If you have anxious attachment patterns, chances are you've spent a lot of time questioning your needs in relationships.
Am I asking for too much? Am I being unreasonable? Am I too sensitive? Is this a genuine need, or is it just my anxiety talking?
These questions can leave us feeling incredibly confused and uncertain about what we're entitled to ask for in a relationship. And when we finally work up the courage to express a need, only to be met with resistance or disappointment, it's easy to spiral into self-doubt, frustration, or familiar patterns of protest.
But what if the question isn't whether your needs are reasonable or unreasonable?
What if the more important question is how you're relating to your needs, and where you're looking to have them met?
Let's explore the difference between healthy relationship needs and anxious demands, and how we can learn to advocate for ourselves from a more grounded, secure place.
Why Anxious Attachment Makes It Hard to Know What We Need
One of the biggest challenges for people with anxious attachment is that we tend to orient so much of our emotional wellbeing around our partner.
We look to them to provide reassurance, security, validation, and a sense that everything is okay. And when they don't behave in the ways we'd like them to, we can quickly feel anxious, rejected, or unimportant.
I know this pattern intimately from my own experience.
In a previous relationship, I spent an enormous amount of time trying to convince my partner to behave differently. I would get upset when he didn't respond to messages, feel frustrated when he didn't prioritise me in the ways I wanted, and repeatedly explain why his behaviour was hurtful.
At the time, I genuinely believed I was doing a great job of communicating my needs.
It wasn't until I started therapy that I realised something important: whenever my therapist asked what I needed, my answer was almost always some version of what I needed him to do differently.
I needed him to be more reliable. I needed him to acknowledge my feelings. I needed him to make me a priority.
I had become so focused on changing my partner that I'd lost sight of my own needs, independent of his behaviour.
And this is something I see so often in people with anxious attachment.
When we believe that our safety and happiness depend entirely on our partner behaving in a particular way, our attempts to communicate needs can become increasingly desperate and demanding.
Not necessarily because the underlying need is unreasonable, but because we're approaching it from a place of insecurity.
A Reasonable Need Can Still Be Expressed in an Anxious Way
Here's an important distinction: having a healthy, reasonable need doesn't automatically mean we're expressing it in a healthy, secure way.
For example, wanting your partner to let you know whether they'll be home for dinner is a perfectly reasonable request.
But imagine that instead of simply communicating that preference, you start monitoring how quickly they respond, interpreting delays as evidence that they don't care, and becoming increasingly angry when they don't meet your expectations.
The underlying request hasn't changed.
But the emotional energy surrounding it has shifted from a straightforward expression of preference to something that feels like a test of your partner's love and commitment.
This is where anxious demands can creep in.
We might find ourselves repeatedly explaining, pleading, criticising, or lecturing our partner about what they should be doing differently.
And while we might feel completely justified in our frustration, these patterns rarely create the kind of connection and security we're longing for.
Instead, they often contribute to an increasingly strained dynamic where one person feels unheard and the other feels controlled or criticised.
The Deeper Issue Isn't Communication. It's Self-Worth.
When we struggle to express our needs, it's tempting to believe that the solution is simply learning better communication skills.
And while communication is certainly important, there's often something much deeper going on.
For people with anxious attachment, asserting our needs can feel incredibly threatening because we're so afraid of losing the relationship.
We might know that something isn't working. We might recognise that our needs are consistently going unmet. But the prospect of walking away can feel so overwhelming that we stay and continue trying to convince our partner to change.
We become caught in a cycle of expressing frustration without taking meaningful action to protect our own wellbeing.
And over time, this can leave us feeling increasingly powerless.
The work, then, isn't just about finding the perfect words to communicate our needs.
It's about developing the self-worth, self-trust, and inner security to believe that our needs matter, and that we're deserving of relationships where we feel valued, respected, and cared for.
It's about trusting ourselves enough to recognise when a relationship may not be the right fit, rather than assuming that someone else's inability or unwillingness to meet our needs means we're asking for too much.
1. Ask What Conditions Support Your Wellbeing
One of the most helpful ways to reframe the conversation around needs is to move away from asking, What do I need my partner to do?
Instead, ask yourself:
What conditions support my wellbeing in a relationship?
How do I want my relationship to feel?
When do I feel most confident, secure, and connected?
What helps me feel loved, valued, and cared for?
What kinds of dynamics leave me feeling anxious, uncertain, or disconnected?
These questions shift the focus away from controlling another person's behaviour and towards understanding ourselves.
Think about it like caring for a plant.
Different plants need different conditions to thrive. Some need lots of sunlight, while others prefer shade. Some require frequent watering, while others flourish with very little.
Neither is right or wrong. They're simply different.
Our relationships are much the same.
We all have different preferences, sensitivities, and conditions that allow us to feel safe, connected, and fulfilled.
The goal isn't to convince someone that our particular needs are objectively correct. It's to understand what works for us and explore whether we can create those conditions together.
This allows us to approach our relationships from a place of self-knowledge rather than desperation.
Instead of insisting, You need to do this for me, we can communicate something more like:
I've noticed that consistency and regular communication really help me feel connected in a relationship. Is that something that feels comfortable and sustainable for you?
That creates room for genuine conversation, collaboration, and mutual understanding.
2. Recognise That Your Partner Isn't Your Only Source of Connection
Another important part of developing a more secure relationship with our needs is recognising that not every need has to be met exclusively by our romantic partner.
Take connection, for example.
Connection is a fundamental human need, and it's completely reasonable to want emotional closeness and intimacy in a romantic relationship.
But if our partner becomes our only source of connection, the stakes can start to feel incredibly high.
Every missed phone call, delayed response, or request for space might feel like a threat to our emotional wellbeing.
When we broaden our sources of connection, however, we create a much more stable foundation.
We can nurture friendships, spend time with family, engage with our communities, and cultivate a deeper relationship with ourselves.
This doesn't mean lowering our expectations of our romantic relationships or pretending that our partner's availability doesn't matter.
It simply means recognising that our wellbeing doesn't have to rest entirely on one person's shoulders.
And when we're less dependent on our partner to fulfil every emotional need, we're often able to approach the relationship with more flexibility, generosity, and ease.
3. Be Clear About the Need, but Flexible About How It's Met
This is perhaps one of the most important distinctions between a healthy need and an anxious demand.
We can be firm about what matters to us while remaining flexible about how it looks in practice.
For example, let's say you value regular connection and communication.
An anxious demand might sound like:
I need you to text me every morning and every night, otherwise I don't feel like you care about me.
While the underlying desire for connection is completely valid, insisting that it must be met through one very specific behaviour can quickly become controlling.
A more secure approach might involve recognising that connection can be created in different ways.
Perhaps your partner isn't someone who enjoys frequent texting, but they're wonderful at being present and attentive when you're together.
Perhaps a regular phone call or intentional quality time feels more natural and sustainable for both of you.
The point isn't that you should abandon your preferences or accept a relationship that consistently leaves you feeling disconnected.
It's that healthy relationships require space for both people's needs, preferences, and capacities.
When we become overly attached to one particular way of having a need met, we can lose sight of the bigger picture.
And particularly in anxious-avoidant dynamics, this can create a pattern where one partner becomes increasingly demanding while the other becomes increasingly withdrawn.
The more we can approach our needs with clarity and flexibility, the more opportunity we create for genuine collaboration.
4. Remember That Someone Else's Response Doesn't Determine Whether Your Needs Are Valid
One of the most challenging aspects of anxious attachment is our tendency to look to other people to validate our internal experience.
We might feel clear about a need or boundary, but the moment our partner disagrees, becomes defensive, or expresses frustration, we start questioning ourselves.
Maybe I'm being too sensitive.
Maybe I really am asking for too much.
Maybe I should just let it go.
But your partner's response isn't the ultimate measure of whether your needs are legitimate.
Someone can be unwilling or unable to meet a need without that meaning the need itself is unreasonable.
Sometimes there is room for compromise and negotiation.
And sometimes, despite two people's best intentions, there simply isn't enough overlap in what they need and want from a relationship.
Recognising that possibility is an important part of developing secure attachment.
Because when we trust ourselves and believe we're worthy of a fulfilling relationship, we no longer have to convince someone to become a fundamentally different person in order for us to feel okay.
We can recognise what works for us, communicate it respectfully, and make decisions about whether a particular relationship is aligned with our wellbeing.
Moving From Anxious Demands to Secure Self-Advocacy
Ultimately, learning to navigate our needs in relationships isn't about creating a definitive list of what's reasonable and what's unreasonable.
It's about developing a healthier relationship with ourselves.
It's about knowing what helps us thrive, trusting that our needs matter, and learning to communicate those needs without making another person entirely responsible for our emotional safety.
It's also about being willing to take responsibility for our own wellbeing, rather than remaining stuck in endless cycles of frustration and trying to change someone else.
And none of this means we have to become perfectly secure before we're allowed to ask for what we need.
We can practise this work gradually, becoming a little more grounded, self-assured, and compassionate towards ourselves along the way.
Because secure self-advocacy isn't about demanding that someone meet our every expectation.
It's about being able to say:
This is what matters to me. This is what helps me feel safe, loved, and connected. I'm open to understanding what matters to you, too. And I trust myself enough to recognise whether we can build something that works for both of us.
That's a very different foundation from which to approach love and relationships.
And it's one that allows us to move away from fear, control, and insecurity, and towards greater trust, mutual respect, and genuine connection.
A Final Thought
If you've spent years second-guessing your needs, feeling guilty for expressing them, or becoming caught in frustrating cycles of trying to get your partner to understand, I hope this offers a different perspective.
Your needs aren't something you have to apologise for.
But neither do they give you the right to dictate exactly how another person must behave.
The invitation is to become deeply familiar with yourself, to take your own wellbeing seriously, and to approach relationships with both self-respect and openness.
Because the goal isn't to find someone who will meet every need perfectly, all of the time.
It's to create a relationship where both people feel safe enough to express what matters to them, willing enough to work together, and secure enough to recognise when something isn't working.
And that begins with learning to trust yourself.
Want to explore this work more deeply?
In my forthcoming book, The Secure Self, I explore the patterns that keep us stuck in anxious attachment, including how to develop self-worth, advocate for our needs, and create healthier, more secure relationships.
Preorder The Secure Self here and claim access to an exclusive bonus package of additional resources to support you on your journey towards greater security in yourself and your relationships.
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[00:00:44]:
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. In today's episode, we are talking about the difference between healthy relationship needs and anxious demands. And I know that this is one that a lot of people grapple with and experience a lot of self-doubt around, questioning, second-guessing, Asking, am I being too much? Am I being unreasonable? Am I being too sensitive? Is this quote unquote just my anxiety? All of that can really fog up the lens and make it feel very confusing and fraught, this whole terrain of navigating needs and communicating needs and standing up for ourselves. But then depending on what the other person says, how they respond, that can feel like it's determinant of how we then feel about our own needs. And so it can feel like really tricky terrain to navigate for folks with anxious attachment patterns. And I'm going to be sharing some thoughts in today's episode on how you can reframe that and feel a little more grounded and clear in your needs, a little more self-assured, a little less wobbly, so that you can advocate for yourself and for your needs and your boundaries from a centred place rather than a really insecure one. Because I think that can often happen is we can locate a need and we can land on it and we can feel figure out how we're going to say it and we express it. And then if we don't get the response we were hoping for, we quickly unravel and backpedal and backslide into all of our anxious patterns of protest and sulking and all of the things.
[00:02:15]:
So that's what we're going to be talking about in today's episode. And I'm actually going to read you a little excerpt from the self-advocacy chapter of my forthcoming book, The Secure Self, which if you haven't heard me share, I mean, it would be something of a miracle if you hadn't heard me share by this point, if you're a regular listener. But my book, The Secure Self is available for preorder. Huge thank you to everyone who has already preordered, and a humble request for anyone who is yet to, that you please go and preorder the book. It is a huge, huge help to me. I know it might seem like a small thing. What's the difference between ordering it now and ordering it when it comes out? But preorders are actually hugely impactful for a book's overall success, and having a lot of interest and momentum in the preorder period is hugely supportive of me and my work and the book being in more places and getting translated into different languages and being in lots of different bookstores and all of the things. So please do consider pre-ordering the book.
[00:03:10]:
You can just go onto Amazon or wherever you buy books, The Secure Self by Stephanie Riggs, and order it there as you would any other. And if you do that, be sure to then head to stephanieriggs.com/book. I'll link all of this in the show notes. And scroll to the bottom of that page and submit the form there, and you will get access to a bonus package of extra resources that I've put together for anyone who does show their support by pre-ordering the book. Okay, so let's talk about needs and the difference between healthy, reasonable needs and anxious demands that are coming from a place of insecurity. So, as promised, I'm going to read you a little excerpt from the chapter of my book on self-advocacy, so expressing needs and boundaries, where I share about my own experience in a previous relationship. I won't give you the whole backstory here, just in the interest of brevity. You'll have to buy and read the book for that, but I'm going to read out a little excerpt that will frame the discussion that we're going to have today.
[00:04:04]:
Okay. As you can perhaps tell, this scenario was far from a one-off. We probably had versions of this fight 100 or more times in the few years we were together. I would set these little tests for him, like whether he could respond to my texts in a timely way, fully expecting that he would disappoint me, and then get angry and righteous at his very predictable failure. I'd then use his response as an opportunity to lecture him about how he never prioritised me, considered me, respected me, and so on. In hindsight, I can see clearly the role I played in that dynamic, but at the time, I was convinced that I was doing an excellent job of communicating communicating, and the problem resided solely with him. After all, I was being direct, reasonable, and responsive, making clear what I needed from him and what I didn't like about his behaviour. How could I have been part of the problem? Only when I landed in therapy a few months later did I realise that most of my self-expression was actually about him.
[00:04:55]:
True to my anxiously attached form, I was always hyper-focused on the relationship, and I spent a lot of time talking about everything that was wrong with my partner. At the start of each session, my therapist would ask how I was, and I'd quickly launch into a tribe on what he had done that week. Incredulous, I would recount all the things that were bothering me. Can you believe he would say that? All the things that didn't make sense. I just don't understand how someone could be so oblivious. Everything that was frustrating. I honestly don't know what I'm meant to do when I've asked him so many times and he still keeps doing it. And so on.
[00:05:28]:
My therapist would often interrupt me and ask, Steph, what do you need in this situation? I'd pause and then quickly say something like, I just need him to stop being so unreliable, or I need him to acknowledge how his behaviour impacts me, or I need him to treat me like a priority for once. I was half hoping that she would nod furiously in agreement and tell me how right I was. Instead, she'd pause, give me that cheeky smug look that therapists are so adept at, and ask again. No, no, Steph. What do you need? It became clear to me that I had no idea how to answer that question other than with some version of, I need him to do what I want him to do. No wonder I felt so exasperated and powerless in my relationship. I'd spent years having these drawn-out, circular, emotional conversations in which I essentially tried to convince my partner that he should be fundamentally different from who and how he was and had always been. What I experienced is something I've seen thousands of times since: the immense difficulty that anxiously attached people have in effectively advocating for themselves in their relationships.
[00:06:29]:
Some assume that the solution to this problem lies in simply learning to communicate better, but the truth is the struggle is driven by some of our deepest insecurities. Our hyperfixation on our partner as the source of our safety and wellbeing means we don't know what our needs are independent of needing our partner to act or communicate in certain ways. We rely so heavily on external validation that we don't trust our own judgement, our sense of what feels right and wrong. We can convince ourselves that any relational discomfort is just the product of our anxiety. And so we end up dismissing our own valid concerns. Even if we do know what we want and need, we worry that asserting ourselves will push our partner away. We often conclude that speaking up isn't worth the risk. And we are accustomed to blaming ourselves for others' behaviour.
[00:07:14]:
And so we assume that someone being unwilling or unable to meet our needs means that our needs are too much, rather than the relationship possibly being a poor fit. Each of these factors was present in my experience of anxious attachment, and I'm guessing you can relate. Until we learn to take up more space in our relationships, not from a place of anxious demand, but with the knowledge that what we want and need matters, we will continue to engage in cycles of self-abandonment and self-sabotage. So that was a little excerpt from chapter 7 of my book on self-advocacy. And I think is a helpful lead-in to what I really want to share in today's episode, which is that so much of our confusion around what we need is a function of that external orientation, the fact that we only know how to feel okay via our partner or as a as a result of our partner behaving in the way we want them to. And as I shared there in that little story, I was so guilty of this in my previous relationship. I really had no concept of what I needed separate from what I wanted from him and what I needed him to do and how I needed him to act, which was actually just a veil for my control and a way for me to avoid taking responsibility for what wasn't working in the relationship by just focusing on what he wasn't doing and convincing myself that getting him to do it would be the solution to all of my problems. And naturally, when our needs are coming from that place, even if the underlying need is a reasonable one, it's going to be cloaked in anxiety and insecurity and demand and desperation.
[00:08:45]:
So the part of the story that I didn't read out there was about me wanting my partner to be more responsive when I would text him asking if he was coming home for dinner, which is a totally reasonable, straightforward request. But there was nothing secure or constructive or mature about the way that I went about it because it was so steeped in my own stuff and my anxious attachment and my protest behaviours and all of the things. So I think the question of, is this just an anxious need or is this a reasonable need, kind of misses the point because I don't think it's as simple as just putting it in 2 columns and saying, okay, these are anxious needs and therefore we need to dismiss them, and these are reasonable needs and therefore we need to stand up for them. I think it's more about the overall relational environment. And the simple fact is you can express a very reasonable need in an anxious way. And if your partner doesn't come to the table, you can certainly escalate in very anxious ways that contribute to the problem rather than being part of the solution. And getting very upset and blaming someone for not meeting your needs, I think oftentimes we can look past our own role in that and where our own responsibility lies in terms of getting our needs met and really being an advocate for our wellbeing. So as I flagged in that introductory piece from the chapter of my book, it's not just as simple as learning to communicate better.
[00:10:08]:
And that would be great if it was, but it isn't because so much of the struggle that we experience is actually stemming from a lack of confidence and self-worth. And ultimately this sense of, even if my partner isn't meeting my needs, I'm probably going to stay in the relationship because I'm too scared to not be in the relationship. And as I've talked about so many times, our instinct is to just keep holding on, even if we're really unhappy, even if the relationship isn't working. Walking away is such an absolute last resort for folks with anxious attachment patterns. And so It's little wonder that the whole needs thing becomes very desperate because we are sort of begging and pleading with someone to meet our needs from this place of knowing that they cannot meet them and there's gonna be no consequence other than us being upset about it because oftentimes we don't have that inner sturdiness or courage or self-trust to actually look at whether the relationship is aligned or not. So there's a complicated emotional backdrop to the needs conversation that I think has to be acknowledged and contextualised because just trying to, again, Simplified into reasonable needs and unreasonable needs, and then delivering a script is just not acknowledging the bigness of this from an attachment perspective for someone with anxious attachment patterns. So I do think the task is ultimately one of building self-worth and becoming more self-assured and more self-confident, such that we actually trust not only in knowing what our needs are, but trust that the right person is going to come to the table and that we are worthy and deserving of a relationship where we feel safe and secure, and we feel cared for, and we feel like a priority, we feel important to this person, we feel valued. Because I think unless and until we really deeply believe that and we start to live in a way that is congruent with those beliefs, then we do tend to behave in ways that are all bark and no bite, where we just get very expressive and loud and protesting about our needs going unmet, but we don't do anything about it.
[00:12:10]:
And again, If you read the book, you'll read a lot more about how that was exactly what I used to do ad nauseam over and over again, was just get very righteous and indignant about how dare my partner not meet my needs and treat me better. But I didn't do anything about it really, other than tell him over and over again. With all of that being said, I do wanna offer some more practical reframes on how you can think about this in a more secure way. And again, this is stuff that I go through in more detail in my book, but I think one of the areas where a lot of anxious people get stuck is Exactly as I spoke to, the, what do you need? The word need, I think in itself can bring up this energy of demand. And we say, I need you to be more affectionate. I need you to call me every day. I need you to show me that you care about me. And a lot of us by default do end up formulating these needs that are, I need you to do this thing.
[00:13:02]:
And so it can be a demand dressed up as a need, and that tends not to land very well, particularly if we have avoidant partners who don't like feeling controlled and they don't like feeling pressured. And so they will instinctively pull away from something that is framed in that fashion. But of course, if we don't know any different, that's all we're gonna know to do and say. So I think a much better way of not only expressing it, but actually thinking about it for your own clarity is to ask yourself not, what do I need? But what conditions support my wellbeing in a relationship? How do I want my relationships to feel? When do I feel my most confident and secure? What helps me to feel loved and cared for in a relationship? When do I feel least secure or confident in myself and in my relationships? So these sorts of questions that are really about the environment surrounding our relationships, the conditions that support our wellbeing or not. I think that broadening out the lens in that way makes it feel a bit less pressured, and we can almost treat ourselves as Any other living thing that has certain conditions that support its wellbeing and thriving and certain conditions in which it won't thrive. So like a pot plant, it needs certain things, and that might be really different from another type of pot plant. And that's not personal, and neither is better or worse or right or wrong. It's just a matter of going, okay, well, for me, I know that these specific things are what allows me to feel like the best version of myself and that allows me to feel safe and secure and loved and cared for and a sense of trust and connection.
[00:14:34]:
When whatever those things are, not having to second-guess them or overthink it. It's actually just an observation and knowing ourselves and backing that. And I think that that really depersonalises it. It's less about, you need to do this for me, and more about standing firm in, this is what I know works for me and allows me to feel well in all the ways. So does that work for you? And can we see where we can meet in the middle, where we can negotiate, where we can compromise. And of course, having regard to the other person's needs and desires and the things that support their thriving. And hopefully in the Venn diagram of that, there's enough overlap that you can have a functional, secure, satisfying relationship. 2 other quick things that I think are helpful in conceptualising and getting comfortable with what your needs are.
[00:15:23]:
Try and think of ways that you can get a need met. that aren't just from your partner. So connection, for example, how can I get that need met? Yes, in my relationship, but also in my friendships or community and in my relationship to myself so that I'm not a one-trick pony where every need that I have is solely resting on my partner to fulfil and satisfy. So I think the more that we can diversify in terms of getting our needs met, Then it's gonna feel lower stakes in our partnership. It's gonna carry less of that energy of demand and requiring our partner and then feeling disappointed and hurt if they are unable or unwilling, either generally or at any given time, to meet us in something. We do have other places where we can go to get those needs met, and that might just bring the temperature down and take a bit of the pressure off. And last but not least, the final little tip that I have around needs in relationship is Be clear on what the need is. So again, using the example of connection and clear on what that means to you, because of course that's a big word and it can mean different things to different people.
[00:16:32]:
But do try and have some flexibility around how it is met. So a lot of people with anxious patterns might say, my need is connection and I need you to text me every single morning and night before I go to bed. And that's my need. So therefore you have to meet it. Otherwise you're not meeting my needs. And that's a big problem. That can very quickly again veer into this realm of being controlling. And I think for a lot of those types of needs, we can see that it is essentially born of insecurity.
[00:16:58]:
If we felt really secure in the relationship, we probably wouldn't be so grippy around what the need is and what you exactly must do and stipulating all of that and prescribing it and then taking it very personally if someone doesn't do it. I think, yes, be clear around what the need is and stand firm in that, but also be flexible about the how. So be open to That need being met in different ways within your relationship that actually accommodate what your partner is able to do, what they're willing to do, what is comfortable for them in a spirit of genuine collaboration and flexibility, rather than you dictating to them what they must do in order to meet your needs, which is not only oftentimes a part of the insecurity, but it tends to be pretty one-sided. And particularly in anxious avoidant dynamics, you'll often have the anxious partner lecturing the avoidant partner. And that is not a dynamic that you want to be setting up. I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that, but if you've experienced it, you'd know that that wears a relationship down very quickly and reliably, and ultimately tends to lead to a partner's disengagement or sort of giving up, throwing in the towel because it all feels too much and too burdensome. Not because the underlying need is burdensome, but because the whole relational environment around it has become very heavy and weighed down and laden. Okay, so I'm gonna leave it there, not least because I am running out of breath in my pregnant state.
[00:18:19]:
It is becoming increasingly challenging to record podcasts and I am not even near the end. So please pray for me. Remembering from my last pregnancy how very hard it got towards the pointy end. I'm not excited for that. But anyway, thank you for joining me. Thank you so much for joining me. I hope today's episode has been helpful. I hope you liked that little excerpt of the book, and let me know if you'd like me to read some more little snippets over the coming months ahead of its release in February.
[00:18:43]:
And please do go and preorder. I would love to say that I will stop bugging you about that soon, but I probably won't. You'll have to put up with it for a little while longer yet. But yes, thank you as always for listening, for tuning in, for your support. I really do appreciate it so much. I'm taking
[00:19:57]:
And I'll see you next time.
Keywords from Podcast Episode
healthy relationship needs, anxious demands, anxious attachment, self-doubt, communicating needs, boundaries, insecurity, protest behaviours, self-advocacy, The Secure Self, book preorder, validating needs, hyperfixation on partner, external validation, self-worth, self-confidence, relationship dynamics, unmet needs, relationship environment, controlling behaviour, avoidant partners, emotional wellbeing, relationship compatibility, self-assurance, compromise, flexibility in relationships, getting needs met outside relationship, relationship negotiation, collaboration, anxious-avoidant dynamic