Dating An Avoidant Person? Here's 4 Ways To THRIVE With Them

So if you are the person that is with the avoidant attachment, if you're with somebody that has more avoidant behaviors, then. And I think it's also helpful. One of the things I want to say before we get into any of this is try your best not to use this label in the relationship. Right. Whether your partner is anxious or avoidant or whatever it is, these labels are meant to just be a category or a categorization of behaviors. It is not meant to be a, a label that you put on somebody else. Right. It's not meant to be something that's like, you're acting so avoidant right now. That is no go behavior in the relationship. I really want to make this clear. If you're with somebody who's anxious, you know, being like, oh, you're, you're so anxious right now and I can't stand it, or like, you know, this is your anxious attachment style right now. People say that and it's not helpful, and it doesn't do anything but reinforce that these behaviors. So what do you do if you are with somebody who has more avoidant behaviors? Number one is do not chase. Do your best to not chase. And this is gonna be very hard even if you are a secure person. Because being with an avoidant person can elicit more anxious emotions and feelings. Because when you're used to just being in relationship and knowing what to expect and having consistency, and when you lean into emotional closeness or some type of intimacy, it's reciprocated and responded back to. When that doesn't happen, the natural tendency is to start to self question. And when we start to self question, is there something wrong with me? Am I doing something wrong? Do I need to change tactics that can lead to this pursued and pursuer dynamic where the avoidant person becomes the pursued person and the non avoidant person, whether they're secure or anxious or whatever, begins to pursue the other person. And that dynamic is going to actually push the avoidant further and further away. So how we need to respond to it is you have to continue to encourage and let the other person make decisions to choose closeness, to choose connection. And how you do that is by creating openings, you create opportunities for closeness. You create inflection points where people can choose closeness. And so that's, you know, simple things like saying, hey, would you like to plan a date for us? Or hey, how would you feel if I planned a date for us? Or, you know, I'd love for you to come and sit closer to me. Are you up for that? Right? Or I would love. I'd love a hug right now. Are you good with that? Right. So creating these opportunities or where the other person can choose closeness or not. All right, now that's gonna. I'm gonna go down the line here. Cause there's some other ones that are gonna play into this. Next is try and reduce the amount of criticism that you bring into the relationship. Criticism is like fuel for the avoidant person. It is fuel for the shutdown and the pulling away. And it really reinforces relationships aren't safe, they're not worth the energy. Instead, try and reinforce what's already working in the relationship and try and maintain a focus on the areas of the relationship that are great. Because for the avoidant person, it's also very common, as we talked about earlier on, that the avoidant person views you as the problem already. And for them, the more that you criticize, the more that you actually reinforce the story that, that they hold that says you're the problem and I'm not, right? So the more that you point the finger at them and say, you need to change this, you need to fix this, you need to stop doing that. I hate when you pull away. How come you don't text me back? Da, da, da, da. All those things are gonna make the avoidant person just like, oh, like, get away from me. I need to create space from you. So try and really catch yourself in the act of criticizing your complaining and start to shift a lot of your energy and focus towards reinforcing what works well within the relationship. Next is to stop making demands or using ultimatums as a tactic to get what you want or change behavior. Stop using demands or ultimatums in order to change behavior. What a lot of people do when they get into a relationship with an avoidant is, is when they've sort of exhausted other efforts to have that person come closer is they start to use ultimatums, right? Like if you don't start doing X or Y, we're done, right? Or if you're not going to do that, then I'm going to start withholding this, right? If you're not going to open up to me, then I'm not having sex with you as much or whatever it is. Or I'm just throwing out examples that I've heard couples use and deploy in the past. And when people are in a more avoidant state and you start to use an ultimatum again, it reinforces that experience that they've already had in early childhood of my needs don't matter, and if I'm not giving that other person exactly what they need, then I'm not gonna get what I want. And that can be frustrating because sometimes you're not really sure what they want. It feels like this, you know, elusive thing that is mysterious, that's missing from the relationship. And you're like, I don't know how to give you what you want. Cause you won't tell me how you feel. And so what a lot of people will do is they'll. They'll demand something. You have to go to therapy or I'm leaving you. You have to read this book, you have to listen to this podcast. Otherwise we're done. We have to go to this workshop or, you know, I'm moving out or whatever it is. Now, I'm not saying that there isn't a time and place for ultimatums, but for me, 98 to 99% of the time, they are not warranted, they do not work, and they are not relational. Ultimatums are not relational. They do not create choice, and they do not create an opening for any type of closeness or conversation. Which brings me to my next point. Choice, choice, choice, choice, choice. The other person, the avoidant person, needs to be given a lot of choice, and they need to be inquired with about what it's like for them to have the. That choice. So I'm gonna explain this a little bit. Avoidance are often the way that they are because early on in life, they were either had their choice completely taken away, right? The choice of, I want closeness, I want connection, I want to be in relationship with you, or their choice was taken away by them having to take on so much responsibility and they didn't actually feel like they had much of a choice in that matter. And so what can happen is that avoidance become the sort of controllers of choice in the relationship, right? It's like, if I can just control everything in the relationship, then I never really have to be in this seat of telling you what I really want. And so I never really have to choose because I'm just withholding in order to get. I'm withholding what. What I actually. What you need or what you want in order to try and get what I want. So the more that you actually give your avoidant partner some choice, right? Do you want to go on a date tonight? Do you want to eat this? I'd love for you to come and sit closer to me on the couch. Do you want to do that? Are you open to that? You know, even like, small things like, I'd love to make out with you right now. Are you open to doing that? Do you want to? Those types of things can really be helpful because what it does is, is it puts the avoidant person in the seat of having to make a decision, having to make a choice in a really small way. And the more that they can make choices, the more that they can make decisions in the relationship, the more it teaches them. It's actually safe for me to have a voice in the relationship. It's safe for me to choose what I want in the relationship. And most importantly, it is safe for me to be honest and open about what I really want, which is vulnerability, right? Which is emotional connection. And the follow up is what's it like to get to make choices in our relationship, right? So you can ask questions like, you know, are you open to talking about this? Are you open to having a conversation with this? Are you open to sharing what you're experiencing? If not, right? If the person says, no, I'm not open to talking about this, I'm not open to affirming this, are having a conversation about it. Affirm that that's fine and that you're there to connect with them. You're there to have a conversation with them when they are ready and reaffirm that you're not going to chase them, right? You're not going to chase them and reaffirm that it's their choice to lean in and open up and connect when they are ready, whether that connection is emotional, sexual, physical, intellectual, etc. Last, and this is the hard one, try not to personalize what is happening, right? Try not to personalize them pulling away. What ends up happening for a lot of people who are in relationship with avoidance is that, and this is what really starts to hurt or erode the connection in the relationship is that people are that on the other side of the avoidance start to personalize that there's something going on with them that's causing the other person to pull away, that's causing their person to shut down. And when we do that, it creates a whole storm of challenges. So do your best to not personalize. Maybe get someone your own resources, but all of those things will help and support you.