Avoidant behavior in relationships
Avoidant behavior in relationships
How to recognize an avoidant partner? What are the characteristics? What can online therapy do?
Having a relationship with a partner with an avoidant profile can prove extremely challenging. The avoidant partner is, in fact, someone who creates emotional distance and seeks to maintain it in order to avoid the vulnerability that an emotional relationship entails, always keeping a door open in case the relationship becomes too serious or intense.
Within the couple, such avoidant behavior can be frustrating, exhausting, and create doubt and discontent, especially if the other partner instead values emotional closeness and intimacy.
Of course, it should be emphasized that in a romantic relationship the “middle way” is the right one; that is, trying to build a healthy relationship that blends autonomy and interdependence in a balanced way, made up both of shared spaces and moments to strengthen the relationship, and of private spaces and moments to cultivate one’s individuality.
How an avoidant partner presents
A partner with avoidant attachment is generally someone who deep down does not want ties; or who will always look for an escape route to flee the relationship or avoid exposing themselves too much, creating emotional distance and leaving the other prey to doubts about whether they are truly loved.
This avoidant style is a real personality trait. In some cases, it may stem from a series of mental imbalances; in others, it is an attachment style developed since childhood with parental figures (often with one in particular).
A distinctive trait of the avoidant partner is that their cold and superficial interaction style does not vary even with friends or family. It remains more or less consistent, being a typical personality trait. Therefore, one should not confuse this with people who appear avoidant while they are about to end a relationship. In that case, the causes should be sought elsewhere and not in the attachment style.
Fear of emotions
Whether due to pathological issues or avoidant attachment dynamics developed in childhood, the avoidant personality is characterized by a deep fear of emotions (consistently in love, in friendship, and in other social contexts).
Strong emotions, especially positive ones, destabilize them and make them uncomfortable. At the same time, they also expect the worst from others and therefore try to withdraw or always do things alone, not giving trust. This can sometimes happen precisely with the closest and most intimate people, who trigger in them the memory of the dysfunctional and avoidant dynamic created in childhood with the reference parent.
Moreover, this profile is more frequently observed in men, since in a society that favors a mistaken idea of masculinity, they have learned and developed the notion that expressing feelings or caring about emotional bonds is almost something to be ashamed of, not manly. However, this emotional attitude can certainly also be experienced by women.
Key behaviors
Below are the most common key behaviors to recognize a partner with an avoidant profile:
- tendency to avoid commitments;
- tendency to avoid any form of closeness;
- tendency to avoid deep bonds;
- tendency to avoid significant steps in a relationship;
- vagueness about long-term commitments (or relationships);
- vagueness about their commitments (or relationships) regarding the future;
- indecision, lack of clarity;
- preference for more open-ended solutions in forming ties (e.g., superficial and shallow friendships, undefined relationships, tendency to leave as many doors open as possible without giving a real chance to be part of their life, etc.);
- tendency to self-sabotage the relationship when it becomes deeper, staging childish, angry, or obstructionist behaviors (sullen reactions, decreased communication, desire to isolate themselves or see other people when someone gets closer to them);
- ways of speaking and life philosophy apparently centered on independence, freedom, and self-determination (at the expense of feelings, relationships, the importance of sharing and bonds with others);
- difficulty showing physical affection (often they only know how to use sex as physical closeness, but not gestures or intermediate approaches that show physical affection, e.g., little inclined to give hugs, caresses, etc.).
The effects of avoidant behavior on the partner
The behaviors of an avoidant person can have frustrating effects on the partner. It is certain that whoever is on the receiving end of such behavior will feel belittled (as you would feel, for example, if someone always talked about their independence and the importance of their freedom, without spending a single word on what is good between you or what could be built together). Therefore, the partner in question may begin to falter in a relationship with an avoidant profile, surely feeling labeled as “needy” or “clingy.”
In the worst cases, an avoidant partner may even perceive the other as a limitation to their freedom, an obstacle, or be mistrustful toward them (e.g., suspecting that they are with them for financial gain) and thus will be withdrawn, individualistic, and focused on their own needs because “others cannot be trusted.”
However, with an avoidant partner, the approach of “positive reinforcement” is advisable. If he or she does something you like, it is good to point it out. All the positive behaviors that we notice and highlight each time will certainly counterbalance the pessimistic and distorted view that an avoidant partner has of their relationships.
What the avoidant profile really experiences
In reality, avoidant-profile people have known affection in the past and desire it, but at the same time they fear it, as a wound was instilled in them, usually dating back to birth and the relationship with their mother or father, in which they were not free to express their feelings or to receive them adequately. They began to rely only on themselves, adopting the idea that if the other cannot give them what they need emotionally—because they are not available—then they cannot be trusted, and to feel well they must do everything themselves (if I think only of myself, I will no longer be hurt by anyone and will no longer feel that sensation often triggered by the wound of betrayal).
This situation will, over time, create a conflicting personality. On one hand, they appear very sweet, kind, and welcoming; on the other, they begin to distance themselves or disappear, giving the impression that the other is not so important or essential in their life (both in love and in friendship).
At the same time, an avoidant individual will have difficulties in conversations involving emotional topics. They will tend to minimize the matter, even accusing the other of paranoia or hypersensitivity, rejecting or abandoning the conversation or the relationship, rather than facing it sincerely and openly.
Such circumstances will lead them to believe they must escape boredom and monotony, blaming the other, and continuing to never really deepen anything.
What online therapy can do
Dealing with a partner with an avoidant style can become unsustainable in a relationship. Through online therapy, it is possible to investigate and identify this behavioral style in one’s partner, and to learn to protect oneself. First of all, by trying not to fall into the trap of emotional dependence or low self-esteem, interpreting the other’s lack of availability not as our inadequacy. One must therefore draw boundaries between a healthy relationship and a harmful one. Moreover, through online therapy, it is also possible to investigate oneself, the reasons that tied us to an avoidant partner (fear of being alone, family patterns, etc.); to listen to our motivations and emotions about it.
Although an avoidant partner is not absolute evil, it is important to ask ourselves what kind of relationship we are looking for and what we really want, starting from the premise that the other must be accepted as they are and that their improvement does not depend on us in any way but on their own possible choice of personal growth.
An avoidant person can, in fact, work on their past, engaging in both individual and group therapy, to better process the type of attachment developed with parental figures, as well as conscious or unconscious traumas, to transform their insecure attachment into a more secure style.
For information, contact Dr. Jessica Zecchini
Email: consulenza@jessicazecchini.it, WhatsApp: 370 32 17 351
