The 6 Biggest Mistakes You’re Making by Not Dating Fearful Avoidants

Will loving a fearful avoidant lead to the greatest relationship we’ve had or the most emotional, heart-wrenching breakup ever?

Most relationship advice, therapy or counseling focuses more on how we should only date people who have healthy or secure attachment styles.

That anything else should be avoided.

What if the best thing to happen would be to dating someone with an inconsistent, insecure attachment style?

Fearful avoidant (disorganized) attachment style; hybrid of anxious and avoidant

They deeply crave intimacy but fear getting too close
Inconsistent, alternating behavior from intense closeness to suddenly pulling away
Developed from neglect, abuse, or inconsistency from parents (unpredictable love)
Relationship anxiety means fear of abandonment, seeking reassurance or validation, but deeply craving connection
Relationship avoidance looks like pulling away, ghosting, stonewalling, or discarding when their fears of intimacy are triggered

In most cases, I’ve seen that FAs tend to look like someone with an anxious preoccupied attachment style when I’ve first met them.

When their fears of engulfment or betrayal get triggered, or they feel mistrustful of you they shut down and become dismissive. For more on the fearful avoidant attachment style, you can read here.

1. The potential for deep emotional connection

What magnetizes us to the fearful avoidant’s behavior is their hot and cold behavior.

When they’re available, they’re all in. Which feels incredibly special.

The moments might be fleeting, but simultaneously, intense.

You will feel like you’ve earned their trust or been invited into a secret part of their lives few have experienced
When they are present and available, you will be the most important person in their lives
It’ll seem like you’ve known each other your whole lives

2. These relationships are catalysts for growth

One minute they’re extremely close to us and then the next minute they’re pulling away.

And love changes us. We don’t go back to the same person were we before loving them. The deeper the love the more it changes us.

The inconsistent highs and lows of a relationship with a FA will activate old attachment wounds in us that we had forgotten about. It’ll teach us to let go and embrace a greater amount of emotional resilience.

When we’re not aware of our own traumas, the push pull paradigm of avoidant love can remind us of our own shortcomings and show us what we need to work on.

From loving these people, we either grow or stagnant. And that choice is entirely up to us.

3. Sexual chemistry is often off the charts

While every sexual experience is going to vary person by person and in every relationship, there’s a common trend.

And to be fair, I’m glossing over a lot of nuances, but for the sake of this story let’s keep things basic.

We have to understand how emotion plays a role in physical intimacy. Little to no emotional connection (which can be experienced with dismissive avoidants) translates into a potentially flat or boring sex life.

A relationship with a more secure person will feel more warm, steady, and open, but might lack the heightened, emotional ‘rawness’
When an FA opens up to you, the moment of intimacy can feel even more special or meaningful compared to other relationships
Their anxious, high-intensity emotions add an extra layer to intimacy

Sex is more like a physical representation of the emotional aspect of love.

When the emotional connection is low so is intimacy. When passion is high so is romance.

4. Part of the charm is the emotional intensity

Scarcity, or the thought of missing out is a powerful motivator.

Because the fearful avoidant often oscillates between hot and cold behaviors like enthusiasm and then emotional distance, this can create an effect that every chance we can get with one is somehow sacred or not to be taken for granted.

For example, once I had made dinner plans with this girl I was seeing and her response was, “Fuck you are so sweet! I’d love to have dinner with you.”

Then hours later I was met with a dismissive “I’m sorry I can’t make it tonight I’m not feeling well.”

The issue was that she was planning to go out of town for the weekend, so it seemed more like a bad excuse for letting her dismissive side poke through.

So, when they are available or present, it can feel more meaningful.

It’ll be as if nothing else matters.

5. They’re picky about who they let in

The guarded, self-protective nature of their attachment style usually makes them very selective about who they let into their lives.

So, if you’ve gained the trust of a fearful avoidant, it’s not something to be taken lightly.

You’ll know it when you experience it.

They’ll tell us all their tragedies, their successes, their insecurities, and their fears. But from what I’ve seen they have a bad habit of trauma dumping very early on (like on the first date).

You can be assured that they are loyal to you, and I don’t necessarily mean committed, but there’s a sense of knowing that they’ll be there when you call on them.

However, conversely, their dismissive side can usually offset this feeling of loyalty or exclusivity.

6. Pride or accomplishment of loving them

With all this in mind, the fleeting nature of these types of relationships and the difficulty in loving them might exude a feeling of pride or accomplishment in loving them.

But this feeling of validation of accomplishment is often driven by a need to chase unavailable people. We can’t forget that. We can’t forget most of these dynamics are rooted in a need to seek familiar childhood relationships.

It is possible to reframe this as a testament to overcoming the challenges of an emotional roller coaster relationship.

As a reminder,

These kinds of relationships don’t come without huge drawbacks.

The anxious-avoidant dynamic is often chaotic, messy, and dramatic. When the fearful avoidant suddenly pulls away due to fear, it’s a heartbreaking experience.

Often, the best solution to these kinds of relationships is to do the inner work that will attract partners that fits the more balanced version of yourself.

Because there’s often just nothing you can do about a moderate or severely avoidantly attached partner who is unwilling to change.

But if the fearful avoidant feels safe, understood, and seen, there’s a level of connection that can be incredibly satisfying or a deeply rewarding love that’s hard to find elsewhere.

I saw glimpses of this kind of love before, it’s just that I didn’t use the right tools.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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