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For some couples, the most intimate moments don’t come during candlelit dinners or romantic getaways, but instead in the aftermath of heated fights. While popular culture celebrates “make-up sex” and dramatic reconciliations, a more complex psychological pattern lies beneath this post-fight bonding. Essentially, there are some people who genuinely feel most loved and connected to their partners only after experiencing conflict.

Here are two empirically supported mechanisms that explain why this happens in relationships.

1. The Fight-And-Makeup Dance Satisfies Their Attachment Needs

Attachment theory is one of the most extensively researched frameworks for understanding individual differences in close relationship functioning. Adult attachment orientations, especially attachment anxiety, systematically influence how people perceive, react to, and interpret conflict with romantic partners.

Research consistently finds that people with higher attachment anxiety:

Report greater perceptions of conflict intensity

Experience more emotional distress during disagreements

Tend to view conflict as a threat to relational security

People with anxious attachment styles, characterized by a deep-seated fear of abandonment and intense need for reassurance, frequently experience what researchers call “conflict engagement” as a paradoxical pathway to intimacy.

An anxious attachment style, for instance, shows........

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