I believe that for most online people this is the first, most urgent, issue. The article I wrote on What to do when he/she leaves? is far and away the most sought out. It has been the top read article every month for over five years. I like its success.

While it seems to come first, I really thought you would benefit more from having the Lizard material under your belt. I think you will see this when in the papers I mention Panic - read Lizard. I open the topic now because it just seems to flow from AntigoneRisen's note on Topic 1: Friend your Lizard(s).

I believe that here is the whole problem of Abandonment and its solutions.

For this topic I want you to have the background of several articles. They're not as long as the Lizard paper. They are all articles on the Skills of Reliable Membership.

The first paper I used to call The Two Wall Problem, but now it is simply called Reliable Membership. A chart goes with the paper.

The second paper I suggest you look at is a more indepth look at the problem. It is called The Testicle Principle, and when you've read it you may see why I prefer talking to online people rather than your partners at home.

Curiously I haven't found any writings by anyone else about this topic. I am still looking.

Read away and come back with your observations, ideas, examples.

Thanks for those writings and this thread Al Turtle .

I have two questions:

Isn't it in the avoider's best interest to throw the clinger a bone sometimes? Doesn't the avoider's habit of avoiding actually increase the clinging (often manifested in hostile/negative ways) when some simple meeting of reasonable needs could short-circuit the pattern? I can think of situations when STBXH was the avoider and when I was the avoider and I wonder if the avoider can play more of a role in preventing the negative clinging.

How does the clinger avoid "giving up" on getting needs met from the avoider? Again, that happened to STBXH and I at different points.

Ah, you've read the article. Ok let's go to work. Great questions! Remember I believe all this stuff is unconscious.

In order:

1. Sure I think it's in the best interest of an Avoider to reach out. I've found they just usually don't, as long as they are anywhere near overload mode. Avoiders seem to anticipate all that overloading contact, and thus wait a hell of a long time to surface and request connection. Kind of like how quick do gophers come out of their hole after you've fired the first shot. In my experience Avoiders will start to "throw out bones" after they've begun to feel reliably free from the onslaught.
2. Yep. But I fear that's looking at the situation from the outside. Don't assume that both Avoider and Clinger are coming from the same state of their Lizards. That is what the Testicle Principle is all about. The "Lizard panic" in Clingers is toward frantic action - fighting. "Rational" thinking is possible with some practice in self-soothing. The "Lizard panic" in the Avoider is toward shutting down - freezing and submitting. In both cases the Lizard prevents good "rational" thinking, and frequently involves a drastic drop in blood pressure in the frontal parts of their brains. They just zone out! Generally speaking, when trying to solve this problem, don't even think of counting on the Avoider to help for a long time.
3. People can and do seem to switch roles at times. Sometimes they switch roles when they switch partners. Sometimes they switch on topics. Whatever...the principles seem the same. Whoever is Clinger starts the work.
4. I wonder if I wrote clearly enough at the end of the first paper on Reliable Membership. Let's see. From the Clinger's point of view, the Avoider has the best love units in town, just not many. While the battle is going on it may seem as if Avoiders have none. But that is temporary. I believe the Clinger has to shift to taking care of themselves, keeping themselves out of abandonment panic, forever. By doing this in front of their Avoiding partner, by becoming a source of safety that person will shift into more safety and be able to produce more and more love units over time.

I believe this process is all unconscious. We can become trained in what to do and aware of it. We can't stop it.

This all just seems the same as the Pursuit and Distance axioms.
Written by Phil Delucca.

It is a little different but for the most part the same.

Since most LBS are pursuers and they are chasing distancers.
Or avoiders and clingers - same thing.

Anyways my .02

i was thinking of the rubber bands and the waves from men are from mars women are from venus. After reading that book, i stopped pursing my H when he was moody - instead suggestion he go down into his man cave basement and beat on some metal for a while. Eventually I hear the "HONNNEEEEEEEEEY." and he wants me to descend into his pit and and see what he has created.

the flip side is I very rarely get privacy. I have actually taken to hidding int he bathroom when I need spce. invariably someone will knock on the door and ask what I am doing. I spend more time getting and sitting down at night than actually writing my book or knitting. I dont think my husband and sons realize that for every "little" request i lose twice as much time in getting up and down all night. Finding my place in my knitting pattern or getting back into the creative mode in my book is very difficult.

My H goes so far as to insist the boys let mommy write...but yet he calls to me at least every 15 or 20 minutes to come look at something.

Thanks so much for the reference. I feel better knowing you are there. Your 2 cents is worth much more to me. First I've heard and I will look into it.

Great points. I think John Gray did us all a terrible miss-service whenever he taught that all men are from Mars or all women are from Venus. I am so glad he put forth the different roles (mars/venus) so clearly and colorfully. But in my experience about 60% of men come from Mars and the other 40% come from Venus. Mars men tend to marry Venus women, but Mars women tend to marry Venus men.

The problem I am working on in this topic is about the core issue and solution to the clinging and avoiding. I think it has only a slight statistical connection to gender.

Still, SR, you got to see the solution working with that guy down stairs in his cave.

Now take a look at your need to "cave" from you kid's need for connection that seems excessive to you. Well you are probably coming across as inadequate or unreliable or both to the kid. Meeting his needs may exhaust you, but might reduce his adult clingy behavior. His behavior is simply clingy. Bless him.

This unconscious stuff seems so easy to understand once the principles are clear. Good examples. Thanks.

I have been working on setting boundaries on this. I used to just get up and respond...always always putting their needs ahead of mine. Now I will say, "I will come look at your lego building when I finish this row I am knitting." Or "I will come and see what you are making once I finish this paragraph."

The other rule I have put into play is that unless a person is hurt I do not respond to the "MOOOOOMMMMMMM" that they insist on yelling through the house. IF they need me they can come to where I am and tell me what they need. And not "mom come look at this" But "mom come look at this neat video I found on youtube." or "mom come see this video game level I built". I am trying to get my little cavemen to communicate in full descriptive sentences rather than guttural grunts and demands.

My H...different matter and I recognize that my children behave this way because HE does. with him, if I dont respond immediately it is because I dont care about him. And since we are still healing from my infidelity...it is important he knows his needs are important to me. I am practicing an immediate verbal response, "Be right there honey, just finishing X".

Still hide in bathroom though. And yet I get the fingers under the door. Its like if I am out of their collective site for more than five minutes they all need to check on me.

I notice this in public places too...like at a party...where one by one my children and my husband will swing past and just check on me to make sure I am okay. Its like touching base on the mother ship than swooping off again. Sometimes they dont say anything....just walk up and touch my hip and look at me. I look at them and than they go off to play. It happens every five minutes or so...I never noticed it until a coworker pointed it out. She noticed it was worse when I was speaking to a man. The boys, one by one would come by and check. Like wolf cubs protecting their female, they would all come and check on what was happening. Wonder if this is normal male behavior.

Fun stuff. Keep up the thinking. Another way to look at this public behavior and the kids is found in Attachment Theory. It really explains young kids and older for that matter. And it all has to do with Reliable Membership.

The goal of Attachment Theory Attachment Theory, I think, is to describe all the behavior that comes from becoming, and being "securely - attached" and also the troubled behavior that arises from insecure attachment.

The normal cycle of a kid and a caretaker is a) they are together, b) the kid wants to go away and explore, c) the kid looks back to see that the caretaker is approving, d) the kid explores, e) the kid begins to feel a bit insecure about being away, f) the kid heads back toward the caretaker, g) the kid checks that the caretaker is welcoming, h) the kid and the caretaker are together. Kids and people just repeat this cycle over and over. Trouble arises in each stage but most problems arise in either step c when the kid perceives that their own exploring threatens the caretaker or in step g when the kid perceives that the caretaker doesn't want them to come back.

I think it fun to look at people doing this cuz you can see the same stuff in dogs and cats and it is all so visible.

With your husband you are working on changing his experience of you from being unreliable to being reliable. That doesn't mean always being there. It does mean that he learns to rely on being able to know where you are. This is both physical, emotional and intellectual.

And it is all about his Lizard being cautious. Back to the topic of learning to soothe his Lizard, wipe the worry lines off his Lizard's snout.

My fiance has a book on relationship communication. It details two roles - the distancer and the pursuer. I'll see if I can't find the book. This is the essence of what you cover in The Testicle Principle.

AMEN! My moniker is theAntiChick because I am a typical "guy" in so many ways, and I married (the 2nd time anyway) a total "girl" of a guy.

Love this thread and this section!!!!!

So happy and intrigued!!!!

At times? How about multiple times in one day?

In general, I think he is the Clinger and I am the Avoider. But I'm the one with abandonment issues, and I think the avoidance tactic just insures I have control over who abandons whom.

Often when I'm angry, sullen or withdrawn, he will coax me out of that state. But as soon as I'm out, he goes in!

Maybe this section needs a Passive-Aggressive addendum?

Thanks for the replies Al - they are helpful.

I love it. What a great example of real life struggling. Note that no matter what, the Lizards are bug-eyed panicked.

My guess, like yours, is we need to address your tactics under another topic. Yours sounds a bit like "withdrawing as a power tactic." When I do it, I call it sulking. Boy, did I have that one down cold. The key is that in me it is more a display of abandonment than a real panic sense of abandonment.

I think it is an example of "passive" bullying tactics, and of using "withdrawing" as the punishment. If you were more dramatic, you could threaten divorce daily and more or less obliquely to get him to be obedient to your wishes or at least to give you a sense of some power. (Lizards would still hate it, so don't do it.) My guess is that he's more consistently the Avoider, but your more primary issue between you is Control and Who's Boss. That does belong in another topic where we can look at passive-aggression.

But I love your example as it might help people clarify the distinctions between Reliable Membership struggles and Power struggles. Remember I think of the Panics that surface from Reliable Membership are pretty unconscious. What you are doing sounds perhaps automatic but pretty conscious.

Since you are conscious of all this, look for new ways of meeting both of your needs together while not frightening Lizards. What can you do to get what you want that doesn't attack his Lizard? [The answer can be found in the question, What can you do to get a coke from the foodmart that doesn't involve using a pistol? I wrote a quick article some time ago on this.]

Was that supposed to link to "want them to do things for you? Invest wisely?" The article makes sense in this context..but I didn't see that question mentioned.

I don't want to derail this topic, so I'll wait 'til you start in on passive-aggressive to post more.

BTW, expectations and resentments are two sides of the same coin, aren't they? I could be crowned Queen of Resentment land, very easily. And you know what they say about resentment...

Well, that was the link I intended. I thought the link was useful for the topic of "getting what you want from your partner without threatening them." That seemed to me the context of the paragraph the link was in. Sorry to be confusing.

I don't see expectations and resentments as the same. Close, in the same field, but just a bit different. And wouldn't you know I wrote articles on both. I tend to operational (make into concrete operations) these common relationship words so that I could develop solutions. But in that way I move away from using the terms abstractly. It helps me, but may seem picky to others.

I am not sure what your are referring to when you say, "you know what they say..." I've heard lots of things said about resentments. I think there is even a definition of resentment in the Lizard paper ( Topic 1 )

If you think of yourself as the "Queen of resentments" (sounds sad to me), then my article on removing resentments (same link as above) may be interesting to you.

"Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die."

That was the quote to which I was referring.

I had problems digesting that much at once, so I yanked myself back to the first article you linked and worked on it first. Maybe small bites will help me.

After a full meal, I decided that what you said made way more sense to me than Harley's Plan A/B with which it can be compared in some ways. Yea I get it that you may not want to comment on my observation, but that doesn't stop me from so doing.

Plan A has a carrot and stick set of components, while Plan B is going dark. Both have some merit, but in my mind, there is a down side to both which I cannot find in your model.

Plan A/B was devised to deal with infidelity, yet has been used as an attempt to deal with walk away because I don't see any other POV by Harley on the subject of walk away and I have seen Plan A/B passed out as silver bullets on the issue. I would protest that it doesn't even work well in a ton of affair deals either.

The subject of walk away is very real and very often, so to speak. It often, there's that word again, has elements of infidelity to it. Which means more stuff to figure out.

How about a slant back to the subject of infidelity when he/she leaves since we get so much of it here. That might help me eat the elephant.

You guys sure move fast -- I'm still processing the lizard concept, tuning into her signals and their context and trying to identify my H's lizard and I've been at that for a couple of months!

Al, is your material designed to be studied sequentially or concurrently? I had it in my head that I needed to truly grasp the lizard concept before I moved into the next set of concepts.

I finally had a chance to look at these articles. AMAZING work. I am definitely more on the avoider end. I wouldn't say I'm emotionally cold, but I do need a high level of trust in order to open up to someone. And I **HAVE** to have my space. Ex#2 is definitely a clinger, and cannot seem to understand my need for space. Even when I clearly explain it to him, and ask for explicitly what I need (an hour alone in my office) he runs after me, making me feel claustrophobic. And pouts if I insist that he give me said space. Which results in my needing MORE space. Ultimately it's not what ended our marriage, but it's a huge factor in my unhappiness in it.

I didn't know that quote and I don't think I like it. Seems to me it is kind of like those pieces of advice to forgive people. Some I like and some not. Forgiving "too soon" seems to lead to trouble. Besides I think it wise to hold people responsible for what they do.

I imagine we will get into that in another topic.

Thanks for clarifying your message, OH.

Oh, I think we will get there. It is a topic that very much interests me. For the time being I am building the groundwork for dealing with what most people call infidelity.

I've seen Clingers who cheat and Avoiders who cheat. Lizards are always greatly involved with the subject of Infidelity. And a couple of the next topics (Diversity and Autonomy) seem always to be involved as well. I say "involved" because each situation seems different, thus resolving the problems seems a complex. [Fortunately I believe there is a limit to the complexity.] I doubt any one solution would reasonably come close to fitting all situations. But I do think all facing all components is required.

So far I have only focused on Safety and Reliable Membership. Here are some thoughts on the subject - kind of casual framework. Most people who move on or cheat have already decided that "where they are sucks" to a greater or lesser extent. And they've decided things are not going to get better. Unsafety sucks. Being overwhelmed a lot of the time sucks (Avoiders). Being left alone hanging a lot of the time sucks (Clingers). Lots of other things suck, too. Needless to say people move away from where it sucks. They have the idea that the new place will suck less.

As I move along here, I am hoping to build a good basis for dealing with the situation - and create room for specific actions to change the trajectory of a person walking away or cheating.

More as we move along.

Dear SB, Wouldn't it be cool if I had a program that fixed everything! Step 1, 2, etc.

While I do try to create some order, I was more interested in finding the concepts and skills that people need to be happy with each other. I think that ideally this stuff should be taught by example to all kids by their parents. That way all lessons would just flow into the kid. Didn't happen to me. I had to grab the materials I could.

I think you need to know all the ideas and skills at once. You might check my references to the Anna Karenina Principle. I first heard it from Jared Diamond in Guns Germs and Steel. This does make learning and learning to apply all this to be a bit tricky. Sorry.

Oh, Sandra and I often used the "Onion Principle," working on the layer that seemed to be on top at the time. It took quite a time until we figured out all the principles and then we had to continue applying 'em for years.

Enjoying these articles/writings Al.

I have been trying to explain the lizard to DH... not sure if he's getting it.

After reading this thread and the testicular stuff I see I am by nature an avoider, but because of the A have some very strong clinger tendencies.

and I need to re-read men are from mars - although I totally reject the cave idea since leaving DH in his cave, gave him quality affair time.