You're listening to On Attachment, a place to learn about how attachment shapes the way we experience relationships

and where you'll gain the guidance, knowledge and practical tools to overcome insecurity and build healthy, thriving relationships.

I'm your host, relationship coach Stephanie Rigg,

and I'm really glad you're here. Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of On Attachment.

In today's episode, I'm going to be answering the community question of how do I initiate

hard conversations with my

avoidant partner? So this is a question that I get variations on all the time. This question of

how do I bring up my needs with an avoidant partner? How do I share how I'm feeling or share

feedback with an avoidant partner without scaring them away? And so I know that it's how I'm feeling or share feedback with an avoidant partner without scaring them away.

And so I know that it's something that a lot of people struggle with, obviously, oftentimes

more anxious leaning people struggle with. And I think that that comes from a confluence of factors.

It's not only that avoidant leaning partners can be sensitive to criticism and to

those conversations and might have resistance to them, but I think we also need to acknowledge

that the starting point for more anxious leaning people is really struggling to take up space,

to find their voice to advocate for themselves, to express needs, to express boundaries.

So we find this kind of double-edged sword of it being already really intimidating a concept

for an anxious person, and then sometimes not being met with the response that you might have hoped for

from a more avoidant leaning partner. So it can lead to these really negative cycles,

these downward spirals in the relationship whereby it quickly devolves into kind of attack,

defend, shut down, escalation,

and obviously nothing good comes of that kind of dynamic.

It becomes very ineffective very quickly.

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