When Love Feels Unsafe: Understanding Attachment Wounds in Relationships

Most relationships don’t end because two people stop loving each other.

They end because something happened that made one — or both — partners stop feeling safe.

And often, they can’t even name what it was.

It wasn’t always an affair.It wasn’t always explosive conflict.It wasn’t always something dramatic.

Sometimes it was a season of emotional disappearance.A crisis that pulled one partner into survival mode.A baby that exposed cracks no one realised were there.A moment when someone needed their partner — and they weren’t met.

That moment has a name.

It’s called an attachment wound.

And if it goes unrecognised or unrepaired, it doesn’t simply fade with time.

It reshapes the nervous system of the relationship.

So before we go further, pause with me.

If love feels fragile right now — this isn’t about blame.

It’s about understanding what actually happens when the bond gets ruptured…and how it can be rebuilt.

What Is an Attachment Wound?

An attachment wound is any experience that disrupts the felt sense of safety between two partners.

It’s not just “something bad happened.”

It’s something that breaks the internal knowing of:

• We’re in this together.

• You have my back.

• I can rely on you.

• I am safe with you.

  
  

We often think of attachment wounds as affairs — and yes, betrayal trauma absolutely qualifies.

But attachment wounds can also be:

• Addiction that pulls emotional energy away from the relationship

• Emotional affairs

• Financial secrecy

• Triangulation with in-laws or friends

• Chronic emotional absence

• Major life crises that create emotional abandonment

It’s anything that fractures the bond.

Anything that shifts the relationship from:

“We’re a team.”to“I’m alone in this.”

And that shift can feel devastating — not because you’re weak, but because you’re wired for connection.

Timing Matters More Than We Realise

When an attachment rupture happens is just as important as what happened.

There is a particularly vulnerable period in relationships called the trust-building phase.

This is the stage after the honeymoon period — when the dopamine highs and oxytocin bonding haze begin to settle.

The fantasy softens.Reality emerges.And your nervous system quietly starts asking:

• Can I trust you?

• Will you stay when things get hard?

• Are you emotionally available when it counts?

  
  

This is when love shifts from chemistry… to attachment.From attraction… to security.

You’re pouring the concrete of the foundation.

And if something destabilising happens during this stage?

The impact can be enormous.

Because the concrete hasn’t set yet.

When Survival Stress Detonates the Bond

Imagine a pursuer–withdrawer couple just coming out of the honeymoon stage.

The relationship feels hopeful. Intimate. Full of promise.

Then — out of nowhere — the withdrawer partner loses their job.

Not a minor inconvenience.A traumatic loss.Income gone. Identity shaken. Stability threatened.

The withdrawer goes into survival mode.

And because withdrawers cope by going inward — shutting down emotionally to regulate overwhelm — they disappear.

Not physically, perhaps.

But emotionally.

They hermit.They stop communicating.They can’t show up.

Now imagine what happens inside the anxious partner.

Their core wound — abandonment — detonates.

Overnight, the relationship flips.

One partner is drowning in survival stress.The other is drowning in attachment panic.

The anxious partner pursues harder.The withdrawer retreats further.

The negative cycle accelerates.

And here’s the tragic part:

Neither of them are the enemy.

But the bond is breaking.

If there is no repair — no emotional reconnection, no naming of what happened — that rupture can embed itself deeply.

Some couples separate at this point.

Others stay.

But something fragile inside the relationship never quite feels safe again.

Unless they do the work.

The “Baby Bomb”: The Ultimate Attachment Stress Test

Another profoundly vulnerable period?

Having children.

And I cannot emphasise this enough: becoming parents is one of the biggest attachment stress tests a couple will ever face.

In The Baby Bomb, Stan Tatkin speaks directly to this phenomenon.

Before children, most couples operate in an adult-to-adult dynamic:

Two independent adults.Shared income.Shared time.Shared attention.

Then a baby arrives.

And everything shifts.

The birth mother — particularly in the six months before and year after birth — is neurologically and hormonally in an extremely vulnerable state.

She may be financially dependent.Physically exhausted.Emotionally raw.Possibly experiencing post-natal depression.Her nervous system on high alert.

If her partner is emotionally unavailable, overworked, distracted, or overwhelmed themselves — she can feel profoundly alone.

And here’s the deeper layer:

Pregnancy and early motherhood often activate unresolved childhood attachment wounds.

Your early experiences of safety, nurturing, abandonment, neglect — they resurface.

So the negative cycle that may have been subtle before?

It can explode.

Many couples tell me:

“It wasn’t this bad before the baby.”

Sometimes the cycle was dormant. Sometimes manageable. Sometimes hidden beneath chemistry.

Parenthood exposes every crack in the foundation.

And if an affair or betrayal occurs during this time?

It can feel catastrophic.

Because the attachment system is already wide open.

Why Attachment Wounds Cut So Deep

Attachment wounds hurt because they strike at the most primitive part of us.

We are wired for connection.

From infancy, survival depended on someone showing up.

So when your partner emotionally disappears, betrays you, or feels unavailable during vulnerable moments…

Your nervous system doesn’t just register disappointment.

It asks:

• Am I safe?

• Am I alone?

• Will I survive this?

  
  

That’s why these experiences don’t simply “go away with time.”

Unrepaired attachment injuries linger.

They show up as:

• Chronic resentment

• Hypervigilance

• Emotional numbness

• Sexual shutdown

• Constant conflict

• Or quiet, creeping distance

Time does not heal attachment wounds.

Repair does.

Can Attachment Wounds Be Healed?

Yes.

But not through minimising.Not through “just forgive and move on.”Not through pretending it didn’t matter.

In Emotionally Focused Therapy — developed by Sue Johnson — there is a structured process called Attachment Injury Repair.

It is evidence-based.It is intentional.And it is not simply about forgiveness.

It’s about:

• Helping the injured partner fully express the depth of the wound

• Helping the injuring partner emotionally engage — not defensively explain

• Restructuring the bond

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Moving from insecure attachment…To secure.

And this is the heart of my work inside Project Secure Attachment.

It’s not about perfection.

It’s not about never hurting each other.

It’s about knowing how to repair when you do.

Secure attachment isn’t the absence of rupture.

It’s the presence of repair.

If You’re Sitting in the Aftermath

Maybe this happened yesterday.

Maybe it happened fifteen years ago — and you’ve never truly dealt with it.

I want you to hear this clearly:

An attachment wound does not have to be the end of your relationship.

But it does need attention.

Silence doesn’t fix it.Avoidance doesn’t fix it.Time doesn’t fix it.

Repair does.

Repair can be slow.Uncomfortable.Supported by therapy if needed.

But I have seen couples rebuild safety after things they were certain would destroy them.

I’ve seen bonds re-form where there was once only panic and distance.

It is possible.

Love Isn’t Doomed — It’s Asking for Care

If love feels unsafe right now, that doesn’t mean it’s doomed.

It means something in the bond needs tending.

Attachment wounds aren’t signs that you’re incompatible.

They’re signs that something vulnerable got ruptured.

And vulnerable things can be healed.

Gently.Intentionally.Together.

You’re not broken.

Your nervous system is trying to protect you.

And secure love isn’t accidental.

It’s built.

One repair at a time.