09/07/2026
I spoke to an anxious and avoidant couple who couldn't stop fighting, and it was destroying their relationship. I asked them why. Here's what they said.
They both said nothing at first, just looked at each other to see who would talk first. That alone told me how terrified each of them was of speaking honestly in front of the other.
The avoidant attacher went first. He said it's his fault, he needs to work on his patterns, he's not very good at communicating.
I asked, are you sure? It doesn't sound like something you fully believe.
It is.
Okay. And you? I asked the anxious attacher.
I have things I need to work on too, but my partner needs to heal from his childhood. Without that, he'll keep doing painful avoidant things.
I see. So let me ask you something. If you could snap your fingers and change one pattern in this relationship, one thing that would transform it overnight, what would it be?
I want him to stop dismissing me the second things get hard. He never listens to me, he's done this for years, he always prioritises everything else, like work, over us, and he needs to learn how to communicate, and of course he needs to heal his childhood wounds he keeps projecting onto me.
And what about for you? I asked the avoidant attacher.
Well, I guess if I could communicate better it would help.
Notice the gap between those two answers. She gave me years of specifics, a pattern, and a diagnosis of your childhood. You gave me one sentence with nothing behind it, no detail, no example, nothing you actually want changed. That's not you being less articulate than her. That's the exact avoidant pattern you're both here to fix, happening in real time, in your answer to my question.
I'll share with you a few patterns that are literally playing out in our call right now.
Pattern one. Past hurt becomes present protection. Somewhere along the way, both of you got hurt in ways that had nothing to do with each other, long before you met. And your nervous systems did what nervous systems do, they built a defense so that hurt never happens again. That defense is still running, except now it's aimed at the person you actually want close to you. Protection was built to keep danger out. It doesn't know the difference between danger and intimacy, so it keeps both out equally well. That's the trap. The very thing meant to keep you safe is the exact thing destroying the connection you're both here trying to save.
Pattern two. Both of your insecure attachment systems are triggered right now. Your avoidant attachment is triggered, and you're deactivating as we speak. When I ask you to share what's happening for you, you blame yourself and give me an answer designed to avoid a long, heated conversation and avoid being wrong. So you say words that don't hold weight or meaning, and that's exactly what triggers your partner. She feels like you're dismissing her and the relationship, because you're saying the words but she can feel you don't mean them.
Meanwhile your anxious attachment is triggered too. When I ask what could change this relationship, your focus goes entirely onto him, what he's doing wrong, what he needs to heal, and you already have a list ready. That's what anxious attachment does when it's triggered. Your nervous system needs him to change before you can feel safe and settled.
Pattern three. You're both asking the other person to go first. He waits to say what's true until he trusts you'll hear it without attacking him. You wait to soften until he proves he's present instead of performing the right words. So you're both standing at the edge of the same cliff, waiting for the other one to jump, and neither of you moves.
So let me ask you both directly. Right now, on this call. Which one of you goes first?
Silence. Neither of them answered for almost ten seconds.
Finally he spoke. I guess I could try. I'm scared that whatever I share, it'll be wrong, that I'll get the story slightly off, and she'll tell me I'm lying or twisting it, like she has before.
Her turn. What do you hear when he says that?
I hear him blaming me again. Making me the reason he can't open up.
I want to slow down right here, because this is half of the whole relationship in one exchange. He hands you something fragile, and it gets met with criticism, with being told he's got the story wrong, with being called a liar for not remembering it exactly the way you do. So he learns that opening up gets him picked apart, and he opens up less.
Now let's flip it. What happens when you share something sensitive with him?
She thought about it. I try to tell him when I'm scared or hurt, and he gets defensive straight away. Like I've accused him of something, when I was just telling him how I felt.
So there's your other half. When you hand him something sensitive, he hears an attack he has to defend against, instead of a feeling he could just sit with. So you learn that opening up gets you a defense lawyer instead of a partner, and you open up less too, or you open up louder, hoping volume gets through where softness didn't.
Here it is, both directions at once. He shares fragile, you criticize. You share sensitive, he defends. Each of you has spent years teaching the other one that honesty isn't safe here, using completely different weapons, and neither of you noticed you were running the same experiment on each other.
Moving forward, this is what it'll take to create a secure dynamic.
Firstly, be the change you want to see in each other. You want vulnerability from him, so meet his fragile disclosures with curiosity instead of correction. You want to be believed when you're scared, so meet her sensitive disclosures as feelings, not accusations.
Regulate your own system before you ask the other to regulate theirs. For him, that means catching the urge to defend before it fires, and asking what she actually needs from you in that moment instead of what you need to prove. For you, that means catching the urge to correct or criticize before it fires, and asking whether what he shared needs a fact check or just needs to be held.
Neither of you will get this right every time. He'll defend when he should have stayed open. You'll criticize when you should have gotten curious. That's not proof this isn't working, that's the relationship healing in real time. What separates couples who make it isn't fewer ruptures, it's faster repair. Coming back an hour later and saying, I think I just did the thing again, is worth more than getting it right the first time ever could be.
And this can't be a one-time effort waiting for safety to show up first. Safety only gets built by one of you risking vulnerability before you feel safe, not after. That means practicing this on purpose, outside the moments you're already flooded, so the muscle is there when the real test comes. This pattern took years to build. It won't unwind in one conversation, or even in one good week. Some nights will still look exactly like every other night you've had. That's not failure. That's the reps.
Do this for yourself, not for the relationship. When you protect yourself, you're the one who ends up hurt, twice over, once by the fear and once by the years you spent obeying it. So commit to leading with vulnerability and risk, and you win either way. If your partner meets you there, you've built the thing you actually wanted. If they don't, more often than not, you now have the data to know this isn't the relationship for you. Either outcome moves you forward.
Whatever you do now, you carry with you wherever you go next.
