It’s a classic scene: 9:30 p.m. on a Sunday, Max is finishing up some work at home when his wife, Lisa, walks in from dinner with her friends. She sits on Max’s office couch while he sends his last email. A moment later, he turns to her, but Lisa has already taken out her phone. Good Lord, Max thinks, she just came home and here she goes again—on her phone, ignoring me. Max glares, hoping Lisa notices, but she doesn’t: I don’t want to disturb him, she thinks. He’ll just let me know when he’s done with his work.
It only takes five minutes for Max to have his dissertation written about Lisa’s misappropriated priorities. Meanwhile, he hasn’t vocalized anything, and Lisa remains clueless. When Lisa finally looks up, she notes Max’s expression. Lisa knows this face. It’s the face she sees when Max is upset about something but won’t say it. And Lisa knows that this face typically turns into a period of Max withdrawing, checking out, and not really talking to her.
“What?” She challenges.
“Nothing,” Max mumbles. And so begins their typical pursue-and-evade cycle. Lisa chases Max wanting to know what he’s upset about. “Just tell me,” she pleads again and again. Max drifts further away, shuts down, and retreats into his own world.
Next comes Lisa’s tears of anxiety, and she continues to look at the ghost of her husband. Lisa has been down this path many times before, but she can’t seem to find her stability when he gets like this, so she keeps pursuing him and struggling to stay sane in the meantime. All the while, Max becomes more and more tangled in his ruminating thoughts, keeping him bottled up and distant.
Research shows that Max and Lisa’s way of dealing with this innocuous phone situation has very little to do with their marriage and a whole lot more to do with early childhood. In the first three years of their lives, they each developed a particular “attachment style” that influenced how they’d react to this exact situation 30 years later.
Attachment styles refer to the way we generally engage in relationships, regardless of the particular content of that particular relationship. This operates much like the way a poet has a style of poetry running throughout their many different poems, or an interior designer who creates many designs but carries a consistency in their overall taste. We each engage relationships with our children, spouses, parents, friends, and colleagues with a general orientation and form despite each relationship carrying distinct content and particularities.
Theorists break attachment styles into three (and a half) styles:
- Secure: the ideal attachment style, is a pattern of engaging relationships with a balance of vulnerable dependency on others, coupled together with a healthy dose of individuation and self-sustainability.
- Anxious: a pattern of over-enmeshment and compulsive dependency on others.
- Avoidant: isolationist tendencies and a reluctance to engage vulnerability and closeness. (The last “half” style is called, Disorganized Attachment Style and it is a combination, or a swinging back and forth, between anxious and avoidant styles).
These styles are formed in the first few years of interaction with primary caregivers. For example, a child who feels she can only get her mother’s attention with an extra dose of tantrum will become emotionally overbearing on others in an effort to secure their attention. Alternatively, a child who feels safer from his father’s anger by bottling up his emotions will engage in all future relationships by swallowing his feelings. (Of course, these styles live on a spectrum, so it is never quite all-or-nothing.)
Our couple above, Max and Lisa, are a typical example of a profound avoidant style (Max) and a mild to moderate anxious style (Lisa).
Understanding attachment styles doesn’t just explain the tension between Max and Lisa—it offers a roadmap for healing. When couples begin to recognize these deep-rooted patterns, they can move away from blame and toward curiosity and compassion. Max isn't trying to hurt Lisa by withdrawing, and Lisa isn't trying to smother Max with her pursuit. They're both just operating from old emotional blueprints written long before they met each other.
In therapy, we explore how these early experiences continue to shape our most intimate connections. When couples begin to notice their patterns without judgment, they can start making small shifts: Max might learn to name his emotions instead of retreating, and Lisa might learn to tolerate uncertainty without panic. Slowly, these new moves can rewrite the script.
If you find yourself stuck in a similar cycle—repeating the same argument, misunderstanding, or emotional dance—you're not alone. These patterns are common, and they’re also incredibly workable. Healing doesn't mean becoming perfect; it means becoming aware. It means learning to show up for yourself and your partner in a new way.
And that’s where the real transformation begins.
