Reframing the ‘Avoidants Are Broken’ Narrative — A More Nuanced Look at Attachment Theory

Attachment theory has been all over the Internet these last few years, and if you’re a reader with anA interest in psychology — or who’s gone to therapy even a few times — chances are you’re familiar with it.

For those who aren’t though, in broad strokes:

Individuals with avoidant attachment tend to evade dificult conversations and vulnerable feelings, while anxiouses turn towards them to a degree the avoidant partner can find overwhelming. During conflict they respond with “fight” rather than “flight” as the avoidant does. They seek more contact and connection, while avoidants seemingly need less and have a greater need for independence and autonomy.

Outside of conflict, two anxious and avoidant leaning people may have a loving relationship. When in conflict though, the shields and weapons come out and the dysfunction appears.According to Julia Hogan, LPC:

“Our attachment styles are often most noticeable when we are facing some kind of conflict with another person, because that’s when our sense of safety and security feel most threatened.”

To the anxious, the avoidant appears cold and withholding. To the avoidant, the anxious appears intrusive and overly needy. It’s estimated that 25 percent of the general population are anxious and 20 percent are avoidant.

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Though I used to think the styles were extremely fixed, more recently I’ve come to acknowledge that few people are 100% clear-cut avoidant or anxious. Individuals can feel more secure or less so at different times in their lives. Anxiouses can occasionally respond in an avoidant way; avoidants can occasionally respond in an anxious way.

Still, often relationship conflicts find one partner taking the anxious role, while the other takes the more avoidant one (or the dynamics switch throughout the course of the relationship). According to Jeff Guenther, “Anxious and avoidant people often find themselves attracted to one another because they reinforce each others’ beliefs.”

It takes effort to shift an anxious-avoidant relationship into a more secure one. As Jessica Baum put it, “Someone who loves connection and having their needs met is [generally] not a great match with someone who wants to be distanced.”

At the same time, it’s also not impossible. Especially when two partners share chemistry, values, and interests, each can find ways to resolve their past hurts and forge a healing connection.

As clinical psychologist Carla Marie Manly acknowledges:

“If a fearful-avoidant individual who is engaged in solid self-work connects with an anxiously attached person who is also mindful of personal wounds and needs, the relationship can develop slowly but surely in a safe, lovingly attached way that benefits both partners.”

Here are insights both attachment styles can be mindful of to improve their dynamic.

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What can the avoidant keep in mind?

Look at your pattern of fault-finding and negativity bias. When deactivating, bring forth reminders of the positive.

According to Business Insider:

“While people with healthy attachment styles are able to compromise with their partners and focus on the positives, avoidant people [cannot. They] zero in on minor flaws and imagine how they were happier being single, or how they might be better off finding someone else.”

Focusing on a relationship’s flaws is one of their deactivating strategies, which Atlanta Center for Couple Therapy describes as “those mental processes by which the Avoidant person convinces themselves that being alone is just as good or better than being in relationship.”

Try to notice when your mind starts engaging in it. Work to balance these negative thoughts with a more realistic picture of all that your relationship encompasses (good, bad, and everything in between). Remember times you were laughing, communicating effectively, or having a healthy interaction in whatever other way. Acknowledge that imperfections will exist in any relationship, and what you choose to pay attention or prescribe importance to falls within your power.

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Just a few words communicating your need for space might make all the difference.

The founders of the Attachment Project acknowledge:

“One thing that probably won’t change for an avoidant attacher in a relationship is their need for personal space — and that’s OK. Taking emotional space in a relationship when a conflict is starting to escalate is probably the constructive thing to do, and it may even help the relationship to grow.”

But they do recommend communicating how long you’ll need so that the anxious partner doesn’t interpret it as a rejection. You’ll help the health of the relationship if you don’t withdraw without any time frame for when they can expect you to come back. The anxious partner wants to feel connected, supported, and considered — and when an avoidant shuts down without communicating, they feel the exact painful opposite of these things.

So practice asking for what you need. Know that you can take space without disconnecting entirely. And try to understand that stonewalling and putting up shields are not the same as setting boundaries. They are reactive and autopilot — while the direct communication of a need is proactive and mindful.

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*Examine your relationship with conflict and work through your trauma surrounding it.

As John Gottman put it:“Conflicts are inevitable in a couple and even allow, when properly resolved, to move forward in a relationship.” The problem is that avoidant individuals in particular have an especially difficult time engaging in conflict. According to freetooatach, their levels of the stress hormone cortisol soar to disproprtotionate degrees during conflict situations.

Explore why conflict brings up such overwhelming feelings for you. What unresolved issues from past relationships and experiences might it be tied to? According to Pataky: “Therapy is an excellent way for people with avoidant attachment styles to understand where their root issues lie and exactly how they grew up to adapt this specific attachment style.”

You can learn to sense when your past stories are bubbling up and affecting your present behavior. To observe when you sense their pull. To shine a light when they color your perception.

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What can the anxious keep in mind?

Self-regulate and give an avoidant space if and when they ask for it.

Medical News Today wrote that attachment style “directly influences how a person responds to emotions, and controlling these emotions, also known as self-regulation, alongside being mindful of them, is a good step to overcoming an anxious attachment. Self-regulation can help solve conflicts in relationships and overall contribute to higher confidence.”

Self-regulating helps us, in those moments of conflict, to still speak our truth, but in a way the avoidant can be receptive to. One that won’t ambush their character.

Meditate. Feel whatever feeling their behavior brought up for you. If it’s anger, feel that too. But let it all pass through so that you’re less likely to act out on it in harmful ways.

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When self-regulating and giving the avoidant space, bolster your self-esteem.

Anxiouses tend to overvalue and over-rely on their partners (at least internally) when triggered during conflict. So while an aa relationship will benefit from the avoidant consciously focusing on their partner’s positive attributes when deactivating, it will also benefit from anxiouses focusing on confidence-bolstering thoughts of their own selves and loveability when activated (as opposed to pulling up negative thoughts of their partner, which often only maintains the anger).

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Positive affirmations and watching the criticisms.

In some cases, during conflict the avoidant feels like the anxious is offsetting all responsibility onto them. They feel like they’re made to feel more wrong [than the anxious]; less mature, and in greater need of healing.

According to cnbc.com:

“Contempt is more than criticism or saying something negative. It’s when one partner asserts that they are smarter, have better morals, or are simply a better human being than the other.”

Anxious partners can be guilty of this. Sometimes when triggered, rather than communicating their feelings in a vulnerable way, they’re making demands. They’re shaming and blaming. Sometimes it’s not the needs themselves that avoidants couldn’t handle, but the way they were communicated.

Anxious partners have just as much responsibility as their [avoidant] partners to communicate their needs with love – without projecting, accusing, assuming, or prioritizing their needs over the other’s. The stonewalling that avoidants implement in response is equally destructive, but often, it also didn’t come entitrely from nowhere.

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What Both Attachment Styles Can Be Mindful Of

Have preventative conversations when you’re both calm.

Attachment expert Dr. Levine suggests to “work with, instead of against, your partner’s attachment,” and to “tend to their internal attachment system before it’s activated.” He recommends having [these] conversations before conflict comes up. Similar to how instead of packing an earthquake kit while the earthquake’s happening, you’d pack it in advance.

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Open up about pasts.

Gaining a better understanding of each other’s pasts can help you see beyond your own hurt– as often, both partners have trauma or negative experiences that are coloring the way they interpret the present.

Michelle Obama wrote of her relationship with Barack:

“We’ve had to practice responding to each other in ways that take into account both of our histories, our different needs and ways of being. It’s always helped when we are able to name our feelings and situate some of our differences inside of personal history rather than present blame.”

In those moments you’re worked up and feeling like your partner is the enemy, bringing to mind that image of them as a child can soften you immediately. It can shift you into communicating with love – for both their younger self and yours – rather than from a place of fear.

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*Apologize after conflict

Harriet Lerner described a good apology as “when we take clear and direct responsibility without a hint of evasion, blaming, obfuscation, excuse-making and without bringing up the other person’s crime sheet.”

According to Lerner, a good apology doesn’t include the word “but;” it offers to make amends; and it doesn’t overdo. Additionally, the words alone won’t cut it. Lerner says it needs to be backed up with corrective action. For instance, let’s say your partner borrows your bike, breaks it, and says sorry. The sorry won’t mend your relationship if they took no steps to fix the bike thereafter.

When I give an apology that I really mean, and the other person does too, I feel cleaner inside. It feels like we grow closer. I feel a strengthening of the relationship.

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Look at overall effort and intent.

All relationships will have conflict. What makes the crucial difference is whether both are open to talking about it once things calm down. Rather than hold onto resentment, instead they lean into reconciliation. That willingness is the life force of a relationship.

Even if you can’t reach an immediate satisfying resolution, what matters is a pattern of working towards. What’s important is knowing that no one will behave perfectly all the time. That we’ll falter occasionally, then do the best we can to repair and learn from what happened – both about ourselves and the other person. Deepen the connection and hone the communication to prevent similar conflicts from recurring. Nip it in the bud as early as we can.

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It’s difficult work — but anxiouses and avoidants can move towards security with each other inside a partnership. They can grow with their partner, realizing that security is a climate created by two people. That it can flourish when both are on board. And when both wholeheartedly believe that what you put in affects what you get out.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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