Anxious Attachment: Why You're Pushing Love Away [Ep 131]

Anxious Attachment: Why You're Pushing Love Away [Ep 131]

From Better Than Perfect | A Relationship Podcast by Nicole and John Sonmez

May 29, 2026 · 1h 7m · Season 3 · Episode 131

About this episode

This episode explores anxious attachment and its impact on relationships, discussing its origins and how to manage it effectively.

Anxious Attachment: Why You're Pushing Love Away Anxious attachment keeps you stuck in a cycle of fear, control, and self-sabotage — and most people don't even realize they're doing it. John and Echo break down exactly how anxious attachment shows up in real relationships, why it develops in the first place, and what it actually costs you to keep living this way. If you've ever needed constant reassurance, spiraled over unanswered texts, or exploded after holding everything in — this episode is for you. They dig into the real mechanics of anxious attachment: how childhood wounds and past relationship trauma wire you to see love as something that can be taken away, why anxious people are weirdly good at reading emotions but terrible at reading situations, and the uncomfortable truth about how chasing control pushes people toward the exact outcome you're terrified of. John and Echo also flip the script — talking about how to *actually* influence your relationship in the right direction, how to handle a partner who's anxiously attached without making things worse, and why giving reassurance without boundaries is just feeding the cycle. In This Episode Anxious attachment usually…

People in this episode

Host: John Sonmez

Guest: Echo

Topics covered

  • anxious attachment
  • relationships
  • self-sabotage
  • emotional awareness
  • childhood trauma
  • control issues

Keywords

  • anxious attachment
  • relationships
  • self-sabotage
  • emotional control
  • childhood wounds
  • relationship trauma
  • reassurance
  • communication

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