Avoidant Attachment & The Fear of Losing Yourself In a Relationship | Psychologist Explains

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]Can I be myself in this relationship? If you have an avoidant attachment style or you lean towards this attachment style, this is probably a question you find yourself asking. You worry that getting together with someone or staying together, being together with somebody will divert you from your path and make it harder for you to be your true self and that that will frustrate you at some point.

[00:00:24]Often what happens next if you're dating somebody is you do what you've learned to do your whole life. You withdraw, avoid, and try to fix this on your own.

[00:00:34]So, you try to be yourself secretly. You sneak in a workout during your lunch break. You work till late in the evening on something that you feel there was no space for during the day. You keep certain thoughts to yourself to avoid rocking the boat. You downplay your needs and say it's fine when it's not.

[00:00:56]You delay responding to texts to have a sense of control over your time. It's like there's two versions of you. You in the relationship and the you that you preserve in private. And this strategy is problematic because on the one hand it puts pressure on you to hide your authenticity and on the other hand it creates a sense of disconnection from your partner. Your partner will be able to sense you're hiding big parts of yourself or of your life from them and they probably won't understand why you're doing that.

[00:01:30]To them it'll feel like something is off.

[00:01:33]Like you're not 100% connected.

[00:01:35]Like you don't trust them or maybe even like you have a dark secret that you're hiding. Also, this strategy of avoidance reinforces your original problem of not knowing if you can be yourself in this relationship. You can only figure that out by being yourself.

[00:01:51]Politely and kindly, of course, and then seeing what happens. If you keep hiding yourself you'll only ever know how to make this relationship work with avoidance and not being yourself.

[00:02:04]And if you then conclude this person isn't right for me because I couldn't be myself with them.

[00:02:10]Your avoidance became a self-fulfilling prophecy. How can you resolve this? It starts with gaining more clarity on who you are when you're in a relationship.

[00:02:19]So, entering a relationship is an identity shift. Just like we have so many identity shifts throughout life when we age, when we move, when we start a new project and end another one.

[00:02:31]All of those changes are small identity shifts. In the same way we shift identity when we enter a relationship.

[00:02:39]And the key here is not to then kind of split your life and live a double life of you being a superhuman perfect partner when you're with your partner, but then needing a lot of time separate from that where you can then be who you are when you were single.

[00:03:00]The idea is to bring that together so that you can be one authentic self in a relationship.

[00:03:07]Then you can start by asking yourself questions like where does a relationship fit into my life?

[00:03:14]What do I want to spend my time with with my partner? I mean what kind of activities, when, how often, how long?

[00:03:24]All those kinds of things to start with.

[00:03:26]And you probably won't be able to answer all of these questions down to the last detail right now. That's okay. You can start with an idea try it out, see how it goes, and then adapt your understanding of who you are authentically when you're in a relationship.

[00:03:42]You start with a prototype and keep giving it software updates. While you're doing that, practice communicating about all of this with your partner so that you can find a way of being together that works for both of you. And if this is hard to talk about that means you're sending each other messages on the attachment level that you're not intending to send.

[00:04:05]Right? So, if you're talking about what did you on the weekend and you notice it's hard to say what you really think would and what you'd really like to do or if it looks like your partner got upset by this conversation then something happened on the attachment level that you probably didn't intend to. And then it's important to practice shifting onto the attachment level and talk about what happened there so you both understand each other and feel heard, seen, supported and appreciated by one another. And you can start that by asking questions at the point where the conversation got hard.

[00:04:48]It seems like this has become hard to talk about. What makes it hard for you?

[00:04:54]What's going through your mind right now? It seems like you're worried. Is that true? And if yes, what are you worried about?

[00:05:04]What are you hearing me say right now about you and us? This way you can clear up any misalignment on the attachment level. When you both speak from a place of feeling emotionally safe with each other supported, appreciated, respected it becomes a lot easier to navigate also practical life management. Then you're only talking about practical life management and not simultaneously navigating hurt feelings. Another key aspect of your change process here is resolving unhelpful beliefs you have about relationships. And one that's particularly important here is your idea or concept of how similar two people need to be so that they can have a good relationship. Often avoidants hold out on committing to someone because they think they need to find somebody who is exactly like them. And whenever they see differences it worries them and makes them think that this might not be the right person for them. The concept underlying this approach is the idea that relationships mean melting together with someone. And it makes sense that if you think that that's what relationships are you need to find somebody who's exactly like you or one of you would need to adapt and become like the other. Luckily, that's not required and not what relationships are.

[00:06:30]There's actually a term for this approach to relationships of thinking you need to melt together and lose any sense of who you are as an individual outside of the relationship and erase any differences between the two of you. It's called enmeshment.

[00:06:47]And it's not only unnecessary, it's unhealthy. A healthy securely attached relationships are connection between two individuals that are different people and they're allowed to even required to remain true to themselves. That means there's space for different opinions preferences, and choices. Of course, this only works if you both know who you are. If you're not so sure about who you are and what you want, prefer, and need, then it's easier to go with the flow of what your partner wants and prefers.

[00:07:22]And sometimes or often that's also easier in the short term than talking about how to make a difference work.

[00:07:30]But this is poison for your mental health and also your sense of connection in the relationship. The moment of relief for all avoidants here is you're worried about enmeshed relationships negatively affecting you.

[00:07:44]And that's correct. That's absolutely correct. An enmeshed relationship where there's no space for your authenticity would negatively affect you, but that is not what healthy relationships are like.

[00:07:56]That means you don't have to be worried about a healthy relationship affecting you negatively or all relationships being frustrating. They're not. A healthy relationship allows you to be the most authentic version of yourself where both your need for connection and autonomy are fulfilled. What you fear is enmeshment, not connection. And there is a solution to that. Don't become enmeshed with your partner. The idea that you need to be enmeshed shows up in thoughts like I can't be consistent with my health habits unless my partner has the same health habits and they change their health habits.

[00:08:32]Or I can't stay true to my career drive unless my partner is exactly as driven as I am. Or I can't enjoy this hobby unless my partner has the same hobby. Of course, you need a basic amount of compatibility. But you don't have to be exactly alike.

[00:08:52]That's how secure attachment works. You need basic compatibility, communication skills, and a willingness to collaborate.

[00:09:00]Insecure attachment is based on trying to become more similar and not being yourself trying to be who you think your partner wants you to be.

[00:09:11]Insecure attachment means being yourself and finding ways to collaborate. I'm emphasizing this because before you can speak up about what you would like, what you prefer or want in other words, before you can show yourself more authentically to test if you can be yourself in this relationship you need to change the way you think about what is required of a securely attached partner.

[00:09:36]If you think it's required of you to hide what you really want then you won't notice the moments in which you'd actually need to speak up about something and initiate a conversation. Your mind will skip over these moments.

[00:09:53]And you will do what you've learned to do so far. Hide and avoid. If you're aware that you don't have to do that, that it's even damaging, that what's required is being aware of your feelings, needs, and authentic self, and speaking up on behalf of it, then your mind will also start noticing the moments in which this new approach is relevant. Put aside the approach of pressuring yourself and or your partner to become more alike.

[00:10:24]That's not going to happen, and if it does, it won't last.

[00:10:28]Allow yourself and your partner to make your own choices, to keep experimenting with who you are authentically as you go through the different stages of life.

[00:10:38]Be open to one another's influence in a way that is actual resonance and not inauthenticity.

[00:10:45]Then find ways to collaborate and send each other appreciative messages about your feelings for each other. And this is also the secret to relationships that last because even if you were someone that's exactly like you, nobody stays the same for their whole life.

[00:11:03]And if you know that that's not what a healthy relationship rests on, a likeness, exact likeness, then you don't have to feel threatened by your own or your partner's growth or change. A loving bond doesn't require exact likeness, it requires communication and care. If you'd like more support in figuring all of this out and developing secure attachment, if you'd like a thorough, structured map and training ground, check out our program for avoidantly attached men. The link is in the description box. If you're not sure what your attachment style is, you can take our quiz and get instant results. Till next time, take care, and remember, you can only figure out if you can be yourself in a relationship if you are yourself.

[00:11:48]Okay.

[00:11:48]With that, I've said everything. Now, I'm going to go rest my voice. I started sounding like Miley Cyrus throughout this video, and don't get me wrong. She has a beautiful voice, but this is not my [music] natural register, so, yeah.

[00:12:00]Take care.