#238: Can a Relationship Survive If Only One Person is Doing the Work? (Ask Steph)

On Attachment

Stephanie Rigg

Relationships, Society & Culture

4.9 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 5 March 2026

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this Ask Steph episode, I respond to a listener question I hear often: If I work on my anxious attachment, but my partner doesn’t work on their avoidant patterns, can the relationship still work?

I unpack why focusing on your side of the street is never a waste of time — even when your partner isn’t meeting you there yet. We talk about how healing anxious attachment isn’t about fixing the relationship or managing your partner’s behaviour, but about building self-regulation, self-trust, and clarity.

I also explore the two most common outcomes of doing this work: either your internal shifts create healthier dynamics and positive ripple effects in the relationship, or you reach a grounded place of clarity about what you need and whether this relationship can meet you there. Either way, you don’t lose — you gain resources, confidence, and choice.

This episode is for anyone who feels stuck waiting for their partner to change and is wondering whether it’s worth continuing to do the work alone.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. In today's Ask Steff episode,
0:05.7	I'm answering the question of, if I work on my anxious attachment but my partner doesn't
0:12.2	want to work on their avoidant attachment, can our relationship still work? So this will be a really
0:17.7	familiar conundrum for a lot of people. It's a position that many have been in, maybe are in, where you're learning about your
0:26.1	patterns and you're really wanting to build a more secure template for yourself around relationships,
0:32.4	wanting to build more safety, maybe work on some of those underlying wounds and fears and developing some
0:40.0	more secure relationship skills, things like communication needs, boundaries, healthier
0:45.0	conflict patterns, all of that stuff, which as a side note is wonderful and courageous work
0:50.7	and you should really feel proud of your commitment to doing that. But I think for people
0:55.8	who are in a relationship, it can give rise to this follow-up question of what does that mean for
1:01.6	our relationship with my partner is unwilling to do that work for themselves. And I think that that
1:07.9	can give rise to a fear, both that it will impede your work if your partner is firmly entrenched in their patterns and I'm willing to change.
1:16.7	But also, does this mean that the relationship is not going to work?
1:21.0	Am I going to outgrow my partner or my relationship if the current dynamic is so entrenched in our insecure attachment patterns,
1:30.0	if I suddenly start doing things differently, does that mean it's going to be too powerful
1:35.0	a tectonic shift away from our equilibrium such that the relationship's going to fall apart
1:41.3	as a result of me doing this work? And I think some people, consciously or not,
1:45.5	can resist doing their own work and can kind of cling to their patterns because they're afraid
1:50.6	that doing so will make clear that the relationship's not actually workable. And the part of us
1:57.9	that doesn't want that to be true can feel really afraid, understandably,
2:02.5	that that could be the outcome. So I say all of that just to acknowledge that this is layered
2:08.2	and it's really common and gosh, I've been there. And so many people who I teach and support
	...

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