Avoiding What We Long For: Avoidant Attachment Style

What drives people into the push-pull of the avoidant attachment style?

In my last blog post I talked about anxious attachment (or love addiction). This is the attachment style which shows up as clinginess or neediness, and it's not so difficult to understand - you can read about it here if you missed it.

Avoidant attachment is a little harder to understand, but it may be familiar to you if you've been on the receiving end of it. People with avoidant attachment are sometimes described as love avoidant. This is part of the picture, as when we have an avoidant attachment style we do avoid the extremes of closeness and intimacy. But...

Love avoidant people go through cycles of attracting and then avoiding closeness. The very human drive to connection first manifests in a phase of 'seduction' as they do all they can to invite their partner (or a date) into close connection. But then as the other person responds with demands for deeper levels of intimacy, the love avoidant starts to feel the pressure and backs away, putting distance between them and their partner.

This pattern is all the stronger because love avoidants tend to be attracted to people who are love addicted (ie having an anxious attachment style).

How does avoidant attachment develop?

Like all attachment styles, avoidant attachment develops in childhood. Classically it's an adaptive response to a parent or caregiver who was emotionally intrusive or even abusive. Let me give you an example.

John (not his real name) was raised from the age of 11 by his mother, following his parents' divorce. John has a younger twin brother and sister who were six when their father left. Suddenly John found himself being the 'man' of the house. His mother not only expected him to mind the twins when she went out to the local store, but she also turned to him for comfort and emotional support.

In the years that followed her demands increased. She would ask him to babysit the twins in the evening when she went out, and she continued to turn to him for emotional support even when her love affairs went awry. But the love affairs were infrequent and as the object of his mother's strongest attachment, John experienced her neediness as engulfing and emotionally draining.

When John resisted his mother's attempts to foist his brother and sister on him, she would accuse him of selfishness. And when he started to stay out late with his own friends, refusing to comply with her 10pm curfew, she would plead and cry telling him how much she worried about his safety.

On the other hand, John's experience also included a sense of abandonment as his mother was not there for him. The relationship was all one way with John being expected to provide for his mother's emotional needs without receiving anything in return.

The draining nature of his mother's attachment was too much for John. His response to his mother's intrusiveness was to withdraw and avoid emotional 'entanglements'. This avoidant attachment style made sense when John was still a boy, but in adult relationships it would prove maladaptive.

John's relationships pretty much stuck to the same pattern. He would always pick the same 'type' - a woman who was hungry for love, anxious and insecure. Initially he would shower her with love and affection. She would respond in kind, with outpourings of love. The honeymoon period would last for a short while and then as the intensity of the relationship increased, John's own anxiety about being emotionally entangled would push him to withdraw behind a wall.

This period would be characterised by endless arguments as John withdrew into his work, nights out with his friends and weekends on the golf course. And she would respond by complaining about how he was never there with her and that she seemed to matter less than his golf clubs.

The more she pushed him to spend time with her, the more he withdrew. On the occasions when she could trap him in the kitchen and have it out with him, the arguments were bitter and they threw insults at each other. These arguments generally ended with his wife in tears complaining about how lonely she was. Unfortunately John was triggered by his wife's tears as they reminded him of his mother's crying, and he could only see tears as manipulation. At this point he would storm out leaving his wife alone and desolate.

Eventually John started an affair with a colleague. The affair became the reason for divorce, and then without pausing for breath, John married his colleague and the cycle repeated. After the third divorce, John knew that he had to do something and he had the maturity to realise that maybe, just maybe, he was part of the problem.

So what's the answer?

For anyone who like John has an avoidant attachment style, part of the process of recovery is to be able to distinguish healthy intimacy from unhealthy intrusiveness. This may be simpler if your partner has a secure attachment style. But if your partner has an anxious attachment style, they will likely be 'boundaryless' demanding more from you than is healthy. As this reminds you of the intrusiveness of a parent who was also boundaryless, it is natural to withdraw behind a wall.

However it is not relational to withdraw! You can ask your partner for limits if they are over-sharing, and in return you can offer to be more available emotionally.

Here are five things you can do to help you come out from behind your wall:

1. Start by noticing and writing down what you are withholding from your partner. For instance 'I stay late at work every day in order to avoid spending time with my partner.'

2. Write a list of things you are prepared to do as a first step towards greater connection. It doesn't need to be a long list.

3. Have a conversation with your partner about what they can do to make it easier for you to be more available for closeness and emotional intimacy.

4. Keep a trigger diary. When your partner has said or done something that 'makes' you want to retreat behind your emotional wall, write it down. Then ask yourself what it reminds you of. What happened to you in childhood that parallels this episode now? And realise that it's not what your partner did, but the memory of what happened in childhood which triggered you. You can download my Trigger Tracking Form to help with this.

5. If you feel safe to do so take time with your partner to talk about why you get triggered. The healing of childhood hurts is easier when we do it in a loving relationship. And remember to use words like 'I feel X when you do Y' rather than 'You make me feel X when you do Y.'

If you would like some support with this, get in touch. You can book a Clarity Call and I will help you start to unpick how your attachment style developed out of your childhood experience and how you can begin to heal those hurts and find a way towards a more secure attachment style.