Every couple has a pattern they keep repeating, and it usually started long before they ever met.

In this episode, marriage counsellor Anita Daniels breaks down attachment theory, secure, anxious, avoidant, and disorganised attachment, and why the way you were loved as a child is quietly running your relationship right now. Not as a life sentence, but as something you can finally see clearly enough to change.

Anita shares the story of a couple caught in one of the most common and painful cycles in marriage, one partner reaching for closeness, the other pulling away, both of them exhausted, both of them further apart by the time it's over. And the four words that finally changed everything for them.

Plus, two listener messages open the show this week. Ms A tells us what happened when she and her partner finally took the love languages assessment, and discovered they'd both been wrong about themselves. And Mrs O writes in with something most couples never find the words for, a partner who runs, not out of the house, but out of the conversation, the moment things get hard.

Whether you're engaged, married, single, or healing from something, this episode gives you the language for a pattern you've probably lived inside without ever naming it.

You planned the wedding. Now prepare for the marriage.

Got a topic or a question? Send a voice note or message, WhatsApp or email; details in the show notes. Some of the best episodes come straight from what listeners ask.

Listen on Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/5uSZqvU4Dy8Z0xlyJISYsm
Website, book, and free app: shereallyheals.com

Music licensed through Soundstripe.

Code: AG92BLQG3CWEEHPK