PH
People don't enter difficult conversations as blank slates.
Expectations about a partner can influence how ambiguous relationship behavior is interpreted.
Someone who feels secure may interpret a serious conversation as a problem the couple can solve together.
Someone already worried about rejection may become more alert to signs that the relationship is threatened.
Attachment research has repeatedly linked attachment anxiety with heightened sensitivity to rejection and relationship threats.
That doesn't mean anxious people imagine every problem.
Instead, uncertainty can carry more emotional weight when someone is already concerned about losing the relationship.
Sometimes the same five words can produce completely different reactions in two different people.
© Current Opinion in Psychology