#188: When Your Relationship Feels Stuck (& What to Do About It)
Feeling stuck in your relationship? Like things are off, disconnected, or just… heavy? You're not alone. Relationship ruts are common — and they're often more about what's bleeding into the relationship (stress, burnout, life overload) than about the relationship itself.
It’s a painful and confusing place to be — when your relationship feels heavy, distant, or tense, and nothing you try seems to bring you closer. You’re having the conversations (or trying to), you’re showing up, putting in effort, perhaps even using every tool you’ve learned — and still, it’s not landing. The connection feels brittle or broken. And you’re left wondering: Is this just how it is now? Is it always going to feel like this?
The truth is, every relationship will go through seasons of disconnection. No matter how strong your connection, there will be times when life gets in the way — stress builds, communication misfires, and the warmth between you dims. While this is completely normal, it can also feel deeply unsettling. Especially if you have an anxious attachment style, these periods of emotional distance can feel threatening, even catastrophic.
So how do we shift out of a relationship rut — without spiralling into over-functioning, blame, or despair?
Let’s explore three powerful shifts that can help you find your way back to each other.
1. Zoom Out: Your Relationship Reflects the Broader Landscape
Before jumping to fix the relationship, pause to consider what’s going on around it. Often, a relationship becomes a sponge for everything else happening in our lives—work stress, family pressure, financial worries, exhaustion. When our own capacity is depleted, we show up to our relationships with less patience, less playfulness, and less generosity.
For those with anxious attachment, this often means seeking more closeness and reassurance—trying to lean in to the relationship as a source of relief. For those with avoidant patterns, stress may prompt the opposite—a withdrawal from connection to conserve energy. In either case, the dynamic can quickly become misaligned, and the meaning we apply to our partner’s behaviour can fuel conflict. We might interpret their distance as disinterest or rejection, and respond with protest behaviours that push them further away.
Start by asking: What might be happening outside the relationship that’s bleeding into it? You may find that the problem is less about the relationship itself and more about what’s happening around it.
2. Shift the Emotional Climate
One of the most common pitfalls in a relationship rut is over-focusing on what's wrong. If you’ve been caught in endless conversations about unmet needs, disappointments, and frustrations, it’s understandable—but likely unhelpful.
Especially in anxious-avoidant dynamics, this can become entrenched. The anxious partner wants to address issues head-on, believing that if we don’t fix the cracks, everything will fall apart. But for the avoidant partner, this often feels demoralising, like there’s no space to win—no matter what they do, it’s never enough.
So what’s the alternative?
Reorient your focus to what’s working. What do you appreciate about your partner? What’s good in your relationship? What brought you together in the first place?
This isn’t about ignoring problems or pretending everything’s fine. It’s about creating a relational space that feels warm, safe, and generative—because positivity is far more motivating than criticism.
Try this as a two-week experiment: each day, express sincere appreciation to your partner. Notice the effect. Often, small shifts in tone and energy can create a ripple effect that shifts the entire relational dynamic.
3. Reintroduce Lightness and Play
If your relationship has been feeling emotionally dense or weighed down by repeated “big” conversations, it may be time to reconnect through shared experience, not just analysis.
Plan something fun. Go for a hike. Cook a new recipe together. Watch a comedy. Go dancing. Book a weekend getaway. Do something you don’t normally do. These moments of novelty and play remind you of who you are outside the context of your problems. They create shared joy, which is the soil in which deeper intimacy can grow.
Sometimes the most healing thing you can do for your relationship isn’t another conversation—it’s a laugh, a shared adventure, a reminder that this can be fun.
4. If All Else Fails, Focus on You
If your partner isn’t open to engaging or you’re feeling stuck in one-sided effort, the most empowering move you can make is to bring your attention back to yourself.
Ask: What do I need right now? What’s going to nourish me, lift me, support me?
Focusing on your own vitality doesn’t mean giving up on the relationship — it means reclaiming your power within it. When we’re feeling disconnected, it’s easy to enmesh ourselves in our partner’s energy and behaviour, losing sight of our own needs, values, and wellbeing. Shifting the focus back to you can create the internal spaciousness needed to approach the relationship with more clarity and strength.
Final Thoughts
Getting stuck in a relationship rut doesn’t mean your relationship is broken. But how you respond to that season matters. Keep perspective, zoom out, and resist the urge to problem-solve your way out of disconnection in ways that may deepen it.
Try appreciation. Try play. Try turning inward.
Connection ebbs and flows — but with the right tools and mindset, you can ride those waves without losing each other in the process.
And if you're craving deeper support on how to regulate your nervous system, break anxious patterns, and build a secure foundation in life and love, I’d love for you to check out my free masterclass, How to Heal Your Anxious Attachment & Finally Feel Secure in Life & Love. You can register via the link here.
Questions for Discussion & Reflection
When you notice your relationship feeling “stuck” or disconnected, what is your usual instinct – to push for connection, to pull away, or something else? How effective has that pattern been for you in the past?
In times of tension with your partner, do you tend to focus on what’s not working? What might shift if you intentionally directed your attention towards what you appreciate about your partner or relationship?
Are you someone who prefers to address relationship issues head-on, or do you often avoid or delay those conversations? How does that align with your attachment style, and how does it impact your relationship dynamics?
When you’re in a rut, do you find yourself longing for emotionally heavy conversations as a form of connection? Could introducing more lightness, fun, or novelty offer a circuit breaker to heavy patterns?
Reflect on a time when your partner’s response to stress felt threatening or confusing to you. Can you see a link between their behaviour and their attachment style? How did you interpret and respond to their actions?
What are some activities, big or small, that bring fun or positivity to your connection? How could you make space for more of these, even when things feel strained?
Do you ever feel like it’s “all on you” to fix what’s feeling off in your relationship? How does that affect your energy, mindset, and sense of agency?
When things feel challenging in your relationship, how well do you look after your own well-being? What would it look like for you to turn towards self-care rather than trying to “solve” your relationship?
Are you willing to experiment with focusing on gratitude or appreciation for a few weeks, as suggested in the episode? What resistance, if any, comes up for you — and what is behind it?
How do you remind yourself that all relationships go through ups and downs, and that feeling disconnected isn’t necessarily a sign that something is wrong or broken? How might adopting this perspective change how you approach tough times?
Feel free to choose the questions that resonate most and explore them in your own time, whether through journalling or thoughtful conversation with a partner.
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:29]:
In today's episode we are talking about how to shift out of a relationship rut. So if you've been in a period in your relationship where things are feeling tense or strained, where you feel disconnected, maybe you're fighting more than usual, things are just feeling off, and you feel that all of your attempts at solving that, at reestablishing connection, at talking about whatever's going on, it's all falling flat, and maybe it's actually making things worse rather than better. And I think that when we find ourselves in that, whether it's a short term rut or a really, really long term one, we can feel really powerless. We can feel at a loss on how to shift things. And oftentimes, even though we're using all of our tools and we're giving so much energy and attention to the relationship, nothing seems to be moving the dial. And that can be really frustrating and confusing and can leave us doubting the relationship overall, feeling like, 'is it always going to be like this? Am I always going to feel as lonely as I do right now? Because I think when we're in a relationship, right, we typically feel really lonely because we've turned our backs on each other. And that disconnection is really, really challenging.
[00:01:48]:
So I'm going to be sharing some thoughts today on how you can navigate that if that's something that you're in right now, or maybe it's just something you've been in before and you'd like to reflect on what you might have done differently so that the next time you come up against this in the future, you're better prepared. And I think it's important to name that we'll all go through periods of disconnection in relationships, in long term relationships, expecting that it will be smooth sailing connection and ease 100% of the time is totally unrealistic. So I think that it is something that's going to affect all of us sooner or later. And again, having realistic expectations around that and having different ways of looking at it can really help us to approach it in the best way possible. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. Before I dive into that, just to remind, I know I've been sharing about this the past few weeks, but for anyone who hasn't yet heard me talk about it or signed up for my new free training, How to Heal Anxious Attachment and Finally Feel Secure in Life and Love, I would love for you to check it out. It is a seventy five minute training, it's totally free, and it's all about the process for healing anxious attachment. So I share the methodology that I've taught to thousands of people, I share some common blocks to healing.
[00:03:10]:
So many anxiously attached people work so hard at trying to fix themselves, right? And read all the books and listen to all the podcasts and do all of the things and still feel this sense of brokenness. Like, I'm trying so hard and nothing's working. And I think that can be really demoralizing and can really bruise our confidence around our ability to, to heal and grow. So I speak to that and some reasons why you might be stuck despite all the work you've been doing. And I also speak to a really common question, which is, how do I know if my dissatisfaction or the struggles that I'm coming up against in my relationship, how do I know if these things are just my anxious attachment, or just a product of my anxiety, or whether anyone would take issue with these things. So like, is the problem with my partner and the way they're behaving, or my perception of the way they're behaving? And I speak to some specific signs of this is objectively not great behavior, while also talking about how to build your own self trust and discernment so that you don't have to outsource that judgment so much of the time. So all of that is included in this free training. As I said, would love for you to register.
[00:04:20]:
I think we've had a couple of thousand people go through it now, and it's gotten some really, really beautiful feedback. The link to that is in the show notes. You can also head straight to my website, stephaniewrigg.com, or you can come find me on Instagram, and it's all linked there as well. Okay. So let's talk about this. How to shift out of a relationship rut. Now as I said in the introduction, relationship ruts are really, really normal. And so much of the time, our relationship will reflect all of the other stuff that's going on in life.
[00:04:52]:
It will be a sponge for stresses that we're experiencing with work, or other relationships, maybe broader family dynamics, or kids, or, you know, so many other things that our relationship becomes the container for so much of our emotional landscape. And so if we are feeling totally strung out and overwhelmed, and way beyond our capacity, over extended, then the way we're showing up to our relationship is probably going to reflect that. And depending on whether you're more anxious or more avoidant in your attachment patterns, the way that you show up to a relationship in times of stress is going to be different. So for someone who's more anxious, in times of stress, you're probably going to require more connection, and you're going to really lean on your relationship to provide relief from all of that stress. Whereas if you're more avoidant during times of stress, you're likely to turn inward and pull away from a relationship, because a relationship, for a lot of avoidant people, can take energy from them rather than give them energy. So recognizing that it might not be primarily about the relationship, it might just be a reflection of what else is going on, what are the broader conditions surrounding our relationship and our lives at the moment that might be then bleeding into the way we're showing up to and feeling about the relationship. Now I think where it can get tricky is what we make that mean. So, again, if you're more anxious and your partner is experiencing stress and that's leading them to pull away or withdraw or whatever, then the meaning that you apply to that is often catastrophic.
[00:06:32]:
We make that wrong, and we experience it as being very threatening to our sense of safety, because for us, connection equals safety, and so disconnection, or a change in the temperature of connection, or a feeling that we can't really reach our partner, that there's stuff that they're holding back. All of that registers as really alarming to our system and that's really hard. And so we might then push and try and get closer and try and pull them back from this place of distance that they're occupying. And often that will be received by them as unwelcome pressure or you trying to control or feeling judged, or all of these other things that can lead them further into their withdrawal. And so whether the dynamics in the relationship are arising from external stressors or stressors within the relationship, and I think that is another source of relationship rut, is feeling like there are unmet needs within the relationship, and the focus of the relationship becomes about what's wrong. Again, this is a very common pattern in anxious avoidant dynamics, where the anxious partner's preoccupation with fixing what is wrong in the relationship, which tends to be a very proactive strategy of we need to make sure that everything is perfect and that there's no little cracks at all, because all of that feels like a precursor to the relationship unraveling, and that feels so terrifying to me, so we've got to really stay on top of all the things that are wrong and unsatisfactory, right? But what that creates is a relational space where we're talking about all of the things that aren't working a lot of the time. We're giving so much airtime to that, that for someone with more avoidant patterns, it tends to land us really demoralizing, and the thing you'll hear over and over again from people with avoidant patterns is, you're always upset about something, what's the point? Like, no matter what I do, or don't do, or say, or don't say, there's always something. And that feels really exhausting, and really uninspiring, and really unmotivating.
[00:08:40]:
And I think that can lead us into these relationship ruts and keep us there, because when we're in a relationship rut, guess what? Anxiously attached people want to solve it, and so want to keep talking about the fact that we're in a relationship rut. And again, for someone with more avoidant patterns who might have the belief, which we can have a different conversation about whether this is a helpful or realistic belief, but will often have the belief that, like, relationships shouldn't be this hard. If it's this much work all the time, then, like, maybe this just isn't the right relationship. Your respective capacities for working on a relationship are wildly different if one of you is anxious and one is avoidant. So recognizing that you are coming at that from different places. And when you're in that place of disconnection, that your idea of how to solve that is wildly different. And the anxious partner is going to want to go head on and like, let's sit down on the couch and talk about it again, even though we've talked about it and not gotten anywhere, let's just keep going. Because at least when we're addressing it, it feels like we're doing something about it, and anxious partners will always favor like action and mobilization on an issue, rather than turning away from it, which is a more avoidant response.
[00:09:54]:
So what do we do with all of that? If you're listening and you're like, yes, been there, or maybe I'm there at the moment, this feels very familiar. And I think what can often be challenging is even as we're doing it, particularly as the more anxious partner, like you probably know it's not effective, right? That you're not really making any headway with that strategy of just continuing to push in the face of someone's disengagement, and someone's pulling away, and yet the alternative of do nothing feels impossible, because that feels like you're just allowing things to go from bad to worse, and worse to even worse, and is it always going to be this bad? Are we just going to ride this wave into disconnection forever and ever? That feels intolerable as an option, and so we keep doing the thing that isn't working, which is pushing. So I guess what I want to offer to you is a different approach, which is not just follow my instincts to keep pushing and keep talking about the relationship, and keep having these long drawn out conversations about all the things that are wrong, and all of the ways that my needs are going unmet. And also isn't just do nothing, and ignore the problem, and sweep it under the rug, because obviously neither of those things are effective. I think we again, we know this, we know this from experience that neither of those things solve the underlying problem. So a couple of things that I want to suggest, and these are really, I hope, actionable and relatively straightforward. One is reorient your focus to what is good and working, and what you appreciate and are grateful for, about your partner, about the relationship, create a relational environment that is positive. Now, you might have some resistance to that.
[00:11:35]:
You might be like, like, how can I just ignore all of the ways that they're blah, blah, blah, not meeting my needs and all of the things that are unsatisfactory? Isn't that just I just want you to pause on that and trust me when I say that being generous with your appreciation and consciously orienting yourself away from all of that negative stuff towards the positive, you're not going to lose anything by doing that. Okay? Reassure your anxious parts that don't want to let go of the problem for fear that it's just going to get bigger, that the thing that we've been trying hasn't been working, so can we just try this different thing? Because the reality is that blame and shame and negativity is not inspiring. It does not inspire change in the vast majority of people, and even though we think like we just have to keep explaining ourselves to our partner until they finally get it and magically start doing things differently, actually people tend to be inspired, and particularly avoidant people, tend to be inspired by feeling like they're doing a good job. That brings people to the table far more than being told, like, you're disappointing me again, and you're not meeting my needs. Think about if you were working a job and your boss sat you down once a week to tell you all of the things that you were still doing wrong, despite your best efforts, or that all of the new problems that you didn't realize were there with the way that you were performing your role, and, not really giving much airtime to all of the things that you do do and all of the ways that you are reliable or what you get the point, right? Your job satisfaction would be really, really low. And you'd maybe be thinking about, should I just get a different job? Because this, I feel defeated and, like, I'm just not being recognized here.' Whereas if you had a boss who was really encouraging, and who did see and recognize and voice appreciation for your efforts and all of the things that you do well, like, that's a job that you want to show up to and continue to work hard at, because it feels like a worthy investment of your time. I want you to apply that same sort of framework to your relationship, and it sounds kind of obvious when we take it out of that context and put it into one that we're maybe more familiar with around job performance, but often a lot of us by default do just focus on everything that's wrong, and disappointing, and frustrating, and we expect our partner to be encouraged or inspired by that. So, try and really spend, even if it's just for the next two weeks, run a little experiment where I'm not going to focus on the negatives, I'm not going to focus on what's wrong or what's missing, I'm just going to be really, really generous with my warmth, my kindness, my gratitude, my appreciation, my recognition of effort, my recognition of all the things my partner does.
[00:14:23]:
Just run the experiment and see what happens. You might be really surprised at the positive ripple effect that that has in totally shifting the heavy negative tone that your relationship is characterized by at the moment. K. My next piece of advice is find ways to connect that are not emotionally dense and heavy. So if you've been doing a lot of sitting down and having long drawn out conversations for three hours about unmet needs, and you both end up coming out of those conversations feeling defeated and unsatisfied because you didn't get what you wanted out of it, and you don't actually feel that encouraged, or you maybe don't believe that anything's gonna change, and it all feels like a big waste of time and energy. It can be really, really helpful to spend time together in collaboration, in fun, in play, in lightness, in novelty. So maybe you decide to shake things up and plan to go for a hike or something next weekend, if that's not something you might usually do, or you might find that there's a festival on that you could go to, or a cooking class that you could do together, or something out of the ordinary that feels light and fun and connective, that can breathe some life into the relationship and be a bit of a reprieve from all of the seriousness and the heaviness. It's not about turning away from, or ignoring, or dismissing, or sweeping under the rug all of the things that might need your attention, but again, like, those things aren't going anywhere, right? Our anxious parts want to just keep bringing those things back to center stage for fear that they're going to go ignored, but I think we need to remind ourselves: zoom out, it's okay, we can afford to have some fun, okay? We don't need to be talking about the serious stuff 100% of the time.
[00:16:11]:
How might we breathe some different energy into the relational space, just so we can see what happens? Because I think oftentimes when we do that, we can remind ourselves, like, Oh yeah, I love this person. We do have a beautiful relationship. We do work well together as a team. We do have fun together. And being reminded of that, not just in theory, but through experience, can be a really positive way to shift out of a rut if that's where you've been stuck. And the third piece of advice that I want to give you if you're in this space, and this is helpful for everyone, but particularly if you feel like those first two options require a level of cooperation from your partner that you're not sure you're gonna get. So if things are really feeling very strained and maybe you're hardly talking to your partner or they're really blocking any attempts at connection, any suggestions you might have on, let's go do this one thing, and they're not really interested at all, and that's leaving you feeling a bit helpless, like your hands are tied, then I think always good advice is focus on yourself. And if you've been listening to this podcast for a long time, you'd know that I always come back to this.
[00:17:17]:
Am I focusing on my own well-being, my own vitality, my own sense of fulfillment? All of those things can fall by the wayside when we are feeling stressed in our relationship, and we can really just get so laser focused on, again, trying to fix what's broken, trying to get our partner to come to the table, trying to get them to show up differently so that we feel better, and we really lose sight of our agency and the things that we do have control over. And so if things are feeling really hard and really sticky in your relationship, there can be huge value in actually just shifting your focus away from the relationship altogether, and going, okay, things have felt hard recently, what do I need? Not what do I need them to do so I feel better. What do I need that I can give to myself? How can I best support my well-being during this time? How can I really dial up my own inner relationship the way that I'm showing up, so that I'm not getting bogged down in the heaviness that I'm feeling in my relationship at the moment? Now, of course, easier said than done. If things feel really hard, of course we're going to be affected by that. But I think the more that we can consciously orient ourselves back to supporting our own well-being, that can really shift our relationship because it differentiates us from our relationship. It creates this sense of separateness and we don't have this same experience of being enmeshed in the dynamics of our relationship. We can draw a line and say like, yes, that's happening over there. Yes that's feeling hard, and I'm gonna take responsibility for my own happiness, my own well-being, as much as I possibly can.
[00:18:59]:
So what is within my control here? How can I take steps towards supporting that for myself? Rather than just feeling powerless, and kind of swirling around in that, and going, 'everything sucks because my relationship feels hard at the moment.' Okay. So I hope that that's been helpful. If you're in this at the moment, sending you so much love. I know that it's hard. As I said, it happens to all of us. It's still from time to time. Joel and I will experience a season of disconnection, and it feels hard, and it feels sticky, and these are the same tools that I come back to time and time again. And inevitably, the storm passes, connection returns, and I think that the more we can keep a somewhat level head about it, rather than spiraling into those protective strategies that maybe actually do the opposite of what we're wanting, we employ those strategies to try and grab hold of the connection and force it, and it actually can drive it further away.
[00:19:52]:
So zooming out, reminding ourselves of the big picture of our relationship, what we can control, all of that tends to help us get through that period relatively unscathed even if it is challenging. So sending you lots of love. Hope that's been helpful, and I look forward to seeing you again next week. Thanks, guys.
[00:20:14]:
Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment. If you wanna go deeper on all things attachment, love, and relationships, you can find me on Instagram @stephanie__rigg or at stephanierigg.com. And if you enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a review and a 5 star rating. It really does help so much. Thanks again for being here, and I hope to see you again soon.
Keywords from Podcast Episode
relationship rut, attachment styles, anxious attachment, avoidant attachment, relationship disconnection, relationship conflict, overcoming insecurity, healthy relationships, communication in relationships, relationship expectations, stress and relationships, external stressors, unmet needs, fixing relationships, relational dynamics, emotional connection, loneliness in relationships, self-trust, self-agency, building connection, gratitude in relationships, relationship advice, relationship challenges, healing attachment, practical relationship tools, relationship resilience, self-care, reflecting on relationships, healthy conflict resolution, relationship tips, personal growth in relationships
#187: Is It Better to Heal While Single or in a Relationship?
Whether you’re single or partnered, you might find yourself wondering: Am I in the right place to do this work? There’s often an unspoken belief that there’s a “best” time to heal — and that if we’re not doing it in the ideal conditions, we’re doing it wrong.
One of the most common questions I hear from my community is this: Is it better to heal while I’m single, or should I be in a relationship to do the work?
It’s a question that makes sense—particularly for those of us with anxious attachment. We want to do it right. We want a plan. We want to make sure we’re not sabotaging our healing journey. And when we care deeply about something (especially something that’s caused us a lot of pain), that desire to get it “right” can become especially strong.
But as with so many things in life, the real answer is not so clear-cut. There is no single path, no universal blueprint, no perfect conditions for healing. What there is, however, is nuance.
Let’s explore that.
Why We Ask the Question in the First Place
Before diving into whether it’s “better” to heal while single or partnered, it’s worth examining where this question often comes from.
For many people—especially those with anxious attachment—it stems from a place of anxiety. The part of us that wants certainty, control, a plan we can follow step-by-step. But healing isn’t a tidy process. It’s not linear. And if we try to approach it as something we can optimise by “doing it right,” we risk feeding the very patterns we’re trying to heal.
Instead, we need to learn to sit with the discomfort of not knowing. To cultivate trust—not just in others, but in ourselves and the process.
The Gifts and Limitations of Healing While Single
Healing while single offers a spaciousness that can be incredibly valuable, particularly for anxiously attached folks who are often deeply other-focused. Being single gives us the opportunity to reorient our attention back toward ourselves. To ask:
What lights me up?
What do I want and need—separate from anyone else’s preferences or availability?
How can I become the centre of my own life in a nourishing, self-honouring way?
There’s a kind of selfishness that can be deeply reparative when you’re used to chronically abandoning yourself in relationships. Choosing to spend time with yourself—not in waiting, but in deep investment—can be a powerful foundation for healing.
That said, the absence of relational triggers can also be a limitation. You might feel great until you start dating again… and suddenly find yourself spiralling just because someone took a little too long to reply to a message. Healing in solitude doesn’t always prepare us for the vulnerability and unpredictability of real-life relationships. So it’s important to approach singlehood as a valuable season—not a protective bubble or avoidance strategy.
The Gifts and Limitations of Healing While in a Relationship
On the flip side, healing while in a relationship puts you right in the arena. You’re in the game, so to speak. Your wounds and patterns will likely surface quickly, which can be confronting—but also offers rich opportunities for growth.
This is where the idea of corrective experiences comes in. For example, if in the past you were punished or abandoned for expressing needs, and now your partner meets your vulnerability with care and responsiveness, that is healing in action. That lived experience is something no amount of journaling or insight can fully replicate.
But—this is a big caveat—it only works if the relationship is emotionally safe enough to support that growth. If your dynamic is highly triggering, full of conflict, or lacking repair, then you’re likely reinforcing your core wounds rather than healing them. Constant dysregulation is not a healing environment. And staying in a relationship that keeps you in a heightened state of stress might do more harm than good.
So, What’s the Answer?
Both paths offer gifts. Both come with limitations. The real question is not “Which is better?” but rather:
What do I need right now?
What feels most supportive and nourishing in this season?
Am I avoiding discomfort, or am I choosing growth?
Whether you’re single, dating, or in a relationship, the most important thing is to keep turning toward yourself. Healing anxious attachment is as much about the relationship you have with yourself as it is about anything else. It’s about building self-trust, emotional resilience, and the capacity to stay grounded even when things feel uncertain or vulnerable.
You don’t need to have it all figured out. There’s no perfect timeline or set of conditions. Just keep asking yourself, with compassion and curiosity: How can I best support myself today?
That’s where real healing lives.
If this post resonated with you and you’d like to go deeper, I’d love to invite you to my free training: How to Heal Anxious Attachment and Finally Feel Secure in Life & Love. In it, I walk you through my 3-part framework for healing, common obstacles to look out for, and how to know whether the real issue is your attachment patterns or something genuinely misaligned in your relationship. It's a rich and valuable 75 minutes, and I know you’ll get a lot out of it!
Questions for Discussion & Reflection
Do you find yourself believing there’s a “right way” to heal? Where do you notice a desire for control or certainty coming up in your healing journey?
When you consider whether to focus on healing while single or in a relationship, what are the hopes or fears driving your preference? Can you identify any underlying anxieties influencing your decision?
In what ways do you tend to orient towards others and their needs in your relationships? How does this impact your ability to focus on yourself and your own growth?
Have you ever had a “corrective experience” in a relationship, where voicing a need was met with care or understanding? What was that like, and how did it challenge or reinforce your previous beliefs?
How comfortable are you with making your life “all about you” for a season? What comes up emotionally when you consider turning your focus inward and prioritising your own joy, vitality, and nourishment?
Are there signs that you may be using “healing” as a reason to avoid new relational experiences or challenges? What are you most afraid might happen if you opened yourself up to being triggered again?
If you’re currently in a relationship, do you feel there’s enough emotional safety for you to be vulnerable, make mistakes, and repair? How does this environment support or hinder your healing?
Reflect on a time when you felt deeply dysregulated or in a constant state of conflict in a relationship. What did you learn about your capacity to reflect, learn, and integrate during that period?
Do you notice a tendency to swing between feeling “all healed” while single, and then doubting your growth as soon as you start dating or get triggered? How might you reframe your expectations around what healing actually looks like in practice?
Looking at your current season—single, dating, or in a relationship—what unique gifts and limitations are present for your healing right now? How might you consciously make the most of this particular chapter?
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:04]:
In today's episode, I'm answering the question of whether it is better to heal while single or in a relationship. Now this is a question that I get all the time, and I get this question from people who are on all ends of the spectrum. So people who are single and wondering whether it would be more advantageous for them in their healing to be in a relationship. People who are in a relationship and wondering, 'Should I actually just take some time away from a relationship and be single so I can really focus on this away from the triggers of my relationship?' And also maybe people who are casually dating, so somewhere in the middle who are wondering whether they should tap out for a while and really allow themselves time and space to just do the healing work or whether they should be really focusing on putting themselves out there to do the healing work. Right? So I think everyone's looking for the right way to approach their healing, to maximize their results, to optimize the process, all of this stuff, right? And I understand that.
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I know that there can be this sense, particularly when it matters so much to us, to want to do it the right way and to not want to sabotage or compromise our ability to achieve the transformation that we're seeking. And at the same time, I think we do need to acknowledge where that question is coming from in us. And I'll talk a little bit more about that as we go on. You know, am I wanting to grip and control my way to this endpoint of being healed, and how realistic is that? And maybe the question is a function of my anxiety more than anything else. And while if you know me and you're familiar with my work, you can probably anticipate what the crux of my answer to this question is, which is there's no one right way, there's no black and white. This is the blueprint for healing that you must follow and it's going to be the same for everyone. Of course, that's not the case. But I will acknowledge that there are certain gifts and upsides and limitations or challenges that you will encounter in different seasons.
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So while single, I think there are gifts and limitations. While dating, I think there are gifts and limitations. While in a relationship, I think there are gifts and limitations. And I suppose being aware of what those might be and how they might apply to you and your particular past experience, the specific things that you struggle with and are wanting to work on. Having all of that context might aid you in making that assessment of what is going to be best for me, what is going to be most supportive for me, what do I need at this point in my life. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. Before we get into that, a reminder for anyone who missed it, I've created a brand new free training called how to Heal Anxious, Attachment and Finally Feel Secure in Life and Love'. It is really comprehensive, it's 75 or so minutes long.
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I apologize for that. I know everyone's very busy and time poor, but it's a very valuable seventy five minutes and has received amazing feedback from the people who have gone through it so far. We talk about my three step framework for healing anxious attachment to the role of the nervous system and somatics. We talk about core belief reprogramming and some of the core wounds of anxious attachment and how they infiltrate everything and act as a filter through which we perceive ourselves and others and relationships. And then we talk about secure relationship skills, so things like needs and communication and boundaries and conflict resolution and why a lot of people get that a bit backwards and it can actually backfire if you focus on that before you have the other pieces in place. We talk about common obstacles to healing. So, you know, if you're someone who's been doing this for a long time and you're still feeling stuck or you keep ending up in the same patterns, talking through exactly why that might be. And spoiler alert, it's not just because you are the exception to the rule and you are irreparably broken.
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And we also talk about a very big question which I get a lot, which is: How do I know if it's my anxious attachment that's the problem, that's causing all of these ruptures in my relationship, that's causing me to take issue with all of this stuff that my partner's doing, or are the things that my partner's doing actually not okay? Is it me or them, basically? And while that is, of course, not a black and white answer, I do go into some of the things that will make a secure relationship hard, AKA if they're doing all of these things then it's probably not just your anxious attachment. So go into all of that in this training. The link to sign up for that is in the show notes or you can come find me on Instagram at stephanierig and you can sign up for it there as well. I would love for you to check it out. It's super valuable. And as I said, has gotten amazing feedback from everyone who's gone through it so far. Okay. So let's get into this conversation around, is it better to heal while single or in a relationship? And as I said, this is not directed to the single people or the people in a relationship because I get the question from both sides.
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And so I am gonna give a balanced view and be speaking to everyone and anyone in between. So let's start first with why we ask this question. As I said in the introduction, I do think there's probably an aspect of the question reveals the anxiety because our anxiety wants to do things right. It wants there to be a formula. It wants information and structure and certainty. Right? And so it's like, if I just do these six things and control all the variables, does that mean I will be healed in x amount of time? And, you know, that's the the challenge for me, of course, in teaching this and distilling it down into frameworks and programs and all of the things, like, we can create these pillars, we can create a roadmap, and at the same time there's so much fluidity in that and everyone's journey is going to look a little different. And so being able to hold both of those things is so core to this work and so essential to not feeding that part of us that wants to believe that we're doing something wrong if it doesn't look a certain way. And so recognizing at the outset that there is no perfect solution, there are only trade offs, and that is true in every aspect of life.
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There's no one thing that solves every single problem. You just need to figure out what are the trade offs that make most sense for you. Now, when we're talking about relationships and healing relational wounds, you might have heard the saying be tossed around that, you know, we are hurt in relationship, or we are wounded in relationship, and so we must heal in relationship. And I think there can be truth to that for sure. You know, this concept of a corrective experience that's essentially meaning that if I have had an experience or many experiences in the past of, for example, speaking up about my needs and someone turning away from that. So whether they say, oh, do we have to talk about this again?' or, oh, give me a break. I can't believe.' You know, all of those things that feel really invalidating and dismissive and then lead me to reinforce this internal story of I'm not allowed to have needs because if and when I voice my needs or concerns, that leads to the loss of connection and that is not a price I'm willing to pay. That's a really deeply ingrained story and experience that I might have, and I can do so much work on that on my own, but until I have an experience that tells another story, that actually I voice a need and someone receives it with love and care, and that kind of ingrains in my system as an alternative possibility.
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And I think certain things we need to learn through experience rather than through theory, that is super valuable. And so this idea that there are certain things that will only really land in our system in the context of a healing relationship container, I think that there is some wisdom to that and there is some truth to that. But then we can also look at other things that say you have to love yourself before someone else will love you, which is completely opposite, right? That's saying that you've got to basically deal with all of your self esteem and self worth stuff, and heal your inner relationship before you can get into a relationship with someone else that's going to be that way. And while I don't really subscribe to that view of you need to love yourself first because I think that's setting the bar pretty high, I do think that there is validity and value in the idea of focusing on our inner relationship, particularly as people who struggle with anxious attachment because the inner relationship tends to be very underdeveloped. We are so focused on the other person that we tend to not really know who we are and we tend not to have very high self esteem and we tend not to be very good at really grounded and embodied self advocacy. All of these things that allow us to go to relationships on a firm and level footing as our embodied adult self, and give and receive the kind of love that is conducive to those healing corrective experiences, I think there's truth in that as well. And so there's wisdom in this idea of focusing on the self first. So all of that to say, like, you're gonna hear people say one thing, you're gonna hear people say another, and it's not trying to figure out, like, who's right and who's wrong.
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It's what's the wisdom in each of these things, what's the nuance, and can I have the discernment to figure out what is it that I might need in light of where I'm at, or what is it that I can take from the season that I'm in, What's the most helpful and supportive thing for me to focus on? Rather than feeling like I need to fit my life and my relationship status into some sort of mold so that I can do the healing work. So with that being said, let's talk a little bit more about the gifts and the limitations of healing while single. So as I was just saying, for anxiously attached people in particular, that self piece tends to be the crux of the work. And so whether you are single or in a relationship, my advice will always be focus on yourself. And I think that when we are single, that has the advantage of there being more space. You know, you have the luxury of real selfishness when you're single. I was giving advice to someone in my Healing Anxious Attachment course the other day who'd just been out of a breakup and saying, what if this was an opportunity to go all in on yourself, even for three months, right? What's three months in the scheme of your life? What would it be like to be totally self centered in the best possible way? Like, really make your life all about you without the distraction of focusing on someone else and what they need and what they're thinking and when they're going to be available. What would it be like to not rush back onto the apps or feel like you need to be hunting for the next thing? Like, how can I make my life so totally about me and what feels nourishing to me, and to really go in on my vitality and my joy and my sense of aliveness? And I think that that is really, in my mind, the great gift of doing this work while single, particularly if you are someone who has historically tended to focus on the other person and what they think and want and need and prefer and what will suit them and their convenience.
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Like reorienting that back onto yourself might be uncomfortable. You might not be accustomed to receiving that much attention, even if it's just from yourself. But there's huge growth in creating a life that is so fulfilling and so nourishing, and totally about you. So I think that doing that in conjunction with doing some of that deeper and sometimes heavier work around understanding your wounds and the things that you've carried and the grief that might come with that and all of those layers of emotional unraveling that we have to do sometimes when we're turning towards this work. I think doing that when you have a lot of time and space, when you're not distracted and being pulled into your old patterns that tend to be relational in nature, when you're not coming into contact with day to day triggers in the way that you might be if you were casually dating or in a relationship, I think that can be really fruitful. And that can be, as I said, a beautiful season to devote to yourself. Some of the limitations of doing that work while single, it's kind of the other side of the coin. You're not gonna be triggered as much.
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And there can be real gifts in our triggers because they bring us into contact with things that still need our attention. And so while it's not necessarily helpful to be like triggered all day every day, and we'll come to that in a moment when we talk about the relationship piece, if we just create a little bubble that feels like cloud nine, while that can be really supportive for a period, it might allow us to skate over the surface and create this illusion of like, 'look at me, I'm all healed now'. And then what I will often hear from people who maybe fall into that pattern and get a little too comfy there, is that then they start dating and they're like, oh, I thought I was healed, but look at me. I've started chatting with someone on a hinge and I'm an absolute mess four days into chatting with them because I think they're pulling away. So I guess I'm not healed at all. And we swing back into this shaming thing of, 'I thought I was fixed. It turns out I'm still broken. I guess I'm never gonna be healed.' And that's not a very helpful loop to go into.
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I think we want to find the balance and have really honest and healthy expectations around it. Like, I'm devoting this season to my healing, to my growth, and allowing myself to really relish the the sweet selfishness that can come with being single, while not letting that be an echo chamber or wrapping ourselves in cotton wool and pushing away anything and everything that might disturb the pristine piece of our singleness. Assuming that you do eventually want to be in a relationship, I think knowing that there will be a time that will come when you will re enter that arena and it will challenge you. Having that not only as a possibility, but an expectation. Like, I expect that I will absolutely be triggered if and when I start dating again. I think that's a healthy way to approach it because that is reality. You will be. And it's not about never getting triggered again.
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It's realizing that I am going to arrive at those moments of trigger as a new version of myself with different skills and tools and awareness and capacity. And that is my opportunity to put all of this work that I've been doing while single into practice. So it's not like I'm doing the work while single so that in my next relationship, I never have to feel triggered again. That's not realistic, and you're gonna feel defeated and confused if that's your expectation. But realizing I'm using this time to practice and to upskill and build my capacity, so that I can take a different version of me to that next chapter. Okay. So let's shift now to talking about doing this work while in a relationship. Now, I think the advantages of doing this work in a relationship are that that's real life.
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If you're someone who desires long term partnership and you're doing this work while in long term partnership or even medium short term partnership, That's the arena, right? That's what we're doing it for. It's all well and good to practice, to train, but I always say to my students and my clients, like, relationships, that's real life, that's game day, right? That's what we're doing it for. And so not holding ourselves back from real life, from getting messy, and allowing ourselves to be vulnerable, to take risks, and to hopefully have new experiences as a result of the work that we're doing, that's gold, right? And it's not always going to be comfortable. It's not always going to be easy or seamless. But that is so much of what we're doing it for is so that we can ebb and flow in real life relationships because that's not all within our control, right? It's nice to think of it all in terms of a video or a worksheet or a podcast or whatever, a nice script of how it's gonna go, But there's nothing really vulnerable about that and it's only when we actually show up. Face to face with a person who we love and care about and the stakes are high and it's real life, that is a huge opportunity. And it might scare the shit out of you, and that makes sense if it does, because it is real and the stakes are high. But that's that's what it's all about, right? That's where we put ourselves on the line for that because we care and we love, and that's what we're all doing it for.
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So I think that the reality factor, the mess of it all, the vulnerability, is a huge opportunity to build deep intimacy, because being really seen and attuned to and feeling understood, When we reveal parts of ourselves that maybe we've never shown anyone or we're afraid or unlovable, those experiences can be very deeply healing. And I think oftentimes it's only through the process of rupture and repair and speaking our needs and voicing fears or concerns or setting boundaries. These bumps in the road are very fruitful in terms of deepening our relationships. And so I think when you're doing this work and you're showing up to your relationship differently and showing up to those hard moments with more capacity to have those corrective experiences that that show your system another way is possible, that can be incredibly valuable and really catapult your growth and the evolution of your relationship into something deeper and more connected. Now I think the flip side of that is that if the relationship lacks the emotional safety that is needed to have those positive experiences, then there's every chance that you will just continue to trigger the hell out of each other. And maybe one or both of you lack the tools, awareness, capacity to engage in meaningful repair such that you're just getting triggered all the time and nothing's actually being done to tend to those wounds. So if you're just in the arena all the time getting pummeled, obviously not literally, but always being triggered, always on edge, always in hyper vigilance and high conflict, like, I don't think that that's a healing container. And I think we have to be really honest and discerning about is there anything about this dynamic or environment that is actually conducive to the building of trust and emotional safety.
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And if that's not the case, then you may be compromising your ability to grow and to build more security within yourself if you're in a relational dynamic that is reinforcing all of those wounds. And you're still collecting evidence every day that relationships are unsafe, that people don't care about me, that I'm always trying hard. Like, we wanna be doing the opposite of that. We wanna be collecting new evidence for new stories. And so if your relationship is providing evidence for the old stories, old every day, and you're always on edge and always stressed, then I don't know that that's going to be supportive of your growth and it might actually be keeping you stuck in the cycles and the patterns that you're trying to shift away from. I guess the other thing that I'll just add on to that is we don't tend to grow or learn or reflect or integrate when we're in a constant state of stress and dysregulation. That's just not really how it works. And so we do need that baseline level of safety.
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It doesn't have to be perfect, but if you are, like, seriously dysregulated all the time, walking on eggshells, fighting. You're not really gonna be in a reflective mode. You're not gonna have the bandwidth or the capacity to take those risks, to be vulnerable, to be open hearted because you're so locked in patterns of threat detection and self protection that, again, are not really conducive to that loving, connected, open heartedness that's really gonna take you to that secure relationship place. Okay. So with all of that being said, I suppose I just want to emphasize that healing, and healing anxious attachment in particular, there's a big self piece, there's a big relational piece. And really finding a way to weave those together is what is going to allow you to integrate everything that you're learning, the self awareness that you're developing, the new skills that you're building, the nervous system capacity, all of those pieces come together and it's being woven together in this tapestry. So it's not like I need to do one thing and not the other, or I need to do this and not that. There will be different parts of the work in different seasons, and I think that no matter where you are in life, there are opportunities for you to turn inward, to reflect, to grow, to get curious, to be compassionate.
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There's no perfect formula for healing, because it's not a neat linear journey with a start and an end point, and that you're somehow behind or on the wrong track if you are where you are instead of somewhere else. Okay? So it's really so much less about your relationship status and more about your inner orientation to the work and the place that you're approaching it and yourself from. So if you're avoiding relationships to stay comfortable and from this place of 'I don't trust myself to date again because I'm going to go back into all of my old patterns and I've been feeling so good so I can't start dating again' well that's that's not security, right? That's fear. Or from the other place going I can't leave my relationship even though it's driving me crazy and I'm so unhappy all the time because I don't know what I'd do without it. We've gotta ask, where am I asking the question from? What's going on within me? What am I afraid of? And can I build enough self trust that it's okay, I can release the grip, I can just surrender a little to the unfolding of things and keep turning towards myself at every step of the way and asking these fundamental questions of what's going on for me, how am I feeling, what do I need, how could I best support myself? That's really the crux of it, it's not rigid, it's not formulaic, it's all about that inner relationship and how we relate to ourselves, to others and to life as a whole. So I hope that's been helpful no matter where you are on that spectrum and as I said at the start, definitely check out my new free training. If what I've shared today has resonated with you, I promise you'll get a lot out of it and I'd really love for you to check it out. Otherwise, thank you so much for joining me, and I look forward to seeing you again next week.
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Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment. If you wanna go deeper on all things attachment, love, and relationships, you can find me on Instagram @stephanie__rigg or at stephanierigg.com. And if you enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a review and a 5 star rating. It really does help so much. Thanks again for being here, and I hope to see you again soon.
Keywords from Podcast Episode
healing anxious attachment, attachment styles, relationships, single vs in a relationship, personal growth, self-awareness, romantic triggers, emotional safety, inner relationship, self-esteem, corrective experiences, core wounds, nervous system, somatic healing, belief reprogramming, communication skills, setting boundaries, conflict resolution, relationship patterns, vulnerability, intimacy, self-advocacy, relationship breakups, dating, transformation, personal development, emotional regulation, being triggered, relational wounds, decision making in healing