Partners with an avoidant attachment style often make their significant other feel unloved, unheard, unseen, or unimportant. Know that people with this style treasure freedom and are typically emotionally distanced. They need space, understanding, and recognition in adult relationships.
Let them know you realize how much they struggle to express themselves or assert themselves at times. Help them see their disappointments are only temporary setbacks, and that each small failure can be a precursor to bigger success later on.
Anxious-avoidant relationships can work, but sometimes couples are simply incompatible. Mismatched needs and values may not be deal breakers on their own, but they can be if you add attachment fears into the mix.
If you feel that your avoidant partner isn't recognizing your love or reciprocating your efforts, it's time to leave. While you might feel emotions like sadness, anger, fear, or grief, this is all part of the healing process.
Because people with an avoidant attachment style fear not being lovable or good enough, feeling criticized or judged by loved ones can be particularly painful. Especially when it comes to things that they are not so comfortable with, such as their emotions and feelings.
Ironically, the avoidant may run from someone they have strong emotions for and even love - because the engulfment of those emotions is exactly what gives them pain.
Try not to interrupt their space
Avoidant partners may have spent much of their childhood alone, so they may get lost in their work, projects, or hobbies, says Jordan. “When you pop in and start conversing, it can take them a minute to recalibrate. You may see them startle or look annoyed.”
They do have similarities, but there are also differences that have an impact on the relationship. As a general statement, all narcissists are love avoidant, but people can be love avoidant and not be narcissists.
Avoidant people prefer (whether consciously or not) to be non-committal, and often a partner never feels like they're totally in the relationship. This doesn't mean they don't want to stay in a long term relationship and often they may, as long as it can be with no noticeable signs of real commitment.
Abuse at the hands of someone with an avoidant personality disorder often includes psychological and emotional abuse. Don't be afraid to reach out for help, pursue support groups for loved ones, seek your own therapy, separate, or leave the relationship completely. Your sanity depends on it.
Avoidant individuals may gravitate towards Acts of Service or Quality Time as their primary love languages, as these gestures offer connection without excessive emotional vulnerability.
Their avoidance creates uncertainty and anxiety in you. If this happens consistently, you may decide to walk away from your avoidant partner to relieve yourself of the uncertainty and anxiety. This is especially true for those with anxious attachment styles.
The person who wants bonding will be dissatisfied with a marriage without bonding. They will experience this as 'Silent Divorce. ' They will push for change and may initiate divorce. Very few true Avoidant Personalities can even tolerate the intimacy of psychotherapy to get help for their attitude.
When we look at some of the areas that people with an avoidant attachment style struggle in, it's easy to focus on extremes or exaggerate the way they interact with you. But your spouse can be avoidantly attached to you and still be a faithful, committed, reliable person in the marriage.
Partners with an avoidant attachment style may need time alone, especially during arguments. However, this need can be a source of shame for some avoidant partners, making it difficult to ask for. To support your partner during a disagreement, you could offer to give them space.
According to adult attachment experts Phil Shaver and Mario Mikulincer, avoidant partners often react angrily to perceived slights or other threats to their self-esteem, for example, whenever the other person fails to support or affirm their inflated self-image.
Love Avoidants recognize and are attracted to the Love Addict's strong fear of being left because Love Avoidants know that all they have to do to trigger their partner's fear is threaten to leave.
Because of this emotional distancing, they tend to be less empathic toward people in need (Joireman, Needham, & Cummings, 2001; Wayment, 2006). Further, avoidant people tend to respond negatively to their partner's emotions because those emotions can signal that they need more attention and intimacy.
The avoidant personality -male or female - is an expert at being peaceful and looking very calm and together. If their partner is not sensitive to the lack of personal sharing in the relationship, then it is quite possible for an avoidant person to end up married and with children.
Attachment Avoidance & Social Loneliness
Studies have found that avoidant attachers are less likely to date or seek relationships. In other words, they are more prone to having smaller social circles and, thus, may stay single for longer periods of time.
If your avoidant partner opens up to you, reciprocates or initiates PDA, or tries to bond with you, they may be in love with you. An avoidant in love will commit to the relationship. They'll claim you as their partner and they'll introduce you to friends and family.
Once again, people with a dismissive-avoidant style showed that they did care about relationships. Dismissive avoidant students reported higher self-esteem and positive mood than non-dismissives—but only when told that surgency predicts future interpersonal success.
For a Rolling Stone, a dismissive avoidant breakup can at first evoke feelings of relief, but eventually, they too have to process the fallout. Especially if the relationship meant a lot to them. However, as mentioned earlier, they find this incredibly hard.
Some studies showed that differences in attachment styles seem to influence both the frequency and the patterns of jealousy expression: individuals with the preoccupied or fearful-avoidant attachment styles more often become jealous and consider rivals as more threatening than those with the secure attachment style [9, ...