Connor Beaton recounts his personal journey overcoming an avoidant attachment style. He explains avoidant behaviors (withholding needs, avoiding boundaries), describes a turning point through gradual exposure—expressing wants/needs and risking conflict—and recommends small, systematic boundary-setting as a pathway toward secure attachment and being known.
I was like your chronic avoidant guy for so long. I didn't express what I wanted in relationships. I didn't express what I needed. I didn't really set good boundaries or any boundaries at all. And there were some relationships where I truly thought that when conflict happened, it was a sign that the relationship was doomed. That was like the relationship was broken or that that person was broken. And this is the hallmark of an avoidant person person. For the avoidant person, I am better with me than with we. Me is safe. We is a threat being known by you as, you know, the person that I'm dating feels like the threat. It feels hostile in our body. And so it wasn't until I started to go through this process of what I can only call excruciating exposure, exposing little pieces of what I wanted, what. What I needed, what I expected in the relationship, and exposing my boundaries, what actually wasn't okay with me, what wasn't workable for me. And I risked conflict. And I started to see that conflict actually wasn't really an issue. The conflict wasn't the problem. It was the denial that something was missing for me that was causing an even greater rift in the relationship. So as the avoidant person, my pathway towards secure attachment, my pathway back towards healthy relation and relating, was actually through the expression of exposing my wants, needs, and desires. And so if you are the avoidant person in the relationship, this process can take time. It doesn't have to take years and years or decades. It can be quite quick. But you have to systematically go slow in setting some very small boundaries. Hey, I wasn't okay with that. I didn't like when you said that, I'd like to go here for dinner. No, I don't want that for dinner. It's these types of small decisions that you start to expose, and you risk expressing who you are and what you need and what you want and letting it be known by the other person. Because the avoidant attachment style is an adaptive protective strategy that says, maybe if you don't know me, you can't hurt me. And what that leaves us with ultimately is never being known by anybody, which is the ultimate pain.
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