Your advice of giving them space and ignoring your own needs and boundaries is completely enabling the avoidant behavior.
This will never help heal the avoidant attachment wound actually heal. Or the anxious attachment wound heal.
Both people have to find safety within yourself and find safety together. And stay in the discomfort instead of run away. Build capacity on both ends and give BOTH people what they need.
It wasn't my intention to ignore your own needs and boundaries, I agree with you that both partners need to do the work. However, an avoidant needs to be aware of their attachment style first before they can accept the needs their partner is asking for and find safety in themselves first.
And unfortunately that awareness often comes when their partner walks away...
I truly believe that more people have a disorganized style than just being fully anxious or avoidant. Many avoidant people, actually have anxious attachment behaviours at work - people pleasing, overachieving, perfectionism, etc, etc and have very little left for the personal relationships in their lives. Many people have friends they are avoidant with, but then romantic relationships they are extremely anxiously attached with, etc, etc. I think largely, we all really struggle to know where we end and others begin and how to be truly, radically honest - which is not about criticizing others, but with reflecting on whether we take responsibility for our own needs, passions, joy, excitement for life and then connecting with others from a place of fullness, instead of constant depletion that we have normalized as a society. Not to say we shouldn’t also be open about our struggles with others, but many relationships these days are based entirely on addiction to suffering, which comes out in the push/pull dynamics of relationships too.
Yes, totally agree with you! Different types of relationships often display different types of attachment behaviors. And even different partners can cause a person to completely flip from avoidant to anxious...
Your advice of giving them space and ignoring your own needs and boundaries is completely enabling the avoidant behavior.
This will never help heal the avoidant attachment wound actually heal. Or the anxious attachment wound heal.
Both people have to find safety within yourself and find safety together. And stay in the discomfort instead of run away. Build capacity on both ends and give BOTH people what they need.
It wasn't my intention to ignore your own needs and boundaries, I agree with you that both partners need to do the work. However, an avoidant needs to be aware of their attachment style first before they can accept the needs their partner is asking for and find safety in themselves first.
And unfortunately that awareness often comes when their partner walks away...
I truly believe that more people have a disorganized style than just being fully anxious or avoidant. Many avoidant people, actually have anxious attachment behaviours at work - people pleasing, overachieving, perfectionism, etc, etc and have very little left for the personal relationships in their lives. Many people have friends they are avoidant with, but then romantic relationships they are extremely anxiously attached with, etc, etc. I think largely, we all really struggle to know where we end and others begin and how to be truly, radically honest - which is not about criticizing others, but with reflecting on whether we take responsibility for our own needs, passions, joy, excitement for life and then connecting with others from a place of fullness, instead of constant depletion that we have normalized as a society. Not to say we shouldn’t also be open about our struggles with others, but many relationships these days are based entirely on addiction to suffering, which comes out in the push/pull dynamics of relationships too.
Yes, totally agree with you! Different types of relationships often display different types of attachment behaviors. And even different partners can cause a person to completely flip from avoidant to anxious...