Understanding Avoidant Attachment in Relationships

Everyone has an attachment style that shapes how they connect and bond with others. One common pattern, known as avoidant attachment, often causes people to pull away, maintain emotional distance, or struggle with closeness in relationships. Understanding how avoidant attachment in relationships works can help you better recognize these patterns, both in yourself and your partner, and improve how you relate to others.

Signs of Avoidant Attachment in Relationships

Avoidant attachment is characterized by having discomfort with emotional intimacy, a strong desire for independence, and difficulty wholly trusting others. In other words, the person avoids getting too close to someone else. 

A person with an avoidant attachment style may demonstrate some or all of the following behaviors:

• Discomfort with intimacy 
• Inconsistency (pulling away from conversations, canceling plans, ghosting)
• Hyper-independence  
• Side-stepping conflict versus working through issues
• Emotionally distant or unavailable
• Failure to properly empathize with their partner or others  
• Struggling to vocalize feelings and thoughts
• Conversations seem shallow and lean on small talk, sarcastic jokes, and humor
• Distrustful of others 
• Unable to consistently be vocally and physically affectionate 
• Prioritizing work or personal needs above all else (detached)
• Prematurely ending romantic relationships 
• Avoiding intimate relationships altogether

“Folks with avoidant attachment style are often emotionally unavailable and struggle to emotionally invest in a relationship,” notes Morgan Anderson, PsyD, a psychologist who specializes in attachment theory.

She adds that they may struggle with expressing their emotions and their needs, and that it’s common for them to disengage from their own emotions, which makes expressing themselves difficult.

What Are Attachment Styles?

Attachment styles, developed by British psychologist John Bowlby, refer to the way humans interact and attach with one another. They also impact the way we view and interpret our relationships and ultimately affect intimacy dynamics.

Psychologist Mary Ainsworth greatly expanded on Bowlby’s work in the 1970s, and other researchers have also contributed to our understanding of attachment styles. Today, the four primary attachment styles are:

1. Secure
2. Anxious
3. Avoidant
4. Disorganized

Ainsworth defined the former three, and Main and Solomon added the latter in 1986.

“The way we attach is formed early on as a result of how primary caregivers behaved toward meeting their child’s needs,” explains licensed psychoanalyst Michael Mongo, MFT, PhD, LP.

The four attachment styles represent a person’s internalized subjective experience of how it emotionally feels to be close and connected in relationships.

What Makes a Person Avoidant in Relationships?

Avoidant attachment usually develops from early experiences that shape how a person approaches closeness, trust, and relationships. Factors that can contribute to the development of this attachment style include:

• Inconsistent caregiving in childhood
• Early neglect or rejection
• Lack of emotional support
• Traumatic experiences that caused them to feel unsafe in childhood
• Excessive emphasis on independence
• Modeling avoidant behavior
• Negative relationship experiences in adulthood

Recognizing Avoidant Attachment in Yourself 

It isn’t always easy to see ourselves clearly, which can make it hard to determine whether you have an avoidant attachment style. Being mindful of the signs of avoidant attachment outlined above is one step. For more insight, you can also examine your past relationships and intimacy patterns. 

“It’s important to do what I call a ‘relationship inventory,'” says Dr. Anderson. “For example, you would want to ask yourself, ‘Why are all of my relationships ending?’ and ‘Am I able to express myself openly, honestly, and directly in my relationships?'”

You can also take online quizzes to help determine your attachment style (like the one down below), or speak with a therapist to better understand yourself and help break unhealthy patterns. 

Take the Attachment Styles Quiz

If you’re unsure about your attachment style, this fast and free quiz can help you identify what your thoughts and behaviors may say about your attachment.

This attachment styles quiz was reviewed by David Susman, PhD.

How Avoidance Affects Relationships 

• It makes it hard to form relationships: Having an avoidant attachment makes progressing through normal relationship development difficult. These individuals compulsively distance themselves when they feel intimacy forming, notes Dr. Anderson. 
• It hinders closeness: “It’s fairly easy to see that avoiding connection, closeness, and intimacy can be detrimental to a relationship. After all, that is fundamentally what any relationship is built on, especially romantic partnerships,” says Dr. Mongo. “A relationship, like any growing thing, must be handled with loving care and be continually nurtured so that it can fully bloom over time.”
• It can lead to self-sabotage: He adds that those with an avoidant attachment style will invariably begin to sabotage their relationships; this is a sort of defense mechanism (originating from past experiences) to help them feel emotionally safe. Some may manufacture drama to distort themselves, or they may slowly disengage, completely ghost, or become emotionally numb within the partnership.  

How to Heal and Cope

It’s important for someone with an avoidant attachment to acknowledge their attachment style and how it’s keeping them from fulfilling relationships. From here, they can begin to identify and redirect damaging behavior patterns.

Here are some ways to effectively manage a relationship with avoidant attachment.

• Learn yourself: One of the best things you can do is learn more about yourself and your attachment style. “With awareness of the avoidant attachment relationship behaviors, people may be able to heal and move towards secure attachment,” says Dr. Anderson. 
• Push past discomfort: Remind yourself that avoidant tendencies stifle connection, and allow yourself to feel a little uncomfortable. Dr. Mongo says to remain attuned to urges to dart, avoid, and disengage, and to instead lean into the discomfort a bit longer.
• Practice expressing emotions: This feels incredibly scary and unnatural for someone with avoidant attachment, so you don’t need to jump off the deep end. However, expressing your thoughts, feelings, and emotions can help show you that it’s safe and fulfilling to do so with someone you trust. 
• Rely on help from others: “A person with avoidant attachment will gratefully benefit from receiving help,” Dr. Anderson says. “They are likely holding onto past relationship experiences, or past relational trauma.” She recommends seeing a professional, but you can also lean on trusted friends and family.