How to Cope With an Avoidant Partner

there are for many of us few people as attractive as the avoidant the sorts that are permanently a little mysterious who don't speak so much around whom one never quite knows where one is in whose eyes there is a faraway look and perhaps a certain melancholy to in whose hearts we insure it a sadness we long to but never quite can touch people who seem to promise us intimacy and connection and yet who remain however long we've been with them mesmerizingly unn reassuring unsurprisingly it's not so easy to be the lover of an avoidant person the tendency very often after the heady early days is to give in to the insecurities they end up provoking in us do they really care do they love us back why they never the ones to call beset by such questions we make it cross tearful or Stern we may accuse them of neglect and selfishness of betrayal or egocentricity these sort of inquisitions can be counted on to fail at the first signs of critique avoiding people pull up the drawbridge they are experts at fleeing the messy consequences of other people's desire for them they go off to play sport abscond on a long journey or discover new responsibilities at the office one is left hammering in vain at the gates of their personal Citadel on a bad day they may also get furious back they will deny that we have any kind of point at all they aren't trying to deceive us they genuinely can't see the issue they aren't they assure us with mounting vehemence distant and cold they're simply busy and not into certain kinds of sentimentality it is we need e weak hysterical and over demanding as they put it who are the problem we almost agree to survive we should hold on to the idea that despite their robust out manner the avoidant our above all else scared their Frost eNOS is the result of fear rather than indifference and what they are afraid of is to let down their guard and then meet with betrayal and abandonment their outward strength masks a gelatinous interior but there will inevitably be a rather touching backstory to their advanced subterranean fears these avoidant types were way back most likely let down very badly by someone they depended on a lot when they were defenseless in response to a grave childhood disappointment they grew an extra thick skin and plated themselves with armor but they vowed in a way they may not now even recognize never to trust anyone fully again so they are distant and prone to put up barriers not because they don't care but because being cared for with kindness generates unfamiliar and daunting feelings for them they skilfully undermine their chances of being close because they have no experience of reliable love and are drawn to try to spoil it to prove to themselves that it can't be real and that they haven't therefore missed out on quite so much we should avoid getting stuck in cycles of claim and counterclaim that they might be too cold and that we might be too hot far better to address the fears circulating beneath the surface rather than provoking their panic or denial we should as best we can make closeness feel safe we should remember that we're dealing with someone who finds vulnerability frightening and therefore not meet their impulse to flee with punitive nests more crucially we might along the way start to ask ourselves a few key questions how similar are we to them beneath the apparent differences it's easy to claim that one has an uncomplicated desire to be close so long as one isn't put to the test because one is carefully picked out a person who has problems being close yet in truth how simple is closeness for us really might we not be as scared as they are but simply have passed our share of the problem on to them to hold shouldn't we be suspicious of the way that we manage to reject other warmer candidates in favor of this distant figure is it really an accident that we are with them or isn't it in some way satisfying to us as well allowing us to claim that we want intimacy without having to bear any of its costs through such pointed questions we stand to realize that most probably the fear of closeness exists on both sides it's just that they are directly distant and we are so by proxy we can break away from caricatures and as a couple own up to our mutual terrors of dependence we can start to sympathize with one another's techniques for warding off anxiety and help each other to accept the common risks of love that will be the beginning of true closeness and bravery on both sides did you know we also have an app to help you meet people with whom you can have deeper more meaningful connections follow the link on your screen now to download it you

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Keywords: the school of life, schooloflife, relationships, alain de botton, philosophy, improvement, big questions, love, wellness, mindfullness, psychology, how, to, hack, relationships goals, then vs now, attachment theory bowlby, john bowlby, attachment theory, how to cope with an avoidant partner, Cómo lidiar con una pareja evasiva, कैसे बचें एक साथी के साथ, PL-RELATIONSHIPS, 如何应对回避合作伙伴, avoidant attachment, avoidant attachment style

Id: z2zkUSC-Zm4

Length: 6min 0sec (360 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 29 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/The0penBook]

If only I had a partner hahaha. But then again I'd push them away and tell them to leave me alone.

[u/[deleted]]

This video is so well made and has me in tears. Guess that's enough reddit for the week.

[u/Renardt]

Pretty sure they mean people with avoidant/dismissive attachment, not people with AvPD. Typically someone with AvPD will have fearful attachment (low self-esteem + mistrust of others). Someone with dismissive attachment has high self-esteem but mistrust others, and they feel relatively fine disengaging from 'needy' partners.

[u/NotTheStatusQuo]

People are attracted to avoidants? This is news to me...