There may be no official scoreboard in romantic relationships, but certain partnerships seem to produce clear winners and losers when it comes to the amount of effort, attention or affection being contributed by each side. This is especially true when someone with a so-called anxious attachment style becomes involved with a so-called avoidantly attached mate.
Such relationships are generally characterized by a repeating pattern in which one person pursues greater closeness while the other person periodically pulls back with little or no explanation. This retreat then triggers the first person’s anxiety (“What did I do wrong?” “Do they still care?” “How can I get us back to where we were?”), leading to increased effort that inadvertently pushes the avoidant person farther away (“This is too intense!” “Why won’t they give me the space I need?”). Sometimes the very first cycle is enough to break the relationship, but quite often it simply reoccurs at semi-regular intervals, causing significant distress to both partners.
Unfortunately for the anxiously attached person, this distress is amplified by a feeling of powerlessness. Every natural instinct they have — to try harder, be a “better” partner, fix the problem — is met with failure and rejection when the avoidant person puts up a wall. They feel lost and out of control emotionally. What may have started as relatively low-level anxiety is now a level-10 crisis.
The objective observer might see a number of possible resolutions at this point — first and foremost, to stop chasing someone who is clearly feeling overwhelmed to the point of running away. But it is the rare person who can think and act with rational detachment when they are filled with anxiety about someone they love. So instead, the anxious partner continues to chase.
There is a more realistic — and, I think, much more effective — option when it comes to breaking the anxious-avoidant relationship cycle: channeling the energy used for chasing and directing it inward. This may look different depending on the person. It could mean working on building self-esteem, or addressing past traumas and other wounds that came before this romantic relationship. It could even mean strengthening areas of a person’s life that are separate from their partner, such as career, friendships or recreational hobbies. They can continue to focus on their relationship, of course, but they must try to resist the urge to close the space their partner has temporarily opened up between the two of them.
The energy an anxious person expends while worrying about the elements of their relationship or their partner’s personality they can’t control is energy that leaves them depleted. If they expend that same energy on themselves, however, it can be empowering. At the very least, it interrupts the anxious-avoidant cycle long enough to give both parties some breathing room and, hopefully, some perspective on whether this pairing is actually working for each of them.
Loving someone whose past experiences contributed to an avoidant attachment style is challenging. It will likely always include situations where an anxious partner will feel triggered by the sudden appearance of a wall. If those situations become too frequent, it may be best for the couple to go their separate ways.
But the temporary wall can also offer a chance for both individuals to reconnect with what they each need from the relationship and from the other person. For the anxious partner, that self-knowledge is something truly worth chasing.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: Ruel Abadam on Unsplash
