Building a life with a PDA partner can be challenging but the better you understand their needs, and how to accommodate them, the more potential there is for creating a safe and loving relationship. In any relationship with a PDA individual, prioritizing autonomy and emotional safety over roles, rules, or expectations will go a long way.
While PDAers often seek intimacy and companionship, our strong need for independence, and emotional intensity can make traditional relationship dynamics difficult to navigate, but not impossible.
PDA isn’t just about avoiding demands; it’s a nervous system wired to resist perceived control, especially when it threatens the person’s sense of self. That includes social and emotional demands, not just to-do lists or obligations. I know for myself, when I feel truly safe, seen, and free in a relationship, that’s when I thrive.
As an internalized PDA adult in a successful marriage, here’s my personal take on how to build a healthy, thriving relationship with a PDA partner.
Release the Pressure Valve
PDAers are incredibly intuitive. We often pick up on hidden motives, emotional agendas, or even subtle nudges that others might miss. Attempts to “suggest” or “guide” can feel like manipulation, even when well-intended. You may find yourself in a loop of getting nothing accomplished, and creating resentment and frustration with your partner if you put too much pressure on them to do what you need/want done.
If you want to get your partner to support with things like housework, it’s all about how you communicate it. Using clear, non-controlling communication that explains the “why” behind your ask is much more likely to result in an accomplished task. Speak from your own experience. Say what you feel, need, or notice, but without expectation.
A PDA partner will likely respond better to you saying “I feel overwhelmed when the house is chaotic, and I’m hoping you can help me clean the house today or this weekend when it feels comfortable for you” rather than than “Can you just help me clean up?”
Hot Tip: It’s so easy to fall into passive aggressive behavior in a strained relationship. Leave the passive aggression at the door, and approach with curiosity. Nobody likes passive aggressive statements, but this will only increase demand avoidance with PDAers and trigger our threat response which makes our threshold for tolerance that much lower.
Respect Your Partners Need for Autonomy
There’s no doubt that everyone deserves autonomy in relationships. But for many PDA individuals, autonomy isn’t just a preference, it’s a biological need. When our autonomy is supported, we feel more safer, which allows us to connect deeper and build more trust with you.
This might look like:
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Giving us an “out” if you bring something up when we’re not ready to talk about it (it’s ok to offer options for another time to talk about it!)
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Offering options instead of ultimatums
- Letting us engage with our special interests with no limits
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Avoid phrases that imply control (“you need to,” “just do this,” “why can’t you just…”)
Hot Tip: Supporting autonomy doesn’t mean disconnection. In fact, honoring your PDA partner’s freedom often increases their willingness to connect.
Be Flexible, Not Reactive
PDA-related avoidance can be sudden, intense, and seem unpredictable. A plan for a fun date might suddenly become too much after a day full of external demands. Emotional closeness might feel overwhelming one moment, and deeply desired the next. We realize this may seem confusing to an outsider, but keeping in mind that stress us cumulative, and perceived demands add up throughout the day and can make evening dates feel impossible at times.
When it comes to date nights or special outings – find out what your partner values and prioritize that within the relationship. Maybe your partners love language is acts of service but they also might hate surprises. Many PDAers need to control all aspects of an experience, so a surprise date night could backfire and create unnecessary anxiety for your partner. So while you might enjoy surprising people with gifts, save that for people that will value it. Figure out what your partner might value for some connected time together. And sometimes, that’s just sitting in the same room together, not talking, just doom-scrolling. And that’s ok.
Rather than reacting with frustration or hurt if your PDA partner doesn’t like your idea of a date night, meet the moment with curiosity and flexibility. Do your best to avoid power struggles. If a plan feels like pressure, see if there’s a lower-demand alternative that feels better for your partner. If we shut down emotionally, it might be self-protection—not rejection. It also might be our way of saying “we cannot do this right now and we’re protecting you by not saying something we will regret later.”
Instead of saying: “I’m so excited for our date on Thursday! I’ve been dying to go to that new restaurant!” (This level of excitement might be a recipe for disaster. The pressure of your excitement could feel like a demand to make this happen, and your partner may be inclined to agree when they don’t have the threshold to actually do it, and it could result in a fight at dinner since they went beyond our capacity at that time.)
How you could rephrase that: “I know our dinner date at the new restaurant is supposed to be tomorrow. Are you still feeling up for it? If not, we can totally pivot. I know we’ll get there sometime.” (This low demand approach puts gives your PDA partner autonomy to make the decision in a low pressure environment. Approaching things within the relationship this way can actually increase our threshold for tolerance as it takes the pressure off the event.)
Hot Tip: If a planned date night is approaching, check with your partner in advance to see if they are still feeling up for it, and don’t shame them if they aren’t. Be open to pivoting and doing what they need.
Don’t Take Avoidance Personally
One of the hardest truths in PDA relationships: the avoidance isn’t about you. It’s not a lack of love, effort, or care. It’s likely a nervous system response to feeling controlled or overwhelmed. I’ve met many people in relationships with PDA partners where their partner blamed them for trying to act their parent – not their partner. If you’re hearing this from your PDA partner, it’s likely that they are feeling controlled, manipulated, and overwhelmed by the circumstances.
Try not to take it personally.
Take it as data that you need to change your approach and the language you’re using to be a more PDA-affirming approach. (Have you read the Declarative Language Handbook by Linda Murphy? There’s some great tips in there on how to best communicate with PDAers and the approach works well with many PDA adults and kids.) Approach them with curiosity about why they felt so threatened by your suggestion/idea.
As hard as it is, when your PDA partner fights, pulls away, freezes, deflects, or resists engagement, it’s not usually a reflection of how we feel about you. It’s how our nervous system copes with demands, especially emotional ones. Just like PDA kids, when a PDA adult feels pushed too far beyond our capacity, we may say the biggest, baddest and worst thing we can think of in the moment to protect our autonomy, even when we most often don’t mean it.
Please remember, in those moments, we are not in our thinking brains. We are pushed beyond reason and our brains are offline. When this happens, please do not shame us. I can assure you that PDAers (kids and adults alike) experience so much guilt and shame for our threat responses during moments of dysregulation when we’re pushed too far beyond our threshold of tolerance. Often after some reflection and decompression, PDAers realize our reaction was not warranted and was our inability to control our own threat response which leads us to feel an immense amount of guilt and shame.
We may not always be able to apologize (hello demand!), but please know that we want to and we did not mean what we said when we were pushed beyond our limits.
Hot Tip: If you demand an apology-it’s unlikely you’ll get an honest one, and it’s more likely that we’ll need to find way to equalize against you for putting that pressure on us. As a PDAer, apologizing for things we did when our nervous system was pushed too far can feel impossible. I still recall a time my mother made me call and apologize to my “boyfriend” when I was 5 years old. We had played tag and he kept winning so the final time he tagged me I shoved him against the tree, punched him in the face and gave him a bloody lip. (SORRY BEN!) Afterward I ran away and hid. I felt DEEP shame. His mom told my mom later that day and my mom said I had to call him immediately and apologize. It felt like a Herculean task and I could not even do the call without having an ulterior motive on the phone. I apologized then swiftly then told him I was calling to ask if he wanted to meet up to swap kindergarten photos at church that night. Apologizing can feel like a status threat and massive demand, but if you give us time to get back into our thinking brains without pressure, it’s likely you’ll get a bid for connection to make up for it, and sometimes even an apology! Your patience and understanding with apologies from us are powerful acts of love.
Prioritize Authentic Connection Over Traditional Roles
Many PDAers don’t resonate with typical relationship roles—whether that’s who initiates intimacy, who manages the household, or how affection “should” look. Instead of relying on expectations or social norms, I recommend you build your relationship on what’s true for both of you. Connection rooted in mutual respect is more sustainable than trying to fit into a mold that feels controlling or artificial.
How might this look?
- Acts of service could look like helping your partner by scheduling their doctors appointments for them, and even offering to accompany them when it’s time to go if it would help them go.
- It might look like taking on all the household duties for a few weeks because your PDA partner doesn’t have the capacity/spoons to help this week.
- Connection might be watching TV together at separate ends of the couch. Sometimes being in each others presence provides the co-regulation your partner might need.
- Physical and emotional closeness might feel like too much of a demand at times, so honoring that and be open to what works best for your PDA partner and again, try not to take it personally.
- If your PDA partner is in burnout, this can take a toll on everyone. Learning about PDA Burnout is key to helping through this challenging time. When we’re burnt out, very little is possible. Having an open mind about household chores not getting done, ordering a lot of takeout, canceling social outings, and honoring your partner’s physical and emotional boundaries while not shaming them will go a long way.
Hot Tip: Avoid outside pressures of “traditional relationship roles.” Let will things look unconventional. The more you normalize the way your relationship needs to be, the better it will get for all of you.
Work With the Rhythm, Not Against It
Relationships with PDA partners often have their own unique rhythm. There may be periods of deep connection, followed by times of space, distance, or total independence. I’ve personally found this ebb and flow is natural and healthy within relationships with PDAers. And again, I sound like a broken record, but often this is not about YOU. This is about our needs and stability. It’s best to approaching this with curiosity and willingness to understand and accommodate where they are at, vs approaching times of space/distance with anger or aggression.
Also worth noting that trying to force closeness during an avoidance phase often backfires. Instead, honor the rhythm. Trust the connection. When a PDA partner feels safe and un-pressured, they’ll often return to the relationship with even more depth and presence.
Hot Tip: During periods of higher stress at home, when my work day is over and the kids are in bed, I often follow them to bed to zone out with crappy reality TV til I fall asleep. There’s no greater connection for me than my partner saying, “It’s ok, I totally get it. Do what you need to do for yourself right now and I’m here for you.” It’s one of the safest messages he can give me.
Final Thoughts
There are so many more things I could say, but that’s another post for another day. Overall, realizing that PDA relationships ebb and flow, carry different dynamics than “typical” relationships, taking a collaborative approach and deconstructing your traditional idea of what a relationship should look like can lead to a loving and successful relationship with your PDA partner.
In my eyes, the heart of any healthy PDA relationship is this:
“I see you. I respect your need for autonomy. I trust your truth. And I want to connect—not to control you, but to understand you.”
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