People with an avoidant attachment style might pull away after sex both because they're uncomfortable with intimacy and they fear rejection.
Feeling pressured to open up
Because of their childhood wounds, being vulnerable tends to be a huge trigger for people with an avoidant attachment style. They have spent years, if not decades, building barriers around them to keep others out.
Usually if a fearful avoidant is pulling away from you it's because you are triggering their avoidant core wound of, “I don't want to lose my independence and I feel like I may be losing myself in this relationship.”
They'll pull away from you hard when you walk away from them. Over time, however, their desire to be with you may overcome their fears and want to get back with you. So far, we've looked at how avoidants generally react to being abandoned.
People with an avoidant attachment style can't stand intimacy. However, they may be the type of people who come on strong when they are interested in someone, and they flee when their request of attention is met. They also can become anxious when their partner retreat for too long, and pull back when they come closer.
Avoidantly attached people are prone to “shutting down, numbing, rigid compartmentalizing, and pushing away,” Mary Chen, LFMT, tells SELF. And these suppression techniques can feel “exactly like rejection” to their partners, making it hard to approach—and therefore understand—avoidants!
An avoidant may also deactivate longer if you act needy, upset and angry when they need space away from you to feel safe again. Since fearful avoidants usually reach out after deactivating for 2 – 5 days, wait up to 3 days to see if they'll reach out before reaching out.
Rebound relationships, in most cases, last from a few months to a year. They usually don't last in the long term because the rebounding partner has not moved on from their previous partner. In rare cases, they may last for years. The longevity of a relationship depends on the understanding between the partners.
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, ...
Fearful avoidants both want and fear intimacy. So they seek closeness. But once they do, their fear of intimacy and attachment kicks in and they suddenly feel the need to escape, and this is when they need you to chase them.
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.
If you want to get back together with a fearful avoidant, avoid doing or saying anything to make their anxiety worse. The goal is to make them feel safe around you, so remember to be calm, kind, and upbeat. Speak to them in a soothing tone of voice. Point out the silver lining when something bad happens.
Fearful-Avoidant Attachment:
These people do what I call a “push-pull” relationship style, which means that they compulsively pull people in, while simultaneously pushing them away.
Being in a relationship with an avoidant partner is not simple, although an avoidant attacher will engage in relationships, they don't really allow the other person “in.” They tend to erect personal walls or boundaries to avoid intimacy and emotional closeness with others – which prevents the development of fulfilling ...
Individuals with fearful-avoidant attachment push people away due to an intense fear of rejection. In this case, the act of pushing people away is done out of fear and not because of trying to maintain independence. They desperately want to feel connected but have a hard time trusting others.
A fearful avoidant during no contact acts slightly differently from other attachment styles. Going no contact with them can become extremely distracting and often requires a lot of discipline. The fearful-avoidant does not express remorse or sadness over heartbreak in the initial weeks of the breakup.
They're always looking for the red flags, and they will find them, so when you go no contact with the dismissive avoidant, don't expect them to reach out to you.
In a Love Avoidants mind, intimacy with another person is equivalent to being engulfed, suffocated, and controlled. Too much closeness can literally cause them to feel like they are losing themselves, and yes, it can even feel like dying. (that is how intense their fears can be).
Yes. Some dismissive avoidants feel regret the break-up as soon as it happens, especially if they had formed some form of attachment. Some dismissive avoidants try to get back together right after the break-up and other's offer a friendship out of regret.
As a result of turning off their emotions, avoidant attachers are not likely to over-reflect on why a relationship didn't work out. Yet, interestingly, this reaction means that avoidant attachers may struggle to move on from previous relationships as quickly as they could if they had dealt with their emotions head-on.
Slow to text back
Dismissive avoidants don't like instant back-and-forth texting unless it's urgent or they're really interested. Their typical response is to take their time when texting back. To them, it doesn't matter when you text back as long as you do text back.
On the other hand, people with an avoidant attachment may be attracted to anxious partners because their pursuit and need for closeness reinforce the avoidant person's need for independence and self-reliance. Anxious and avoidant partners may also seek their partner's traits due to wanting those traits in themselves.
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.