In psych literature, the blending of insecure (anxious and avoidant) attachment styles is referred to as fearful-avoidant. BetterHelp states, “[This style] may feel anxiety when starting to fall for someone, causing them to go back and forth between pursuing that person and withdrawing out of fear.”
Supposedly, this attachment style is the rarest. I’ve always scratched my head at this. My personal opinion, bolstered by years of experiences with both my own self and others, is that it’s more prevalent. Fearful-avoidant behaviors aren’t a rare anomaly. Insecure is insecure. People who self-describe as anxious may pursue with one person, only to behave avoidantly with another.
You can be different attachment styles with different people at the same time (secure with a friend, anxious with a partner, avoidant — or at least exasperated— with an a ceaselessly demanding pet).
According to the Atlanta Center for Couple Therapy:
“It’s possible for the other style to emerge in response to the style of the person you’ve met. In other words, an Avoidant person may find themselves preoccupied and pursuing, thus looking more like an Anxious person if the person they meet is more Avoidant and distancing than they are.”
And as Amir Levine and Rachel Heller, authors of Attached, wrote:
“It is important to note that some anxious people will display avoidant characteristics from time to time or in certain relationships. This is because the avoidant attachment style is still an insecure attachment style. Therefore a fellow insecure attachment style is more likely to swap to this to suit a particular partner’s attachment style than being able to operate securely.”
If your pattern is to pursue avoidant men for instance, you’ll rarely be in a situation where your own avoidant side becomes activated. You simply aren’t attracted to anxious men from the get-go.
I believe many of us possess all of these parts — secure, anxious, and avoidant — in varying degrees. Circumstances influence which of them become activated and repeatedly reinforced.
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I myself have responded avoidantly in situations, anxiously in others, and securely in some.
My avoidant side would come out especially around my birth family when younger. They were high-functioning, take-charge, and somewhat anxious-leaning. In response my competence would feel threatened and I’d shut down.
With them I felt the need to assert my independence and competence, so as to know I could make it on my own. The fear underlying interactions when avoidant defenses click on: I’ll lose myself. I’ll lose touch with my needs.The other person’s energy will swallow me whole. heir energy is Jaws. I’m the feeble swimmer.
I didn’t reproduce my at-home attachment style in later relationships. Perhaps instead, I even sought the opposite. Put me in a dynamic with a partner who’s less forthcoming, assertive, or confident in their wants and needs, and my anxious side would come out.
My family members had an experience of me that was very different from the one past partners had.
And yet both those sides of me are authentic and valid.
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The capacity for each of the attachment styles resides within me — as it does, I believe, for many currently or previously insecurely attached folks.
**I will say, I’m of the opinion that people who haven’t done much self-work and had an insecure upbringing are less likely to know how to respond in a secure way, as without having had that modeled for them, it’s not a part of their schema. More often when dating and relating in general, they’ll veer between anxious and avoidant attachment responses.
It takes self-work and making conscious changes in the way you behave and relate for the secure side to become more accessible. Mine was submerged for many years. With therapy, effort, and forging a positive relationship with my parents as an adult, however, it’s now a part of my repertoire.
The more you practice responding securely, the less hard it becomes. It may not ever be easy. But it can become less hard.
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If you identify with any of this, then you can benefit from taking the advice that therapists give to both anxious and avoidants.
When you’re on the anxious side of the dynamic (and the other person is behaving more avoidantly), remind yourself that independence and autonomy are valid things to fear losing. We all have a need for them, to varying degrees — so it’s important not to demonize them altogether. It’s also important to help our partner understand that we want those things for them too.
When you find your avoidant defenses kicking in — practice asking for what you need. Know that you can take space without disconnecting entirely.
Catch your mind when it begins devaluing your partner (a deactivating strategy). Combat the negative thoughts with a more balanced and realistic picture of all that your relationship encompasses — good, bad, and everything in between.
Jessica Lang suggests:
“When that wall comes up what is happening internally with you? What physical sensations are you having and consequently what thoughts might come along with them? Now get curious about these thoughts. Are they something you really want or believe or are they getting in your way of what you want?”
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Conceptualizing attachment as falling more along a spectrum would ideally bring us closer and encourage greater empathy. We would stop approaching conflict from such an “us versus them” mentality, wherein it’s difficult to reach resolution because you simply don’t viscerally feel what it’s like to be in the other’s shoes (which makes it easier to dismiss them).
It’s much less easy to respond in this way if you recall times you felt flooded by another person’s requests — or a time when a significant other shut down when you felt extremely hurt and felt in need of resolution and understanding.
Embracing this more nuanced model could help more people heal the anxious-avoidant dynamic. It could do so by reinforcing that we’re not separate individuals in isolated boxes. Rather, we’re all swimming together in the giant ocean of humanity.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
What Does Being in Love and Loving Someone Really Mean? | My 9-Year-Old Accidentally Explained Why His Mom Divorced Me | The One Thing Men Want More Than Sex | The Internal Struggle Men Battle in Silence |
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