Avoidant partners tend to talk more about independence rather than closeness, freedom rather than intimacy, and self-reliance rather than interdependence. They fear clingy people or being seen as clingy themselves.
On the other hand, people with an avoidant attachment may be attracted to anxious partners because their pursuit and need for closeness reinforce the avoidant person's need for independence and self-reliance. Anxious and avoidant partners may also seek their partner's traits due to wanting those traits in themselves.
Relationship superpowers of dismissive avoidant attachment
Avoidant attachers in relationships are less needy and clingy with their partner; thus, they will be less demanding and suffocating within a relationship than other attachment styles.
Love Avoidants recognize and are attracted to the Love Addict's strong fear of being left because Love Avoidants know that all they have to do to trigger their partner's fear is threaten to leave.
You probably know someone who is Love Avoidant — someone who avoids and fears intimacy. Love avoidance is common for people who suffer from sex or porn addiction. Love Avoidants often are attracted to Love Addicts — people who are fixated with love.
Sex (and intimacy in general) can make avoidant adults uncomfortable. Considering that sex typically requires physical and psychological proximity, it can evoke discomfort in avoidant individuals. Therefore, adults with this attachment style often don't enjoy their sexual experiences.
Physical affection and sex may be different with an avoidant partner. Some avoidant partners may be sensitive about physical touch. They may not enjoy long hugs or feel unsure about frequent contact, explains Jordan. Let them know that you realize that they have different preferences, she says.
Once again, people with a dismissive-avoidant style showed that they did care about relationships. Dismissive avoidant students reported higher self-esteem and positive mood than non-dismissives—but only when told that surgency predicts future interpersonal success.
Avoidant individuals may gravitate towards Acts of Service or Quality Time as their primary love languages, as these gestures offer connection without excessive emotional vulnerability.
After intimacy deepens, the avoidant partner loses interest in being sexual, in hugging, kissing, and perhaps even holding hands. Some avoidant partners will seem to actively limit physical proximity, such as sitting closely together on a couch where contact may be possible.
In line with their desire for complete independence, many people with an avoidant attachment style also feel greatly triggered when a partner becomes too reliant on them. Especially if this leads to more demands for their time and attention. Having to focus on others can feel like a burden.
People with a so-called avoidant attachment style have reported in previous research that they like touch less and engage in it much less than the average.
The Traits of Avoidant Attachment In Adulthood
However, this isn't to suggest that someone with an avoidant attachment style doesn't crave love – they do. They've just been taught from an early age that the people they love will disappoint them.
Disorganized attachment, also known as fearful-avoidant, is the rarest of all styles, as only around 5% of the population attaches this way. This insecure attachment style mixes anxious and avoidant attachments with unique traits.
Avoidant individuals will also want to be reassured that you're not trying to control or change them in your relationship.
Although an avoidant may not be comfortable with affection, they still might want to be intimate. In fact, when an avoidant loves someone, they're much more able to get physically close to them. So, if you enjoy a satisfying sex life with your avoidant, it could be a sign that they're in love with you.
In a Love Avoidants mind, intimacy with another person is equivalent to being engulfed, suffocated, and controlled. Too much closeness can literally cause them to feel like they are losing themselves, and yes, it can even feel like dying. (that is how intense their fears can be).
Avoidant people prefer (whether consciously or not) to be non-committal, and often a partner never feels like they're totally in the relationship. This doesn't mean they don't want to stay in a long term relationship and often they may, as long as it can be with no noticeable signs of real commitment.
Some studies showed that differences in attachment styles seem to influence both the frequency and the patterns of jealousy expression: individuals with the preoccupied or fearful-avoidant attachment styles more often become jealous and consider rivals as more threatening than those with the secure attachment style [9, ...
Fearful avoidants both want and fear intimacy. So they seek closeness. But once they do, their fear of intimacy and attachment kicks in and they suddenly feel the need to escape, and this is when they need you to chase them.
However, regardless of whether they are the instigator of a breakup or not, avoidant attachers tend to repress or avoid expression of their intense emotions in the aftermath. This response isn't to suggest that avoidant attachers don't feel the pain of a breakup – they do.
Avoidantly attached people are prone to “shutting down, numbing, rigid compartmentalizing, and pushing away,” Mary Chen, LFMT, tells SELF. And these suppression techniques can feel “exactly like rejection” to their partners, making it hard to approach—and therefore understand—avoidants!
Avoidant Attachment
They avoid intimacy and therefore tend to pull away from people who want to be intimate with them. Because the avoidant type finds intimacy uncomfortable, they may compartmentalize sex as something that is purely physical and attempt to avoid bringing intimacy into their sex life.
People who are avoidant may feel uncomfortable with the vulnerability and intimacy required in close friendships. They may also struggle with asking for or giving emotional support. As a result, they may have few, if any, long-lasting friendships because friends feel like the relationship is one-sided.