Let’s start with some marriage advice that might just save your relationship.
One of the biggest challenges of any relationship is that we have a need for both attachment that gives us safety & comfort but also individuality that allows us to explore our individual needs.
Often these two come in to conflict.
Our need to express ourselves and our need to feel safe with our partner.
Jealousy might come when one partner wants to express themselves by flirting and the other feel unsafe because of this.
That’s a classic example of how individual needs and our need for safety can conflict.
Our most fundamental need is safety and attachment provide this.
Familiarity and control make us feel safe bit it can also strangle our partners individuality and self-expression.
In doing so we kill desire and attraction.
As a child we get these needs met from different people in our lives.
Our parents often provide the attachment, safety and comfort which then allows us to go out into the world and explore.
As we become adults, we try to get all these needs met by one person.
In my earlier videos on desire, I discussed how these are opposites and often inhibit each other, so finding the balance is key.
The biggest obstacle to desire is the imbalance between attachment and individual expression, and that we expect to get both from one and the same person.
Relationships need both attachment and individualism.
Most often attachment takes centre stage and our individual needs get suppressed to accommodate the other’s need to feel safe.
In the long run this will only build resentment and dissatisfaction causing a significant decrease in sexual desire and intimacy.
Unless you deal with your individual insecurities and attachment wounds so you can allow each other freedom of self-expression, and you learn to meet each other’s attachment needs without slipping into strangling comfort, then eventually the relationship either breaks down or disconnects.
Your relationship can flourish if you both learn to get in touch with your needs and express them clearly and lovingly.
At the same time understand your partner’s triggers and attachment needs to feel safe, loved and cared for.
It will be a balance between accommodating their attachment needs to feel safe and secure whilst not supressing your own core individual needs.
If one party is more insecure and easily feels that the attachment is threatened then you can work through this together.
I will talk a lot more about attachment and triggers in other videos and how you can work with these.
For now, just remember it’s about getting the balance right.
If you feel strangled then you likely need to express your individual needs more and it would be good for you to sense you needs and express them to your partner.
If you feel anxious or insecure then you likely need more safety and attachment and you can express what you need from your partner to feel safe.
Try to express it in a way that does not blame your partner or inhibit them from doing what they want but is focused on what you need.
Have fun and see you soon.