Fearful Avoidant Attachment: A Deep Dive (Part 2)

Añadido: 2026-05-21

[00:00:00]Hi everybody. Welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. In today's episode, we are talking again about fearful avoidant attachment. It's a bit of a deep dive. This is part two. Part one, you should go back and listen to if you haven't already. If you are already up to speed on part one, today's episode is all about how the fearful avoidant attachment pattern plays out in relationships. So last time we talked about the origins of fearful avoidant attachment and kind of the internal landscape of someone with that attachment style. Today we're talking about how does it play out in the relational arena?

[00:00:36]And we're going to talk about what that looks like at the start and how it can show up in relationship with different partners. You know, how does fearful avoidant attachment manifest in relationship with someone who has more anxious patterns as compared to someone with more avoidant patterns? Because as you might guess, that can be quite different depending on, you know, what you're up against. So, that's what we're going to be covering here. As I said, go back and listen to part one if you haven't already. Before we get into that, just a quick reminder. I recently created a new course called Understanding Your Avoidant Partner.

[00:01:11]It's really short and sweet and it's really affordable. As much as my philosophy around this work for people with more anxious patterns is that focusing on your partner and deciphering them is not how you get to a place of peace and security within yourself, which I think should hopefully be the goal. It can be very useful to have more context for the way your partner is different to you in a non-shaming, curious, compassionate way because I think that opens up a lot of space for us to maybe take responsibility for our contribution to the pattern rather than just villainizing our partner and, you know, labeling them the problem and convincing ourselves and, you know, telling them that if they were different then everything would be fine.

[00:01:56]Of course, that always feels true.

[00:01:57]Sometimes it still feels true to me, but as we know, it takes two to tango, and the more that we can take responsibility for our stuff, but also really try and see into the inner experience of someone else, of, you know, the person that we love and are in partnership with, then we can really maximize our chances of success in terms of creating a really solid collaborative relationship environment, rather than one where we're just warring over whose way is the right way, because spoiler alert, and I'm sure you know this, that doesn't work terribly well, and you will stay stuck in that power struggle forever. So, if you're interested, definitely worth checking out my short course on understanding your avoidant partner. It covers kind of the whole scope of what you would want to know, and it is applicable to both fearful avoidant and dismissive avoidant patterns. So, well worth checking out, and as I said, it is my most affordable program. So, I'll link that in the show notes if you're at all interested. Okay, so let's talk about the fearful avoidant in relationship. So, I'm going to talk in general terms about, you know, relational patterns that show up, and then I'm going to distinguish between more anxious partners, more avoidant partners, and how that tends to go. So, as a starting point, someone with fearful avoidant patterns generally likes being in a relationship. They do really desire connection, and specifically, they can really long for depth of connection. Things that feel very shallow and superficial are unlikely to be very compelling for someone with fearful avoidant patterns.

[00:03:34]And, you know, that makes sense because they feel so deeply, and they have this intensity about them, that unless someone can meet them in that intensity, it's unlikely to feel like a connection worth pursuing.

[00:03:47]So, they do tend to seek out deep connection, and that can mean that, you know, they can get attached very quickly, quite like someone with anxious patterns might. That, you know, they can almost idolize someone or really romanticize and put them on a pedestal.

[00:04:05]And I think a lot of people with fearful avoidant patterns can fall into the trap of convincing themselves that this person is the one. You know, they are going to be the one who will rescue me from all of my demons and my darkness and my struggles. And, you know, in this relationship, none of those things will be relevant because, you know, they really get me and it feels so good, as it always does at the start, right?

[00:04:32]Relationships at the very beginning feel so exciting and I think that's because hope is so intoxicating. And when we're just seeing all of the positives and we're so drunk on the potential of what could be, you know, none of our wounds are really being triggered there. To the extent that our wounds are in play, it's the parts of us that are really young and desperately hopeful for redemption, rather than, you know, our defensive parts that are coming in and trying to protect us. So, the fearful avoidant early on can really be all in on a connection and they can not only be on board with intensity, but they can actively seek it out. And that can really feed almost like a soul-level hunger that they have for that. You know, that really deep longing and yearning for love and connection. Now, if you listened to part one, you will have heard me say that one of the defining features of fearful avoidant attachment is that the attachment drive and the survival drive are in conflict.

[00:05:34]And so, the attachment drive says, "Go close. You know, connection feels good.

[00:05:39]Develop that bond." And the survival drive, once you get there, once you're experiencing that intimacy, says, "This is not safe. We need to go. You know, hit the kill switch. We got to get out of here because I have a really strong sense that something bad is about to happen. And so there's this concurrent longing for and deep visceral fear of connection. And that naturally creates a lot of very conflicting messages and confusing chaotic behavior. And so while at the start, you know, it's all systems go, what will often then happen once you're in a relationship or there is some, you know, sense of forward momentum is that sooner or later those survival systems are going to start sounding the alarm. And so there might be almost a sense of whiplash of like, "Whoa, what just happened?" You know, someone with fearful avoidant patterns might kind of freak out or, you know, have some kind of explosive thing of getting really angry or getting really triggered often, you know, a disproportionate way, you know, for the person on the other side it might really feel like, "I have no idea what just happened because this feels like such a 180 that, you know, it's totally incongruent with what you were saying yesterday or, you know, a lot of the time." And I've heard just hundreds, thousands of people's stories that kind of fit this description of like, "Last week they were saying they'd never felt so close to anyone in their life." And you know, they'd never had such an amazing connection and they were so excited for the future.

[00:07:11]And now they're telling me they're not sure they want to be in a relationship and they need some time to think or something like that. There can just be this sense of incongruence and like a really strong about-face that doesn't seem to make sense on the outside. And of course, it doesn't really make sense on the inside either. But that survival system, that protective system can just be so persuasive and so convincing. And it's not necessarily something that the fearful avoidant will be cognizant of in a really conscious way. Often times it can actually feel like this doesn't feel good anymore. I don't think that this is a good idea. They can just feel like inexplicably generally not turned off in the way that someone with more dismissive patterns might just lose interest or feel irritable or frustrated. You know, the fearful avoidant is more likely to feel quite threatened by the intimacy in a way that you know, they feel like I really need to get out of here and they can experience uh you know, by contrast with someone with more dismissive patterns, the fearful avoidant typically has a stronger fight response. So, they can be quite conflict forward. Whereas someone who's more dismissive avoidant will typically just turn away from conflict, avoid it, not really want to go there. You know, the fearful avoidant might lash out or they might have these big emotional outbursts or you know, some other kind of impulsive reactivity that is just coming from a survival system that slams on the brakes and says this isn't safe. And I think part of what drives that is you know, the fearful avoidant will often be quite quick to make their partner the enemy.

[00:08:53]So, it's not just you know, feelings of mild irritation with a partner, it's real deep anger and even dislike of or hatred of a partner in the moment when triggered because there's like all of this legacy baggage coming of you know, this person who is closest to me, who I depend on now has the power to hurt me and disappoint me and let me down and I almost resent them for that. I resent the power they have over me because feeling powerless when you're someone who has been victimized before, which is often the case for people with fearful avoidant patterns, that's an experience that you will naturally really push hard against and that your protective parts are going to try and compensate for. So, feeling small, feeling powerless, feeling vulnerable is often over-corrected for, and you know, that internal feeling of powerlessness, or a fear of powerlessness, can elicit a pretty strong response. Okay, so let's talk now about, you know, branching off between more anxious and fearful avoidant combo, more avoidant fearful avoidant combo. Uh and I think the starting principle is that you know, our attachment patterns and behaviors are responsive, so it really depends on what we're up against. And the fearful avoidant, because they have borrowed core beliefs and wounds from both the avoidant side and the anxious side, it really depends on what is being mirrored back to them, or what's being triggered in the relationship, you know, how they tend to then respond. So, with a more anxious partner, the fearful avoidant is likely to be more triggered around their uh protectiveness of selfhood. Like, you know, don't try and change me, don't criticize me, don't try to control me. You know, their more avoidant side is likely to come out in their protective responses, as I've talked about. I think early on, the intensity factor can mean that the fearful avoidant and anxious combo really can be like both feet on the accelerator, can be all systems go, like just fire on fire. Because, while there is a complementarity around the anxious avoidant part, which I think tends to be an opposites-attract kind of scenario, the connection point is the depth and the intensity, and that feels really good for both people. So, that can really be all systems go at the start, when, you know, the emotional stakes are low, the vulnerability is low. Both people are kind of leaning into the connection really hard, but when the stakes are higher, when the relationship progresses, when, you know, we start talking about unmet needs, or we have conflict, or there's disappointment, or there's expectation, or there's pressure, that's when the fearful avoidant is likely to respond to someone with more anxious patterns by leaning more into their avoidant strategies of, you know, pulling away, or deflecting, or defending, or, you know, even suggesting that they don't want to be in the relationship, or saying I need space, or saying I don't know if this is going to work, or basically turning away from or disconnecting as a way to protect. And that's because their more avoidant core wounds are likely to be triggered by someone who's more anxious. So, those things around autonomy, selfhood, freedom, feeling successful, shame, all of that, which they tend to share more with the avoidant folks, that's the part that's going to be activated in a relationship with someone with anxious patterns, and so that's when they tend to be more in their avoidant seat in terms of how they respond. Now, if they get into a relationship with someone who's more avoidant, in my observation, it tends to be less characterized by that strong depth and intensity at the start, just because someone with really strong dismissive patterns doesn't tend to go that deep, and they tend not to have the capacity for that level of intensity that fearful avoidant and anxious people do. But nevertheless, if someone with fearful avoidant patterns is in relationship with someone with more dismissive patterns, the dismissive avoidant's behavior around distance, around, you know, protecting their sense of self, maybe being a bit cagey, maybe being evasive, maybe being inconsistent, or unpredictable, or, you know, not really being very clear in their intentions or their feelings, all of that uncertainty that someone with avoidant patterns can inject into the relationship can really trigger the fearful avoidant's fear of abandonment, fear of rejection, their those core wounds that they also share with anxious attachment, you know, not being able to trust in intimacy. So, in that scenario, they might lean more into kind of the anxious, needy, clingy, reassurance-seeking behavior of being the pursuer, of reaching for the connection, because, you know, they're feeling like it's slipping away and they really want it. They don't feel like there's anything to defend against because it's there's nothing incoming.

[00:13:52]So, they can take on more of that pursuing, grasping role that we would usually associate with anxious attachment. The other possibility for people with fearful-avoidant patterns, of course, is that they can adopt a, you know, "I'll reject you before you can reject me" kind of approach. And so, if they sense someone's being lukewarm or disinterested, they can shut down and disconnect and beat the other person to it so that they don't get rejected, so that they still feel in control. And that can be part of their protection as well. It's like, "Well, if I don't care, then I can't get hurt. If I'm not invested, then I can't get hurt." And so, that can be, obviously, a way of protecting against that vulnerability, as well. Okay, I'm realizing now that as I'm talking, there's probably a part three that we need to do, which is like, "What does healing look like?" Because, you know, all of that might feel a bit pessimistic or hopeless if you're someone with fearful-avoidant patterns or if you're in relationship with someone with fearful-avoidant patterns, because it is really hard and there's a lot of pain there and there's a lot of shame and there are a lot of really deep self-protective patterns that are powerful and they're not something that you can just switch off, right? It's not like a conscious decision of, "Oh, I'm not going to self-sabotage in these ways anymore.

[00:15:06]I've decided I will now be secure." Of course, that's true for all of us.

[00:15:09]There's work to be done and it's not as simple as deciding. But, as with all insecure attachment patterns, this stuff is not set in stone. It's, you know, learned responses to less than ideal circumstances and with time and patience and safe relationships, we can actually rewire our systems to a different set point, and rewire our nervous systems to a different set point, one that is able to rest more in safety rather than in constant fear and bracing and distrust. And so, healing is possible for fearful avoidants just as it is for people with anxious patterns or people with more avoidant patterns.

[00:15:46]Uh and so, maybe that's a follow-up part three that I need to do is what that looks like. You know, what does the self-work look like? What does the relational work look like for people with fearful avoidant patterns? So, if you would like me to do that part three, let me know in the comments below, and I'll I'll add it to the list if there's interest in that. Okay, guys, I'm going to leave it there. Thank you so much for joining me. You know, I do have a lot of empathy for folks with fearful avoidant patterns. My partner has fearful avoidant patterns, as I shared in the previous episode, so I feel like while it's not my own attachment style, I have a lot of experience first hand with understanding both the inner workings and the outward manifestations, and I've also supported a lot of people who are either in relationship with someone with fearful avoidant patterns, or themselves identify with this. So, I know that it can be really hard and confusing, and I know that the deep shame can really exacerbate all of that, because unlike someone with more dismissive patterns, who tends not to have the self-awareness or the sensitivity to others' emotions to maybe realize what their impact is, the fearful avoidant knows that, and they can see it, and they can see the hurt they cause, and that can really reinforce the shame, because you know, they really do care. They care very deeply, and they love very deeply, and they feel very deeply, and they try hard, and they they want that love and connection, but sometimes, you know, their protective parts are just so powerful and so staunch in their defense of vulnerability. And, you know, when the stakes feel really high, that can really trump all of that other stuff, best intentions. And so, capacity can be a real constraint. And, of course, when the fog lifts, when, you know, the system settles after something has happened, a lot of fearful avoidants will, you know, look at what they've done and feel a lot of shame and regret and tend to be really hard on themselves for the way they might have acted and really blame themselves. And that obviously feeds that cycle of shame and there's something wrong with me, which, you know, leads to more protective responses. So, it can be really challenging and I have, you know, a lot of compassion for that on both sides.

[00:18:08]You know, the person who's stuck in that cycle and the person in relationship with someone who's stuck in that cycle because that can be really challenging, too. Anyway, going to leave it there.

[00:18:17]Sending you lots of love and I look forward to seeing you again next time.