Do you identify with having an avodiant or Anxious Attachment Style?

The real pain of having an anxious or avoidant attachment style.

As a self-identified anxiously attached individual, I can wholeheartedly say I have previously been drawn to relationships with men that have avoidant tendencies. This was not something I was conscious of in my twenties and thirties. Even now I must work hard to tune into myself and talk gently to my insecurities. I am just now thankful I am more aware and awake to it.

The avoidant man is usually uncharacteristically confident when he is first drawn to you. His intrigue and communication appear reasonably consistent at the beginning and sincerely promising. There feels like a light heartedness in the way he approaches you. It feels good. You feel like your chosen and special. Yet underneath it all when you look back and reflect, there was always a sense of hesitance in his part. At the beginning of dating if we have not figured out our values and boundaries, we often become invested too soon. We are swept up in the giddiness, feeling like we are both moving in the same direction.

If you identify as having an anxiously attached romantic style or are longing to find love, you are less likely to intuitively tune into the resistance that lingers on his side. You may also appear extremely easy going at the beginning when the stakes are not so high. However as soon as a man that may show signs of fearing intimacy by constantly being busy, or he only meets you at a place that is safely constructed by him, the hyper vigilance kicks in. He hides his armour to start with but the further in you delve the easier it becomes to detect his walls. I may generalise a little here based on my own personal experiences, I am acutely aware that every relationship between two uniquely individual people has its own journey and pattern. Please note this situation can be reversed - a woman can identify as being avoidant and a man anxious or in same sex couples.

A securely attached person is generally able to give and receive love in equal measures. They are open to the journey of love in a healthy and approachable manner. They don’t have the insecurities that lie in the depths of someone who is afraid of intimacy and reacts by withdrawing. Or on the other end of the spectrum, those who are anxious are hyper vigilant to rejection and alert for any signs of abandonment. The secure person can normally sense someone’s else withdrawal or fear and allow a little more space or can help soothe insecurity. A powerful trait a secure person holds is a felt sense of when to leave a relationship that doesn’t meet the needs that they are looking for. I high five securely attached individuals and long for a huge slice of what they have. That’s not to say they don’t come with their own set of insecurities or confidence crises from time to time, but they manage uncertainty more fluidly and have an innate sense of their own value. Having this as their core place allows them the space to genuinely check in with their own feelings. Avoidants and anxiously attached people are allows focused on the other. What do they want from me? How can I say no? How can I pull back? Do they really want me? It is a painful internal battle that makes relationships fraught and confusing.

Needless to say, both types are attracted to each other as it resembles the difficult relationships they most likely had in childhood. Potentially their relationships with their parents or a past intimate relationship. It re-enacts what is familiar. Most people in their twenties are not mature enough to identify their attachment style as they have had limited experience in relationships. It is not until you have gone through some painful realisations you stop in your tracks and notice a pattern. Relationships aren’t a “School Subject” Yes, we are taught to be kind, understanding and patient with others. Normally our peers in a classroom. Specific lessons are not geared towards helping young people navigate relationships and communicate in a healthy way in romantic relationships. It isn’t top of the academic achievement list. Yet in adulthood these problems can be excruciatingly painful. Of course, life experience is often our lessons. As youngsters we do not have the capacity to question these traits in us, until we live them.

There is a thread in the anxiously attached person that finds letting go extremely hard. Others may look and think “It must be time you have moved on” or “It wasn’t that serious” but often childhood trauma or lack of self-worth keeps the attachment constantly alive in their body and circles and ruminates in their mind. There is an insecurity that screams “I am not enough; they will leave me” so they constantly seek reassurance. I can’t wholeheartedly speak for an avoidant but through training to be a counsellor I spent many sessions with those that felt the fear and could explain it to me. It often shows up as fear of engulfment or fear that they aren’t enough for the other. That the other is too demanding. It may show up in over thinking and over planning. “What if this and what if that happens” They tend to live in their head. A secure person may be happy to show up in the unknown and be spontaneous and hopeful but the battle between the two types at the opposite end of the spectrum keep reading the other as - unsafe.

The book “Attached” by Dr Amir Levine and Rachel S.F Heller was a real shift for me personally. It validated the fear within me. I realised that I wasn’t needy or too much. I become aware that my style of being in a romantic relationship required a more accepting approach in the other. If I attract someone who can’t give me what I need, I must be able to walk away. I also had to own my insecurities and find value in myself from within. All these things are easy in theory, but the magic happens when you genuinely find your own worth. You sincerely get to a place when you are drawn to a person who has the same shared goal as you. Until then, you may bounce from heartache to heartache wishing and hoping for change in the other. Each time diminishing your own light and always believing “I am too hard to love”.

To all those who identify with avoidant tendencies I invite you to look within too. I have a dear friend who is avoidant and as I listen to him in our regular therapeutic settings my shoulders relax. My breathe settles and my compassion for him deepens. He comes with his own set of vulnerabilities where he contracts into his safe world when things become too intense for him. I see how he compartmentalises emotions and can sense his fear of truly trusting the process and letting go. Through the deep work I’m experiencing training to be a counsellor, I can see the world through the lenses of others within my training group. I am now able to understand and empathise with their journey. We all perceive the world from our own personal viewpoint and past experiences. Mentalising how the other see’s the world can go a long way to becoming more compassionate.

If you are in a relationship or feel bound by someone who can’t give you what you need or feel smothered, I invite you to look within. What’s burning inside that needs to be heard and healed? What past relationships have led you to repeat approach/avoidance tendencies? What are your values and what are the values you seek in another that feels right for you? If you are not ready for a relationship stay with yourself. Get curious about what is moving in you that has made relationships painful? Don’t avoid it. Befriend it. Really commit to go there until you feel harmony and safety in yourself. Relationships can be wonderful and beautifully complicated but also manageable with honest and open communication. As a society we are often so afraid of owning our own truth and then conveying it to the other. All the conditioning as children and past disappointment’s often leads us to freeze, run or fawn. That’s ok. Notice it and become of aware of where the roots lie. The beautiful journey of life is to come home to ourselves. Once you’re ready to look within you can gently unveil all the defences you have formed as a protective shield and say, “Hey I am finally ready to go on a journey with you now, show me how to heal so I act from a place of safety, trust and love”.

Can you relate to any of the above? Does any of this resonate with you?