How Avoidantly Attached People Can Have Healthy Relationships

There was a point in my life when I was pretty sure that my type was avoidant men. They didn’t look the same or have the same type of jobs. The one thing they shared was a pathological fear of intimacy and a tendency to spook when anyone got close enough to know them.

For a long time, part of my recovery from relationships involved dodging these types of men. I’d been down that road, and there was no way I was going to spend the rest of my life playing cat-and-mouse with someone in a relationship. But then I thought about it: Am I being unfair to avoidantly attached types?

What is Avoidant Attachment Style?

The Cleveland Clinic defines avoidant attachment style:

“Avoidant attachment can look like an adult who is a “lone wolf” or overly self-sufficient. People with an avoidant attachment style are likely to not delve much into emotional conversations, either in regard to their own feelings or those of others. An avoidant attachment style often stems from a relationship between a primary caregiver and a baby that’s marked by a lack of emotional support or connection.

Adults with an avoidant attachment style can be seen as self-reliant and emotionally guarded. They’re unlikely to seek emotional comfort or understand how to comfort their partner.”

As a mental health clinician, I understand how attachment styles form and how they impact adult relationships. It’s not that I don’t have empathy for those who experience this attachment style. Rather, I’ve learned that I am capable of secure attachment even though I grew up with all the markers of an anxious attachment style. If I’m going to be with a partner, I want it to be someone capable of growing into that same kind of security.

Healthy Relationships & Avoidant Attachment Style

People who are avoidantly attached can still have healthy relationships. It just requires two key components, and these components have to coexist. They need to be self-aware, and they need to be willing to work on their avoidant tendencies.

Self-Awareness

Self-awareness is a first step. It means that the person in question has done the work of figuring out that they have some issues around commitment and intimacy that likely stem from how they were raised (or later issues in relationships). They know that they have a problem that can negatively impact relationships.

Belf-awareness alone is not enough. Unfortunately, this is where the work stops for many avoidantly attached people. They know that they’re like this, but they think everyone else should learn to live with it. They aren’t capable of healthy relationships at this point because they haven’t truly become accountable for their relational style — or its impact on partners.

Willingness to Work

The avoidantly attached person who is self-aware, accountable, and willing to work on their issues can make a wonderful partner. They realize that they can’t just expect the world around them to adjust to their intimacy issues. Instead, they make a concerted effort to overcome them. They’re capable of talking through what’s happening and how they’re feeling. They’ve learned to advocate for what they need. They don’t expect partners to read their minds, and they don’t blame their internal tendencies on others.

We aren’t responsible for the attachment styles that developed from the way we were parented, but we are responsible for how these styles impact our adult relationships. Once we recognize that we have trouble connecting with others, it’s our responsibility to learn new ways of being in relationships. We take the self-awareness and combine it with work to create true and lasting change.

I know that I have been anxiously attached. It’s hard for me to fully trust a partner. I’ve been like this as long as I can remember. But once I became aware of it, I did a better job of communicating that internal struggle in relationships. I even learned to ask for reassurance when it was needed.

Unfortunately, by the time I learned to do that I was in relationships with avoidants who had all the self-awareness but none of the willingness required to work on it. My requests for reassurance were rebuffed, and while that was a painful experience, one I had actively feared, I got over it. I learned that I could ask, and a healthy partner would be willing to offer reassurance and provide that stable connection that’s necessary for healthy relationships.

I know that I have to keep advocating for myself. When I have anxiety about relationships, that’s my responsibility to manage, but I don’t have to go through it alone. I can openly communicate about it while taking responsibility for regulating my own emotions.

Avoiding the Avoidantly Attached

I’ll be honest: avoidant attachment is still something that I see as a red flag. I’ve been burned too many times before, and I quit choosing relationships based on their potential long ago. Yet, I know that avoidantly attached people can have healthy relationships when they are accountable and actively working on becoming more secure partners. That willingness to do the work can turn some red flags green. But that willingness has to be accompanied by actions and not merely words.

Relationships are challenging — especially for those of us who didn’t grow up securely attached. We’re learning how to be healthy as adults, and it takes time, effort, and repeated practice. We fail, and we try again. When we’re looking for true intimacy, we stop tolerating all the people who put up barriers to keep us out. We acknowledge why they have them, but we start looking for partners who are at least trying to genuinely connect.

—

This post was previously published on medium.com.

***