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Most adults have started to fall in love only to have something go wrong in their relationship formation.

There is a point at which joyous attraction can turn into stress and anxiety early in a relationship.

You can understand this "flip" in terms of attachment theory, operant conditioning, and biological processes.

Most adults have fallen for someone romantically at some point in their lives. But most of us do not end up with the first person we fall for or with the first person who falls for us. So, what happens on the way to shifting from the initial romantic attraction phase of a dating relationship into a more lasting and exclusive coupling?

One thing to watch for is what I call “the flip”

The flip is something that happens when your own perceptions and emotional system lead you from feeling good to feeling bad in a relationship. It occurs when, at first, you are approaching a dating relationship with excitement and enthusiasm because it makes you smile, fills you with good feelings, and leaves you calm and relaxed. Then something happens that turns this good feeling into a bad one, where you are trying to keep from losing this great thing you found. This “flip” leads to feeling vulnerable, worried about heartbreak, and highly stressed.

Obviously, this can be very confusing… so what happens?

You can understand the flip in terms of attachment theory, operant conditioning, and biological processes

In relation to attachment theory, you have four basic attachment styles (secure, dismissing, preoccupied, and fearful). Each comes with its own way of seeing the social world, expecting different outcomes, and controlling emotions. People with secure styles generally see the world as safe and predictable, themselves as lovable, and other people as caring and willing to provide support. So, they tend to expect positive outcomes in relationships. And because they are good at controlling their emotions, they don’t get overly worried about people leaving them. They know they can tolerate disappointment and get over the hurt. So, they generally should not experience a flip.

People with dismissing styles are avoidant in close relationships. They generally put success and looking good to others ahead of warmth, closeness, and intimacy. They tend to expect relationships not to last. So, they keep things superficial and don’t invest too much emotionally. But they do really like the thrill of the chase and having sexual contact. If they are in a relationship with a secure or preoccupied person, their approach behaviors and exuberance are going to be consistently reinforced and rewarded. With their “behavioral activation system” activated by this reinforcement, they can be very charismatic and seductive in the early stages of a relationship. The flip happens when they are having this fun, good-feeling thing going on, and then the other person shows genuine care, and it looks like it might get serious. This bid for lasting intimacy in the romantic partner scares them and activates that dismissing person’s “behavioral inhibition system.” This flips them from approaching the relationship partner with desire to feeling turned off and pulling away. In other words, they move from having their dopamine system activated to having their stress/cortisol system activated. People don’t like feeling stressed and being flooded with cortisol.

People with preoccupied styles are anxious in close relationships. They generally put closeness in relationships ahead of work and other areas of achievement. They very much want relationships to last. So, they tend to go deep and invest a great deal of themselves emotionally. They love the thrill of romance and are greatly reinforced/rewarded by close contact, attraction, and sexual connection. And so, in the initial stage of a relationship, their behavioral activation system is fully in the “on” position. But they also are hypervigilant for signs of rejection and have higher-than-normal rejection sensitivity. The flip for them happens when they have the thought, “Maybe this is the one,” followed quickly by the thought, “What if I lose the one and am left alone and heartbroken?”

You can probably see what would happen when you get the dismissing person and anxious person together (which is almost every couple I see in therapy), and the dismissing person flips to their behavioral inhibition system. Even if the dismissing person doesn’t run, the anxious person will become stressed by their own worry about loss. In this case, the feel-good aspect of the relationship gets combined with and might even be superseded by the fear-of-loss and stress aspect of the relationship. In other words, we go from a dopamine-mediated reward system to a cortisol-mediated fear and stress system. But the preoccupied person’s behavioral activation (approach) system never turns off because of variable reinforcement (sometimes the dismissing partner is hot/sometimes cold). And so they stay stressed and unhappy until they get the reassurance they need or the relationship blows up. Only then can they turn the system off and gradually return to baseline.

People with fearful attachment styles are much harder to predict. By definition, people with this style have a mixture of avoidant and anxious traits and are emotionally and behaviorally disorganized. They also differ amongst themselves in the amount of trauma they have experienced early in life. Their behavioral activation system and behavioral inhibition system might toggle on and off multiple times during the relationship formation stage. In other words, they might keep flipping back and forth in their own desire to be close or run away from a relationship.

Why Relationships Matter

Take our Can You Spot Red Flags In A Relationship?

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How to avoid the flip and stay connected

Put off asking yourself if this is “the one” as long as possible. Keep it simple. At least for the first three months, just keep telling yourself that what “this” is, is another date with an amazing person you are very attracted to. That’s it! No more.

Know what will flip the avoidant person. They will be stressed by the thought of being stuck with a person who might want to be “the one.” So, tread lightly and don’t go too deep too fast.

Know what will flip the anxious person. They will be stressed by the thought of losing “the one.” So, the anxious person should simply put off saying this to themselves. And they can be helped by relationship partners by putting boundaries in place around moving too quickly.

Delay the flip as long as possible. Unless you have a strong reason for doing otherwise, let the other person see the love in your eyes and in your consistent actions. I’m not saying you should keep this to yourself… but one or two months in is probably too soon.

Keep the dopamine flowing and keep the cortisol at bay. Be proactive in planning social activities and having fun… not just with your prospective partner. Putting all of your eggs in one basket will just make you more stressed and speed up “the flip.”

Powers, S. I., Pietromonaco, P. R., Gunlicks, M., & Sayer, A. (2006). Dating couples’ attachment styles and patterns of cortisol reactivity and recovery in response to a relationship conflict. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90(4), 613–628. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.90.4.613

Topino, E., Griffiths, M. D., & Gori, A. (2025). A Compulsive Search for Love Online: A Path Analysis Model of Adult Anxious Attachment, Rejection Sensitivity, and Problematic Dating App Use. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-025-01487-1

Shahzadi, K., & Walker, B. R. (2022). Reinforcement sensitivity theory and adult attachment: A replication study. Current Psychology: A Journal for Diverse Perspectives on Diverse Psychological Issues, 41(3), 1440–1446. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-020-00685-5

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