My last post was removed for being too focused on the specifics of my relationship, so I'm going to keep this one as a broad question about conflicting attachment styles...

So I've been reading about the emotional "feedback loop" that pairings of Anxious and Avoidant (Dismissive or Fearful) romantic partners can easily fall into. The info-graphic at the top of this blog post sums up perfectly my own experience with it (the bottom, yellow part in particular).

In short: the Anxious partner's attempts to get closer trigger the Avoidant partner's need to maintain distance; this in turn triggers the Anxious partner's fear of losing the Avoidant partner, causing them to double down on their attempts at maintaining closeness; this again trigger's the Avoidant's fear of intimacy, and they retreat further... on and on in a mutually reinforcing cycle.

For anyone who's been in this type of a dynamic before and has made it work (i.e. have progressed together toward more secure ways of relating), I'm curious what strategies helped you get there.

Is there a sort of shorthand you use for acknowledging "hey, we're stuck in this loop again"? Ways of reminding yourselves not to take behaviors caused by attachment style too personally? Do you agree to periods of distance or reduced communication when you find yourselves spiraling? Do you have rules about communicating or about how the relationship is discussed? Habits to help ease one another's anxieties about the relationship? What's worked?!