Anxious-Avoidant Attachment Dynamics: Breaking Negative Cycles in Relationships
The anxious and avoidant relationship dynamic is among the most common pairings. This is due to how anxiously attached and avoidantly attached individuals unhealthily balance out the relationship.
When two anxiously attached individuals are partnered the result is high-conflict. On the contrary two individuals with an avoidant attachment have low conflict, however they sacrifice repair and connection. Both result in growing resentments and short-lived relationships.
The anxious and avoidant pairing tend to have more longevity in a relationship due to how their attachment defenses play out.
The anxious frantically pushes for repair and reconnection when ruptures happen, fearing abandonment, a result of an individual’s experience where their emotional needs were sometimes met and other times unmet.
The avoidant shuts down to avoid shame and overwhelm, fearing judgment or criticism, a manifestation of an individual who never experienced having their emotional needs met and learned to disown them.
The challenge is when an anxious and avoidant pairing gets stuck in a negative cycle of attachment defenses. The anxious blaming and criticizing their partner to get them to change and the avoidant invalidating and dismissing their partner’s feelings and concerns.
So how do we break these negative cycles? How do we move from feeling dissatisfied to feeling emotionally and physically connected?
Understand both your and your partner’s attachment style
Become aware of your attachment defenses and why they are there.
Develop a relationship to your emotions and needs.
Re-parent the parts of you that go into fear and shame.
Find ways to meet your own needs for care, comfort, validation, boundaries, and support.
Work with your partner to develop a common language and resource more effective ways to communicate during cycles of conflict.
Work with a therapist or a coach both individually and together.
“So not only do people with secure attachment style fare better in relationships, they also create a buffering effect, somehow managing to raise their insecure partner’s relationship satisfaction and functioning to their own high level.”
-Amire Levine