Why They Fall Out of Love (And It’s Not About Commitment Issues)

What if I told you everyone isn’t in as much control of their relationships as they think they are?

We might like to believe our decisions are rooted in conscious, logical reasoning. But they’re not.

There’s a lot of evidence suggesting attachment theory is the best explanation for most of the inner mechanics of relationships.

To keep things brief, attachment theory is an explanation for certain relationship-specific behaviors.

Such as anxious, clingy, intense dynamics. And cold, aloof, distant, and emotionally avoidant behaviors, which you’ll learn more about in this article.

Because avoidance contributes to many relationship challenges.

A) Dismissive Avoidants

A dismissive-avoidant can appear stoic — cool, calm, collected, and incredibly independent.

For a while, a relationship with them might be great until their easy-going nature starts to feel boring or awkward.

But they’ll say, “I need space,” after you bring up something a little more tense than normal.

Translation: “I’m shutting down emotionally and distancing myself, so I don’t have to deal with this.”

B) Fearful Avoidants — the disorganized attachment style

A fearful avoidant’s behavior is full of ups and downs.

The relationship can feel:

Intense
Exciting
Passionate
Sexually thrilling

But, eventually, the highs of the relationship must come down. And be warned… they will come crashing down.

Maybe not today or tomorrow, but one day it will happen.

Just like a dismissive avoidant, when the relationship deepens, if they feel ‘betrayed’ or ‘hurt,’ or there’s more expected of them, they’ll often bail with little warning.

“I feel really weird about this, and I don’t know why… but it’s probably your fault, and you need to do something about it.”

They might also lash out, get defensive, or blame you for failing to meet their unvoiced, arbitrary expectations.

The avoidant cycle of silence

This is unfortunately where love goes to die. It’s a sad place, quite frankly; a lot of potential is wasted when simple communication would have sufficed.

This cycle is composed of 3 stages:

Compromise (Early stages): Avoidants disingenuously agree to things they don’t actually want to do. Consciously, they’ll notice the imperfections in the relationship but go along out of obligation.
Suffer in silence (Post-honeymoon phase): Silent resentment and unspoken grievances begin to mount. They assume their partner should ‘just know’ what’s wrong. And, as the months and years drag by, the avoidant feels increasingly stifled and misunderstood.
Explode or disengage (Relationship climax): They don’t verbalize their dissatisfaction but withdraw instead of addressing unspoken tension. Eventually, the resentment becomes unbearable and they either have some kind of outburst or a quiet exit.

I created this concept because I really struggled for a while about how to interpret why my avoidant partners (especially my ex-fiancé) seemed to hold onto so much resentment for so long, only to dump it all at once and blame it entirely on me.

It’s as if I were solely responsible for all the issues in a relationship — a bond that can only exist when two people come together.

I wish I could take full credit for this.

The Avoidant Cycle of Silence was inspired by the concept of ‘suffering in silence’ from the book Boundaries in Marriage: Understanding the Choices That Make or Break Loving Relationships, by Henry Cloud and John Townsend.

The author described how some people will endure years of dissatisfaction without voicing their concerns like it’s a badge of honor.

There weren’t any direct mentions of avoidant attachment in that book (that I can remember), but this is dead-on what avoidants do.

They all follow a similar pattern…

The cycle is played out, and the eventual discard of the relationship (by the avoidant) leaves their partner blindsided, confused, and deeply hurt. And sometimes leads to trauma that has to be worked through in therapy.

But what’s actually going on here?

Why exactly do they suffer in silence?

What’s to be gained here?

Most issues aren’t addressed for good reason (at least in the mind of the avoidant)

Avoidants don’t immediately express their dissatisfaction because they see vulnerability as too risky.

That, or they don’t trust their partner.

I’ve also seen my avoidant partner project her own fears of what she thinks will happen, without any evidence to back it up.

For example, when my ex-fiancé came home and casually said, “We need time apart,” I quickly realized this was planned.

Knowing her, she probably scripted not only the conversation — but my reaction the night before in her mind.

She braced for anger (fight response), but instead, I felt fear and anxiety (freeze response). And frankly, I was in utter shock, but I begged her not to leave.

This disrupted her entirely rehearsed narrative.

As I’ve written, avoidants often write entire scripts in their heads before any real interaction occurs. It gives them a sense of control.

They need that control to mitigate the emotions they might experience because they are afraid of how it feels (like anxiety or shame).

They’ll envision an entire scenario in their heads that will never happen, and to prepare for this worst-case scenario, they’ll use that information for why they need to escape.

It’s another self-perpetuating cycle: Instead of just communicating directly, the avoidant expects their partner to somehow naturally intuit what’s wrong.

But it truly is ironic and quite pitiful.

By trying to avoid an imagined negative outcome, they often create the very distance and conflict they feared in the first place.

And I’ve seen this not once… but many times.

The binary approach to love

There will always be a fair amount of fear and anxiety as a cause for how and why avoidants behave the way they do in relationships.

If you’re already familiar with attachment theory, this isn’t anything new. If not, that’s fine too, because we’re going to go deeper.

And you don’t even have to experience an entire relationship to understand it.

As I’ve started to write more and more about attachment theory, I’ve come to this observation about moderate and severe avoidant attachment:

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Avoidants often see love and emotional closeness in just black and white. There’s either overwhelming intimacy or just painful distance. Nothing in between.

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This wasn’t immediately apparent when I started to write on this topic.

But as I’ve continued to explore attachment theory, it didn’t come to me until I thought about my own avoidant tendencies.

I’m certainly not perfect and I used to approach love and connection with the same kind of binary, all-or-nothing type of mindset.

Either complete vulnerability or none at all.

Emotional shutdown to the max.

So, when I connected the dots between this idea:

‘How romantic relationships are extensions of the relationship you have with yourself.’

Something clicked.

The external behaviors of an avoidant often mirror their internal conflicts.

It’s a love-hate relationship.

There’s an extreme, black-and-white approach to love, which first starts inward, and then extends outwards:

It’s a rather complex idea, but let’s simplify it:

“If I acknowledge any of my flaws and insecurities, then I can’t love myself.”
“I can’t be compassionate towards myself because that’s not true discipline.”
“It’s impossible to love myself without getting rid of all the things I don’t like about being me.”

It’s all or nothing. No gray area.

This translates into relationship patterns that look like this:

“If I’m not happy, then our relationship isn’t perfect, and if it’s not perfect, then something bad must be going on.” (I need to leave)
“They’ll hate me if I set boundaries with them because it means I don’t love them.” (I’ll let everything slide and then blame them for hurting me)
“I can’t show them I need emotional support because then I’d be too clingy and needy.” (Love needs to be earned)

Without over-explaining this idea, a healthy ‘middle ground’ looks like a relationship that actually utilizes boundaries so that love can not only function but thrive.

It’s a bond that holds space for emotional needs and doesn’t allow imperfection to be a factor in one’s worth.

But if we tolerate and let this incoherent system of binary thinking extend into a romantic relationship, how can you fall in love with someone, despite their imperfections, if you can’t even accept those same flaws in yourself?

It doesn’t make sense.

This is what’s happening ‘under the hood’ during the avoidant cycle of silence.

Avoidants have a tendency to personalize their dissatisfaction or unmet needs like it’s a reflection of their worth as a person.

But this simply isn’t the case.

First of all, what people do usually has nothing to do with you (even if it seems like it).

Secondly, your worth as a person is dependent on how you define yourself. No one else can do this for you.

Avoidants don’t know this, if they did, they probably wouldn’t be so avoidant.

So, as time goes on, and if things aren’t resolved, the resentment builds and takes up space for any remaining love.

Resentment grows and love fades.

They fall out of love, not because there are commitment issues, but it’s as if disengagement itself is the solution to the problem.

…

Avoidants will vehemently despise their vulnerabilities or their emotions, as evident in the stoicism of some dismissive avoidants. To them, it signals weakness.

Or the fearful avoidant’s deeply held fear of being seen as ‘bad’ or ‘not good enough.’ And this doesn’t even have to manifest in their relationships.

Often times it shows up in their daily lives.

To the fearful-avoidant, there are only two possible states:

Good (perfect) or bad (fatally flawed):

Any criticism or perceived failure could immediately threaten their view of themselves
A small mistake or disagreement is catastrophic
Vulnerability could reveal their ‘bad side’

Think about how this binary view might trigger their behavior…

And too often, we can get swallowed up in this idea of the ‘perfect’ relationship.

Love without any difficulties. Not possible.

…

Final thoughts,

Unless the avoidant challenges themselves and works on their internal relationship, their external relationships will continue to follow the same cycle of disengagement for their entire lifetime.

And there’s little you can do.

No amount of love, patience, or sacrifice will fix what the avoidant hasn’t committed to correcting internally.

I’ve also found that outsiders looking in might mistakenly assume that avoidance is a completely valid strategy.

“If they really loved you, they’d just know how to treat you right.”

Communication is a skill that takes practice.

So if your significant other is slowly checking out of the relationship, or you need guidance on setting boundaries, I’d suggest reading my 9-page PDF on this topic, which you can download here.

And for more reading on topics like this, you can subscribe to my Substack.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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