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, you know, 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 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,

...