The rise of the avoidant attached woman - why men are frustrated, and women can’t find good men

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Team. Welcome back to the Man Talk Show. Connor Beaton here. And today I want to be talking about the rise of the avoidant attached woman. Why are women more and more avoidant than ever before? And what do you do about it? Obviously there's the route that I see many of you taking in the comment section, which is just f that I'm not dating avoidant women. And I get that. I understand that maybe that's something that you're not interested in for, for some of the reasons that we're gonna talk about here because I think what a lot of women maybe miss out on is what men actually prefer and desire and want in a woman. It does seem that women's dating, mating and selection preferences within relationships have taken a substantial front and center precedent within the context of modern day relationships. Men's dating, mating and selection preferences, on the other hand, are, are quite often demonized. And we're gonna talk about this a little bit more just in the video as we go along. But where I wanna begin in this conversation is why do avoidant women, avoidant attached women seem to be on the rise? Where does there seem to be a lot more avoidant women than ever before? This is something that Adam Lane Smith and I talked about in the Man Talks alliance, which is a group of men, about 800 guys from around the world that I run, which you can check out on mantalks.com, 8. And he was a guest in there. And we were talking about how the tides have shifted. Traditionally, men were a little bit more avoidant and women were a little bit more anxious in their attachment styles because of social norms, relational dynamics, the expectations of each gender. And as those things have shifted and as women have become more and more encouraged to be more like men, to take on more male oriented values or traits or characteristics that they have been encouraged to be more masculine and they are encouraged to embody more assertiveness, more directness. They are starting to become a little bit more closed down. And there's a fear of opening up, of being vulnerable, of softening is maybe another word. And even that word for some women will feel provoking, right? Like, like you know, they've just been attacked. And many women see the word softening or surrendering within the relational context as almost a poison, as a danger or something that only patriarchal or misogynistic men want. And this context completely misses out on the inherent nature of, of what men actually want in relationships. The majority of men are not looking for a hyper confrontational, very aggressive, overly Assertive, overly dominant woman. That is not what most men want. And there's this sort of trope within dating advice that women hear, which is that, well, if a man really loves you, he, he'll just accept you the way that you are. And what this does in many ways is it has caused a lot of women to check out from a deeper quality of self recognition, self acknowledgement in the sense of being aware of some of the maybe dysfunctional behaviors, some of the traits that are not attractive, that are not wanted in a relationship. And there's kind of this take it or leave it ultimatum that gets deployed by the woman in the relationship. And the man is kind of like, well, you wouldn't allow me to behave like that if I gave you ultimatums. You probably wouldn't like that, right? And so I'm going to leave it, right? I'm not going to, I'm not going to engage with that. Because the reality is that the majority of men do want a woman who has the capacity, not needs to be like this all the time. You know, the majority of men are not looking for some pushover who's a servant and, you know, just acquiesces to everything that he says. Maybe there's some guys out there that are like that and want that, but the majority of men still want a woman that they deeply respect. They still want a woman that they have reverence for, that they admire. And a part of that is her ability to be nurturing, to be soft, to surrender in certain moments. And that doesn't mean that, that she puts down her values, that she doesn't, you know, engage in a good argument sometimes, that she has to acquiesce to the man being right all the time. That's not what most men are looking for. The majority of men. And guys, you can verify this in the comments if you want, on Spotify, on YouTube, wherever you're tuning into this. But the majority of men are looking for a relationship that adds value, adds peace to their life, has some ease to their life, and isn't another place where hyper amounts of stress, of over responsibility and of burden are being put on them, right? So the majority of men are looking for a woman that they can go through life with, a woman that of course is going to call them into a greater version of themselves. So she has to have a spine. She has to be willing to push him and challenge him sometimes, but she also has to be willing to be soft, be caring, be nurturing, love him, right, and be able to have some type of devotion and acknowledgement that he's a good man and that she values the characteristics and the traits that he brings to the table. But you see, this has sort of been ideologically moved out of a lot of women who are told, do not have any kind of devotional nature towards men, don't soften around men. Women really be, stay hard, you know, be hyper assertive, make sure that your needs are being met. And then the final problem that is contributing to the rise of avoidant women is that women are largely being told again, in relational containers, online dating advice. There's this sort of background narrative that men are the problem, that the reason why relationships aren't working is because there's no good men or, or men just can't get their shit together or men need to, you know, whatever it is, they need to step up and blah, blah, blah, blah. And of course it's true that some men need to get their shit together. And you know, I understand that there are some women that need to do that too. But the challenge and the sort of pervasive nature of this is that a lot of women are being raised by women and being told by other women that men are predominantly the relational problem. And so if you are in a position and you're in a relationship with somebody and the perspective and the belief system that you hold is that they are predominantly the problem, then you don't actually have to reflect on your own contribution to the relationship's breakdowns and dysfunctions. So the major issue of what is one of the major issues of what's creating more avoidant women is this notion that men are just the relationship problems and, and that women don't actually have to reflect. Now in some and many women's defense, which I'm going to go to your defense here, ladies, there are many women that have been in relationships with men where the inverse was very true, where a woman took a lot of responsibility for the breakdown, where she really tried, she tried to make it work. And generally these women are, are, are with or have been with very avoidant men, very shut down men, men who are avoidance themselves. And those women have been in the opposite position where they've tried to take responsibility, they've really tried to get that man to do some work, whether it's go to therapy or do a workshop together or read a book or listen to a podcast or whatever it is, and nothing seemed to work and he wouldn't take responsibility for his actions. So in some women's defense that has been the case and then they respond to that. So these are some of the things that are contributing to more and more women being avoidant. What do you do? What do you do if you are dating or married to or with an avoidant woman? Obviously, I hear many of you that are like, I just don't bother. I do not date avoidant women. Well, that's your choice. That is your prerogative. If you can do that, that's. That's fine for you. There's no judgment to you, no judgment whatsoever. But if you found yourself in a relationship with an avoidant woman and you really care about her, what are some of the things that you can do to build some more secure connection and actually have a more fluid, intimate dynamic that has a more secure attachment? I have a separate video on dating an avoidant woman, so definitely go check that out. But I'm gonna give you one or two pieces here that I think are very, very helpful based on what I laid out. So, number one, for many women in our modern culture and society, they have been taught that safety is occupying a more masculine frame. Safety for them is occupying a more assertive, sometimes combative, sometimes conflict oriented, hardened way of being because it is not safe for them to feel to be safe relationally, to be soft, to be nurturing, to be caretaking. It's not safe for them to trust a man. This is at the heart and soul of a lot of the challenges that many women face because they've been raised by women who were deeply hurt by men. Maybe they saw abuse in their household, maybe their father abandoned them. And so there's either a conscious or very deep unconscious mental mistrust that she can be safe with a man. So your work, if you are with an avoidant woman, is to do a couple things. Number one is to help her define and refine what safety actually looks like, sounds like, and feels like in a relationship. The chances that she doesn't quite know how to articulate that. And so you can ask some very simple, basic questions in the relationship, like when do you feel the safest? When, you know, in our relationship. When have you felt the most connected? In our marriage, if you're married. Right. When have you felt the most connected? When do you feel safest in our relationship with me? Because for the avoidant person, again, safety is in independence. Safety is in sovereignty for the avoidant person. And what they need to do is to start to choose, yes, independence, yes, sovereignty, but also togetherness, relationality, finding safety and trust within the relational container. So you can ask some of these questions and have them Start to define the moments where they feel trusting, safe, et cetera. And then you can encourage it, right? When you see her engaging with you, saying things, making decisions where she is starting to just soften, starting to relax into trust. Because that's pretty much what the avoidant woman is afraid of. I'm afraid to relax into the safety of this relationship because you might leave, you might hurt me, you might take advantage of me, you might betray me, I might get judged by other women for that. And so a lot of women's nervous systems and how they show up physically and somatically in the relationship is very tense. And so as she starts to relax into safety and trust within the relationship, you can encourage that. When you see her, you know, maybe she chooses to come sit next to you on the couch and she puts her head on your shoulder or snuggles into you, you can just say, oh, I really love when you do this, you know, and you start to reinforce that it's safe for her to engage in connection. And you can even encourage those things with what I call direction oriented language. So you can say things like, come sit next to me, or come sit down and put your head on my shoulder. And she might give some push, pushback, but you just stay relaxed and stay calm and stay grounded and just like, okay, well, whenever you're ready, come over here and put your arms around me, right? Or come give me a hug, something like that. Because what you are doing is you are setting a precedent that it is safe for her to relax in the relationship, that she can start to trust your intentions, your needs, your wants, relationally, that she can start to also express those things. Because a big thing for avoidant women is that their needs and wants and expectations are either very hidden and completely mysterious so that you feel like you have no idea what she really wants, needs, or desires, or they are weaponized and she is hypercritical, hyper combative, hyper conflict oriented, and she is trying to battle you to get her needs met. This is very common in a lot of modern women that are avoidant. They use therapy speak. They weaponize their needs, their wants and their desires. Not intentionally, right? I'm not. It's not an accusation that they are out to get you or that they're evil or anything like that, but it gets weaponized. Because how an avoidant tries to get their needs met is either by hiding them entirely and continuing to maintain the story that you'll never be able to meet my needs and only I can do that, or they try and criticize and Complain and create conflict in order to have their needs met. And it's another way of avoidance, right? It's like, I'm going to criticize you relentlessly that you, you never show up for me the way that I want, and you're, you're never actually meeting my needs or the gifts that you buy me are never right or whatever it is right. Like what. However, she's criticizing and complaining, and that's creating space. And what's really happening in that moment is she, she's testing. Can you be with. Create structure? Can you hold my criticism and complaint and love me through it? And so in those moments when the criticism comes up, you can move. Then this is a big, big piece of advice that I'm just going to end off with. Help to move from the explanation to the expression. So move her from explaining all the things that she's criticizing about or complaining about or what she's, you know, why she's upset to what she's actually feeling about the situation. So move to emotional content. Move her towards emotional content. Because again, especially for avoidant women, there is this perspective that, that their emotions, their feelings are, are really not wanted. They're not safe within the context of a relationship. So avoidant women can be more, more like a lawyer. You know, they can be more litigious where they're like, litigating and they're on the, they're like, making you be a defense, a defense lawyer. And they're, you know, they're really getting into all the minutiae and the details and they can't get out of that space. And so you'll hear an avoidant woman talk a lot about the details of what happened and complaints about what happened versus how she felt about what happened. And so you can ask some basic questions like, hey, when that happened, when I forgot to bring home the milk, or I forgot the, you know, $11 eggs.

Like, how did that feel for you? Right? And she might say, like, well, I just didn't like it. It's like, okay, but, but how did you feel? And you might have to actually help fill in blanks at first. You might have to be like, did you feel ignored? Did you feel forgotten? Did you feel like I didn't care? And help her to articulate some of those things. Now, again, you are not responsible for her emotions. You are not responsible for fixing it or solving it, but you can help to lead her into expressing her emotions. This is called relational leadership. So you can help to lead her into expressing her emotions. And this can be a very, very valuable asset relationally and an incredibly important step in being able to build and develop trust and safety. Because if you can help to draw some of her emotions out and not become reactive and not become defensive, it's like, okay, you felt like I didn't care about you in that moment, or you felt like I forgot about you. Understood. Thank you so much for sharing how you felt. Boom. Done right? Won't happen again. So implement some of these steps. Share below what stood out to you? What do you think is causing the rise of more avoidant women? Share your thoughts below. Share what you have done in your own relationship that you have seen to be very, very helpful and which part of this video you are going to be implementing with your partner. See you next week.