What is an avoidant attachment style?
An avoidant attachment style is one of the three main attachment styles first identified by psychologist John Bowlby. People with an avoidant attachment style tend to be emotionally distant in relationships and have difficulty with intimacy and dependence. They value independence and self-sufficiency and tend to avoid getting too close to romantic partners.
Some key characteristics of avoidant attachment include:
- Discomfort with intimacy and closeness
- Difficulty depending on others or having others depend on them
- Desire for independence and self-sufficiency
- Tendency to distance themselves when relationship becomes too intimate
- Avoidance of emotional expression and vulnerability
Avoidants make up about 25% of the population. This attachment style likely develops early in life due to insecure attachments with primary caregivers. Those with avoidant attachment tend to come from families that discouraged emotional expression.
Do avoidants devalue their partners?
Whether avoidants devalue their romantic partners is a complex question without a simple yes or no answer. There are a few perspectives to consider:
1. Avoidants may seem to devalue their partners through distancing behaviors
A key characteristic of those with avoidant attachment is the tendency to distance themselves when relationships become too intimate. This distancing can sometimes be perceived by partners as devaluation.
For example, an avoidant partner may:
- Become less responsive to calls/texts
- Decline invitations to get together
- Avoid conversations about the relationship
- Need more alone time
From the avoidant’s perspective, these actions may simply reflect their need for independence and space. But from their partner’s perspective, the behaviors can feel like the avoidant is losing interest in the relationship and devaluing their bond.
So in this sense, the avoidant’s distancing behaviors may inadvertently make partners feel devalued, even if devaluation is not the avoidant’s intent.
2. Avoidants may devalue partners as a defensive strategy
In some cases, avoidants may engage in behaviors that consciously or unconsciously devalue their partner as a defensive strategy. Since avoidants feel discomfort with intimacy, they may create distance from their partner by finding fault and focusing on their flaws.
Some devaluing strategies avoidants may use include:
- Focusing on a partner’s negative traits or weaknesses
- Criticizing a partner’s personality or behavior
- Pointing out how a partner fails to meet their needs
- Flirting with others/emotional cheating to fulfil unmet needs
By finding flaws in their partner, avoidants can justify emotional distance and maintain their self-sufficiency. However, this inevitably damages the relationship and makes partners feel devalued.
3. Avoidants don’t necessarily devalue, but may struggle to value
Another perspective is that avoidants do not actively devalue their partners, but they struggle to demonstrate valuing behaviors that make partners feel appreciated. Avoidants tend to:
- Have difficulty expressing care, affection, and admiration for partners
- Struggle to provide emotional/practical support when partners need it
- Avoid verbally affirming partners or showing gratitude in the relationship
- Prioritize independence over commitment to the partner or relationship
So avoidants may not purposefully devalue their partners, but their lack of valuing behaviors can come across as devaluation. Partners may feel under-appreciated, unsupported, or even unloved.
4. Avoidants may lack awareness of how their actions impact partners
In many cases, avoidants engage in distancing or self-protective behaviors without conscious awareness of how these behaviors make their partners feel devalued.
Due to their discomfort with vulnerability, avoidants also struggle to engage in open communication with partners about the relationship. This prevents them from gaining insight into how their actions are negatively impacting their partner.
With increased self-awareness and open communication, avoidants can become more attuned to their partners’ emotional experience and needs. This allows them to modify behaviors that unintentionally communicate a lack of value and regard for their partner.
Do avoidants devalue partners over time?
A common pattern with avoidant attachment is that partners start out feeling valued, then gradually begin to feel devalued as intimacy increases. There are a few reasons this progression tends to occur:
- Avoidants are comfortable with more casual dating, but begin to feel threatened as relationships progress to more emotionally intimate stages.
- In the early stages of dating, avoidants engage in “positive illusion” where they focus on their partner’s positive traits and minimze weaknesses/differences.
- As the relationship becomes more intimate, avoidants’ defences come up and they start to see their partner more “realistically” – noticing flaws, differences, etc.
- Avoidants start to pull away and use distancing strategies as they feel their independence and self-sufficiency being threatened.
- Partners feel perplexed and devalued as the avoidant withdraws from closeness that was originally present earlier in the relationship.
Essentially, avoidants’ deactivating strategies that create distance and communicate disinterest tend to ramp up as a relationship progresses from casual to more seriously committed. Early on, their dismissing behaviors are less frequent and less apparent to partners. But partners feel increasingly devalued over time.
Can avoidants maintain healthy relationships?
Despite the challenges, avoidants certainly can have happy, healthy long-term relationships. It requires:
– Awareness – Avoidants becoming aware of their attachment style and how it impacts their behaviors and emotional patterns in relationships.
– Motivation – Avoidants need to be motivated to improve their attachment patterns and develop more security. This requires vulnerability – a skill that does not come naturally to them.
– Communication – Avoidants must learn to communicate openly with partners about relationship challenges, fears, and emotional needs. This allows partners to better understand their behavior.
– Compromise – They need to find a balance between independence and intimacy that allows both partners to feel valued and secure. This may involve making compromises that go against avoidants’ natural instincts.
– Support – Having a strong social support system outside of the partner helps avoidants meet emotional needs while maintaining independence. Therapy can also provide a helpful outside perspective.
– Patience and compassion – Change does not happen overnight. Partners must be patient, maintain empathy, and allow avoidants room to progress at their own pace. Progress often happens in small steps.
With self-improvement efforts focused on increasing security, avoidants can become more trusting of intimacy. This allows them to demonstrate care and regard for partners in ways that prevent devaluation and deterioration of the relationship. But it requires commitment, compromise, and compassion from both partners.
Conclusion
In summary, whether avoidants devalue their partners is a complex, nuanced topic:
– Avoidants’ distancing behaviors may inadvertently make partners feel devalued. But devaluation may not be the avoidants’ conscious intent.
– In some cases, avoidants may consciously or unconsciously devalue partners as a self-protective strategy against closeness.
– Avoidants often struggle to demonstrate valuing behaviors, even if they do not purposefully devalue partners. Their lack of affirmation can feel like devaluation.
– Avoidants’ lack of self- and partner awareness contributes to behaviors that communicate a lack of care and regard.
– There is often a progression where partners feel increasingly devalued as intimacy increases and avoidants pull away.
With self-awareness, communication, and compromise, avoidants can minimize behaviors that contribute to partners feeling devalued. But it requires motivation and openness to create secure attachments.