Disconnection to Connection – How to Foster a Resilient Love
- Brainz Magazine
- Jan 29
- 8 min read
Updated: 7 days ago
Lilyan Fowler, M.S., LPC-Associate, NCC, is the founder of Fowler Counseling and offers accessible virtual therapy for marginalized communities across Texas. They are an affirming, trauma-informed therapist who supports and empowers clients through an attachment-based approach.
Secure relationships are not found; they are created, nurtured, and constantly evolving. Attraction, lust, and worldly possessions are not enough to sustain a love that lasts. A healthy love is a life of coming back to the table to reconnect and return to safety. When we understand how we provide and receive love, we can begin exploring the origins of these relational patterns. This deepens our understanding of how we show up for ourselves and in our relationships.
Discover how you give and receive love
Love is not one-size-fits-all; every relationship is unique. By understanding your love language and what truly makes you feel seen, you can feel hopeful and motivated to build stronger, more meaningful connections.[1]
Before diving into our relationship patterns, we must discover how we best express and receive love. Awareness and attunement are the keys to forming the deep emotional bonds necessary for lasting, meaningful connections. We often seek the love we believe we deserve, simultaneously loving our partner the way we want to be loved, but not always in a way that makes them feel most seen and appreciated.
“I just want my partner to show that they love me the way I do for them.”
When emotional disconnection sets in, it is not uncommon to start keeping score, mentally tracking all the ways you show up for your partner, while also tallying the ways they fall short in meeting your expectations. Over time, this can leave you feeling unappreciated, undesirable, and misunderstood.
If disconnection is unaddressed, it can grow into resentment. Taking ownership of your role and expressing your needs clearly early on helps prevent this and keeps the relationship healthy.
Ask yourself: When do I feel most loved, accepted, appreciated, and understood? Developing this self-awareness can help you identify patterns and take meaningful steps toward healthier relationships.
Understanding your love language and your partner’s helps you translate concepts into tangible, everyday actions. The five love languages are gift giving, words of affirmation, quality time, physical touch, and acts of service.[1]
“In my work with clients experiencing disconnection, a common theme emerges. One partner may crave words of affirmation, while the other shows love through acts of service. Even though care is present, it can go unrecognized, leaving one partner feeling insecure or undesirable. Naming this difference often brings relief, helping clients see the love that’s already there and opening the door to clearer, more intentional communication.”
Share yours openly, discuss it, and practice expressing love in your partner's preferred language through small, intentional actions to strengthen your connection.
Are you loving your partner in the way you want to be loved, or in the way they feel most loved?
Has your partner been showing you love in their own way, but you have struggled to recognize it because it does not align with your preferred language?
If you realize that neither of you has been fully meeting each other’s emotional needs, use it as an opportunity, not a criticism. Collaborate on ways each of you can show up more intentionally for one another. This is how we begin to break the cycle of disconnection.
Intentionally loving your partner as they deserve, through self-reflection, communication, and consistent action, actively strengthens connection.[2][3] Reconnection and lasting love begin with awareness and commitment.
Why you love the way you do
The ways we loved and were loved as children shape how we show up in relationships today. Understanding these attachment patterns helps you recognize old cycles and create healthier, more secure connections.[4]
Identifying your love language is an essential step in helping us fully grasp how we relate and why we show up the way we do in relationships. How we loved and were loved as children often echo into adulthood, influencing how we connect, communicate, and seek security in our partnerships.[4]
We have been learning how to navigate relationships since childhood. Our parents are the earliest role models of healthy relationships. Some of you might be thinking, “Healthy relationships?” or “I grew up in an abusive home,” and maybe your parents are still married, but they do not get along. Attachment patterns from childhood often show up in our adult connections. For example:
“Clients who were silenced or dismissed as children, and witnessed degradation and shouting during conflict, often are defensive and reactive when navigating disagreements with their partner. Yelling is how they were taught to be heard.”
If you find yourself constantly seeking reassurance, sabotaging yourself, or falling into toxic cycles, you deserve to find a love that sees you, hears you, and understands you. Recognizing your attachment style, whether secure, anxious, avoidant, or anxious-avoidant, facilitates examination of how your interactions with your parents shape your current relationships.[4]
A secure attachment style develops through healthy emotional bonds throughout childhood and into adulthood (Johnson, 2008; Johnson, 2019). Secure adults felt safe, loved, valued, and understood by their caregivers as children. There was trust that their caregiver would meet their needs, emotionally support them during difficult times, and help them develop the tools to navigate the world with self-compassion and confidence. Nurturing ties allow individuals to grow into secure adults capable of a safe, fulfilling love.
An insecure attachment style often develops when caregivers are inconsistent or inattentive to the child’s physical, emotional, or intellectual needs.[4] Insecure attachment can manifest in different ways:
Anxious, constant need for reassurance, fear of abandonment
Avoidant, maintaining a guarded heart, desire for intimacy, but fear of rejection
Anxious-avoidant, push-pull between wanting closeness and fear of getting hurt
Children with insecure attachment may carry this into adulthood, affecting relationships. Even if insecure love has always been your default, you can heal and experience a love rooted in understanding, safety, and appreciation. Often, our significant others can be catalysts for our inner child to recover because together, you redefine what strong, healthy emotional bonds can look like today, tomorrow, and for many years to come.[2].
Once you have identified your attachment style, you can begin healing and practicing secure attachment. Lasting bonds are not free from hardship; they are about returning to safety and connection together.[2]
How to turn awareness into deeper connection
Awareness alone is not enough; love grows through intention and practice. Applying what you have learned about your patterns, attachment, and love languages helps you foster relationships that feel safe, valued, and eternal.
Understanding your attachment patterns offers clarity in relationships. Awareness is only the beginning. Overcoming fears or shame around vulnerability requires intentional effort and the practice of secure love.[4][5] Many of us spend years searching for our one true love, but find ourselves in situationships, fleeting relationships, or relationships that fizzle out. You deserve a love that is safe and secure, and with patience and commitment, you can create it.
To create a secure, lasting connection, we must confront our own toxic patterns, the ones we learned and repeat in every relationship. Do you ever find yourself:
Shutting down during conflict?
Struggling with jealousy or needing constant reassurance?
Avoiding emotions, losing yourself in relationships, or sabotaging connections with assumptions?
If your parent or guardian was absent, hypercritical, dismissive, inattentive, negligent, or abusive, your struggle to build healthy relationships today is not a mystery. It is a natural response to what you were taught. That inner child still lives within you, even as an adult. It shows up in your relationships with colleagues, friends, family, partners, and most importantly, in the relationship you have with yourself.
Children with insecure attachment often internalize early dynamics as reflections of their own worth, making it hard to build a secure sense of self as adults.
“My clients who were taught that love was conditional as children often struggle with jealousy, stonewalling, reactivity, and vulnerability. Clients might over-apologize and over-function because they honestly believe they are undeserving of unconditional love.”
Understanding where these patterns came from is the first step toward rewriting your story. Now that you know what your attachment style is, here are five ways to challenge insecure patterns and practice secure love.[2][3][5]
Identify your inner bully. Whose voice is it? If you would not say it to your Granny, do not say it to yourself.
Do not make assumptions. Be curious, ask for clarity. Assumptions lead to listening to respond rather than understanding.
Identify and communicate your feelings. Use “I feel…” statements. Avoiding feelings breeds disconnection and resentment.
Set and maintain healthy boundaries. Remember, an actual boundary requires action on your part, not others.
Prioritize self-care. Show yourself the same love and compassion you would provide your partner or friend. People-pleasing and self-sacrificing are not love; they are patterns to unlearn.
Insecure attachment does not determine your destiny. Healing attachment wounds is an intentional, ongoing choice, and every moment of awareness is a step toward the secure love you deserve.[2][4][5] Love is patient and kind, but above all, it is the return to connection and safety.
“True love is accepting your partner for who they are today and who they will continue to grow to become, and committing to return to connection again and again.”
From the therapy room
Growth often happens in the moments we want to avoid, the pauses after conflict, the urge to shut down, or the discomfort of naming what we need. These moments are not signs of failure; they are opportunities to practice returning to connection.
Start your journey to connection
Strengthen your relationships, honor your needs, and cultivate the resilient bond you deserve, with guidance and tools to help you grow and heal.
You have the tools to build the love and connection you want. By understanding how you give and receive love, exploring your relational patterns, and practicing secure ways of relating, you plant the seeds for nourishing, meaningful relationships. Seeking support is not a commitment to someone else; it is a commitment to yourself and to enriching the resilient bond you are ready to embrace.
If you are ready to strengthen your relationships, set healthy boundaries, and prioritize your emotional well-being, I would be honored to soar with you on this journey. At Fowler Counseling, we offer support, practical tools, and strategies to help you grow, heal, and create the connections you have been dreaming of.
“You dare to invest in yourself, and the power to cultivate the love and connection you seek.”
Read more from Lilyan Fowler, M.S., LPC-Associate, NCC
Lilyan Fowler M.S., LPC-Associate, NCC, Founder-Mental Health Counselor
Lilyan Fowler, M.S., LPC-Associate, NCC, is the founder of Fowler Counseling, offering accessible virtual therapy across Texas. As a queer, neurodivergent, and disabled therapist, they bring lived experience, empathy, and cultural humility to their work with marginalized communities. Grounded in trauma-informed care and attachment science, Lilyan helps clients build resilience, reconnect with their authentic selves, and define their own vision of personal success. They are dedicated to supporting clients in fostering and maintaining healthy relationships with themselves and others. Through their work, Lilyan strives to make mental health more approachable and inclusive for all.
References:
[1] (Chapman, 2015)
[2] Johnson, S. M. (2008). Hold me tight: Seven conversations for a lifetime of love. Little, Brown and Company.
[3] Gottman, J. M. (2015). The seven principles for making marriage work (4th ed.). Harmony Books.
[4] Johnson, S. M. (2019). Attachment theory in practice: Emotionally focused therapy (EFT) with individuals, couples, and families. Guilford Press.
[5] Bowlby, J. (1988). A secure base: Parent-child attachment and healthy human development. Basic Books.
