by Amy Chan
Focusing on small imperfections in their partner.
Forming relationships that have an impossible future (e.g., with someone already in a relationship or who is emotionally unavailable).
Waiting for the perfect “one” or reminiscing about their single days or a past idealized relationship.
During an argument, instead of disclosing feelings, becoming distant and aloof.
Rationalizing their way out of commitment and/or intimacy.
Avoidant attachment makes up approximately 25 percent of the population.8 Out of the three attachment types, avoidants tend to end their relationships more frequently and divorce more. In romantic relationships, they score the lowest on every measure of closeness.9
Avoidants have a challenging time being in touch with how they feel and disassociate from their emotions after a breakup. This causes them to move on quickly and not spend the time to process the breakup. That’s likely why it’s rare for an avoidant to attend Renew, because she tends not to feel the sharpness of the pain in the same way as an anxiously attached person. But after the same patterns keep repeating, sometimes an avoidantly attached person will make the effort to become more secure as she realizes she has an ongoing issue with creating and sustaining intimacy.
ANXIOUS ATTACHMENT
An anxious attachment is characterized by a deep-rooted fear of rejection and abandonment. Whereas the avoidant seeks to be independent from her partner, the anxious is codependent on her partner. Anxiously attached types crave intimacy and become preoccupied with their relationship, worrying about their partner’s ability to love them back. They feel doubtful of their own worth and seek constant approval and reassurance from others. The angst that results from the fear of abandonment drives them to act clingy and needy of their partner, resulting in them being emotionally desperate in their relationships.10 Ninety percent of the women who come to Renew Breakup Bootcamp have an anxious attachment style. This comes as no surprise, since the anxiously attached have the hardest time letting go after a breakup.
This was the case for Mandy, a twenty-four-year-old overachieving psychology major who attended two Renew Breakup Bootcamps. Her first time was to get over her first love. Her second was a year later, when she was in a new relationship that she didn’t want to “mess up” and wanted to build on the knowledge she had gained in her first bootcamp.
Mandy had a need for constant contact with her partner. Frequent calls and texts throughout the day let her know that “we’re okay.” But when her new boyfriend went on a vacation and didn’t contact her, she descended into an anxiety spiral.
“I hadn’t heard from him and he didn’t open my Snapchat message to him. But he posted on Instagram. Ugh, I hate living in the digital age!”
She was driving from San Francisco to Los Angeles, and during the entire trip she played out various scenarios. Is he with someone else? Why is he not contacting me?
“I missed him, but I was also angry and full of angst. I felt like I was being abandoned.”
After rehearsing yelling at him out loud during her drive, she decided to call him.
“He answered the phone in his typical cheerful manner. Everything was fine. And suddenly all that dread and anxious charge just melted away. I got reassurance that we were okay and felt normal again.”
Mandy’s reaction is not her fault. Her anxious attachment system, which stems from childhood, felt threatened, and she reacted with a survival response.
Attachment researchers describe the common scenarios that result in a child developing an anxious attachment:
Parents are inconsistent in their responsiveness to the needs of their child. They are sometimes nurturing and respond effectively to their child’s distress, while at other times they are intrusive, insensitive, or emotionally unavailable. When parents vacillate between these two very different responses, their child becomes confused and insecure, unable to predict if her needs will be met.11
Early abandonment, whether that be emotional abandonment or physical (one or both parents left, died, or were absent), causes the child to not feel whole. The child grows up thinking she is not enough or unlovable, which often leads to a need for excessive reassurance from others. She needs romantic partners to validate and reassure her that she is special and lovable. Also, the anxiously attached can tend to be so desperate for love that they will latch on to just a few crumbs of someone’s attention to temporarily soothe their feelings of inadequacy.12
Trauma, whether through sexual, physical, and/or emotional abuse, can cause extremely low self-esteem and result in the child acquiring an inherent belief that she is worthless or unlovable. The child develops an unhealthy idea of love after witnessing her parent(s) in toxic patterns.13
A history of neglect and/or abandonment, including a lack of nurturing, positive attention or love while growing up, gives the child an inherent fear of rejection.
Owing to the inconsistent availability of their parents, anxious types are “rejection-sensitive.” They anticipate rejection or abandonment and are constantly on the lookout for signs that their partner is losing interest.14 They are inclined to worry that they will be disappointed and habitually need proof that they are loved. Studies show that people with an anxious attachment style are more sensitive and quicker to perceive offset emotions—a unique ability to sense when their relationship is being threatened. Even a slight hint that something is wrong will activate their attachment system, and once triggered these types can’t calm down until they get a clear indication from their partner that the relationship is safe.
When an anxiously attached person is triggered, she will react with protest behavior—actions that attempt to get attention from her partner to reestablish contact/connection. Examples include:
Excessive attempts to reestablish contact (e.g., repeatedly texting and/or calling)
Withdrawing (e.g., ignoring, not taking calls, etc.)
Keeping score (e.g., calculating how long it takes for the partner to return contact and then waiting the same amount of time to respond)
Acting hostile (e.g., eye rolling, walking away, leaving the room)
Threatening to leave (e.g., making comments such as “I can’t do this anymore” and threatening to break up while really wanting the person to beg her to stay; testing the person to see if he’ll fight for her)
Manipulation (e.g., saying they have plans when they don’t, not answering calls, playing games)
Provoking jealousy (e.g., flirting with others, seeing an ex, etc.)
Punishing to exact revenge (e.g., withholding love or acting out in a destructive manner to hurt their partner)
The anxiously attached tend to bond quickly, often rushing into relationships without taking the time to assess whether their partner can or wants to meet their needs. They tend to idealize their partner and overlook red flags and issues.
WE MAY NOT EXHIBIT ALL the behaviors associated with an attachment style, but we generally fall into one of the attachment categories. Attachment style is a spectrum, and where one is on that continuum may fluctuate based on life situation, partner, and context. It’s not impossible to date someone with a different attachment style, but the question is more about where both people fall on the anxious-avoidant spectrum and how far away each person is from a secure center.
LIKE ANXIOUS MOTHS TO AN AVOIDANT FLAME
The anxiously attached desperately grasp for that which is unavailable, while the avoidant runs from that which is too available and together they paint a painful portrait of passionate despair that can go on for years and years.
Damien Bohler
The anxiously attached and avoidants are drawn to each other because both types “enforce each other’s world view.”15
For anxious types, the high-high-low-low of an insecure attachment is enlivening and familiar, even though it’s painful. They often equate an activated attachment system to passion and falsely associate people who are securely attached with boredom. But in reality, the an
xious among us are unconsciously addicted to the manic nature of being with someone who keeps them guessing all the time. They confuse their longing and anxiety for love, and subconsciously, emotional unavailability becomes a turn-on, when it should be a deterrent. This relationship dynamic validates their abandonment fears and beliefs about not being lovable enough.
Avoidants are drawn to anxious types because the needy and smothering nature of the anxiously attached reinforces avoidants’ beliefs that they will be smothered and that intimacy will take away their independence. They cannot date another avoidant because there is no glue that keeps them together.
Avoidants and the anxiously attached tend to become defensive during arguments, escalating conflict by withdrawing or attacking. Through the chase, conflict, or compulsive behavior, both avoidant and anxious types are able to relive the pain of their early attachments—while dysfunctional, it’s oddly comfortable because it’s so familiar.
There is always a push-pull dynamic where one person wants more emotional closeness (the anxiously attached) and one wants more independence and freedom (the avoidant). The dysfunctional dynamic continues, regardless of whom each of these people date, unless both work to become more secure.
But there’s hope!
Thanks to neuroplasticity, the attachment style developed as a child can change. In a longitudinal study of people’s attachment styles, psychologists Lee A. Kirkpatrick and Cindy Hazan found that 30 percent of people had undergone changes in their attachment style.16 The goal is to become more secure in your attachment, and the first step is awareness and learning how to stop unhealthy intimacy patterns in its tracks.
WHAT TO DO IF YOU HAVE AN ANXIOUS ATTACHMENT STYLE
If you have an anxious attachment style, understand you may have a predisposed draw toward avoidants. While it feels “natural” and probably quite comfortable to be in a manic push-pull with your partner, know that dating an avoidant will only exacerbate your anxious attachment.
Do not let chaos be your measure of chemistry. Do not confuse a lack of tension with a lack of passion.
Recognize when you are mistaking feelings of anxiety, insecurity, and extreme emotional highs and lows for passion. Your brain may be tricking you. Chances are you are not in love at all.
The anxiously attached need to focus on the missing ingredient to becoming secure: an internal knowing that they are safe. People who are securely attached feel inherently safe and trusting of themselves and their relationships with others.
To become more secure means to first start shifting old neural pathways that immediately go to a place of disconnection and strengthening the neural pathways for healthy connection.
Safety Meditation
The core belief that the anxiously attached have is that they are not safe. To start rewiring this belief, try this meditation to start embodying feelings of safety.
Close your eyes, breathe in deeply through your nose for four seconds, hold your breath for another four, and then release through your mouth as if you’re sighing out all the anxiety and frustration. Repeat ten times. Next, imagine yourself as a little girl. How old are you? What are you wearing? Imagine yourself doing something you love. Perhaps you’re painting. Dancing. Playing on a beach. Now imagine your family or people you love around you, forming a circle. You are in the middle. Take a moment to really embrace that support. Say to yourself, “I am safe. I have all the resources I need.” Repeat that a few times as you bask in the gratitude, care, and support that is around you. Now, imagine that little girl grown up, as your present-day self. Think about yourself now, doing something you love. If you’re in a relationship, then, just as before, imagine your partner along with the people who love you, surrounding you in a circle, beaming devotion and support in your direction. Say to yourself, “I am safe. I have all the resources I need.” Repeat this mantra three times and let yourself feel how much love and support you have.
Relabel, Refocus, and Remember
Visualization is a powerful tool that can release oxytocin in our brains. When you’re feeling anxious, take ten deep breaths so that you can give your brain the oxygen it needs. Jeffrey Schwartz, a psychiatrist at UCLA who specializes in neuroplasticity, suggests a method to relabel and refocus. Create separation from your experience of angst and stress by noting that this is just your overactive sympathetic nervous system sending faulty messages. This might seem silly at first, but when you’re in the midst of a stress response, being able to change your inner dialogue from I’m going crazy! I can’t handle this! I feel like dying! to This feeling of anxiety is my brain playing a trick on me will allow “the cognitive part of your brain to come online and begin to modulate the agitation.”17
Next, refocus your attention using what former instructor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School Dr. Amy Banks calls a “positive relational moment” (PRM).18 Think back to a memory where you felt safe and happy in the presence of someone you trust. Close your eyes so you can recall the memory in detail and play out the scene. Were you laughing? Smiling? Copy the same facial expression you had in the PRM as if you were reliving the moment now. If you can really summon up the memory and relive the feel-good feelings from it, you’ll calm down your sympathetic nervous system and also stimulate dopamine.
The key is to repeat this process over and over again, because you’ll eventually weaken your old neural pathways of feeling anxious and disconnected and strengthen your neural pathways for feeling safe and connected.
Resist “Bombing” Your Partner
Anxiously attached types often feel comfortable with intensity. The angst of chasing someone for love and connection becomes addictive, and when that toxic intensity isn’t there, it can feel uncomfortable and unfamiliar. You may feel an urge to use an “anger bomb” on your ex or current partner—picking a fight in order to emotionally reconnect. Or you may attempt to use a “seduction bomb” in order to get the person to respond, even if the connection is toxic.19 Part of your self-soothing practice needs to be to resist these urges and tolerate the silence. When you feel the urge, practice your breathing and meditation exercises. Know that the intensity will eventually calm if you give it the time and the space.
DO NOT LET CHAOS BE YOUR MEASURE OF CHEMISTRY. DO NOT CONFUSE A LACK OF TENSION WITH A LACK OF PASSION.
Avoid Avoidants
If you continue dating avoidants, you will stay stuck in the push-pull dynamic that confirms your negative beliefs and fears of abandonment. Your chances of growing into a more securely attached partner are much higher if you choose a securely attached partner. Obvious, right? So, before you invest your heart into someone, take the time to find out if he is avoidantly attached. Save yourself from the emotional gymnastics later on by doing the work up front first.
Connie: AN ANXIOUS MASQUERADING AS AN AVOIDANT
“I THINK I’M both avoidant and anxious,” said Connie, a thirty-three-year-old public relations manager, during a group exercise to determine our attachment styles. “I’m so afraid of being anxious that I cut people off completely. If they do something that disappoints me, I delete them off everything. They’re dead to me.”
On the outside, Connie’s distancing behavior would pass as avoidant attachment; however, upon closer inspection, it became clear that Connie feared being hurt and rejected, and she created walls and protective mechanisms to ensure that nobody would get the chance. She was indeed an anxiously attached type masquerading as an avoidant.
The key thing to consider when evaluating your attachment style is what your primary fear is. If it’s a fear of being abandoned or rejected, that’s indicative of an anxious attachment. If it’s a fear of losing your freedom, that’s indicative of an avoidant attachment. Sometimes we develop coping mechanisms to deal with the unpleasant feelings of our attachment style and engage in the opposite behavior. This can cause confusion, so remember to dig deep and find your primary fear.
Another clue that signifies a lack of secure attachment is acting out in extremes
. In Connie’s case, her only way of handling the anxiety of someone potentially disappointing her was to cut them out completely. She would not let her guard down and was slow to trust—not out of a place of love, but out of a place of fear. Speaking to Connie a year after Breakup Bootcamp, she said her greatest takeaway was learning how to open up her heart and let people in—both romantically and platonically. She started making a conscious effort to open up more when meeting new people and being vulnerable in sharing her history, her stories, and her feelings. When she dated someone and he didn’t communicate at the frequency she liked, she’d make it a point to practice compassion and give the person the benefit of the doubt, versus jumping to negative conclusions and withdrawing.
WHAT TO DO IF YOU HAVE AN AVOIDANT ATTACHMENT STYLE
If you have an avoidant attachment style, you may cycle through people, having many short-lived relationships, rationalizing that you just haven’t met “the one.” But if you continue squelching intimacy, even the most perfect person wouldn’t stand a chance with you. You might even say you want a relationship and actively pursue one, but your indirect strategies for avoiding true intimacy don’t enable love to develop past the stage of infatuation.
The problem with people with an avoidant attachment style is they generally don’t know when they have a problem. This was the case for Serina, a forty-year-old financial advisor from New York, who came to Renew after breaking it off with yet another boyfriend.
Serina loved her independent life and was perfectly content seeing her boyfriend once a week. She had always been like this and often had long-distance relationships with no concern over the distance or time apart from her partner.