#272: How to Talk to Your Partner About Their Avoidant Attachment (Ask Steph)

So let's talk about how to address someone's avoidance, how to raise that conversation with them in a way that is maybe least likely to elicit defensiveness around the label of avoidant attachment.

And I think it's really important to acknowledge at the outset that it's really natural for someone to resist that label.

I think generally most of us wouldn't like to be labeled anything by a partner, for them to be sort of diagnosing us and our behavior and our inner world.

A, a lot of people would naturally have resistance to that, you know, avoidant or otherwise.

I think when we consider that someone with avoidant patterns, the avoidant label is widely demonized, right? You only have to read the comments section on any of my YouTube videos about avoidant attachment to understand why someone might push back pretty hard against being labeled avoidant, because the, the comments are, "Avoidant people shouldn't be in relationships.

Avoidant people are toxic and selfish.

Avoidant people should go die." Like, it's, it's really a bit of a jungle out there.

There is a lot of vitriol.

There is a lot of character assassination, and I'm sure even this video of me saying that is going to be met with those comments again.

It is universal anytime I speak about avoidant people that I'll be met with a barrage of comments of that nature.

So I say that just to contextualize that, yeah, it's probably not something that someone's going to receive neutrally because it comes loaded, even if that's not your intention and you don't have those thoughts and feelings about avoidant attachment, and you're able to look compassionately and see that it's just one of a set of protective strategies and all of the things.

It is generally not considered to be a positive label, and so if someone then receives that, it's probably gonna feel like an attack, and when people feel attacked, they defend themselves.

So I think we have to acknowledge that backdrop when we're looking to have these conversations.

And for that reason, what I would really encourage you to do is rather than saying like, "I think you have an avoidant attachment style, and here are all of the traits of that, and here are all of the things that you do, and like therefore see proof," which as a side note is exactly what I did years ago in my previous relationship with someone who was very avoidant.

When I first discovered all of this stuff, I literally like held a book up to him with a checklist and basically tried to prove to him that he was avoidant, and believe it or not, that didn't go terribly well.

He was not interested in that conversation.

He did not find it as enlightening as I found it, and he pretty much shut down and, and brushed me off, which as a side note, of course, I used as more proof of how avoidant he was.

So I think the much better approach than that is to go deeper than like, "You are avoidant," and reach in underneath that and go, "Okay, what is it that I am struggling with? What do I specifically want to talk to my partner about? Is it the fact that I feel emotionally disconnected from them? Are there communication issues in terms of frequency or are they disappearing? Do I feel shut out from their life?" Like, what is it specifically that you are framing as avoidant attachment that you wanna talk to them about? And if you're like, "Yeah, all of the above and then some," I would pick one or two things rather than going at them with this barrage of, "Here are all of the things that I find to be deficient and disappointing about you that I would like you to work on, please." Again, that is not gonna land very well.

So try and pick one or two things, and pick a good moment to talk about them and say something like, "Hey-" "Is now a good time for me to talk to you about something? Recently, I've been feeling whatever, and this specific behavior is hard for me because of blah, blah.

Would you be willing to try something different?" Right? You don't need them to acknowledge and claim the label of avoidant attachment in order to address the specific behaviors that might be challenging for you.

And frankly, you're likely to have a much better shot at getting the problem solved by dealing in those specifics rather than going to like, "This is who you are, and I have a problem with it, and you need to work on it," because I think most of us, again, would experience a natural defensiveness and, and wanna push back against that.

It's a hard conversation to, to receive and move towards because it does feel like, "Oh, you've been kind of scrutinizing me and judging me, and now you want me to change." So I think that being able to have those conversations and recognizing it's not gonna be a one-and-done conversation, it's, it's going to be an ongoing part of your relationship, that you'll have things that come up that feel hard or that are sort of challenging or that are feeling a bit disconnected, and you open up a non-blaming, non-shaming conversation about what might be going on for them, how it might impact you, and what might look like a healthier way forward that meets both of your needs, right? Again, you don't wanna create this culture of you harboring this shopping list of complaints and things that are bothering you and sitting them down once a week to tell them, like, the next thing they've done that's disappointing you, because that will wear someone down.

And I think that that's a, a common complaint from avoidant people is that they just feel so exasperated by there's always something else.

There's always another thing that you're unhappy about.

And so I think, like, trying as much as you can to really acknowledge the good stuff and to voice appreciation for the things that they're doing well and the, the effort that they are putting in and orienting towards that as much as you can, because we know that anxiety, anxious attachment does tend to filter for the negative and focus on the problems because anxiety wants to get ahead of all of the problems, so it really magnifies them.

So let's talk about how to address someone's avoidance, how to raise that conversation with them in a way that is maybe least likely to elicit defensiveness around the label of avoidant attachment.

And I think it's really important to acknowledge at the outset that it's really natural for someone to resist that label.

I think generally most of us wouldn't like to be labeled anything by a partner, for them to be sort of diagnosing us and our behavior and our inner world.

A, a lot of people would naturally have resistance to that, you know, avoidant or otherwise.

I think when we consider that someone with avoidant patterns, the avoidant label is widely demonized, right? You only have to read the comments section on any of my YouTube videos about avoidant attachment to understand why someone might push back pretty hard against being labeled avoidant, because the, the comments are, "Avoidant people shouldn't be in relationships.

Avoidant people are toxic and selfish.

Avoidant people should go die." Like, it's, it's really a bit of a jungle out there.

There is a lot of vitriol.

There is a lot of character assassination, and I'm sure even this video of me saying that is going to be met with those comments again.

It is universal anytime I speak about avoidant people that I'll be met with a barrage of comments of that nature.

So I say that just to contextualize that, yeah, it's probably not something that someone's going to receive neutrally because it comes loaded, even if that's not your intention and you don't have those thoughts and feelings about avoidant attachment, and you're able to look compassionately and see that it's just one of a set of protective strategies and all of the things.

It is generally not considered to be a positive label, and so if someone then receives that, it's probably gonna feel like an attack, and when people feel attacked, they defend themselves.

So I think we have to acknowledge that backdrop when we're looking to have these conversations.

And for that reason, what I would really encourage you to do is rather than saying like, "I think you have an avoidant attachment style, and here are all of the traits of that, and here are all of the things that you do, and like therefore see proof," which as a side note is exactly what I did years ago in my previous relationship with someone who was very avoidant.

When I first discovered all of this stuff, I literally like held a book up to him with a checklist and basically tried to prove to him that he was avoidant, and believe it or not, that didn't go terribly well.

He was not interested in that conversation.

He did not find it as enlightening as I found it, and he pretty much shut down and, and brushed me off, which as a side note, of course, I used as more proof of how avoidant he was.

So I think the much better approach than that is to go deeper than like, "You are avoidant," and reach in underneath that and go, "Okay, what is it that I am struggling with? What do I specifically want to talk to my partner about? Is it the fact that I feel emotionally disconnected from them? Are there communication issues in terms of frequency or are they disappearing? Do I feel shut out from their life?" Like, what is it specifically that you are framing as avoidant attachment that you wanna talk to them about? And if you're like, "Yeah, all of the above and then some," I would pick one or two things rather than going at them with this barrage of, "Here are all of the things that I find to be deficient and disappointing about you that I would like you to work on, please." Again, that is not gonna land very well.

So try and pick one or two things, and pick a good moment to talk about them and say something like, "Hey-" "Is now a good time for me to talk to you about something? Recently, I've been feeling whatever, and this specific behavior is hard for me because of blah, blah.

Would you be willing to try something different?" Right? You don't need them to acknowledge and claim the label of avoidant attachment in order to address the specific behaviors that might be challenging for you.

And frankly, you're likely to have a much better shot at getting the problem solved by dealing in those specifics rather than going to like, "This is who you are, and I have a problem with it, and you need to work on it," because I think most of us, again, would experience a natural defensiveness and, and wanna push back against that.

It's a hard conversation to, to receive and move towards because it does feel like, "Oh, you've been kind of scrutinizing me and judging me, and now you want me to change." So I think that being able to have those conversations and recognizing it's not gonna be a one-and-done conversation, it's, it's going to be an ongoing part of your relationship, that you'll have things that come up that feel hard or that are sort of challenging or that are feeling a bit disconnected, and you open up a non-blaming, non-shaming conversation about what might be going on for them, how it might impact you, and what might look like a healthier way forward that meets both of your needs, right? Again, you don't wanna create this culture of you harboring this shopping list of complaints and things that are bothering you and sitting them down once a week to tell them, like, the next thing they've done that's disappointing you, because that will wear someone down.

And I think that that's a, a common complaint from avoidant people is that they just feel so exasperated by there's always something else.

There's always another thing that you're unhappy about.

And so I think, like, trying as much as you can to really acknowledge the good stuff and to voice appreciation for the things that they're doing well and the, the effort that they are putting in and orienting towards that as much as you can, because we know that anxiety, anxious attachment does tend to filter for the negative and focus on the problems because anxiety wants to get ahead of all of the problems, so it really magnifies them.