How to Heal an Avoidant Attachment Style, According to a Relationship Coach

Building safety and intimacy with others

Reviewed by Ivy Kwong, LMFTReviewed by Ivy Kwong, LMFT

Attachment theory suggests that our relationship patterns are significantly influenced by our formative interactions with our earliest caregivers. These early experiences unconsciously lay the groundwork for how we approach intimacy, resulting in secure, anxious, avoidant, or fearful attachment styles. In particular, the avoidant attachment style is commonly characterized by hyper-independence, conflict avoidance, and emotional distance.

If you have an avoidant attachment style, there’s a tendency to nurture insecure relationships that enable emotional distance. The level of closeness needed to deepen a relationship may feel like too much, causing you to feel shut down and overwhelmed. However, change is possible. Let’s explore the origins of the avoidant attachment style and explore ways to heal and overcome its challenges in adulthood.

Identify Your Patterns to Break Them

Babies are born with an innate biological need to attach to their caregivers. Not only does depending on others maximize our evolutionary ability to survive, but it also provides safety and protection. When we are sad, fearful, and crying out in distress, we are motivated to reach out to our caregivers with proximity-seeking behaviors to seek reassurance, comfort, touch, and quality time. How our caregivers respond to our vulnerable stress forms our attachment style.

When caregivers respond consistently, this creates a secure attachment style where we believe we will be taken care of and can safely extend that trust to the world.

If our primary caregivers are consistently emotionally unavailable or unresponsive to our needs, we feel like it’s not safe to reach out to them for physical and emotional connection, which this leads to low trust and high avoidance of others. An avoidantly attached person subsequently learned how to fend for themselves and deactivate their proximity-seeking behavior which causes aloofness, alienation, and self-reliance.

Takeaway

As an avoidant dater, you have no problem being single. You may crave love but you’re afraid of letting someone get too close so you abandon others before you are abandoned. There might be a deep, flawed belief you are damaged and defective because you may not have had enough childhood experiences where your lovability felt consistent and true. 

Over time, you may distance yourself from others and focus on developing a strong sense of self. As a result, you may dismiss the importance of relationships to manage fears of intimacy and pre-emptively strike off rejection. The good news is your avoidance is not a fundamental part of who you are, but a way of being that can be deconstructed and rebuilt to support healthier and happier relationships.

Once you recognize your avoidant tendencies, you can practice building trust by giving people the opportunity to show up for you, and practice deepening vulnerability by opening up to others. Over time, you can become more comfortable meeting and sharing needs without feeling overwhelmed or dysregulated. Step by step, you can learn how to break free from your habitual avoidant behaviors developed from childhood.

Feel Safe With Intimacy

As an avoidant dater, you likely come across as autonomous, confident, assured, and easy-going. You know who you are, what you like, and can be low-maintenance because you prefer to take care of your own problems.

Since there is a struggle to share feelings and thoughts with others (out of a fear of being controlled, abandoned, or not wanting to rely on others), you might have to put conscious effort into staying engaged since your reflex is to pull away, which may lead to a history of shallow, short-lived relationships rather than deep, intimate, long-term commitments.

Here’s a common example: You’ve been seeing someone for a few months and they want to define the relationship. You may really like them but still feel an intense desire to push them away, which leads to hurt and confusion in your partner.

Some distancing tactics look like:

• Focusing on minor flaws and differences to excuse why you can’t get too close to your partner, and sabotage the growing connection. There’s an overemphasis on trivial, workable issues and not enough appreciation for valued commonalities and their positive aspects.

• Suppressing needs and not sharing what you need in a relationship because you don’t want to rely on your partner, or you don’t trust them to meet your needs. Subsequently, you may have extremely strong boundaries that prevent you from letting your walls down.

• Feeling like you have the “upper hand” in dating because you don’t succumb to big displays of emotions and let problems slide. Because you’re unaffected, you feel in control and that you’ll be fine no matter what happens in the relationship.

• Comparing your partner to unrealistic standards based on an idea in your mind about what love looks like. When they fall short or make a mistake, you doubt the relationship’s long-term success and fantasize about what it would be like with other people.

• Withdrawing when a relationship escalates, which is when conflict and deeper emotions may express themselves. Because you don’t want to be vulnerable, you might judge their vulnerability as demanding, suffocating, triggering, clingy, needy, or intense.

• Keeping conversations light so you can avoid excessive communication, making future plans, and stepping into emotional intimacy. Since you’re not opening up about what you mean to each other, they’re kept at an arm’s length.

Takeaway

The healing happens when you override these old instincts and do things differently than you ever have before. You can choose to open up about your fears, insecurities, and needs and build up your window of tolerance for attachment so you can be present as connection builds. Over time, you won’t feel like you need to emotionally retreat when you can feel safe being close, state your boundaries and have them honored, and share your needs and have them met.

This looks like saying, “I value what we have and want to be honest about what’s coming up for me emotionally. As you want more, I feel this urge to pull away from you. I’m working on this part of myself and could use your support. Can we talk about this, take things slowly, and check in with each other so we can understand where we are coming from? All of this is hard for me to say, so I appreciate your patience.”

A Path Ahead for Secure Relationships

Avoidant people are typically drawn to anxious people because these styles are prone to playing games with each other instead of dating as their authentic selves. At first glance, this attraction stems from the complementary qualities each person possesses:

• The avoidant person is attracted to the vulnerability, depth, and availability of the anxious person, which connects them with the immediate and urgent feelings of connection they typically don’t allow themselves to feel.

• The anxious person is attracted to the avoidant person’s independence and self-sufficiency, which aligns with their personal desire for autonomy.

While this dynamic can provide an opportunity for growth, it can be challenging for competing insecure attachments to maintain a healthy relationship unless their self-awareness and communication are exceptionally strong.

Healing an insecure attachment style—avoidant, anxious, or fearful-avoidant—requires “earning” a secure attachment style. As I mentioned in my last column about healing an anxious attachment style, this happens through emotionally corrective experiences which occur through inner work, reflection, therapy, coaching, and relationships.

While it’s great to seek out a securely attached partner who can function as a safe haven, it’s essential to still cultivate these skills. The point is to achieve balance instead of having a partner fill in the gaps so you can find a fulfilling relationship with someone who complements rather than completes you.

Here are some key areas to work on:

Focus On Yourself Emotionally

Learn how to sit with the discomfort of being in your emotions with techniques such as breathwork, mindfulness, journaling, and grounding. This can also look like getting help from a therapist and nurturing a self-care routine that enables you to connect with your internal landscape. By building up your emotional intelligence, awareness, and capacity, you can welcome unconditional self-love to reduce feelings of shame.

Practice Self-Compassion

Once you’ve identified how your avoidant behaviors manifest, allow yourself grace, care, and understanding when old stories come up. It takes time to change ingrained behaviors, so accept it’s OK to have your feelings while you learn to pursue a different, secure response.

Speak to yourself the way you hope a loved one will speak to you with unconditional, loving, and compassionate language. Celebrate your progress when you’re able to stay present, feel what you're feeling, and communicate.

Express Your Inner Thoughts and Feelings

Often, there’s a desire to bury your emotions and unpack them alone–if at all. It is important to practice processing your emotions and then sharing your thoughts with your partner when you’re ready. It’s vital to let your partner know this is not a rejection but you need time to tap into your vulnerability. Check in and have ongoing communication as intimacy develops gradually.

Accept Your Desire of Solitude

Your avoidant patterns like your independence and self-directness can be a beautiful part of your personality–when balanced. It may feel shameful to acknowledge how much alone time you need which leads to you wanting it even more. To respect your need for independence, proactively speak to your partner about what that looks like. Perhaps it’s taking certain vacations on your own or requiring the mornings for your routine. Accept these urges without making a story out of them.

Commit in Relationships

In the past, you may have believed that committing to a partner would intrude your freedom. This doesn’t have to be the case. With clear communication, you can work with your partner to create a heart-centered relationship where your desire for space and security are accepted. By moving towards this truth, you can feel more comfortable staying and fighting for a relationship instead of looking for a way out.

Have a Support System

A partner can be an incredible resource for earning a secure attachment style, but learning how to trust and love others takes a village. This starts by openly sharing your fears, insecurities, and needs. Reach out to a trusted community where you can reach out for help. A supportive circle can help you explore your feelings, understand the importance of reciprocating others’ needs, develop healthier emotional responses, and learn to trust and rely on others.

Keep in Mind

By embracing your worthiness of love and acknowledging that you deserve to feel close to others, you can craft a coherent story that isn’t mixed with anxiety and fear. You can transcend the limitations of your past experiences and find satisfaction in your most dear relationships.

Related: What Avoidant Attachment Looks Like in a Relationship

Read the original article on Verywell Mind.