Lovers with an avoidant attachment style are driven by a major desire in romantic relationships: to feel valued, to feel that whatever they bring to the relationship makes a difference. Fulfill this desire by recognizing the contributions your partner makes to the relationship and praising them generously.
Often, the Avoidant person will come out of a period of loneliness with a renewed commitment to see a new partner in more a positive light. They want to give relationships another shot, hoping their resolve will continue and for a while they will be happy with a new opportunity.
Generally, avoidant partners tend to want more space in the relationship. This isn't because they dislike you or are bored of you. They want space because it helps them to keep their connections afloat. They also want to stay true to themselves in a relationship.
Anxious-Avoidant Attachment
You don't show your emotions easily. You don't come to people too readily. But it doesn't mean inside you don't yearn for a happy relationship. You will fall in love when it's been proven to you that your partner is someone who's accepting, forgiving and non-judgmental.
Studies have found that avoidant attachers are less likely to date or seek relationships. In other words, they are more prone to having smaller social circles and, thus, may stay single for longer periods of time.
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.
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.
They go out of their way to spend time with you.
This being said, if your avoidant partner prioritizes you and goes out of their way to spend time with you, they're likely in love. Big, big love. An avoidant in love will try to spend as much time with you as they can.
Adults with the dismissive / avoidant attachment style seem to be pretty happy about who they are and where they are. They might be very social, easy-going, and fun to be around. In addition, these individuals might have a lot of friends and/or sexual partners. Generally speaking, they are not alone or lonely.
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.
A person with an avoidant attachment style is going to crave the feeling of being loved and supported, just like anyone else. The key difference is that they'll also feel a compulsion to distance themselves from those they're getting close to.
For these reasons, avoidant individuals tend to have fewer long-term relationships and prefer to either abstain from sex or have short-term and casual sex encounters. They are likely to use fantasy or pornography as a substitute for intimacy (similarly to the anxious group) and engage in emotion-free sex.
Avoidant people may not realize how much their communication is avoidant as they may consciously want to have a companion. It is their heart (unconscious) that has shut down to being in a love relationship. As a result the person will give mixed messages.
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.
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.
There are two types of avoidant attachment, fearful-avoidant and dismissive-avoidant, which we'll look at below. In general, avoidant adults tend to be emotionally unavailable. They put distance between themselves and their partner, because of discomfort with too much closeness.
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!
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, ...
Because people with an avoidant attachment style fear not being lovable or good enough, feeling criticized or judged by loved ones can be particularly painful. Especially when it comes to things that they are not so comfortable with, such as their emotions and feelings.
If an avoidant starts pulling away, let them know that you care but do not chase them. It may be very painful to do this, but pursuing them is likely to make it take longer for them to come back. They need breathing space, to feel safe with their own thoughts and unengulfed.