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Avoidantly attached people fear too much closeness, while anxiously attached people fear being abandoned.

Different activities might help anxiously versus avoidantly attached people feel good in their relationships.

Avoidant people feel better about their relationship after engaging in novel activities with their partners.

Engaging in familiar, comfortable activities helps anxious people feel more secure in their relationships.

As human beings, we are always looking for that Goldilocks “just right” sensation: Not too cold, not too warm. Neither hungry nor overly full. Not bored, but not stressed out either. The same principle applies to our romantic relationships — we want to feel just the right amount of close to our partners.

For all of us, how much closeness we want shifts somewhat from hour to hour, or day to day. That said, many of us consistently feel that our partner is either too close or not close enough for comfort. Psychologists call these patterns avoidant and anxious attachment, respectively. When people are very high in avoidant attachment, they typically fear getting too close and want lots of space; people very high in anxious attachment usually fear being abandoned and want reassurance and more connection. Being high in either of these types of insecure attachment leads to more challenging and less satisfying relationships on average (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2012).

Lots of couples run into trouble trying to manage these dynamics. How can we still spend time together when you want space? How can you reassure me that you’re committed and that our relationship is doing well? A recent study by relationship scientists – yes, that’s what they call themselves – offers some helpful answers.

Schrage et al. (2026) compiled data from three different daily diary studies – a common research method where participants provide data each day for at least a week. In this case, participants reported on the kinds of activities they did with their partners every day for three weeks. Then, the researchers looked at whether people’s attachment styles – how anxious or avoidant they are – influenced how the activities they did together made them feel about their relationships. They hypothesized that the activities that promoted relationship satisfaction for people who were avoidantly attached would be different from the activities that made more anxiously attached people feel better about the relationship.

And that’s just what the results showed. For people who were more avoidantly attached, spending time together improved their satisfaction with the relationship if they engaged with their partner in more novel and exciting experiences. By contrast, people who were more anxiously attached felt better about their relationships after engaging in more familiar and comfortable activities together.

Why would these activities affect people so differently? The authors reason that the new and engaging experiences help avoidant people feel like they are growing and expanding their sense of self (McIntyre et al., 2024), and since they are having that expansive and rewarding experience with their partner, they feel better about the relationship (Gere et al., 2013). At the same time, for a person who is more anxiously attached, doing familiar things together sends the signal that the relationship has a reassuring routine and consistency to it.

You don’t need to know your attachment style for this research to be useful to you. In any given moment, if you’re feeling closer to your partner than you want to feel, but taking space from them isn’t an option, maybe you can find a way to do something novel together. It could be anything from trying a new recipe to planning a trip to an unfamiliar place. On the other hand, if you’re feeling anxious in the relationship and wanting to know your relationship is solid, suggesting a familiar activity – like watching your favorite show together – just might give you the reassurance you’re looking for.

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Gere, J., MacDonald, G., Joel, S., Spielmann, S. S., & Impett, E. A. (2013). The independent contributions of social reward and threat perceptions to romantic commitment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 105(6), 961–977.

McIntyre, K. P., Mattingly, B. A., & Judis, M. (2024). Relationship-induced self-concept change and the malleability of attachment security. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 42(1), 95–116.

Mikulincer, M., & Shaver, P. R. (2012). Adult attachment orientations and relationship processes. Journal of Family Theory & Review, 4(4), 259-274.

Schrage, K. M., Impett, E. A., Topal, M. A., Harasymchuk, C., & Muise, A. (2026). Novel and exciting or tried and true? Tailoring shared relationship experiences to insecurely attached partners. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 1-13.

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