You know the cycle: the one where it feels like one of you wants more closeness while the other pulls away…and you’re exhausted. This pattern is often a sign of anxious and avoidant attachment styles clashing and it can make relationships feel really difficult and lonely. If this dynamic sounds familiar, you’re not alone. Couples therapy can help you break free from the anxious/attachment dance and build a relationship that feels more secure, connected, and fulfilling.
Understanding the Anxious/Avoidant Dynamic
People tend to develop attachment styles based on their early experiences with caregivers, but attachment styles aren’t rigid. They can change depending on our relationships, the time in our lives, and many other factors. Here’s how anxious and avoidant attachment tend to show up in relationships:
- Anxious Attachment: If you have an anxious attachment style, you likely crave closeness and reassurance in your relationship. You may worry about being abandoned or feel hyper-aware of shifts in your partner’s mood or behavior.
- Avoidant Attachment: If you have an avoidant attachment style, you may feel uncomfortable with too much emotional closeness. When conflict arises, you might withdraw, shut down, or need space to process your emotions alone.
When these two attachment styles come together in a relationship, it often creates a frustrating push-pull dynamic: one person seeks more connection, while the other creates distance. Over time, this can lead to resentment, loneliness, and feeling like you’re living with a stranger.
Begin Couples TherapyWhy This Cycle Feels So Hard to Break
The anxious/avoidant dance isn’t just about communication differences—it’s rooted in deeper nervous system responses. When an anxiously attached person feels disconnected, their body goes into fight-or-flight mode, causing them to be flooded with adrenaline and the urge to do something. This causes them to seek reassurance.
Meanwhile, the avoidantly attached partner might feel overwhelmed by emotional intensity, triggering their need to retreat. They might feel that they are inadequate, and what they’re doing is never enough for their anxious partner.
Note that in this dynamic, one person isn’t being “too needy” or the other being “emotionally unavailable.” Both partners are responding to deeply ingrained survival patterns—ones that were learned long before this relationship began. The good news is that couples therapy can help untangle these patterns, soothe our nervous systems, and feel more secure with our partners.
How Couples Therapy Can Help
Couples therapy (especially when informed by Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), Internal Family Systems (IFS), and trauma-informed care) can help you and your partner understand what’s driving your reactions and how to move toward greater security together.
1. Identifying the Pattern (Not the Person) as the Problem in Couples Therapy
One of the first things we do in therapy is refrain from blaming either partner. Instead, we focus on recognizing the cycle that keeps pulling you apart as the problem. Instead of seeing each other as the problem, we need to fix the cycle you’re caught in.
2. Creating Safety for Both Partners
A trauma-informed approach to couples therapy means understanding that both anxious and avoidant responses are rooted in past experiences that shaped your nervous system.
In couples therapy, we work on creating a space where both partners feel safe expressing their emotions without fear of criticism or rejection. For the anxiously attached partner, this means understanding deep in their bones that that they are worthy of love and don’t have to chase connection to keep it. For the avoidantly attached partner, it means realizing that closeness doesn’t have to feel overwhelming or suffocating. When both partners can show up for one another from this space, it creates a healing experience that never leaves a couple.
3. Strengthening Emotional Regulation in Couples Therapy
When attachment wounds are activated, our nervous system can go into overdrive. Parts work (and IFS Therapy) helps clients identify and tend to the younger, wounded parts of themselves that may be reacting in these moments. Through couples therapy, you’ll learn to slow down, notice these triggers, and regulate your emotions in a way that feels safe for both you and your partner.
4. Learning How to Communicate with More Clarity and Compassion
When you’re stuck in anxious/avoidant patterns, conversations often feel more like battles than bridges. Couples therapy helps you learn to express your needs without blame and listen to your partner without defensiveness. Instead of saying, “You never prioritize me,” an anxiously attached partner might learn to say, “When you don’t text me back for hours, I start to feel disconnected and anxious.” Likewise, an avoidantly attached partner might move from shutting down to saying, “When I feel pressured to talk before I’m ready, I get overwhelmed and need a little space to process.”
5. Rebuilding Trust and Secure Attachment
Over time, couples therapy helps you co-create a new way of relating—one that fosters secure attachment. Secure attachment doesn’t mean you never get triggered; it means you both have the tools to respond to triggers with care, curiosity, and connection rather than fear and withdrawal.
Start Couples TherapyIs It Possible to Make an Anxious/Avoidant Relationship Work?
Yes! While anxious/avoidant relationships can be challenging, they can also be incredibly healing when both partners are willing to do the work. Many (most!) couples who start therapy feeling stuck in these patterns go on to build stronger, more resilient relationships.
The key is understanding your own attachment responses, practicing new ways of communicating, and fostering mutual trust and security.
Ready to Break Free from the Anxious/Avoidant Cycle?
If you’re tired of feeling like you’re stuck in the same arguments, longing for more connection in your relationship, or unsure how to navigate your attachment differences, couples therapy can help.
I offer trauma-informed couples therapy online for Colorado residents. If you’re ready to create a relationship that feels more secure and connected, schedule a free 20-minute consultation today.
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Emma Kobil is a licensed professional counselor practicing online in Colorado and Florida. Her philosophically informed therapeutic approach focuses on helping creative and perfectionist women and couples heal. Learn more about Emma, or schedule an appointment, at mindfulcounselingdenver.com.
