17/07/2026
Let me tell you something I see again and again in my work.
A woman sits across from me and tells me her relationships are fine.
No conflict.
No arguments.
Everyone gets along.
And yet she cannot relax.
The minute she feels someone pull away,
she is certain she has done something wrong.
A good mother gets it wrong.
Often.
She misreads the signal.
She snaps when she is tired.
She misses the moment her child needed her most.
This is real mother not a doll or mannequin - fawless, and lifeless.
What makes a bond secure was never getting it right every time.
It is what happens after.
She notices.
She comes back.
Together, they fix it.
And the child learns something that will hold her for life: a rupture is not the end. Anger can be survived.
The other person does not disappear.
But maybe no one came back for you.
Maybe the silence after a rupture just stretched — until you learned to repair everything yourself, quickly, quietly, before anyone could leave.
So now your relationships look peaceful.
But look closer.
It is not peace.
It is you — absorbing every disagreement before it can surface.
Holding the tension in your body.
Covering the humiliation with a joke, a little sarcasm, so no one sees it landed. Swallowing the no.
Apologising first.
Keeping the bond smooth by erasing your experience/reality.
A bond that has never been tested is not strong.
It is fragile — and some part of you knows it.
Real closeness is not the absence of rupture.
It is the lived proof that the two of you can break something — and mend it.
Again and again.
You can still learn this.
In a friendship.
In a partnership.
In the therapy room.
Because the conflict you avoid with others does not disappear.
Avoiding the fight with others - externally,
You end up fighting yourself - internally
Gosia Miernik 2026 ©
All links in bio:
📖 Free guide
📩 Sign up for my newsletter
🤍 Book a free exploratory session
