Anxious–avoidant relationships tend to get a bad rap. If you’ve spent any time in attachment spaces, you’ve probably heard some version of: Just don’t do it. Find a secure partner. Those dynamics are doomed.

I don’t actually think that’s the full story.

Yes — anxious–avoidant pairings can be painful, chaotic, and deeply activating. I’ve lived that reality. And at the same time, I’ve built a secure, loving relationship with my partner, despite my history of anxious attachment and his history of fearful avoidance. We’ve had many of the classic friction points, and we’ve had to work consciously and consistently for what we have.

So no, I don’t believe these relationships are inherently doomed. But I am very honest about what they require. And it isn’t easy.

If an anxious–avoidant relationship is going to last — and become a place of healing rather than harm — there are a few things I see as essential. Without them, the dynamic tends to collapse under its own weight.

Commitment (real commitment)

This doesn’t necessarily mean marriage, engagement, or long-term plans right away. What it does mean is that both people are genuinely in.

There needs to be a shared understanding that:

• we are choosing each other

• we are choosing this relationship

• and we are choosing to do the work it asks of us

Without that, the relationship never quite settles. If every disagreement carries the unspoken question of is this the fight that ends us?, the anxious partner will almost inevitably start self-abandoning to preserve connection, while the avoidant partner retains an easy escape whenever things feel overwhelming.

That combination makes real growth very difficult.

One of the most important boundaries in any relationship — and especially in anxious–avoidant ones — is that breaking up isn’t used as a regulating tool. It shouldn’t be floated as a way to express hurt, gain leverage, create distance, or discharge overwhelm. Both anxious and avoidant partners can fall into this pattern for different reasons, but it erodes safety every time it appears.

Commitment creates containment. And containment is what allows people to take emotional risks, move through rupture without catastrophe, and trust that conflict doesn’t automatically threaten the bond. Without that sense of steadiness, the relationship remains too precarious to support deeper healing.

Humility

This piece is challenging for most of us, particularly when we’re activated.

Under stress, it’s very easy to become convinced that the other person is the problem. If they were different, this would work. Why can’t they just do this one thing? I’m trying so hard — why aren’t they?

That sense of righteousness can feel incredibly convincing, but it will keep you stuck.

Making an anxious–avoidant dynamic work requires the humility to recognise that you’re part of the system. That your coping strategies — even the ones that look loving or selfless — have shadow sides. Over-giving, people-pleasing, and self-sacrifice often carry resentment, unconscious control, or self-abandonment underneath them. That doesn’t make you bad. It just means there’s more to unpack.

Humility shows up as a willingness to own your contribution without defensiveness, to be wrong sometimes, to listen in order to understand rather than persuade, and to accept that compromise is unavoidable in close relationships.

When people stop trying to win and start trying to understand, things tend to soften. That doesn’t mean tolerating harm or abandoning boundaries. It means staying curious instead of entrenched.

Capacity

This is the piece that often gets overlooked — and it’s crucial.

You can have commitment. You can have humility. But if one or both partners lack the capacity to navigate activation and repair, the relationship still won’t be workable.

Capacity includes things like nervous system regulation, emotional resilience, and basic relational and communication skills. If someone becomes completely overwhelmed when triggered — shutting down, disappearing, lashing out, or exploding — and doesn’t yet have the ability to choose a different response, that’s a capacity issue.

Capacity isn’t fixed. It can grow. But there has to be enough capacity to begin doing the work that builds more of it.

Some helpful questions here are:

• Can we have difficult conversations without everything falling apart?

• Can we stay present with each other through discomfort?

• Does this relationship feel like a safe enough container for growth?

• Do we each have the tools — or access to them — to move towards greater security?

If one or both partners are right at the beginning of their healing journey, an anxious–avoidant pairing may simply be too activating for now. Love and intention alone can’t compensate for a lack of nervous system or relational capacity.

A grounded kind of hope

I’m not pessimistic about anxious–avoidant relationships. I’ve seen many of them evolve into deeply secure, connected partnerships.

But I am discerning.

Sometimes the truth is that a person — or a relationship — doesn’t yet have what’s required. And it’s not meant to feel that hard all the time. We don’t need to turn every relationship into a complex puzzle when the answer is sometimes simpler than we’d like.

When commitment, humility, and capacity are present, anxious–avoidant relationships can become something quite powerful — calling both people out of their extremes and into a more grounded, secure way of relating.

But that only happens when there’s enough safety and containment to support the work.