Are You Strong Enough to Feel Your Feelings?
QUICK ANSWER
You can push through exhaustion, excel at work, and hold your emotions together when it matters. But the harder strength is feeling your feelings. When your partner can't show up for you, the work is grief work: leaning into the hurt, staying with it, and finding a new calm on the other side.
You can get the project done at the last minute, get through the workout even when you're tired, push yourself to excel in your field, and not let your emotions get the best of you when it matters. All of these are signs of important strengths. But are you strong enough to feel your feelings? Here's why it matters.
Is this you?
You have an anxious attachment and you're doing everything you can to get your needs met in your relationship, but in spite of all your efforts the relationship isn't where you want it to be. You still feel emotionally alone, invalidated, unheard, and misunderstood a lot of the time. The only way you can make sense of your pain is that you're doing all the work and your partner is not. And maybe that's the truth. Maybe you can see all your blind spots, have consistently changed the way you show up, and nothing on their end. You don't want to leave, you love your partner and your relationship has strengths. Now might be the time to learn how to better manage the really tough moments when your partner isn't showing up for you in the way you need.
Why does it hurt so much?
Every moment that your partner lets you down, even in a small way, creates a hurt. These small hurts attach to similar hurts from your past. If you grew up in an emotionally invalidating home and received chronic messages that your emotions were wrong, irrational, or irrelevant, which is common for those with anxious attachment, the hurt when you feel let down by your partner merges with the old, unhealed hurts, and becomes an even bigger hurt.
For example, one day you ask your partner to go on a walk and they say no. You immediately feel insecure about whether they want to spend time with you. You try to reach them by saying your feelings are hurt, maybe you need reassurance. Instead, your partner tells you your feelings shouldn't be hurt and starts listing all the times you've taken walks together. You were hoping they'd lean into your hurt instead of invalidating you. Just like in your past, you got another message that your feelings don't matter and are even wrong. The two hurts merge, and it feels awful.
Why does it feel so lonely?
This is where anxiety and maybe anger come in hot. But there's no way to reach your partner for help because they have their own stuff coming up that they don't know how to deal with, which blocks their ability to be open. You can't be open to them either, because you were the one triggered and it doesn't feel fair. So now you're hurting over the present situation and past experiences, and you're also alone with it, because the very person you rely on triggered it and can't help with it. And nobody ever helped you learn how to help yourself here. No wonder you feel bad. Anybody would. The work here, completely independent of what your partner is doing, is grief work, with three layers: the loss in the moment, having to be alone with that loss, and the unhealed feelings from the past making the present worse.
How do you get clear about the attachment message?
Go slow. "I just got the message that my needs don't matter to my partner and that I'm even wrong for having them. Ouch. That hurts really badly." Stay here, go slow. "My stomach feels sick, my chest feels heavy." Stay here. Then comes fear, that this will never end, that you'll always feel alone, that your partner doesn't care. Then comes anger, which says "protest, get them to see they're wrong so they'll change and come toward me and I won't have to hurt." Pause. Sit with the urge. Then: "But that's not going to work. My partner isn't open to my pain right now, and no amount of protest and blame is going to open them up. Even if I try in the most perfect way possible, they won't be able to take it in." Stay there for a bit and feel what comes up.
What does it mean to lean into the hurt?
"I'm on my own with this right now. Not only am I hurt, but I don't have access to my partner's help. There's a real loss in this, a loss of being heard, held, understood, validated, and supported. The pain is very, very real. Anyone hurts in this place. On top of that, my body knows this place. I've been here many times in life. I've tried so hard not to keep coming back here, but here I am again. There's also a part of me that believes there must be something wrong with me that I keep ending up here. Now the tears are coming. It feels so big and heavy and almost unbearable, but I'm going to stay and ride the waves. I'm not going to fight. I'm exhausted from fighting. This time I'm just going to surrender to it. My body is wise to ask for this space, and I'm saying yes to myself." And now there is a quiet calm. You feel tired but clear.
What does the hurt actually need?
This work isn't just about letting yourself be sad while nothing changes. The sadness needs to be healed, which means giving it what it needs to go away. Sometimes the sadness just needs space, especially with things from the past that can't be changed. Sadness also needs to be offset by empowerment. By giving it space, you can listen and get clearer about what it needs to shift into empowerment. Sometimes just giving it space helps you feel empowered, because you learn that you're strong enough to tolerate it. Sometimes the sadness needs you to take reasonable action to protect yourself from more of it, which is not the same as over-controlling your environment. It comes from a place of clarity and intentionality.
What about the relationship?
This self-work is so important because no amount of relationship work will stick if you can't get underneath the anxiety and through the grief. This part is about you showing up for you and not leaving this place alone anymore. Sometimes we need to walk into the hopelessness of a moment when the reality is that your partner can't show up. This doesn't mean hopelessness for the whole relationship, just that you can't get your need met in this moment. Paradoxically, when you face the grief and go through it, you find a new calm on the other side, the calm found in accepting what is. This isn't about giving up on your partner or letting them off the hook. It's about learning to show up for yourself in a new way, one that can bring more calm into the relationship, co-regulate the system, relieve tension, and actually foster the change you're hoping for. And even if that doesn't happen, learning to lean into your anxiety, and all that's under it, will help you feel more empowered. When you reach out from this softer, more vulnerable place, there's a chance your partner will feel the energy shift and feel invited in instead of accused. This is deep self regulation work.
Frequently Asked Questions
Isn't this just letting my partner off the hook?
No. Grief work does not excuse your partner's role. It is about not leaving yourself alone in the pain, which often lowers tension and fosters the very change you want.
Where can I get support with this work?
Julie's anxious attachment self-work course is designed to help you get underneath the anxiety and through the grief.
Doing the self-work? Start by understanding your attachment style.