Emotional Connection: The Key to Healthy Relationships

Feb 5

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“All couples get disconnected.
It is how you connect and reconnect that sustains you.”
- Roxane Thorstad, PsyD

One way of understanding emotional connection is that it is how two people deeply understand, value, and care for one another. It is about being emotionally present and attuning to your partner.

Emotional connection is not limited to romantic relationships. You may have this type of connection with family members, friends, colleagues, or intimate partners. With romantic relationships, however, it can be more challenging than usual to maintain this connection over the years since conflict, circumstances, and general life stressors can cause a disruption.

Emotional connection with your partner is all about attachment. With a quick Google search, you might determine that attachment style contributes to how you relate to your partner. And, that your attachment style is rooted in your relationship with your parents or caregivers. It’s helpful to have a good understanding of what your early attachment relationships looked like, because chances are they set the foundation for how you most naturally show up in relationships. Without going into all the great research by John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth (feel free to look them up if you want to go straight to the original sources), here is the cliff notes version of attachment using the easy-to-remember acronym - ARE .

ARE: Accessible, Responsive, and Engaged

Are you and your partner Accessible, Responsive, and Engaged (Sue Johnson, Hold Me Tight, 2008) with each other? Does your partner say yes to the questions: ARE you with me? ARE you here? Do you demonstrate behaviors that show that you are with your partner and available to them emotionally?

Accessible - Close Proximity

Am I accessible? Is my partner accessible?
Are they close enough to me to be reached? Both physically and emotionally? (Note: long distance relationships usually need extra communication to manage accessibility, and it is common for attachment anxieties to increase for one or both partners).

Responsive - Responds When I Reach Out

Am I responsive? Is my partner responsive?
When I am feeling afraid, sad, or lonely and reach out to him/her, does my partner respond with their presence and attunement? Do I respond in similar ways?
Do we reach toward each other in times of distress rather than away from each other?

Engaged - Bonded, Connected, Seen, and Known by One Another

Is my partner engaged with me? Am I engaged with my partner?
Do the ups and downs of life matter to my partner?
Do I feel seen by my partner? Do I do things that help my partner feel seen and heard?
Do I feel connected and/or bonded with my partner? Does my partner feel connected to me?

If you feel like the ARE questions really tripped you up, consider the following statistic. When couples feel that their partners are accessible, responsive, and engaged one-third of the time, they feel a sense of security with one another. For those of you who rate yourselves below a third, it can be very helpful to consult a couples therapist for how to improve your connection with one another and shore up the disconnect. For those of you who do generally feel secure in your relationship and can claim that upper one-third, that’s great news. You probably also recognize that it takes ongoing work to hit that number! Either way, we all can continue to work on ways that we are emotionally connected or disconnected from our partners - in or out of therapy sessions.

Last but not least, here’s a quick (not exhaustive) list of indicators of partner connection or disconnection.

Emotional Connection:

Knowing your partner at a deep level
Fully understanding the needs of your partner
Being able to work through difficult experiences with healthy communication
The ability to have fun with your partner
Not allowing outside influences to cause a divide between you and your partner
Listening with empathy and being curious about your partner
Being supportive even when, for whatever reason, it is difficult to do so
The desire to work together in parenting, your relationships with extended family, and close friends

Emotional Disconnection:

Thinking that your way is the only way
Overriding the needs of your partner with unhealthy behaviors
Not listening to your partner when it is needed the most
Unaddressed addiction, affairs, or individual mental health issues
Isolating from your partner and/or family geographically and/or emotionally
Connecting to others at the expense of your partner’s needs (social media, work colleagues, family of origin)

We are happy to work with you and your partner to maintain your connection or help you build something stronger than what you have had before.