119: The Fight Beneath the Fight: Attachment Styles with Craig Spear

Craig Spear is an entrepreneur, outdoorsman, and co-leader of the adventure trips Tommy runs for men focused on growth, resilience, and deeper connection in their lives. 

Find Craig at https://www.thespearmethod.com/ or on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/craigspear/

SHOW NOTES:

The fight isn't about how to pack a dishwasher. 

It’s usually deeper than the comment, the tone, the silence, or the passive-aggressive jab. In a warped way we fight and pull away because we desire connection and being understood. 

In this episode, Tommy and Craig Spear unpack attachment styles and how they quietly shape the way we handle conflict with our wives, business partners, and the people closest to us. They break down the anxious vs. avoidant dynamic, why certain arguments repeat for years, and how men can move toward more secure relationships without turning psychology into an excuse.

Highlights:

• What attachment styles actually are and where they come from

• Why anxious men rush to fix conflict immediately

• Why avoidant men shut down and pull away

• The “cat and mouse” cycle that keeps couples stuck

• Real-life examples from marriage, business, and friendships

• Scripts to help de-escalate conflict without avoiding it

• The difference between explaining your behavior and weaponizing it

Practical takeaways:

• Notice your default reaction when someone close to you seems upset

• If you lean anxious, practice tolerating space without spiraling

• If you lean avoidant, communicate when you’ll come back to the conversation — then actually come back

Conflict doesn’t have to become distance. The goal isn’t to avoid hard moments — it’s to stop repeating the same fight in different forms. 

If this episode helped you think differently, share it with another guy who’d benefit from the conversation.

And if you haven’t already, follow the podcast so these episodes stay in your rotation. Just click follow or subscribe right now! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

This is the Durable Dad Podcast. I'm your host, Tommy Geary. This show is going to give you the skills and tools you need to be a rock solid man for your work, your community, and most importantly, your family. All right, what's up, episode 119? I have Craig Spear back in the house for you guys. What's up, Craig?

SPEAKER_00 0:28

What's up, Tommy? It's good to be here. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

Yeah, man. Good to see you. We uh we just got back from the Grand Canyon a week ago.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

It's crazy. This time last week, we were literally in the canyon, climbing out, enjoying the adventure.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

It's it's been good to be back and it's cool. Well, we don't have to dive into all that because we got another topic. So tell them why did I say, hey, Craig, come back on the podcast.

Durable Dad Mission And Guest

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Yeah, so we obviously in in organizing our trips, we we meet every week, we talk about the trips, but a lot of times we talk about life, we talk about being dads, being husbands, we talk about business as well, of course. But I think there was one particular conversation we were talking about relationships and attachment styles. I think this is a really important topic to discuss. It's interesting to me that this isn't something that's uh even more popular because it does have a profound impact. In fact, so much so that I think anybody that's getting into an intimate long-term relationship should know this.

A Trigger Story From Coaching

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Cool. Exactly. We were on that call and you asked me what's my attachment style. And I was like, okay, well, we let's let's talk about this on a podcast, and we'll probably get into both of our styles. I have some notes here. But the funny thing was, after we had that conversation and why I pinged you to be like, let's do it, was that day afterwards, I was talking to a client and he was talking about how when he comes home from work or business trips, his wife, if she's not really happy to see him and giving him a bunch of love, he notices he gets pissed off. Unrealistically, pissed off. He feels like she should show more appreciation. And when she doesn't, he shuts down. He doesn't give her love anymore. He has like passive aggressive comments, like, wow, thanks for the hug. When there wasn't really a hug. I was talking to him about it. I was like, well, what are your expectations here? And he was like, well, honestly, I wish that I would get home and she would like throw down her pants and we would just like head to the bedroom right away. And you know, attachment styles is what we're going to talk about because, like you said, it is something, it's almost a tool to help you have better relationships. You've heard me talk about playbooks before, listeners kind of managing our expectations. An awesome tool. But I think this attachment style comes along because it's it's pretty ingrained. It can take over really quickly in the moment. And like our emotions trump our logic. Learning more about ourselves, learning more about our attachment styles, we can harness our emotions a little bit better and use that logical thinking. But what the hell are attachment styles?

SPEAKER_00 3:18

Yeah, just to kind of add on to that point, I think it it gives a lot of context as to why we behave the way we behave in certain times in our relationships. Ultimately, as you learn what your attachment style is, it's not your identity, it's a tendency. A lot of people will hear this and they'll think, well, that's me. And yeah, for sure, these are tendencies that we have, but it's not you entirely.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

So attachment styles, attachment styles, what we're talking about here is your learned behavior when someone that is important to you, whether it's your wife or just someone you care a lot about, you're perceiving that they're not happy with you. Your attachment style is your default response in those settings. Is that yeah.

Where Attachment Theory Comes From

SPEAKER_00 4:04

Yeah, I mean, let's kind of go back. It started in the 1950s, early 60s. This guy named John Bowlby was researching how infants relate to their caregivers. And from there it evolved into kind of a famous experiment. It was the Ainsworth experiment back in the 70s, and it was called the Strange Situation. And basically, this this researcher, Mary Ainsworth and her team, they created a situation where they'd bring in a mother or a caregiver, could have been in the father. But in any any event, this experiment went like this. They would have the mother and the and the infant play, right? Play with toys and that kind of thing, and they would show their bond. Uh, and this was all recorded on video. And then at some point along, they would bring in and introduce a stranger, someone the child didn't know, someone the mother didn't know. And this stranger was pretty benign. They didn't do anything, they were friendly, they would sit down, they would smile, they would interact with both the mother and the infant. And then what would happen is the mother would leave the room, just leaving the infant and the stranger. And they wanted to see how did the infant responded. And most oftentimes, the infant would get distressed. They would cry, they'd feel really uncomfortable and scared. Was uh they're with a stranger, someone they didn't know, and as a threat. Here's the interesting part inevitably, the caregiver would come back in, and how the infant responded in that situation sort of revealed the attachment style. And most oftentimes, a secure attachment is the infant goes to the caregiver and seeks support, seeks comfort, and they calm down within, you know, half a minute to a minute. They also found that that wasn't always the case. Sometimes the child would avoid the parent altogether. They wouldn't acknowledge them, they would kind of stay on their own. And this kind of indicated a more avoidant type of uh attachment to the parent or the caregiver. And the other style, typically there's four, but I typically talk about three. The third attachment style is the anxious attached style. So the anxious attached style is where that person or that infant really seeks comfort, but their main fear is abandonment. And so they're very close. They see closeness, they need it. So let's extrapolate that and say as we grow up, how we're raised and the connection that we have with our caregiver, and this could be a parent, this could be a grandparent, it's someone who's close to us. This becomes our attachment template. This is what we then use as we get older in intimate relationships, primarily. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

Okay. So we have we're gonna go with three attachment styles. There's a fourth that was kind of developed later. Let that go. One is secure. Mom comes back in the room, give a hug, maybe a little worked up, but calms down. Two is avoidant, mom comes back, but baby doesn't really respond much, just kind of shuts down. Three is anxious, clingy didn't calm down after a few minutes. Yeah, it's exactly a more anxious style. Like you said, fast forward. Well, in that moment, babies very dependent on their mothers, their caregivers, right? Like you said, fast forward, these attachment styles tend to stick with us.

The Three Styles In Real Life

SPEAKER_00 7:38

100%. Yeah. They're subconscious, we don't even know they're there, and yet they influence us almost every day in how we interact with our partners, right? Okay, especially when there's conflict. And that's when it's most apparent. When there's a conflict, whether it's an argument, situation goes down, and you become triggered. This is what usually boils to the surface. All right.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

Yeah. So for me, I tend to be anxious attached. If I perceive that Brenda is upset with me, I want to fix it now. I apologize really quickly. I was trying to think of examples, and the first example I could think of is Brenda will come home from Costco and let's say she buys maple syrup. And I know there's we already have two maple syrups, and I'm like, oh, looks like you bought another maple syrup, just joking around, but yeah, it's a little passive aggressive. And then this is something I've done over and over. And then she's like, Are you seriously making another comment about what I'm buying? And then I'm like, oh shit, I messed up. She's mad at me, and I apologize really quickly. And she's like, I don't want to hear another apology. We've had this conversation a million times. And this is a small little situation, but before I was just like, this is whatever. I wasn't even aware now. I can kind of catch myself in this anxious state.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

Yeah. And a couple things I want to pull from that. One is an anxious person craves closeness to their partner, but fears it's not going to last. And you're hyper-attuned to your partner's mood. You're very enmeshed. So if they're unhappy, you your attachment style triggers and you're and you try to fix. You go into fix it mode and you want to like make sure that your partner's good. You're hyper-vigilant, you know, like Amy, my partner, she's anxious attached. And so whenever there's some kind of conflict or disturbance in our household, I get a million texts. She's trying to fix it. Listen to this podcast, or you know, do this or do this. And so that's the common personality type of an anxious attached person. Now, the irony in that is Brenda and myself were typically avoidant. And that triggers our avoidance style. Now we withdraw. We tend to push away or pull back because what we crave is not closeness, we crave independence. And our core fear is that we're gonna lose ourselves, sense of self-loss. You know, again, you could relate that back to your childhood. I was a middle child and very much, I think Brenda was too, wasn't she? She mentioned, you know, so you know, middle child syndrome, you tend to crave your independence, right?

SPEAKER_01 10:29

Psychoanalyze our ways. We don't have to do it.

The Anxious Avoidant Loop

SPEAKER_00 10:34

Um this is this is the irony of these attachment cells, it becomes a cat and mouse game, you know, kind of on the end of the spectrum. You've got an anxious person who's attached, you've got a void and attached, and they opposites attract. This is who we like because this was our template. Our one of our primary caregivers was the opposite of what we are. Even though it's maladaptive, this is what we seek in our partner because it's most familiar. You'd think we'd seek someone out who is secure and and had these tendencies, but no, we want what's familiar. Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

Yeah, yeah. Again, I want we want to caveat that this isn't all the time. You're not always anxious, attached. Neither one of us are psychologists, right? Maybe we should have prefaced all this. We're two dudes that read about this stuff. We've done the work on ourselves, we've been coached, we've been through therapy, so we're dangerous enough to talk about it, but we're we're not professionals. So I'm thinking that if you get two people that are anxious attached, and I think that's what my parents probably were were anxious attached, because their arguments, they were gonna stick around and figure that shit out, even if it took some yelling and all of that. I don't know what your parents were like, but I'm thinking of some of my clients. And I know this one guy and his wife, when we started working together, they would go like 24 hours without talking to each other. They'd get in an argument and separate and not talk and kind of let it peter out, and then 24 hours later they're back kind of talking again.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

Yeah, it's uh I mean, my parents were the model avoidant anxious, and I just learned that. Like my mom, uh anxious attached, my dad, extreme avoidant. There's an argument or a conflict. The avoidant typically withdraws, doesn't want to talk about it, doesn't want to deal with it. There's no repair, there's no attempt at repair. There's no I'm sorry, there's no let's figure this out. That leaves the anxious person just in a world of pain. It's really hard for that person because they crave closeness. They need it for their safety. And that person who is closest to them is not giving them that. And in fact, the avoidant typically just wants to sweep it under the rug like nothing happened and move on. You know, and intimacy can be really hard for the avoidant person. For example, uh, sex is is a cr is a great example. An avoidant person has sex with an intimacy with their partner and then withdraws. Because it's intimacy, it's scary, it's hard. And the next day they've withdrawn, they're not talking to their partner, they're kind of giving them the cold shoulder, at least it would come across that way. And that's what used to happen in my relationship with Amy. You can imagine how that would feel for someone who's anxious, seeks closeness, and then is completely withdrawn from that.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

What did I do wrong? I messed something up.

unknown 13:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:32

And so what happens, eventually, what happens, and we see this a lot with uh relationships, the anxious person, because they seek closeness, will pick a fight. They don't care what kind of connection it is, they need a connection, even if it's a negative one. So that's when fights happen. The uh avoidant person gets defensive, feels shameful, and now you're in a full-blown attack. So I think it's important, like to your point about yeah, we're not experts in this, but again, it gives you context as to how you're behaving in certain situations. It's important to know so that you can show up differently and better. When I first learned about this, I felt a lot of shame about being an avoidant person or having avoidant tendencies. And then I realized it it's not defining me, it just gives me a better tool, better opportunity to see what's going on with Amy in certain situations and what she needs.

SPEAKER_01 14:25

I think you're right. Like you don't want to take this and beat yourself up. You want to take this as new information to use in your relationships. Now, one thing that you don't want to do is use your partner's attachment style against them. Yeah, weaponize it. What what does that mean?

Don’t Weaponize The Framework

SPEAKER_00 14:47

Um, well, I think it means labeling them and saying, well, that's just your your attachment style. You're being anxious. You know, if Amy starts texting me and really trying to pursue me to get connection and closeness, and I'm just saying, well, you're anxious, you're overreacting. You know, that's a way that you might weaponize it and say, we use it against them. And I I don't think that's the approach we want to take. We want to lean into it. You know, it's almost like that Chinese finger trap thing. Instead of trying to pull away, we want to lean into it and say, like, if I care truly care about this person, I can see that their attachment style is triggered. What do I need to do to help her? Instead of get defensive and blame back, she needs closeness, she needs uh some some connection. You you really have to let your guard down. And I think as an avoidant, that's the main role is the avoidant has to instead of turning their back and withdrawing, they have to turn towards their partner. And it's not easy, it's very difficult, but lean into it. Why?

SPEAKER_01 15:46

Why is it why is it difficult?

SPEAKER_00 15:48

Well, I think because oftentimes, like I said, that anxious person is seeking connection and they'll do it whatever way they can. If that means insults, game-calling, blaming, shaming. And so, why would you want to turn into that, communicate and connect with that person? If anything, you want to wall off more and protect yourself. This is a really good point, too, is like just because you're a certain attachment style doesn't mean that's the way you're always going to be. Through doing this work, you can evolve and you can grow into a different attachment style, a more secure attachment style. But oftentimes it requires the avoidant to turn in and turn towards the partner instead of withdrawing.

unknown 16:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:28

And personally, I just know that that's been my most difficult challenge. It's because a lot of times I feel defensiveness, I feel shame, and my every instinct is to just leave. Like literally leave and run away. Create my independence. Screw you, I'm out of here, I'll do it on my own.

SPEAKER_01 16:43

I think that happens with a lot of guys when they're like, oh, life will be better if I didn't have kids and a wife. It would be so much easier if I just got the hell out of here. Have you heard of secure relating, the book?

SPEAKER_00 17:00

No, no, I've not heard of that one. I've heard of attached, which is also a great book. Okay. Um, yeah, tell me about secure relating.

SPEAKER_01 17:08

We talked about the three attachment styles. Secure was the first one that we talked about, and then there was the anxious and the avoidant. What we're always working back towards is that secure relationship. And we're there sometimes. Like when we're not fighting and we're laughing with each other, we are secured attached.

What Secure Attachment Actually Is

SPEAKER_00 17:27

Well, I think it's really important to highlight as well that what does secure mean? And secure doesn't mean that there's no conflict. It doesn't mean that there's never any arguments or fights. It just means that you're willing to stay in the conversation and resolve it and repair it in a healthy way rather than just resorting to your natural tendency to either run away or pursue and overfunction. If you're secure, you're you know that because you crave closeness, but you also value your autonomy. It's both and.

SPEAKER_01 17:59

So what do you do? Uh we can go like formal scripts here. We'll go you first, Mr. Avoidant.

SPEAKER_00 18:07

Let's go. And the other maybe that's why we work so well together.

Attachment Shows Up At Work Too

SPEAKER_01 18:12

I know, I know. Well, I okay, I wanted to talk about when uh we were on our last trip and I called you my business partner, and you were like, business partner? We haven't used that term yet, Tommy. And that was too soon, Craig. Yeah, and that was actually interesting because what we talked about it at dinner with a couple guys, and you were like, Yeah, I noticed you called me business partner, and ha ha ha. And then at the hotel that night, I was like, I I was getting anxious. I was like, oh no, Craig was upset that I said business partner. Usually we just say like co-leader or buddy that we run those trips with. And I was like, he he's he's worried, he doesn't like that. And so I brought it up to you again. I was like, Wait, just tell me, like, is it okay? Or I can just tell call you something else. And you were like, Yeah, man, whatever. Like, you can do you can call me whatever you want. And I was like, Okay. But even after, I was like, so like, I don't know. He didn't give me the love and affirmation that I needed. And the next morning I brought it up again. And so, and it's cool that we can laugh about it because we do know those attachment styles. And I think we I think I said it in one of those times I brought it up. I was like, Craig, here comes my attachment style because I'm still thinking about it. Please tell me that we're okay.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

That's a that's a beautiful example. And and this this is a business relationship. It's it's not intimate. So it's a great. This isn't just who you are with your spouse or your partner. It shows up in any type of relationship. And so, yeah, your anxious subconscious start to ruminate a bit. Oh, did I cross a boundary? Did I push too hard? Like what whatever you're thinking, that is your anxious attachment stuff. And that just that's a template that was downloaded into your subconscious when you were much younger and had no idea. And here comes an avoidant, me, who doesn't say a lot, who you know doesn't go deep on certain things. I mean, I so yeah, there's gonna be that dynamic. What do you do with it? Okay, well, just know, like, so part of your work is to say, actually, everything's okay. I I'm good, we're good. I'm overthinking this. And the avoidant, my work is to come back to you and say, Hey, let's let's uh finish that conversation about being business partners. Yeah, and I haven't done that, so you get to call me on that. You get to say, hey man, like this is this is when you know, in a in a personal, intimate relationship, often, and this is what I've done in the past, I just let it go and I don't talk about things and eventually just sweep it under the rug. And Amy the Amy inevitably has to come back and reignite the conversation. And that's a big ask over and over and over again.

Scripts Three Rs And Earned Security

SPEAKER_01 21:03

Well, and so this gets into the script a little bit, which this is the this is the growth. And in this secure relating book, they talk about the three R's. And three R's are recognize. So, okay, now I'm starting to recognize that I'm an anxious attached person. Then it's reflect. Where did this come from? You know, what what what in childhood, maybe even relationships with high school girlfriends or like your first really serious girlfriend, where did this anxious attachment come from? And then the third part, third R is reprogram. I think that the the recognized reflection already starts to reprogram, but then the real reprogramming is a change in behavior. So for me, the anxious part of me, when I'm really leaning in and seeing Since Brenda's avoidant, I can tell she wants to back away. What I have to say is something along the lines of like, hey, I notice I'm getting worked up right now, and I'm telling myself that I really screwed up and you're mad at me. This isn't blaming you, but this is what's going on for me right now, and I don't want to blow this thing up.

SPEAKER_00 22:20

Did you work on this? Is this something you've realized and have have done from the start? Or is this something that has has evolved in your behavior?

SPEAKER_01 22:30

Definitely evolved. This is me catching myself wanting to apologize a million times, wanting to fix what Brenda has going on. And I think the next part for me would be like, it's okay if it doesn't get fixed right now. That's that's probably a little bit more of the reprogramming that I have to do. But just speaking out loud that I'm anxious, I'm telling myself that you're you don't like me right now helps de-escalate a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 23:04

How does how does Brenda respond usually to that?

SPEAKER_01 23:08

Probably depends on if she's feeling secure or avoidant, but she does like her space. So if I say that and she says something like, I just can't talk about it right now, my big growth area has been saying okay.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

Giving her the space to then think about it.

SPEAKER_01 23:29

I said what I had to say, and she's like, I can't talk about it right now. That's very uncomfortable for me to say okay to that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:39

And so what's important is inevitably that Brenda, whoever's that avoidant, does close the loop and come back and either talk, repair, whatever's necessary in that moment. Otherwise, it continues to widen the rupture and excite the anxious attachment even more.

SPEAKER_01 23:57

The avoidance script, like you said, is yes, there's a responsibility to come back, but the one thing that I hear I've heard a bunch of different times is hey, I can't talk about this right now, but I'll be back. Yes. I need a couple minutes, I'll come back. And that's or a day. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, exactly. Let's talk about this when we're fresh in the morning.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

So, what I'm pulling from that is that both people are responsible. The anxious is responsible to give that person space and deal with their own discomfort, which you still feel doesn't get better immediately. And the avoidant is responsible to come back after they've had that time to decompress or whatever they need. Journal it out.

SPEAKER_01 24:42

Yeah, exactly. There's responsibility on both sides. Yeah. We both coach men, so we don't always coach the couple, which you can still change a lot from just one person owning their own attachment style, recognizing it, letting there be some discomfort in the relationship.

SPEAKER_00 25:03

That's a good point. You know, you if you start to learn this work and do this and know your attachment style, again, back to like weaponizing this work. You don't have to then blame your partner and say, well, I'm learning all this and you're not. I love the saying that it only takes one same person to have a healthy relationship.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

Yeah, and it's it's motivating to hear that. Let's see. We we described our attachment styles, that attachment style is the way you default when you are feeling like a person close to you is mad at you or doesn't love you. The three common ones are secure, which you kind of stay steady and you allow there to be some discomfort. Or there's anxious, where you get really worked up and you seek to fix it right away. Or there's avoidant where you take a step back, you want to go get your own independence and you don't want to talk about this. You don't want to figure it out right now. Nailed it. Yep. All right. So we talked about those three styles in this secure relating book. So it's written by Sue Marriott and Ann Kelly. What I really like about it, they talk about modern attachment style, and like you've been hammering, this isn't hardwired into us. This is stuff that when we recognize it, we can start to change it. As you're working through it, the scripts, right? What do you do? If you're an avoidant, you notice that in yourself. When you're pulling away from your partner or someone at work, let them know you're going to be back. Hey, I need some time to process this. I'll be back, is one of the scripts. And then come back.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

Yeah, you have to honor that. Otherwise, you you've just created more of a rupture.

SPEAKER_01 26:54

And then the anxious person has to recognize that okay, I'm probably blowing this up in my head a little bit more than what's actually happening. But there is a disruption here. And I'm gonna say, hey, I'm getting worked up. I'm telling myself that you're really pissed at me for this and I messed up. What you're really asking is like, tell me you love me.

SPEAKER_00 27:15

Yeah, you want connection, you want closeness. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:18

Yeah. So to be able to say that and then also be okay that it's not gonna get fixed right now.

SPEAKER_00 27:24

Yeah, you're not gonna get that connection or closeness this minute. It might take two uh, you know, a day or so to for that person to come back. But the more that you repeat this pattern of what you just talked about, where there's conversation and communication, and each person is responsible, you get really good at that. It's not easy, and there's never it's not that there's never ever conflict, but you you stop doing the cat mouse game. You stop the chasing, the loop, and the just the fights. And you know, think about this happening over 40 years, 50 years of a marriage, and that's what a lot of people experience. And it never gets fixed, and it's always the exact same fight. Maybe the context is different, but the pattern is exactly the same. And if you can disrupt that pattern, you will have a much happier marriage and life.

SPEAKER_01 28:16

Yeah, much more fulfilled connection, and that relationship with your partner, I believe is the most important relationship. Because when you guys are secure in your relationship, let there be rupture, come back, and you can fix it really quickly. You get to support each other really well. There, there's a lot more to be accomplished than if you have to waste your energy, like you said, playing this cat and mouse game. That wasted energy gets to go to being better parents, being better business owners, get getting getting ahead in life.

SPEAKER_00 28:53

So when we become more secure, you you like everyone wins. And I love the term earned security. That's what we're working towards. Maybe you grew up and you and you downloaded this template that was either anxious or or avoidant, and you weren't as secure. That's too bad. But you you know, you can still earn your security, and that's the goal.

SPEAKER_01 29:15

Totally. We'll end it there, man. Good talking to you.

SPEAKER_00 29:18

Likewise. All right, baby. Likewise, man. Thanks for having me on. Appreciate it. And uh hope this helps some guys out there.

SPEAKER_01 29:25

Heck yeah. Everyone out there listening, uh, have an awesome one, and I'll catch you next time.