From Anxious to Aggressive Attatchment

What if confidently confronting your partner's avoidance could lead to a more secure and transparent relationship? Join me on the Speak Plainly podcast as I break down the innovative concept of "aggressive attachment," a theory born out of personal experiences that redefines how we interact with avoidant partners. Through vivid stories from my own life, including interactions with my partner Michael and a new lover, I reveal how this approach differs from the traditional anxious-avoidant dynamic by encouraging direct confrontation of issues and emotions. Discover the empowering shift from an anxious to an aggressively attached stance, focusing on immediate communication to tackle avoidant behaviors and foster a deeper connection.

Throughout this episode, we'll explore the complexities of anxious attachment, especially when paired with avoidance, and the importance of setting boundaries to manage anxiety and anger. Through my candid narrative, witness the transformation of a situationship with Michael as I confront avoidance and prioritize mutual happiness and growth. We'll also tackle the challenges of relationship strain and the role of intuition and direct communication in overcoming selfish tendencies. This episode is an invitation to embrace a proactive approach that paves the way for fulfillment and happiness in your relationships.

Chapters

• 0:35 Aggressive Attachment Theory in Relationships
• 15:29 Navigating Anxious Attachment in Relationships
• 24:26 Dealing With Relationship Strain Effectively

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:35

Thank you, hey everybody, and welcome back to another episode of the Speak Plainly podcast, where we speak plainly about things that matter. I am your host, owl Medicine. I am going to be talking to you today about a phenomenon that's going on currently in my life and a new theory that I have about it. You probably have heard of attachment theory and people being anxious, attached or avoidant attached or a little bit confused and having both, and that usually means complex trauma and all this other stuff. But I have I've been going through some really interesting stuff relationally that I'm just going to be really really honest with and give you the layout of what my life kind of is right now, especially with my lovers and my romantic partner and all of that kind of stuff, because I have a whole new theory about aggressive attachment. That's what I'm calling it anyway. It's probably more accurately called assertive attachment if you want to be like good and fair and like all that kind of thing, but aggressive attachment's more fun-sounding, so I I like that and I'm going to stick to it.

Speaker 1: 1:48

So this concept is basically for people who are in relationships, that where they find themselves with an avoidant person and so they find themselves playing the anxious role. Whether you are an anxious, attached or a complex attached person, as in you have both anxious and avoidant parts of you and whichever the other one plays, you'll play the other role. Like, if you are with somebody who's anxious, you'll play avoidant, and if you're with somebody who's avoidant, you'll play anxious. If you're in a relationship with an avoidant type personality, somebody who avoids their emotions and avoids conflicts and avoids confrontation and avoids communication typically, then this podcast is for you. It's especially for you and you can thank one of my clients recently.

Speaker 1: 2:39

I just had the other day day as we were talking about her stuff and what we were going to be doing for our treatment and how we're framing everything. We did a lot of talking because it was a first off, it was an initial appointment and those are two hours long with me, so we had plenty of time to get to know each other and really talk about the things that are really active in our lives and I talked a lot about this phenomenon because it pertained to their life and they were like you know what? You should really maybe do a podcast on this because, like your enthusiasm for it is really infectious, because it's really happening in your life right now and it was really insightful for her in her own relationships. So here's the theory. It's real simple. It basically says if you are playing the anxious role in an anxious and avoidant attachment style relationship, then a possible solution for you my current solution and it's been going for a little over a year, maybe a year and a half even and if you've listened a bunch to this podcast, then you've probably heard me talking about just being a dick to my partner. Well, here it is. It's not just being a dick, it's going from being anxiously attached. Well, here it is. It's not just being a dick, it's actually more specifically. Well, here it is. It's not just being a dick, it's actually more specifically going from being anxious-attached and leveraging that anxiety to become aggressively-attached, because that's what we want. We're anxious about our security and the security of the relationship, and the avoidant person is also anxious about the security of the relationship. But we deal with that security in two different ways. The anxious person will take that anxiety and that insecurity and they cling harder, and the avoidant doesn't want to have to deal with that. So they take that anxiety and they distance themselves from it. There's no one that's better than the other. This is simply a strategy for those of us who find ourselves in an anxious, attached relationship, a role. This is a way out. So what I've done, what this means. To be aggressively attached means basically telling your avoidant partner everything that pisses you off, everything that you think that they're avoiding, everything that is bothersome to you in a genuine way, to actually bring it up immediately. That's what it means to be anxious to be aggressively attached to me.

Speaker 1: 5:20

I feel that my security within the relationship, or the security of the relationship, or even Michael's security in our relationship, if I see and I'm really good at seeing little moments of fear or distraction, or flickers of this emotion and that emotion, microexpressions and all that crap, all these skills from trauma, I'm really good at noticing those. So if I notice them in myself or even in him, I will go uh-uh, nope, we're dealing with this now, and if he really can't, then we will wait or whatever. But turns out that he hates confrontation enough that when it's pushed into his face right then and right there in a way that's like no, we're just gonna deal with this. Very plainly, he's more likely to just be like, okay, fine, let's just deal with this now and get it over with, because he wants to avoid the anxiety in the relationship as well and he wants to avoid his own anxiety, even if he just tries to avoid it by doing the avoidance thing. Rather than with us attachment people or us anxious attached people doing the like solve it thing, we want to jump in and solve it and that's what makes us anxious is we're going toward the problem and he for me, michael, is going away from most of those problems.

Speaker 1: 6:37

So this happened very clearly for me in a conversation with Michael that I had a couple of weeks ago. I was house sitting and I recently met a sweet, new, wonderful human being who has become a new lover of mine and he's a marvelous individual. He's got a boyfriend and a girlfriend. They're like a little throuple together and raising kids and it's a beautiful thing. It's all kind of new. So it's been really fun experimenting and communicating and really just making sure that everybody's relationship needs are met, making sure that all of their relationship needs are met, not just mine and me and Michael's or me and my new partner, jonathan, but also making sure that Jonathan and Jonathan's male partner and female partner are okay, making sure that everybody's good. It's been really fun to be able to just give out more love.

Speaker 1: 7:36

Now Michael and I have had an open relationship for a very long time. He is a total, sub total bottom and I am verse, so there is 50% of my sexual needs are not met by Michael on a regular basis. So I have historically had to search for those elsewhere, and that has been the agreement in our relationship for a long time and I have gotten my needs met elsewhere for a while. But when I'm here on the peninsula and I'm home and I'm not traveling, I'm not somewhere else in the world or in a different state or country, then for the most part we just stick to each other. We have the opportunity to sleep with whoever we'd like, but we kind of just stick to each other because we like each other. So and that's been great and that's worked until I meet Jonathan. Now Jonathan is also a bottom as well but is much more willing to engage me in a verse kind of way.

Speaker 1: 8:40

He's also very physically affectionate. He also comes from a very, very religious area and family and a very rural area and family. So as far as our compatibilities and past and histories, we have a lot in common, which is why there are things that in our relationship that we have now, we do things naturally for each other that really are just so nice. We both like PDA, we both like physical displays of affection. I don't want to see anybody making out, I really don't, but I do love seeing people holding hands and giving little kisses and like being affectionate. Holding hands and giving little kisses and like being affectionate that's really important for me. From being closeted for so long and being raised in a military family in the Midwest and getting beat up all the time and getting in fights because I was gay and because my mom was a closeted lesbian and then joining the military and spending all those years under Don't Ask, don't Tell. It's important for me to be physically affectionate with my partner and Michael doesn't.

Speaker 1: 9:49

He comes from the West Coast, he comes from a family that was totally just fine, even like. Not even just fine, but like. But like, hooray, you're gay, like. I feel like his mother probably would have been even more excited if he was trans. Just, she's so loving and accepting and just incredible. I love her to death. And she did a wonderful job of instilling these senses of security in Michael in many ways, but he's an avoidant personality that has to do with a lot more dad than anything else I believe. Anything else I believe.

Speaker 1: 10:29

But because Jonathan and I have more in common in our past, we have more that we want to do naturally and that we naturally do to and for our friends and lovers. That is more naturally and easily fulfilling. This means that, with a lot less effort, it seems that this guy that I've just been sleeping with for a couple of weeks now has been able to touch parts of me and fulfill parts of me that I it had been so long. Just the simple thing of like having somebody come up and like put their arm around you in public or give you a little kiss, or hold your hand or touch my butt Just the simplest stuff.

Speaker 1: 11:09

Michael doesn't do that. He grew very lazy because he basically in his head, the agreement was he's not meeting all of my needs, so I can just go get them elsewhere and he's completely off the hook because he's a selfish, avoidant person, and those are his words. We had a long conversation where I brought all this up and I said look, I've been spending a lot of time with Jonathan and it's been really, really lovely because he naturally does things for me that I've been begging you to do for years and I know for a fact he doesn't enjoy doing them, that it's not like the thing that crosses his mind that turns him on. But because I want it and he wants to see me happy and fulfilled, he's super happy to do it, like, genuinely, I don't have to ask. He's super happy to do certain things that you won't and I laid out. This is my forever home. This is where I want to stay forever the Olympic Peninsula, port Angeles, sequim, port, townsend this area out here is where I want to spend the rest of my life. I'm always going to be traveling and all of that, but I want my forever home and I'm getting close to 40.

Speaker 1: 12:23

I really don't want to have to parse out my needs into like, okay, well, michael's only willing to do these handful of things. They're the things that come most easily and most natural to him and they're useful. However, the things that he naturally and easily does, basically being physical, sexual stuff and logistical stuff, I don't need. I don't need logistical, practical help, all of my trauma added up to a very hyper-independent person. So the ways him as a Capricorn and just who he is as a person, he naturally wants to help out in those logistical, practical ways. But I don't need help in logistical, practical ways. But I don't need help in logistical, practical ways. What I need is emotional care. What I need is thoughtfulness and consideration and physical affection, and these are the realms in which Michael fails miserably.

Speaker 1: 13:21

And so, with this aggressive attachment thing, what I've basically decided to do is, every time I feel like I want something, I just immediately be like why didn't you do this? Why didn't you touch my butt? Why didn't you? Because it actually works out. He's so avoidant and he's genuinely so selfish that I can just say these things pretty rudely, it feels to me. I can just say these things pretty rudely, it feels to me, and he's just like ha ha, ha, okay, and he'll do the thing, like he'll go touch my butt, or like he'll come give me a hug or whatever, or like if I'm upset, and be like why aren't you consoling me right now? Basically, I'm having to aggressively like soft parent him and that's annoying on some level. But the reality is I'm still with him after all of these years and after all of his bullshit and all of his selfishness and all of his laziness.

Speaker 1: 14:16

And again, when I told him about Jonathan and I mean he knew about Jonathan before, it's not like I surprised him I told him everything. We're very open and clear from the jump. But when I was like this is my forever home and I want someone that wants to meet me where I'm at, I want someone that wants to meet my needs, just because they want me to have my needs met, period. It's not exhausting for you to do these things. You're just that selfish and that privileged and you've never had any long-term relationships before. I'm the longest relationship where it's almost seven years now Before me. The longest he ever had was three months. That's it as far as how to be in a relationship. He's a toddler and that's not an insult. I mean he does not know. And that's not an insult in the way of you're an idiot. And why don't you know better? It's you're an idiot because you don't know better, because you didn't have those opportunities, whereas I was a serial monogamist and had long term relationship after long term relationship and had to learn how to compromise and make things easier on both parties. And he never had to do any of that. He doesn't know how to compromise.

Speaker 1: 15:29

No-transcript, because the shitty part about the anxious attached is the anxious part Like we can't help if we're insecurely attached. We can't. There's nothing we can really do about that, except for have relationships in which we feel securely attached over time. But that means that starting those relationships we're always going to feel somewhat insecure and we have this anxiety. So we might as well use that anxiety to inform our avoidant partners of exactly what they're avoiding. That's pissing us off and making us really uncomfortable, because they have a way out. They have avoidance. So our strategy brings us active dis-ease, our strategy of anxious attachment. It brings us active pain because we're feeling the anxiety, we're feeling the fear, we're feeling this fact that it seems like there's a boundary somewhere that we're not able to put in place or to maintain because that would separate us from the other person in our relationship. And that's where I think the anxiety comes from. I will be teaching a class here pretty soon on the ABCs of boundaries and it's really that simple. It's just.

Speaker 1: 16:42

Abcs is if any time that you feel anxious, afraid or angry, there is a boundary that needs to be drawn, so that's the A anxious, afraid or angry and then B boundary and then C is challenge that boundary. And so what's happening with our relationships is there is some kind of boundary that feels or there's some kind of blockage in between me and the person that I'm relating with, the person I'm in a relationship with, and if that boundary pops up, it's I shouldn't say boundary. This one is not a boundary, this is an obstacle. If there's an obstacle between us, then that relationship gets threatened. Right, and when that relationship gets threatened, the avoidant person pretends it didn't happen and avoids the reality of that. So they, their strategy brings them ease immediately, physiological ease, whereas our strategy brings us physiological stress and pain. So our job when we have this anxious attachment?

Speaker 1: 17:45

I've been talking a lot lately about how anxiety is a stand-in for anger and that's supposed to be a boundary. Like anytime anger pops up, it's a protector. No-transcript are paying a biological price for your strategy that your partner that's avoidant is not paying, and this is why I don't care that it sounds unfair, because our strategies are unfair. They get to play. The avoidant partner gets to play the much more peaceful role. Why are they less? Why are they less reactive? It's not because they're less reactive as a person. It's because their strategy to dealing with stress in these relationships and a threat to the security of the relationship is to avoid the emotional reality and avoid the situation is to avoid the emotional reality and avoid the situation cognitively as much as humanly possible to bring them some ease and then hope that it auto-resolves.

Speaker 1: 19:01

And that is Michael's life. He has had a blessed little white boy life that has allowed him to just let things be and they eventually resolve and everything works out fine. Well, good for you. That's cute. That was not the way my life has gone. I haven't had that privilege to just be able to let things play out the way that they play out, and that'd be okay for me. I have not experienced that level of privilege he has. That's why he's playing this avoidant role. It's the only role that he knows how to play, whereas I have definitely played both before and because of that strategy, when there is a, when there is strain in the relationship, he barely feels it or doesn't feel it at all, like he might feel it for just a second, and then automatically that conditioning takes over and he removes himself from the emotional reality of the situation and gets to be at peace, while then I wind up having to try to solve it and he thinks everything's fine.

Speaker 1: 20:05

So I have this conversation with him, I tell him all about it. He's a little bothered, obviously, but we get to the conversation quite well and he actually is happy for me. He's happy that I've got somebody that's doing these things. And I was able to tell him to his face like I want to get all of my needs met from one person, or like at least less people. I would like the person that I want to build a life with, because I want to build a life.

Speaker 1: 20:34

And our conversation started off with me being like so what do you think this relationship is? And us agreeing that it's a situationship and then me having to lay out the entire reason. It is a situationship and this is true a lot of the time. The reason that there is a situationship if you find yourself in a situationship, it's because of the avoidant person. It's because the avoidant person is refusing to look at and accept the reality of their choices and the implications of those choices.

Speaker 1: 21:03

So I laid it out brutally for Michael and was like this is a situationship and I want a real relationship. I want a real relationship with somebody who actually wants me to be happy enough that they're willing to do the work to make me happy. You're not doing that. It's been seven fucking years and you're not doing that. So, basically, act right or be replaced. And I flat out said that Either you learn to do these things and you do them for me, or you will be replaced, like you are on notice now. From this moment forward, I want us to be together. I want it to be you. I have so much love for you, I find you so sexy, all of these things.

Speaker 1: 21:43

But this is what I did with all of that anxiety, all of this stuff that was like building up, and all of the sense of unfairness, of like. Why is this guy, who barely knows me, doing so much more for me than the guy that I've been with for all of these years? And no, it's not great to compare all the time, but every once in a while you better fucking believe it's a good idea to compare. You better believe it is. Why do you think in abusive relationships, the abuser separates the person that they're with from their friend group? It's because then there's no one to compare to, there's no other relationship to look at to see how fucked up yours is. And that's what happened here.

Speaker 1: 22:22

I got a chance to be in a, to relate and be in a relationship of sorts with this guy who is really sweet and lovely and I find very sexy and it's been great and it reminded me just how much I had been a frog in boiled water with Michael and I. Just we used to fight all the time and then I we stopped fighting. And the reason we stopped fighting is because I broke up with him and was like you will not do the things that I believe that somebody who wants to call themselves my boyfriend should do, and if you're not going to do them, I'm not going to call you my boyfriend. We're done. That was years ago. That was like 20,. That was 2022, 2021 or 22. Yeah, because that was like we broke up.

Speaker 1: 23:05

When I got back from Costa Rica, when I first started writing really writing, rethinking, broken and I was like I'm done, you don't do the most basic things for me. And I was like I'm done, you don't do the most basic things for me. And over the years, because I broke up and we lowered the expectations for each other, we still stayed best friends and he's happy for me to go like, have my hookups and whatnot and we were just basically friends with benefits, and that's cool. But I don't want a friend with benefits, not anymore. I want lots of friends with benefits in some ways, but I would really, really love to have a partner who wants me to be happy so much that they're willing to do the things that make me feel fulfilled. So I lay all this out for him and he is able to accept it on some level. It's awkward at first, but we go through the conversation and it was great because it only took a few hours rather than a few weeks is what it would have taken a few years ago. And he asked if he should leave that night and I said no, no, like stay, like stay. It would be really nice to spend the evening with you, and we did. We spent the evening together, we had a great time.

Speaker 1: 24:26

And in the morning he got up and he went into like work mode and then he got all super weird. Again and again I had to go. I felt anxious because I saw a switch in him. I saw him flip and I was like what's going on? So I asked like hey, what's, are you all right? Something, something's off. You like. You made a clear switch. He was like nah, he's like yeah, I'm fine. And I was was like no, you're not, you're not fine, so what is it? You made a clear switch and he was like well, no, I'm really am fine, I'm just processing everything. That was a lot last night, like a lot has changed, and then I got pissed. I still I still stayed calm, but I got a little pissed and I sat down and was like no. And I sat down and was like no, nothing changed. You need to understand that nothing changed.

Speaker 1: 25:23

We spent, however, many hours on a long and heavy conversation yesterday and you need to recognize the reality of this. And the reality is nothing fucking changed. The only thing that changed is your awareness of the situation. You purposefully stay. You purposefully stay blithely unaware of everything that has to do with our relationship. I mean, even when I asked him when we first started the conversation how do you see our relationship growing, how do you see it evolving, what do you see for us in the future? And he goes, he thought for a second and was like oh no, I don't really, I just like. And I was like yeah, see, that's the wayside. And as soon as I'm actually almost gone, then suddenly you'll flip and you'll become anxious enough that you'll try to prove to me that you care, and then we'll get back together and then you'll go back to being avoidant and it's the same bullshit all over again. So absolutely fucking not. You need to understand that.

Speaker 1: 26:31

The only thing that changed is you are no longer avoiding the reality of the situation, because I forced you to. I forced you to admit just how selfish you were and just how lazy you've been. And in the conversation he said he'd been self. He was being selfish and lazy and I went you know I I agree, but also that's not the and lazy. And I went. You know I agree, but also that's not the important part. The important part is that I don't want you to be selfish and lazy, and it's really hard to change the things about us that we hate. So maybe let's try to find some compassionate way to describe that behavior. That way you don't beat yourself up and then you can actually change. It's much harder to change the things that we hate about ourselves. It's almost nearly impossible.

Speaker 1: 27:19

And then he was like I don't know. And we thought about it for a while and he and I gave him some compassionate narrative options and he was like, no, um, I've been a selfish, lazy person. I've been selfish and lazy with you and your needs and I'm sorry. And I was like, okay, cool, I've been selfish and lazy with you and your needs and I'm sorry. And I was like, okay, cool, I appreciate that you have been selfish and you have been lazy. And if you can stop being, if you can stop being selfish and lazy, if you can stop being selfish and lazy in our relationship, then great. If you can do that without having to come up with some other compassionate narrative, that's fine, great. I just need you to stop being so selfish and lazy. That's the reason I say selfish and lazy is because, even like he brought it up, said it and I even offered a compassionate narrative reframing for him and he was like no, I've just been selfish and lazy and I'm like good, because he fucking has. He has been selfish and lazy and this is how I've been around. I've gotten around.

Speaker 1: 28:17

That is, both of us feel the dis-ease created by some kind of strain on the relationship, whether it's a miscommunication or a new lover or being apart for a long time, whatever the strain is. Both of us feel the strain and then we react to that strain. I react to that strain by going okay, I need to solve this. He reacts to the strain by going oh, there's a problem, whatever, it'll be fine. And if it's not fine, I'll be fine at the end of it. And that's not okay because that leaves him at peace and me constantly at dis-ease. And the thing is is if I become avoidant, attached, then he will become anxious and flip that back around, or we'll both just become avoidant and then we'll never actually do any work on the relationship. So to me this seems like a really solid strategy.

Speaker 1: 29:04

If you're an avoidant or if you are a anxious, attached person or a person with complex trauma who is in a relationship in which you are playing the anxiously attached role, then try becoming aggressively attached. If you've decided that this is the person that you want to be with for now, then do that. Try being aggressive about it. Every time you start to feel angry, anxious or afraid, it's time for a boundary right then. And that means sometimes going straight in and being like I saw a switch in your eyes, I saw it. And if you say that and you know that you saw this switch in a person and they are like no, that didn't happen, then for me at this level I know our intuition isn't always right, but it often is, and mine I have gotten really, really, really, really, really good at it.

Speaker 1: 30:01

So I'm at a place where if somebody says, no, I didn't do that, I just go, okay, well, they're not ready to talk about it. I don't second guess. I don't second guess it for myself because I'm way too accurate. And so for him, when he says, no, I'm fine, I'm like, no, don't pull that shit with me. And I don't think that's a bad thing. It sounds bad, it sounds kind of brazen, it certainly isn't demure, it certainly isn't mind. Well, it is actually mindful, it's very fucking mindful, but it is not demure and we're nicey nice, but it gets the damn job done and it works for him.

Speaker 1: 30:39

Because then when I go, hey, there's dis-ease here, we need to deal with this. I want to know what this dis-ease is, let's get rid of it. If it's right there in that moment, his avoidance is recent because there's strain, and then my anxiety kicks up at the same moment that his avoidance kicks in. So if I can feel the anxiety, the anger or the other A, then if I can bring that up right there in that moment in a way that's not super dysregulated or going to cause any more problems. Then he hasn't gotten too deep into his avoidance and is able to recognize the strain as well, because it was very recent memory, as in a few seconds ago, and it seems to work out, because he doesn't want the dis-ease there either. And when it's that recent, it's not like he's like oh well, whatever, it's no big deal, because he just felt that it kind of felt like a big deal.

Speaker 1: 31:37

And then his strategy is to make it not be a big deal, whereas us anxious people, our strategy is to usually make it the biggest deal possible, because the other person is making it the smallest deal possible and we're trying to go hey, no, we need some balance here. So we're making it the biggest deal possible, while they're making it the smallest deal possible, and so what I'm trying to do is go uh-uh, this is the problem that I see. I'm not making it the biggest deal possible and I'm not allowing you to make it the smallest deal possible. It's a problem and it needs to be addressed and we need to address it now. Again, this is a strategy for those of us suffering through being anxiously attached in an anxious and avoidant style relationship. If that's, you give it a try, really give being aggressively attached a try.

Speaker 1: 32:29

Every time that you feel anger, anxiety or afraid, do yourself a favor, try to do something with that. Next B, those are the three A's. Then you have your B the boundary, and then you have C challenge that boundary. So anytime you feel one of those three A's anxiety, anger and anxiousness put up a boundary immediately. Gotta do a boundary, gotta deal with that immediately. Even if the boundary is when there is strife and we feel strain on the relationship, the boundary is we don't avoid it, that we go straight in.

Speaker 1: 33:04

And for a long time I refused to do that because I'm like it's not fair, because it's just our attachment styles, it's like my style is not better or more important. So I shouldn't force him to deal with things the way that I want to deal with things. I deal. I'm an anxious attached, he's an avoidant attached. But now when I look at the biological cost of what it means to be anxious attached and the actual biological cost to that, to a strain on the relationship that then stimulates that anxious part, the biological cost of that versus somebody who is avoidant, it doesn't compare at all. He gets the ease that just comes with his strategy. I get actual legitimate inflammatory wear and tear on my body that then predisposes me to being more reactive. So this is my solution. It will make you less reactive, it will make your partner less avoidant and it will hopefully solve a lot of your relationship issues in a much faster, more equitable way.

Speaker 1: 34:13

Because, again, I really felt screwy about forcing the issues that arise naturally within a relationship, forcing them to be handled the way that I want to handle them, didn't feel fair because there's two of us. But when you actually look at the biological cost of his strategy versus mine, it is absolutely fair that I get to determine how the problem is going to be resolved, because he doesn't pay the biological price that I do, and that's why anxious, attached people tend to be more reactive and more flighty and less grounded. It's because the people that are supposed to ground them are chicken shit. The people that are supposed to ground them keep pulling further and further away every time that there is strife and they're just like oh, whatever, it'll all be okay, and the underlying belief for us is it won't all be okay. That's why we have to deal with it, and the more that you just sit around, pretend that it's all going to be okay just pisses me off more and re-emphasizes that same toxic conditioning that I had. So, no, I get to choose how we as a relationship are going to handle stress in the relationship. Because when there is stress, I feel it and I pay a biological, metabolic price that my avoidant partner does not. And the way that I'm going to get around that with this theme of anxiety being a stand-in for anger, this anxious attached, turn it into aggressively attached, bring it up right then, right there, say hey, oh, I'm starting to feel some type of way I did not like that and like it doesn't need to be any more well thought out or whatever than that. If you can make it that fantastic, write stuff out, go through 10 or 12 revisions. If you need to, one or two is just fine as well. But find a way to bring up when you feel dis-ease in the relationship. Immediately Become assertively or aggressively attached with your avoidant partner and see how it goes. This is just a strategy, but I think it's a darn good one. I hope that this all made sense to you. Thank you for hanging out with me.

Speaker 1: 36:24

This has been a really, really fun one, and if you liked this episode or you like the podcast, please leave a comment. Rate it. The more engagement, the better. I did ask Gabor Mate to come on to the podcast. Engagement the better. I did ask Gabor Mate to come on to the podcast. His team said no because I don't have enough listeners. And okay, challenge accepted, I'll just get more listeners. So if you liked this podcast, if you think there's anybody that you know that could benefit from it, please send it to them. Send it to them, have them subscribe, have them automatically download the episodes as they come out. That would be greatly, greatly appreciated. I really appreciate you listening. Thank you for being here and give this aggressive attachment thing a try and leave me a comment. Let me know how it works for you. I'd love to hear your stories. Thank you so much for spending your time with me. I hope you have a marvelous day and remember, stay curious and stay uncomfortable. We'll be right back. Thank you, you.