A Compassionate Way to Understand Our Partners With Avoidant Attachment *Deep Dive Series*
Brought to you by The anxiously-attached girl’s guide to getting over a breakup 16-day series. Full details here.
Welcome to Part II of my attachment style series to help you better understand yourself and your relationship (or former relationship. Part I is on being anxiously-attached. You can read that article here.
As a refresher, your attachment style (based on attachment theory) refers to the way in which you’re wired based on how you bonded—or didn’t— with your caregivers (parents or otherwise) when you were young.
If a child grows up in a home where their parents were available for and responded to their emotional and physical needs, they would develop secure attachment, meaning they could unconsciously and naturally rely on their parents and that they could be trusted to love and support them. This, typically, manifests in adulthood as loving, stable and consistent, healthy relationship behaviours.
But those with an avoidant attachment style grew up where their needs were not responded to, therefore they internalized that they couldn’t trust anyone to meet their needs
How could this be?
They may have had avoidantly-attached parent(s) themselves
Had parent with addictions
Had a spouse pass away and the other could not deal or respond to their kids needs
Narcissistic parents
That child then grows up, unbeknownst to them, now feeling deeply uncomfortable with intimacy and connection and has difficulty trusting others to rely on. After consistent neglect, they decide subconsciously that only they can rely on themselves.
How this shows up in friendships, dating and relationships:
They tend to attract partners who have an anxious attachment style, therefore enabling both partners to play out their deep fears. An avoidantly-attached partner might take two steps back when their anxiously-attached partner feels them pulling away and takes 3 steps in. Getting stuck in the anxious-avoidant trap, as Dr Amir Levine and Rachel Heller describe in their book Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment And How It Can Help You Find And Keep Love.
They might not have a lot of friends as connection is not necessarily a huge priority for them
They might get defensive during conflict as analyzing their emotions is very difficult
They don’t care to resolve conflict, as that is an intimate act in and of itself
They can be hurtful to their inner circle, but kind to the outside world
They can say hurtful things to their partner as a form to distance themselves from intimacy
Either they know how to emulate intimacy in the beginning of a relationship, but when the closeness starts to fruition, they change into a more clear avoidant
They might be the one calling their partners “needy” when their partner wants support - this is because they didn’t get their needs met and therefore any kind of “asked for” support looks “weak” or “needy”
TRUTH: People who begin learning about attachment styles tend to give avoidantly-attached partners a bad rep.
Which can be understandable as those who’ve experienced being with someone avoidantly-attached might have had a lot of wounding around that. The pain someone anxiously-attached goes through when they date an avoidant without knowing can be quite damaging.
I’ve had my struggles too. My dad is a classic avoidant. A good man in his heart and a man of duty. But the truth is I spent the better part of my life healing from his avoidance and how his emotional-unavailability issues affected me.
I chased partners who were very avoidant as well, and I didn’t know why I attracted half-asked partners. And it’s because of attachment theory that I realized that I attract partners who play out my fear of abandonment and emulate the relationship I have with my dad.
This is not an uncommon pattern, but it’s important to become aware of it, do your own healing around it, and give some grace for avoidantly-attached partners once you’ve found enough healing and compassion for yourself.
I know deep down if they could, they’d give us the emotionally intimate relationship we desired, but they never got it themselves so they don’t know what they’re missing to the full extent that you might.
But unless you’re securely attached, you might find a big challenge being with someone avoidantly-attached. For them, change is highly unlikely as access to those parts of themselves that require healing might not be possible.
There’s a level of radical acceptance that comes with choosing a partner who has an avoidant attachment style. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have to do work to deal with their intimacy issues. They need to be willing to put in the work as well, either by having plenty of conversations or working with a couples counsellor or other relationship professional.
I hope this helps bring some of your questions to light.
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I made my 16-day Getting Through This series for those of you women who feel like you’re completely heartbroken but also know you’ve got some or many anxious attachment tendencies and want to start healing in your own way—no tough love, force, or telling to “just stop thinking about him.” Get full details by clocking the button below or here.
