Ever felt like someone is crowding you? Or dated a partner who runs the other way the minute things got a bit serious? If that sounds familiar, then you’re probably dealing with an avoidant attachment style.
Attachment styles, a concept pioneered by psychoanalyst John Bowlby and further developed by Mary Ainsworth, essentially become the template for how we approach romantic relationships.
So, out of all these attachment styles, avoidance is often the most misunderstood. People with this attachment style still crave a deep and loving bond, but they’re held captive by fear of vulnerability, leading them to construct formidable emotional barriers.
In this article, we will explore that what is avoidant attachment? its origins, how it appears in adult relationships, and effective ways to overcome it for lasting love.
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What is Avoidant Attachment?
In a nutshell, what is avoidant attachment? It’s a style of insecure attachment. Avoidant attachment means you have a strong need to be fiercely independent, and you get uncomfortable when others try to get too close. People learn at an early age that depending on others is risky, unreliable, and unpredictable. They internalize a feeling that they must be self-reliant in order to survive.
What might you see? This is often what’s referred to in psychological circles as avoidant dismissive attachment (dismissive avoidant). These adults typically believe they are totally self-sufficient. They generally look down upon people who are in need of others. In relationships, they resist vulnerability and tend to push romantic partners away. They protect themselves from rejection, judgment, and being overwhelmed.
The Types of Avoidant Attachment
Avoidance takes on all kinds of shapes. When it comes to classifying the various flavors of avoidant attachment, therapists tend to classify it into one of two camps, depending on the person’s outlook on themselves and the world.
Dismissive-Avoidant Attachment
In this case, a person feels good about themselves but has a negative view of other people. These people are of the mindset that they just don’t need a partner to achieve happiness. To these people, neediness is the root of all problems.
Fearful-Avoidant Attachment
It is also known as disorganized attachment. Here, people view both themselves and the people around them in a negative light. They desire intimacy above all else but are afraid of intimacy at the same time. In short, you’ve probably experienced a push-and-pull scenario, and to recover from fearful avoidant attachment, you’ll need to come to terms with both the fear of being alone and the fear of closeness.
What Causes Avoidant Attachment?
Avoidant attachment isn’t a state you’re born in. For the most part, how our earliest primary caregivers treat us will determine the attachment style we develop. What makes someone have an avoidant attachment style?
- Emotionally distant or unavailable parents
- Parents who didn’t seem to be emotionally connected or available
- Caregivers who emotionally neglected them and their feelings
- Caregivers who dismissed or belittled their vulnerability
- Caregivers who overly stressed independence and self-sufficiency
- Parents who punished, shamed, or rejected them for expressing emotions
- Parents who were unreliable and unpredictable in emotional support
- Being rejected or criticized repeatedly for emotional needs
- Parents who did not demonstrate or offer emotional intimacy
- Parents who encouraged them to “stuff down” their emotions to feel safe.
Signs and Symptoms of Avoidant Attachment in Adults
If you know how to identify the traits of an avoidant attachment style, then you can gain more insight into your own behavior. Avoidant attachment, when present in adults, doesn’t often look like pure negativity and anger. It looks more like emotional withdrawal or avoidance (either subtle or obvious).
Common Avoidant Attachment Symptoms & Traits
- The Deactivating Strategy”: Once a relationship starts getting close/serious, they unconsciously develop some flaw in their partner, which allows them to pull away.
- Hyper Independence: Unable to ask for help under circumstances which could overwhelm anyone because dependency is terrifying.
- Keeping parts of their lives extremely private: They have secrets to keep some parts of their lives inaccessible, to keep their life in total control.
- Ideal relationship: long-distance, unattainable people, purely physical relationships, etc.
- The phobia of commitment: You feel physically trapped, anxious, and even choked when they begin to discuss marriage, moving in, or exclusivity.
A scientific avoidant attachment test can inform you of your place on the scale if you’re not sure. Additionally, it can shed some light on what kind of avoidant attachment style traits and baseline you maintain.
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The Avoidant Attachment Style in Relationships
An avoidant attachment relationship often involves a push and pull dynamic where both the “getting close” and then suddenly and seemingly “pulling away” moments happen again and again in the same sequence, where “when things are going really, really well, that’s when your avoidant partner’s danger bells go off and then it’s time to step away”. When dating, extremes often are catastrophic and there is called the Anxious-Avoidant Dance.
The more the anxious partner fears that the change signifies rejection, the more he will seek out reassurance; this further overactivates the avoidant partner’s nervous system, prompting him to flee faster. If you want to end this destructive cycle in an otherwise loving relationship, it is imperative that you know something about avoidant attachment. In avoidant vs anxious attachment, the structural difference between each of their responses to fear are as distinct as:
| Feature | Anxious Attachment Style | Avoidant Attachment Style |
| Core Fear | Abandonment, rejection, being unloved. | Loss of autonomy, suffocation, vulnerability. |
| Response to Conflict | Chasing, demanding reassurance, hyper-activating. | Withdrawing, shutting down, deactivating. |
| View of Intimacy | Craves it constantly to feel stable and secure. | Views it as a direct threat to independence. |
How to Deal with an Avoidant Attachment Partner?
It takes a ton of patience, emotional intelligence, and concrete boundaries to know how to love and manage someone with an avoidant attachment style. If the person you love has this attachment style, it is not through anger or making them feel bad that they will be open to anything.
Major Guidelines for handling an avoidant attachment style partner:
- Don’t punish them: Allow space. When an avoidant type withdraws, don’t try to immediately confront them or the behavior. This only further solidifies the negative feelings of having their boundaries crossed, and they will become totally shut down. They will know you are available when they choose to reach out.
- Use “I” statements: “You never talk to me” is an accusatory “you” statement, as opposed to “I feel alone and distant from you when we can’t talk at the end of the day, and I would really appreciate it if we could just sit together on the sofa, quiet, for ten minutes.”
- Support their independence: Support their individual friendships, hobbies, and solitary time. When your avoidant partner feels that they can maintain who they are in the relationship with you, they are then more likely to be able to invest emotionally in you.
How to Heal and Overcome an Avoidant Attachment Style
If any of these traits sound familiar, don’t worry; your attachment style doesn’t have to be this way forever. You can shift your insecure style into an earn-secure, secure avoidant attachment (sometimes known by psychologists as “earning security”). Learning how to overcome avoidant attachment style or heal from it comes down to retraining your nervous system so that it perceives closeness as safe, not threatening. Your roadmap to healing avoidant attachment:
1. Pinpoint your deactivating strategies
In what situations does your partner begin to turn negative about you? Are they truly ‘too loud’, ‘too needy’, or ‘not smart enough’-or is your mind fabricating criticisms to avoid the deep work that comes with true intimacy? Recognize your fear behind these judgments.
2. Choose to feel into discomfort
When the urge to disappear or bolt appears, choose to feel it instead. Recognize and try to remain in the room or send a text message saying ‘how I feel’ instead of disappearing altogether. This practice is the foundation for how to fix avoidant attachment.
3. Assert your need for distance
Instead of cutting someone off abruptly without explanation: “I love you, and I want to work on this but I am feeling a little too overwhelmed to do so right now. I am going to take an hour for myself to collect myself. I promise I will return and finish this conversation with you.” This one habit lays out how to stop avoidant attachment during conflict.
4. Reframe Vulnerability as Strength
Courage isn’t putting on armor and projecting ultra-independence. True courage is letting someone see the flawed, unmade parts of you. Try and rewire your thoughts to know that dependency is what it means to be human.
5. Seek Professional Support
Unpacking how to fix an avoidant attachment style is incredibly difficult to do alone because these defenses are deeply rooted in childhood survival. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and psychodynamic therapy can help you process past childhood emotional neglect, allowing you to master how to heal avoidant attachment style for good.
Final Note
At the very core of dealing with avoidant attachment as part of a couple is working to achieve a secure style. A secure bond is not an absence of space or a lack of independence. Instead, it is a secure place that allows for individuals to thrive freely while simultaneously remaining attached and grounded in each other.
Whatever your process is in overcoming your own boundaries and determining how to fix avoidant attachment, or whether it is learning how to connect to your partner, keep this in mind: consciousness is half of the solution. Awareness and the conscious decision to lean into vulnerability rather than independence can be used to ultimately create the secure, in-depth, fulfilling love story of a lifetime. MAVA Behavioral Health helps individuals and couples overcome challenges related to attachment and emotional distress with a compassionate, evidence-based approach.
FAQs
What mental health concerns do you treat?
MAVA Behavioral Health treats attachment-related issues, anxiety, depression, relationship problems, and emotional regulation issues.
Do you address avoidant attachment?
Yes MAVA Behavioral Health does handle issues with attachment styles, as care will involve clinical assessment and medication management where appropriate to assist with emotional regulation and well-being.
Is couples therapy available?
Yes, couples therapy is available to aid in healthy relationships, trust, intimacy, and communication.
What does treatment look like at MAVA Behavioral Health?
Treatment is customized and can include a variety of interventions such as an in-depth clinical assessment and current medication management. Our aim is for all patients to achieve stability, symptom alleviation, and well-being.
How long will therapy last?
The length of therapy can differ based on what you are seeking. However, clients often find they are beginning to feel changes within weeks or months.
