The Sabrina Zohar Show - 125: Anxious vs. Avoidant: Breaking the Unhealthy Push-Pull Dynamic in Love With Jimmy Knowles

Episode Date: February 21, 2025

If you’ve ever felt like you’re too much in a relationship while your partner seems emotionally unavailable, you’re not alone. The anxious-avoidant dynamic is one of the most common (and frustrating) relationship patterns—but is it doomed, or can it actually work? In this episode, Jimmy Knowles (@jimmy_on_relationships) joins Sabrina Zohar to break down the push-pull dynamic between anxious and avoidant partners. Both Jimmy and Sabrina lean anxious, while their partners are avoidant—so they get the struggles firsthand. 🔹 Why do avoidants pull away, and what are they really thinking? 🔹 How does anxious attachment lead to self-sabotage? 🔹 Can anxious-avoidant relationships actually thrive? 🔹 The key to breaking toxic cycles and building real trust They unpack how early childhood experiences shape attachment, why anxious partners tend to people-please into resentment, and how avoidants often withdraw not out of rejection—but out of self-protection. Plus, they reveal the mindset shifts needed to stop chasing, start connecting, and build a relationship where both people feel safe. If you’ve ever felt trapped in an emotional rollercoaster, this episode is for you. 🎢 👉 Hit play now and learn how to stop the cycle for good! MERCH IS NOW AVAILABLE! Stuck After the Podcast? Master Implementation in 8 Weeks with Sabrina's Foundation Course HERE! Do you feel like your emotions run the show and react in ways you can’t control? Join the Nervous System 101: Navigating the Unknowns In Early Dating from Sabrina and Masha Kay HERE! Struggling with a breakup? Join the Make It Make Sense: Getting Through a Breakup course from Sabrina and Britt Frank HERE! Get Ad free HERE! Want to work with Sabrina? HERE! Don't forget to follow Sabrina and The Sabrina Zohar Show on Instagram and Sabrina on TikTok! Video now available on YOUTUBE! Disclaimer: The Sabrina Zohar Show, formally known as Do The Work, is not affiliated with A.Z & associates LLC in any capacity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to another episode of the Sabrina Zohar Show. My name is Sabrina Zohar, and I am your host. Hello, my babes. Hello, my baby. Hello, my dad. All right, I'll stop. Your girl is a musical theater girl.

But anyways, babes, welcome to another episode. I'm so excited to have you. This week, we have a really special guest, a really good friend of mine, and somebody I'm so excited. Jimmy Knowles, as you guys might know him, is Jimmy on Relationships. He's here. We filmed. We haven't in the trenches that's coming out later for you guys. But today we talk about the anxious avoidant dynamic and navigating that in relationships.

And I am so freaking excited for you guys to learn more from him, be introduced to him if you don't know who he is already, and just have a damn good time with us. Guys, don't forget, merch is out. It's here. It's here. I'm so excited. I don't know where my bottle is, but it's all here, babies. And I'm so grateful for you guys. Everything we made was limited edition. And don't forget, here's a new announcement that I have not really been sharing with folks is if you join a course,

Now, in perpetuity forever, we offer a free monthly group coaching with Sheila, who is my personal coach. She's taking all of my clients right now. She is phenomenal. Does IFS parts work and her child stuff. So please know, anytime you guys join a course, you get that now in perpetuity for life as long as we're going to be offering them, which is the foreseeable future. So guys, please don't forget, rate, review the show, share it with a friend.

Please remember, I read all the reviews. So if you don't like it, that's okay, but just remember the language that we use. And thank you for everybody. Thank you for everything. And thank you for allowing me to be myself and show up authentically and just build this community of people that you guys just mean so fucking much to me. And I just, that's it. I'm just grateful. So without further ado, I'll shut my mouth.

Let's get right on into it, shall we? Jimmy. It's good to see Sabrina. I'm so excited to have you here. Welcome to California. Oh, it's so beautiful. I love it. It's mountains.

I live in Florida for anyone that doesn't know. And it's less mountainous. There's less anything but a straight line. Yeah. Yeah, and the temperature is great here. Yeah, that's the only... Similar to Florida. Minus the humidity.

Oh, yeah, minus the humidity, yes. We became such great digital friends that this needed to happen. And happy birthday on the Sabrina Zohar show. Yay, by the time this comes out, who knows, but yay! Okay. Jimmy, you know what, first off, before we get into anything, for anyone who doesn't know you, could you introduce yourself? Oh, I'm so sorry.

My name is Jimmy Knowles. I have the pleasure of running a channel called Jimmy on Relationships. I'm so blessed to have the opportunity to talk to people. I have a passion for the health of my own relationship and the health of everyone's relationship. I realized I've been married for 12 years. We have four kids. And I realized that relationship is your relationship with yourself and your relationship with your partner is just one of the most important things in your entire life. And it's something that we can't take lightly.

We have to be diligent and intentional and self-reflective and mature and all that stuff. We have to, we have to care about our relationships because the quality of your relationships most likely determines the quality of your life. I didn't come up without it. But somebody said that and it's true. So I am so passionate about, I love learning everything about relationships. And I didn't know that I was a creative person. So I started to realize that all this stuff that I was learning, my wife and I were going to

counseling. And I was reading books by John Gottman and Sue Johnson and Esther Perel. and all these big names. And I was like, I don't think enough people know about how to have a healthy relationship. I sure didn't. I didn't know. I mean, when I looked back at all the things I didn't know, I'm embarrassed. But I don't think enough people are talking about this.

And so I decided this stuff is too important to not talk about. So I am going to start talking about relationship content and like what makes a great relationship and what happens when you don't have a great relationship. And all that stuff fascinates me. And so I started making content. And my, like, silly side came out. You know, I was like, I was like, well, I could, I could just make content where I'm just looking into a camera and, or it was my phone at the time.

You know, everybody starts on their phone. Like, look at your phone and just talk about, well, this is what you need for a healthy relationship. But I didn't realize I was creative on the inside. And so I started to think, well, how can I make this like, is there a way to make this funny? Like, is there a way to be funny and talk about relationship content? Because relationship content, I'm not going to lie.

Sometimes it can be a little boring. It could be a boring. You don't make it boring, but other people. do not to name any names, no. You know who you are. Not to mention, you throw on a wig on Jimmy and it's a whole new version. Yeah. So the wig thing was funny. I decided, all right, I want to play characters. I want to like, I want to, especially a guy and a girl. I want, I want their dynamic together. And I started putting on a wig because that just made sense. I was like, well, I'm doing a female character. I need a wig. Turns out you don't. I see a bunch of

male creators and they put like a towel on. I was like a towel was an option. I was like, nobody told me a towel was an option. I think it would have changed my channel for the worst. I think the wig really helps. It drives at home. It drives at home. And I got to be honest, it looks good.

It does. I have to say, the first video I ever saw, not, you know, I think the first video that ever was the one, the, if you went on a date with a narcissist and they were honest. Oh, yeah. And I just remember seeing there and being like, first of all, who is this? Because it was so well done. What is he doing? It was so good because you have such a natural way of that. delivering comic humor because it's like that timing is everything and it doesn't feel scripted,

it doesn't feel forced, it feels very intentional. So I fucking love your content. Oh, thank you. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's really fun to make. And I mean, I'm, I don't know. I'm still, obviously, I'm still learning. Like, obviously, we're all still learning. So that's my job. I write whatever I'm reading at the time, if I'm reading something, you know, I'm like, ooh, this is a great concept. Like, let's try to make a skit out of like how to repair conflict or something. So. I much I love it. And that's why today, like, we are going to talk about a topic that you and I will riff off this. Sometimes we'll just call each other and say, can we just talk about this?

I barely know what we're going to talk about. I'm like genuinely terrified, but at the same time, excited. Well, this is a lot of audience questions, so I'm excited. But it's really about because before we even, before I even cat out of the bag, not to self-identify, but in your heyday, did you more so, because I know your partner was more avoidant? Yeah. Where did you kind of fall on the spectrum? I'm definitely, I'm definitely anxious. since I know what it's like to be anxious, but have your, anybody who's struggled with us knows

what it's like to be, I mean, first of all, a lot of people, maybe people don't even know what anxious attachment is. We'll get to that. But if you have anxious attachment and you're kind of like the pursuer of the relationship, then you know what it's like to also kind of have some avoidant tendencies where you start to detach and avoid. So I'm not saying I'm like both, but people, people do know what it's like to be anxious, but also sometimes distant and avoid.

And so I do, I do, I would say I'm probably fond anxious attachment. It could also remind me because like Ryan, I mean, you know, you know Ryan, he's very classic avoidant, but he also has anxiety, right? And so I think that's that polarity that like we all, depending on how it manifests, have that with it. Because I have, I have. I've definitely gone when like it's a little much. I'm like, I can't handle this and I'll remove myself. Big time, yeah. So I do find, but that's actually why I wanted to us to have this conversation because you and I,

resonate more with that anxious style versus and both of our partners are more in the avoidance style, which is really why I wanted to talk today about that anxious avoidant dynamic, how to have a successful relationship in that dynamic and different tools, modalities, because like I'm always eager to hear like, what do you guys use? You have a code word. You have things that you've learned along the way. And I don't read comments. But if we did, you and I know very well that right now, I think in the landscape of TikTok University, if that's even going to be around and Instagram and YouTube, there is a, the pendulum is swung for all the beautiful content that there is, right? And all of the things that we can do to help. Then there's the other

side of it, right? The pendulum really goes. And I think there's a very grave misunderstanding about like, what does that actually mean to have this attachment style, right? It's not, this person's not just ignoring you every day. It's like that person just sounds like an asshole. But let's even just start off there. Like we said, let's talk about the main aspects of these attachment styles. And then we can start to answer some of these questions. If we wanted to make attachment style really easy, it essentially goes back to your initial caregivers and how they interacted with you. I mean, if you really think about it, anyone who is interested in the relationship space,

in order for any relationship to thrive, whether it's a friendship, whether it's a romantic partner, whether it's parent-child, there's a few essential ingredients that you need. You need some form of consistency, right? Because if you didn't have consistency, what would you have? like you, that would, that would seems like that would cause you some anxiety. No, thank you. If you didn't have consistency, that would be a problem. If you didn't have safety, that would be a problem.

Now, obviously, physical safety is easy to think about. Like, we know what comes to mind when we think of, like, not being physically safe. But we don't often think about, what does it mean to be emotionally safe? And so, especially as a child, for you to be emotionally safe, this is another piece of content that it didn't come from me. None of my content comes from me. It's all learned from books and me going to counseling. A question that my counselor would ask me is,

who did you have growing up who, you know, when you were having a feeling, whatever it was, when you were having a hard time, when you were feeling hurt or scared or alone or abandoned or whatever the case may be, who did you have that would move towards you with like warmth? And like communicated either with words or body language, you're worth understanding. And what you're going through matters to me.

Instead of like, oh, I guess I can't do anything right. I guess I'm the worst mother in the world or just a dad that's like, brush it off. Like, don't quit crying. Like, babies cry. You're not a baby. You know, if your answer is, well, nobody. I didn't have anybody that did that. Then it makes sense why you would struggle in certain areas and we'll get to that.

And we might be jumping ahead. But the point is, is like, relationships of any kind require certain elements. Like, so they require consistency. They require safety. They require trust. What does it mean, like, what does it mean to actually trust someone? because a lot of relationships today, I mean, I'm not a therapist or a coach, but like, it doesn't take much for me to hear your story and for me to go, it doesn't sound like you actually trust your partner. And a lot of people view trust as like, well, I trust them like not to go to a strip club or not to like, you know, cheat on me.

But okay, but do you trust them to like listen and like care when you're hurt? And they're like, well, no, because like they tell me I'm too sensitive or they tell me I'm too needy or or they call me names or they, you know. there's a lot of ways that we can just completely break trust in a relationship. And so all of those things are fascinating to me. And when you don't have them, essentially to wrap up what I was saying, when you don't have certain elements of that as your primary relationship with your, you know, in the therapy world, they would call it with your primary attachment figure because like you attach to your parents.

You can't not attach to your parents. When you're young, you look to them for security. security and safety and love. And because if you didn't have them, your body knows that you might not survive. So there's an element in you that I need this person. I need this person. But that also comes with a cost because if they are inconsistent and if they are unsafe and if they are not trustworthy and they don't give you the emotional safety that you deserve, then you will start to do things.

You will start to figure out ways to, instead of you thinking like, well, I need them, it's more like I need them to see me as worthy. So I'll do certain things. Or I need to not fight in this relationship. I don't feel safe to be my true self. So I'll figure out how to like hide and I'll figure out how to be somebody else. Maybe I'll just be who they want me to be. And so, or maybe I'll learn that you can't trust anybody, but nobody's there for me.

Even at a young age, you realize there's no point in trusting people. The most important people that were supposed to be there for me in my life weren't there for me. And so when you learn those things, you learn people aren't trustworthy. There's no point in putting myself vulnerable. Why would I open myself up to be hurt, especially when you know that pain as a young child. So my point is that certain things happen, it's just cause and effect. Certain things happen. And if your parents were extremely inconsistent, then you start to be anxious about why would I trust other people to be consistent?

Or what can I do to make them be more consistent? How can I control the environment so that things don't go, you know, I don't get abandoned again. I don't get hurt again. We're all essentially just trying to avoid pain at the end of the day. We're all just trying to stay safe. I feel like I'm going on the longest rant in history. Or I'll wrap it up real quick. Or you learn people can't be trusted.

there's no point in me really feeling feelings. What has that gotten me? Except for pain. What does that gotten me? So I learned to turn those off. I'm numb. I'm none to feelings and needs. I don't need people because it's easier to be independent.

Nobody's going to let me down if I'm independent. Nobody can hurt me if I'm independent. And so all of these little fears that we don't think of. Maybe it's a fear of abandonment. Maybe it's a fear of rejection. Maybe it's a fear of just being enmeshed is what they would call. where it's like, I don't, I need to have separateness. I can't.

If I get too close and it feels like I'm about, I'm getting smothered and I just need to get out of there. Maybe I learned to shut down my feelings and emotions. But the point is, is that these fears manifest themselves in a lot of logical ways. Like, it makes sense why we struggle with these things. But the problem is, is that when we have these fears and or we don't see ourselves, we don't really know deep down that we're lovable and we deserve. respect and kindness, then we will sabotage our relationships in different ways. That's what I wanted, that's what I desperately needed to learn. Like, in what ways am I sabotaging my relationship? Because when we think about too, like self-abandabandment, dysregulation, right? Yeah. I know for me,

I was so terrified of like, please don't ever leave me, right? I had the inconsistent father and I had a mom who I could see she would disassociate. She couldn't even look you in the eyes when you were a kid because she just wasn't there and she was an autopilot. And like, I, this is a lot of the work that I love to do as being able to hold two conflicting thoughts. I can love my mother. I dad's a different story. We'll save him for another day. I can love this woman with every bone in my body because of who she is now.

But I can also acknowledge that as a child I was failed. And for me to heal through my anxious attachment to be able to, you know, because like that, at the end of the day what people forget is like anxious people are also avoidant because when you're highly anxious and you're like you, you, you do you, you do all of this. What am I doing? I'm avoiding looking at myself. I'm avoiding doing the deeper work. And it's funny because one of my friends, she was visiting and she had seen, she was

matched, whatever, talking with this guy that lived in California and she lived elsewhere. And before they came, before she came, I was like, you know, you guys are texting every day, doing all the stuff that I was like, I don't like it. But fine, right. This is a friend. You're not my client. I don't, you know, you got to learn how to like have boundaries with your friends. And so I just said, like, don't you think maybe it would be a good idea to like talk about

expectations or who's going to move, right? And she was like, no, your anxiety, that's because, you know, don't be too much. And in my head, I was like, core beliefs right there. And I said, you know what? For sure. I'm going to respect it. Sure enough, they spend all this time together. And then she leaves.

And he says, oh, well, you know, you don't even live here. And this feels really pressured. And it's funny because then she called us and she was crying. And Ryan was on. And she said, you know what? Fuck it. I'll just go back to my traditional avoidance. And I just won't deal with this.

And he grabbed the phone. And he said, listen, as somebody who's avoiding, he was like, boy, do I understand more than anything, your desire to not have. to deal with this. And he was like, but you're doing this for you. You're doing this person, because she was like, you know, I feel so stupid. I became vulnerable. And like my heart, I was just like, I wanted to hug her so bad on the phone. And I get it, right? And she was like, I just feel so dumb. I was vulnerable. I feel like a fool. And I hear this every day. And it's so valid. But one thing that Ryan said to her, which I thought was really beautiful coming from an avoidant man, right? Was he was like, as somebody who likes to do that,

he was like, I need to remind you, you're not doing this for them. You're doing this for them. You're doing this because you're finding your voice. You're learning that being vulnerable is beautiful, that you can connect with somebody deeply. And sure enough, after they had a couple of days, they ended up talking and like working things out and having more conversations. And the guy was honest and said, I freaked the fuck out. You are so amazing. You are incredible. And when you were in front of me, I didn't know what to do. And that's where I have to kind of, because somebody, let's get into a question. Someone asked, are avoidance just bullshitting or do they really struggle to love back? Yeah. And when I read that, I was like, okay, so here's my issue. One, we're already

saying that like they're just it's full of shit it's all an act and that that would be quite an act I have to say yeah it's not an act it's not an act and I've been firsthand to it and like you you both of us have partners that experience that I've seen Ryan where like his eyes will gloss over you could see he wants to cry and he's just like nope and he can see he's on his loop and I'm like he's not looking eye contact with anyone because when you get dysregulated what's my baseline please tell me everything's okay please don't leave me I need you I need you I need you and what's this is overwhelming like you said I need independence I need to say When I'm alone, I'm safe.

Absolutely. And it's funny because I was talking to Britt, and I'm curious, here your thoughts on this. And I love Britt, Frank, she's one of my best friends. And she was saying, she's like, let's flip this on its head. She was like, to be honest, the anxious person, oftentimes people pleasing things like that, she's like, that's very selfish. You're doing it for your own need. And she goes, and the avoidant person saying, let me remove myself. I don't want to hurt this person anymore.

I'm in pain is actually them trying to protect the other person. They might not do it right. Oh my gosh. It's all protection. All protection. I mean, the more you think about it, it's all protection. Like, people losing is protecting. What are you protecting?

Like, I'm protecting this relationship. I mean, I don't want this to, you know, avoidance. You're protecting all kinds of things. You know, you're protecting yourself from being hurt. Like you said, so many avoidant people, especially when they shut down, they would say, like, for any people that identify with anxious attachment, I would challenge you to ask your avoidant leaning partner if you have one. When they shut down, like, we might take it as like they're just... Make it personal? They don't care.

Yeah, they clearly don't care. Like, but really, if you really asked them, they would say, well, one, they would say, I'm scared that my words are going to be used against me. I hear that all the time. And anxious people, they're like, I would never do that. It's like, but that doesn't mean they're not afraid of it. And one thing that we have to, like, say is that, like, it doesn't make it right. Like, none of the behavior, it's still wrong.

On both sides. At both sides. It's wrong when you don't speak up for your needs and then you build up a bunch of resentment and then you blow up over something small and you call them names and you criticize and you would blame. And it's wrong when somebody dismisses and invalidates you and, you know, doesn't take any interest in how you're feeling or whatever. So the thing that's fascinating is like avoidant people have anxiety. Like nobody sees that or nobody like thinks about it like that. But like avoiding people absolutely have anxiety. Like that's one of the, that's one of the reasons

they do that. And then and then anxious people absolutely avoid things. I, listen, I can avoid hard conversation is like, no, I'm going to be gold medal in avoiding conflict. I can teach a class on how to avoid conflict. But I know where that leads. Right. And it leads to distance and disconnection. And even if you're, even if your premise is, yeah, but if I had the hard conversation, they would just hurt me. If that's true, and it might be, that still leaves us with that there's no possibility of a healthy relationship here. You can't be in a relationship with someone who chooses to never like move towards you or like or like can't have hard conversations with love and respect that's the key here is like none of this is about excusing bad behavior and being like

oh my god but you and i see the same side of the internet i'm sure because of the content we create we get surface the same stuff and i see this consistency of this consistently that people will say like just avoid avoidance like i did a video of how i call my avoidant partner out on his shit and He was just saying how I literally come to him, speak to him, and how we move forward. Yeah. And it's funny because it went viral on YouTube a little bit. And a bunch of people were, and like one person even commented, and she was like, are you guys actually listening to the video?

Because this is actually really healthy and secure. Like, this is how you do it. But then someone wrote and she was like, good, keep all the avoidance out of the dating pool for us. And I chuckled because I was like, now what I hear from that comment? And I get it. It's valid. As somebody who used to say that, I didn't trust myself.

I didn't trust myself that I could say what this doesn't work for me. I didn't trust myself to express myself to this person effectively. I didn't trust myself that I'd walk away in time. I was like, no, I'm going to stay too long. This isn't about I only want to date something because like, trust me, if you have a lot of anxiety when you meet someone else that has that anxious attachment, because I hear that all the time, like, can two avoidance be together or two anxious people? It's like, sure, I don't think it'll last very long.

Two avoidance, both people don't really usually call each other back. And then the two anxious people, one or both will start to feel suffocated really quickly because it's overwhelming. And that's kind of my thing. When it comes to the anxious attachment, it's not that you're bad. There's no one that's bad because they have this. I'm not a bad little girl because my father was fucking ass. But it's my responsibility as an adult now to heal through that and to take accountability and say,

you're right. Just because you didn't text me for 45 minutes or an hour, I didn't have any right to blow up your phone or to freak out or to go to Instagram and start analyzing everything or to attack myself. That's me taking ownership. That doesn't mean that I had this coming or I earned it or I. I'm to blame, right? Like, we're not shaming or blaming anybody for the experiences that they have. But for me, what changed my life in therapy and changed the fucking game for me was radical acceptance and learning that I can take accountability of my life.

I was with a narcissist. So whenever I hear people say, well, but you don't know. I was with somebody that broke me down to the shell of a human. I was 25 pounds later than I am currently. I looked scared. I looked. People were asking if I was okay. And all of that's to say is I played a part in that dynamic.

I'd never set boundaries with him. He would say stuff. I would protest behavior. I'd scream and cry. He would leave. We would have this big blow up. Then he'd come back. We'd reconnect. We'd pretend like everything was fine until the next one. And he was breaking me down day by day because I didn't know myself. I didn't know who the fuck I was. And I was like, you tell me that that's okay. It's okay. Yeah, for sure. External validation. And it was conditioning. It was all I ever knew. Oh my gosh. Right. Yeah. If my father speaks to me, why would you speaking to me feel any different? No. And as a child, I didn't have parents that, I didn't have anybody, like you said, that stopped to ask me, how are you feeling? I learned that when I did therapy once. She said, who's your safe person? And I had no one. Nobody.

I had no one. No one at that time. Right. Like, like 10 years ago. Yeah. I didn't feel like anybody got me or understood me. I didn't feel like anyone was there. Like, I can't count on my hands how many times I woke up with no one home, went to bed with no one home.

Had to walk home from school because my mom forgot to pick me up. My dad was out of town and didn't even tell anybody. And my sister left early without letting me know. and feeling like I'm invisible. No one sees me. Does anybody care about me? Is it a surprise that then I started to date men that reaffirmed that, that would treat me like I was an afterthought, that would dismiss me that were emotionally and available because it felt safer to me. This is, I know this dance.

You say jump, I say how high. Choosing myself was fucking terrifying because who am I to choose myself? Oh my gosh. Right? Who am I to, yeah. What do I know? Not understanding our self-worth gets us into so much trouble because we see it as arrogance and we see it as arrogance. and we see it as selfishness and it's not.

Like, it's understanding your worth and value is like essential. But yet to a person who people pleases or has a difficult past, it doesn't feel like empowerment. It doesn't feel, it feels like arrogance. I mean, we bend over backwards because if we didn't bend over backwards, then that means we feel like we'd be putting the burden on somebody else and we would never put the burden on somebody else. I'll take that burden every single time.

The problem is, is we tend to not get with people who also, want to take the burden on. We get with people who are like, cool. Thanks. Thank you. Take it on forever. And then eventually we're like, this is heavy. Like really, really heavy. And they're like, it's not that bad. And you're like, okay. So. Because the rocks just keep getting added. Yeah. We have to learn like, what extra weight am I carrying? Yeah. Like what, like, what extra labor am I doing in this? Can I just also add in this? Because I hear this every day. And I'm sure you get the same comment. Easier said than done. And it's like, I. Everything is easy. Yeah. Also, you know what? Life is fucking hard, right? Like, waking up every day could be challenging

to a lot of people out there. I choose my heart every day. I get to decide what do I put the mental energy. And I saw this quote the other day. That was so beautiful. And it said, other people's opinion of you is their projection of how they see themselves. If it hits you, that's because it's how you see yourself. And I know when I see the trolls that will attack me, some of them roll off like a water off a duck's back. I'm like, I'll go fuck yourself. I don't care. And then there's some that you're like, Ooh, because it hits a core wound. Maybe my dad said that to me. Oh, my gosh, for sure.

Maybe my sister said that to me growing up. And I go out of prefrontal cortex into the amygdala, and I am fear-based and fear-centered. Oh, yeah. And the biggest thing here is like, an anxious and avoidant person can have a beautiful and healthy relationship when both people are doing the work. Now, of course, people are going to be, well, yeah, well, the anxious or the avoidant person doesn't want to either. And it's like, but same with the anxious. I see this every day of like, why do I have to do the work? why do I have to come closer?

Again, I have to be the one that does this. Or I have to be the one that doesn't text them as much. And it's like, but you're doing that for you. You're not doing that for them. You fill your cup up, your life up. I'm sorry, but like my brother said this to me a few years ago and it stuck. He said, if you have this much time in a day to worry why somebody didn't text you, you need to build your fucking life up and get a lot busier because you that are not filling your life with things that mean something to you.

And you are waiting for them to do that. And it stuck with me ever since. Yeah. It's so hard. It's so, I mean, I get it. It's so hard to like, so hard. And so there's two problems. Like, I mean, one, it's normal for you to want a partner who reciprocates.

Like, it's normal for you to want the connection and, you know, emotional maturity in your relationship. The problem comes in where you, where you are like, well, okay, I'm doing the work, but my partner isn't. Sure. They don't have to. They don't have to do the work. It's not there, you know, like, you have to come to a place. We just talked about this. And this is like a terribly sad reality.

And I understand it's extremely nuanced. But you have to come to a place where you're okay leaving that relationship. Yeah. Like not a relationship is for you. Sometimes when you're growing in maturity and wisdom, especially in this space and like learning about your own needs and wants and desires, you might figure out that my partner doesn't share this. They don't care about the growth.

You have to decide, obviously, I made a whole YouTube video like how to know when to leave a relationship. And of course it's extremely nuanced and it's complex. But Terry Real actually has a great quote. Like he says, are enough of your needs being met to grieve the ones that aren't? I love that. It's like in every relationship,

there's going to be some needs that are just grieve. Like, this isn't. My partner is not a need meeting machine. But at the same time, there's a lot of partners who don't plan on meeting any of your needs. And so what are we going to do? It's like, you have a choice. It's like, I'm not saying go divorce them tomorrow when you have like kids in a house

and those stuff. But at the same time, like, even people who are dating ask that question. They've been dating for a year. No kids. They're not married. And they're like, my partner doesn't do the work at all. Or they don't do this. And now I've asked this and this is happening.

And I'm like, well, like, you eventually have to make a choice of this. Is this relationship ever going to be mutual fulfilling? Like, well, if they would just, but you just told me they won't. Exactly. So. One of my friends was married for like 20 years. And we were having dinner one night. And it was when my ex and I broke up.

And he said, do you accept him as he is? And I said, yes. but and he stopped me and he goes, I'm done. And he goes, then you don't accept him for who he is. He goes, because yes, but means you want to change him. And he goes, I love my partner. And I could say that now with full confidence. Like, do I accept and love my partner? Yeah. He's doing the work on himself. We're both growing like, I'm fucking perfect. Are you kidding? We both have our stuff, but we are so committed to this relationship to making it work. And even the other night, like I had a whole thing, you know, had my emotional state and I was dealing with a lot. Actually,

no, I'm doing this bold detox. Don't worry, guys. I'm going to go in more on this for you guys on another episode. And I was taking the specific supplement. It was making me fucking insane because it was clearing out stuff, the brain gut access. I was bananas. And even Ryan said, he was like, this is really tough. That's how he starts things. We'll say, like, this is really hard for me. But I know how important this is for our relationship. So can you please just give me grace while I try to articulate this. That's beautiful. And I'm always, I'm just like, absolutely, thank you for letting me know. Like, I'm always supportive, especially when he comes to me and I can see he's trying. And that's what I mean by progress, right? When we first started dating,

I didn't have this partner, but when I would bring something to him, he would stop and be like, okay, thank you for bringing that to my attention. Like, let me see what I can, I want to process this. Yeah. And we would have actionable steps. That is how an anxious avoidant dynamic can work. He has learned, I need to come closer to my partner. I need to communicate more with my partner.

I cannot hold things from them. Like, he would make plans without talking to me. And it's like, that doesn't work here. Like, you can make whatever plans you are for yourself, but communicate with me if I'm involved in it. Yeah. And for me, it was, I need to not take things personally. I need to understand his need for space is, completely valid. And on a Sunday, if he says, babe, I'm going to go upstairs for three hours,

I need to be alone. It's not a reflection of me of like, you don't want to be with me. I'm like, you know what, enjoy it. I'm going to do my thing too. There is a balance. And somebody, this is actually kind of going into the question. Someone said, I want to hear your thoughts as well. She said, how do I stop falling into anxious trap when they pull away? And for me, the first thing I heard, for me at least personally, because my partner does that, is regulate a nervous system and come back to a space of having agency and choice so I can start to challenge whatever narrative is happening. So if my partner pulls away and instead of filling in the blanks with, see, I knew it, he's pulling away. He doesn't love me. He doesn't care about me. I knew he was going to leave me, right?

That's where my brain baselines. Instead, I'll stop and be like, Sabrina, remove yourself for a second, go for a walk for a few minutes. I come back and I'll first even just be like, hey, is everything okay? Do you need anything? And if he's like, I'm fine. I just need a minute. Okay. I'll remove myself and remind myself that there are thousand other reasons this person could need space. And if it were about me, they would communicate that with me. So until they tell me it's something I did, I'm not going to make assumptions. Yeah. But I'm curious, as somebody who has that dynamic as well, what are your modalities that help you instead of spiraling into like, oh my God, that's it. Yeah. What helps you? I mean, well, first of all, yes, you have to,

you have to come to the place where you don't make assumptions. Like, obviously, that's true. You also have to get bold enough, which is, this is so hard, like for somebody, like, this is so easy for some people. And yet other people struggle, like me struggle so hard. you have to get to the point where you're like honest about saying that like hey when this happens like when this specific scenario happens like man man do I really just feel I mean you might want to not not say abandoned but like gosh like it really hurts like it really something really happens on the inside and and I would love it if you could give me some like reassurance in that moment that like this isn't about me or this isn't if you could just communicate even if it's just brief like what's going

on, you know, which is really difficult for the avoidant partner, but it's necessary. I mean, that communication goes a long way, just like you said. The regulating yourself and just being self-reflective in that process, it's so hard in the moment, but like it's so, it's so important for you to just, and I've struggled, I've felt that recently because you kind of go into a little bit of a panic, you know, and it's in those moments where you just have to be like, okay, this is those, this is those moments where I just feel like I want to, I want to do whatever I normally do to like fix this. I want to blast text them. Now, I want to tell them, you know, give it, give it to

or, you know, tell them why they're so wrong for doing this, how they're hurting me or whatever the case may be. And we have to just remember that it's most likely not about us. That really goes back to, like, trusting your partner. You're like, if this was about me, he would communicate that. That's trusting your partner. Like, I trust you, babe. Like, if this was about me, you would communicate this.

The guy I dated before him, anytime I brought anything up, he was so avoiding it was actually kind of painful. And he was just like, I don't need any therapy. No, I'm good. Like, I have no issues. And in my head, I'm like, oh, brother. Sure. Yeah.

And it just started to see where I would have to be like, hey, like, can we have a touch base? How are you feeling? Fine. Sure. Cool. And it just got to that point where I was like, the depth wasn't there. This person wasn't engaging. And he's not a bad guy. This is a lovely human. It didn't work anymore. No, thank you. This doesn't work for me. That doesn't mean that I have to villainize. And that's also kind of my thing. This villainization of like the avoidance are the worst people. Yeah. Whereas the anxious person, well, at least I communicate. And again, my favorite line in Eternal Sunshine is constantly talking is not necessarily communicating. And I think a lot of people like, I've dealt with it. Now,

that I have a lot of clients, I'll sometimes deal with people or I'll get DMs. And I say, it's this manic. And I'm like, it's the dysregulation. And I get it. I was her. I've sent, Jimmy, I don't think I ever told you. I know, I'm about, you know, man. I sent 173 text to a guy once because he tried to break up with me. I'm not kidding. I know what that feels like. I love that, what you said of like, expressing yourself to your partner. Like, hey, when you shut down, it makes me feel disconnected or I don't feel like we're together as a team. Can you just let me know? Because Ryan, I'll do that now. He'll be like, babe, it's not you. I need time. And I'm like, got it. But I also think there's much beauty in when something happens, you don't have to respond. You don't have to react in

the moment, but you don't have to engage in that second. You shouldn't. You shouldn't, right? Defuse it for just a second, even if that means, hey, I'm going to go outside for 10 minutes. Let's talk in a few. When you get activated, there's different areas of your brain for people, I didn't know this, obviously. There's like, you have like a thinking part of your brain. And then you have like a fear center part of your brain. And so, so often when we go into fight, flight or freeze, we don't really realize when it's even happening. But we will quickly switch over. and we don't know that we're in the fear center. So you need to start paying attention to like, wait, I think I'm in the fear center.

And like, you know, when you want to send those 40 texts in a row, like, or when you want to explode on your partner, somebody says, you know, there's power in the pause, you know. Yeah. It's so vital, especially if you have, especially if you're in an anxious avoidant dynamic, you have to learn how to slow your fights down. Like you have to learn. Because when you slow your fights down, you realize, well, one, you're not even fighting about anything. Yeah. Because it's your job to self-reflects because so often anxious, especially, you know, even if you're a people-pleaser, if you avoid an attachment, or anxious attachment, you think you're communicating, you think you're being vulnerable. But what you're really saying is like, I feel like you don't care. Well, that's not a feeling.

No. So you think you were being vulnerable there, but you were also making a judgment and being accusatory. And, you know, it's real easy for you to escalate because you have a, maybe that's the way it was in your house. Well, you had to yell to be heard. Or maybe you feel like you have to yell to be heard. I used to get erratic or a rate, because I was my dad, he boop like that in a second who's screaming at you. And so I always was like, yeah, to your point, half the time, it's like, God, I watch 90-day

fiancee or any of those love shows, you know, especially when you start to see them compound over time. You watch episode after episode. And half the time, I'm like, we're not even fighting about what we're fighting about. Oh, my gosh. We started about, you don't feel like a priority, kind of what you were just saying. Exactly. You don't take me out.

And it's like, I don't feel like I'm a priority to you. And I feel disconnected, right? That's the root of the issue, maybe. Yeah. Then we start to come in and like, well, but you always do always and never. We don't need anywhere. Absolutely. And not to mention any time I'm having a talk with Brian or anybody, I don't ever start with you. Right. It's I. Can I share something with you? I feel this. Britt Frank always tells me. And she's like the love addict, which is the more anxious, she's like, it's not abandonment that they're terrified of. She's like, it's intimacy. That's why they're addicted to it. It's next. It's next. It's next. The next person, the next person. But then really, what is the avoidance biggest fear? It's not. A lot, all those, a close and a shore shore. It's rejection. Always rejection.

Judge for who they are. And I know it's my sister. I love my sister to the moon and back. But growing up, she was always put down for who she was and rejected. And my dad was not very good to her. How does it, would it surprise me now as an adult? She's a people pleaser. She shuts down.

She just, yep, she'll say yes even once. She wants to say no because she is so scared. For sure. She would get hit when she would say no. And she was terrified. And now she's working through that. She's like, no, I want to communicate. And it's a beautiful thing to find your voice.

but there's that balance, right? Because it's like, when you have a high anxiety, you can't go to your partner every three minutes because it's like, hey, if every single time they open their mouth, it's something you don't like, then I would highly suggest we look at if this is compatible. I know there's going to be people that are going to hate me for saying this and say that I'm a victim blaming and I'm a bully.

And like, that's okay. I'm not a good coach if I don't challenge and I don't push you to start to look and say, wait a minute, that's true. Am I doing this for the real reasons? Because if I really love my partner, like I love you as a friend, right? You are somebody that I hold so dearly to. I wouldn't fathom throwing all of that and being like, let me just give you more and you'll love me because I know that that wouldn't be a true connection. We wouldn't have a real friendship.

It would be me being burnt out. Yeah, yeah, exactly. We talked about that earlier. What was the term? Burnout. Pursue. Can you go on in that? Yeah.

Burnt out pursuer, especially somebody with anxious attachment, especially someone who they might have some core wounds, obviously around their self-worth. And that's why they continue picking people who are emotionally available because, well, One, like you said before, sometimes we think I can change them. Sometimes, especially with anxious attachment, we like, we like, I don't know if anybody else like this, but I like to fix people. Oh, famous last word. I like to. If I can see that you had pain in your past, if I can see that you're, somebody didn't

treat you right, I will, my first thought is I will love you so much that you will finally experience love and that and you will, then you'll give it back to me. and I'll be the best person in the world, because to you, because I'm giving you what you were deprived of all along. What we don't realize is, well, that person has core wounds. And so when I essentially love bomb them, they're going to be pushed far away. They're like, please don't do that. It's normal for anxiously attached people or people pleasers to pursue their partner.

You're always the one that goes first. You apologize first. You're pursuing connection with this person, especially if you get with emotionally unavailable people because you think you can fix them, you want to heal them. I think Harville Hendricks says, what's fascinating is you actually want to recreate the patterns of your past subconsciously so that you can fix them because they've caused you so much pain that you think, oh, if I can just recreate this narcissistic relationship, you know, my father was an alcoholic, so I'll just get with an alcoholic because that feels so familiar. But if I can heal that relationship,

then I can also heal this wound that I'm not even aware of. Anyways, it's a fascinating thing. Repetition compulsion. Yeah. And you know, it reminds me when you were talking about, like, the people-pleasing thing, Gene Wilder. Do you ever know his story? No, I don't know a story. So I was watching a documentary on him. And what I didn't know was when he was like 15 or 16 or no, I think he was even younger, but something like that. His mother was diagnosed and the doctor came to him and said, I mean, talk about fucking pressure. Yeah. Do not make them her sad. You have to make her laugh or she'll die. Wow. So he learned only she ended up living like 35 more years. And but they were saying like the pressure. Exactly. That's why he became a comedian. Exactly. That's why he became a comedian. and he was actually quite a lot of darkness to him. But he always learned just keep it light, keep it light, keep it light, because you got to make them laugh because I don't want to hurt them. Yeah. And that is where it's like my heart went out when I heard that because I've been guilty of that

of like, well, if I love my dad, if I just love him, maybe he'll think I am a good girl. And then I ended up dating people like him. People please thing is a good example. You can people please your way right into a miserable relationship. You can only do that for so long and be neglected before you essentially. essentially become miserable and resent them. And that's the burntout pursuer. Once that resentment sits inside of you for long enough, you obviously start becoming real critical with them. You start to have this negative bias. Like they'll, you know, they do the dishes for you, not for you, but they do the dishes.

And you're just like, yeah, they do, you know, one day. Go, you do the dishes one time per week. Like you think we deserve a cookie. You know what I mean? And so you start to have this negative view of them because now you're just looking for things to confirm that they're, there's just a neglectful narcissist. You know, like they don't care about anybody but themselves. So now that's how you view them. And so now you're going to look for things to obviously support that.

But the burnt out pursuer, they look at the situation and think, well, I wouldn't be like this if it wasn't for them. It's very easy to blame. It's not my fault. I did everything right. You did everything right, except for set any healthy boundaries and advocate for your own needs and then give consequences. appropriate consequences to people that aren't on your team.

They don't actually, they're not actually supportive. They're not helpful. They're not validating. They're not loving. You did everything except for fiercely advocate for yourself in that relationship because that's what you have to do. If you want a healthy relationship, you have to learn how to advocate for yourself. But that feels extremely selfish when you're, when you have a history of any sort of little T or big T trauma.

I was to say, because as a kid, if I put myself first, that would have meant I'd lost my parents. Like if I, exactly. To this day, if you say, like, we got to dinner with my dad and I literally said no to him. Because he was like bitching about me about something that I should do that he thinks I should. And when I didn't, he literally just mid-conversation. Even Ryan was like, oh my God, he just turned to the side. Yeah. Completely just, I was no longer there, mid-sentence. And I stopped and it's like, of course, I was like, this is so familiar. That's what I grew up in, knowing that you say anything that rocks the boat, you're going to lose this person. Absolutely.

And it wasn't until I was okay with losing him when a couple years ago when I was like, fine, you want to walk. My dad did his bullshit and I said, fine, you want to go? Then go, that's it. I'm not going to try to hold you anymore. Right. And now that's how I live my life. Even yesterday having the whole thing that I was telling you about with my personal business stuff and having somebody that was working really closely with me and then all of a sudden says they don't want to. I even said on the call, I was like, I'm going to treat this like a breakup after you.

I am not here to convince you. I don't need you to choose me. I choose myself and I am going, you know what I have? I have choices. And I ended up finding someone even better to. to deal with for the situation. Endings are not necessarily a bad thing. But I think to your point, and like I think this whole conversation, what I really love

about it is that it's exemplifying that both people have to do the work. It's not just one. Oh my gosh. Yeah. It's not just you. It's not just your wife. It's not just me. It's not just Ryan.

There's never just one person that has to do it all. And if you're constantly saying like, well, I keep doing all this work and nothing's helping. It's like stop self-abandoning and becoming obsessed with trying to get them to change instead of looking at yourself of what you have choices in. I love that. Yeah. What I think about is like, so let's.

go back to that example real quick. So you never take me out anymore. And then the other person is just like, I'm working so hard. Like, what do you? I don't understand. Like, kind of dismissive. It'll get to the point where they're validating. Maybe it gets to the point we're shut down, depending on the escalation. The point is, one, we don't know what we're fighting for. Like, what are you fighting for? The other person would say, I'm fighting because I want to connect with them. I loved, I loved when they used to take me out. Like, that made me feel so valued and made me feel so prioritized. Like, okay, have you told him not? Yeah. Yeah, I just did. I told him. I just did. I told him. I just told them. No, you told them you never take me out anymore. Like, you didn't tell them how important that was to you, how much you love it when they do that. Because that is vulnerable. Yeah. So we, we really hide that vulnerability within the criticism and within the, so one, we need to, we need to do a better job at when our partner doesn't get it perfectly. What are the hidden feelings or unmet needs within this frustration or complaint? I'm not saying it justifies your partner, screaming at you, calling you names. Don't put up with any of that. Like, say, I hope boundaries, but sometimes we don't communicate correctly. And if you're saying something like,

instead of saying like, I feel frustrated, if you're just like, man, you never take me out anymore. Like, we should pause. And it's really difficult to do this, but it takes both partners to just pause and be like, what are they trying to communicate? Or what are we fighting for? We really only fight for a couple things. We fight for connection. We fight for respect. We fight to feel valued. There's a reason that this person is bringing this up. So I always try to lead with, you said it earlier, curiosity. Like, once again, I didn't come up with this. Conflict is an opportunity for like growth in your relationship. Like you should not look at conflict as something to be avoided. My point is, is it really what helps if both partners could take accountability. So in that instance, that person saying you never take me

out anymore, they would take accountability by saying, you know what? I didn't tell you how important this was to me. I didn't tell you how much I love when you take me out. It really makes me feel like so prioritized. And you used to do that and I really miss it. Like I really miss it. You have been working overtime and like gosh do I appreciate the hard work that you're doing but like at the same time I didn't ask you to work overtime you've been working overtime a lot and it really I just miss you like it really feels like you're not really that you don't want to be here anymore and that's scary for me and it takes the other person obviously to not take that as an attack and not let their own shame be triggered because they because it's easy to just go well like I'm trying

to make money for our family no no like we got to keep the focus on one person if somebody's vulnerable and they actually tell you some feelings. Like, please just give it a couple times where you're just like, man, thank you for telling me that. Yeah. Like, I had no idea that you missed that. Like, that makes a lot of sense. Anytime you can lead with, I want to understand.

Remember that core questions that nobody was there for you. Like, you're worth understanding. Like, how are you showing your partner you're worth understanding? That's so important. So both of us can lead with taking accountability. Taking accountability is essentially like the catch-all. Like because if you're worried about that your partner's a narcissist, like narcissists, narcissists will never take accountability.

But also anxious people don't take accountability. Anxiously attachment people don't take accountability and avoidantly attached people. Or they'll take all the like everything is my fault and it's like those are poor beliefs. Which is a shame issue. Exactly. Not really an accountability issue. Yeah. That's really essentially an essential piece of advice.

If somebody was only going to remember one thing of what I said, like figure out a way where you can have conflict where you're both taking. accountability. That's so important. And it de-escalates the conflict. You cannot have a escalated conflict where one person goes, you know what? I said that wrong. That came out wrong. I can totally see how like you would have gotten defensive because I really kind of came out critical and blaming. I was dealing with a lot of stuff and I wasn't communicating that because we haven't had time together and man, I just got frustrated. I just got over. Can I do that over? You feel seen. You feel hurt. You're like. And that other person is like, this person's taking accountability

for the way they're talking to me. Avoidant people love when you do that. When you take accountability for the way you're bringing things up because they're so afraid that you're just about to lash out at them at any moment because they have no real emotional awareness. Like, I don't know where we are. It's true.

Are we good? I don't know. No, like, I'm good. But I don't know if you're good. I never know when she's going to yell at me. If you have avoidant attachment, it's so important for you to learn because it's a skill that you can learn.

It's so important that you learn how to take accountability for the way you show up. And you're like, I did get defensive. And I bet that when I get defensive really makes you feel unheard, doesn't it? validate. I was insane. Validate. Like, I can do that all the time. I can see how that would bother you. And that would de-escalates everything. Truly. Truly. All right. Well, we're going to need a whole other episode on fucking conflict. But for now, Jimmy. I love conflict. Are you about to end this? We're going to end this because we're going to do another episode. Oh. We're going to do in the trenches. We're going to help people in a different way. But thank you for coming on. It was wonderful. I'm so excited. Okay. Where can people find you? Oh, wherever you watch content. Jimmy on relationships. If you like guys in wigs, this is going to get weird. If you like relationship content, and anyways. If that's your fetish, I'm here for it.

YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, if it's still around. Yeah. That's determined. We'll see. But I'll be linking everything. And I'm just. Yeah, I'm not worried about it. Thank you so much for being.

Yeah, it was great.