#229: The Hallmarks of a Secure Relationship
For many people who struggle with insecure attachment patterns, one of the hardest things isn’t just being in relationships—it’s knowing what a secure one is actually supposed to look and feel like. So in this post, I want to walk you through five key hallmarks of a secure relationship. This isn’t an exhaustive list—but these are qualities that consistently show up in relationships that feel steady, nourishing, and safe.
For many people who struggle with insecure attachment patterns, one of the hardest things isn’t just being in relationships—it’s knowing what a secure one is actually supposed to look and feel like.
If you didn’t grow up with healthy relationship modelling, or if your past relationships have been inconsistent, emotionally unsafe, or unpredictable, then insecurity can start to feel normal. Familiar, even. And when that happens, it becomes incredibly hard to trust your own instincts about what’s reasonable to want or expect from a partner.
This is especially true for people with anxious attachment, who often find themselves asking:
Is it me? Am I asking for too much? Am I being too needy or demanding?
When your needs are dismissed, deflected, or met with shutdown, self-doubt creeps in quickly. You can lose your sense of what’s fair, healthy, or realistic in a relationship.
So in this post, I want to walk you through five key hallmarks of a secure relationship. This isn’t an exhaustive list—but these are qualities that consistently show up in relationships that feel steady, nourishing, and safe.
My hope is that this gives you reassurance about what you’re allowed to want, and clarity about what you might aspire to—whether you’re currently in a relationship or navigating dating.
1. Emotional Safety
Emotional safety means being able to bring things to your partner without fearing negative consequences.
You can share how you’re feeling.
You can voice a concern.
You can express a need, desire, or boundary.
And you trust that it will be received with care.
That doesn’t mean your partner will always agree or immediately understand—but it does mean you’re not punished for speaking up. There’s no emotional withdrawal, blow-up, ridicule, or threat of disconnection lurking in the background.
Without emotional safety, people tend to get small. They self-edit. They walk on eggshells. And when a relationship feels that fragile, it’s almost impossible to build anything authentic or enduring.
For anxiously attached people especially, emotional safety is critical. Without it, old attachment wounds around inconsistency and unpredictability get constantly reactivated.
It’s also worth noting that emotional safety can look slightly different depending on attachment style. For someone more avoidant-leaning, safety may include having boundaries respected and not being pressured to share more than they’re ready to. At its core, emotional safety is about mutual care, respect, and attunement.
2. Trust and Reliability
Trust isn’t just about honesty—though honesty and transparency are non-negotiable. Deception, secrecy, or evasiveness erode safety very quickly.
But trust also includes reliability and dependability.
It’s knowing your partner will show up when it matters.
It’s feeling confident that you have each other’s backs.
It’s the sense that in difficult moments, you’re stronger together.
A secure relationship should feel like a safe place to land—a sturdy base you can return to when life gets hard. Not another source of stress or uncertainty.
This kind of trust allows you to move through the world with more confidence, knowing that you’re not doing everything alone.
3. A Healthy Relationship to Conflict and Repair
Secure relationships are not conflict-free. Disagreements, friction, and moments of tension are inevitable when two people build a life together.
What makes the difference is how conflict is handled.
In secure relationships, conflict doesn’t feel like the relationship itself is under threat. Instead, it’s approached as an opportunity to address unmet needs or misalignment—with the underlying assumption that the relationship is solid enough to hold it.
There’s an ability to stay respectful, even when emotions run high. And just as importantly, there’s a strong culture of repair.
Ruptures don’t linger indefinitely.
Apologies are offered.
Responsibility is taken.
Conversations are revisited once things cool down.
Conflict and repair, when handled well, actually build trust and security rather than eroding it.
4. The Relationship as a Secure Base (Not a Constant Project)
In insecure relationships, especially for anxiously attached people, the relationship can become all-consuming. There’s constant analysing, monitoring, and micromanaging—because it never feels safe enough to just be.
Secure relationships are different.
They’re not neglected or taken for granted—but they don’t require constant vigilance either. You don’t have to talk about the relationship every day or stay one step ahead of imagined problems.
There’s enough safety that you can turn your attention outward—to your life, creativity, friendships, joy, and growth—without fearing everything will fall apart.
A secure relationship frees up energy rather than draining it.
5. Shared Vision, Commitment, and Joint Endeavour
Finally, secure relationships involve a shared sense of us.
There’s clarity about commitment.
There’s confidence that both people are in it.
There’s no sense of one foot out the door.
This doesn’t have to mean marriage or rigid timelines—but it does mean being able to talk openly about the future without tiptoeing or fear.
There’s excitement about building a life together. About combining strengths, resources, and dreams. Secure relationships create a kind of multiplier effect—you’re not just supported emotionally, you’re expanded creatively and practically by the partnership.
Final Thoughts
If you’re reading this and thinking, I’ve never had anything close to that, you’re not alone. Most people haven’t.
This isn’t meant to discourage you—it’s meant to clarify what’s possible and what’s worth aiming for. When we raise our standards and deepen our understanding of healthy dynamics, we create the conditions for change.
Relationships are meant to enhance your life, not diminish it.
They should support your wellbeing—not leave you more anxious, depleted, or unsure of yourself.
And when a relationship consistently feels like a net negative, that’s not a personal failure—it’s information.
Awareness is the first step toward something more secure, steady, and nourishing.
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[00:00:00]:
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. In today's episode, we are talking about the hallmarks of a secure relationship. Now, for many of us who struggle with insecure attachment patterns, it can be really hard to know what a secure relationship looks and feels like. There's a good chance that you probably haven't experienced it and you probably haven't had great modelling around what healthy relationships look like. That's part of the problem, that's part of how we got here, is that we only know a certain relationship dynamic and that has become what's familiar to us, that's become our normal. And so we keep recreating that without really knowing or believing that something healthier and sturdier and more steady is available. And I think particularly for folks with anxious attachment patterns, one of the most common questions that I get is, how do I know if it's me or them? Am I the one that's making this relationship so insecure with my anxiety by being too needy, by being too demanding? Am I asking too too much? And so there's a lot of self doubt and self invalidation around the things that we think we need in order to feel safer.
[00:01:11]:
But because of the dynamics at play, if we're being dismissed or shut down or deflected when we ask for things, then we go into that doubting place and there tends to be really unhelpful conflict patterns at play. All of those things, right? And so we can lose sight of what is reasonable. We don't tend to have a good read on that. And so I'm hoping in today's episode, by setting out these five hallmarks of a secure relationship, and I should say that's far from being an exhaustive list, it's just five hallmarks that I've put together because I think that they are really important qualities that tend to be common amongst secure couples. I hope that it gives you some reassurance that certain things that maybe you are yearning for are indeed really important and also gives you a bit of a vision to work towards if you're in a relationship or if you're not in a relationship. I think that we do have to really raise our standards sometimes in terms of what we are making ourselves available for, particularly if we're navigating dating or if we're persisting in connections that are really flaky or where we do feel really insecure all the time. I'm hoping that I can paint you a bit of a picture today and really emphasise how important these qualities are in Building a secure partnership. And the flip side of that is certain things that aren't necessary or dispelling some myths around secure relationships.
[00:02:35]:
Like for example, that secure couples don't fight or don't have conflict. Of course they do. It's all about how they approach conflict and how they approach repair. That's one of the things we'll talk about in today's episode. Before we get into today's discussion, I just wanted to share that if you are in a relationship and you are struggling with anxious avoidant dynamics and wanting to build a more secure partnership, I do have a programme called Secure Together which is really designed for people in relationships who want to transform anxious avoidant dynamics. It's a programme that I recorded together with my partner Joel and we really present both the anxious and the avoidant side of the street. It's just designed to be really approachable for couples to do together and it's always received really beautiful feedback. So if that's something that you are working on or interested in, definitely cheque out securetogether.
[00:03:21]:
I also have a free training on where anxious avoidant couples go wrong and how you can start to shift those patterns that you can find on my website as well if you're looking for a free option. Okay, so let's get into this conversation around the hallmarks of a secure relationship. The first one is emotional safety. So I think we could easily do a whole episode on what emotional safety is and isn't. I might have even done that before. We're getting to so many episodes now that I lose track of what I've talked about. But to me, emotional safety in this context is really I can bring things to you without worrying about adverse consequence. I can share how I'm feeling.
[00:03:58]:
I can share something that's on my mind that I'm worried about. I can share a desire, I can share a need, I can share a boundary and I can trust that that's going to be safely handled and received. That it's not going to lead to some big blow up, that you're not going to punish me, that you're not going to pull away from me, that there's not going to be some big disconnection as a result of it. All of those things can create an environment where we get very small and we self edit a lot, we tiptoe, we walk on eggshells. So emotional safety is just so important so that we can create this open space between us so that feel really safe to exist in the relationship as their whole selves. Without feeling like it's this very fragile thing that has to be micromanaged and that we have to do a lot of that tiptoeing to make sure that everything's okay. Because of course, when that's the environment and when that's the sense that we're kind of on a tightrope, it's really hard to build anything authentic and enduring because it feels so unstable all the time. And particularly for folks with anxious attachment patterns, that is such a recipe, recipe for insecurity and stress.
[00:05:12]:
Because you've already got this blueprint around relationships feeling inconsistent and unpredictable and feeling like people could leave at a moment's notice. And you never know if you're going to get your needs met. You never know how someone's going to respond. And that tends to be all part of the origin storey of anxious attachment. So to be in a relationship that doesn't have that predictable emotional safety, that sense of you will be available to listen to me, you're not going to dismiss and invalidate me, you're not going to tell me that I'm being ridiculous or whatever that is so, so nourishing and so important to the creation of a secure relationship. And I will say as well, on the other side, for someone whose starting point is more avoidant emotional safety for you might look like a partner who really respects your boundaries. Anxiously attached people, I think the focus tends to be there on what emotional safety looks and feels like to you. But for a partner who is more avoidant leaning emotional safety might look like you don't intrude upon me in a way that feels really violating and overwhelming.
[00:06:21]:
You don't try and force me to share things that I'm not comfortable sharing, all of that. I think there is this sense of mutual care and respect that comes with that emotional safety. Okay? The second hallmark of secure relationships is trust and reliability. So trust in the sense of honesty and openness is really, really important. Of course, I think we can all acknowledge that if there is deception or secrecy or evasiveness or outright lying in a relationship that is just so, so damaging, it just goes against everything that secure relationships are meant to provide for, which is to allow you to feel stronger and more capable to go out into the world and know that you've got that safe place to return to if the relationship isn't that and the relationship itself feels unsafe because there's secrecy and unpredictability and deception and all of that going on, that is just really, really damaging. And such a guaranteed way to create a lot of stress and anxiety for yourself, for each other. But in addition to the honesty piece, I think trust is much bigger than that. And the part that we maybe don't talk about as much is that trust is about reliability and dependability.
[00:07:35]:
This sense of we will have each other's back. I trust that I can rely on you to show up for when I really need you, that we can depend on each other, that we are stronger in challenging moments because we will always show up for each other. And I think that's one of the most nourishing, beautiful value adding things about healthy relationships is that deep felt sense of trust. It's almost like you know how you can do that trust game where you fall backwards and someone will catch you. It's almost like that energy and knowing that your partnership is there, that your partner is there. As a really sturdy person, I can always call and you will show up for me and you will make yourself available like you are my person in a crisis. And I know that I will be better equipped to handle challenging moments in life because of how sturdy and dependable you are. And our relationship is.
[00:08:32]:
And that should be just like a given, a no brainer, rather than something that feels like it's again, sometimes there, sometimes not, or just not there at all. So trust encompassing both the honesty piece and the transparency, but also that deep sense of like reliability and dependability and knowing that you will have each other's back. Okay, the next hallmark of a secure relationship is a healthy and realistic relationship to conflict and repair. So as I mentioned at the start, it is not the case that secure couples don't fight or they don't have argument or they don't have those little friction points or nitpicking or whatever that is part of relationship relationships that is going to come up for all of us. We will bump up against each other. That's just part of building a life with someone and bringing together two different people with different sets of preferences and different ideas and different emotional backgrounds, all of those things. So do not expect that secure relationships are conflict free or that it's smooth sailing all the time. But I think what sets secure couples apart is the way that they approach and relate to conflict.
[00:09:37]:
So conflict doesn't feel like this viscerally threatening relationship relationship on the line thing as it can for insecure couples. Instead, conflict becomes this opportunity to voice things that haven't been working well, to articulate needs that are maybe going unmet, not in an attacking way, but really in recognition of the fact that you will be better off for having had that conversation. And ideally, secure couples are able to remain somewhat respectful during conflict. Again, it's not to say that, like, things never get heated or there's never things that are said that you maybe wish you could take back. I think it's more about conflict, not being this free for all, where you say all of these awful things and you get really, really dysregulated, you threaten to end the relationship or whatever. Again, if you've been in insecure relationships, you've probably had a lot of that. I know that I have in the past. So I think secure couples are able to have healthier conflict because they know that the relationship is fundamentally solid and that actually creates the containment and the safety to voice unmet needs to express things that have been bothering them.
[00:10:51]:
And all of that can play out also knowing that we will get through this and we will find a path forward and we will come back into connection, even if in this moment we're frustrated with each other. Having that trust in the goodwill that exists in the relationship allows you to go to those places together in a safe way. And that is just. Just such a powerful thing. And it's something that most insecure relationships tend to lack, is the ability to go to those vulnerable places, to go to those honest places, to get frustrated with each other, to express anger, to express disappointment. A lot of insecure relationships don't have the foundation of goodwill and trust and respect and sturdiness and commitment to actually hold all of those more challenging pieces. So I think that that's such a key part of healthy, secure relationships is being able to go there because you have the safe container for it. And really key to that is knowing that you will repair afterwards.
[00:11:53]:
So doesn't have to be 10 minutes later, but knowing that if we have a rupture of some description, we will come back into connection, we will apologise, we will take ownership of if I said something I shouldn't have, if I wasn't my best self in that moment, I can own that and apologise for it and ask for your forgiveness and you will do the same. And we can have a second go at the conversation when the heat has come down a bit, and we can, through all of that, clean out the cobwebs, figure out what needs to shift, if anything, figure out where that conversation came from and actually forge a path forward that feels like we are better and stronger and more connected as a result of that. So I think really the defining feature there is conflict and repair. Insecure Relationships, Relationships builds trust rather than eroding it. It builds more security rather than creating more insecurity. Okay. The fourth hallmark of a secure relationship, and this is such an important one, is the relationship is a secure base rather than this constant, all consuming project that you are so hyper focused on now, again, this will really resonate for a lot of anxiously attached people that when the relationship feels insecure, you tend to spend copious amounts of time and energy thinking about it, analysing it, ruminating, questioning, wondering, micromanaging. There's not this sense that it just kind of exists there and I can come and go without really worrying too much about it.
[00:13:25]:
It's almost this sense of like, I can never turn my back on it because if I'm not constantly vigilant, something bad's gonna happen. And of course, like, that's a really, really challenging way to be in a relationship. And that is, I would say, a hallmark of an insecure relationship, is that you feel like you have to be constantly working on the relationship. If you're not always staying one step ahead of potential problems, then the whole thing's just going to come crumbling down again. Secure relationships, it's not about complacency, it's not about. Or we never have to worry about it because we just take it for granted, but there's enough safety that you can actually just leave it be. And like, it's fine. We don't have to be talking about the relationship every day.
[00:14:04]:
We don't have to be having serious conversations about the relationship all the time. The relationship's just there and we certainly nurture it. But we're not like helicopter parenting the relationship from this place of anxiety and stress and over functioning. That's almost always an indicator of the fact that we don't trust in the sturdiness or the reliability of the relationship, that we feel like we have to constantly be gripping and controlling and clinging to it to make sure that everything stays in place. And, you know, in addition to freeing up a lot of that anxious energy and allowing you to benefit from really the purpose of a secure relationship, which is to create that secure base, you actually then get to go out and be a person and live a life and nurture other relationships and enjoy each other, be more creative. All of these internal resources that get freed up when you're not so stressed about your relationship. And again, I think particularly for anxious folks, we can become very insular when we're worried about a relationship and we can drop everything else to divert all of those resources to keeping the relationship intact. So the flip side of that is that when we have a relationship that feels really secure, we get to go and live a life of ease and enjoyment and fun and pleasure and play all of these things that can feel really out of reach when we're just so hyper focused on a relationship that is feeling really hard.
[00:15:32]:
So having that, that sense of the relationship being a secure base, rather than this thing that I have to constantly be working on, is a really beautiful hallmark of secure partnerships. Okay. And the fifth and final hallmark of a secure relationship is a shared vision and sense of commitment and joint endeavour. So I think that, again, part of the advantage of being in a relationship is that you are combining resources. There's this sense of, I don't just mean financial resources, but this sense of we are stronger together and not just in hard experiences that we can support each other, but through combining our capabilities, our skillset and being a team. Together, we can accomplish so much more, we can create so much more. More possibilities open up for us as a result of the joint commitment and the joint endeavour. So whether that's creating a vision for the life that you want, where you want to live, whether it is working towards, like, joint financial goals, whether it's planning holidays, there's this sense of us and the life we are building.
[00:16:38]:
And that should feel exciting and energising and, you know, should really feel motivating for you both. Rather than being a conversation that you tiptoe around, you want to be talking about the future, you want to be talking about commitment. Not necessarily in terms of. I think most people hear commitment and they think engagement and marriage and certainly those more formal expressions of commitment can certainly be part of the conversation to the extent that they matter to you and are a priority. And I think, again, if you're tiptoeing around those conversations and refusing to have them, but you're feeling really resentful about it or feeling rejected because that hasn't happened on the timeline that you were expecting. All of that is an indicator of maybe a more insecure dynamic where you don't feel safe to have those conversations. But I think commitment in the sense of, like, we're both in this, and I'm not doubting that we're both in this. There's not one foot out the door on either side.
[00:17:32]:
There's not a sense of, are we committing to this? Are we strapped in? It's like, yeah, we are. And we are both like in the same boat and rowing in the same direction, and we are both benefiting from that joint effort, joint commitment, joint endeavour, joint vision. And that allows us to feel more confident and excited said about our future and about life. And I think that is really one of the beautiful things about a relationship is being able to come together and kind of experience a multiplier effect on your creative capacity as a result of the partnership and everything that it affords to you. So I hope that that has been helpful. I hope it's given you a bit of a sense of what you might aspire to if this is not something you've experienced before. And just to be really clear, most people haven't experienced this kind of relationship before. You are not alone.
[00:18:20]:
If you're listening to that and going, yeah, I haven't even come close, don't be discouraged by that because the more that we can open our mind and become more aware of what's possible and what we should be shooting for, the standards we should be creating for ourselves, that's how we make changes. So it's not something to be disheartened about. I hope it's something that can inspire you and maybe provide some clarity. If your current or previous relationship fell way short of that mark, that doesn't mean that it's doomed, but it may signal that things need to shift in order to create that safety. Because of course, when we continue swirling around in dysfunctional, insecure dynamics, it can just be a bit of a cycle that we get stuck in. And so we've got to find ways to shift out of that so that we can tap into to some of these benefits of being in a relationship and really harness all of the upsides of partnership. Rather than feeling like our relationship is a net negative, like it's dragging us down, or that it's taking away from our wellbeing, that it's leaving us more stressed, more anxious, because that is really defeating the purpose as far as I'm concerned. Okay, if you've enjoyed this episode, I'm so grateful for all of you.
[00:19:32]:
Leave reviews, comments on Spotify, on YouTube, reviews on Apple, podcasts, ratings, all of that. I know it's one of those little annoying things that from a listener perspective doesn't count for much, but certainly on my end it is hugely helpful and really moves the needle. So all of those zero cost ways that you can show support really do make a world of difference and I'm so grateful for those of you who do support the show in that way. Okay, guys, leaving it there. Thanks again for joining me and I look forward to seeing you again next time.
Keywords from Podcast Episode
secure relationship, hallmarks of secure relationships, insecure attachment, anxious attachment, avoidant attachment, emotional safety, self doubt, conflict patterns, healthy relationships, self invalidation, relationship standards, dating dynamics, flakiness in relationships, conflict and repair, Secure Together program, relationship blueprints, reliability, honesty in relationships, trust, dependability, secrecy in relationships, dismissive behaviours, relationship as a secure base, micromanaging relationships, relationship anxiety, relationship stability, relationship commitment, shared vision, joint endeavour, relationship growth
#228: When You Want More Words of Affirmation — But Don’t Want to Ask (Ask Steph)
#228: When You Want More Words of Affirmation — But Don’t Want to Ask (Ask Steph)