67. Internal safety versus external safety

On the other hand, your thoughts are influenced by several factors :

• The first, and it is often the most important, if you feel you often repeat the same situations in love, is your past. If you have experienced insecure attachments or different forms of insecurity in your past, well, the slightest sign of insecurity will make you over-react. And let’s say that in a phase of building a couple, there are quite a few moments when you do not know, that is, when you do not know whether the other is in love with you, when you do not know whether the other is ready to commit to you, and all these moments when you do not necessarily know create insecurity. If you have experienced insecurity in your past, it will have a snowball effect and you will over-react. If I give you my example, I had the wound of betrayal, so as soon as a partner did not answer me within 3-4 hours, even if rationally I understood that this person could be busy and have other things to do than answering me, I had a knot in my stomach, I was totally panicked, I was in a “that’s it, it’s the end, he is with another woman, I can already pack my bags and move on to another relationship” mode. The past is one of the biggest factors that influence the scenarios you put in your head. 

• The second factor is circumstances, that is, there can still be situations where you have good reasons to feel insecure. So for example, in the case where your partner does not see you regularly, does not tell you clearly that he wants to commit, well, at that moment, your emotion of insecurity is a good messenger. It sends you the right message because ultimately it asks you to choose whether you want to keep living in this insecurity or not. 

• The third factor is your ease or comfort in taking risks. The situations I call gray in the couple, like how often you want to give each other news, how often you want to see each other, how fast you want to commit, are ultimately only preferences. There is no fixed rule that says you must call your sweetheart three times a day or once a day. In these cases, there is not one partner who is right and the other who is wrong. These are preferences and we have the right to have different preferences. For the person who wants more, that is, the person who wants more calls, who wants to commit faster, who wants to see the person more often, it is up to this person to assess whether they are okay with taking this risk, with temporarily living this insecurity to respect the other’s rhythm. It is a subject that can be discussed with the partner who has less of this need. 

• The last factor that can influence your thoughts is your level of internal safety. There are situations where you are really aware that your feeling of insecurity is not really linked to the person’s actions, but that it is more work to do on yourself, to work on your sense of safety. Because the other is not responsible for your past, the other is not responsible for your baggage. If I go back to my personal example, I could ask myself whether I wanted to make the other bear the fact that I was totally panicked if they did not answer me within the following three or 4 hours? Me personally, my answer was no. So I made sure to work on my internal safety and so, to find out which part you can work on yourself in terms of internal safety, or what you would like to ask your partner to feel safe, you can ask yourself the following two questions : 
  • Do I want to be a partner who lets the other, for example, answer my message during the day? 
  • Or to look at the effect it would have on you? How would I feel or react if my partner did not let me do XXX?

If I go back to the example of my text message, I wanted to be able to give my partner a day to answer even if at the time I could not yet manage it. Make this decision according to the standard in relationship that you want to cultivate, the person you want to be in relationship. And when you have defined this threshold it allows you to identify what level of internal safety you need to work on with regard to yourself. 

Because ultimately, a relationship is about balancing taking a certain risk, that is, going toward the other without yet having a 100 % result, while feeling safe enough to manage to open up to the other. And in this duo, it is normal that each partner will have a risk-taking/need-for-safety ratio that is totally different. This aspect is something that is negotiable, discussable within the couple, because the couple will ultimately be able to decide what level of safety must be managed on each partner’s side and what level of safety the other is okay to give their partner so that they feel safe in the relationship.

This negotiation is particularly valid in situations of healthy dependence that are unavoidable in the couple, that is, in all the situations that we cannot resolve without the other. Typically, we cannot settle how often we give news without agreeing with our partner. We cannot decide on the frequency of visits without the other agreeing. We cannot decide to have a child if the other partner does not agree. In all these situations, it ultimately requires the couple to agree so that each partner manages to evolve in a sufficient sense of safety.