HOW AVOIDANT ATTACHMENT SABOTAGES INTIMACY

[Music] hi i am dr kim sage i'm a licensed clinical psychologist welcome to my youtube channel and to this video series called healing love or healing the love inside and just healing love giving it to others in a way that helps heal often the attachment wounds and the trauma stories we're carrying in our hearts and lives and our bodies and nervous systems so if you're new here i would love for you to join this little growing community and check that little box and that way you'll get notified when i post new videos and if you are a returning subscriber or visitor i'm so glad you're here welcome back today's video is about how people who have a more avoidant style can engage in sabotaging behaviors around intimacy and vulnerability we just talked about when those who are more anxious kind of what they might do but the truth is that many of those people who have a more avoidant style long for intimacy they long for connection but in childhood remember these were the children who were the research describes as those who experienced repeated maternal rejection now it wasn't overt rejection it was when the child had attempts and needs and bids for connection meaning reaching out needing emotions regulated engaging over things that weren't just conditional about being the good child or or you know being a good athlete or whatever was happening there's a kind of conditionality and a minimization of emotions that the child interprets this is so important the child interprets the parents dismissing that's why it's often called dismissive the dismissing of the child's needs the child interprets as rejection and so the child starts to deactivate in other words as opposed to activating and trying to get you closer they kind of retreat and say no thanks i've learned i'm not going to get my needs met going back to the research of the strange situation these are babies who watched mom like leave the room didn't really cry too much didn't get too upset but deep inside they were freaking out just as much their cortisol levels were high their heart their blood pressure was high they had already learned though to not show it and so these are the people in the world who your partner potentially who you think they don't care about me they're not motivated for this relationship and often often at times they're panicked inside but you office oftentimes won't see it because they don't know how to share it intimacy is scary and dangerous and unsafe and so what they do to minimize intimacy and vulnerability when it feels like it's too much is they engage in certain strategies to to sort of remove themselves and they are actually suppressing their attachment system from a biological perspective inside too right we're wired for connection that is the heart of attachment these are none of these videos and my belief and and the heart of attachment is that we are not that the codependency is not a thing in an addiction it is but the idea that we are wired to meet each other and that without each other we don't and didn't survive it's just about how we show up and how we do that that's the heart of it right so it's not about demonizing oh you're avoiding and you do all these things it's about understanding where it comes from and then working to change and heal and improve those behaviors so some of the deactivating strategies they use number one is and i'm using this book for this particular video though i mostly use a textbook which i'll i've talked a lot about which is about uh treating adult attachment disturbances by david brown and dan elliott which i really love because it goes into a lot of the research it's a great book if you are a therapist not a great book so much if you are not a therapist or clinician so okay so the first thing is they will say or think things like i'm not ready to commit and even though they've been in the relationship with you for years right they're basically not talk they're basically saying they don't want to commit but they're basically in a committed relationship but there's something about taking this step towards more let's say moving in together or getting married that would make them feel psychologically like that's too far into the attachment dynamic i can't do that so there's a mismatch there they might focus on imperfection this is very very common in everybody i've ever worked with with avoiding attachment they will pick on things like the way the person dresses the way they talk the way they eat the job they have the way they do certain things it's like these little nitpicky ways to kind of say yeah but i don't know if they're the one for me or maybe they're not quite you know good enough for me and then it starts to sabotage the way they engage in the relationship whether there's an attraction issues or commitment issues but really i mean yes we all have little things we don't like about our partners you know i don't like the way you leave the cap off the toothpaste or i wish you could change your wardrobe but you know at the heart of it we want to try to look at the relationship overall and so when it feels too threatening for those who have a more avoidant style or they're afraid to lean in further they will find these little ways to to kind of like nitpick to kind of pull themselves out of it they're not good enough anyway so i need to that protects my heart in some way they often have these longings for their ex that got away and they're always holding that person up even though it was a disaster of a relationship or it was clearly not a good fit you have like crazy hair today um they will basically pine after them and hold them as the gold standard meanwhile if you could transport them back in time to that relationship you would see how unhappy they were and why it didn't work but they often forget that they will flirt with others sometimes to create more insecurity and instability in their relationship which if you can imagine if you're a more anxious person or lean that way or even for anybody like it doesn't i don't know who like enjoys even secure attachment their partner overtly flirting with someone else now it can be perceived as flirting if it's friendliness if a person is very jealous but we're talking about from this perspective as a deactivating strategy a way of introducing like maybe i'm not quite into this which as i said you can imagine how that goes it doesn't go well it causes the other partner to pull back and that gives the avoidance oh yeah you're pulling back i feel a little safety there's a reduction of vulnerability there but then if you look at how that affects the overall relationship it's not good the next one is not saying i love you while implying you have feelings or i would also say being very conditional about when they say i love you and so really it's about you know not wanting to say the words because somehow that implies something that in their body feels really unsafe but meanwhile they're acting and engaging in very loving you know classic loving behaviors they might pull away right when things are going well this is very very common and so all of a sudden you know you're hanging out they're calling you you're doing great and it got really great and intimate and the next thing you know they don't call you for three or four days and then that creates a rupture that then a secure person or anxious person starts to pull back also like maybe they don't like me and you can see how that little that little thing can potentially cause a big rupture they can form relationships with an impossible future for example someone who is married that's also very common because if you're married and don't want to leave your spouse and we're having an affair well i'm that that's a great way to make sure you never actually expect me to be fully vulnerable and monogamous and in this relationship so it's like a safety zone there they can check out mentally when the partner is talking they often don't pay attention to little details it's like the person will say didn't you hear what i just said and i think that can happen for lots of reasons even from a more trauma-dissociated perspective from an adhd or concentration or memory issue there could be all kinds of reasons why our ptsd issue but in some ways it's actually in the context of vulnerability a way to not feel so like let's say we're in a relationship and i'm talking about my really sad feelings about my parent or my kids um and you sort of disconnect from me and i can feel that you're there but you're not there that that creates another little rupture like i'm like do you really care about me and then i might act different and pull back and for you it might be that this is getting really emotional and vulnerable and i really care about you if i'm avoidant and now that you're sharing your vulnerabilities and fears and sadnesses that forces me to feel and dig into my feelings and i don't know how to do that i don't know how to label my feelings i don't know how to identify them or if i do it feels really scary and dangerous and so i have to distance myself and then the last two are keeping secrets and leaving things foggy which is basically a way to just kind of one more foot is just potentially on the other side of the bed it's out the door whatever the expression is right it's like i guess one foot on the floor so i'm trying to say and so it kind of keeps you like yeah well you know i'll keep this like mystique going on so you're not totally sure if i'm in it and i can kind of like always say well i didn't i didn't technically say i was fully in it i didn't tell you that i wasn't with somebody else or i wasn't dating somebody else meanwhile you weren't but it's the illusion of that and that once again creates a vulnerability trigger in other partners and lastly avoiding physical closeness not wanting to have intimacy times together not walking with your partner not wanting to share the same bed i mean it's a huge issue with a lot of couples which is i get it the sleeping issues are difficult with people snoring and stuff but over time i can see couples with very young children who've already started sleeping in separate bedrooms for years and obviously every couple has a different desire and every person has a different desire for the amount of intimacy and the frequency and all of those things but for avoided people it's like can be a good excuse not that it isn't a rational one but it can be another way to avoid connection and avoid talking about feelings and avoid leaning in and so all of those are ways that avoidant people can really have a difficult time with um dealing with their own vulnerability and their partners and so they engage in all these strategies like i said going back to childhood to help them deal with that flood of uncomfortableness especially around intense emotion and and um and really true intimacy and so if this is you or your partner i think understanding where it comes from is important and then working at ways working through ways to deal with what it feels like in your body when you want to let's say if you're avoiding ignore emotions or when your partner says hey babe you just like weren't present for that conversation just now when i was crying even though you were physically here you weren't here and instead of saying yes i was i heard every word you said and like parroting it back you pause right you think about yeah and maybe i didn't and i'm so sorry and you know what as i i sit with myself i realize it hurts me to see you hurting or i get scared that you won't be able to handle what's happening let's say if we're single parents with your kids and then you'll end this relationship and i don't want you to do that and so i kind of remove myself or whatever's happening it's important to own your part in it and then together work on how to heal those connections together so we're going to talk more about that but that is how your childhood at the core right whether your vulnerable uh fears are high or low how they show up in your attachment style and how then you show up in other relationships and so that's the core of understanding and helping us all i hope just add little ways to help heal ourselves and our lives and relationships so thank you so much for being here please don't forget to follow me by the way on tik tok where i post every day at least once a day if not more always about these topics also because once you pick a topic and tick-tock doesn't really promote videos uh and outside your niche that's just the truth and so you think oh no one cares about these videos so i still do them sometimes but the core of it is because this is my passion it's really all about attachment complex trauma relationships and childhood ways and parenting moves i will see you tomorrow please stay safe and well and take care [Music] you

Channel: DR. KIM SAGE, LICENSED PSYCHOLOGIST

Views: 116,595

Keywords: avoidant, avoidant attachment, avoidant attachment style, anxious attachment, anxious attachment style, disorganized attachment style, fearful avoidant, fearful attachment, attachment styles, attachment wounds, sabotaging intimacy, vulnerability triggers, protest behaviors, deactivation strategies, dr kim sage, dr Kim Sage borderline

Id: MUQ9Oqw8_18

Length: 12min 50sec (770 seconds)

Published: Thu May 26 2022