Aug 12, 2026 · 20 min · 10 segments
If you experience a push-pull dynamic in your relationship, this episode is for you. I explain the common anxious avoidant relationship pattern. I talk about the anxious preoccupied and dismissive…
Sarah CohanHost
So in order to explain this relationship pattern, I need to give a little overview of the two different insecure attachment styles of the anxious preoccupied and then the dismissive avoidant.
I will talk about the fearful avoidant because they oscillate between those two attachment styles in between.
And I like to call it a spectrum because my belief is that we have two main attachment styles, but we all exhibit each of the different four attachment styles.
If you take my quiz on my website at sarahcohan.com, that's S-A-R-A-H-C-O-H-A-N.com, you can find out your attachment style and how much you're exhibiting each percentage of the different attachment styles.
belief is we have a main attachment style and then we have kind of like a secondary attachment style from there.
But we do also exhibit usually some secure traits, maybe some fearful avoidant traits.
And if you're on the anxious preoccupied side of the attachment spectrum, you love relationships.
And you think of when you're in a relationship that people, your partner should help you to process your emotions for you.
This means that you look to them to process your anxiety, to process the loneliness, and you look to them to handle it for you, essentially.
The anxious preoccupied loves communication and they love to be in constant communication.
That can mean a lot of texting, a lot of updates, a lot of keeping each other in the loop of things, which I think is great communication behavior.
But when we don't hear back from our partner and it means something about us, that's where things go wrong.
And the common theme today is we want to be asking for our needs about having reassurance over our communication.
So in order to explain this relationship pattern, I need to give a little overview of the two different insecure attachment styles of the anxious preoccupied and then the dismissive avoidant.
I will talk about the fearful avoidant because they oscillate between those two attachment styles in between.
And I like to call it a spectrum because my belief is that we have two main attachment styles, but we all exhibit each of the different four attachment styles.
If you take my quiz on my website at sarahcohan.com, that's S-A-R-A-H-C-O-H-A-N.com, you can find out your attachment style and how much you're exhibiting each percentage of the different attachment styles.
belief is we have a main attachment style and then we have kind of like a secondary attachment style from there.
But we do also exhibit usually some secure traits, maybe some fearful avoidant traits.
And if you're on the anxious preoccupied side of the attachment spectrum, you love relationships.
And you think of when you're in a relationship that people, your partner should help you to process your emotions for you.
This means that you look to them to process your anxiety, to process the loneliness, and you look to them to handle it for you, essentially.
The anxious preoccupied loves communication and they love to be in constant communication.
That can mean a lot of texting, a lot of updates, a lot of keeping each other in the loop of things, which I think is great communication behavior.
But when we don't hear back from our partner and it means something about us, that's where things go wrong.
And the common theme today is we want to be asking for our needs about having reassurance over our communication.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
