Emotional Safety: Hold me Tight! (Or give me space?)

If you’ve ever been frustrated that your partner isn’t there for you or if you’ve ever felt smothered by a partner who didn’t give you space, this post is for you!

Healthy relationships allow both partners a mix of the safety of being held and the freedom to explore. We need to know someone has our back, we have someone in our corner. We also need to know we’re not trapped or smothered, that we are still our own person.

The exact balance of safety and freedom that works for you can vary from one individual to another and at different stages in a relationship.

That’s why it matters so much that you and your partner can talk about what you need and that you can take in feedback without hurt feelings. 

If this sounds like your relationship, contact us today for a free consultation or click the link below! We offer in-person marriage counseling in Murrieta, CA and Riverside, CA as well as online couples counseling in California.

Let’s go rock climbing!

For most types of climbing, a rock climber has another person with them to keep them safe. This person on the other end of the rope is called a belayer. The belayer typically stays on solid ground and manages the rope so that if the climber were to fall, they wouldn’t hit the ground. 

The belayer has to track where the climber is going so they know how much slack to give the rope and when to hold it tight. This keeps the climber safe while also letting them move. (see the parallel with freedom and safety in relationships?)

Sometimes the climber needs to rest. They might have just worked through something strenuous and need to rest their muscles to stop from cramping. Or maybe the climber is having an anxiety moment, needs to catch their breath and needs to know they are safe. A tight hold on the rope here is key. If I’m climbing, need a rest, and sit back into my harness only to find myself slipping, I’m going to panic. I’m going to lose trust in my belayer. I need to know they’ve got me tight, that I can relax or rest.

I need my belayer to hold me tight.

Other times the climber needs slack in the rope. In some styles of climbing, the climber needs to climb above where the rope is clipped in to the rock to get to the next safety point. If there’s no slack in the rope, they can’t move forward. Other times the climber might need to move a little to the right or left to get to an easier part to move upward. If the belayer is holding too tight to the rope, the climber can’t get where they need to go. The belayer is holding them back.

So how do climbers and belayers navigate how much tension to have in the rope? They communicate! A climber will call down “slack” and the belayer will loosen their grip or let out some rope, but never so much that the climber would get hurt if they fell. The climber will call back “up rope” when they’ve moved the way they needed and need the belayer to take up the slack. The climber might call out “watch me!” when they’re about to do something tricky and want to make sure the belayer is holding tight. A climber might call out “tension” or “rest” to cue the belayer that they need a tight hold. And the belayer’s job is to track, listen to, and be responsive to the requests of the climber. 

You’re already making connections to emotional safety in your relationship, aren’t you? You’re so smart!

There isn’t always a right amount of freedom or closeness in a relationship. We all might need different things at different times. What we need is to be able to talk to our partners about our needs. We can’t expect them to just know. To the belayer on the ground “I’m about to do something tricky and I need lots of support” might look exactly the same as “I’m about to do something tricky and I need you to give me slack”. The belayer needs the climber to say what they need.

And we need to be able to receive feedback from our partners without being hurt or taking offense.

If our partner is telling us they need more support, we figure out how to give it. If they say they need space, we give it, staying right there to take up the slack as soon as they need to be held tight again. Unfortunately, in many relationships we expect our partners to be mind readers and we get hurt when we didn’t correctly guess what they wanted. 

Can you imagine a climber calling out “slack” and the belayer yelling back “Why won’t you let me hold you tight? I’m just never enough for you am I?” Can you imagine a climber calling “watch me” and a belayer yelling back “I’ve watched you enough! Why isn’t that good enough? You just need to be happy with what you have!” or “Make up your mind! You said slack a minute ago and now you want me to watch you?!”

Any of those scenarios would be completely ridiculous in rock climbing, and yet we do this to our partners around emotional safety all the time! 

Here are your next steps: 

• Share this blog post with your partner so you both have the same understanding on how communicating about emotional safety will help you

• Start asking for what you need. If you need slack, tell your partner! If you need to be held tight, speak up!

  • Read our blog How To Ask For What You Want and Not For What You Don't

• Respond with gratitude and attentiveness when your partner shares their needs with you. If they need slack, give it! And be right there when they need you to hold them.

Here’s the final key: a shared goal.

You know why this type of communication works in climbing? Both the climber and the belayer have a shared goal: a fun time where no one dies. [That’s not an exaggeration. Rock climbing is fun AND dangerous!] When you know that you and your partner have a shared goal of a healthy, safe, emotionally connected relationship that give you both room for connection and freedom, it’s easy to give slack and to hold tight when this is what your climber asks for. It’s not personal, it’s communication. And it’s good for both of you.

While I hope this analogy helped you see your relationship in a different perspective, that doesn’t mean it will be easy to implement this new perspective. Our trained couples therapists know how to help you through the process of being there emotionally for your partner and vice versa. We know how to set the right environment for these conversations to go well. We know how to help you slow down so that you can really see and connect with each other.

And these aren’t just more empty words and promises. Our therapists help couples through this process every week. If you have questions about what couples counseling will be like you can read our FAQs or contact us today and schedule a free 15 minute consultation below.

At Inland Empire Couples Counseling we offer the best marriage counseling we can! Our couples therapists are trained in helping couples heal from infidelity, substance use in relationships, childhood trauma, communication skills, as well as providing the LGBTQIA+ community with pride counseling. We have online couples counseling in California. We have couples therapy in Riverside, CA. We also have marriage counseling in Murrieta CA. Please reach out for help.