7 Signs Of Avoidant Attachment Style

All right, so now we're going to talk about what it actually looks like, what this avoidance looks like in your relationship. So these will be some signs of what to look for, whether you are the avoidant partner or you're with an avoidant partner. Now the interesting thing about avoidant people is that oftentimes they have great relationships. They're usually, they can be very fun to be around and they can oftentimes have a lot of, a lot of friendships, a lot of relationships. But there's a certain quality of depth that's lacking and you can kind of sense that or feel that whether you are with that person or you are that person. Right. So as an example for me in the past, a lot of my male friendships, they didn't know what was going on behind the scenes of my life. They didn't know that I was struggling with alcohol or smoking weed too much, or that I was womanizing or struggling with porn. They just really didn't know about the, the challenges that I was facing because that would feel like too intimate of a detail to tell them. It felt like it was too, too much closeness to actually even let the men in my life, my buddies, some of my best friends ever in on the game of what I was struggling with. So that's just an example. But I'm going to give you a list of things that you can look for when it comes to an avoidant partner. Now again, uh, just because your partner has one of these things or you have one of these things doesn't make, necessarily make you an avoidant person or partner. Um, but if you have a bunch of them, it's probably a pretty decent sign. So number one is not returning texts or calls or emails. Although I, you know, I don't think a lot of couples generally email them each other. But not returning texts or calls. Forgetting to respond consistently can be a big sign of avoidance. Forgetting plans, special occasions, dates, that can be another big sign of avoidance. And those two things can really be self destructive or sabotage mechanisms. Right. The avoidant person might not even be fully aware that they are doing these things on a consistent basis. Another one is not reciprocating expressions of intimacy or love or affection. Right? So you might find that if you are an avoidant partner, you, you might say that you want more intimacy or want more sex with your partner. And then when they try and initiate, you find yourself shutting down, you find yourself making excuses for not having that intimacy or not having sex. You might find that they, you know, your partner is expressing love and admiration for you or to you, and you struggle to actually let it in or reciprocate that back to them. Another one is deflecting conversations. Generally, when it comes to the relationship progressing around more commitment, such as, you know, getting into a committed relationship, moving in together, getting engaged, those types of things. An avoidant person will oftentimes it's those inflection points where they will have a lot of maybe combativeness or they're shut down, or there's excuses about why you can't talk about it, but there's some form of deflection away from that conversation. Next is maybe dismissing or making fun of the other partners, attempts to create closeness and intimacy, or connect in a deeper way. So you might have a partner, right? If you are the avoidant person, you might have a partner who's trying to get you to read a book that would bring you closer together, or go to a workshop or listen to a podcast, or, you know, go on a certain date, whatever it might be, and you find yourself responding to those things, which, those are bids for connection, Those are bids for affection and closeness. You might find yourself responding to those things by mocking them, dismissing them, you know, calling them ridiculous, or whatever that might be. Next is there's a certain level of discomfort with emotional closeness. There's a dislike of opening up to others and expressing things, thoughts or feelings. Opinions are okay, beliefs are okay, but opening up about thoughts or feelings specifically about the relationship or intimacy that might lead to more closeness is oftentimes it feels like a threat. Um, it might. Avoidant people will definitely find it very challenging to trust that somebody else can be relied on. And this is a big one. And you can see most avoidant people are successful. Not, maybe, maybe not most, but many avoidant people are actually quite successful because they have a extremely high level of self reliance, but they have a very low level of external reliance of relying and trusting on others. And this can bleed into their work environment where they start to get into a leadership position and they start to struggle with actually relinquishing control. I remember when I started my company, one of the biggest challenges that I had was when I brought on a COO to help me run my business. And I had such a hard time relinquishing things that I knew I shouldn't be doing in my business that I had hired them for. But for the life of me, it was really this battle because I was so not used to trusting other people with being able to contribute to my life. Next is that they purchase, prefer to maintain very rigid or strong boundaries in the relationship, they may pull away or shut down. If somebody questions those boundaries that are very rigid and very harsh, they may pull away. If people start to get more emotionally close, and they prefer to, when conflict arises, they prefer to kind of go into their own camps. So more avoidant people, especially people that are very avoidant when conflict arises, the approach that they take is not, let's try and solve this together, it's you go and think about it, I'll go and think about it, and then we'll kind of, you know, figure our own stuff out and we'll move through it like that. Lastly is they might seem a little bit distant or aloof, maybe cold sometimes, and they might really overvalue their independence and self sufficiency. So it might be this thing that is this, you know, it is a very big strength in their life. I know that for me, my independence and my self sufficiency has been a very big strength in my life, but it was also a crutch and it was also a blind spot that oftentimes was causing me to miss out on where I could be getting support to actually move faster and farther.