the power of relationship or your need for somebody else, or you will completely undervalue it. And so you'll live in. In denial of basically one of two things.
Kevin Thompson [00:11:24]:
Either you live in denial of your own worth apart from others, or you live in denial of your need for others. And either way, that's going to begin to create a difficulty. And so non secure attachment, primarily, we kind of narrow that down between anxious and avoidant. Now, the scenario I talked about, where the child would run to the stranger, that could actually be labeled disorganized attachment, which disorganized is an extreme combination of anxious and avoidant, basically. Oftentimes disorganized happens in the context of abuse of Addiction of abandonment. And so the brain has suffered so much trauma, it can't properly understand what it's supposed to do in any given situation. But for most of us, for most of us, we have some secure pathways, but then we also have these pathways of anxious and avoidant. And generally speaking, based on our childhood, we're going to lean toward one of those before the others.
Kevin Thompson [00:12:31]:
We have the ability probably to experience all of them, but we're going to lean toward one of those above the others. That is a brief beginning introduction, much more that I want to go through. But before we do, what are your thoughts on that? And can you. Is there something that maybe you don't understand or haven't clarified?
Blaine Neufeld [00:12:48]:
Well, no, I get it.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:12:49]:
Yeah, yeah, it all came back to me.
Kevin Thompson [00:12:53]:
Oh yeah, there we go. Yes. So now we can pass the test, right? So here's Dan Siegel, the guy I quote a lot down at ucla, right. Invented interpersonal neurobiology. He explains it kind of this way that you go up to a snow covered hill. Very Canadian illustration, right? You go up to a snow covered hill, there's fresh powder, right? Nobody's sled down this yet that you have the ability to sled down wherever you want to go down, right? So you pick a path and you go down it. You walk back up the hill. Well, now there's grooves that are here.
Kevin Thompson [00:13:27]:
You can still go wherever you want to go. But this is grooved in, which means if you go this way, you might be past the powder down to the actual ice. You can go faster, it's easier. You, you already know what it's gonna take. So you're most likely to go down that well. Now you walk back up. Well now you're almost guaranteed that you're gonna go this way. And you're still free to go wherever you wanna go.
Kevin Thompson [00:13:48]:
But you lean toward kind of this concept that's kind of the way it works with attachment. That early on in life we have these experiences and they get ingrained in our heads as pathways that we are to take. And then they just become the fastest way for our brain to operate. And the brain works in a way that it efficiency, it doesn't want to have to use too much energy, right? And so it just keeps on going down this pathway. But here's the problem. The way you and I reacted and responded to some early experiences got us through those experiences, but it may not be the proper way to interact in relationships now.
Blaine Neufeld [00:14:28]:
Okay?
Kevin Thompson [00:14:28]:
And so what we experienced in the past, the pathway that we experienced in the past, what saved us in the past, could actually kill us in the present. And yet what happens is we don't understand the pattern that we're actually falling into and how many of our choices. Here's the truth. Many of your interactions between Adrienne, you, and Blaine are actually choices of how you would have interacted with your past, not necessarily your present. You just don't recognize it because of the way the brain works. So think about this. We're talking about the memories in the first two years of life. Well, think about this.
Kevin Thompson [00:15:07]:
The structure for you to have explicit memory, meaning you know, that you're remembering, actually doesn't show up until about 18 months, two years, two and a half years. Right. You don't really have the ability to remember that you're remembering until you're maybe four or five anyway. And so. But what's happening is you do have implicit memory, which means those are memories that are written in your brain, but you don't realize that they are memories. Right. And so the structure for that, by the way, begins to show up. Siegel says, about seven months into gestation, which Siegel is going to actually argue that you and I actually have implicit memories in the womb.
Kevin Thompson [00:15:48]:
Wow.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:15:49]:
Hollow.
Kevin Thompson [00:15:50]:
Which kind of helps us understand why we get this feeling sometimes of this world isn't the way it's supposed to be. He's going to argue, secular scientists, that in the womb, your needs were generally met. You were forming a sense. We talked about this previously. You were forming a sense of agency that I'm separate, but you're clearly bonded with your mother. There is some predictability that's going on in your life. So there's this certainty. Right.
Kevin Thompson [00:16:13]:
Remember the ABC that we talked about in previous episodes, that you have that in the womb, you get evicted out into the world. Now you don't have those things. And some of the angst that we have is knowing what we experienced and yet not experiencing now. But we don't understand that we're actually remembering what was going on before now, as a Christian, I would disagree with Siegel a little bit. I would say, in part, not only maybe we're remembering the womb, I also think it's just elements of the garden that that is. You know, scientists have now proven that our genes actually carry with them some memory of trauma from previous generations. Well, if that's the case.
Blaine Neufeld [00:16:47]:
Hello.
Kevin Thompson [00:16:48]:
By the way, I mean, seriously, on a serious. This is one of the reasons that specifically in America, the black population, African Americans, do not live as long as many other races. In part, it is a carryover of slavery of the trauma that was there, and then all the racial tensions that people go, oh, that happened in the past. It doesn't matter anymore. No, no, no. It still very much matters. But it makes me wonder, does humanity carry with it memories of the garden from our first parents? Which in part begins to explain and helps us understand why sometimes this world just does not feel right. Well, why is it? Because we know there is right and that has been experienced in the past in some way.
Kevin Thompson [00:17:32]:
So it's hard to imagine that these first couple years of life are so formative for us, and yet we have no memory of them. But we're living out the memories every single day. Here's an interesting thing about implicit memory versus explicit memory. Implicit memory presents itself as the present.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:17:52]:
What?
Kevin Thompson [00:17:55]:
So explicit memory. If I ask you, what did you do yesterday? You know, you are remembering, and that's. That's explicit. Explicit memory, yes. Very obvious memory. Implicit is you're living out of a memory, but you don't recognize it. So it expresses itself like the present. Here Siegel tells this story.
Kevin Thompson [00:18:16]:
Think about this. He works with a child, Very abusive situation. A child in, like, his father's abusing him. And so Dan Siegel comes in. He's a therapist now for the child. The dad goes to prison. All these kind of things. The child does remarkably well.
Kevin Thompson [00:18:31]:
They get him into a very healthy place. Second grade, third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade, sixth grade. All these things are going great. Suddenly, he gets into seventh grade, and the child is not doing well. And Siegel's trying to figure out what's going on and how is this. He puts all this together, and he goes and sees the father in prison to try to figure out what's going on. And he just asked the father a series of questions. Basically, Siegel had gotten with the teacher.
Kevin Thompson [00:18:56]:
Think about it. You're changing teachers every year. Siegel had gotten with his teacher to try to figure out what is it about this teacher that could be triggering this child. This teacher was a man. Siegel asks him all these questions, goes into prison, begins to ask the father all these questions, and here's what he found. The same aftershave.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:19:14]:
The smell.
Kevin Thompson [00:19:15]:
Oh, gosh. The teacher wore the same aftershave as the dad wore. And so whenever that kid walked in, he would have no memory, no explicit memory of the abuse. But that abuse is written on his brain. Wow. And he smells it. Now, think about this. He doesn't know he's remembering.
Blaine Neufeld [00:19:36]:
No.
Kevin Thompson [00:19:36]:
So it presents as the present. Yeah, I am presently in danger, Even though it's an implicit memory from his Past. But there was no way that he would have the ability. And basically, Siegel got the teacher to change aftershaves. Oh, my gosh. And it changed and the student thrived. Come on.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:19:54]:
Wow.
Kevin Thompson [00:19:55]:
Those are the things written on our brains that we don't recognize. And so for many people, couples specifically, we are living out patterns from our past, and we don't understand that and don't know that. And when you and I don't have any comprehension of who we are or how we became us, it is not unusual for us to continue to experience frustration in specific relationships. And think about this. If it's an implicit memory so we don't know we're remembering, it presents itself as a present. So it becomes either their fault.
Blaine Neufeld [00:20:33]:
Yeah.
Kevin Thompson [00:20:33]:
Or something's just broken with us and we don't recognize that what we're doing is we keep on going down the same pathway that we used in the past that was functional then, that is actually very destructive now. Wow.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:20:48]:
Is this where, like, therapy could come in and help you diagnose, like, some of those implicit.
Kevin Thompson [00:20:55]:
Yeah. No, I think so. But beyond that, I don't think we all stand in need of therapy necessarily as much as let's begin to look at some patterns that we have. And so to begin to ask, okay, let's say, you know what, I have some very secure pathways and patterns. That's great. Anxious and avoidant, non secure. Do I have tendencies there? And if so, what does that look like? And we can begin to look at. There's some great online assessments that we can take that begin to give us some kind of insight of the ways in which we might go.
Kevin Thompson [00:21:26]:
So generally speaking, Siegel is going to say, don't even look at yourself as having a primary pathway. Instead, begin to look at relationships and to say, okay, what was my relationship with my mom? As I look at patterns that are there, what does it look like? What was my relationship with my dad? Okay, what were the patterns that were there? And generally, whatever their primary pathway was, our relationship with them will be. So the parents kind of dictating the relationship we'll have with the child, and then those become tools in the toolbox that we then have. So I can look back at my own childhood, two extremely loving parents. I think this is important to understand is there are situations in which parents can make bad choices, have bad intentions toward children. No doubt, for many of us, we had great parents, but that does not automatically mean that we are securely attached. And if we have some non secure pathways, that doesn't mean our parents failed it means it could be circumstances. It could be.
Kevin Thompson [00:22:24]:
I think about this all the time with Silas. Is it possible that having an older sister with special needs, we were so fixated on her at times. Is it possible there were times that we just missed some of the needs that he had?
Blaine Neufeld [00:22:36]:
For sure.
Kevin Thompson [00:22:37]:
And if so, how did his brain begin to categorize that? Right. What did that look like? I remember years ago, I was sitting in a restaurant, and maybe you've heard me tell this story, but sitting in a restaurant. And so basically, a situation just like this. I had called my buddy that I had known since second grade, said, hey, you want to go to lunch? And he goes, man, I'd love to, but I'm taking my wife to lunch, but we'd love it if you would join us. And I'm like, all right, let's go. Right? And so now I'm the third wheel, right? On their little day. But they said they were happy to be there. So we're having a conversation, and his wife is talking, and I'm listening, and she just stops, and she goes, why aren't you listening to me? And I wanted to say, I don't have to because you're not my wife.
Kevin Thompson [00:23:19]:
No pressure. But I said, hey, just right behind you, over your shoulder, there's this older lady who is trying. Is really struggling to chew up her barbecue. We're in a small barbecue restaurant, right? Maybe 10, 15 tables. And I was watching her, and I was concerned that I was going to have to go over and do the Heimlich, right? So I'm listening, but I'm also looking at what's going on in this other situation. We talked on a previous episode. That's a dyadic view of attention, right? So I'm trying to piece it all together, but my friend's wife had this very insightful question. I thought she said, kevin, what else do you see? And I said, what do you mean? And she goes, what else in the restaurant do you see right now? And I was like, oh, wow.
Kevin Thompson [00:24:06]:
Well, over in the corner, there's a mom getting onto the little kid. And the mom's on the phone, and the kid's acting up. The kid just wants the mom. It's. And the only way he can get it is through this negative behavior, because if not, she's just on her phone. And you think about how that's gonna play out in the teenage years. Because it's one thing to be screwing around with assault right now, but what happens whenever you're 15 trying to get your Mom's attention. And you see this table over there? There's three guys.
Kevin Thompson [00:24:30]:
Normally there's four, but the last time I was in here, when there were four guys, the one guy did not look very well. I wonder if he's in the hospital right now, and if so, do I need to go check on him in some way? Right behind us, there's a boss getting onto a young employee and just kind of ripping him. And my guess is by listening to this conversation is it's really not the young employee's fault. I wonder what's going on at home with this guy. I wonder what business is like and this is just the only place he can take it out. If you notice our waitress, I know her well, she's great. She's married to the owner. They both own this restaurant.
Kevin Thompson [00:25:02]:
She waits. He kind of is back. But this is a tough time for. I wonder how that's playing out in their marriage and how difficult. So I literally go through almost every table at this restaurant just looking at my friend in the eye, and she goes, why? Why do you do that? And I told her, I said, I don't know any other way. Well, what is that? In part, it's anxious attachment. In part, it is this hyper awareness of everything that's going on around me and almost this expectation of self that I have to be useful and I have to take care of these situations. Because at any moment something could go wrong.
Kevin Thompson [00:25:45]:
And if so, who's going to take care of that? It's going to be me. Well, where does that come from?
Adrienne Neufeld [00:25:50]:
You felt that as a child, something.
Kevin Thompson [00:25:53]:
There's something there. And you can begin to probably piece together possibilities. Not saying that this is it, but possibilities. So my parents are divorced. So they divorced when I was very young, remarried each other for most of my childhood, then divorced later. But think about early on, little Kevin Thompson.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:26:09]:
You're the oldest child?
Kevin Thompson [00:26:10]:
No, I have a sister that's four years older than me. So think about. I'm one years old, right? So explicit memory hasn't formed yet. I really don't have the ability to remember, but implicit memory is very much there. So imagine my parents struggling within their marriage. They love each other, they love me, they love my sister, but they're just struggling to figure it out, right? So a part of that requires a separation. My dad leaves, and so here I am at one now, trying to make sense of he's here, but he's not here. What's going on with this, right? So my mom now having to raise my sister and I has to be tougher on my sister in part, right? She's going to have explicit memory.
Kevin Thompson [00:26:53]:
She could, I don't know, we've never talked about this, but it's been said that it's easier for a child to write a negative story about themselves than it is to write one about their caregivers. So a child in that situation will very naturally begin to assume they have done something that's creating the tension within their parents. So I don't know if my sister wrote that story or not, but very possible that my sister's feeling that my mom's having to comfort her even more. My mom's going through her own anxiety, right? My dad wants to be there but can't be there as much as he wants to be there. My little brain's at work, right? Even, let's say, let's say even when my mom picks me up, my mirror neurons are now bathing in the anxiety that she has to be experiencing as well. And so just common sense would tell you that because of everything going on here, there are times in which I'm going to have need and I'm not going to be seen. But there are going to be other times in which I don't have need. But people are going to come and maybe pick me up because they're actually trying to soothe themselves.
Kevin Thompson [00:27:54]:
So the way my brain interprets that primarily is I know the joy and the I know what it's like to be seen and soothed and secure in the arms of somebody else. I need that. So my brain goes into this hyper alertness and awareness of I desperately need relationship with other people. But be careful because that can hurt. And so I will pull you in and then sometimes be like, are you going to be there for me or not? So I desperately need you. Matter of fact, I don't know who I am without somebody else. But even whenever they're close, I can have a skepticism toward what's going on. Somebody else could have very easily written a pathway in their brain of I've seen the pain of relationship, I don't need anybody.
Kevin Thompson [00:28:47]:
So that would be avoidant attachment of I'm going to keep it at arm's length because if I let somebody close that's going to hurt. Whereas anxious attachment is I'm going to be hypersensitive to the idea that you may not like me and I'm going to pull you close because I can't. And so I'll have a tendency of over reading into things of literally if I'm talking here Right now, I can be like, I'm talking too much. Are they bored? And literally try to take care of you in this with the thought of, if I can take care of you, maybe you'll take care of me, maybe you'll be indebted to me in some way, right? And so this anxious and avoidant pathway. Now notice this. Here's how skilled I am. I can actually do both. And so I think this is my own interpretation.
Kevin Thompson [00:29:37]:
I think my mom, with a more anxious pathway, I have that kind of relationship with her, right? Don't forget she lived next door to me in Arkansas. Let's take care of her. Right? Noble. But is it a little bit enmeshed? I don't know. And then with my dad, it's a more avoidant kind of pathway. It's more of let's. I mean, we can. We can talk about real things and those kind of things, but every now and then, it's just a little bit more at an arm's length of let's not.
Kevin Thompson [00:30:04]:
Let's not dive into that, right? And so think about with Jenny, right? So now I have this history, right? I can be more anxious, like my relationship with my mom. I can be more avoidant, like my relationship with my dad. Well, Jenny comes along. Jenny's securely attached, right? Has a good sense of herself and others. Well, she has to look at me sometimes and think, what in the world is going on? Right? And so when I understand who I am and how I became me, now we can begin to get to work on this. And here's what Siegel says that I think. So beautiful is, even if you don't really have a secure attachment, you can have what's called a learned security.
Blaine Neufeld [00:30:45]:
That's cool.
Kevin Thompson [00:30:46]:
An earned security. And by the time I started studying attachment, hearing this language, the first time I read it, my first thought was, oh, this is what Jenny has done for me.
Blaine Neufeld [00:30:57]:
Wow.
Kevin Thompson [00:30:58]:
Because I have found a health with Jenny that I haven't had another relationship. Now, it's taken a long time to get there. I think I've told you all before. You know, it took me 10 years before I could tell her I didn't like something she cooked.
Blaine Neufeld [00:31:08]:
Right.
Kevin Thompson [00:31:09]:
Right.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:31:09]:
So you were afraid it would ruin everything.
Kevin Thompson [00:31:11]:
I was afraid. Anxious attachment.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:31:13]:
Yeah.
Kevin Thompson [00:31:13]:
Think about what happens oftentimes in anxious attachment is I'm worried about being too needy. So if I express my needs, if I express my opinion, that might be too much for them, and they might leave me. And that's my great fear. And so what happens is I can actually hold back parts of my heart out of fear of if they see the whole thing, they're going to run. And I can't take that. Now. Think about how unfair that is for Jenny and for others. They just want to be in a.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:31:44]:
Relationship with me, but they can't.
Kevin Thompson [00:31:46]:
They can't fully. No. Because I'm holding it back.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:31:49]:
Yeah.
Kevin Thompson [00:31:50]:
Well, why am I holding it back? Out of fear of losing them. But here's the irony. If they get a sense I'm holding it back, I might lose them. The very thing I'm doing to prevent an outcome actually causes the outcome. So let's go with somebody with avoidant attachment. Somebody with avoidant attachment, they might have grown up where they don't even understand they have needs. Nobody was there to really be consistent in recognizing them and meeting them. And so this is why a lot of men, specifically, they don't know what they're feeling.
Kevin Thompson [00:32:25]:
They have no words for what they're feeling.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:32:28]:
I'm the man in the relationship.
Kevin Thompson [00:32:30]:
And even if they did, they wouldn't say what they're feeling because why does it matter? Because nobody's going to actually be there. Right.
Blaine Neufeld [00:32:36]:
I've been there, babe.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:32:37]:
Thank you.
Kevin Thompson [00:32:38]:
Think about what happens there. So, Adrienne, let's say you have a more avoidant. Let's say you have an avoidant pathway that you can go to if you need to. Here's the problem. When you don't share what you are feeling, when you don't recognize what you are feeling because the fear can be. This is going to be too overwhelming. So somebody with an avoidant attachment can see a relationship more as. The great danger is that the restriction could stifle my freedom.
Kevin Thompson [00:33:08]:
Right. Which, by the way, would go back to previous episodes if you are a nine on the enneagram, that idea of agency. Right. That would tie in directly into that. That if agency is your primary thing, a relationship can be a little. The danger of a relationship could be it could encroach on that agency. Right? But here's the challenge. Somebody with avoidant attachment can shut down, can kind of basically take a step away when they feel threatened.
Kevin Thompson [00:33:36]:
But what that does is that invites their partner to come get them. You're inviting the very thing you're running from. You're actually inviting it now from your partner, which, again, the very outcome you're trying to prevent is the one you're actually trying to cause. And so think about what happens now in. Because it's not uncommon at all for somebody with an anxious attachment. Somebody with an avoidant Attachment to be in a relationship. It's the second most common form of relationship. Secure.
Kevin Thompson [00:34:05]:
Secure would be the most common, but anxious and avoidant would be the second most common. Well, in that scenario, you can get into what's called the infinity loop, the negative cycle, to where somebody with an anxious attachment, terrified this other person is going to step away from them, over reads into it and reaches for them when there's not even a danger. Somebody with an avoidant attachment can always be afraid the relationship's gonna be too demanding of them. Can read into situations that aren't even true of, oh, they're trying to encroach on me. Can step away.
Blaine Neufeld [00:34:36]:
Wow.
Kevin Thompson [00:34:37]:
So if you step away, Blaine steps toward, causes you to run away, causes him to chase even more. And here's what happens in a lot of fights. This is called the negative cycle. You can look it up. It's everywhere. The infinity cycle. Here's what happens a lot of times is whatever causes it, anxious or avoidant, doesn't matter. Something triggers one of them, and either the anxious reaches toward or the avoidant steps away.
Kevin Thompson [00:35:01]:
Either way, it doesn't matter. But that first thing happens, causing the other one to do what comes naturally to them. And so now you have a pattern. The avoidant is trying to distance. The anxious is trying to chase down. They speed up. And this pattern, now they're running the avoidance running from the anxious. The anxious is trying to chase.
Kevin Thompson [00:35:18]:
Right. And this could last a day, it could last a week, whatever. It's exhausting. And eventually they get tired, and somehow they reconnect. Somehow they reconnect. And in that moment, they experience this closeness. Their needs are met. But notice how the story is then written in each of their heads.
Kevin Thompson [00:35:38]:
The person with avoidant attachment and the person with anxious attachment. The person with anxious attachment thinks to themselves, we have had a breakthrough. We have just connected in a way that we never have before. Breakthrough. This is how it forever will be, right? The person with an avoidant attachment thinks, oh, I appease them. I'll never have to do that again.
Blaine Neufeld [00:35:57]:
Wow.
Kevin Thompson [00:35:58]:
And the next fight set up. And basically, we're living out our attachment without any awareness of what's going on. And we begin to write the story. Something's wrong with them. Something's wrong with me. Marriage itself is ridiculous. And what we don't realize is we're living out these very predictable patterns that actually can be changed. But to change them, we have to know them, recognize them, understand them, and then choose a different pathway.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:36:26]:
I think what you were describing there was Our dating life. And we dated for a long time. Six years.
Kevin Thompson [00:36:32]:
Oh, there you go.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:36:33]:
And I think.
Kevin Thompson [00:36:34]:
What did that look like?
Adrienne Neufeld [00:36:35]:
I think I was a void. I didn't want to tell you my feelings. Whether it was because I think it was more just in, like, being vulnerable. I just, like, I don't want to feel. And then he'd be like, no, you need to tell me. Like, we need to work this out. And I'd, like, it would push me away. And then he would chase, right?
Kevin Thompson [00:36:49]:
Oh, yeah.
Blaine Neufeld [00:36:50]:
Oh, yeah. Go ahead.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:36:51]:
Keep going.
Blaine Neufeld [00:36:52]:
Okay. So then it went all the way until probably the second or third year in marriage. So now we've moved to Vancouver and we're married. And it is the worst part of our marriage, looking back by far. And she's at a breaking point. And I am like, okay, let's figure this thing out. We find a good connection at Village Church. Donna.
Blaine Neufeld [00:37:15]:
Right. We go sit with her and we just start talking. Right. And so then we start talking about our fights. And so how, when I'm trying to get this answer from her, let's figure this thing out. Today. She's running away because it's overwhelming.
Kevin Thompson [00:37:30]:
Oh, yeah.
Blaine Neufeld [00:37:31]:
Yeah. She can't process the thought and she can't argue. So it's not a fair fight. As soon as she said, if Adrienne can promise you that she will come back to the fight the next day to solve the problem, are you okay with giving her space? And I was like, well, yeah, I just want to figure out the problem. But as long as I know that she's going to come back, I'm good. Right? I'm totally good. And then she was able to think through her argument, her reasoning, figure out what I'm feeling. Her feelings.
Blaine Neufeld [00:38:01]:
Right. And I could then finally hear her feelings. So it's ironic is we both want the same thing. We don't know how to get there, and we're forcing ourselves to the point of complete breakdown because we're trying to solve the problem, but we don't know how.
Kevin Thompson [00:38:14]:
Yeah. No, absolutely. And so what an outside source gave you was a new pathway of how to navigate this.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:38:23]:
Yeah. And we've taken that into our marriage, completely changed our marriage.
Blaine Neufeld [00:38:28]:
We probably should email her and thank her.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:38:30]:
We should. Because not that we don't fight, but now we know how.
Kevin Thompson [00:38:33]:
Yes.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:38:33]:
Yeah.
Blaine Neufeld [00:38:35]:
And then true. Like, the. The healing side of it or the learning piece of this, like you're saying, is we've seen that to the point now where I think at times we take it for granted that we Put in a lot of work. Our marriage is great. Right now, we're just sitting in the car saying, our marriage is awesome. This is fun, fun season. But we forget it's not just like click of the button. And we've been blessed with this.
Blaine Neufeld [00:38:57]:
We work too.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:38:58]:
Yes. Because with dating and marriage, we've been together for 20 years. We started at 16, 17.
Blaine Neufeld [00:39:03]:
So there was tons of tears, There were tons of fights and uncertainty and all these things. But now we're at a spot where, for example, I can kind of know. I know myself, I know her. So therefore, when she has an emotional outburst, let's say, which I do, I know it's not her attacking me. So therefore, I can just let it sit.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:39:27]:
And you used to take it personally.
Blaine Neufeld [00:39:28]:
I would take it personally. And then it would progress into so many other things in terms of the marriage and be like, she doesn't love me. I'm worthless. I'm this, I'm that. I might as well.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:39:39]:
Would that be an anxious attachment?
Blaine Neufeld [00:39:42]:
I might as well just go to work where I find some value and. And some happiness. And so then I was working from 8 till 8pm and the texts were coming in. That was another thing that Donna was really good at talking. She's like, read your texts out loud. When are you coming home? What's for dinner? What's this?
Adrienne Neufeld [00:39:58]:
Why are you choosing work over me? You like this more than me. Da, da, da, da.
Kevin Thompson [00:40:02]:
And notice what could be happening here. I don't know. But what could be happening here is you could both be kind of vacillating between an anxious and avoidant, because that could be a much more anxious. That could be a much more get here. Come on. Come home. No, absolutely. And then a couple of things y'all said that I find so interesting is, first of all, let's go with the 20 years.
Kevin Thompson [00:40:23]:
How easy is it for couples to look from the outside in at a relationship y'all have and think, oh, man, I would just want a marriage like that. Oh, yeah, Absolutely.
Blaine Neufeld [00:40:32]:
For sure. Yeah.
Kevin Thompson [00:40:33]:
What they miss is it's taken years of work to get there.
Blaine Neufeld [00:40:37]:
Yes.
Kevin Thompson [00:40:37]:
And so the question becomes, are you now willing to do the work?
Blaine Neufeld [00:40:40]:
Yes.
Kevin Thompson [00:40:40]:
Because I could be wrong. I don't think that I am the type of marriage that you have. I'm not saying it's perfect in any way. Jenny and I joke about this all the time. Is our marriage is perfect on the Internet, not in real life. Right. But I feel like what Jenny and I have, what you all have, is available to a lot of People, not all, but available to a lot of people. But it's at the other end of a lot of work.
Kevin Thompson [00:41:03]:
And so for Jenny and I, we're coming up on our 25th anniversary and people want what we have now, but they don't recognize it's two and a half decades to get to this place. Right. And then the other thing I think to recognize too is in part, y'all kind of just illustrated what we talked about in a previous episode, that Blaine, if you have an agency outward kind of personality, and Adrienne, yours is more agency dyadic then agency outward. Let's solve it now. Let's fix it now. Right. Well, that's gonna be overwhelming for you.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:41:37]:
Yes, it is.
Kevin Thompson [00:41:38]:
You're gonna need time to process, to figure it out, because you don't wanna be unfair, you don't wanna have an emotional outburst that you wanna control that. Right. And so you wanna make sure that you're expressing that in just the right way. Peace is gonna be very important to what's going on. And so Blaine understands. Let's fix it to get the peace.
Blaine Neufeld [00:41:57]:
Yeah.
Kevin Thompson [00:41:58]:
Well, that is causing disruption. Correct.
Blaine Neufeld [00:42:00]:
Oh my gosh.
Kevin Thompson [00:42:01]:
So the very looking through a window into our lives, the very right. He's actually trying to run in the.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:42:10]:
Moment he wants to get there. I'm just not ready to get there yet.
Kevin Thompson [00:42:13]:
And instead to give space. And I think this is a beautiful picture too, of all right, what happens with when we get into a negative cycle. And here's what I think is funny, is you can take two people who are primarily securely attached and when there is an unhealthy moment, they will go into non secure ways. But here's the funny thing. Let's say they're both avoidantly attached as that begins to not work for one of them because one of them is going to be better at being avoidant than the other. The person with avoidant attachment that's losing will actually start acting in an anxious way because it's not working for them. And they're panicked, you're out of control and they got to figure out how to make this work. So what happens when one is going a more anxious pathway? One is going a more avoidant pathway.
Kevin Thompson [00:43:02]:
The truth is not found in the middle. The truth now is actually found in this ironic action of if I find myself being avoidant, where I'm tempted to run away, I actually need to lean in and tell myself I'm going to be okay. I've been with Jenny long enough to know that's what I think is Beautiful. About a couple decades together. You all know this is if we got into a fight this morning, as much as I hate it, I know by tomorrow we'll be fine. Yeah, we'll be fine.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:43:34]:
And that's a secure attachment.
Kevin Thompson [00:43:36]:
That is. That's the truth.
Blaine Neufeld [00:43:37]:
Can I interject, though? Because the unhealthy part is when you never resolve it. Here I am trying to chase down the argument. So, yeah, oh, we're fine. I'm almost wondering now about how secure. Secure can be dangerous in terms of the form of laziness or. We're good. We're good. Don't worry about the fight.
Blaine Neufeld [00:43:56]:
Let's not address it. We're good.
Kevin Thompson [00:43:57]:
Well, that's not secure. That's denial.
Blaine Neufeld [00:44:01]:
That's denial.
Kevin Thompson [00:44:01]:
That's denial. So that can actually. That can be a little bit of both. That can be the anxious now. I can't go back there. I got to hold my heart. I got to pretend like everything's okay, because if I confess that I'm still struggling with this, that might be too much for them. And the avoidant, now they're saying, hey, I don't like vulnerability.
Kevin Thompson [00:44:19]:
I'm not going to be vulnerable. And so let's just pretend like everything is okay. And so what really needs to happen is, in this pathway now is not avoidance or anything like that, but instead, the avoidant person is willing to lean in and be a little bit more uncomfortable. You know, the cool thing these days are cold plunges, right? So you take the cold plunge, which I hate. What's the first 60 seconds of the cold plunge? Your brain is coming up with every excuse to get out of there.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:44:45]:
Oh, yeah, and my brain is strong because I get out.
Kevin Thompson [00:44:49]:
So part of that concept is you have to tell yourself, fight or flight is kicked in. But I'm not going to die.
Blaine Neufeld [00:44:56]:
Right.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:44:57]:
Well, are we sure?
Kevin Thompson [00:44:59]:
By pressing through, there's actually a calming effect by you pressing through that. Well, the avoidant has to write themselves the story of, look, it's going to be okay. I can lean into this. And the anxious person, when they're tempted to reach, they need to give space and go. They're going to come back. It's okay to allow a little space here. And here's what needs to happen. The anxious pathway needs to learn how to soothe themselves.
Kevin Thompson [00:45:33]:
The avoidant pathway needs to learn how to be soothed by their partner. And so you're learning new skills, and that itself is actually how you learn now, this earned security, this learned security. And here's what I think the truth Is. So now I'm going up to the snow covered hill. I see this pathway. I've gone so many times and my brain can so quickly go there, so much so that as soon as I get to the hill, I cannot even think about it and just start going down. Well, now I come to the top of the hill and I go, hang on, I can go that way, but I don't have to. And in some situations that's actually the right way, but not with Jenny.
Kevin Thompson [00:46:10]:
Yeah, let's go this other pathway. And now I live in a world for my own brain that I kind of have these three pathways that are very available to me at any time. And if I'm in a healthy spot, especially with Jenny, man, I can go down the secure pathway all the time. But if I don't recognize where I'm at, I can come to the top of the hill. I don't know about you all, but, you know, I go back to Arkansas and I can get in the car and if I'm not thinking, I can drive to my old high school, I can drive to my old house. It takes no conscious thought that is wired in my brain and forever will be wired in my brain. But with just a little bit of awareness, I can go, oh, no, that's fine, that's not where I'm going. And we can do the same thing in relationships.
Blaine Neufeld [00:46:57]:
And here's one. How about relationship with God, Jesus and this idea that we're talking about new pathways now I'm seeing the snow hill. I talked about my anxiety attack, I think, like panic attack at nighttime. And then suddenly God heals me, right? It feels like God's standing on top of the hill and said, who? Before you go down that pathway, here's a new pathway, right? And it's like, don't worry, I got a plan for you. So this anxiety suddenly stopped in my life because he showed me purpose, a new pathway and certainty that, oh, why don't you just try that? Oh, that was actually quite nice. And now I feel safe and there's moments where I feel and see anxiety in my life, but I'm like, no, I'm going to choose that pathway, you know, and it's very powerful to start to process the fact that he kind of showed me that right in through revelation or that moment at nighttime or whatever that was. But like, that to me is encouraging for other people that feel entrapped to the pathway of this anxiety. And it's just like, lord, just reveal a new pathway for me that I.
Kevin Thompson [00:47:59]:
Can take Well, I think that's the theme over these last couple of episodes is we have these natural kind of proclivities of propensities, of the way we do things, and yet we don't have to do them that way. And to begin to ask the question, who am I? How did I become me? And then when I walk into a room, when I'm in a relationship, when I'm in a conversation, to pause and go, okay, what's actually the best response here? Not just the one that comes naturally to me. What is the best response? We have that opportunity. And in so doing, what happens is the more we begin to leverage the pause and the intentional response, the more that actually becomes the natural pathway. That's right. And you can actually wire in your brain together that, no, this is my natural way to handle this. And the other is actually the anomaly. What used to be the norm can become the anomaly.
Kevin Thompson [00:48:52]:
And what is almost a state in the midst of counseling can actually become the natural state of the brain that you all know, operate by.
Blaine Neufeld [00:49:02]:
Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. I don't know how much time we got, but one last story was when we were kind of going through that season with Donna, and she talked about the texts and how she's like, stop. Instead of saying, when are you coming home? Nah, nah, nah, nah.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:49:17]:
She's like, verbal vomit, essentially.
Blaine Neufeld [00:49:20]:
Yeah. To change that, to say, I can't wait till you come home.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:49:24]:
Well, she also said, like, sure, type that out in, like, a note and don't send it.
Blaine Neufeld [00:49:28]:
Don't send it.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:49:29]:
Because, like. And then, like, go back and be like, okay, this sounds crazy, but that's.
Blaine Neufeld [00:49:32]:
The pause that you're talking about. Right? So it's like, instead of sending your spouse the. The nasty, frustrating text because your life is out of control, pause, write it in the note, and then send something that. Because then she started to send texts that, I'm like, I'm coming home, babe.
Kevin Thompson [00:49:48]:
Let's rock and roll.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:49:49]:
Because she's like, why would he want to come home to this text? Like, that's why he's staying at work. And I was like, oh, yes, okay. Manipulate.
Blaine Neufeld [00:49:58]:
No, no, but train, train. And then it forced her to say, yeah, I do want you home. How do I verbalize that?
Adrienne Neufeld [00:50:05]:
Yeah. I didn't know how to express it.
Blaine Neufeld [00:50:06]:
Yeah. And then she did, and then I started coming home, and it improved. It has become much more.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:50:13]:
It's all communication now. It's like we actually know what the other person's trying to say or understand it.
Kevin Thompson [00:50:20]:
No, I think it's the perfect illustration, it really is, of how once you recognize your cycle, your patterns, you can then choose different ways and you can begin to look back and go, oh, here's how I was contributing to that. Because if not, it looks just all one sided of what's going on. And here's what's interesting between an anxious and avoidant pathway. So one sign for an anxious pathway is it's always somebody else's fault. If they will just change, if they will just do something, if they will just. Right. Avoidant tends to take the shame on themselves. So avoidant is run by shame.
Kevin Thompson [00:50:56]:
It's I'm not worthy, I'm not valuable, it is my fault. Right. And so what happens in a lot of anxious avoidant cycles is they both agree who the problem is. It's the avoidant person. But they're wrong. They're both playing a role in what is actually taking place and they both have responsibilities for how to navigate through that. So that's attachment theory.
Blaine Neufeld [00:51:18]:
I love it.
Kevin Thompson [00:51:18]:
So hey, if you want more information for that, a couple resources. One, there's a book out there called Secure Love by Julie Manano. I don't know if I'm saying that name properly, but a great book. And then also@changetheodds.com, go over to the classes and we actually have, I think it's a six or 12 session study on this issue of attachment. So changetheodds.com, classes click on attachment and we can learn more there. Until next time, thanks so much. Don't forget, marriage and family never meant to be a game of chance.