Most conflict isn’t happening because you “can’t communicate.” It happens because your nervous system gets activated and you lose structure. You start proving, defending, mind-reading, or stacking old hurts, and suddenly the real issue disappears.

DEAR MAN is a simple framework you can memorize and lean on when you need to ask for something, set a boundary, or address a pattern, while still protecting the relationship.

Most relationships don’t break because love disappears. They break because emotional safety disappears—usually through unmet attachment needs, unhealed wounds, and negative cycles that keep partners from finding each other again.

Anxious attachment and codependency are not flaws or weaknesses. They are nervous system strategies developed to manage pain and feel safe. Healing begins when feelings are allowed instead of acted out.

Anxious attachment is often misunderstood as neediness. In reality, it reflects unmet attachment needs for clarity, emotional responsiveness, and connection. Understanding this difference is key to building secure relationships.

Anxious and avoidant attachment styles may appear completely different, but they share the same core problem: insecurity and avoidance of painful feelings. Understanding this difference is key to healing and building secure attachment.

Emotional blocks are not the problem in relationships. The problem is not knowing how to talk about them. Learn how couples can discuss their protective patterns with curiosity, vulnerability, and emotional safety to build a more secure relationship.

In this episode of Let’s Talk Love, Robin sits down with therapist, author, and attachment expert Julie Menanno to explore how we can create relationships that feel safe, connected, and enduring.

Join Terra Newell and Julie Menanno as they delve into the transformative power of self-work and emotional regulation.

On this episode of Digital Social Hour, we dive deep into the science of love, attachment, and communication with therapist and author Julie.

Negative cycles keep couples stuck in the same fights. Here’s Julie’s Before/During/After roadmap—with simple scripts for staying connected and repairing after disconnection.

In Chapter 9 of Secure Love, we explore attachment injuries—what they are, how they form, and what it takes to repair them. These moments of relational pain shape our protective strategies, but they also offer an opportunity for deeper connection if we’re willing to stay emotionally engaged.

If you feel stuck in anger or resentment and it’s affecting your ability to connect, this session will help you understand what that anger is really trying to tell you and what to do with it.

In The Secure Love Podcast, follow real-life couple Melissa and Drew through 20 unscripted coaching sessions. With expert commentary and free homework downloads, you’ll learn how attachment theory can help you transform conflict into connection.

Repairing after a negative cycle is one of the most powerful skills in a relationship. In Chapter Eight of the Secure Love Book Club, Julie Menanno guides readers through the process of emotional repair—what it looks like, why it’s hard, and how to make it meaningful.

Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT) helps partners break negative cycles and build secure bonds using the science of attachment. Learn how EFT works and why it’s so effective.

Emotional engagement is at the heart of connection, but many partners struggle to share their inner experience. This post offers gentle, practical tools to support your partner in opening up without pressure or intrusion.

In this session, Julie explores how emotional disgust, toward our own feelings or our partner’s, can silently block intimacy and emotional engagement. A powerful conversation with real-life examples and tools for healing.

Reaching and responding are the smallest, most powerful moves in a relationship—and the ones most likely to be misunderstood. Chapter 7 helps you spot the reach, respond with intention, and change the entire trajectory of a moment.

Therapy can help people with avoidant attachment communicate more openly, connect more deeply, and become more emotionally available in relationships.

Learn how to turn everyday interactions into an “attachment-friendly” environment, swap reflexive fight-or-flight reactions for healthy connection, and use Julie’s E-V-I-C-T framework to keep shame (and negative cycles) out of your relationship.