People with avoidant personality disorder have chronic feelings of inadequacy and are highly sensitive to being negatively judged by others. Though they would like to interact with others, they tend to avoid social interaction due to the intense fear of being rejected by others.
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.
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.
The avoidant attacher is most comfortable with physical and/or emotional distance. One of their main “protest strategies” is to emotionally distance themselves to self-protect and regain a sense of control and independence in the relationship.
Those who fear losing their independence are more likely to have an avoidant attachment style. Those who fear being alone are more likely to have an anxious attachment style.
If you're an avoidant attacher with abandonment issues, you may keep people at arm's length to avoid them getting too close and meaning too much, due to a belief deep down that they will leave at some point. These behaviors may make you seem private, withdrawn, or emotionally unavailable to others.
But sadly, someone with an avoidant personality disorder, finds it very difficult to develop healthy relationships with boundaries. Individuals with this disorder also find it difficult to trust or express their deepest feelings for fear of abandonment, rejection, or loss.
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.
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!
Dismissive-Avoidant Attachment
They avoid being intimate and vulnerable and push away those who get too close. Dismissive-avoidants typically have few close friends; they do not want to depend on others, and they do not want to be depended upon. There is a lack of commitment due to being extremely self-reliant.
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).
They're always looking for the red flags, and they will find them, so when you go no contact with the dismissive avoidant, don't expect them to reach out to you.
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.
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.
Pushing or chasing a partner who needs space and emotional boundaries to open up will likely cause them to resist even more. Although it may be difficult to allow a partner with an avoidant attachment style to withdraw when they need to, they will likely come back quicker if they're allowed their space.
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.
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, ...
They go out of their way to spend time with you.
So they often try to keep people at a distance for as long as they can out of reluctance to take things to a deeper level. 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.
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.
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.
They might create conflict to “test” the relationship and see if it's true love or see if it's what they truly want. Avoidant partners want to feel respected and to have their behavior acknowledged. They want to know that their need for space isn't a deal-breaker and that you'll be there when they're ready.
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 do have similarities, but there are also differences that have an impact on the relationship. As a general statement, all narcissists are love avoidant, but people can be love avoidant and not be narcissists.
The reality is that in the early stages, an avoidant is likely to feel relieved when you stop chasing. But don't be disheartened. That's not because of how they feel about you. It's simply because they no longer feel like someone is making demands of them.