Avoidants

Who are “Aviodants” ? 

From a relationship-attachment perspective, avoidants train themselves not to care about how the person closest to them is feeling. Avoidants embrace the notion of a perfect partner, and typically rate their partners bad and fail to understand them. 
Avoidants are not strong to translate many verbal and non-verbal signals they receive during everyday interactions. 

Attachment Style

• Secure attachment worked best because our ancestors lived predominantly in close-knit groups 
• Evolved in order to increase survival chances in a particular environment 
• The attachment style always manifests itself 

Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires – Francois de La Rochefoucauld 

Avoidants 

• Quick to think negatively about their partner 
  • See their partner as needy and overly dependent 
• Ignore their own needs and fears about relationships 
• Maintain some mental distance and escape route 
• Feel deep-rooted aloneness even in relationships 
• Are not exactly open books and tend to repress rather than express emotions 
• The mind is governed by overarching perceptions and beliefs about relationships that ensure a disconnect with a partner 
• Deactivating strategies
  • Any behavior or thought used to squelch intimacy 
  • Suppress the attachment system
  • Just the tip of the iceberg
  • Examples:
    • Flirting with others 
    • Avoid physical closeness 
    • Keeping secrets and leaving things foggy 
    • Pull away when things go well 
    • I am not ready to commit
    • Focus on imperfections in your partner 
• Beliefs 
  • Self-reliance 
    • Closely linked to a low degree of comfort with intimacy and closeness 
    • Overrating leads to diminishing the importance of getting support from others

To change avoidants, first, they need to increase their self-awareness about their thought patterns and then identify the instances in which they employ –  attitudes and behaviors. Embarking on a voyage of change.

Avoidants can be seen as givers in their inability to confront situations. This can have the benefit of appearing to be trying in a relationship, yet distancing themselves. This ultimately exhausts them and overwhelms them to the point of “poor me”. ― Dr. Sandra Smith-Hanen

Inspired from Attached- by Amir Levine , Rachel Heller