Quotes About Emotional

When that person is emotionally unavailable or unresponsive, we face being out in the cold, alone and helpless. We are assailed by emotions — anger, sadness, hurt, and above all, fear. This is not so surprising when we remember that fear is our built-in alarm system; it turns on when our survival is threatened. Losing connection with our loved one jeopardizes our sense of security. The alarm goes off in the brain's amygdala, or Fear Central

they're emotional bonds. They're about the innate need for safe emotional connection. Just like [British psychiatrist] John Bowlby talks about in his attachment theory concerning mothers and kids. The same thing is going on with adults.

From your viewpoint, is your partner accessible to you? I can get my partner's attention easily. T F My partner is easy to connect with emotionally. T F My partner shows me that I come first with him/her. T F I am not feeling lonely or shut out in this relationship. T F I can share my deepest feelings with my partner. He/she will listen. T F

We need validation from our loved ones. Researchers say that marital distress raises the risk for depression tenfold!

The loosening begins with small moments of missed connection and a growing sense of deprivation.

Underneath all the distress, partners are asking each other: Can I count on you, depend on you? Are you there for me? Will you respond to me when I need, when I call? Do I matter to you? Am I valued and accepted by you? Do you need me, rely on me? The anger, the criticism, the demands, are really cries to their lovers, calls to stir their hearts, to draw their mates back in emotionally and reestablish a sense of safe connection.

The longer partners feel disconnected, the more negative their interactions become

Find the Bad Guy is a dead-end pattern of mutual blame that effectively keeps a couple miles apart, blocking reengagement and the creation of a safe haven.

I feel so hopeless when I can't get through to you. I have never felt so lonely, not even when I lived alone." Sarah's message is urgent but Tim doesn't get it. He finds her "too emotional." But that is the point. We are never more emotional than when our primary love relationship is threatened. Sarah desperately needs to reconnect with Tim. Tim is desperately afraid that he has lost that intimacy with Sarah—connection is vital to him as well.

Instead, recognize and admit that you are emotionally attached to and dependent on your partner in much the same way that a child is on a parent for nurturing, soothing, and protection. Adult attachments may be more reciprocal and less centered on physical contact, but the nature of the emotional bond is the same.

couples' conflicts assume their true meaning: they are frightened protests against eroding connection and a demand for emotional reengagement.

Bowlby talked about "effective dependency" and how being able, from "the cradle to the grave," to turn to others for emotional support is a sign and source of strength.

Both men and women are inculcated with social beliefs that help ensnare them in the polka. Most destructive is the belief that a healthy, mature adult is not supposed to need emotional connection and so is not entitled to this kind of caring.

When they felt secure with their lover, they could reach out and connect easily; when they felt insecure, they either became anxious, angry, and controlling, or they avoided contact altogether and stayed distant

When we feel generally secure, that is, we are comfortable with closeness and confident about depending on loved ones, we are better at seeking support — and better at giving it.

the quality of the connection to loved ones and early emotional deprivation is key to the development of personality and to an individual's habitual way of connecting with others.

Romantic love was all about attachment and emotional bonding. It was all about our wired-in need to have someone to depend on, a loved one who can offer reliable emotional connection and comfort.

If you just stick your big toe in the water when it comes to helping someone else, you'll get one big toe's worth of life change.

It's something everybody wants-for someone to see the hurt done to them and set it down like it matters.

I felt like I'd unzipped my skin and momentarily stepped out of it, leaving a crazy person in charge

I'm tired of carrying around the weight of the world.

it's something everybody wants—for someone to see the hurt done to them and set it down like it matters.

I'll put it in a story." I don't know if that's what he wanted to ask me, but it's something everybody wants—for someone to see the hurt done to them and set it down like it matters.

an unbearable heaviness came over me.