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Vacillators and Romantic Relationships
We all know that person who lives in La La land, who wants a fairy tale love story where they live “happily ever after”! We all know that couple that is either madly in love, or fighting like cat and dog, blaming each other for anything and everything. Their relationship is either on the high or low. This way of relating and functioning describes vacillators- where either one partner or both are vacillators. Vacillators are people who approach relationships in an idealistic, and romanticised fashion –“everything has to be perfect”. They deeply crave emotional connection & will do all they can to get it. This can be at the expense of them undermining their own needs, or emotionally manipulating their partners. Vacillators are emotionally demanding; they want to receive consistent love & undivided attention.
Vacillators set high standards for their partners, and the relationship. When they don't get what they want -which is often the case due to unrealistically high expectations- it crashes them, provoking a huge sense of disappointment, and anger. These feelings are always targeted at their partner who is seen as having failed them. Vacillators sway between idealisation of their partner and the relationship, & denigration of the same - “I’m so in love with you and you are amazing" and "you are useless, l don't need you" dynamic . There are intense highs are lows, and inherently viewing the world in black and white terms, with no in between. This leads to cycles of pushing their partners to love & connect with them, & angrily pushing them away. The lows can manifest in actual physical and/or verbal fights, while the highs are both exaggerated and superficial. This couple is typically in a trauma bond, where the early unresolved relational trauma is unconsciously played out, in a victim and abuser dynamic.
Underneath this behaviour is as huge sense of insecurity, and a deep seated fear of abandonment. This gets acted out in the relationship by creating the fairy tale relationship in the mind, which is difficult to sustain in real life. Consequently, being in a relationship with a vacillator can be both exhausting and confusing. The behaviour itself is indeed a trauma response, rooted in the past relationships with their care givers. Their partners are simply paying the price for their early life care givers' failures. These behaviours are indeed transference manifestations (Freud, 1915).
Vacillators often find flaws in their partners, & want them to change in order to suit their phantasy of an ideal person and relationship. The more the partner gives in, the more they are likely to keep pushing for change. The changes are never enough, as they are based on an ideal and a phantasy, not on reality. If the partners conform, they simply reinforce the power in the vacillator. If the vacillators partner changes accordingly, they are left feeling very small, fragile, insecure, and powerless.
Predisposition
Vacillators are people who are likely to have disorganised attachment styles. They are likely to have grown up with parents who were inconsistent & unpredictable in emotionally connecting with them as children. Therefore, their attachment style is far from secure, but a disorganised one- as the word says "dis- organised". Their parents would have made them feel insignificant, and that their feelings didn’t matter to them. They grew up with a constant fear of being abandoned and let down, yet they also experience intense love from then same parents.
We don't talk much about vaccillators, or vaccillating in relationship discourses, yet this phenomenon is very common. Being in a relationship with a vacillator can be damaging and being a vacillator can also lead to an inability to sustain long term, fulfilling relationships. Partners can support each other to work through this dynamic, once the vacillator is able to acknowledge that they are indeed vacillating, and causing damage to their loved ones. Vacillators can also go into individual therapy to work on this early life trauma, secondary to adverse childhood experiences. Creating security in the relationship and boundaries is likely to help the couple, as the vacillating behaviour itself is stimulated by a fear of abandonment. Cycles of anger, and idealisation can cause huge damage to the relationship and to individuals in the relationship. The denigration erodes other positive qualities of the relationship.
Disorganised Attachment Style and Attachment Styles
The psychological health of an adult individual and relationship patterns is directly linked re postulated to the quality of the relationship between the baby and their primary care giver, which shapes the attachment styles they built in infancy. These attachments styles are internalised ways or relating laid out in our formative years, which get reactivated in our adult relationships (Ainsworth et al, 1978; Bowlby, 1969).
Bowlby (1969) postulated that there are different types of attachment patterns which are:
1) Secure attachment is developed when they baby is able to develop a healthy attachment style with their care giver. The baby is able to play independently away from the mother, and run back to the mother, a secure base, when it needs to, and know that mother will be waiting in reverence. These parents would have had consistent boundaries and responded consistently. The parent was able to honour and respect the child’s boundaries and made them feel emotionally safe. The child was allowed to express themselves, and the parent remained emotionally connected to the child. In adulthood, these people are likely to have a secure sense of self, they can self validate and not seek validation from their partners and they can approach relationships from a mature place. They are able to emotionally sooth themselves- conflict in the relationship, partner's temporary absence, or a break down of a relationship is not so emotionally crashing for them.
2) Anxious-Preoccupied attachment is an attachment style developed when the baby is unsure whether they are emotionally secure or not, mainly because they get ‘mixed messages’ from their care giver. The parents would have lacked boundaries, and struggled with emotionally regulating themselves. The parent would have not responded to the child’s needs and didn’t help the child with emotional regulation. They may have dismissed, minimised, denied, or ignored the child's emotional needs. In adult life, and in relationships, there is constant fear of abandonment, and hypervigilance to emotional sates. They may pick fights to stay close and the individual struggles with boundaries. The anxiously attached individual tends to be emotionally reactive, and to neglect themselves in relationships, to maintain proximity with their partner. They find it hard to deal with conflict as feelings becomes overwhelming and the threats of abandonment is costly to them.
3) Dismissive-Avoidant attachment style is developed when the baby had parents who regularly shuts down, emotionally withdraw, or dissociates, leaving the child emotionally unattended to. These parents may also shame the child for who they are and tend to be authoritarian and perfectionistic. As adults, the avoidant attached genuinely seeks connection but struggles with intimacy. They are likely to ghost, or abruptly end relationships. They also tend to be lone wolfs and cynical and critical of relationships. They may also lack empathy and struggle to understand other peopled viewpoints and needs that are separate to theirs. They are likely to remain single or push their partners away for self-preservation.
4) Fearful-Avoidant attachment style is developed when in childhood, the baby was completely unable to relate, as they were unable to experience a secure base where they could run back to. These children may have experienced abuse, neglect and violence from parents or witnessed it between parents. They are likely to have grown up in environments where there was poverty, and considerable lack of safety, shaming and the chid unable to be themselves. In these dynamics, the vital role of the parent as a reliable, trustworthy, consistent and solid care giver is lacking. In adulthood, these people are likely to cerate push-pull dynamics in relationships where they seek closeness and rejects. Romantic relationships can be highly triggering and overwhelming for them, leading to cynicism, and criticism of their partners. They may also re-enact their childhood trauma by setting their partners up into dramatic scenarios. They have unrealistic expectations of their partners and what a real relationship is.
The disorganised attachments are likely to be vacillators in relationships. All they are doing is re-anacting the early relationship template of having parents who are unreliable and untrustworthy. They do the same by creating idealised views of the world and relationships, and seeking others to meet their high standards. Unconsciously, they tend to pick partners who like being worshipped, and enjoy going through the emotional highs and the lows. The push- pull, and rejecting mimics what they felt in the care of their primary care givers.
As an individual and couples therapist, l have seen many people work through these unhealthy ways of relating, and develop healthier ways of relating. I have helped both subjects and partners of vacillators and helped them repair these attachment styles and develop healthier and secure attachment styles. Attachment styles are not fixed for a lifetime. They can be mended and repaired through good enough psychological work (therapy), and secure relationships with a partner who is securely attached themselves.
How to Heal
Subject
-Knowing that this behaviour is a trauma response is important.
-Self-reflection is critical as it enables you to stop and think before reacting or doing things that are harmful to your partner
-Working on communication and boundaries is important. You may want to invite your partner to support you with working on this.
-Having therapy to work on the trauma is also important as it enables you to learn healthy ways of relating & work through the trauma.
Victim
-Learn to create boundaries and to understand that the behaviour is not to do with you specifically but your partners past trauma. This will enable the victim to separate what's happening to them as something that's not directly towards them.
-Communication and setting boundaries is important and being consistent in doing so.
-Be mindful of love bombing and suffocating affection that comes with vacillators, as it soon becomes rejection. Being aware of it makes it less painful.
-Seek therapy if you are struggling with a relationship with a vacillator.
References
Ainsworth, M.D.S., Blehar, M.C., Waters, E, and Wall, S. (1978). Patterns of Attachment: A Psychological Study of the Strange Situation. Oxford, UK
Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and Loss, Vol. 1: Attachment. Attachment and Loss. New York: Basic Books.
Image Credit- Moosa Maseneke- Unsplash