Avoidant partners often resist the vulnerability work that anxious partners pursue through therapy and coaching. Speaker B explains how family history shapes attachment styles and why avoidants typically need professional help to move toward security, while the pace mismatch between partners can exhaust the anxious one into leaving.
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Good old Adnor. I remember Adnor. He says, can folks move towards secure attachment from avoidant? Of course. And how much does family of origin matter? Everything, of course, and it matters a lot. Done. Okay, I'll expand on that a little bit. Um, what we see that is difficult, um, there is right now in the relationship talk sphere online, of which I'm a part of, um, a theme of avoidant person is the devil, anxious person is the angel who just wants to try like hell to fix the relationship. And if it wasn't for that goddamn avoidant person, everything would be fine. And that's not necessarily fair. There are a lot of anxious people that have a lot of freaking problems and they got to work on a lot. And whether even if they were with a very secure person, it still wouldn't work out relationship-wise because they're so anxious, they're so clingy, so needy. So they have to work on their issues. But that being said, by my estimation, it would seem that yes, if, if you sat down in a— pardon me— an anxious and avoidant couple and you said, All right folks, here's what we're going to need to do. We've identified this dynamic here. You anxious, you got to work on your problems. More often than not, the anxious person sits up straight and says, yes, what do I got to do? And they got a pen and paper in hand and they're writing shit down, if not recording it. And then the second they go home, or probably when they go to the parking lot, they're YouTubing solutions and downloading, you know, books on Audible and everything else, while the avoidant person tends to be more like, oh shit, here we go again. 'Always with the trying to fix the problems,' and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So yeah, they're probably less apt to try and come to center, but it is possible. Gotta reach them. You have to get past that, that wall of, you know, they value their independence over everything. The typical avoidant: 'I don't want to be vulnerable and open up and everything else because I potentially am going to lose my independence, and I'm going to have to bring you, anxious person, into my world, and oh God, the chaos and stress and anxiety of that, and yuck. Um, so it takes probably professional help to say, no, no, no, you got some work to do, Mr. or Miss Avoidant, and, uh, to come more to center. And here's what that work involves. And, um, it takes a lot, both sides. It takes a lot. But I, you know, not to demonize the avoidant person, but from what I've seen, oh boy, it takes a lot. And, uh, also ironically, from what I've seen, as avoidant person does work, uh, let's, you know, here's anxious person and they're doing the work. Here's center, like the secure. That anxious person does all this work at hyper speed, goes to therapy, reading every book imaginable, joining groups like mine, the DSO fraternity, dsofraternity.com, and, uh, they go from anxious to secure. Like in record speed. It may take months, years, whatever, but it's pretty fast considering all they have to work on because they're just boom, boom, boom, go, go, go. And as they come to center and they look over at Mr. or Miss Avoidant and they're like, man, you're going slow here. I've watched you. You took 5 steps forward and then 3 back and then 3 back again. And you're where you were before. You're worse than where you were before. Now I'm watching you come forward again and now you're taking more steps back. Then I'm watching you come forward again and more steps back. And Eventually, from what I've seen, those formerly anxious types say, I got more value, you know, now than what I've ever had, and my sense of worth is through the roof. And I, you know, not to say they're narcissistic anyway, but they finally recognize, like, I'm a pretty big deal. I'm a good spouse. I'm a good person. And I would— here I am chasing after this person and, you know, waiting, going, when are you going to be healthy, dude or gal? Come on. And they lose hope and they lose patience and they just say, I'm out of here. That's what I've seen quite a bit, if not more often than not. Anxious gets impatient. Anxious says, screw you, avoidant. I'm worth more than this.
Adios.
And the avoidant's like, nah, fuck it, back to being avoidant again. But what really fucks us up, us anxious insecure people, is that those avoidant types really don't seem very avoidant, do they, during the early stages of the relationship? They're If you click at that level, they can be hypersexual, they can be touching and loving, maybe not to the degree that you like 100%, but enough to get you hooked and enough for you to say, "Could be better, but good enough." And then 3, 4 years down the line, you're like, "Not good enough. Nowhere near good enough. What's wrong with this person? They just checked out completely. They're just not a romantic person in any way, shape, or form. This sucks." It's tough being with an avoidant person. It's, it's tough, and I speak from experience.
