If You’re an Anxiously-Attached Person in a Relationship with an Avoidant Person, You Are 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.Here’s a way to reframe your thinking about your avoidant partner:
Think of your avoidant person as a virus. It doesn’t have to be some deadly, horribly-toxic virus. Let’s just say it’s a bad head cold. You’re functional most of the time, but you always feel crappy.
And while we’re characterizing this virus, let’s remember that viruses are ammoral. They do harm people because viruses are inherently harmful, but they’re not ill-intentioned; they’re just being who they are.
So you have a stubborn virus, and you don’t want to keep living with it, but you just can’t seem to shake it. What do you do?
Well, number one, you don’t want to give it to anyone else who’s susceptible, so you definitely should NOT try to shake one virus by contracting some other virus to distract yourself from it.
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