When Substance Use Becomes a Third in the Relationship: Understanding Competing Attachment
There’s a moment many couples find themselves in… where something feels off, but it’s hard to fully explain. Maybe it feels like you’re coming second. Or like your partner is there, but not really there. Maybe conversations don’t go anywhere, or everything starts to revolve around whether they’re using or not. This can feel confusing. Frustrating. Lonely. And often, there’s a quiet question underneath it all:
What is happening to us?
Sometimes, what’s happening is this:
Substance use has started taking up space in the relationship in a way that’s hard to name. From a relationship perspective, we might understand this as a competing attachment.
This doesn’t mean the relationship (or the partner) is the cause of the substance use. More often these patterns have roots that existed long before the relationship began. But they do shape how partners experience each other in the present.
What Is a Competing Attachment?
At our core, we are wired for connection. We reach for closeness, safety, and emotional responsiveness, especially from our partner. But when that connection feels overwhelming, unsafe, or out of reach, we don’t stop needing comfort. We just start looking for it somewhere else. And it’s not the current relationship. For many, substance use has been a long-standing way of coping and is something that existed before the relationship. It may be shaped by past experiences like trauma, chronic stress, or environments where emotional needs weren’t consistently met. For others, it may show up more situationally or fluctuate over time. In those cases, turning toward substances can feel more familiar, more predictable, or simply more accessible than turning toward another person.
Substances- alcohol, drugs, or even certain patterns of numbing out- can become a reliable place to land.
Not because the person using doesn’t care about their partner. But because, in that moment, the substance may feel safer, more immediate, or less complicated than reaching for connection. This is not about the other partner not being enough, but because the nervous system is reaching for what feels most familiar or accessible in that moment. This also often isn’t about consciously choosing substances over a partner, although it can start to feel that way in the relationship. It’s about what feels safest and most accessible in moments of overwhelm.
That’s the shift:
The substance becomes easier to turn toward than the person. Then over time, it becomes not just about ease, but about priority and pattern. A competing attachment doesn’t just offer relief for someone in the moment. It starts to compete with the relationship for emotional significance. It’s where someone goes first when they’re overwhelmed. It’s what they rely on to feel steady. It’s what begins to help them feel predictable, especially when the relationship (or relationships in general) have felt uncertain or unsafe at times.
From an attachment perspective, this matters.
Because secure bonds are built through turning toward each other in moments of need. And when something else consistently becomes the place we turn instead, the relationship doesn’t just feel distant, it starts to feel less safe, less primary, less chosen.
This is often the part that hurts most for partners: It’s not just the substance use itself, but the feeling of not being the place their partner goes anymore.
Why Substances Can Feel so Powerful
Part of what makes substances so compelling is that they can chemically mimic the very feelings we’re wired to seek in connection. Alcohol can increase dopamine and impact systems in the brain that help us feel relaxed, soothed, and less anxious. Opioids can create a powerful sense of warmth, safety, and calm- sometimes even resembling the feeling of being comforted. I once had a client describe heroin use as “a warm hug.” From a nervous system perspective, substances can also quickly shift us out of states of overwhelm- fight, flight, or shutdown- and into something that feels more regulated or numbed. However, that regulation is external and temporary. It also doesn’t build the ability to return to safety through connection.
For many people, this pattern is also shaped by past experiences. When connection has felt inconsistent, overwhelming, or unsafe, the nervous system learns to prioritize protection over connection. When this happens, reaching for a substance can feel more predictable than reaching for a person. Over time, this predictability matters.
Because attachment isn’t just about closeness- it’s about where we go when we need something. And when a substance becomes the more reliable place to go, that’s when it begins to function as a competing attachment in the relationship.
As physician and trauma expert Gabor Mate puts it, addiction is less about the substance itself and more about the attempt to relieve pain. In relationships, that attempt shapes where someone turns to in moments of distress- toward their partner, or toward something else. The unfortunate paradox is this: What helps someone cope in the moment can also become the thing they turn toward instead of the relationship.
Substances can soothe- but they can’t replace being seen, known, and responded to.
How This Shows Up in Relationships
When substance use becomes a competing attachment, couples often find themselves stuck in painful, repetitive patterns that feel hard to break:
One partner feels shut out, alone, or not chosen
The other feels overwhelmed, criticized, or like they’re failing no matter what they do
Conversations escalate quickly or get avoided altogether
Trust begins to erode- and not just from the substance use, but from the emotional disconnection
*Not every relationship will look exactly like this. But when substance use begins to function as a competing attachment, certain patterns can start to emerge.
From an attachment lens, this isn’t just about behavior. It’s about a disrupted bond shaped by both present dynamics and past patterns. The partner who is hurting may begin to reach through questions, frustration, or protest, desperately trying to reconnect. The partner using substances might withdraw further- turning toward the one place that reliably numbs and soothes.
Both partners are usually responding to the same underlying disconnection- just in different ways.
And just like that, the cycle tightens.
What the Substance Is Really Doing
One of the most important shifts in this work is moving away from:
“What’s wrong with you?” to “What is this helping you cope with?”
Substance use is often protecting against something deeper- and that protection isn’t created by one person in the relationship- it’s shaped by a much larger history of experiences, stress, and adaptation.
It may be tied to:
Shame
Anxiety
Loneliness
Trauma
Fear of not being enough
Or long-standing patterns of coping that developed long before this relationship began
It works- temporarily.
It soothes, numbs, quiets.
But it also pulls partners further apart, reinforcing the very isolation it’s trying to manage. And when it becomes a competing attachment, it doesn’t just impact the individual, it changes what’s possible in the relationship. This is where things can feel especially stuck for couples.
The Work of Repair
How can couples from hurt to repair?
Repair doesn’t require perfect or immediate abstinence. But it does require enough safety and stabilization that the relationship can actually be accessed. If substance use continues in the same way it always has, it will remain the primary place someone turns to in moments of distress. And when that’s happening, it can feel like to trying to repair after an affair while the affair is still going on. Because, in these situations, safety becomes near impossible to achieve because the thing that caused the hurt is still happening. Therefore, without safety and stabilization, it can be difficult for either partner to fully engage in the deeper relational work needed for repair. And in some situations, that work may need to happen individually or outside of couples therapy first. This might look like harm reduction approaches, reducing use, increasing awareness, or engaging in a form of recovery or support alongside the relationship work.
The couples therapy work can then become not just about stopping a behavior, but about gently shifting where safety and comfort are found- from something outside the relationship back toward connection within it. It’s about creating a relationship that feels safer to turn toward than away from, while also recognizing that change often happens in steps.
The goal isn’t one specific or perfect outcome. It’s creating enough space between the person and the substance so that the relationship has a chance to be experienced differently.
In the work I do with couples, I focus on helping partners:
Naming the cycle instead of blaming each other
Understanding the emotion underneath the behavior
Slowing things down enough for vulnerability to emerge
Creating new moments for connection where partners can reach and respond differently
Over time, this allows something powerful to happen:
The partner who once turned toward substances begins to risk turning toward their partner instead. And the partner who felt shut out begins to experience being let in.
That’s where repair begins.
If This Is Your Relationship
If substance use is showing up in your relationship, it doesn’t necessarily mean the relationship itself is the problem. But it does mean that something is coming between you both and over time, it may begin to function as a competing attachment, making it harder to access each other in meaningful ways. This can feel confusing, painful, and at times deeply isolating.
And it’s also important to name that not all situations are the same. Substance use can be powerful, and in some cases, couples therapy may not be the most appropriate or safe place to start, especially if there is ongoing high-risk use, lack of stabilization, or other safety concerns. In those situations, individual support, substance use treatment, or additional resources may be an important first step.
Wherever you are in this process, you don’t have to navigate it without support. There are ways to begin making sense of what’s happening and to move toward more clarity, safety, and connection over time.
A Note on Safety
If substance use is paired with abuse, coercion, or feeling unsafe in your relationship, couples therapy may not be the right first step. Support that prioritizes your safety and stabilization is essential. You deserve help that keeps you safe while you navigate next steps.
Ready to Start Repairing the Connection?
If you’re navigating substance use in your relationship and feeling stuck in the same painful patterns, couples therapy can help you make sense of what’s happening- and begin to shift it. My work is grounded in attachment-based therapy, Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) and the Gottman Method, with a background in trauma and substance use. Together, we focus on helping you move out of disconnection and into something more secure, responsive, and connected
About the author
Alice Grutman is a couples therapist specializing in relationship clarity, betrayal recovery, and consensual non-monogamy. She helps individuals and couples move through relationship challenges with greater understanding and intention.
Through her writing, Alice aims to make relationship science and therapy concepts accessible, offering insights that help couples understand their dynamics and take meaningful steps toward a healthier, more secure partnership.