Coaching practices for How to Deal with Insecurity in Marriage

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For How to Deal with Insecurity in Marriage, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

  • I keep hitting the exact insecurity my partner is most ashamed of
  • The second my partner gets upset about a stance I’ve taken, I fold
  • I can’t tell whether I’m okay until I read my partner’s face
  • I’ve been waiting for my partner to change first so I can finally feel safe, and I’m exhausted from outsourcing my whole sense of okay to whether they reach for me
  • Nothing is technically wrong, but I’ve stopped noticing the good things about my partner and the small resentments just keep stacking up quietly

Practices that may help

  1. Avoiding anti-ideal confirmation: the sculpting that harms
    Identify the ways you routinely treat your partner as their non-ideal (worst) self, and stop.
    The Michelangelo Phenomenon: How Partners Sculpt Each Other
  2. Holding onto yourself under relational pressure
    Maintain your own identity, positions, and values when a partner’s unhappiness is generating pressure to capitulate.
    Differentiation of Self: David Schnarch’s Framework for Passionate Marriage
  3. Moving from other-validation to self-validation
    Gradually replace the need for your partner’s approval with the ability to hold your own self-regard.
    Differentiation of Self: David Schnarch’s Framework for Passionate Marriage
  4. Move toward a secure baseline -- in yourself first
    Security is a state you can practice moving toward, regardless of which partner moves first.
    The Anxious-Avoidant Trap: Why Opposites Attract and Then Struggle
  5. Build a culture of genuine appreciation as a horsemen antidote
    Daily authentic appreciation is the structural counter to contempt -- and it has to precede the conflict.
    The Four Horsemen: Gottman's Warning Signs of Relationship Breakdown
  6. Give regular assurances of commitment
    Explicitly remind your partner of your love, commitment, and investment in the relationship.
    Relationship Maintenance Behaviors
  7. Catch the four horsemen
    Spot and replace criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling during conflict.
    The Gottman Method, Made Practical
  8. Replace defensiveness with partial responsibility
    Defensiveness is a claim of innocence; taking even partial responsibility is the only way forward.
    The Four Horsemen: Gottman's Warning Signs of Relationship Breakdown
  9. Shift from one-person to two-person psychology
    Stop managing your distress alone and start managing it together.
    Secure-Functioning Relationships
  10. Create and protect the couple bubble
    Agree that you each put the relationship above any third party, including family of origin.
    Secure-Functioning Relationships

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