Do you have such a group of single people around you? They always say:
"I don't need to fall in love."
"There are more important things than love in this world, falling in love will delay me from doing my business."
"Men never make promises/women set many traps for you."
Even if they get out of singlehood, they will often complain to you:
"How come he or she demands so much from me?"
"You can't be too committed to a relationship; otherwise you'll be disappointed."
"I don't like having intimate behaviour with him or her, but what can I do? I'm desperate too."
And their boyfriend/girlfriend will also complain, "He or she always shys away me, how can I still be in this relationship?"
Being in a relationship with an avoidant attachment person, you may have to be prepared to play a game of hide and seek.
I. What is Avoidant Attachment?
Adult attachment is initially divided into three broad types: secure attachment people make up about 60 per cent of the population, and anxious preoccupied attachment and avoidant attachment each make up 20 per cent.
The following are typical behaviours of avoidant attachment people in intimate relationships:
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Fear of Intimacy
People with avoidant attachment tend to be resistant to intimate behaviours between partners, such as holding hands, cuddling, sexual contact, and so on. Even sometimes when their partner expresses concern for them, avoidant attachment people feel suffocated to the point of wanting to hide away them.
Avoidant attachment people have a high need for privacy, and the closeness of the relationship can create a fear of being controlled. They are also on the defensive in the relationship, ready to shut off their "emotional valves" and withdraw from the relationship.
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Pseudo-independence
People with avoidant attachments often suppress their need for intimacy, saying they are "not interested in relationships" or "being in a relationship is so troublesome", and appear to be independent, making it difficult for them to enter into an intimate relationship.
Even in the case of extreme stressful events in a relationship, the avoidant attachment person tries to feign indifference. For example, when faced with the threat of a breakup from their partner, they may shrug their shoulders and say, "Whatever, if it doesn't work out, just break up."
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"Playboy"
Another particular manifestation of the avoidant attachment person is the person who is always looking for intimacy but is also always being single, always flirting and running away.
They also show relatively high levels of commitment and enthusiasm in the early stages of a relationship, but once the relationship progresses, or stabilises, their cold and withdrawn characteristics come into being, avoiding further development of the relationship through a variety of methods, or finding excuses to break up.
II. Specific Manifestations of an Avoidant Attachment Person
In addition to the main characteristics listed above, avoidant attachment is expressed in many different ways. Overall, repression is a common strategy they use, and while the specific manifestations vary, they are all essentially about avoiding the desire for intimacy in the present moment, for example:
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Focusing on picking apart their partner's faults
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Glorifying the ex, believing that the past relationship was the best
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Remaining detached and refraining from self-exposure
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Liking people who are impossible to date
Avoidant attachment people also have a need for love and attachment. They just can't deliver their love to others or receive it from others.
III. How do avoidant attachments develop?
People with avoidant attachments usually experience emotional neglect from their parents in childhood.
If the mother is not expecting or prepared for the birth of her child, or is even filled with remorse and disappointment, she may treat her child with indifference and seldom respond.
Children, however, have an inborn need for their mother's love and care, but every time there is a longing or need for attachment to their mother, they suffer psychological pain from rejection.
Over time, out of their own protection, they make the unavoidable choice: to avoid all attachment needs and intimate contact and convince themselves, "I don't need it."
IV. When Avoidance Meets Anxiety: Come on, Let's Hurt Each Other
The scariest but most common thing is that avoidant attachment people are easily attracted to anxious attachment people. One has a fear of intimacy and must keep a distance from others; the other has a fear of abandonment and desperately tries to draw closer with others.
Because of the compulsive repetition of the trauma, both sides are immersed in the familiar pain of "you chasing me, I running away".
Often, the real needs of both sides are masked by superficial detachment, resistance, or anger and anxiety, and they are unable to recognise each other's pain, leading to frequent communication barriers, and a minor incident can turn into a huge argument.
V. How to Get Along with Someone with Avoidant Attachment?
If the person you like, the person you are dating, your partner leans towards avoidant attachment, then here are some tips when dealing with them:
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Don't Force Them
If your avoidant attachment partner keeps you at an arm's length and is repulsed by your proximity, then don't force them to accept it in the first place.
Forcing or being angry will only put them in a more intense state of stress and make them more withdrawn.
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Help Them Recognise and Accept Themselves
What we can do is to try to help the avoidant attachment person to understand themselves better, to recognise the regular basis in their behaviour and emotional responses, such as the situations that make them avoidant, the intimate actions that they find difficult to accept, and so on.
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Speak Up about Needs Instead of Entering into a Loop
If you tend to end up with uncomfortable feelings with others, but it happens over and over again, causing you to always question, "Why does it always happen?" "Why does he or she keep avoiding me?"
This may be because you've been playing a mind game where both of you have entered into an infinite loop, unable to break the communication pattern.
To break the mind game, we need to recognise and express our authentic needs, and focus on what's happening in the moment, rather than reacting to each other with our past experiences. It needs practice.
VI. Are People with Avoidant Attachments Still "Savable"?
We often receive many messages backstage, all with the same request: "I am avoidant/anxious/fearful (all are insecure) attachment, what should I do? Am I still savable?"
We don't advocate that a person needs to "correct" their attachment pattern. Every attachment is a defence pattern that has been developed through one's own experiences, and the reason why a person chooses to avoid intimacy must be that it has protected them at some point in the past, creating positive feedback.
Attachment patterns are indeed far-reaching, but they are not completely fixed. We can reduce those aspects of attachment patterns that bring negative effects through introspection and adjustment.
Dr Dan Siegel argues that making sense of your story can be a way to escape being defined and confined by insecure attachment patterns. One of the most effective ways is to try to write a coherent narrative, recalling your past experiences and reexamining the reasons for them.
For example, "My parents' indifference to me was not because I was unlovely; it may have been because they hadn't learnt how to express their love." You can generate new perceptions by reframing experiences.
As Dan Siegel puts it:
"By understanding our past selves, we can liberate our present selves and empower our future selves."
