When Comfortability Creates Discomfort
Most of the romantic relationships in my life have been long-term. I also tend to be someone who is a serial monogamist (until the last year). This used to be something I carried shame about based on the societal stereotypes that people who are chronically in relationships, “Can’t be with themselves” or “Need to be with someone in order to be happy”. Nope - its just my dating style. Thank you, and kindly fuck off.
My last major relationship was with my ex-wife. We were together for 13 years, beginning our relationship in our late teens. There were no break-ups or periods of dating other folx (other than in the last 2-3 months of our relationship when we opened things up). I spent 13 years being with one person sexually, physically and emotionally - at least in the way monogamy would quantify these things.
Comfortability is weird for me. It can feel boring and stagnant. This is something that is common for survivors of trauma. Our nervous systems often develop in a fight/flight state, hence our baseline for what feels familiar and “normal” is often skewed and leans towards chaos. A lack of chaos and feeling secure leaves me in this weird place of expecting something bad to happen and sometimes, I will create chaos or unintentionally seek it out to feel something familiar. I know what to do with chaos. What the fuck do I do with safety, security and comfortably?!
Looking back at my relationship with my ex-wife, I would often experience what I then labeled as “commitment issues”. I would worry that I didn’t want to be with one person for the rest of my life (I now understand that I was truly always poly at heart, starting as early as high school), I would worry that we would get bored with each other, worry that things were feeling stagnant and at times, I would bring up the topic of maybe needing to break-up in order for me to figure out what I wanted. My ex would create space for me to spiral about all of my worries. I wanted to break up at times, but then would lean in and not want to lose her. Breaking up didn’t seem right, but neither did staying together. I was stuck in this space of disorganized attachment of push and pull. I wanted the love, security and safety she offered, but I also didn’t know how to let that be “enough”. As the relationship settled, I believed that the problem was me. I just needed to ignore what was going on internally for me and follow suit with what society told me I should want - right? So, we got married (even though my values do not align with the idea of marriage), we shared bank accounts, rented a home, got pets together and were planning for children. And then, shit went to fuck.
I correlated comfortability in a relationship with feeling unfulfilled. I thought I had everything I was supposed to have to be happy in my relationship. I fell into the trap of the societal relationship infrastructure of what a relationship is said to be and I expected it to make me feel happy and fulfilled. I relied on the infrastructure and relationship escalator to assess the success of my relationship. I had no baseline of what a happy and healthy relationship should be and because I had written off my feelings of being unfulfilled as being solely a trauma response, I continued on in my relationship thinking I was just reacting to experiencing comfortability. As the sex dwindled, sitting in front of the tv every night became the norm, scrolling on our phones while “spending time together”, resentment between us building over money issues, trust issues piling up, having the same fight over and over, us both feeling unseen, us both feeling bored, not meeting each others needs and us both generally being unhappy in the relationship - I equated all of this to the idea of “We are just comfortable - all long term couples experience this”. I had nothing to compare it to, other than other long term relationships in my life which seemed to follow this suit. In my understanding, comfortability meant settling.
So, here I am in my current relationship where I now identify as solo-poly. This means I value all of my relationships with my partners and desire long-term and intimate connection, but do not desire moving in together, sharing finances or having children.
My partner J and I have been together for almost a year and a half at this point. I recently ended a relationship with another partner who unfortunately, fulfilled my draw to chaos. I ignored and justified several red flags and I went with what I knew and what my nervous system was accustomed to - insecurity and chaos. Both which were major triggers for my attachment and nervous system. However, this relationship lasted a mere two months before I found my way back to my values, goals and desire of forming secure attachments with partners. I listened to what this chaos was doing to my body, mental health and relationship with J. I am proud of myself for recognizing this and ending the relationship.
Having said this, once the dust from that chaotic relationship settled, I found myself feeling antsy with J. There isn’t drama. There isn’t chaos. He is grounded and logical. I feel safe, secure and comfortable. While this is in fact what many strive for in their relationships, it led me to feeling uncomfortable, unsure and anxious. I began to think about the spark going out between us and feeling panicked that what happened in my previous long term relationship, would happen with J. I had no idea how to talk to him about this as putting into words did not seem to make sense. How did I expect to communicate, “I am feeling comfortable in this relationship and that actually freaks me out and makes me think we are bored with each other and losing the spark”.
One night on a walk, I could feel the weight of this worry and anxiety on my shoulders. It had been present for a couple of weeks and was creating a mental distance for me between J and I. I finally decided to start the conversation by asking how he was feeling about being together for over a year. Grounded in his logical way, he communicated that he was feeling fine about it and hadn’t even thought about it because it isn’t about the time spent in a relationship, but the quality of it. He asked how I felt and I began to share my worries around feeling comfortable and feeling anxiety around this and feeling like we may be starting to lose the spark of our relationship. As we began to peel apart my understanding of what comfortability in a relationship meant, it became apparent that I connect comfortability with boredom and needs not being met in a relationship. This leads to extreme anxiety and feelings of suffocation and being “stuck”.
Through this discussion with J, I have come to understand that comfortability does not correlate with an unsatisfying relationship. In fact, I would now argue that comfortability in a relationship is needed in order to have deep secure attachment formed with another human or partner. Relationships do not work due to comfortability, but due to things such as; lack of communication, lack of effort to meet your partners needs, lack of active listening, lack of engaging in fun and meaningful activities together, not having a separate identity from your partner, not having similar goals or values, lack of fun and expressive sexuality (for some, this may not be the case - for myself, a healthy, kink-friendly and engaging sex life is a must in a relationship).
At the end of our conversation, my partner looked at me and said, “If there was a problem, or one of us was unhappy or unfulfilled in the relationship - what would happen?” “We would talk about it”, I said in response. “Exactly. And we would make changes as needed”.
I now understand that comfortably is not what leads to unfulfilling relationships. Rather, it is needs not being met and a number of the other factors which were present in my past relationship that I mistook for comfortability - when in fact, it was several other major issues that went unaddressed or changed. Recognizing that comfortability is not a threat to my intimacy or connection with a partner, is part of me moving towards secure attachment in my romantic relationships.