Anxious Attachment and Avoidance: The Pursue-Withdraw Cycle

Steady and Connected · Jul 19, 2026 · 15m

Episode 5 — Anxious Attachment and Avoidance: The Pursue-Withdraw Cycle New to Steady and Connected? Episodes 1–4 set up the foundation — start there if you're new. You reach for them — a question, a touch, a "can we talk?" — and you feel them step back. Not far. Just enough. So you reach again, a little more, and they step back again, a little more. By the end of the evening one of you is following, and one of you is somewhere behind a closed door — and neither of you meant for it to go this way. That loop — the reach, the retreat, the reach again — is one of the most common patterns in…