Why do anxious and avoidant attachment styles end up in relationships, even though they are the most challenging?
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Why do anxious and avoidant attachment styles attract each other? While it’s one of the most common pairings, it’s also one of the most challenging to navigate. In the so-called anxious/avoidant trap, two people with these insecure attachment styles get “trapped” in a difficult relationship, because as one wants closeness, the other withdraws. Here’s why anxious and avoidant attachment styles attract each other and five ways to avoid the anxious/attachment trap in dating and relationships.
Why Anxious and Avoidant Attachment Styles Attract Each Other
The Anxious/Avoidant Dance
This is how these relationships tend to play out: when the avoidant partner feels smothered by the anxiously attached partner’s desire for more intimacy, the avoidant begins to pull away. This triggers the anxious partner to become more anxious and crave more connection and closeness from the avoidant partner. The avoidant partner, who values freedom and independence, then feels smothered by the anxious person’s desire for closeness, so they pull away. And the dance continues. Push, pull, push, pull. This is frustrating for both partners.
Why Anxious and Avoidant Attachment Styles Attract
Why doesn’t the anxiously attached person find someone securely attached who will give them the love and connection and intimacy they desire without pulling away? Why doesn’t the avoidant person find someone who will give them their freedom and space and meet them in a way that works for them?
It’s familiar. We’re all trying to love and be loved, and our early childhood experiences shape our idea of what love feels like. If you grew up in a family where a parent would pull away or go silent, this avoidant behavior is what you experienced as love. If your parents were avoidant, there’s a high likelihood that you will become avoidant, or you might date avoidants to unconsciously receive the parental affection you didn’t get as a child.
If your parents were warm and loving sometimes and cold and distant other times, you grew up thinking hot and cold behavior was love, and that led to your anxious attachment style. You might date an avoidant to try and unconsciously receive the affection you were missing as a child.
When our brains recognize a pattern that is familiar, which comes from the same root as “family”, we get excited. We think that’s love. Plus, the anxiously attached partner was raised to focus on meeting the needs of other people, and the avoidant tends to focus on protecting themselves. This can create mind-blowing chemistry.
But before you worry that you’ll never find someone with chemistry as good as your past anxious or avoidant partners, know that chemistry with someone with secure attachment can be amazing, too. The good news is almost everyone has the capacity to return to secure attachment.
5 Ways to Avoid the Anxious/Avoidant Trap
The easiest way to avoid the anxious and avoidant trap is to avoid dating someone who has an attachment style that’s the polar opposite of yours, especially while you are healing your attachment trauma. Some couples do manage to make relationships work when they have different styles. How do they do that?
- They are typically interested in personal growth or already have some amount of secure attachment in their attachment makeup, or both.
- These couples understand and make allowances for each other’s attachment styles. For example, the anxious person can recognize that their avoidant partner has a tendency to withdraw when they feel smothered, and they can learn to give them space without taking it personally.
- They both focus on their own projects, friends, and passions. This gives both partners a chance to settle their attachment system, and prevents the pursuer/distancer dynamic from continuing.
- The anxious partner practices self-soothing techniques to calm the underlying fear of abandonment.
- The avoidant partner notices when they begin to withdraw and works on their underlying triggers. They also try to understand their partner’s fear of abandonment, and how their withdrawal reaction contributes to their partner’s fear.
It takes conscious work to break these unhealthy patterns that have developed over a lifetime. By recognizing our attachment style and learning how to self-soothe and identify and advocate for our feelings and needs early on in dating, we create the path for healthy love. We heal our attachment wounds and create fulfilling and satisfying relationships that don’t involve constantly chasing, pulling away, and being pursued. Eventually, our brains get rewired for healthy attraction, and we see the value in dating securely attached people.
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