You’ve likely recognized that you tend to be avoidant if you catch yourself evading conversations that add meaning and richness to a relationship, be it between friends, family or your partner.
Rather than leaning in and seeing where these “tough conversations” go, you find yourself avoiding them, either by deflecting with humor or attempting to be vague because you’re afraid of emotional exposure.
A 2023 study published in the European Journal of Investigation in Health, Psychology and Education investigated nearly 400 Italian adults to explore how varying attachment dimensions contribute to well-being and relationship status.
Researchers discovered those with stable, close relationships tended to have higher levels of well-being as compared to singles. They also found that “discomfort with closeness” and the perception of “relationships as secondary,” two common characteristics of individuals with an avoidant attachment style, were significantly greater among singles than among those in long-term relationships.
“Interestingly, according to our findings, individuals with an attachment style characterized by discomfort with closeness are more likely to be single and not establish stable romantic relationships,” the researchers explain.
Such avoidant traits can push others away and stop you from feeling the depth of emotionally satisfying relationships — or even forming them in the first place.
Here are three ways to work on your avoidant attachment patterns and embrace your relationships more fully.
1. Face The Discomfort Instead Of Outsourcing It
Suppose you organized a holiday with your friend, but something unexpected arises and they cancel at the last minute. It hurts, and you don’t want to feel that pain. You don’t even want to admit that something went wrong. So, you reassure yourself that everything’s okay; it couldn’t be helped, and there is always a next time.
But then, you consider all the times you had waited for this day, the way you had booked your tickets months in advance, cleaned up your schedule and waited with all the excitement until it all crashed down, shattering at the last minute.
Rather than embrace the pain and the hurt, you numb out, distract yourself, make an attempt to rationalize your feelings; you do anything but really attempt to just sit with them.
It might feel like the ability to feel anything less than “alright” is some sort of defect that needs to be fixed, rather than a part of the human experience. Along the way, your own feelings become villainized and something to be reasoned away rather than messages intended to be received.
Healing begins when individuals with avoidant attachment cease to overthink their feelings and begin to permit themselves to truly feel the chaos and mix of emotions they’ve been staying away from for so long.
Here’s how you can start the process gently.
- Make room for your feelings without judgment. Take a moment and take a pause, rather than trying to repair, and just accept what occurred and the ideas and emotions it is provoking within you. Your suffering is genuine and justified, and to recognize it doesn’t qualify you as an awful friend.
- Bring your body consciousness to awareness. Emotions come through the body long before you become aware of them; it might be that your chest is constricted or you have a knot in your throat. Rather than avoid them, breathe slowly and deliberately to just let yourself feel. Rather than break it all down to figure out what you’re feeling or to explain them away, just let them exist.
- Label your emotions. “I am hurt, I feel let down, I was so excited about this, and now I feel terribly disappointed. It makes me angry.” When you label your feelings and give your mind and body permission to feel the pain, that’s how you can start to digest and process the experience. This also releases the pressure or discomfort you might be feeling.
2. Use Solitude For Self-Reflection, Not Shutdown
As someone with an avoidant attachment style, your first response to vulnerable moments of communication or conflict might be to shut down, deflect or withdraw. A 2023 study published in Research in Psychotherapy: Psychopathology, Process and Outcome examined how attachment orientations shape the way people regulate their emotions, both internally and through others.
The researchers tested over 600 adults and discovered that those with avoidant attachment tend to more frequently use suppression and distancing strategies, mentally detaching from stressors and suppressing affective experiences, rather than confronting and working through them.
These participants also exhibited decreased emotional clarity, less reassurance-seeking in times of psychological distress and maladaptive strategies that involved trying to over-regulate one’s emotions on their own. There was also a tendency toward shunning interpersonal strategies involving seeking comfort or expressing their distress to others.
When you find yourself constantly wanting space from others, whether it’s from a friend asking for clarity, someone from your family who wants to set things right or a coworker who wants to talk about something disturbing that occurred at last night’s office party, that avoidance squashes attempts at connection.
To create a change, utilize solitude as an instrument of truthful self-examination instead of avoidance. Get into the routine of questioning what you do, why you do it and how those actions affect others. Here are some questions you can ask yourself when you sit to reflect on any such scenario.
- “Why did I do or say that?”
- “What am I feeling at this moment?”
- “What am I afraid would happen if I allowed this conversation to occur?”
- “What story am I telling myself about the other person’s intentions?”
- “How could my past be affecting my response here?”
Rather than judging other people as “too emotional,” begin by observing whether you possibly have some defensive reactions of your own and trace them back to any hidden shame or fear at play.
3. Commit To Deep Work, Not Just Safe Work
When you promise, “I will open up,” but fail to do so, or when the same struggle continues to repeat itself and you feel pressured by thoughts of “If I don’t let them in, this is the end of this relationship,” it’s a pattern.
Having more of an avoidant attachment style doesn’t mean that anything is wrong with you, and it isn’t a box you’re stuck in. Attachment styles describe tendencies, rather than hard and fast labels or unchanging behaviors. Your avoidance simply indicates that you and your relationships could benefit from some more vulnerability and openness to closeness.
A 2022 study released in Frontiers in Psychology revealed that when avoidantly attached individuals employ coping mechanisms like shutting down emotionally — or even overt aggression when cornered — these actions often impact them as much as their partners, lowering relationship satisfaction on both ends.
Researchers also found that their partner tends to develop “compensatory mechanisms,” consciously inserting more positivity into the relationship to diffuse the negative impact. This cycle can leave the more avoidant partner perpetually stuck and unhappy, as trying to escape pain and conflict does not effectively address underlying emotional concerns.
For such individuals, it’s important to start by actively noticing, accepting and managing avoidant impulses rather than automatically acting on them. This will help them develop distress tolerance, where uncomfortable feelings can be present without retreating immediately; a skill built by exposure and acceptance.
Learning about codependency and “counter-dependency” can also help, since those with avoidant tendencies often benefit from reworking how they relate to boundaries and care.
Change occurs when confronting yourself becomes more important than fleeing yourself. True transformation requires sitting with discomfort long enough to rewire these patterns.
Take this research-backed scale to identify your unique avoidance patterns, understand how they shape your emotional responses and get a clearer starting point for meaningful relational change: Avoidant Attachment Scale