If You’re an Anxiously-Attached Person in a Relationship with an Avoidant Person, You May Be Feeling Sick; Here’s a Path Toward Health
I’m a professor and researcher who studies dating dynamics and helps people navigate those dynamics. I moderate a Facebook group of 13,000 women and nonbinary folks called Burned Haystack Dating Method™, and I’m writing this piece in response to discussions we’ve had in the group about attachment theory and what a game-changer it’s been for people on the dating apps.
If you are in a relationship with someone who has an avoidant attachment style, you are painfully familiar with insecurity, frustration, and disappointment. If you’re not sure, take these quizzes — one that asks about you and one that asks about your partner — then return to the rest of this article.
Before we begin talking about how to find healing and peace, a couple caveats: Contemporary attachment theorists discuss attachment “styles” and attachment “systems,” and both are context-dependent and changeable from relationship to relationship, situation to situation. In other words, it’s possible to be more anxious in your romantic partnership, more secure in particular friendships, more avoidant with other friends or family members. It is also likely that attachment styles will shift over time, and it is possible to intentionally…
