Anxious Attachment: What to Do When Your Partner Isn't Changing
QUICK ANSWER
If you have an anxious attachment and your partner isn't showing up the way you need, the deepest work is grief work, learning to be with the hurt of the present moment, the loneliness of being alone with it, and the old unhealed pain it stirs up. This self-work helps you self-regulate, find calm, and develop healthy assertion, independent of whether your partner changes.
You've done everything you can to get your needs met, and still you feel emotionally alone, invalidated, and unheard a lot of the time. Maybe your partner really isn't doing their part. So what now? The most important work is learning to show up for yourself. This is core self regulation work.
Is this you?
You have an anxious attachment and you're doing everything you can to get your needs met, but the relationship isn't where you want it to be. You still feel emotionally alone, invalidated, and misunderstood a lot of the time. The only way you can make sense of your pain is that you're doing all the work and your partner is not. And maybe that's the truth. You don't want to leave, you love your partner and your relationship has strengths. Now might be the time to learn how to better manage the really tough moments when your partner isn't showing up for you.
Why does it hurt so much?
Every moment your partner lets you down, even in a small way, creates a hurt. These small hurts attach to similar hurts from your past. For example, if you grew up in an emotionally invalidating home and received chronic messages that your emotions were wrong, irrational, or irrelevant, which is common for those with anxious attachment, the hurt when your partner lets you down merges with the old, unhealed hurts from the past and becomes an even bigger hurt.
Here's an example. One day you ask your partner to go on a walk and they say no. You immediately feel insecure about whether they really want to spend time with you. You try to reach them by saying your feelings are hurt, maybe you need reassurance. Instead, your partner tells you your feelings shouldn't be hurt, then lists all the times you've taken walks in the last month. You were hoping they'd lean into your hurt instead of invalidating you. Just like in your past, you got another message that your feelings don't matter and are even wrong. The two hurts merge, and it feels awful.
Why is it so lonely?
This is where anxiety and maybe anger come in hot. But there's no way to reach your partner for help with your pain, because they have their own stuff coming up that they don't know how to deal with, which blocks their ability to be open. You can't be open to them either, because you were the one triggered to begin with and it doesn't feel fair. So now you're hurting over the present situation and past experiences, and you're also alone with it all, because the very person you rely on for support triggered it and can't help with it. On top of that, nobody ever helped you learn how to help yourself in this place. No wonder you feel bad. Anybody would. The work here, completely independent of what your partner is doing, is grief work. This example has three layers: the loss in the moment, having to be alone with the pain of the loss in the moment, and the unhealed feelings from the past that make the present even worse.
How do you get clear about the attachment message?
Go slow. "I just got the message that my needs don't matter to my partner and that I'm even wrong for having them. Ouch. That hurts really badly." Stay here, go slow. "My stomach feels sick, my chest feels heavy." Stay here, go slow. "Not only does it hurt, but it also brings up fear, fear this will never end, fear I'll always feel alone, fear my partner doesn't care about me." Stay here. Then comes anger, which says, "protest, get them to see they're wrong, because if they see they're wrong they'll change and come toward me and I won't have to hurt." Pause. Sit with the urge. Then, "But that's not going to work. My partner isn't open to my pain right now, and no amount of protest and blame is going to open them up. Even if I try to reach them in the most perfect way possible, they won't be able to take it in." Stay there for a bit and feel what comes up.
How do you lean into the hurt?
"I'm on my own with this right now. Not only am I hurt, but I don't have access to my partner's help right now. There's a real loss in this, a loss of being heard, held, understood, validated, and supported. The pain in this is very, very real. Anyone hurts in this place. On top of that, my body knows this place. I've been here many times in life. I've tried so hard to not have to keep coming back here, but here I am again. There's also a part of me that believes there must be something wrong with me that I keep ending up here. Now the tears are coming. It feels so big and heavy and almost unbearable, but I'm going to stay and ride the waves. I'm not going to fight. I'm exhausted from fighting. This time I'm just going to surrender to it. My body is wise to ask for this space, and I'm saying yes to myself." And now there is a quiet calm. You feel tired but clear.
What is the hurt needing?
This work isn't just about letting yourself be sad and then nothing ever changes. The sadness needs to be healed, meaning we need to give it what it needs to get smaller and be triggered less often. Sometimes the sadness just needs space, and the space is the healing, because it helps you realize you're strong enough to tolerate it. But sometimes it needs more. Sometimes it needs for you not to be alone with it, and needs loved ones to be with you in it. Sadness also needs to be offset by empowerment. We have to listen to it and get clear about what it needs to shift into empowerment. Sometimes the sadness is saying it needs you to take reasonable action to protect yourself from more of it. This is not the same as over-controlling your environment. Just like parents need to protect their children from ongoing emotional harm, you need to protect yourself too.
What is healthy assertion?
Another very important piece of this work is developing the skill of healthy assertion. Healthy assertion exists on the spectrum between despair and powerlessness on one end, and aggressive control on the other. In relationships, healthy assertion says, "here's what I'm needing to feel safe and close in this relationship." It's the place where you speak your truth and say what you need, but without aggression. Asserting your needs does not guarantee your partner will respond the way you want. It increases the odds over time, and it allows you to not feel like you have no voice, or on the other extreme, feel bad about yourself for being aggressive. This is empowerment.
What about the relationship?
This self-work is so important because no amount of relationship work will stick if you can't get underneath the anxiety and through the grief. This part is about you showing up for you and not leaving this place alone anymore. If you don't learn to be here, you'll never be able to invite your partner in to help you here either. Sometimes we need to walk into the hopelessness of moments when the reality is that your partner can't show up. This doesn't mean hopelessness for the whole relationship, just that you can't get your need met in that moment. And paradoxically, when you face the grief in the loss of what you're needing in the here and now, and go through it, you can find a new calm on the other side, the calm found in acceptance of what is.
Acceptance doesn't mean giving up. This work isn't about giving up on your partner or letting them off the hook for their role in problems. It's about learning to show up for yourself in a new way, one that can bring more calm into the relationship, co-regulate the system, relieve some tension, and foster the very change you're hoping for. But even if that change doesn't happen, learning to lean into your anxiety and all that's underneath it will help you feel more settled and empowered, and that is gold.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does a small letdown hurt so much?
Because the present hurt merges with old, unhealed hurts from your past. A moment of feeling dismissed can land on top of a lifetime of similar messages, making it feel far bigger.
Does doing this grief work mean giving up on my partner?
No. Acceptance of a single painful moment isn't hopelessness for the whole relationship. Showing up for yourself can actually calm the system and foster the change you want, and it empowers you either way.
What is healthy assertion?
It's the middle ground between despair and aggression, speaking your truth and naming what you need to feel safe and close, without controlling or attacking. Julie's anxious attachment self-work course helps you build it.
Not sure where you land? Start with your attachment style.