12 Ways to Make an Anxious-Avoidant Relationship Work
It was the situationship that forever changed the course of my life.
I awoke to a message from a college acquaintance early one Saturday morning letting me know he was in town for the weekend. We made plans to meet later that night.
Our chemistry was palpable from the second we locked eyes in the bar. The drinks were soon flowing and the conversation was, too, as we shared stories of our successes and setbacks through laughter and tears. The 10 years that had gone by without us seeing each other suddenly seemed to melt away in the moonlight.
I felt instantly caught under his spell.
We spent most of the next day together, exploring the wondrous city around us and our expanding hearts within. Later on, our emotional connection turned physical.
I’ll always remember that entrancing evening: four hands melting together as if they were two; lips locking as if consummating our union; slowly falling into a cloud of pillows; holding one another until the first rays of dawn dribbled under the curtains. Looking over at his face in the early light of Monday morning, I felt an electric excitement flow through me at the possibility of something unexpectedly beautiful blossoming between us.
I rushed to work, foregoing breakfast to soak up every second possible before leaving his side. Once I arrived at the office, I received a text from him.
“Make sure you answer your phone if someone calls!” He said.
Minutes later, a breakfast sandwich and a smoothie arrived via courier. I was taken aback. No romantic partner had ever done something that thoughtful or selfless for me. It felt like the kind of gesture you’d expect to see in a movie or a TV show. I spent the rest of the day smiling from ear to ear as he flew back home.
In the weeks that followed, we communicated constantly—texting nonstop, talking over FaceTime for hours on end, and sharing every mundane detail of our days.
But, as time would tell, it wasn’t built to last.
I’ll never forget the depths of despair that washed over me when he grew distant just a few weeks later—the way I’d reach for my phone and see his name alarmingly absent from the screen, the way I felt like all the air had been pulled from my lungs, the way my age-old abandonment wounds were ripped open as if on purpose. I recall the confusion that settled in during his silence. Maybe he just needs space, I thought. Maybe if I say just the right thing at just the right time we can get back on track again. I oscillated between these extremes for days on end, never knowing what the best course of action was or how to restore the closeness we once shared.
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My boss sat me down for a chat shortly thereafter. It was in her office that the dam finally broke.
“Is everything okay outside of work?” She asked, perplexed by my plummeting performance. “I’m worried about you.”
“I’m worried about me, too,” I said as I shed tears of anguish and anxiety into my cupped hands. “I feel like everything’s falling apart.”
“Please know that you’re not alone and that I care,” she said as a friend before stepping back into boss mode. “That said, you need to take responsibility for your energy and step up your performance around here. I know you’re capable of more than this.”
It was at that moment I knew I needed to speak to a professional.
“Have you heard of attachment styles?” My therapist asked me at the end of our first session.
“I remember reading something about that in one of my psychology courses,” I said. “Why do you ask?”
“Well, it seems to me like you might have an anxious attachment style,” she said. “I think you should brush up on attachment theory—and also consider reading Attached.”
Read my blogs, 7 Ways to Heal the Anxious Attachment Style, 8 Books for Healing Anxious Attachment, 4 Breakup Tips for Anxious Attachers, The Anxious Attacher’s Guide to Setting Boundaries, and 7 Conflict Resolution Techniques That Can Save Your Relationships.
I immediately followed her advice.
What I discovered changed me forever. Suddenly my entire life story made sense: my parents’ divorce at two years old; my middle sister, Michele, sexually abusing me at five years old; my mom remarrying and relocating a thousand miles away with her new husband when I was eight years old; coming out of the closet as a gay man at 14 years old; my mom passing away from alcoholism at 18 years old; the steady stream of physically and emotionally distant partners throughout my 20s. All of the trauma and instability from my past led to my hypervigilance, rumination, lack of self-worth, inability to regulate my emotions, and unhealthy coping strategies—to the development of an anxious attachment style.
Finding out I have an anxious attachment style was a watershed moment for me. It felt like I finally had a clear explanation of and origin for my behavior—a way to normalize my experience so I no longer felt like the only one in the world struggling with these thoughts and feelings.
Finding out that I have a history of dating folks who were considered avoidant was just as life-changing. It made sense of all of my triggers and the emotional reactivity that naturally followed, including and perhaps especially the behavior brought out by my college connection who suddenly pulled away and unintentionally opened my eyes to these epiphanies in the first place.
While the shooting star of our situationship fizzled out and faded away, the realizations from that experience remain with me to this day. It was at that moment that I made a commitment: I’ll never stop talking about attachment theory. I want everyone to know about attachment styles so they don’t have to experience this heartbreak and suffering for themselves. It was also that situationship that kicked off a series of events that led to me becoming a life coach for people with an anxious attachment style.
Looking back on that experience with clarity, I now see why it needed to unfold the way that it did. That situationship was ultimately a catalyst for my healing—and one that continues to touch not just my life but the lives of hundreds of my coaching clients all over the globe that have been impacted as a result. While your experience with this dynamic might not lead to you becoming a life coach like me, it can certainly be an impetus for immense change and necessary growth, helping to shine a light on the parts of you that need healing.
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What is an anxious-avoidant “trap”? Understanding this relationship dynamic
It was Lao Tzu who said that “new beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.” Never is that more true than when the passionate, all-consuming anxious-avoidant relationship comes to a cataclysmic close. As we begin to pick up the pieces in the aftermath of this kind of dynamic, a melancholy mélange of emotions can bubble up to the surface. Chief among them are anguish, confusion, disappointment, embarrassment, frustration, guilt, sadness, and shame, though we can experience many more. This mix of emotions can make us feel bewildered and lost, not knowing how things took such a tragic turn or the steps to take to set ourselves on the path to healing. It is for these reasons that I find it helpful to look very closely at what makes this dynamic so powerful and prevalent—to take a step back and examine why anxious and avoidant partners tend to pair up and how they get stuck in a cycle of disconnection and discontent when things seem to start off so swimmingly.
The anxious-avoidant dynamic is the very definition of “opposites attract,” as their core beliefs about themselves and relationships, as well as their most essential emotional needs, are in direct opposition to those of their partner. Pia Mellody describes these contrarian perspectives in her book, Facing Love Addiction, in which she analyzes the obsessive-compulsive cycles of addiction that so often define the anxious attachment style, and also their relationship with someone with an avoidant attachment style. She writes:
“It could be said that the Love Addict is a kind of liberal about relationships and the Love Avoidant is a kind of conservative. Love Addicts are constantly seeking change to improve things in the relationship and to get what they want—more contact, more care. On the other hand, Love Avoidants want acceptance of the status quo, and so they work to keep the relationship stable, predictable, and unemotional; Love Avoidants don’t see change as an advantage. Love Addicts think that Love Avoidants are the problem because they won’t change. But when the Love Avoidant contemplates a change requested by the Love Addict, the Love Avoidant thinks that to change is to capitulate or be controlled by somebody else. Stalemate. The Love Avoidant avoids intimacy and is hypersensitive to any sense of being controlled. The Love Addict seeks enmeshment and is hypersensitive to any sense of being left.”
The anxious partner—the Love Addict, as Mellody aptly uses—is more leaned in by nature. They crave closeness and connection, clarity and reassurance, typically because they have experienced the deep pain of instability, uncertainty, abuse, neglect, or trauma in some of their closest relationships throughout their lives. This leaves the anxious attacher hypervigilant and lacking self-trust, constantly looking for any cues in the environment around them that would indicate that someone is pulling away or might leave them. This outward focus and seeking mindset are at the heart of the struggle of a Love Addict. The external fixation and desire to control what’s happening around them are merely distractions from feeling their own discomfort and keep them from controlling the only thing they can: themselves. As the name Love Addict suggests, anxious attachers can also become addicted both to the idealized role that their love interests play as well as to the body’s trauma response that gets triggered when they feel that interest pull away. Time spent apart or long periods of silence can be incredibly triggering and manifest similarly to withdrawal symptoms for the anxious attacher, driving their obsessive longing to reunite and compulsive need to be in control, thus keeping them stuck in a loop of discontent from which they feel they have no escape.
Underdeveloped in the skills of effective communication and emotional regulation, someone with an anxious attachment style tends to rely on protest behavior, or passive aggressive, indirect attempts to try to get their emotional needs met. Examples of protest behavior include: excessively trying to regain contact, withdrawing, keeping score, acting hostile, threatening to leave, making your partner feel jealous, lashing out, or criticizing, among others. Strictly speaking, protest behavior could be described as the temper tantrum of a wounded child inside of a fully-grown adult. As it sounds, it is deeply unhealthy and actually ends up driving away the connection the anxious person is seeking because it comes across as childish, critical, and controlling. As a result of their experiences, anxious attachers also develop deep-seated limiting beliefs and fears. Here are some examples:
“I always attract the same emotionally unavailable person into my life”
“I should’ve seen this coming”
“I’ll never get over this”
“I’ll never meet someone better”
“I always give more than I get in return”
“I’m going to end up alone”
“I always get left”
“No one ever chooses me”
These fears are only exacerbated by partners who are not capable of or willing to show up for them to the extent that they crave emotional closeness and enmeshment. And thus the beliefs become more deeply reinforced and the addiction to love interests as a savior deepens with each unstable relationship.
For even more attachment style content, check out 7 Ways to Heal the Anxious Attachment Style, 9 Ways to Ease Anxiety While Dating and 5 Ways to Heal a Fear of Abandonment.
On the other hand, the Love Avoidant or avoidant attacher is more leaned out by nature. They value autonomy and independence above all else, and are hypersensitive to any signs of manipulation and control that might threaten their strong sense of self. This hypersensitivity can typically be traced back to one or more connections in their lives in which they experienced enmeshment, or someone who overly relied upon, criticized, manipulated, or judged them—most often going back to childhood. Someone with an avoidant attachment style is also atrophied in the areas of effective communication and emotional regulation, becoming easily overwhelmed by discussions of feelings and shutting down when those discussions arise. Stonewalling, withdrawing, and the silent treatment are how they typically react when their personal threshold for emotional exposure has been breached. While space and independence are a natural part of any healthy relationship, the Love Avoidant can also be described as a sort of “Lone Wolf,” preferring to rely on and trust themselves and lean away from their relationships rather than open themselves up to the potential pain that goes hand in hand with vulnerability and emotional exposure. They are naturally skeptical of others and don’t easily trust. This skepticism only reinforces their unshakeable sense of self, causing them to develop rigid limiting beliefs and fears of their own, including:
“I always attract the same ‘needy’ person into my life”
“I shouldn’t have put myself out there like that”
“When I meet ‘the one’ it won’t be this way”
“Relationships shouldn’t be so much work”
“I’m better off on my own”
“I always feel suffocated, criticized, and like nothing I do is good enough”
“I don’t see the point in trying to open up if this is how I get treated”
These fears experienced by the avoidant attacher are only further reinforced with each partner who engages in protest behavior, criticizes them, doesn’t appreciate the effort they put in, and attempts to manipulate or control them.
While these two polarities of the insecure side of the attachment spectrum could not be more different, their dynamic is one of the most prevalent relationship patterns. Passion runs high when these two attachment styles meet. The avoidant person is excited by the openness and directness of the anxious person, having not yet met their threshold for emotional exposure, and so appear open and available. The avoidant attacher also feels free to be who they are as control is not yet present from the side of the anxious attacher. Alternatively, the anxious person is elated to finally feel that they really click with someone, grasping onto the electric connection and instant chemistry, onto the possibility of a deep connection that has heretofore eluded them. Sparks fly.
Their over-idealization of one another draws them closer together, nearly to the verge of enmeshment, satisfying the deepest desire of the anxious person and triggering the deepest fear of the avoidant one. Then, at some point, the avoidant partner begins to pull away. In my personal experience as well as working with many clients in current and former anxious-avoidant relationships, the avoidant partner typically moves to create more space in the relationship as early as the first or second month of getting to know one another, as that’s when the depth of the connection overwhelms them and they disengage, though it can happen earlier or later depending on the level of emotional tolerance of the the avoidant partner and the degree of enmeshment that exists in their relationship with the anxious attacher.
Here are some telltale signs that you’re in an anxious-avoidant relationship:
Intense cycles of closeness and distance
Stable instability—the only thing predictable about the relationship is how unpredictable it is
Lack of addressing core conflicts or disagreements directly
One person neglects their own needs for the sake of their partner while the other person neglects the needs of their partner to meet their own
The relationship recreates dynamics from previous relationships of each partner within it—sometimes going all the way back to childhood
Both are triggered by the other and personalize the needs of the other as a reflection of their character or worthiness
The anxious partner gets triggered by any perceived distance from the avoidant one, and tries using activating strategies to restore a sense of connection. The avoidant partner thrives on space and distance, and is triggered by feeling like they're losing their autonomy and sense of self by all the anxious partner’s attempts to get closer, so they lean further away. And thus begins the push-pull, roller coaster cycle of what’s sometimes referred to as the anxious-avoidant trap. Additionally, when a Love Avoidant or avoidant attacher pairs up with a Love Addict or anxious attacher, the latter’s addiction to the idea of the former feels incredibly invalidating. In short, the avoidant knows they are being used for the anxious partner to get high and satisfy a mental fantasy, crushing the hope the avoidant had of the anxious partner to not attempt to control or manipulate them like previous partners and triggering their need to detach in order to cope.
On one hand, the usage of the word “trap” is an apt description of this dynamic, as the more the anxious partner moves to create closeness through activating strategies the more the avoidant partner moves to create space through deactivating strategies. They continue triggering one another and pushing each other away until the connection enters the stalemate described by Mellody above. However, describing this kind of dynamic as a “trap” is also somewhat limiting and misleading, as it makes it sound like it is inescapable when in reality what I’ve seen in my work with my clients is that it most certainly is not. While repairing this kind of relationship will certainly take mindful, intentional work, it is not inherently beyond healing. Both partners must be willing to actively work on both themselves and the connection they share. This process is as nuanced as each partner within the relationship, as humans are complex and there is rarely a one-size-fits-all approach. That said, there are some steps that can be taken to mend the connection and put them both on a more secure track. Read below to explore what I’ve seen that can work for both the anxious and avoidant partners and the relationship itself as a coach for folks in this area.
How to Make an Anxious-Avoidant Relationship Work
Here’s what the anxious partner might explore:
1. Learning to see the avoidant’s need for space as normal and natural and not as a threat to the relationship.
Independence is a necessary aspect of any healthy relationship and when the avoidant moves to create more space it does not mean that they intend to abandon the anxious partner or do not love them. This gives the avoidant time to self-soothe, return to baseline, and not feel so overwhelmed. In turn, this can better allow the avoidant attacher to show up more fully for the relationship.
2. Learning to be more independent and take better care of themselves.
One of the biggest mistakes someone with an anxious attachment style can make is to sacrifice their own needs for the sake of keeping their relationship afloat. Make no mistake, this is a form of self-abandonment and can create a self-fulfilling prophecy whereby they push away the very connection and intimacy they crave by projecting their feelings, lashing out, and engaging in other forms of protest behavior. As is often the case, these indirect attempts to get needs met could be avoided altogether if the anxious partner played a more proactive role in taking care of their own basic needs instead of expecting their romantic partner to do so.
3. Learning to self-regulate.
Many times, in order for an anxious partner to make a relationship work with an avoidant partner, they stand to learn an invaluable lesson: their romantic partner cannot and will not always be available. This is actually a blessing in disguise, as it gives the anxious attacher a chance to identify and practice self-soothing and emotional regulation techniques that work for them, such as meditation, breathwork, yoga, journaling, practicing gratitude, exercising, cold exposure, singing, drawing, and painting, among others. This, in turn, can ensure that the anxious attacher is able to access and feel their emotions and let them pass, as well as process and challenge any limiting beliefs that may be clouding their judgment.
4. Learning to communicate clearly and compassionately.
Instead of relying on protest behavior as attempts to get their needs met, it’s vital that folks with an anxious attachment style develop the skill of effective or assertive communication, using techniques such as active listening strategies, and “I” instead of “you” statements to provide feedback to their avoidant partner. This can help the avoidant person feel less attacked and criticized, and can also prevent them from feeling overwhelmed by what they perceive to be excessive emotional discussions. The calmer and less emotional these check-ins become, the more likely it is that the avoidant partner will be willing to have them. The more willing the avoidant is to have the discussion, the less often they’ll likely need to occur to begin with.
5. Learning to center their own emotional experience.
Much of the energy and focus of someone with an anxious attachment style is sent outwards into the environment around them. Often, anxious attachers developed this hypersensitivity as a coping mechanism to the instability they’ve experienced. By being sensitively attuned to the feelings of those around them, folks with an anxious attachment style feel they have a semblance of control—though this is false—and are better able to please others in order to keep the peace and not experience abandonment. To break this pattern, the anxious attacher should practice bringing the focus back to themselves, using tools like meditation, movement, and breathwork to help bring them back into their body from their mind. In short, instead of constantly wondering what others are feeling, learning to identify and sit with their own feelings will help the anxious attacher to bring other people such as their avoidant partner into their emotional experience, thereby building intimacy.
6. Working through any prior trauma with a therapist, coach, or other mental health professional.
A great myth about healing is that it must be done alone. Both partners in an anxious-avoidant dynamic can benefit greatly from therapy or coaching—or both—and should explore their options in this area. Addressing core wounds from childhood and working through patterns of behavior takes intentional effort as well as a safe and loving environment. Both are accessible with a mental health professional and have the ability to significantly speed up recovery and healing.
When it comes to your anxious attachment style, are you looking to accelerate your healing but not sure where to turn? Look no further. My Anxious Attachment Style Healing Starter Kit is here to help! Packed with 3.5 hours of audio and video content and over 85 pages of exercises and educational material, this toolkit gives you the structure and plan you need to step forward confidently in your healing.
The avoidant partner, on the other hand, might explore:
1. Learning to see the anxious attacher’s need for closeness, clarity, and communication as natural and not as a threat to the avoidant’s sense of self.
Interdependence is a necessary aspect of any healthy relationship and when the anxious attacher moves to build more closeness it does not mean that they intend to do so at the expense of the avoidant’s independence or autonomy. Taking this perspective can help the avoidant to not personalize the anxious partner’s needs and also to create a shared sense of safety where the needs of both partners, though opposite in nature, can be met.
2. Learning to be more dependent on others.
One of the biggest mistakes that the avoidant attacher can make is to view relying on others as a weakness. The truth is that as human beings we are social creatures and crave connection. There’s nothing wrong with depending on others and it is through being vulnerable, open, and honest that we can build long-lasting, safe relationships of all kinds. The sooner the avoidant can learn this and apply it in their everyday lives, the healthier and more secure their relationships will become.
3. Learning to self-regulate and co-regulate.
When someone with an avoidant attachment style shuts down, withdraws, and disengages, it is because they need space to process their thoughts and emotions and reduce the emotional exposure to a tolerable level that is below their personal threshold. Learning to self-regulate as well as co-regulate will be essential to the growth of the avoidant partner as well as their relationship with someone who is anxious. The same self-regulation techniques described above for the anxious partner would be beneficial for the avoidant one as well, including meditation, movement, and creative projects, among others. In addition, co-regulation can help restore a sense of intimacy to an anxious-avoidant dynamic. This simply means that the avoidant partner should practice opening up and allowing their anxious partner the opportunity to offer reassurance and validate how they’re feeling.
4. Learning to communicate clearly and vulnerably.
Just as the anxious attacher learning to communicate compassionately (i.e. learning to not act out in protest behavior) is important to helping the avoidant attacher feel safer, it is equally vital that the avoidant attacher learns how to open up and be vulnerable with their anxious partner. This will require both practice and courage, but when applied can significantly reduce the amount of emotional check-ins precipitated by the anxious partner and therefore help reduce the level of emotional exposure of the avoidant partner to a point that is manageable. Additionally, the more the avoidant person can learn to ask for the space that they need to process their emotions, the more likely it is that the anxious person will be able to manage their own expectations and not overreact. In short, both partners learning to communicate clearly and calmly can help restore the openness they felt at the beginning of the connection, helping draw them closer together in a healthy and sustainable way.
5. Learning to center the emotional experiences of others.
As described above, the Love Avoidant can be considered a sort of “Lone Wolf,” or someone who is well adept at managing themselves but not the relationships in their lives. Thus, in order to grow more secure and potentially repair an anxious-avoidant dynamic, the avoidant person should regularly practice being curious about how their anxious partner feels, asking open-ended questions and shining the light of their attention on the anxious partner to help them feel understood, validated, and seen. By centering the emotional experience of their anxious partner instead of just their own, the anxious partner will be much more flexible and understanding when the avoidant partner needs space.
6. Working through any prior trauma with a therapist, coach, or other mental health professional.
The work of inner healing is deeply personal and therefore necessary for both the anxious and avoidant partners to pursue independently and together as needed. The avoidant person might consider looking at their relationship history and seeing how they may have perpetuated dysfunction in their romantic connections. They might also do well to look at any key relationships that may have created their fear of enmeshment and led to the development of their avoidant attachment style, as addressing these types of core wounds can help to grow significantly more secure as an adult.
Break the push-pull cycle for good
The anxious-avoidant dynamic is a tale as old as time. In the early stages, it feels too good to be true because it usually is. Neither partner is really seeing the other for who they are but rather for the role they hope they can play, looking at each other through the lens of their own trauma-tinted glasses. In order to establish the kind of secure and healthy partnership they both crave so deeply, the anxious partner should learn to deepen the relationship with themselves, and the avoidant partner should learn to deepen their relationships with others. While independence and interdependence are both necessary for a romantic partnership to thrive, overly relying on one or the other creates an insecure and imbalanced dynamic, as is evident in the relationship between someone anxious and someone avoidant. This kind of push-pull dynamic can be incredibly draining and deeply painful. But when addressed properly through some of the steps outlined above, the anxious-avoidant relationship can be satisfying and fulfilling—and the so-called “trap” laid out for them can be discarded.
In my work, I’ve seen this happen again and again. I’ve witnessed partners in an anxious-avoidant relationship who went from quitting couples counseling and contemplating breaking up after years of being stuck in the same cycles to doing the necessary work to grow both together and apart, ending in long-lasting and healthy relationships—and even in the occasional engagement! If you too find yourself in this type of dynamic, please know that there is hope that it can work. It will take effort. It will take courage. It will take practice. But the two of you can repair—and thrive.
While the situationship I described at the outset of this chapter did not last, it played more than a fleeting part in my story. My life is richer and more meaningful than it’s ever been. Having stepped more fully into my potential and seen the impact I can have on the lives of others as a result, I can say the following beyond a shadow of a doubt: I wouldn’t change it for a thing.
I’ve worked with hundreds of clients all over the globe who have an anxious attachment style and have helped them grow more secure in themselves and their relationships, learning key relational skills that they didn’t have modeled for them growing up and failed to learn in previous relationships due to their instability. If you’re also ready to do the emotional healing work necessary to break old patterns and have the kind of healthy, secure partnership you’ve always craved, I’d be honored to help.
Use the form below to set up a Coaching Consultation with me.
I’d love to hear more about your journey and how I can assist. I can’t wait to hear from you!
