Hard to Love: Is an Avoidant Attachment Style Ruining Your Relationships?

By Mary Claire Schibelka, LPC

If you’ve been dating for a while and have yet to find success, you may feel like your relationships keep ending for the same reasons over and over again.  Maybe you keep feeling like nobody you date is “good enough,” or that things tend to go great until the relationship becomes more serious, and you suddenly lose interest.  If this is the case for you, an avoidant attachment style may be to blame.

How Attachment Styles Form

When you were a baby, your understanding of relationships started with the ones between you and your caregivers.  Based upon their availability and ability to meet your needs, you formed beliefs about yourself and others that have played a role in every relationship you’ve had since.  These subconscious beliefs and the way they impact your behavior in relationships are called your attachment system or attachment style.

An avoidant attachment style is often caused by caregivers who were unavailable or emotionally unresponsive most of the time, or by caregivers who were dangerous.  A child’s response to such is often withdrawal and self-reliance.

How an Avoidant Attachment Style Impacts Relationships

Years later, an avoidant attachment style shows itself in romantic relationships in ways such as difficulty growing close to or bonding with partners, surface level relationships, extreme independence, difficulty expressing emotions or being vulnerable, and rigid boundaries.  If you have an avoidant attachment style, you may find fault with every person you date, have unrealistically high standards, or idealize a past romantic partner and compare each person you date afterwards to him or her, finding that they never measure up.

Because of your avoidant attachment style, others may characterize you as cold, nonchalant, or a “player.”  What many people don’t realize about the avoidant attachment style, however, is that it’s goal is to keep you safe.  According to an avoidant attachment system, if you never rely on anybody but yourself, others can’t hurt you or let you down.

The challenge with the avoidant attachment style is that all people are biologically hardwired for relationships.  Even the most independent people eventually find themselves feeling lonely yet unable to build a secure bond with someone else.  Thankfully, attachment styles are not set in stone.  These steps can help you heal and build connections leading to a deeper sense of happiness and fulfillment:

Step 1: Identify the Stories

Every time you have an experience, you subconsciously interpret its meaning based upon your past experiences.  For example, if you grew up with a parent who paid little attention to your needs, you might tell yourself that expressing your needs to your partner isn’t worth it because they won’t be met anyways.  If you were responsible for taking care of siblings at an early age because of absent parents, you might believe that it’s better not to get attached to anybody because ultimately, the only person you can count on is yourself.

Next time you date, or when you notice your partner’s attempts at physical or emotional intimacy, bring your awareness to the messages, or stories, you are unconsciously telling yourself.  Because you’re likely not used to noticing these thoughts and feelings, you might not be able to identify them right away.  Be patient and stay curious about your experience and see what you discover over time.

Step 2: Challenge the Stories

Once you’re aware of the unhelpful stories you tell yourself, you can begin to challenge them.  If you catch yourself thinking, “This is weird,” when your partner shares something vulnerable, reframe the thought by saying something to yourself like, “Vulnerability is healthy.”  If you realize you’re starting to pick apart a partner you were once crazy about in an effort to distance them as the relationship gets more serious, try reminding yourself that nobody is perfect, but relationships between two imperfect people can be healthy, supportive, and enjoyable.

Step 3: Sit with Uncomfortable Feelings

Noticing your internal stories and challenging them is not comfortable.  Neither is opening up to another person when you’ve learned to be entirely self-sufficient.  If your goal is to be in a relationship, practice sitting with the discomfort that comes up as you face these obstacles.  Breathe as you notice these feelings and resist the urge to act on them by pulling away from your partner.  With time you’ll find that your discomfort becomes weaker and weaker, until it finally subsides entirely.

Step 4: Share Uncomfortable Feelings

As you do this work, share your experiences with your partner.  Tell them what you are feeling, where you believe the feeling comes from, how important it is for you to work through it, and what they can do to help.  Sharing your feelings will allow you to feel supported by your partner, and it’s a valuable exercise in intimacy.

If you have an avoidant attachment style, reading these steps may have brought up feelings of discomfort for you already.  Now is the time to practice uncovering the roots of these feelings, challenging your limiting beliefs, and sitting with the discomfort.  As you get more and more familiar with your experiences, you can begin to share them with trusted friends, family, and of course, the person you ultimately want to be in a healthy, mutually supportive relationship with.

If you’re interested in learning more about your attachment style, how it formed, and what you can do to change it, reach out to an ELEVATED Life Counseling therapist by clicking the “Contact Us” tab above.

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