When Your Partner Avoids Conflict and Leaves You Alone

One thing I've learned after 2 decades of working with couples is this: sleep matters. When we're exhausted, we're more reactive, we have less patience, we're quicker to snap, everything feels harder. And if you're in perimenopause like me, being too hot at night is enough to make a good night's sleep feel impossible. And that is why I love my Quince bedding. I am using their 100% European linen bedding, and I do not get hot. It's lightweight, it's breathable, it's so soft, and every time I wash it, it somehow gets softer. And if you're more of organic cotton person, they have that too. I also love that their bedding comes in beautiful timeless colors and patterns that make my room feel like a special little retreat. And not to mention, the silk pillowcases and eye masks are some of my favorite things to use at night. What I appreciate most is that Quince makes luxury quality products without the luxury markup. They work directly with ethical factories, cutting out the middleman, so you're getting incredible quality at prices that are often 50 to 80% less than similar brands. And it's not just bedding. They have beautiful clothing, cookware, furniture, and home essentials that bring that same quality into everyday life. I love Quince, and I know you're going to love it too. Make your summer bedding feel better. Go to quince.com/tracy for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. And for my Canadian listeners, it's also available for you. Quince.com/tracy for free shipping and 365-day returns.

Quince.com/tracy. Hey, Washington, D.C.! Class it up with Crocs! You know back to school is coming in fast, so why wait to find your new fave footwear? Step into a local Crocs store and step into your new look. Try it, style it, make it yours, because the right pair doesn't just show up, it shows off. First day fits, handled. Walk out ready for whatever's next. Visit your nearest Crocs store today.

This episode is brought to you by Google. Innovation is deeply ingrained in America, and Google is helping Americans innovate in ways both big and small. There are hundreds of thousands of skilled trades roles across the US waiting to be filled. To help close this gap, Google is expanding its skilled trade support to help train more than 300,000 American workers across more than 20 states. This is a new era of American innovation. Learn more at grow.google/skilledtrades.

Welcome to Dear Dr. Tracy, the podcast that dives deep into the messy, beautiful world of relationships. I'm Dr. Tracy Dalgleish, clinical psychologist, relationship expert, and your go-to guide for navigating relationships, boundaries, in-laws, and everything in between. Whether you're striving to rekindle the spark, set healthy limits, or build deeper connections, this is the space where real talk meets expert advice. Together, we'll tackle the tough questions, untangle the sticky situations, and uncover the small shifts that lead to big transformations in your relationships.

So grab a coffee, settle in, and let's rewrite the stories you tell yourself.

This is Dear Dr. Tracy Dalgleish, your guide to creating relationships that feel good.

I received a question recently that at first seemed to be about bids for connection. The question was essentially this: what do you do when your partner is constantly bidding for connection at the worst possible times and in ways that are honestly kind of annoying? Maybe they interrupt you when you are trying to get something done, or they're showing you some kind of video when you're clearly overwhelmed, or like Greg did, which is my favorite story, the one where he's like, oh hey, the grass is growing really well this year. Or maybe your partner suddenly wants affection from you and closeness after you have spent the entire day feeling unsupported, unseen, or alone. And I think a lot of you listening can relate to this because here's the truth: bids for connection, they're not always romantic and they're not always thoughtful. They are definitely not well-timed. Sometimes these bids for connection come out of nowhere and they sound like, come look at this. Sometimes it's that random question when you are already carrying 10 other things in your head, or your partner wanting physical connection when really there's been no emotional connection between the two of you for a while. And yes, underneath these behaviors, there might be an attempt to connect. The question sometimes underneath the question they're coming to you with is, are you there? Do you see me? Can I still reach you? But to make sure I was answering the right question, I asked this person in our community to share more about what was actually happening in her relationship. And when I read what she wrote, I realized that this was not actually a question about dealing with annoying bids. It was actually a question about emotional safety, because what she went on to describe is a situation where her partner makes promises during difficult conversations, not because he plans to follow through with them, but because he just wants the discomfort to end. And I'm curious to know, so if you're listening, pause, come over to Instagram or shoot me an email. How many of you can relate to that, to your partner responding in such a way, trying to just make the hard moment end? And that doesn't feel good because it just feels like we're having to be placated or pushed along. So this person described sharing vulnerable parts of herself and then later having those vulnerabilities used against her during conflict. And then she also described that her husband is often passive when conflict came up in his family and often leaving her to carry the blame, and she's become the scapegoat in the family. So as I was reflecting on her question, it wasn't so much about how do I respond better when my partner reaches for me. And I'm so glad I asked, because if I was responding to that question alone, I would be completely missing the deeper underneath issue, because the question then suddenly becomes How do I offer connection to my partner who has repeatedly taught me that connection doesn't feel safe with them? And that's where I want to start today, because I think the first thing we need to understand is that sometimes the annoying bid, the inconvenient attempt to connect with you, is not actually the problem. It might be what's bothering you or what's happening in the moment, but sometimes the reaction you are having is actually something much deeper. It's not this, you're bothering me right now. It's more of this, you want closeness from me, but you have not cared for the vulnerable parts of me that I have already given to you. Also, it sounds like this, it's, you want me to turn to you, you want me to turn to you with connection and openness, but when I have turned toward you before, I have felt dismissed, exposed, blamed, or completely left alone. And when that's the history between you and your partner, the bid itself is actually small, but what it represents is something so much more foundational in your relationship. So let me back up first. If you're new here and you haven't heard me talk about bids for connection, let me talk about what they actually are. The Gottmans coined the term bid for connection, and it's such a powerful way to start viewing your partner. A bid can be something direct, verbal. It sounds like, can we talk? Or come sit with me. Or do you want to watch something together? So it's very clear, I'm asking you to come and connect with me. But oftentimes our bids for connection, or you might frame it as a bid for attention, is indirect. I already gave the example of the one day Greg had sat down across from me. It's one of my favorite Instagram posts because so many men responded to this post saying, oh, I get it, that's actually what I'm doing in the moment when I bring up this silly thing about my bike or grass or the car issue. It's, I'm trying to connect with you. So it can often be indirect. It might be about showing you a video. It might be complaining. It might be reaching for you, like, you know, the touch of the small of your back or squeezing your shoulder, or maybe they're making a joke. And sometimes that bid can be clumsy or it's poorly timed or it's irritating. I mean, those things are totally possible, but the thing that is underneath the bid that I really wish people could see is, are you there? Do I matter? Can I reach for you? And the Gottmans found that couples who turn towards each other, towards those bids with kindness, with openness and curiosity, those are the couples who actually end up having higher relationship satisfaction at follow-up. And I should also say there are multiple ways that you can respond to a bid. So Gottmans talk about 3 of them. One, You can talk about turning towards your partner. That's towards with kindness, curiosity, and openness. Hey, tell me more about that, or what's going on for you, or I want to hear more about this. The other piece is turning away from them. Those are my viral Instagram posts, by the way. That's the moment where your partner stays on their phone and they ignore you. They don't look up. They, um, they give you a mm-hmm and they walk by you. Those ones are hard. But then the other way of responding is turning towards you unkindly. That can be with contempt. It can be with criticism. The moment Greg comes to me with the grass, right? If he's saying, hey, the grass is growing really well— by the way, I should set the scene for that story. The scene is that I was in the arc, the middle of one of my top summer reads that year. I can't remember which one it was. It wasn't Broken Country, but it was along that line. Maybe How to End a Love Story. If you haven't read that and you like romance, that one's for you. It's open door. I should warn you of that. Okay, but you can turn towards them in an unkind way. And say, "Ugh, are you really going to talk to me about the grass right now?" Or you might say something like, "I don't have time for this. You're just complaining." You get the idea. Something harsh. You're not there with open and kindness. So I think something that we need to understand when it comes to bids for connection, and I believe this to be true in our relationships in general, is that this is not about you overriding yourself. Just because someone sits across from you and wants to talk to you doesn't mean you absolutely have to respond to them. And give them all of the attention right now. You do need to say something though. So you need to respond by saying, I don't have the capacity for this right now, letting your partner know where you are, or even saying, I want to connect with you, but I need us to address what's actually been happening outside of this, right? So I think when I think about this person's question, it's really important for us to recognize that just because someone is trying to connect with you, You don't need to let go of yourself, because here's the catch. If you do continue to let go or abandon— I think abandon is the better word here— if you continue to abandon your need and feeling, especially when we're talking about safety and vulnerability, you will grow to be resentful in your relationship. And that's where then we start to say something like, I want connection with you. But I need to address what has actually been making connection feel unsafe. And that's a really hard piece in there. And I imagine even this person sharing this question, they are in couples therapy. You've started to do that work already. It's tricky though, right? It's tricky to have to sit into this piece. When it comes to bids for connection, I think there's this other element that I want to name, and that is that connection and emotional safety are not the same thing. Emotional safety is something that you build over time. It is not an inherent given thing. Connection, you've built connection throughout your relationship. It's actually what started your partnership. It started a spark between the two of you. And then through that connection and spark, you would have built that emotional safety. What does that mean? Sounds like a very therapist word. Emotional safety means that the things you share vulnerably are not weaponized later. It means that when we make promises, they are not made to just simply end a conversation. It means that you are being able to tolerate hard feelings. It means that you also can tolerate disappointment. I mean, I think there's this element in here where we are disappointed in relationships, where we don't get everything that we want, where we don't always get to sit in comfort and sunny conversations, but it means we also come together. It means there's this sense of security where we don't make threats to each other and that we trust that we bring up hard things. And that's the piece, right? Because when we think about those deep connected bonds, what we're talking about here is this willingness to enter into hard, uncomfortable things. Knowing that by doing that, this is so important. I remember saying this to Greg once and it was this aha moment for him. He shares this on the podcast, but he is my conflict avoider. So this idea that when we're in conflict, there's actually an opportunity for us to deepen our connection because we discover needs that maybe we have not yet communicated. And that is so important. Now there's another piece with security too. So I'm blending the words emotional safety and security here. They go together. But when I think about what Dr. Dan Siegel talks about, and is the 4 S's— it's safe, soothed, seen, and secure— those 4 S's, that's so important. And so I think then what we want to emphasize here is that this bid could open the door for connection. So your partner comes to you and wants to connect with you. But I think what's really important here is understanding that the emotional safety is really about how and whether you're going to walk through it. I have to label in here that avoidance in this is actually not neutral. So I think it's really important for us to understand that it looks quieter than aggression. It's not loud, it's not outward, it's not angry, but it still really shapes a relationship. The person who avoids is the one who says, I am not willing to feel uncomfortable. But as a result of one person saying that, the other person then carries the consequence, and that's going to drive a wedge between you and your partner. I think I need to say that one more time to really drive that point home. So I want to make sure that you listening, that you understand that avoidance is not neutral. You are actually acting in a way it's going to shape your relationship. It is the one where you're then saying, I will let you carry the weight of all of this. So this person had brought in some in-law examples. I'm gonna, I'm not gonna say anything to my family. I'm gonna be the peacekeeper. That means you have to carry all of the weight. And when you carry all the weight, what happens, especially in the in-law dynamic, is you are then the scapegoat. You're the one who's blamed. And then that allows, it gives permission. It's not spoken permission. It's implicit permission to family members to mistreat you in such a way. And I think this is one of the biggest things too, is that when I choose avoidance, I am choosing my own comfort over the security of what our relationship could be. And that really breaks— it goes back to connection— it really breaks the bond between you two. So I need to come back to validating this piece of, of course you are struggling to respond to your partner's bids. Of course they feel annoying because inside you're wondering, where's the safety? Where is the connection? There's another really important unintentional consequence of avoidance and not wanting to do hard things and not allowing ourselves to be in discomfort. And that is that it makes everything next harder. Oh, everything afterwards harder. You avoid something now, which makes sense. Like, I get it. I don't like doing uncomfortable things. I am just as human as the next person. I don't like discomfort. I still feel that, like, tension inside of me, even though I spend all day working with people to choose towards their value and do the discomfort, do the uncomfortable thing. Okay, so I know that. But when you say, I'm not going to do something today, it makes the next time even harder. And one of the best things to keep in mind if you are the one who avoids, is that when you do it, you always feel better after. Now that's more for your partner to hear that than for you. But I think it's really important that we recognize the intention doesn't erase the impact. So your partner is saying, you know, I don't wanna hurt you. It's not my intention to hurt you. I don't want my family to make you the scapegoat. Sure, you can say they have good intentions, But the impact on you is heavy because you don't feel emotionally safe. You are not opening up to them with vulnerability. And so then you naturally, of course anyone would, you stop believing what they say and you will continue to watch what it is that they do. And what they do is they don't have these hard conversations with you. So let's come back to why this person may not be responding to her partner's bids. And I think it's important to recognize it's not her trying to punish. It's not her trying to be cold or to reject her partner. Sometimes this is actually about protection. This is her nervous system saying, don't open up. Don't believe the promise because he has said, I'm not going to follow through. Don't give him more information that he can use later and don't reach for someone who is going to stay passive when you need protection. I think we need to normalize that behavior in there, and if I think about a couple sitting in my therapy room, I would be doing a lot of work with him because you can't ask someone who doesn't feel safe— well, you can, but it's, it's going to backfire because if the person who doesn't feel safe opens up and the partner, her partner can't catch her, that's just repeating the same thing in the therapy room. That's not good. We don't want to repeat the same thing. We want to actually create active change. And a lot of that active change, when I'm thinking about the couples I work with, is I'm working on educating him and I'm letting him know he needs to show up and I'm nudging him to actually say and do the hard thing. And we're practicing that in therapy or even in the intensives. And I'll put this here. If you are in that situation where this pattern is so stuck for you to consider reaching out to me for my couples intensives, the intensives are because What I'm noticing with couples is that you come in for an hour and the hour is not enough. We start to open it up, we do a bit of work, you leave, and then I don't see you for 2 or 3 weeks or a month or longer, and you're right back where you started. For couples, so much happens between the two of you between your sessions, and it's so tricky. So anyways, if you are stuck and you're looking to really break out of these cycles, check out my intensives. I'd be happy to share some more information with you. I know I only have one spot open left in the coming month, but Do reach out and let's see if it's a good fit for you. But all that being said is that in couples work, he has to step in there and that's tricky. I mean, I can't force someone to do it, but education in there is important because I'm going to connect this now to the family system. I don't want to make this the whole episode, but there's an element here where what he is doing in the relationship is likely a repetition of what he learned to grow up, which is to keep the peace, to be the good child, to avoid whoever is upset. And that passivity— so you asking the question, the agreement to you in the moment, and then being passive about things— that once protected him. And I say that so that we have compassion for it and we can be curious for it. I don't say it so that he can not have accountability and not be required to change, but It's really important when we look at couple dynamics that we understand that the behavior that helped you to survive in your family might be the very behavior that is now hurting your marriage. And I think sometimes we all need to recognize that. I think we need to recognize that, that we are all products of our patterns. We don't use it as an excuse, but insight is the first step. I have to tell you this, insight's not going to change your relationship. You have to then actually do the hard thing. Okay, and now I'm going to speak directly to the person who shared this with me because I think the first thing I want to emphasize is you can't teach him boundaries for him. You can only name what you need. You can set your own limits. You've already shared that you stopped kinkeeping and managing his family relationships. You can't do all of the differentiation for him because he has to be the one to step into the discomfort of a hard conversation with you, the discomfort of circling back around and saying and owning, actually, I didn't do the thing I said I would. And of course, how important that is, or even the discomfort of him dealing with his mother's upset feelings, or there was some mention of a sister-in-law in there as well. It's all of this complexity to navigate because if a partner doesn't do that, then your wife will always keep paying the price for his comfort in the family system, which is really tricky.

Okay.

What would repair actually look like in this dynamic? Because trust isn't built when the hurt partner finally decides to believe you, it's actually built when behavior becomes believable. So if you're listening and you haven't yet taken my repair quiz, I would strongly encourage you to go check out the quiz. It is going to tell you exactly what you need in a repair, and then you and your partner can both share your responses, and it's going to open up a different kind of conversation. I had one person send me a DM saying she was in tears discovering what she needed to hear in a repair. So I'm not putting you in a box in terms of the type of person you are. It's actually telling you what you need. It's so powerful. I love this quiz. And then she had her husband take the quiz and it just developed this deeper understanding between each other of what's actually getting in the way for us. Anyways, I've got the link in the show notes for that one. So go take the quiz. Let's talk about what repair actually looks like. I think there's this element where you can say to your partner, and perhaps you already have, but I think there's this piece here where you really have to name this dynamic and maybe you do this in couples therapy as you've shared that you're in couples therapy, but take this and reshape it for how it works in your language. I think it's, it needs to be named. So it's a metacommunication. It's not the, he makes a bid and then you say this, it's you sitting down together on the couch, no distractions, and you being able to say something like this. I can see that you're reaching for me. And I also need you to understand that closeness has become difficult between us because some of the things I've shared with you have been used against me, and that leads me to really struggle to open up. And then, this is important, you talking about what you need. And this is part of the repair process. It's what I need to move forward. I need consistent follow-through before I can feel safe opening up again. And I think it's really important when you say something like this, it's the putting it in the whole cycle. I can see you reach for me, and I want to. I genuinely want to be there and connect with you. And then connect it to their behavior, being able to say that it's really hard when you make those in-the-moment promises and then nothing changes. And I need something. I need, like, be this specific: I need consistent follow-through. I need to see what that looks like. And then I think there's this element in here that is very relational. And I'm always careful when I walk through this because I don't want it to feel like I'm putting more mental load on It is a both between the both of you. It's about creating some kind of structure or system that you can have in place for returning to these conversations and checking in with each other. Someone recently asked me about— a comment recently was about what their partner feeling like weekly check-ins, they don't welcome them. And I think the weekly check-ins are so important because it does give you a container for connection. For sharing and for repairing some of these things that go really quickly through our life. And I talk about this in my mother-in-law book, in the You, Your Husband, and His Mother book. I talk about the 3 things that you need to be on the same team to set boundaries. And one of those things being willingness. So like willingness, ability is the other one. So do you actually have the skill to do it? And importance, seeing those 3 things. I mean, you can all see those 3 things. You have what I call unity between you and your partner on moving forward in boundary setting. But your partner has to have the skills to do something. You have to have the skills to do something. You both have to see the importance of doing something, and then you both have to have the willingness. Like, am I actually willing to go into that discomfort? And there's questions I have in there that are around readiness to change. And then I will also say this, that if your partner is really struggling with changing this specific piece and tackling this, that's sometimes where one-on-one work can be really helpful when they hang out in this. But okay, when I think about the person who's more avoidant, because I know sometimes you're listening to the episodes too Here's what I want you to start doing. I want you to just name it. I want you to just name when you feel the urge to do that. When you feel the urge, I want you to just name it to your partner and say, I know you're asking me for something right now, and I have the urge to just make this conversation go away. That's it. Just name it. I know you're asking for this. I feel uncomfortable. I want to make this go away. You're not actually saying the thing to make it go away, You're doing the meta-communication again. You're going above it. And that right there is actually a shift in the conversation. Your partner might not respond well to it. I'm not sure, but it's actually you doing something different because then you can start saying, what could we do differently here in this moment? Like, oh, so if Greg says that to me, I really just wanna make this conversation go away. I'm feeling really uncomfortable. That's a flag for me of, oh, okay. How could we do this differently then? How can we find a way to be together in this? Cuz I don't want him to be alone in this hard, uncomfortable thing. I want to be there. With him. I want to do that well. And then if I think about just coming back to the original question of that poorly timed bid, it might be something like, I want to respond to you, but I can't do it well right now. Can we come back to this after bedtime? It's just you really saying, I want to be in this with you. You matter to me, and I need time so that we can do it better together. Okay, I want to end by just holding two really important truths. When we hold the both/and, it's about tension that exists between the two of them. So I want you to remember that. So one, your partner's annoying behavior might still be a bid for connection, and you are not required to offer vulnerability where vulnerability has repeatedly been mishandled. And I think that is a really uncomfortable thing for many people to sit in, is that if it hasn't been safe in your relationship then it's hard to meet them in that vulnerability. And that, that is actually the work to be doing here. And it's not just about creating more bids or responding better to bids, but that the work here is about how do we actually create that emotional safety. All right. I'm always grateful when you send me your questions. I've got the link in the show notes. Send me as much detail as possible because when you give me more details, then I can answer the question in more depth. And I'm grateful that you pressed play today. I don't take that for granted. One of the best things you can do to support the show as always is to share it with someone who you know is also dealing with BIDs, dealing with emotional safety. We are better in relationships when we can talk about the hard of relationships, not to bash our partners, but so that we can have someone say, I see you, I know how hard this is, and also you're not alone because let me tell you at the time, when I struggled with such and such a thing. All right, please click the stars, leave me a review. It is one of the best ways to support the podcast. Thank you, and I will see you next time. Hey, at the end of every podcast episode, I have to remind you that this is for educational purposes only and does not substitute for the care from a licensed mental health care provider.