If you’re wrestling in the ambivalence of deeply wanting a steady connection with your spouse or thinking your marriage can’t improve, this blog may be for you. Often this type of thinking is characteristic of a vacillator love style.

My previous blogs show how love styles are another way of talking about our early attachments or emotional imprints that form a pattern of how we love. Unpacking couples love style can add some healing to a bruised relationship and generally improve how one relates.

The vacillator is a passionate love style. Vacillators idealize marriage and romance.

Interestingly, early in a relationship the vacillators’ propensity to idealize often blinds them to any flaws in a mate. However, when relationship reality sets in, the vacillator is hurt, discouraged, and negatively fixated on the mate’s imperfections.

Typically, the vacillator experiences anger and bitterness and often blames.  As the name suggests, the vacillator can vacillate from being extremely loving to seemingly disproportionately angry, leaving the spouse confused and hurt.

Milan and Kay Yerkovich explain the driving force behind this behavior in their book How We Love:

“Vacillators grow up looking for constant attention and are often devastated when the passion connection is lost.”

Helping vacillators to know themselves and practicing a more balanced connection of reality to emotional response can aid in rebooting a struggling relationship.

The following statements offer an introductory look at determining whether or not “I” might be a vacillator:

• Feel like no one has ever really understood what I need.
• Was instantly attracted to my spouse, and our early relationship was intense and passionate.
• Hope for more in my relationships than I get; I am often disappointed as time goes on.
• Am a very passionate person and feel things deeply.
• Make it obvious when I’m hurt, and when my spouse doesn’t pursue me and ask what’s wrong, I hurt more.

If three or more of these statements are true for you, you may want to look further into your love style. Personal awareness is the beginning of better relationships!

Written By: Sheri Schulze, LAPC