10 Holistic Tips for Cultivating Secure and Fulfilling Relationships by an Expert Couples and Certified Sex Therapist Part 2

by Natalie Cooney

10 tips for your relationships start with PART ONE, check it out here. Chalk full of the principles that lead couples and relationships to secure functioning, we continue in this Part 2 for all your couples therapy hints to attaining the relationship that brings wellbeing, peace, and connection. 

Here we go!

6. Secure Functioning Partners Protect Partners in Private and in Public. 

Partners should have each other's best interests in mind. Protect your partner from situations, people, or your unhealthy behaviors that harm or hurt the relationship. Protecting them in these areas not only in private, but also in public. Secure functioning partners work hard to behave and treat partners with congruence and consideration. 

We hold our partner in mind as we move throughout the world, make decisions, engage with others, and ourselves. We prioritize the relationship and relationship security when encountering troublesome situations, people, and unhealthy behaviors. 

What it looks like when this principle isn’t functioning:

• A partner demeans or speaks unwell of the other, whether in private or public.

• When a partner mocks, makes jokes, and chooses to protect their self-image at the expense of the partner

• Acting one way in public and another in private

• Not setting boundaries or protecting your partner from their in-laws, your substance use, or reactivity that causes harm.

• Withholding or hiding essential information about yourself, such as sexuality and sexual preferences, affairs, substance use that impacts the relationship, etc.

When this happens, trust erodes, along with safety, respect, and attraction. Trust is earned. When we regularly commit to our partners and do not follow through, they have a right to no longer open up to that trust. Behaviors that choose self over the security of the relationship increase relationship threat. Threat in a relationship is a lose-lose for everyone. 

A common behavior that goes against this secure relating principle is passive-aggressive actions and comments in public and in private. The leaking out and display of unhealthy anger, bitterness, disrespect, criticism, contempt, stonewalling, and defensiveness (see our blog Gottman’s Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse) is symptomatic that the relationship has left the “together and we” to “I and me” survival stances. These behaviors erode the foundation of security and represent an insecure system.

Secure partners are willing to be open about challenges and communicate them clearly at the right time and in a setting that supports the safety of the relationship. They are able to pause and think about their partner and slow impulses in order to think about the impact on relationship security. 

Mindfulness and intentionality are foundations for clarity and speaking from a sense of security. 

7. Create rituals around “sleeping and waking” and “comings and goings” that offer clarity and security for one another. 

Going to sleep, waking, departing, and arriving to meet each other are often transitions that cause increased attachment insecurity and threat. Often, when working in couples therapy, we also explore rituals around intimacy (physical, sexual, and emotional), meals, and celebrations within this principle.

Moments around sleeping, coming and going, celebrations, sex, and intimacy offer incredibly potent times of vulnerability and, thus, massive opportunities for increasing intimacy, safety, and connection. When little to no mindfulness or conscious effort is put into these times, many relationships become mediocre, less fulfilling, and reactive. 

When in doubt, talk it out.

Many who grew up to fend for themselves to wake, go to sleep, and to eat have a lifetime of experience of being alone in vulnerable moments. If there is to be security in any relationship, the relationships must recognize, or at least be positively responsive to expressed vulnerabilities. Partners who do this well will prioritize actions and discussions that help to limit any potential triggering of these old wounds. 

Most people have wounds around being celebrated or not. These holidays and birthdays are a huge opportunity to get aligned and aware of wounds and potential healing rituals. 

Secure functioning relationships will endeavor to benefit each other. It should be a win-win for everyone.

Establishing rituals around these potent moments increases safety and satisfaction. Going to sleep together or at least laying together at night time for a bit, waking up and greeting each other on the new day, and departing and coming back together in certain ways builds trust, confidence, and relaxation. These rituals can lower stress and regulate the nervous system. Deep and meaningful hellos can shift a hard day in a matter of minutes. 

In Couples Therapy, we help couples talk through and develop social agreements about comings and goings, celebrations, and sexual intimacy. We help them implement these changes and reap the benefits of a calmer, settled, secure, and playful relationship cycle.

Rituals and agreements that are discussed openly and are flexible support safety, eagerness, and affection. 

It is very important to have transparent agreements and open discussions about sexual intimacy, what you like, what you don’t like, what you want, and who does what. Bringing forward desires and making a plan for “play time” together increases arousal, desire, and eroticism when there is safety established. Talk about what gets you and your partner to a "yes". Discuss openly and safely when there is a "no." Talk about frequency, schedules, and expectations around a variety of sexual activities. The clearer you can be, the less hurt, assumptions, and perceived rejections take place. 

8. You correct all errors, including injustices and injuries, at once or as soon as possible.  

Securing functioning people focus on valuing ownership, responsibility, amends, redos, repair, and relief. You don't overfocus on who started it. 

No relationship or individual will ever be close to "perfect." In secure functioning relationships, there is a gracious acceptance of this fact, which leaves space for amends and repair to be made. It does not matter if the injury was intended or not in a secure relationship. In the rupture and repair landscape, there is no intention versus impact, we repair impact. Full stop. 

Acknowledgment of the pain or stress caused to your partner, without defensiveness about your intention, increases the likelihood of repair, trust, and alas…more relational security. 

More relational security means less stress and more calm. More repair, after the inevitable rupture, means more intimacy and safety.

Great harm is done within a couple's relationship when wrongs or injuries are not acknowledged, or even worse, acknowledged and then dismissed. Each individual longs to be seen, understood, and met with care. When an emotional wound is created without an appropriate repair, the wound festers. It is kept and remembered, whether consciously or unconsciously, and often acted out as a source of discontent. 

9. You look lovingly upon your partner daily and make frequent and meaningful gestures of appreciation, admiration, and gratitude.

As time passes, the special glow runs out of the honeymoon period. The kind words shared between partners can be easily get lost in the daily activities of stress and responsibility. The conscious and daily gesture of love, care, and declaration of gratitude supports security. 

Paying attention, acknowledging, seeing, and behaving in ways that support the recognition of one another is a defining hallmark of healthy relationships. These are the types of relationships we can’t not stare at in public, or can’t help be moved by when in the presence of one. 

Embodiment of how you feel with word and action is the portal for increasing security, desire, and kindness. 

Being intentional about naming the behaviors that matter to each partner supports a system that will help ensure security, recognition, and happiness in the relationship. While this does take energy, it breeds feelings of joy and safety, well worth it in our eyes. 

Doing this requires mindfulness, vulnerability, and presence. We encourage couples to catch the fleeting moments that pass by in a breath, a look of care or longing, or an action that communicates consideration and thoughtfulness. These moments and actions evoke something deeply moving–to be special and to matter to someone. Lingering on these glimmers of light can shift the nervous system out of threat and into connection and ease. 

10. You pursue knowing and learning your partner in all things, learning the ways of seduction, influence, and persuasion without the use of fear or threat.

When couples come into therapy, I expect them to deeply know one another. I expect them to know one another’s triggers, to know what motivates them, what makes them sad, who their best friends are, and what bugs them the most. By pursuing gaining this knowledge, you are gifted with the keys to the kingdom. The keys that will help you communicate, love, give pleasure, influence, and collaborate on your purpose in being together.

In the therapy room, when someone is scared and reacts by pursuing and the other partner starts to withdraw, I know there is a significant lack of understanding and unhealed ruptures. Most couples with this dynamic resort to threats or fear to try to get their partner to change, that too reveals a severe lack of knowledge or know-how. 

“Behind Every Criticism is a Wish.” Esther Perel. 

This principle of secure relating highlights how, if we take the time to really get to know why and how our partners go throughout life, we are gifted with the knowledge of how to collaborate better.

We learn as we go, knowing the deeper meaning underneath our partner's complaints and triggers. Create opportunities for healing, re-dos, and an increase in pleasure, fun, and peace.

Secure attachment partners will grow stronger with time as each challenge is faced and each rupture in the relationship is repaired, creating more understanding, influence, and greater connection in security.  

If you want to explore more about your patterns of relating and get freedom to open up to love, security, and partnership, connect with us today and have a discovery call with one of our relational clinicians to get you started on your journey. 

Start Working With a Relationship Therapist in San Diego, CA!

Compass Healing Project is a specialized private practice in California and Colorado for integrative somatic psychotherapy for individuals and relationships in person and online in California and Colorado. Natalie Cooney, the owner and founder, seeks to move couples from mediocre to extraordinary. By incorporating mind, body, heart, and spirit in their couples therapy work, the clinicians bridge the gap for many couples and relationships who have outdated ways of functioning. 

Start your journey for yourself or for your relationship with us today by following these simple steps:

1. Fill out this form, email us, or call us at 760-456-7713. 

2. Meet with a caring therapist

3. Start improving your relationships and creating stronger bonds!

Other Services Offered at Compass Healing Project

At Compass Healing Project, we take a holistic approach to therapy, using a range of modalities to support various mental health needs. In addition to relationship therapy, we can help reclaim your nervous system with somatic therapy. We also offer EMDR, Clinical Sexology, hypnotherapy, ketamine-assisted therapy, and embodiment practices—each tailored to help with anxiety, depression, PTSD, grief, and sexuality concerns. To learn more about our services, visit our blog or connect with our compassionate therapists in Colorado and California, who specialize in trauma resolution, emotional healing, and integrative therapy to support your journey to well-being.

1. https://www.thepactinstitute.com/blog/the-ten-commandments-for-a-secure-functioning-relationship

2. Tatkin, S. (2011). Ten Commandments for a Secure-Functioning Relationship. In J. K. Zeig & T. Kulbatski (Eds.), For Couples: Ten Commandments for Every Aspect of Your Relationship Journey. Phoenix: Zeig, Tucker & Theisen, Inc. Publishers.