Why Gay Men Struggle in Romantic Relationships

[00:00:00] Matt Landsiedel: Foreign.

Welcome to Gay Men Going Deeper, a podcast by the Gay Men’s Brotherhood that showcases raw and real conversations about personal development, mental health and sexuality from an unapologetically gay perspective. I am your host, Matt Landsiedel, and today joining me is Tom Bruett. Welcome to the show, Tom.

[00:00:26] Tom Bruett: Hi, Matt. I’m so glad to be here.

[00:00:28] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, good to have you here. I’m looking forward to this conversation. It’s going to be a juicy conversation about gay men and relationships. I think a lot of us really need this conversation today, so I’m looking forward to extracting all your wisdom and sharing it with the audience. So for those of you who do not know Tom, Tom is a therapist, trainer, consultant and author who works extensively with the queer community. He is the founder of the Queer Relationship Institute, which provides therapy for queer folks and training for therapists who work with queer relationships. Tom is trained in the developmental model of relationship therapy, which he now trains other therapists in his book, the Go to Relationship Guide for Gay Men From Honeymoon to Lasting Commitment will be published in March 2025. And for anything on Tom, you can go to queer relationships. It’s queerrelationshipinstitute.com I know it’s a mouthful. That’s a mouthful, but I got it. And you’re, you’re bringing a lot of gifts to our community. It’s beautiful. I love when I. To meet other gay and queer men who are doing this work and it’s so needed. So I’m very happy to, to meet another person who’s doing similar work and yeah, so the audience, what we’re going to be packing, unpacking today is why gay men struggle in relationships, how to overcome it and how to develop secure attachment, essentially is the conversation. We’re going to be, we’re going to be unpacking, so let’s, let’s maybe hop in. We’ve, we’ve got about five questions that we’re gonna try to unpack. Why do gay men struggle in relationships? What is required for gay men to develop secure attachment? Secure attachment style versus secure relationship. Is there a difference in, in between those two? What does a secure relationship even look like? And then we wanna learn from you about your queer relationship development, like the stages of queer relationship development. I know that you’re, this is something you’re trained in. So we wanna kind of pack everything that we’re talking about into that model and see, you know, what we can, what we can learn from it. So let’s hop in. Yeah, right. So just, I’m Curious from your perspective. I know this is a very broad question and maybe we can just unpack it. We’ll ping pong different ideas, suggestions. But why do you think gay men struggle in relationships?

[00:02:32] Tom Bruett: Yeah, I’ll give a few examples there. One thing I always like to say in conversations like this is I am one gay man. There are so many gay men out there who are going to have different experiences and different perspectives. And so I always get a little nervous when speaking for the entire gay male community.

[00:02:46] Matt Landsiedel: Totally.

[00:02:46] Tom Bruett: But, you know, I will share some of my perspectives on this.

[00:02:49] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, I appreciate that. I think the same. That’s why I’m an anecdotal teacher, because I can’t speak for other people’s experiences. I think, you know, there’s certain research that can show us that maybe a certain amount of people have certain similar beliefs or whatnot. But even still, there’s, there’s holes in, you know, qualitative and quantitative research. So I think it’s, it’s important to own our experience while we’re talking about this as well. I like that.

[00:03:11] Tom Bruett: Yeah, I think so. Kind of just jumping in. One of the things that came to mind as I was thinking about this question is we are gay men, but we’re conditioned as men. And if you grew up in a society where there are, you know, specific things that are male or female are gendered in one way or another, we internalize that. And I don’t think we bring up men in our culture in a way that prepares them for vulnerable, connected relationships.

[00:03:36] Matt Landsiedel: Exactly. Yeah.

[00:03:37] Tom Bruett: So we add on to that minority stress and a whole bunch of other stuff, and it’s a perfect storm.

[00:03:42] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, I think that’s, that’s actually probably the biggest one, in my opinion. I love that you brought that up first because in order for us to have intimacy, we have to be willing to reveal ourselves to share our emotional experience. And I think men, the way we’re conditioned as men growing up is through a social conditioning around, don’t feel, don’t talk too much about your emotions, don’t be vulnerable. And in my opinion, the number one ingredient to a secure relationship or intimacy is vulnerability. You have to be willing to be vulnerable. So, yeah, you make a great point.

[00:04:14] Tom Bruett: And vulnerability is uncomfortable. It’s messy. Sometimes it can feel out of control. And all those things can be exciting, but they can also be scary.

[00:04:23] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah. I’m curious if we were to take it from like, the male perspective, like men, we’ll say men and bring it into the gay male perspective. What makes it. It Unique for us as gay men, that makes it hard for us and to be in relationship with. With one another. I think the conditioning, because that’s what we just talked about, is a broad sweep across the gender of. Of a man, in my opinion. What about gay men specifically?

[00:04:46] Tom Bruett: Yeah, so there was an Israeli study done several years ago where it looked at the attachment styles of gay men, straight men, lesbian women, and straight women. And what this study found basically was that gay men are on average, more insecurely attached, and then on top of that, are more avoidantly attached. And so if we think about why that may be the case, there’s some really great writings on the gender piece of this and that gay men, There’s a few researchers who say that gay men, we become like the spies and the holders of hyper masculinity because we learn to hide different parts of ourself, you know, in a way so that we can fit in and not get bullied and all that other kind of stuff. But unfortunately, that creates distance. Right. If you’re learning to put up walls and hide different parts of yourself, it’s really, I think, almost impossible to be in a fully authentic connected relationship with another man.

[00:05:41] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, I agree. And there’s lots of validity to what you’re saying, I think, because even in my private practice, I would say more women tend to have anxious attachment, more men tend to have avoidant attachment. And then you have obviously disorganization, which you’re going to see within both. Within both genders, in my opinion. But so, yeah, what I’m hearing from you is there’s this, this aspect of hiding, right? Avoidance is about discomfort with our own emotion. Right. Hiding who we are. Like concealing ourselves, essentially, when we’re. When we’re dismissively avoidant, we’re concealing ourselves. We’re not willing to go into conflict, we’re not willing to go into intimacy. We’re not willing to be vulnerable. Right. I’m curious, from your perspective, why do you think, well, men even, or gay men, why do you think they’re more prone to developing, like, dismissive avoidance?

[00:06:26] Tom Bruett: I mean, I’ll share my personal experience with this. And then I think there’s lots of different ways that this can show up, but I was mercilessly bullied as a child. You know, I had glasses, I was gay, I liked musical theater. All the things that, you know, other boys loved to point out and ridicule. And that then brings in a lot of shame. And so shame is such a sticky emotion because, you know, it makes you feel Bad about yourself in a way that like, guilt is I did something bad, shame is I am bad. And so if you start learning on a deep level that you are bad or there’s something wrong with you, then it makes it easier to avoid connecting with other people and putting up facades and masking in all sorts of different ways.

[00:07:07] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah. When I was thinking of this question, why do gay men struggle in relationships? I had two things that I was going to bring to the table. Shame. The first one, which you just talked about, and developmental trauma are the two pieces. And I work a lot with those two things in my private work, so I see them a lot. Maybe I’m biased in that perspective, but I do think there’s a lot of validity to shame trauma and then conditioning. I would say if we were to wrap this up in this question into and put a bow on it, I would say those would probably be the biggest, you know, conditioning around emotions. Shame, which is an emotion that we’re conditioned into. Right. And then developmental trauma. And maybe I’ll speak to that just briefly because I think a lot of gay men, you know, we grow up and we’re where the developmental trauma I think comes from is, is having to hold in a big secret on little shoulders. Right. Like, I knew I was gay from the age of 5 years old. And that’s a huge burden to carry around for a five year old. Right. The nervous system of a lot of us as gay men are in states of hypervigilance, not able to rest in. And again, you look at intimacy, you look at vulnerability, these things, it requires the nervous system to be able to sink in and rest. And so we can trust and we can move towards each other in these, these more intimate ways. And so I do see that a lot of. In order to heal a lot of these attachment injuries that a lot of us carry, we have to do relational trauma healing or developmental trauma healing. I think it’s a big piece of the, of the puzzle.

[00:08:32] Tom Bruett: I couldn’t agree with you more. Yeah. And we add into that, you know, thinking about we are minorities, we’re sexual minorities.

[00:08:39] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah.

[00:08:39] Tom Bruett: And having the. All of the research that goes into minority stress and how that impacts a person’s nervous system is huge. And so the developmental trauma piece, sometimes we are so protected, we don’t even realize that it is developmental trauma that we’re dealing with until something big happens in our life that brings it to our attention.

[00:08:57] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, exactly. I’m curious. So for people that may have developmental trauma and this isn’t. We’re not doing this to diagnose people or anything. Just if it’s out there and people have it. How do you think people cope with developmental trauma without knowing that they have it? So they’re not in therapy, they’re not really working on themselves. What are things that you see in our community that people are doing that they’re engaging in to kind of just cope, whether that’s protector parts that they have online to deal with, you know, having to be with some of the pain of growing up gay.

[00:09:26] Tom Bruett: Well, you can see it across our community in lots of different ways with substance overuse in a way that is numbing out, or different kinds of sex that doesn’t feel connected or isn’t exciting or pleasure focused. There’s lots of body image issues that permeate our community. I mean, you just think about what is the picture that comes to mind if you close your eyes and think about what is the ideal gay male body? You know, it’s. It’s not realistic in a lot of ways.

[00:09:51] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah.

[00:09:52] Tom Bruett: And so going to the gym a lot or there’s lots of ways that we can avoid those feelings. And then it shows up in our relationships. If you have relationships where think about your life. Are you deeply connected in friendships? Not just romantically, but do you have deep friendships? Do you feel like you can authentically show up in different ways with lots of, you know, even just a few people? If that’s not happening in your life, then that may be a sign that there’s something going on.

[00:10:16] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah. When you’re sharing, like, the first thing that came to mind, just even one word is validation. You know, growing up with developmental trauma and shame, toxic shame, we learn that there’s something wrong with us. Right. That’s the message that a lot of us carry. Something is wrong with me. And then what do we do when something feels wrong with us? We either seek validation outside of ourselves so we can feel right. We people, please. We try to fit in. We do these things so we don’t have to, you know, get the salt thrown on our. On our shame wounds. Right. So we completely abandon ourselves. We, you know, develop an inauthentic sense of self. So we can try. Right. So I think a lot of this, A lot of us struggle in our relationships is because we have spent a lot of our lives developing an inauthentic sense of self. And I’ll speak for myself, I had a major inauthentic sense of self. My healing journey, and still, I’m still working through this, is connecting to my authenticity and Living from that place. And I think that’s just life’s work. We get set off as gay men on. It’s a developmental delay, I think, for a lot of us. So you see, I see a lot of. And actually this might be a good time to talk about this because you introduced me to the term second adolescence. Right. I had never heard it framed like that before that a lot of us, we have this developmental delay in our authentic self development that when we finally start connecting with this part of ourselves, it’s like we haven’t. We haven’t matured at certain developmental milestones, like say our heterosexual counterparts. I’m curious, would you love to like introduce the audience to that term? Like, what does that mean more like the second adolescence?

[00:11:45] Tom Bruett: Yeah. So I certainly didn’t coin this term, but it’s, it’s. I think it’s. It’s floating around and I think becoming more popular in the gay and queer community. But that is the first stage, I think, in relationship development from my perspective and in my book, the second Queer Adolescence.

[00:11:58] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah.

[00:11:59] Tom Bruett: And so, you know, it’s. It’s a period of time where usually if you think back to your first queer or gay relationship, like, are you able to fully show up as your full self? Probably not.

[00:12:10] Matt Landsiedel: I wasn’t, I was drunk every time I needed to have sex. Like I, for the first, in my 20s, I couldn’t have sex unless I was drunk. So that goes to tell you right there, like, that’s a major developmental delay, huh?

[00:12:22] Tom Bruett: Yeah. And I certainly share that experience. I had many, many early hookups where I was on some kind of substance and.

[00:12:29] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah.

[00:12:29] Tom Bruett: I need that to kind of feel more comfortable in my body and be sexual.

[00:12:33] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, exactly.

[00:12:34] Tom Bruett: Yeah.

[00:12:34] Matt Landsiedel: It’s a thing out the tonic to Nemo. Trauma. Alcohol. Alcohol. Alcohol, yeah. Now I can do whatever I need to do. I can be relieve social anxiety, sexual performance anxiety. Like alcohol is a tonic, I think, used to take down the symptoms of trauma, unhealed trauma. That’s one of my core beliefs about trauma and alcohol. Yeah.

[00:12:52] Tom Bruett: 100%.

[00:12:53] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah. Interesting. Second queer adolescence. I can’t wait for your book to be released because I want to read. Read more about this and the developmental model. Okay. I think we’ve picked apart why gay men struggle in relationships, which is important. Right. We need to have that conversation because people need to see in themselves that they might have toxic shame, they might have developmental trauma, and then, okay, this is why I’m struggling in my relationships. Right. We need to know the why. We need to know the problem before we can start to move towards the solution. So let’s maybe let’s shift the conversation to what is required for. For gay men to develop secure attachment.

[00:13:29] Tom Bruett: Yeah. So thinking about secure attachment, there’s earned secure attachment, there’s securely attached relationships. There’s lots of different verbiage, I think, that gets thrown around out there. And the TikTok therapy world, you know, we’re using all sorts of psychological words and sometimes ways that make sense or don’t make sense.

[00:13:45] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah.

[00:13:46] Tom Bruett: And so thinking about a secure attached relationship, I mean, do you think we should first start off with talking about what that actually is, or do you want to get into that?

[00:13:55] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Maybe let’s talk about secure attachment versus secure relationships. Like, what are these two? Right. Because I think it’s important to talk about. There’s an aspect of, you know, you talk about it earned or organic secure attachment, which is like attachment could be to our caregivers, could be to within ourselves, like our secure attachment to ourselves, having a secure relationship with ourselves. And then we take that and we bring it into our relational dynamics. Right. So, but yeah, what would be your take on it?

[00:14:22] Tom Bruett: Yeah. So thinking about, like the secure attachment that starts with the caregiver, that’s all the early research was with child and caregivers and then has been moved to the adult attachment relationship world. There really actually haven’t been that many studies that track the attachment from being a child to being an adult. So that if you were securely attached as a child, you could have an incident that happens that’s really traumatic that makes you insecure as an adult and vice versa. And so we know that only about 50% of adults are securely attached. And the other, you know, more insecure attachment is either more the avoidant or the anxious. And, you know, there’s different words for it. And what we were talking about before, gay men fall more on the avoidant side of things. But if you are in a securely attached relationship, you don’t necessarily have to have secure attachment. And I think that’s kind of what. What you were getting to there.

[00:15:09] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah.

[00:15:10] Tom Bruett: A securely attached relationship you can build over time.

[00:15:13] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah.

[00:15:14] Tom Bruett: And so earned secure attachment can happen with months or years of time in a relationship with somebody else who’s emotionally available.

[00:15:21] Matt Landsiedel: Yes.

[00:15:22] Tom Bruett: It could happen with a therapist or coach or, you know, another mentor or something. It doesn’t only have to happen through your caregiver when you were a child. And you know, when we think about this with romantic relationships, sometimes I certainly in my, in my current partnership I was a mess when I first got together with him and I was sometimes anxious, sometimes avoidant, and he was very, you know, calm and steady. And so he was able to kind of weather my initial, you know, few months, few couple years of calming my own attachment system down to actually be able to connect with him in a secure way. And so I was lucky that I happened into that kind of an experience.

[00:16:06] Matt Landsiedel: What a gift. Do you tend to lean more disorganized? I heard you say you have anxious and avoidant or.

[00:16:11] Tom Bruett: I think so. I think that would have been my experience. I certainly had developmental trauma. I share about this a little bit in my book, you know, my own experiences. Because the first part of the book is really about what are the things that we have to work on ourselves before we can really connect and be in relationship with somebody else.

[00:16:27] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah.

[00:16:27] Tom Bruett: And so I share, you know, some experiences of my own. Of my own experience there.

[00:16:31] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, I relate. And I have a disorganized attachment style. I’ve probably made it to about 80% security. I’m still navigating it. I’m still doing EMDR, I’m still doing IFS, I’m still doing all the things. Because man, when you have attachment trauma, which they, they define clinically, attachment trauma being the first two years of life and then beyond that, any sort of relational or interpersonal trauma becomes, could be relational trauma, developmental trauma. There’s, there’s so many clinical terms, but really at the end of the day it’s all kind of attachment trauma or complex trauma. We could call it like where it’s relational in nature. For myself, I, I would say I had insecure attachment in early, early years, like before two years old. And then I think the gay piece was the developmental trauma that I’m speaking of for myself. And I think it’s again, it’s thinking about this five year old boy and not having support. Right. It’s helpless. You feel helpless, like meaning there’s no support there for you. So you know what happens to somebody like this? Right. It becomes a very confusing time. And I think you look at disorganization, I think confusion, lack of clarity around relationships is a big piece of what creates disorganization and attachment. So I see a lot of that in my practice, but it’s probably because that’s what I attract, because that’s my vibration that I’m putting out. I don’t tend to work a lot with avoidance and work more with anxious side of, of disorganization, which makes sense.

[00:17:53] Tom Bruett: Because people who are more Avoidant are not going to necessarily jump into therapy unless something, you know, is pushing them there.

[00:17:59] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It’s interesting. That’s interesting. I’m curious for you, like, just the, the relationship that you had with, not the relationship with the experiences that you had with, like, bullying and stuff, was that a big piece of what created the. Your attachment injuries and stuff?

[00:18:15] Tom Bruett: Oh, 100%. And I was bitten by a dog when I was two and a half. That’s why I have this scar on my face. And, you know, I was mercilessly teased for that. And, you know, you look into the societal, because I think it’s really important, and I talk about this in the book, that to look at the systems perspective here, there were no gay princes in the Disney movies. There were, you know, no representation in the media or in books or in children’s books that were normalizing my experience.

And so often I hear that parents, you know, my coming out experience, my parents were like, oh, we knew forever. It’s not a surprise. Why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you help me out? Right. Couldn’t you see I was struggling and not connecting in school and all that kind of stuff? I think parents sometimes don’t even. They don’t know what to do. I think it’s getting better, but certainly when I was a young kid, it was not the norm.

[00:19:03] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, exactly. We did. A couple months ago, we did. Or last month, I should say we did. Coming out in the gay Men’s brotherhood. And we talked about this on one of the podcasts, how parents go into freeze when their children are gay. They don’t know what to do. They just shut down and they’re like, okay, I’m going to pretend like it’s, you know, like, eyes closed, ears plugged, and when really we need support. Right. As young gay boys, we need support in that really crucial time. Because then what ends up happening is we go into these fight or flight responses and our nervous system completely gets dysregulated and we go into, like, we develop protector parts using IFS terminology. And, you know, there’s a ton of protector parts. And then a lot of gay men, we spend most of our lives in protector parts. And, you know, a lot of the healing is learning how to integrate these protector parts so we can start to connect with our, you know, self energy. They call it in ifs, but I just call it as our authentic self. The powerful part of who we are. Right. The part of us that’s in our power.

[00:19:58] Tom Bruett: Yeah, it’s takes A lot of guts and courage. It’s not an easy thing to do.

[00:20:02] Matt Landsiedel: Oh, my God. So 10 years I’ve been at this with healing, disorganized attachment. It is a real beast. It’s out of all the things that I’ve had to deal with in my life, it’s by far the hardest transformation I’ve had to make. So I have a lot of compassion and a lot of empathy for myself, but also for gay men. And I think that’s why I’m doing this. That’s why I’m sitting across from you in this moment. It’s my purpose to help our community heal so we can have yummy, delicious connection and sex and love and all intimacy. All the things that I think why we’re here, we’re on this planet to be able to indulge in all those beautiful things. So, yeah. Okay, let’s go back to the original thing. I love how we’re so similar to. We’ve got so much similar, the way we think about relationships and stuff, but so secure attachment versus secure relationship. Anything else you want to say in order to discern those two things at all?

[00:20:54] Tom Bruett: I think we don’t. One of the things that happens in our community is that we haven’t had a lot of role models for what successful gay relationships can look like.

[00:21:01] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah.

[00:21:02] Tom Bruett: There’s a lot of reasons for this. Like, I was talking about the media representation. We lost an entire generation of people to the HIV and AIDS crisis. And it hasn’t been that long that it’s been okay to actually not lose your job if you had a government job or not be arrested for, you know, being a gay man. Like, actually, if we look at the history of the world, it hasn’t been that long that we have been able to live the way that we’re living. So we don’t have examples necessarily of what secure relationships look like.

[00:21:29] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah.

[00:21:29] Tom Bruett: So it’s not necessarily our fault. Like, there is a systemic piece here that I think is really important because the last thing we want to do is add more to the shame of I am wrong.

[00:21:38] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah.

[00:21:39] Tom Bruett: And it would be really easy to do that if, you know, you are not in a secure relationship, whatever that means to you, to take it personally.

[00:21:47] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, good points.

Yeah. I want to just maybe talk about a couple characteristics that are. That just popped into my head around secure attachments. So, you know, I look at secure attachment. A couple characteristics of secure attachment. First one is our ability to be with our emotions. People who are securely attached, they tend to have really good emotion Regulation, right. That’s self soothing. And they’re also good at CO regulation. So self regulation and CO regulation are two strong qualities of somebody with secure attachment. Self regulation, meaning we can be with our own emotional discomfort, we can regulate our own nervous system and then we can also move into connection with other people. So that might look like talking to your partner or asking for a hug or cuddling, anything that we, when we come in and we use another nervous system to regulate our own nervous system. This is developed, believe it or not, co regulation is developed through self regulation or, sorry, self regulation is developed through co regulation with our caregiver. So when we’re younger and we’re, we’re having a blow up and we’re temper tantruming, whatever, and our parent gets down to our level and they hold us and they, they bring us through this experience, we know that we’re safe, right? So again, insecure. If you look at people who didn’t get that, they have learned that in order to function and survive, they have to do it all on their own.

[00:23:07] Tom Bruett: Right?

[00:23:08] Matt Landsiedel: And I think that’s a big piece of moving towards secure attachment is learning to trust relationships again, learning to trust love again, that there are safe people out there. That’s been a big one for me because disorganized attachers tend to think they put everything through a negative bias. Right. The whole world’s unsafe, no one’s trustworthy. So it’s about learning that, yeah, people can be there for me if I let down my protector. Part of no one’s there for me, so I have to do it all on my own. Right. I think that I developed a big, big core belief around that and then it reinforces the belief that no one’s there for you because you won’t let anybody be there for you. So I’ve been kind of learning that throughout my process. Okay. Now secure attachment looks like letting people be there for me, letting people help me, letting people support me, right. Learning that people are reliable. I think that’s a big characteristic of secure attachment.

[00:23:56] Tom Bruett: I want to add something to that because something, I see a lot of this because, you know, I work mostly with gay couples and when there’s an angry fighting couple that’s coming in, sometimes they’re pulling for co regulation before they’re actually ready for it. And so if you have two nervous systems who are not able to self regulate, you can’t possibly co regulate.

[00:24:15] Matt Landsiedel: Exactly.

[00:24:15] Tom Bruett: And so a lot of the things that I teach couples and people really early on is how do you self regulate and then, you know, because if, if you have two, if you have one nervous system that’s able to be grounded, then you can potentially co regulate. But so many people want that co regulation first because that’s what we needed as children. As a young child, you needed an adult who was able to be regulated enough to hold you and contain you.

[00:24:39] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah.

[00:24:39] Tom Bruett: And sometimes we’re pulling for that from our romantic partner when they’re not, they’re not in their adult parts yet.

[00:24:44] Matt Landsiedel: Exactly. Yeah, great point, great point. What’s one thing that you would suggest to clients or one thing that you see is very successful in helping people learn how to self regulate? Because that ties into question to what’s required for gay men to develop secure attachment. Learning to be with your emotions and learning how to self regulate is key. So what would you suggest to the audience?

[00:25:02] Tom Bruett: I talk about this in the book too. I know I keep saying that, but it’s the brain, understanding the brain and the brain in conflict. And there are some really fantastic books out there. Dan Siegel is a really fantastic researcher around understanding the brain and how the brain is in trauma. But our prefrontal cortex, which is our, our thinking brain, goes offline when we are in conflict and we’re dysregulated. And so you have to learn how to bring that back online before you can have any of these conversations.

[00:25:29] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah.

[00:25:29] Tom Bruett: And so whether that’s yoga or going for a walk or taking a break or going, you know, there’s lots of different methods that you can use to learn how to cope, to learn how to self regulate.

[00:25:39] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah.

[00:25:39] Tom Bruett: But if you don’t learn to self regulate, you’re never going to be able to have those conversations that are going to help you kind of move through the relationship conflict.

[00:25:47] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, exactly. It’s the hardest piece, in my opinion, of developing secure attachment. Because even when doing work with clients, even within myself, holy moly. I’ve got a zillion tools in my toolbox. And when the PFC goes offline, it’s like, good luck. Right. Like sometimes it’s just like you hold on for dear life and you just, you know, try and especially if you’re a big feeler, like I’m an, I’m an hsp, I’m an empath. I feel things very big. That’s why a lot of my clients are the same way. Right. So it’s like you gotta, you gotta have the tools in your toolbox first. You gotta learn them, you gotta learn how to use them. And then I think it’s really about being Consistent when you’re not at a 10 out of 10. So when you get a three out of 10, right, somebody cuts you off or there’s an agitation, you start practicing these skills in lower, you know, not all the marbles are on the table kind of thing. And then you get better at it. A good example for me is like box breathing. So I do like 4 by 4 by 4 by 4 box breathing. And I visualize myself moving around this box. Hold at the top for four seconds, breathe out, hold at the bottom for four seconds, breathe up. And I do that a lot. And it’s like training my nervous system to go from, you know, dysregulation back into regulation. And I think that’s really just like titration, right. Like you’re moving in and out of states of dysregulation to really expand your window of tolerance so that therefore, when you do have these bigger things happen in your life or in your relationships, that you have this ability to fall back on that. So it’s really about developing a relationship with your nervous system. That’s really what I’m hearing you say, right?

[00:27:15] Tom Bruett: It’s a hundred percent and noticing it so many times we don’t even notice it. Our. We flipped our lid or our thumb comes out. Thinking about the hand model of the brain and so often that’s why I love relationship therapy. Because the nervous systems of two people are going off in the room and then I can help them. Yeah, actually, you know, figure out, notice that it’s happening, try some different techniques to slow themselves down. And that’s why, you know, for a lot of gay men, taking the risk and going in to do some sort of relationship therapy or therapy or coaching or whatever it may be is really important. Asking for help, because you cannot do this alone.

[00:27:51] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, exactly. Okay. Anything else required for gay men to develop secure attachment that you can think of?

[00:27:58] Tom Bruett: I think there’s an authenticity piece around this. So knowing who you are, and a lot of what I talk about in the model that I use, the developmental model, is based on differentiation. And so differentiation kind of in a nutshell is knowing internally what are your thoughts, feelings, needs, desires, longings, all that kind of stuff. Do you know what’s actually important to you on a deep level and maybe even on a surface level, if you don’t know what’s going on in there, it’s very difficult to actually have any sort of connection with somebody else because you’re going to merge with them and then it’s going to be kind of a blurry. Mess. So the differentiation piece is like really, really important to start knowing more about yourself and then making space for your partner to be different than you.

[00:28:41] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. And I think the lack of differentiation that I would probably say is people who people please. Right. Their sense of self is derived from outside themselves. And you know, they find their sense of worth or sense of self in their relationships, not within themselves, which is really kind of like codependency at the end of the day. It’s tough. Yeah, that’s a tough one. And I think really developing a connection to my authentic self was that process. Actually it was learning about my needs, learning about my emotions, learning about my boundaries and learning about my values, all these things and really kind of like picking and then like rebuilding myself back up because I had such an inauthentic sense of self develop that I had to first grieve parts of that inauthenticity. Let that go, shed it. It was like, like a kind of like ego deaths and then build back in these things that were actually truly who I was. And at the end of the day I think that’s always changing and evolving because we’re always changing and evolving. So my authentic self is really different yesterday than it was today kind of thing. But having that differentiation I think is key. Otherwise we slide into codependency for sure.

[00:29:45] Tom Bruett: And these are all muscles. So that’s what’s really great about this is something I’m always telling clients is it’s like going to the emotional gym. If you’re going to run a marathon, you’re not going to start off running 26 miles or whatever it is. You are going to start, you know, slowly building up to be able to sustain that. And there’s lots of different ways that people can do that. But knowing that this is, it is possible to change these things. This isn’t like a predetermined, you know, part of yourself.

[00:30:11] Matt Landsiedel: Exactly. Yeah. That’s the, the hopeful piece of this is that attachment styles are, are malleable and changeable and even secure attachment, it’s not what people think it is. In, you know, I see a lot of, you know, like you said, tick tock people coming out and talking about secure attachment. It’s like people put it on a pedestal as if it’s perfection. It’s not. People who are securely attached still get activations. They still feel anxious. They can even still show signs of avoidance in relationship which. But it’s. The thing is, is that they don’t make the relationships mean so much about themselves. Right. If somebody’s avoidant with a secure person, they don’t make it mean that they’re worthless. They’re just like, okay, cool. I can see that this person’s avoidant and they have boundaries around it, but that doesn’t mean that people are, they’re still not going to have emotional reactivity, these sorts of things. So I don’t strive for perfection when it comes to attachment. I think it’s like relationships are messy, emotions are messy. 99.9% of humans struggle at times with their emotions and their relationships. So it’s really important to normalize that because I don’t think we should be measuring ourselves up to this false sense of what secure attachment is, in my opinion.

[00:31:17] Tom Bruett: I agree with you a hundred percent.

[00:31:18] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah. And then one thing I wanted to say about secure relationships, because secure attachment is like kind of like with ourselves, it can also be with other. But secure relationships. Like what is important for secure relationship? I think listening, it’s so, so key. Like active listening, learning how to listen, learning how to reflect what the person shared, learning how to share impact on what they shared, how it impacted you. Like, these are so, so crucial. And in that, that style of communication, it’s important to learn emotional validation. I think that’s like one of the greatest things that I teach clients in the work that I do for their relationships is how to emotionally validate. So it’s not just emotional validation of other, it’s emotional validation of self. Most human beings are, have some sort of core wounding around not feeling seen or heard or known as a child. And so when we can learn how to emotionally validate ourselves, that leads to secure attachment. And then learning how to emotionally validate others is like, holy crap. It’s a game changer for couples because when they start, when you start to emotionally validate, guess what? You get back. You get emotionally validated back. And then if that’s the birthplace, in my opinion of secure relating, is that we’re seeing each other as emotional creatures and we’re holding space for that. And we’re saying it’s okay to be emotional and that we can be emotional together. Right. And that’s what creates intimacy and vulnerability and things like that. Not easy to do by any means. Very challenging to emotionally validate in conflict. And the times when usually we need emotional validation the most, it can be the hardest time to do it. But again, it’s, it’s a muscle that we can constantly work at developing and building is how to emotionally validate one another.

[00:32:56] Tom Bruett: And Empathy and emotional validation is a level 10 skill. So if you’re just starting out, it’s like, just listen to understand. If you can start there and manage your own nervous system. When your partner is sharing something that is different than your perspective about an important topic, that is already a lot of work. And so if you’re not yet at the point of emotional regulation and, or kind of sharing empathy, that’s okay. That’s something you can work towards. But like, I wouldn’t expect, if your nervous system is going off like crazy, you’re not going to be able to emotionally validate somebody else in that moment. And that’s okay.

[00:33:31] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, yeah, I like what you said. Listen to, understand. I, I always say listen to hear, not to respond. Because when we’re listening to respond, we’re not actually listening. And the other person, we all know, we’re all energetic creatures. We know when someone’s not listening to us, when their wheels spinning, they’re trying to think of their rebuttal for when we’re finished, we don’t feel heard. Guess what? We do the same thing to them. That’s how you get the volcano erupting, right? Two people not listening to each other. So if we can throw a little bit of, you know, water on that fire, that is emotional validation. That is learning how to listen, making eye contact, these things. But you’re right, it is a level 10 skill. You gotta, you gotta work at it, for sure.

[00:34:07] Tom Bruett: And for some people, if we add neurodiversity into this, and we know for a lot of gay and queer folks, there’s higher numbers of people who are neurodiverse, understanding feelings and empathy is not gonna be necessarily the easiest thing.

[00:34:19] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah.

[00:34:19] Tom Bruett: And so I know we all want to be validated, but we have to also look at, like, who we are and what our talents are and, you know, what our expectations are.

[00:34:28] Matt Landsiedel: Exactly. Yeah. And that comes into discernment in choosing a partner, which is another secure attachment thing. Knowing your needs, knowing your, like, deal breakers, like, I can’t date a dismissive avoidant that’s not working on themselves because I need communication. I need someone to enter the relationship when there’s conflict. And DAs do the complete opposite of that. So I know that that’s a boundary for myself. It’s not. My needs will not get met. So knowing to choose a partner that is going to be able to meet the needs that are extremely important to you, I think that’s a really, really sign of somebody that’s, you know, securely attached or understands their relationships.

[00:35:02] Tom Bruett: Beautifully said.

[00:35:03] Matt Landsiedel: Okay. The juices are flowing. I’m feeling really stimulated by this conversation, so. Good. Anything you want to add to what does a secure relationship even look like? And then we’ll go into your, your model and see if we can tie things together with that.

[00:35:16] Tom Bruett: Sure. I think when I think about when I’m feeling securely in a relationship with somebody else, I’m able to be fully 100% myself. I don’t feel like I’m walking on eggshells. It may be uncomfortable to bring something up if I’m scared about a certain topic or something, but I, I have the courage to be able to do that. Trusting and knowing that the other person is going to meet me, you know, where I am, and I’m going to be able to assume positive intent and all that really important stuff around a relationship.

[00:35:43] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah.

[00:35:43] Tom Bruett: So, you know, knowing what, how you feel in connection with that other person, I think is really important. And knowing that it’s okay to feel comfortable and you can feel comfortable and you can also feel sexually excited by somebody and, you know, there’s all, all these things can be there at the same time. But it really, I think, comes down to the differentiation work. Are you able to have to take those risks, have those tough conversations sometimes and bring your full self into the relationship?

[00:36:09] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, I agree. I agree. And then communicating about it. Right. Differentiation of self, understanding self, having self awareness, having a good relationship, good dialogue with yourself, and then bringing that into, into a relationship, I think is. Is important through communication. I think a lot of gay men, you know, I looked at question number two. What is required for gay men to develop secure attachment? I think learning how to communicate, I think it is an essential, it’s such an essential skill, especially if we do lean towards the avoidant side of the spectrum, that is hyper independence. I’m going to do it on my own. I’m never going to go into the relationship to work on things. I’ll stay over here. You know, it’s really important to learn communication skills. And I think that’s, you know, again, one of the purposes of why I’m doing what I’m doing and creating courses and writing books and these things, because I want to educate gay men on how to communicate and, and what I think it’s really important. Yeah.

[00:36:59] Tom Bruett: Strong relationships build strong communities. And so if we’re not able to really connect with other people, whether it’s romantically, friendship wise, whatever, it’s isolating. It’s lonely.

[00:37:09] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, I agree. Off the top of your head when I ask you this. Question. What’s the first thing that comes to mind? What is required for gay men to develop secure attachment? If you were to give one thing, you point them in the direction of one thing that you think has the packs the biggest punch, connection to themselves. Okay.

[00:37:24] Tom Bruett: I think in order to be connected to somebody else, you first must be securely attached to yourself. And that means looking at yourself and being able to see warts and all, accept warts and all, even if at times you don’t like parts of yourself. That’s natural. But you know, are you going to be able to put yourself first?

[00:37:43] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, I agree. And I think like healing, there has to be a healing component to that as well, like understanding and learning about yourself, developing connection to self, self awareness. These sorts of things can be done really beautifully in therapy, counseling, coaching, these different sorts of modalities where you’re the focus and you get to really share yourself and understand yourself. And I would likely suggest somebody that is trained in working with things like toxic shame, developmental trauma. These pieces, I think they’re really, really important. So ifs does a good job with that. EMDR therapy, these sorts of modalities have been somatic. Therapies have been really helpful for me to get in touch with myself, my nervous system, my thoughts, my feelings, my beliefs. And then that’s helped me move into connection with people and be able to maintain myself while I’m in connection with other. I think that’s a, a skill.

[00:38:33] Tom Bruett: Yeah. Without that, you’re not going to be able to be securely attached. You’re going to be totally merged and blended in a way that becomes difficult to know where you start and stop and the other person stops and starts.

[00:38:44] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, it’s tricky. I’m so curious about the cross cultural implications of codependency actually, because our culture is very individualized. North American culture is extremely individualized. If we were to go over into Asia and do talk about codependency over there, I wonder what that would even look like. Right. Like, I don’t know, there’s got to be studies out there of, of, of cross cultural implications of codependency. But I just don’t know much about how that would look because, you know, you see families and everyone’s living together and you know, like in Asian cultures and here it’s like we all live on our own and we’re all so separate. Right. So yeah.

[00:39:19] Tom Bruett: And that’s why I, I tend to try to avoid the word codependent. But if we think about like, you know, there’s a certain amount of, you know, in the honeymoon stage of a relationship, of joining, of connecting, of blending a little bit. And then, you know, having the ability to also be able to step outside of that unit of the we that you’ve created in the relationship. Like, I think sometimes we demonize all of this sort of connecting, bonding, beautiful symbiotic experience. And you know, it’s okay there. Some of that is, is a natural part of attaching to an individual somebody else.

[00:39:51] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, good point, good point. You got the me, the two me’s, it’s like a Venn diagram. And then in the middle you got the we, right? And I think it’s, you know, each couple is going to be different. Like some couples might want 30% in the ME and 70% in the WE. And you know, you got to find a partner that’s wants that same type of closeness. Like how much closeness and contact do you want? And then there’s certain people that want a lot of space in their relationships. And I think it’s, there’s no right or wrong way to do this. I think it’s just finding somebody that want that is a match for these things. And you know, it’s becoming very common now for couples to like have separate bedrooms or even separate houses, I’ve heard, and these sorts of things. So some people really, really are protective of maintaining their autonomy in relationships. And there’s some people that want to merge with their partner and that creates happiness and long lasting love for them. Right. And I think it’s wherever you fall on the spectrum. It’s not right, it’s not wrong. As long as your happiness is your barometer. Right? Like, am I happy? Is this making me feel good? Um, I think that’s key. Okay, let’s take everything we just talked about and plunk it into your, your model. The stages of queer relationship development, like this might just be all over, but whatever. Like, what comes to mind when I think of that? Do you want to walk through the stages first? Like, do you want to tell us?

[00:41:02] Tom Bruett: Yeah, I’ll tell you about the stages. So there’s seven stages of this model. This model is based on the work of doctors Alan Bader and Peter Pearson, who are mentors of mine, and they developed the developmental model. They’ve been kind of doing couples therapy for 40 plus years. They were sort of the pioneers, one of some of the pioneers of couples therapy. And they’ve been working with gay couples since the beginning. They’re based in the Bay Area and you know, they were working with gay couples when a Lot of people weren’t because it was the 80s and the AIDS epidemic had a lot of people kind of scared about gay relationships. So kind of in working with them, I took their five stage model and I added two additional stages because I think gay relationships are different. And so this model starts with the first stage, which is the second queer adolescence. And we’ve talked a little bit about that, but basically we don’t go through our adolescence oftentimes at the same time as our straight counterparts. And so we, our first few relationships may be in our 20s or sometimes 30s, or if you come out later, you know, even, even later than that. And so we don’t get to have the same messy experiences that a lot of straight people get to have in middle school or high school. And, you know, we don’t have that differentiation muscle strong enough yet to actually be in connection with somebody else. Yeah, so that’s the first stage in this model is sometimes you get in a relationship and you realize, oh crap, I’m in the middle of my second queer adolescence or my partner is or whatever. And that that can be something you have to kind of work through.

[00:42:23] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, it makes total sense. Right. Kind of like what I was saying before, like you don’t have the time to develop your authentic self. Right. So there is a piece of. That’s like, okay, I’m like in between. So lack of sense of self can contribute to the lack of being able to differentiate is what I’m hearing a hundred percent. Yeah.

[00:42:38] Tom Bruett: And so then the second stage is the honeymoon stage. So that is the bonding attaching. You know, you’re having lots of sex, you’re figuring out all the ways that you’re the same and, and it’s exciting, it’s exhilarating. And yeah, a lot of us want to stay there because it can feel like a drug in some ways. You know, it’s all the hormones are flowing and all that kind of stuff. But a lot of times people will come into couples therapy between the honeymoon stage, which is the second stage, and the discovering differences stage, because one person is pulling to kind of keep the sameness going along, and then the other person is saying, hey, I, I’m still an individual inside of this relationship and I need some space or I want to hang out with friends, or I don’t want to eat the same food that you want to eat tonight. I’m going to make something different. Like, so it can be small to big differences, but a lot of us don’t. It could be a rocky stage, a rocky moment in relationships to go into that discovering differences phase.

[00:43:30] Matt Landsiedel: Okay, interesting. Is there another model that defines that as the power? Because I’ve heard different models in this is one of them is like a power, power player, power pole or something. Is that what this is?

[00:43:41] Tom Bruett: Not exactly. So a power poll. I think it happens a lot in gay relationships because we can be competitive with one another at times and sometimes we want our partner to come to our side and see things from our perspective. The discovering differences phase and differentiation allows there to be space for both perspectives. And so if you’re trying to get your partner to only see things your way or you think you’re right or wrong, that to me is a differentiation breakdown. So you’re not able to actually self define and say, okay, I want Mexican tonight, I want Italian. I’m not going to say you’re wrong for wanting Italian. That’s disgusting. You know, do all those kind of things to pull you over. We have what we want, different things. What are we going to do about that?

[00:44:19] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah. I’m curious. Okay. This might be a loaded question, but I think it would be a lot of people would be interested to know the answer. What happens when one partner comes in and in your office and they’re like, one wants monogamy, one wants non monogamy.

[00:44:33] Tom Bruett: So what you have to decide there, it becomes the differentiation challenge for the person who wants monogamy and the person who wants non monogamy. What’s important to you about this? And then because a lot of times what happens is people get dysregulated. Oh, gosh, this means the end of the relationship. Oh. You know, that’s. They’re changing, you know, the agreements that we had, all this kind of stuff which shuts down conversation.

[00:44:53] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah.

[00:44:54] Tom Bruett: And actually you need to go into conversation in a more nuanced, differentiated way.

[00:44:58] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah.

[00:44:59] Tom Bruett: And then you can start negotiating. Once you understand why is it important to your partner to want non monogamy, it may actually feel less threatening.

[00:45:06] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah.

[00:45:07] Tom Bruett: It may be something that, you know, there’s a part of that that you’re okay with. But so often and especially as men, we try to solve the problem before we fully understand it.

[00:45:15] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah.

[00:45:15] Tom Bruett: And so, you know, they’re trying to just like shut down all conversation. And if you say you want non monogamy, that’s it, you know, And I think that’s where the real heartbreak can happen. Because a lot can be learned about people through discovering differences.

[00:45:28] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah. And I think that attributes to the nervous system men. A lot of men aren’t good at Dealing with their emotions because they haven’t spent time doing it. So their window, window of tolerance is small when big things come up, you’re expected to have big conversations when no window of tolerance to match the bigness of this situation. So shut it down. Right. Avoid it, bounce, get out of there, that sort of thing. I think. Yeah. And you’re right. It prevents being able to develop a shared reality and understand one another’s perspective and possibly grow. Right. Or even maintain like a friendship if it’s not compatible and you’re going to go your separate ways, can you maintain friendship with that person and still have a connection? Right. So.

[00:46:05] Tom Bruett: But before you can make that decision, before you go to solving a problem, can you stand on the anxiety and tension that exists in this differentiation period? And so many people don’t have the nervous systems to be able to tolerate this tension.

[00:46:17] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, totally. Yeah. Makes sense though, for sure. I can understand what that’s like. For sure.

[00:46:22] Tom Bruett: Yeah. It’s scary.

[00:46:24] Matt Landsiedel: It is scary. Okay, so that’s stage.

[00:46:27] Tom Bruett: So that’s stage three. Stage four is the exploration stage. So after you started to discover and you know, the non monogamy, monogamy thing is an easy one to use, someone decides they want, you know, they want nonmonogamy. It doesn’t mean you necessarily go out and start exploring non monogamy. It could, it could be like, okay, what if we explore some fantasy together around what that would look like? You know, can we do this jointly together first? You know, another way this happens oftentimes is some people who like, would never take a vacation without their partner. Okay, well, I’m, I’m saying I want more connections with friends outside of the relationship. I want to take this vacation with my college friends. Can I do that? Can I go out and explore some of those differences so that the, the next phase is exploration?

[00:47:08] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah.

[00:47:08] Tom Bruett: Once you’ve discovered the differences, can you go out into the world and explore them?

[00:47:12] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah. So would exploration be only separate or would that be exploration together?

[00:47:17] Tom Bruett: It could be both. So ultimately you want to. What we’re getting towards in this model is the, the flexibility between connection and going out and exploring and being part of the world and having a little bit more fluidity there.

[00:47:29] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah.

[00:47:29] Tom Bruett: And these stages, they don’t always happen in an exactly linear manner.

[00:47:33] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah.

[00:47:33] Tom Bruett: You know, sometimes you move into exploration and you need some more connection and. But yeah, oftentimes exploration is going out and figuring out how do you reconnect with yourself inside of this relationship.

[00:47:45] Matt Landsiedel: Cool. Yeah. So this model would be really good if you laid it over couples who are codependent, in my opinion. Yeah, right. Like helping them find back their sense of self, their autonomy, their agency. These sorts of things could be great for all couples, but I think that it probably would be more like specifically tailored towards codependency.

[00:48:03] Tom Bruett: Yeah. So the next stage, this is the, the fifth stage is one that I’ve added. I think this is helpful for all relationships, but especially for gay relationships is the agreement stage. So once you’ve gone out and you’ve explored what’s important to you, are you able to come back and have those differentiated conversations and say, okay, I like this part of non monogamy. What is our new agreement? What is our new relationship agreement? Or I want to go on a trip with my friends once a year, let’s make an agreement about that. Because most conflicts in relationship come. Most conflicts, I think, come from unspoken agreements.

[00:48:36] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah.

[00:48:36] Tom Bruett: There’s all sorts of assumptions that people have about what’s actually happening in the relationship and nothing has actually been clearly talked about.

[00:48:43] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah. And those assumptions are going through our own filters from past experiences, usually. So we’re usually taking something from the past, dragging it into the present and making it mean something. We’re all meaning making machines. That’s what I say. Human beings, we’re all meaning making machines. So we’re always making meaning of everything. Sometimes we get it wrong and we apply meaning on something that isn’t actually accurate. So checking assumptions in reality is a, is also a skill of secure attachment, in my opinion.

[00:49:09] Tom Bruett: A hundred percent. And even, you know, using the non monogamy example or the monogamy example, if you talk to a couple and say, have you actually had a discussion about what monogamy means to you? Most people haven’t. There’s all sorts of assumptions about monogamy. But is if I send, you know, if I like this post that my ex posted on Instagram, does that mean that I’m cheating on you? Or, you know, if I kiss someone at a bar, is that monogamy? Like, what does monogamy actually mean? You know, it’s a differentiated conversation a lot of people don’t have.

[00:49:38] Matt Landsiedel: That’s really actually important. Now that I think about that, it’s like super important because I hear that all the time with people in these little things that pop up around that, like maintaining friendships with exes. What’s the boundaries around that? And liking a bunch of naked dudes, you know, on Instagram and things like that. Like what, where does that boundary line, it’s going to be there’s no again, no wrong or right. It’s about what works for you and being able to communicate that to your partner. But, yeah, the conversation is key, actually, now that I think about it.

[00:50:05] Tom Bruett: Yeah. And then that brings us to the sixth stage, which is the reconnection stage. So oftentimes, what will happen sometimes in relationships, and this will happen if there’s a betrayal or infidelity, somebody will go out and explore on their own without talking about it, without, you know, having a differentiated conversation with their partner, and they won’t have the ability to actually come back and reconnect. So once you’ve gone out and you’ve gone into the world and you’re discovering yourself, do you have some habits and some experiences that you can use to reconnect with your partner? Whether it’s joint projects or going on a special weekend trip together or even a special date night? Like, are there. Are there ways that you are reconnecting with your partner when you’re doing this. This process?

[00:50:47] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah. I love that. I love this model. It’s really cool. This is all gonna be in your book, you said, right? Yeah.

[00:50:54] Tom Bruett: So the book is structured, kind of taking these seven stages, and then I described, in different chapters, issues that come up for couples around these stages. So at the end of each chapter, there’s questions that couples can explore together. It’s a book, but it’s made for people to work through this process together. I wanted to create something for gay couples that maybe aren’t ready for couples therapy or don’t want to do couples therapy or want to do some work on their own. I wanted to give them a resource they could use in that way.

[00:51:23] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, I like that. Yeah, it’s great. I’ll definitely be grabbing a copy. It’ll be good for me in my own relationships because there’s some things you mentioned there. I’m like, yeah, I could clean up some certain areas of my relating to. For sure that could be useful. And that’s the thing with relationships, right? Is it’s like we’re always growing and evolving and trying to slap perfectionism into this stuff. It’s just going to perpetuate shame. Like, we’re all finding our way with relationships, and so, yeah, I’m glad there’s people like you out there doing this work.

[00:51:49] Tom Bruett: Thank you. Yeah. Well, before I get to the seventh stage, it kind of reminds me of why I got into this. I was married, gay, married, gay, divorced couples therapists. I’m like, what am I doing? I need to really learn how to do this. And so I went and started training with Alan and Pete. And you learn a lot about yourself in the process of, you know, helping yourself and then learning to help other people. And so I had a lot of things to clean up myself in this process so that I could eventually connect with somebody in a way that I could show up in an authentic, secure way.

[00:52:21] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah. Well, I want us to point this out too, because oftentimes insecure attachment attracts insecure attachment. And it’s like the puzzle pieces of wounding coming together and you’re. You need those relationships to point out what needs to be healed. When we start attracting people who are secure or even being attracted to people who have a secure attachment style is when we start to develop security in our attachment. I see this all the time, so I think, you know, it shows. It’s a testament. When you start attracting secure people and you start finding them attractive. That’s usually a sign that your work is. You’re really doing your inner work. It’s coming along. So who we attract is usually showing us where we’re at. Not always. There’s obviously an asterisk there, but usually our. Our vibe is. Is attracting the people that come into our life, for sure.

[00:53:07] Tom Bruett: So I liked a lot of drama.

[00:53:09] Matt Landsiedel: Liked a lot of drama.

[00:53:11] Tom Bruett: Which, you know, wasn’t necessarily in alignment with security.

[00:53:14] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, of course. Well, I’m glad you’ve. You’ve made it to having secure love. Yeah, it sounds like it. That’s awesome. What’s the seventh stage?

[00:53:23] Tom Bruett: So the seventh stage is mutual interdependence. And this one can be tricky for a lot of gay men because we are not always comfortable being interdependent with somebody else. And what mutual interdependence means is that you have the ability to, you know, in a nutshell, be yourself inside of a relationship. Bring all of your beautiful, wonderful stuff, your mess, you know, everything that’s authentically you into a relationship and make space for the other person to have that too. So you can have periods where you go out and you explore and, you know you’re going to come back. And it’s really what I describe as secure attachment is this last stage that you’re working towards.

[00:54:03] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, it’s so important. We do. Michael and I did an episode on. It was like trusting yourself in relationships, I think. And we talked about the secure or, sorry, the relationship attachment model and how you. You move from knowing to trusting, to relying, to committing. And I just want to say that because it’s so important, having interdependence with somebody is not going to happen within the first month of dating them. What you’re talking about is a very progressive model of moving through these stages of knowing somebody, developing trust for them, relying and committing. These are all characteristics that need to be developed. And then you can have interdependence. Because I think about it, I’m like, you know, having full autonomy and giving my partner full space. Even myself, like, I can feel a part of my insecure attachment. Come on, that’s like, oh, like that would be a lot. But a. I don’t know this person yet. I’m single right now. I don’t have trust for him. Right. So it’s like, I gotta keep in mind that these things are so progressive and they develop over time as we develop trust. And I think trust is such an important piece of this because if. If I have trust for a partner, I am very comfortable with them going off and doing their thing. And I’m actually a very spacious creature. I love having my own space and my own time to myself and things like that. So, yeah, I just wanted to bring voice to that because it came very live. When you were sharing that, I was like, yeah, like, this is something that I would love to have, but it would require trust in order to have that trust.

[00:55:27] Tom Bruett: And like you’re saying so many times we want to jump to this final stage before we really have. Have laid the foundation of building a solid relationship house, using a Gottman metaphor, you know, like it’s. We haven’t kind of built up the ability to actually trust somebody. So if you’re, you know, it happens sometimes where people get married really very early on in the relationship and they don’t even know the person fully. And you know that that sometimes can cause a lot of conflict and a lot of distress. There’s not. Getting married, even though that’s a possibility for many of us now in the world, doesn’t necessarily create secure attachment. It’s not an external thing, it’s an internal thing.

[00:56:06] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I think that’s where I’m at right now. I’m in this, like, real preparatory stage in like, really doing a lot of deep inner work and like, developing that differentiation piece and that strong self energy and then be able to bring that into a relationship. Although I don’t really want a relationship right now. It’s really interesting, but that’s probably why it’s. Because I’m. I’m developing a strong foundation of relation, like relating with myself. So, yeah, it’s very cool. This is a very Stimulating conversation. And I’m excited to get your book, like I said. So the Go To Relationship Guide for Gay Men From Honeymoon to Lasting Commitment will be published in March. Where can people find that if they want to grab a copy?

[00:56:44] Tom Bruett: Yeah, that’s going to be on Amazon. You could go to my website, queerrelationshipinstitute.com and there’s a page there where it will take you directly to the publisher’s page. I also have on there a set of free 24 discussion cards that you can download to do with your partner if you want to kind of learn more about the book.

[00:57:00] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, amazing, amazing stuff. I just finished writing an ebook on secure. It’s called the Secure Attachment Handbook. So a lot of the stuff I talked about today, like listening skills, how to emotionally validate, all these things are included in that as well. So, yeah, February, March, people can get these. And when does yours come out? Start learning. It’ll be out January 22, so it’ll already be out by the time this is. This is aired. But yeah, as many resources as possible. I think it’s so important to have as many resources as possible when it comes to relationships because there’s so much information out there. But the reason why is because we’re all so different and we all need the things that we need to learn from different people on how to become good in relationships and secure. So, yeah, those are two great resources. Is there anything else you want to share with the audience before we wrap up?

[00:57:47] Tom Bruett: I just want to kind of say how much I love what you’re doing over here. It’s such an important resource for our community. And, you know, I think what you do so beautifully is blend the spiritual with the psychological with the holistic. Like, you’re really looking at what does it mean to be a gay man in a fully embodied way? And I think that’s. We need so much more of that. So thank you for all the work you’re doing.

[00:58:09] Matt Landsiedel: Yeah, that’s very sweet. Thank you. I received that and I could say the same back to you. And creating with you is very, very easy. So definitely would love to have you on again and we’ll talk about it off air and try and come up with another topic that would be really good to share with the audience. Well, yeah, I think that’s. That’s a wrap. So for the audience listening, if you have any questions or comments or anything you want to ask Tom, I’ll make sure that he On YouTube, feel free to drop your comments and let us know, you know, where you’re at in your relationships? Are you struggling in your relationships success stories around developing secure attachment? We’d love to hear from you in the comments. And yeah, until next time. And thanks, thanks again for coming on, Tom. It was great to have you.

[00:58:50] Tom Bruett: You’re welcome. Great to be.