Hello everyone, and welcome back to Needy No More, the podcast
dedicated to healing the anxious attachment style.
I'm your host, anxious attachment style coach and
author Chris Ratcliffe. I've helped thousands of people
across 6 continents to end the cycle of anxious attachment
through my books, workshops, digital downloads, and coaching
program. I'm excited to carry on that
mission here on the podcast, sharing tools and techniques,
principles and practices for you to explore on your journey to
growing more secure. Today is a very interesting
episode because we're going to be talking about the avoidant.
So we're actually going to shift the focus a little bit from the
anxious attacher to the avoidant attacher.
Now, of course, many of us have partnered up with avoidant
attachers in the past or might even be partnered up with them
right now in the present. This is all about empathy and
understanding. So I want you to try to approach
today's episode from that space, OK?
Do your best to keep an open mind as we explore another
attachment style and see what they've experienced, what their
experience has been like, what's LED them to this point, what
causes them to behave the the way that they do.
So let's get into it. There's a specific kind of
confusion that I don't think gets talked about enough.
It's not the kind of confusion of not knowing how someone feels
about you. It's the kind where you feel
their love so deep in your heart and bones one minute and then
watch as it disappears the next. I will never forget this night
from a few years ago with a guy I was seeing at the time.
We'd had one of those rare evenings with just the two of us
where everything just flowed effortlessly, where everything
felt right. Real conversation, real
laughter, real affection, the kind of closeness you can't fake
or manufacture. That night, as I placed my head
on my pillow, I couldn't help but think, this is it.
This is what it's supposed to feel like.
But the next day was a completely different story.
By that afternoon, he was totally gone emotionally, even
though physically he was still right there next to me.
Something had faded behind his eyes.
The warmth from the night before had been replaced by a cool
distance that lingered in the room.
My mind was racing. I kept replaying the previous
evening in my head, looking for what I'd done wrong, what I'd
said, what I'd been too much or not enough of.
It took me a long time, a lot of research, self reflection, and
of course, therapy to understand that it wasn't necessarily
anything that I'd done or not done.
What I was experiencing was that person's nervous system doing
exactly what it learned to do, protect instead of Kinect.
So here's the question I want you to sit with as we get into
today's episode. What if the person who keeps
pulling away from you isn't broken, isn't the enemy or a
villain, but is actually scared just like you and coping
differently than you do? By the end of this episode,
that's what you'll come to understand about the Avoidant
Attacher. If you have an avoidant
attachment style yourself, or you're disorganized but tend to
lean avoidant, I hope this deepens your self-awareness and
gives you a real path towards secure attachment.
And if you're anxious or disorganized but leaning
anxious, I hope this helps you better navigate your
relationships with the avoidance in your life.
Who knows, maybe you can even breathe new life into those
relationships with the knowledge you'll acquire today.
Here's what we'll cover in today's episode.
What avoidant attachment is. The avoidance nervous system and
the role of deactivating strategies.
Similarities and differences with anxious and disorganized
attachment styles. The anxious avoidant trap.
Of course, we have to go there. The Avoidant as villain fallacy,
which is a big part of what I want you to take away today,
Healing and secure alternatives. And then we'll close with a
little bit of AQ and A from questions taken straight from my
free support group for anxious attachers on Facebook.
So without further ado, let's get into the first part here.
What avoidant attachment is. Before we dive in, it's
important to call out. There's actually 2 attachment
styles that are labeled as avoidant, the dismissive
avoidant, which we'll unpack today.
When I say avoidant, I mean dismissive avoidant.
And then there's also the fearful avoidant, which I'll
refer to as disorganized throughout today's episode.
While there are certainly similarities between the two
different avoidant attachment styles, what's important to know
is that the fearful avoidant or disorganized attacher
experiences both anxious and avoidant attachment.
So it's actually a combination of those two experiences.
This is also why it's sometimes referred to as the anxious
avoidant attachment style. Again, for clarity purposes,
I'll refer to this style as disorganized from here on out.
I like the one word labels here. It makes it a lot easier to
discuss. Avoidant, anxious, disorganized,
secure. That is always how I will refer
to them. However, it's always important
to clarify and be specific. So for that purpose, I want you
to know when I say avoidant, I mean dismissive avoidant
specifically. So let's get into the dismissive
avoidance relational strategy. This is taken straight from my
book Needy No More. The earliest pages of the book
go into attachment theory, attachment science, and
attachment styles. So this is pulled from there.
The avoidance relational strategy is as follows.
They get chased and pursued, but they flee when the connection
deepens and things feel serious. Avoidance are naturally leaned
out of their relationships. They're extremely independent to
the point of sometimes seeing dependency as weakness.
The avoidance is also overly comfortable being alone.
They fear self abandonment and they abandon others to prevent
it. They avoid enmeshment at all
costs, very triggering for them. They also crave autonomy and
self-reliance. They're overwhelmed by deep
connection and emotional intimacy, even though they
desire it now. In terms of emotional needs,
many avoidance need a lot of space, a lot of breathability in
their relationships. They need that independence and
autonomy. They also need for things in
their relationship to feel easy, whether it's with a friend or a
romantic partner. They don't want their
relationships to feel like a lot of work.
That's very triggering for them. It feels to them like they're
being backed into a corner, like it's no longer fun or
worthwhile. Avoidance also crave a lot of
predictability control, even though they tend to do this and
crave this unconsciously. And as I mentioned just a few
moments ago, they also need connection.
They're human beings. They still need other people
even though at times they would prefer not to.
So what causes the avoidant attachment style to develop?
There are specific scenarios that actually lead to a child or
an adult developing this kind of attachment style.
The 1st is emotional neglect. Anytime there's a consistent
lack of emotional needs being met, someone learns to suppress
those needs. And many avoidance can relate to
this. They would rather pretend that
they don't need anything. They would rather suppress it,
deny their feelings, avoid their emotional experience because
it's incredibly triggering for them when it comes up.
It reminds them of the time or times where they've been left
with their pain by themselves. This leads us to the next point
about what can potentially lead to the development of avoidant
attachment, and that is parentification or having to
grow up or become independent too soon.
For many, avoidance. They learn from a very young age
that they need to be self reliant.
They can't rely on other people to get their needs met, so they
need to rely on themselves and that starts to create a bubble
of protection around them as you can imagine.
More generally speaking, any kind of inconsistency and
unpredictability either in the environment growing up and or in
adult relationships of any kind. This can be friendships or
platonic relationships as well as romantic relationships.
Shutting down becomes normal when you don't know how someone
will respond. That's natural.
It's a totally natural response to that kind of treatment or
those kinds of experiences. Loss or abandonment is also a
big factor in what leads to the development of an avoidant
attachment style. This also teaches self-reliance
and wires toward protection over connection.
If someone leaves you or there's a history of people leaving you,
of course you would learn to become self reliant.
Being abandoned once or many times will cause us to protect
our heart and cause us to potentially atrophy when it
comes to being able to be with our emotional experience.
Repeated rejection, betrayal, or abuse can also come into play
here. There's a lot of different
flavors of trauma that lead to the development of avoidant
attachment, but these are some of the most common.
Here's a good way of looking at avoidant attachment, and it
comes from Julie Manano, who is the author of Secure Love.
She says, quote, avoidant attachment isn't I don't need
you. It's often I want you.
And closeness feels risky. When things get too close, the
nervous system of an avoidant attacher can interpret it as
danger. I'll fail you, I'll be ashamed,
I'll lose myself, I'll get trapped.
So that nervous system protects with distance.
Understanding that doesn't excuse hurtful behavior, but it
does give you a doorway into change.
Think it's also important to note that many people will
equate avoid an attachment with emotional unavailability.
That's because avoidant attachers tend to have a pretty
low threshold when it comes to emotional exposure or
vulnerability. That vulnerability is very
triggering for them. And it's also important to note
that this can vary from person to person.
Not all avoidance are the same. There are degrees to this.
There are Shades of Grey to this.
Just like not all anxious attachers are the same and no
two people are the same. That is also true and applies to
avoidant attachers. So do your best not to judge all
avoidant attachers as being exactly the same.
They are not. Try to find more nuance than
that folks. Please, I beg you.
All right, next, let's talk about the avoidance nervous
system and the role of deactivating strategies because
this comes into play when you're relating with someone with an
avoidant attachment style. This is a big part of why this
is triggering for anxious attachers.
So before we go further, it's essential to speak about how the
nervous system of someone with an avoidant attachment style is
wired. I always try to bring it back to
nervous system regulation and dysregulation because that's at
the core of what drives insecure attachment of all kinds.
Anxious, avoidant and disorganized.
But that said, avoidance Learn early on in life that closeness
equals threat. This is not a conscious choice
or intentional behavior. It often happens below the
threshold or level of conscious awareness.
They have no idea that this is what they are doing.
That's because it's a survival adaptation.
It's a stress or trauma response.
Think of it as having that low threshold for emotional intimacy
that I mentioned just a couple moments ago.
That threshold is much smaller than that of someone with a
secure or anxious attachment style.
When closeness starts to exceed the avoidance window of
tolerance, their nervous system becomes activated and initiates
A protective or survival response.
This is precisely when avoidant attachers lean on deactivating
strategies, several examples of which I will provide
momentarily. These are attempts to create
actual physical distance or perceived emotional distance as
a means of regulating and coming back down into their window of
tolerance, back within the threshold of what feels safe to
them. So looking at this through the
lens of safety, you can start to have and maybe cultivate some
empathy for an avoidant attacher because they're doing this
because it does not feel safe for them to go to that level of
depth. Again, there are degrees to
this. Every person is going to have
different levels that they can access emotionally.
So this varies widely. OK, Please remember that.
That leads us to talking about triggers, because triggers are
what activate the nervous system and cause it to go into
dysregulation over repeated experiences of these triggers.
Criticism is by far one of the biggest triggers for an avoidant
attacher. If you are coming for their
character, their actions, if you're judging them, that is
going to be incredibly triggering for someone with an
avoidant attachment style. Please know this as an anxious
attacher. Reduce the criticism y'all.
Any attempts to control or manipulate them.
This. Really goes to the point of.
Of desiring a lot of independence and autonomy, not
feeling trapped or contained by a relationship.
So if you're trying to control them or how they behave, that's
going to be very, very triggering for an avoidant.
If they feel like someone is overly dependent or reliant upon
them, is quote UN quote needy. This is coming from the
avoidance perspective. But they can feel like if you
don't have other relationships outside of the one that you have
with them, or if you're constantly leaning on them,
constantly asking for reassurance, constantly
depending on them, then that can feel really scary to them
because again, they're afraid they're going to let you down.
They have a big shame or inadequacy wound from growing up
typically. So this is a big one for them,
also related but a little bit different, emotional intensity
and vulnerability. This speaks to that smaller
window of tolerance, that lower threshold that we were just
talking about when it comes to their nervous system.
If you are coming on strong right out the gate, if you just
met them, they're going to have a good amount of capacity at the
start, which is why many of us as anxious attachers are trying
to recapture this golden era of the relationship that typically
occurred at the beginning before the avoidant attacher exited
their window of tolerance, before they surpassed their
threshold here. But intensity emotionally or any
kind of vulnerability that surpasses that window of
tolerance or that threshold that that individual possesses will
be very triggering for them and cause them to shut down,
withhold, distract distance, etcetera.
And we'll get into some of those deactivating strategies in a
moment. Lastly here, although of course
not least, feeling forced to do something with no choice to
participate. I always tell my coaching
clients who are in relationships with someone who is avoidant,
you've got to give them the choice to walk through the door,
open the door for them, invite them in, but give the avoidant
the choice to say no. They have to feel like it's
their choice. Otherwise they're going to feel
manipulated, forced, backed into a corner, trapped.
And those are very, very scary propositions for them that
caused them to protect and take them out of a space of
connection. OK, so without further ado,
let's talk about deactivating strategies.
And when I say deactivating strategies, these are
specifically ways, techniques, actions, behaviors that someone
with an avoidant attachment style will engage in in order to
bring them back down into their window of tolerance from a
nervous system standpoint. Number one, criticizing or
nitpicking a partner. I know how ironic it is since
criticism is so deeply hurtful for the avoidant, but they will
nitpick or criticize the partner, not always verbally,
sometimes it's going on in their mind, but they will do this in
order to create emotional distance so that they feel more
comfortable, calmer within that window of tolerance.
So some examples would be thinking to themselves or saying
directly to their partner that they are needy.
This person so needy, why are they reaching out again?
Why can't they just let me be? Sound familiar?
OK, next, many avoidant attachers will fantasize in
their mind about being better off alone.
This is a way for them to deactivate their attachment
system and try to come back to baseline.
This really shouldn't come as a surprise though, right?
Because as someone who deeply values independence, autonomy,
self-reliance, believing they're better off alone actually is a
core belief that they possess. And it's reinforced in history
of relationships, typically for them where they've felt like
they can't really be themselves or when they have that that
hasn't been valued or appreciated.
Another deactivating strategy is stonewalling or giving the cold
shoulder. In other words, shutting down
emotionally, just completely distancing themselves, not
speaking to you, or even potentially ghosting.
This is a deactivating strategy. They're trying to come back down
to a baseline from a nervous system standpoint, and I know
it's hard to not take this personally.
Of course you're going to feel things in response, especially
if you're an anxious attacher. But this is ultimately not about
you. They're doing this because they
feel very deeply. The intensity that they're
experiencing internally is a kind of screaming that in order
to quiet it, they have learned they need to take space.
They cannot talk to you, they cannot go there emotionally.
It doesn't feel safe. Deliberately not responding to
messages creates distance of all kinds, emotionally, physically,
etcetera. Abruptly leaving with no
indication of when they'll return.
This is literally physically distancing yourself.
This could be. Indicative of a flight response
in the nervous system. Next one is a biggie.
Using sex substances and other numbing techniques to mitigate
their level of emotional availability.
So if you're dating someone with an avoidant attachment style,
they might potentially go out and hook up with other people.
Which I know is hurtful to think about, trust me, I get it.
But these are real things that avoidance will do in order to
make themselves not feel so emotionally exposed.
And last but not least, avoidant attachers will keep romantic
relationships casual and undefined.
They want things to be easygoing or easy, right?
Like I mentioned earlier, they don't want things to feel like
it's a ton of work. They want it to feel easy,
casual status quo. So let's talk about how the
avoidant is similar to and different from folks with an
anxious or disorganized attachment style.
It's actually very common to think of anxious and avoidant
attachment as opposites, and I've even referred to them that
way in my work. But I want to challenge you to
think about it differently here. They're actually two sides of
the same wound because both styles are organized around fear
and both are trying to avoid pain.
They just use mirror image strategies to try to manage
their fear and mitigate that pain.
The anxious person pursues connection to regulate because
to them or us as anxious attachers, closeness feels like
safety. Latching on causes us to be able
to calm or soothe ourselves. The avoidant distances to
regulate because to them space is safety.
But neither strategy truly works.
Latching on or just completely pushing someone away because
both are expressions of the nervous system trying to protect
itself from the same underlying fear of not being loved safely.
This is very important because it can create a bridge between
anxious and avoidant. You're both afraid.
You're both protecting. That's a commonality that can
create a sense of being a team instead of each of you being a
threat to the other. Here's a key reframe for anxious
listeners who feel the avoidant doesn't care.
The avoidant cares deeply, very deeply.
They're just regulating in the opposite direction.
In fact, avoidance will only distance themselves when they
care deeply. It seems irrational, I know, but
it is true. Them distancing themselves is a
reflection of how deeply they care about you, of how intense
their emotions are around the circumstances that involve you.
Big reframe there. The.
Disorganized attacher contains both the anxious and avoidant
tendencies simultaneously. Their internal experience looks
something like this I. Want you close?
Now you're too close and I need to flee.
I've fled and now I miss you. Come back.
This Jekyll and Hyde behavior isn't manipulation.
It's actually a reflection of a nervous system that's never
found a stable strategy for managing closeness.
So the pendulum swings from one extreme to the other in an
attempt to try to find that stability, although rarely if
ever does it find it, because that unpredictability and
instability can't create the stability that it is seeking.
Next, we need to talk about the anxious avoidant dynamic, or
trap as it's sometimes referred to on this topic, Pia Melody,
who's the author of Facing Love Addiction, writes.
It could be said that the love addict is a kind of liberal
about relationships, and the love avoidant is a kind of
conservative. Love addicts are constantly
seeking change to improve things in the relationship and to get
what they want, more contact or care.
On the other hand, love avoidance want acceptance of the
status quo, and so they work to keep the relationship stable,
predictable and unemotional. Love avoidance don't see change
as an advantage. Love addicts think that love
avoidance are the problem because they won't change.
But when the love avoidant contemplates a change requested
by the love addict, the love avoidant thinks that to change
is to capitulate or to be controlled by somebody else.
Stalemate. The love avoidant avoids
intimacy and is hypersensitive to any sense of being
controlled. The love addict seeks enmeshment
and is hypersensitive to any sense of being left.
I mean, talk about a mic drop moment.
And by the way, when PM Melody says Love Addict, she's
referring to the anxious attacher.
In her book Facing Love Addiction, she speaks directly
to anxious attachers about how anxious attachment can actually
be described as love addiction. I've talked about this
previously on the show, so it should be no surprise to those
of you who are caught up on the episodes, but I wanted to
clarify that before we proceed here.
But why is the anxious avoidant dynamic so hard to escape?
It is because it's a self reinforcing feedback loop and
each person's protection strategy is actively causing the
other person to employ their own.
In other words, they're triggering one another.
Here's how it plays out. The anxious partner feels
distance and responds by pursuing more, more emotional
bids, more requests for reassurance.
The avoidant partner feels pressured and trapped and
responds by withdrawing. They go quiet, they pull back.
They createspace in a number of different ways, using
deactivating strategies. That withdrawal spikes the
anxious partners fear of abandonment, naturally, which
only intensifies their pursuit. The increased intensity from the
anxious person spikes the avoidant partners fear of being
controlled or consumed, which intensifies the withdrawal, and
on and on it goes. It spirals downward from there.
Each person is doing exactly what their nervous system taught
them to do, and each person's response is confirming the
other's worst fear to the avoidant.
The anxious partners pursuit is essentially saying you're being
smothered to the anxious person. The avoidant partners withdrawal
is essentially saying you're being abandoned.
Neither of them is trying to trigger the other, but of course
both of them are. This is why understanding the
anxious avoidant trap matters so much.
Because you can't. Interrupt something you can't
see. Once you see it, you have a
choice, and that's where healing begins.
Now I want to talk about the relationship between Carrie and
Big on Sex and the City, just briefly, because in my opinion,
it's a prime example of how the anxious and avoidant attachment
styles trigger one another and exacerbate the worst fears in
each of them. Since we're focusing on the
avoidant attacher, let's hone in on Big.
Across several seasons of the show, he struggles to fully
commit to Carrie. Every time she brings something
emotional to him, he deflects and dismisses.
He jokes and tries to keep things light.
After years of breaking up and getting back together, he can't
seem to surmount his fear of letting Carrie down or fully
letting her in. It's actually really
uncomfortable to watch when you do it through the lens of
attachment theory or attachment science.
We see Big continue to abandon Carrie and yet not be able to
fully release her to be loved in the ways that she desires.
While this dynamic softens slightly in the And Just Like
That reboot, the core relational dynamic we see most intensely
reflected in Sex in the City remains.
This is not a good relationship to model after.
Everyone please. I think it's easier to see in
retrospect versus watching the show when it first came out, but
it is very apparent that they are in an anxious avoidant trap
now. I want to get.
To one of. Of my favorite parts of today,
because I think it's very, very important to reframe this for
those of us who are on the more anxious side of the attachment
spectrum. And that is the avoidant as
villain fallacy. If you have an anxious
attachment style, you've likely thought to yourself, I'll never
date another avoidant ever again after experiencing the deep
devastation of hot and cold behavior, inconsistent intimacy,
and emotional unavailability that being with an avoidant can
present. You might have even said to
yourself, I'll never put myself through that again.
First, I just want to say I get it.
I've experienced this first hand more times than I'd ever care to
admit. I put a lot of my life out there
on the Internet and in books and everywhere, so I've been very
forthcoming that I've experienced this myself.
So I really get it. Everyone OK.
Some of my lowest points have been after the completion of a
situation, ship, or a relationship with someone who is
dismissive, avoidant. But that is not what attachment
theory is for. It's not for dismissing another
group of people entirely based on a label that they identify
with, which is completely dehumanizing.
Ultimately, attachment styles and attachment science give us a
way to analyze. Our own relational history and
defined a secure path forward for ourselves.
That's honestly why it's so powerful.
It's self informed and it's experience dependent so it meets
you where you are and when it's put into practice properly, it
helps to propel you to a more secure place.
That is the power of attachment theory.
But when attachment science is weaponized against another
insecure attachment style like the avoidant, it becomes
problematic and reductive. I want to share a direct quote
from my book Needy No More. Here goes quote.
Avoidant attachers tend to have a bad rap, perhaps catching the
most Flack of any of the attachment styles.
That's because they present as emotionally undisturbed and
unusually unbothered. But it's all too easy to mistake
this facade as fact instead of the farce that it actually is.
Avoidant attachers care deeply. They're just afraid to show it
for fear of being manipulated or controlled or feeling
inadequate. They're just doing it because
they don't want to get hurt. Avoidant attachers have
experienced trauma too. It's about time we recognize and
validate it and stop blaming them for the ways in which they
learned how to survive. Here's the harsh truth everyone.
I'm going to be real with you. While someone with a dismissive
avoidant attachment style might be difficult to understand if
you have an anxious or even secure attachment style as their
needs are counter to yours, that does not mean they don't deserve
empathy because they do. But having said that, having
compassion for avoidance does not mean tolerating harm.
There's a difference between someone who's avoidant and
actively doing their own work, someone who is avoidant and
completely unaware of it, and someone who's avoidant seeming
behavior is a cover for something more harmful, like
narcissistic patterns, compulsive dishonesty, or
emotional abuse. Understanding someone's wound
doesn't require you to stay in the blast radius of it.
Compassion can be extended at a distance.
Remember that your resentment is data.
If extending compassion is costing you your sense of self,
that's no longer compassion, it's self abandonment.
We've talked about that on the show before.
So if you've been burned by an avoidant or several avoidance,
if you found yourself lying awake replaying conversations
trying to figure out what you did wrong, quote UN quote,
wondering why. Someone who seemed to care could
disappear so quickly. I want you to hear this clearly.
Their withdrawal was never really about you, it was about
their nervous system, which learned long before you ever
came along that closeness wasn't safe.
That doesn't mean the pain you experienced isn't real.
Wasn't real. It was and it is.
It absolutely was and is. But directing your anger at the
person rather than the pattern keeps you stuck.
And I think we can all admit that you both deserve better
than feeling stuck. Now, everything I do
professionally from an attachment standpoint is about
healing and growing more secure. So I want to talk about some
pathways for that to occur, first and foremost for the
avoidant who wants to heal. So if you have someone in your
life who you know is avoidant, send this to them because this
is what they can and should focus on in their healing.
And if you yourself are avoidant, please listen up
closely. This is what you need to focus
on in your healing, recognizing deactivating strategies as they
happen. Awareness comes before change.
Remember that awareness is always the first step to
healing. So what are the ways that you
deactivate? Write them down.
Make an audit for yourself. Think about the most recent
times that you were triggered and you wanted to distance
yourself or you got critical of that person.
Whenever you deactivate, what caused you to get there?
Next, you need to practice tolerance of closeness in small
doses. You want to dose the nervous
system and increase the exposure to this slowly over time,
gradually widening your window of tolerance.
Remember we talked about how that window of tolerance has
diminished from experiences in the past.
There's that low threshold. In order to expand that, you're
going to need to practice being close with other people and
showing your nervous system that it's not a threat.
That closeness doesn't mean that you'll be left, that you'll be
criticized, that you're going to lose yourself.
Speaking of threats, it is essential that you learn to see
other people's needs for clarity and communication in your life
as natural and not a threat to your sense of self.
People need to know where they stand when you go quiet.
When you distance yourself and take space unannounced without
being clear about when you'll return, that's very triggering
for other people. It does not mean that the space
you are taking is bad, but it does mean that you could be more
clear about when you'll re engage.
You might not know that, but at least giving someone some
clarity about hey, I think I might need a couple of days.
Why don't we touch base on Friday?
Could go a long way for you. So open up and communicate.
And yes, there are going to be people who get defensive and
blow up at you and get mad. Please don't look at that as a
reflection of whether or not your desire for space and your
need for space is valid. Because it is.
We all need space in a relationship, but we also need
clarity around when we're going to see that person next.
That provides the kind of safety for someone to be able to give
you that space. Becoming more comfortable with
healthy dependency, which we've kind of been talking about
throughout this. Leaning on others not meaning
you're losing yourself is a big part of this.
Micro dos it little by little depends where you wouldn't
normally depend on someone. It's going to be uncomfortable
but you have to retrain your nervous system and it only does
that through experience. This next one is essential.
You have to learn to self regulate which are already
really good at by distancing and Co regulate.
Both are necessary for real intimacy.
This is how we create interdependence instead of just
independence. Learn how to self regulate and
Co regulate. So learn how to be with your
feelings and be with the feelings of others and also talk
about your feelings with them. We're not meant to be alone.
We are a social species as humans.
That also applies to you, even though you would would prefer
that it didn't. Learning to communicate more
clearly and vulnerably, especially when the impulse is
to withdraw, is a big area of focus.
Learning to center the emotional experience of others, and not
just your own comfort level, is a big one too.
Because if you just leave when other people are experiencing
emotions, the relationship can't advance.
It can't deepen. And I know some of you might
feel more comfortable that way, but that said, it gets really
lonely. It does.
Working through your trauma with a therapist, a coach or mental
health professional is the last tip I recommend here.
You don't have to do all of this on your own.
And I mean, that's a big take away from all of these points.
Learning to Co regulate is about opening up, learning to
communicate to others, to honor other people's emotional
experience. This is all about opening
yourself back up. But in order to do that, you
might need to work with a professional who can help you to
process some of the original wounding events, some of the
protective patterns in your nervous system that cause you to
unconsciously behave in the ways that you have or do.
OK. Next is for the anxious attacher
who might be relating to someone who is avoidant #1 do not chase,
do not pursue. And you've got to give them
their space, and you have to mean it.
That space holds value for you too.
Please recognize that. Do not chase, do not pursue, do
not fix the avoidant. First of all, looking at someone
is needing to be fixed is incredibly demeaning and
demoralizing. So take the space.
You're not going to like it. It's going to be really
uncomfortable for you. But you also have to get in the
discomfort in order to grow, just like we're asking the
avoidant to do. But when I say you have to mean
it, you have to mean it. You can't take the space as a
tactical move to try to win over an avoidant.
You have to see the value of what it provides to you, even if
it's clarity about misalignment in that relationship.
Another recommendation for our anxious attachers out there is
to clarify expectations calmly and early when you first start
dating, talk about communication, talk about
affection, talk about intimacy. Talk about the things that
matter most to you before you catch feelings, before you're
afraid of losing that person and so you're self abandoning.
Any kind of ambiguity is going to amplify your anxiety, so keep
that in mind. Anxious attachers.
This is a big one. Learn to communicate without
escalating. Learning to communicate in a
regulated, clear, direct way lands a whole hell of a lot
better than when you are emotionally heightened.
I always tell my clients the first movement is in words.
So be with your feelings. Figure out what it is that you
need. What is the unmet need
underneath of the feelings that you are experiencing?
Go to that person, Explain to them how it felt for you and
what your experience was like. Try to bring them into it.
Be clear about what would help you to feel safer, more
appreciated, and more understood in the future.
If you can learn to do this, first of all, it'll help to weed
out people who just don't have the emotional maturity or
intelligence, who don't have the growth orientation or growth
mindset that so many of us are seeking.
So it is a way to assess alignment.
And when you don't open up and communicate like an adult, not
out of protest behavior, you actually sabotage yourself.
It is a form of self sabotage for sure.
So sharpen those skills and this is the work that I do with my
clients if you need someone to help.
Last but not least, here for the anxious attacher, you've got to
understand that when you pursue the avoidant, it's likely making
the dynamic worse. Even when it feels necessary for
your sense of safety, go and connect elsewhere.
Pursue safe spaces where you can be held, supported, heard, or
you can vent, or you can process verbally, because many of us do
that. But do not chase.
As we talked about in the part about the anxious avoidant trap
earlier, you're chasing only keeps you locked in the trap.
Before I talk about the next thing, I actually just want to
say this. A big part of relating securely
to someone who is an avoidant attacher is knowing your own
limits. Being honest with yourself about
when you've reached them is a big piece.
So that brings us to something I think is one of the most
important and least discussed aspects of loving someone with
an avoidant attachment style, and that is trying to find a
balance between compassion and self abandonment.
Compassion for an avoidant partner is wise, and it's
healthy up to a point. The line is crossed when you
find yourself constantly shrinking over accommodating or
abandoning your own needs to avoid triggering the avoidance
withdrawal. Your resentment is a reliable
signal for this, by the way. So when it builds and builds and
builds, it's telling you something important about where
your limits actually are, and that you might need to speak up
about this. There's also a difference
between being patient with someone's healing process and
accepting a permanent ceiling on intimacy. 1 is generosity, the
other is self abandonment dressed up as love.
I also want to talk about boundaries versus control
because this is a big topic and I've covered boundaries versus
requests and what boundaries are and aren't in a previous
episode. So if you want to do the deep
dive, go back and listen to or watch that episode.
But remember, a boundary is always about your behavior and
your own limits, never about changing or punishing someone
else. For example, you can say if you
keep canceling, I'm going to stop making plans with you.
That is a boundary. You're letting someone know I'm
not going to be reaching out again.
If you just keep canceling on me, I'm not going to tolerate
that. Now, if you say to someone
you're not allowed to see that person or that friend, that is
control. You're trying to control the
other person's behavior instead of being clear about your own.
Anxious attachers tend to use sometimes the language of
boundaries to describe what is actually an attempt to manage
someone else's behavior, especially when that someone
else is avoidant. That distinction matters
enormously in these dynamics because to an avoidant, control
and boundaries can feel identical and only one of them
is legitimate, healthy, and secure.
Only one of them is defensible and that is the boundary.
OK, we're at the final section here for today's episode and
this is AQ and a directly from the Needy No More Facebook
group, my support group for anxious attachers.
That's free on Facebook, so feel free to seek that out if that
would be helpful. And I'll drop a link to that in
the show notes as well. The first submission comes from
Gary who says we are 400 miles apart but message daily and Zoom
several hours every week. Then about once a year he needs
a recalibration of the relationship.
I'm messaging too much. I want more connection, then he
needs space. He's overwhelmed and my messages
are distracting and he can't be present in his life.
Then he wants to change to Zoom every other week.
I always accommodate. We both see other people for
physical intimacy because of the distance.
Then last week it was our week to talk.
He'd had another weekend with the same guy, which was the 8th
in a row. He uses this guy to run away
from his responsibilities every weekend.
We were scheduled to talk on Monday at 7:00, but I knew he'd
be tired from the weekend because he doesn't sleep well
when he shares a bed. He wanted to push to Tuesday at
7:00 and I said fine. Then on Tuesday at 5:15 he
messaged asking if I could talk at 5:45.
That a guy just contacted him to hook up and he's only in town
tonight. Not only was it last minute and
I was busy, but he was bailing on a scheduled meeting to hook
up with a stranger. I said no, have fun.
Then out of nowhere he said he wanted to take a break from
communicating with me because of my terse negative responses.
All I did was hold a boundary. He cancelled and I either took
his only time offered or nothing.
Then three hours later he was messaging which I ignored.
The next morning he messaged saying it seems like we're going
to keep triggering each other which causes unnecessary
suffering which to me just sounded like let's just end this
friendship slash relationship after five years.
A day later it's as if nothing happened.
I wanted to let some time pass before we discussed what
happened which I think we will do on Monday night.
I'm an anxious attachment and he is fearful avoidant.
I'm constantly working on my issues and he is not and thinks
it's all me. Wow, Gary, first of all, I'm
sending you a huge hug. OK?
Remember that someone with a fearful avoidant attachment
style is the most unpredictable of all of the attachment styles.
They're going to swing from one extreme to the other, closeness
to space needing you to not needing you.
There's a lot of volatility here and I can see why you wouldn't
appreciate these multiple switching of plans and the last
minute request to meet in 1/2 an hour and talk with the
justification that this person that you're talking to and in a
relationship with wanted to hook up with somebody else.
I imagine that could be triggering on some level for
you. So I just want to validate that
first and foremost, OK? The instability, the lack of
clarity, the last minute changes, they're all very
triggering to Someone Like You and someone like us as anxious
attachers. So please hear me when I say
that first and foremost, you are right to feel unsafe.
However, as always, I'm going to gently and compassionately share
some ways that you might have also exacerbated some of this.
When you say no, have fun, that is protest behavior.
You don't actually want him to have fun.
You want to connect with him. You wanted to speak with him.
So learning to say in that moment, hey, I'm busy, I already
have other commitments, but let me know when later tonight or
another time when we might be able to connect.
That would be what you truly desired.
You wanted to connect. You were feeling hurt about the
changes and about the lack of connection.
But this gets in the way when you're not honest about what it
is that you truly need and desire that only prevents you
from getting that need or desire met.
When I see here as well that he messaged 3 hours later and you
ignored and then he messaged the next morning and it triggered
you, Yeah, ignoring is never good.
It's emotionally immature. You always want to be honest and
upfront. So if you needed space, you need
to learn to say that, hey, I'm still feeling a little bit hurt
about some of the last minute changes here and I just need
some time and space to process. That's real, that's honest.
You're not too much for feeling the way that you feel, but you
need to learn to work with that energy too.
And again, a lot of the way that this relationship is structured
is very challenging with the physical distance, with all of
the unpredictability of this dynamic.
You should likely ask yourself or be asking yourself what's
keeping you in this because it almost felt to me when I first
read this and when I read it out loud, like there's just less and
less intimacy that's happening here.
You're both seeking physical intimacy elsewhere.
Open relationships are fine, but that's one less form of
intimacy. The physical distance, the
reduction in the amount of communication.
Going from Zooming several hours every week and messaging daily
and then recalibrating the relationship once a year or
reducing to changing to Zoom every other week.
I mean, it's really hard to find your footing when that footing
and foundation are constantly changing.
So you have to ask yourself, is this relationship aligned in the
ways that you need, Gary? So please reflect on that.
Next up is Heather. I keep thinking the avoidant is
Jekyll and Hyde. One minute they're all in and
saying good things, and then the next they are calling us names
or using blame and then they run.
Some come back and some stay gone.
Look, I hear you. It's really challenging
sometimes to experience that unpredictability.
One minute it feels great, the next minute they're gone.
I get that. I named that in the opening
monologue for today's episode. So I've been there and I totally
understand. That said, Jekyll and Hyde is
usually more of a description of the fearful avoidant or
disorganized attacher. Because they're shifting from
one strategy to the other, neither feels truly stable to
them, and so they'll swap from hour to hour or day-to-day or
week to week or month to month. Additionally, just like we've
explored today, someone operating one way one minute and
then changing another is a reflection of their nervous
systems capacity. Now, if they're not actively
working on expanding that capacity, then you might need to
ask yourself if it's the right relationship for you and if it's
aligned in the ways that you might need.
You're right, some are going to run and come back and then some
will stay gone. It's never about conflict, but
rather always about repair. So if someone can come back
after behaving that way and take ownership and then really truly
work and show you overtime that they're trying to be healthier,
it might be worth exploring that relationship further.
But ultimately that's up to you. This observation about Jekyll
and Hyde does tend to apply more to a disorganized attacher
though, but I could see why you would apply it in certain
instances with a dismissive avoidant.
Amanda says. My partner of three months left
2 1/2 weeks ago after acting happy the entire time.
The 180 turn was a matter of days.
He reported feeling depressed and was gone with a text to
break up after the weekend to ourselves.
I don't know if that's avoidant, but others have pointed out it
might be. He never tried to suggest
anything he wanted differently in the relationship.
That's so tough. That's so tough.
That three month period when you're first dating someone and
getting to know them is essential.
Essential. The three month rule is kind of
a golden standard for a reason because usually folks can't wear
a mask beyond that. So the mask came off, you saw
that this person didn't have the capacity that you thought that
they might have. This person isn't coming to you
and suggesting ways that you could better meet his needs,
which is helpful. We all need that.
None of us come with an instruction manual of how to be
loved. We have to teach other people
what works for us. So if someone's not doing that,
they're also self sabotaging in some way.
So you have to recognize these signs for what they are,
misalignment. This doesn't have to be a
judgement of this person. This doesn't have to be
indictment of their character, but it likely means for you,
it's not the right fit, which is hard to come to terms with.
You're going to feel some things in response to the way that you
were treated here. That's absolutely natural.
Take some time and space to process those feelings and seek
out your own support as well. I always think it's essential to
look at the ways that we can also improve in a relationship.
So take this as an opportunity to assess, looking back at your
string of relationships and your relational history, the ways in
which you can show up healthier as well.
Always an opportunity. Anita asks, what are their needs
in a relationship? I covered this earlier in
today's episode, but space, connection, support, autonomy,
independence, someone who can be patient with them, all very
important for and avoid an attacher.
All right, We had an anonymous submission.
Do they avoid an attachers actually think about us or miss
us or have loving feelings? If so, when, before, during or
after meeting? Or is it all a distant upper
level oxytocin and serotonin level achievement for them?
Only when they meet their partners physically and those
who agree to boundaries but then don't follow them through, what
is happening with them and how to handle that situation?
Should chances be given or should we drop them?
There's a lot of buzzwords here, but I want to try to distill
this down to what it's actually trying to do.
You're trying to get clarity around if, when, and how an
avoidant can show you that they care and if they're not
responding well to your boundaries, what you should do.
Those are the two things I'm taking away from this.
So first and foremost, as we discussed earlier in today's
episode, an avoidant will only distance or deactivate when they
are outside of their window of tolerance, when the level of
emotional exposure surpasses their capacity.
So actually, when they disengage, it's a good sign that
that person is actually feeling very deeply about you.
And I know it doesn't make a whole lot of sense and I know it
doesn't feel good, but learning to see that person's distancing
as their indication that they're overwhelmed emotionally and that
they feel very deeply can help you to cultivate some empathy
for them and to work with them through those reactions as a
team, right, In the spirit of creating a healthier connection
and breaking the anxious avoidant trap.
So you say to those who agree to boundaries, but then don't
follow them through, what is happening with them, how to
handle that situation? I mean, at the end of the day,
we have to reiterate boundaries to folks.
It's not just a one and done kind of thing.
And for many avoidant attachers, like I mentioned a bit ago,
boundaries feel confining, they feel constraining, they feel
like they're trapping them. So help them to understand that
this is not about controlling their behavior, that it is about
creating a safer connection for you.
And remember, boundaries are about your behavior, not about
theirs. Should chances be given or
should we drop them? I mean, ultimately the number of
chances you give depends on the connection, the person you're
with, how long you've been together, the indication or
demonstration that they're working on themselves, that
they're working with you on the relationship.
Should chances be given? I mean, yes, I don't think this
should be like a you violated my boundary and now I'm ending the
relationship. But I think you reiterate with a
stern tone and say to them, hey, you know, I'm not really
understanding what's getting in the way here.
Can you help me understand why this might be difficult for you?
OK, next, Mary, how can they be happy to see you?
Hugs, kisses. I love you one minute and that
discard you an hour later. Literally an hour.
Were the entire three years we were together all an act?
Did they actually feel nothing the entire time?
No. Again, I know the exterior,
which is a facade of an avoidant can make it seem like they're
unbothered. They don't care.
They don't feel anything, but they are feeling a lot.
Their switch up from saying I love you one minute to
discarding you an hour later demonstrates their capacity.
It doesn't demonstrate the level of care.
Please know they care very deeply, but a lot of avoidance,
not all. Again, there are shades to this,
but many avoidance out there don't have the tools or the
capacity. They didn't have this modeled
for them and they haven't sought it out for themselves or learned
how to apply it. So you can see that with empathy
from a distance. If that's how this person is
going to treat you, it does naturally beg the question, are
they coming back to repair? Are they taking accountability
for creating volatility? How do they respond to this?
Or do they just never reach out again?
Because if so, then you have your answer about where you
stand. The confusion is the clarity.
Pamela, how can you tell if someone is either an avoidant, a
sex addict, or has narcissistic personality disorder?
This is a complex question. I'm going to do my best to
answer it at a very high level, given that I'm not a licensed
mental health professional. OK, but someone with an avoidant
attachment style can access empathy.
Someone with a narcissistic personality disorder struggles
to do so. The avoidant, remember, has
learned to protect. But it doesn't mean that they
cannot connect. The narcissist will protect.
They'll deflect too. They'll turn everything around
on you. So there are similarities, but
narcissistic personality disorder is extreme.
It is rare, although words like toxic and narcissistic are
thrown around all the time. I would say narcissistic
personality disorder is of unchecked avoidant attachment
and more specifically the trauma that causes avoidant attachment
that has become so deeply ingrained in the nervous system
that the levels of protection are impossible to breakthrough.
Sex addict. We talked about how folks with
an avoidant attachment style will sometimes use sex to
mitigate the level of emotional intimacy or exposure in the
relationship. But sex addiction is another
thing entirely. OK, not all avoidance are sex
addicts. Not all avoidance are
narcissists. While an avoidant attacher is to
some degree emotionally unavailable.
As is the anxious attacher, by the way.
I would describe a sex addict and a narcissistic person,
someone with narcissistic personality disorder, as being
so unavailable emotionally that it's a completely different
stratosphere to an avoidant. Either way, I think Jillian
Torecki's quote applies here, which is something I think about
all the time. People spend too much time
analyzing the emotionally unavailable person and not
enough time walking away from them.
So try to bring the focus back to yourself.
I know you want to understand why they're behaving the way
that they do. It's more important to look at
what the dynamic is teaching you about yourself and whether or
not it's in alignment with what you need.
That's where the gold really is. All right, last but not least of
today's episode, Paul asks why are they so secretive?
And why do most cheat and lie? Most avoidant attachers don't
cheat. Some might lie, but we all do
that. There's a lot of judgement in
some of these questions. Why are they so secretive?
We talked about why they protect their nervous system, has
learned. That if they open up, they'll be
criticized, they won't have their needs met.
Nothing is ever good enough for other people.
I understand that dishonesty, secrets, infidelity are not good
for a relationship. They're not healthy.
But not all avoidance are like that.
Some are, some aren't. It depends on the person, and
that's a great note to end today's episode on.
When it comes to attachment theory, look at the person and
not the label. Remember, the avoidant attacher
is not the enemy. They're not evil, they're not a
villain. They have been traumatized too,
doesn't mean that you have to stick around as they work.
Through. That trauma, but if they're
showing you that they are, if they're showing you that they
can repair, if they're showing you that they're willing to work
with you as a teammate, that might be someone worth sticking
it out with. All right, Really powerful stuff
today. This is the longest podcast
episode I've ever done. This is a big topic avoidant
attachment. I've done my best to approach
this with as much compassion as possible.
I look forward to hearing your comments on Apple, on Spotify,
and elsewhere. And as always, you can drop me a
note at me at crackliff.com.