For those who don’t know what the attachment styles are here they are and their context: [https://www.attachmentproject.com/blog/four-attachment-styles/#:\~:text=There%20are%20four%20adult%20attachment,Secure](https://www.attachmentproject.com/blog/four-attachment-styles/#:~:text=There%20are%20four%20adult%20attachment,Secure)
I keep entering relationships with the Avoidant Attachment type, and I’ve honestly just learned at this point to suck it up and suffer alone instead of bothering them with every anxious meltdown I have. They’ve all been kind but also were all the type to pull away if someone needed too much attention or required too much care and communication on their part.
As someone who is an Anxious Attachment type, a lot of this behavior sets off my fight or flight, but I’ve grown to understand that their behavior is a form of self-preservation and not exactly a reflection of how much they love me. My previous relationship had started off with me being anxiously attached and the other avoidant, but we ended up switching spots by the end so I grew to understand the feelings behind the other side’s actions as well.
However, a pattern I’ve noticed is that at the beginning of every new relationship, my anxiety PEAKS. Like it’s ridiculous and I feel like I’m stuck in my own mental torture chamber. Of course, since it’s just the beginning we should take it slow and just grow to like each other, but my anxiety brain cell is running around like crazy and setting everything on fire.
Questions like: does this person even actually like me? Do they even see a future with me? Are they taking me seriously? Do they still like me or are they losing feelings with each day? Am I pushing them away if I contact them too much?
So now, I keep flipping back and forth between pulling away and then freaking out.
I’ve just been pushing down all these emotions so that I don’t burden the other side, and honestly, I don’t know how to communicate my anxieties because I don’t want the other person to feel overwhelmed. I remember I felt overwhelmed and suffocated when my previous ex did that to me, which led to me losing my feelings, which now just flared up my fear even more that my anxious behavior will push others away.
**How do other couples with opposite attachment styles choose to communicate and sort out these issues? Also, would love to hear insight from people with avoidant attachment styles on your side of things!!**
2 comments
Yep I’m the anxious she is the avoidant. 1.5 years together. We’re currently on a break even though I did everything right, “She just needs time”.
I really do just have to deal with it on my own cuz she just can’t seem to meet me halfway.
So do with that what you will.
You might want to consider that rather than anxious, you might have disorganized attachment instead. The reason I say this is that disorganized are a mix of both anxious (fear of abandonment) and avoidant (fear of a relationship) tendencies. And they often have a pattern of mostly dating avoidants and those relationships going bad.
This is because avoidants dating avoidants often work, so if avoidants trigger you that much then you being avoidant is less plausible. Anxious are trigger by avoidants but they have a mixed dating history of all types, as they don’t get turned off by other anxious or secure types as much.
But disorganized have trouble dating secure or anxious attached as the other person pursuing them triggers their fear/disinterest in relationships so they stay away. But when dating an avoidant the fear of being in a relationship lessens because the avoidant doesn’t pursue very hard, but the anxious part of fearing abandonment gets stronger because avoidants are often distant so they spark abandonment fears easily. Also disorganized often flip between anxious and avoidant in relationships when they date other disorganized and that seems to be something that happened to you as well.