#156 Sex & Attachment: How Anxious & Avoidant Attachment Styles Impact Sexual Dynamics
In this episode, we’re diving into the how anxious and avoidant attachment styles can influence sexual relationships. Understanding these differences can be crucial for navigating intimacy in your relationship, whether you identify with one of these attachment styles or are in a relationship with someone who does.
In this episode, we’re diving into the how anxious and avoidant attachment styles can influence sexual relationships. Understanding these differences can be crucial for navigating intimacy in your relationship, whether you identify with one of these attachment styles or are in a relationship with someone who does.
We’ll cover five key differences in how anxious and avoidant attachment styles experience and approach sex.
Emphasis on Emotional vs Physical Intimacy
Anxiously attached individuals may place a stronger emphasis on emotional intimacy and connection as a foundation for physical intimacy. In contrast, avoidantly attached individuals might prioritize physical intimacy while keeping emotional vulnerability at arm’s length.Overthinking vs Dissociating
When it comes to sex, those with an anxious attachment style may find themselves getting stuck in their heads, overthinking and ruminating on whether they’re pleasing their partner or what their partner might be thinking. Avoidantly attached individuals, however, might struggle to stay present during intimacy, often dissociating or emotionally checking out as a way to manage their discomfort with closeness.Focus on Other vs Focus on Self
Anxiously attached individuals often focus heavily on their partner’s needs and feelings during sex, sometimes to the detriment of their own experience. In contrast, avoidant individuals might approach sex with a more self-focused mindset, prioritising their own comfort and boundaries, which can create distance in the sexual connection.Libido / General Openness to Being Intimate
Anxious attachment can sometimes lead to a heightened desire for intimacy as a way to secure closeness and reassurance. Avoidantly attached individuals might experience a lower libido or be less open to intimacy, particularly if they feel overwhelmed by emotional closeness.Impact of Relational Tension on Desire for Sex
Relational tension can have opposite effects on anxious and avoidant individuals. Those with anxious attachment may seek sex as a way to repair or soothe relational tension, while those with avoidant attachment might withdraw further, seeing sex as a source of pressure rather than connection.
How Anxious and Avoidant Styles Impact Sexual Dynamics
Sex and attachment styles are deeply intertwined, often shaping the dynamics and quality of our intimate relationships. The ways in which individuals with anxious and avoidant attachment styles experience and relate to sex can markedly differ, significantly influencing their sexual interactions and relationship satisfaction.
The Anxious-Avoidant Sexual Spiral
One common pattern observed in relationships is the anxious-avoidant sexual spiral. Initially, the relationship might be characterised by intense physical attraction and a vibrant sex life, which can feel satisfying and fulfilling for both partners. As the relationship progresses, however, the avoidant partner may begin to withdraw sexually, leaving the anxious partner feeling distressed and rejected.
This dynamic often leads to a cycle where the anxious partner increases their attempts to rekindle the sexual connection, while the avoidant partner feels overwhelmed by the pressure, further pulling away. This can create a vicious cycle of pursuing and distancing, exacerbating feelings of insecurity and unfulfillment for both parties.
Physical vs Emotional Intimacy
For anxiously attached individuals, sex often represents the pinnacle of emotional and physical intimacy. It serves as a powerful reassurance of the relationship’s stability and their partner’s desire for them. Anxious individuals often seek out sex not just for physical pleasure but as a means of securing emotional closeness and validation.
In contrast, avoidant individuals tend to view sex primarily as a physical act. The idea of sex as an emotional, intimate experience can be foreign or even uncomfortable for them. As relationships deepen and emotional expectations increase, avoidant individuals may experience a decline in sexual desire, struggling to reconcile emotional intimacy with sexual attraction.
Nervous System Responses During Sex
The physiological responses during sex can also differ significantly between anxious and avoidant individuals. Anxiously attached individuals often experience an overactive sympathetic nervous system response, leading to overthinking and difficulty being present. They might worry about their performance, their partner’s satisfaction, or how they are perceived, which can detract from their ability to enjoy the moment.
Avoidantly attached individuals, on the other hand, may struggle with presence but in a different way. They are more likely to dissociate or numb out, appearing emotionally and physically distant during sex. This lack of engagement can be distressing for their anxious partners, exacerbating their insecurities and perpetuating the avoidance.
Focus on Partner vs Self
Anxiously attached individuals tend to prioritise their partner’s experience during sex, often to the detriment of their own needs and desires. They focus on ensuring their partner is satisfied, seeing their partner’s pleasure as validation of their worth and as reassurance of the relationship’s health.
Avoidantly attached individuals may be more self-focused, attending to their own pleasure and expecting their partner to communicate their needs directly. This approach can come across as indifferent or selfish, but it stems from a different relational dynamic where self-sufficiency and autonomy are prioritised.
Openness to Sex
The inclination towards physical intimacy also varies. Anxiously attached individuals are often more open and ready for sex, viewing it as a vital means of maintaining connection and assessing the relationship’s health. They are typically more willing to engage in sex, even if they are not immediately in the mood, because it reassures them of their partner’s interest and commitment.
Avoidantly attached individuals, however, may be less spontaneous and more likely to reject sudden advances. The need for emotional and relational harmony is paramount for them to feel sexually inclined. If the relationship feels strained, their libido might decrease significantly, as they struggle to bridge the gap between emotional discord and physical intimacy.
Relational Strain and Sexual Desire
Interestingly, relational tension can influence sexual desire differently for anxious and avoidant individuals. For the anxiously attached, relational strain might heighten their desire for sex as a way to reconnect and mend the perceived rift. They see sex as a balm for the relationship and a critical indicator of their partner’s commitment.
Avoidantly attached individuals, however, might withdraw further when the relationship is under strain. The discomfort of emotional tension can dampen their sexual interest, as they find it challenging to engage intimately when they feel relational discord. They may see sex as a pressure-ridden obligation rather than a means to restore connection, thus pulling away even more.
Navigating These Dynamics
Understanding these dynamics is crucial for fostering healthier and more fulfilling sexual relationships. Acknowledging the influence of attachment styles can help partners navigate differences with greater empathy and insight. Anxiously attached individuals might work on building self-validation and communicating needs without pressurising their partner, while avoidantly attached individuals could focus on enhancing emotional connection and openness to vulnerability.
By recognising that these patterns are common and addressing them with compassion and willingness to adapt, couples can create a more balanced and satisfying sexual relationship. Letting go of the notion that one must change oneself entirely, and instead appreciating the intricate dance of attachment styles, can pave the way for deeper intimacy and stronger relationships.
Questions for Discussion & Reflection
How do you see your attachment style influencing your approach to sexual intimacy? Can you identify behaviours or thought patterns that reflect this?
In what ways do you use sexual intimacy as a barometer for your relationship's health? Does this create pressure or anxiety for you or your partner?
Consider your last intimate experience. Were you able to remain present and connected, or did you find yourself overthinking or dissociating? How might your attachment style have influenced this?
Reflect on a time you felt rejected or dismissed when initiating intimacy. How did this affect your feelings of self-worth? How might understanding attachment styles change your perception of this experience?
How comfortable are you with advocating for your own pleasure and desires during sex? Do you tend to prioritise your partner's experience over your own? How does this align with the characteristics of your attachment style?
Think about the role emotional intimacy plays in your sexual relationships. Do you see sex as an emotional connection or more as a physical act? How does this perspective influence your relational dynamics?
How does conflict or relational disharmony affect your interest in sex? Reflect on whether you become more anxiously engaged or avoidantly distant when things aren't perfect between you and your partner.
Is there a recurring pattern in your sexual dynamics that you believe might stem from an attachment-related wound or insecurity? How might you start addressing and healing this within yourself?
Are you open to discussing sexual issues and dynamics with your partner? How might an open and honest conversation about attachment styles improve your sexual relationship?
Reflect on the idea of "the anxious avoidant sexual spiral." Have you experienced this pattern in your relationships? How did it impact your connection and overall relationship satisfaction?
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:31]:
In today's episode, we are talking all about sex and attachment, and specifically how anxious and avoidant people differ when it comes to their experience of and how they relate to sexual intimacy. So this is a big topic. It's one that I have touched on before in the podcast, but not in recent history, and it's one that I do receive a lot of questions in DMs about people struggling with something to do with their sexual dynamic and wondering whether the attachment dynamics between them and their partner have anything to do with it. And as I always say, I think if attachment styles determine how we experience and relate to intimacy, then I think when you look at it in that way, of course that's going to affect how we relate to and experience sex, because sexual intimacy for a lot of us is pretty high up in terms of vulnerability and intimacy. And so, of course, if our attachment wounds are triggered by vulnerability and intimacy in our relationships, then of course sex is going to bring us into contact with those things in maybe a really accentuated way. And so, as we're going to talk about today, a lot of the dynamics and strategies that we'll see in other aspects of relationships are very much front and center, and if anything, can be even more pronounced and acute when it comes to the sexual relationship. And I think that can be really exacerbated.
[00:02:00]:
The distress that we feel and the sense of shame and brokenness can be exacerbated by the fact that there is so much shame around sex to begin with, and we don't talk about it very much. So I think in my experience, when people are struggling sexually, there tends to be much more of an inclination to cover it up, not talk about it, avoid it, and then assume that you're the only one experiencing it because you haven't heard about it anywhere else, or it's not really visible to you in other people's relationships. And I'll just say at the outset, being in the privileged position of hearing a lot of people's stories and being on the receiving end of people's questions and worries, I can assure you that you're far from alone if you can relate to what we're going to be talking about today. So that's what we're going to be covering. I'm going to be sharing 4 key ways in which anxious and avoidant leaning people differ in their experience of sex and how they think about sex in relationships and more broadly. And as I said, I'm hoping that that will normalize these things to the extent that you're experiencing them, and also point you in the right direction in terms of what you might need to work on, where your behavior is originating from within you, what may be wounded parts or insecurities, what subconscious drivers are perpetuating those patterns and how you might be able to shift it towards something healthier and more fulfilling. Now before we dive into today's episode, a final reminder about healing anxious attachment. Doors will be closing in a few days' time for this round and I'm not sure when the next round will be.
[00:03:35]:
Possibly at the end of the year, possibly early next year. But I would love to have you inside the program. We have a whole module on Secure Sexuality for anxiously attached people, how you can not only understand these dynamics and your part in them, but how you can cultivate a really secure sexuality within yourself, 1st and foremost, as a way to be more present and confident and really enjoy sex rather than using it as validation or a way to temperature check the relationship, which, as we'll get to, is very common among anxiously attached people. So if you're interested in joining Healing Anxious Attachment, I would love to have you head to my website or click the link in the show notes to join me and hundreds of others in this very special program. It's going to be a great round. I'm so excited for it. We've got a strong community component this time with a live online community and 4 live calls with me, which is more than ever before. So if you are feeling the pull, now is the time.
[00:04:39]:
Make sure you sign up in the next couple of days before registration closes because we won't be accepting anyone after the deadline. Okay. So let's talk sex and attachment. I have something that I term the anxious avoidant sexual spiral, which sounds like a very dramatic name, and it can be quite dramatic in practice. But it's essentially the anxious avoidant trap, that pursue withdraw dynamic as applied to sex. And I've done episodes about this before, but very briefly to recap, what we'll often see in a relationship is that there's a strong sexual emphasis to the connection at the beginning. Lots of physical attraction, maybe you're having really intense sex, really chemistry fueled, and it's super exciting. And that feels great for both people.
[00:05:28]:
Right? It feels great for the anxious partner because they tend to really prioritize and find sex to be a really important barometer for the overall connection. But also, the anxious person loves feeling wanted, and so when they feel wanted at the start of the relationship, that feels really incredible. The avoidant partner just really enjoys that intimacy and feeling like they can express themselves in that way that is really intoxicating for them and can lead them to feel really attracted when they're able to have this strong, intense sexual connection with someone. That can really fuel a lot of their interest in the early stages of a relationship. But what tends to happen is that as things become more serious, so maybe when you go from casually seeing each other to exclusively seeing each other, or maybe when you go from exclusively seeing each other to moving in together, you know, depending on the timing, it's going to be different for everyone. But as you tend to progress towards more of a steady, comfortable relationship with more expectation, more reciprocity, more of an emotional connection alongside the physical, the avoidant partner tends to start to pull away sexually. They tend to feel less attracted, less interested in sex, and inevitably, that causes the anxious person to fire up, to freak out, panic, wonder what they've done wrong, and escalate in their attempts to restore the sexual connection to what it was, in part to alleviate their own fears that they've done something wrong or their partner's lost attraction because they're not good at sex or they don't like the way I look or they found someone else, all of these sorts of things. And inevitably then, as the anxious person starts to ramp up their efforts, the avoidant person feels pressured and overwhelmed, and whether they realize it or not, that pressure is a real buzzkill in terms of their interest in sex, because avoidant people tend not to like feeling pressured to do anything, and certainly not to feel a certain way, and so they become more avoidant with respect to sex.
[00:07:38]:
And on and on that cycle goes, and that can cause a lot of distress and disconnection on both sides, and leaving people feeling, is there something wrong with the relationship? That we don't have the same effortless sexual connection that we enjoyed to begin with. So that's what I call the anxious avoidant sexual spiral, which is essentially just the pursuer distance or dynamic as applied to sex. Now, picking apart some aspects of that and diving a little deeper, I want to share these 5 key ways in which anxious and avoidant people differ when it comes to sex. And the first one is around physical versus emotional intimacy. Now I think that it would be fair to say that anxiously attached people struggle with being vulnerable around sex as much as avoidant people do. But even still, anxious people seek out sex both for the emotional connection and the physical intimacy. So there is this sense that sex is maybe the culmination of closeness with someone. And so for anxious partners, that's something that they seek out.
[00:08:41]:
And oftentimes, there's no upper limit on how often or how much sexual intimacy an anxious partner would like because it feels like there's really clear reinforcement of the bond. And so if I feel best when I'm connected to you, when am I more connected than when we're having sex or we've just had sex? Right? That feels like kind of the apotheosis of connection. And so for someone who's anxiously attached, it feels very reassuring if there's a very vibrant sexual relationship, because they think, my partner's not going to leave me if they really enjoy having sex with me and we're having a lot of sex. Right? That's a really surefire way for an anxious person to feel, you know, close, connected, reassured. And so for anxiously attached people, that tends to be a very high ranking priority kind of relationship need is for the sexual relationship to be there. And the flip side of that is that if there's something wrong with the sexual relationship, so to speak, if there's a sudden change in frequency or tone to the sexual relationship, then the anxious partner is gonna take that as meaning something about the relationship as a whole. They really do tend to use sex as a barometer for the overall health of the relationship. On the other hand, the avoidant partner tends to be much more focused on the physical component of sex.
[00:10:03]:
And that's not to say they don't enjoy sex, but the idea of sex being this romantic, intimate, emotional experience is probably not only foreign to an avoidant partner, but also maybe quite uncomfortable. And we can see that in the way that an avoidant partner tends to distance when emotions, when intimacy and vulnerability get brought into the relational sphere as a relationship progresses, or maybe as the relationship becomes more comfortable, moves away from that initial sense of novelty and excitement and adventure and newness that comes with a relationship at the beginning as it settles into something a bit more predictable and safe. For a lot of avoidant people, they don't know how to reconcile that level of familiarity with sexual arousal, desire, attraction, which they do tend to experience as a mostly physical act rather than one that is heightened by emotional connection and in turn deepens the emotional connection. So that's a really key distinction between anxious and avoidant people, in how they process this idea of emotional and physical intimacy. Okay. So the next key difference between anxious and avoidant people insofar as sex is concerned is what your nervous system tends to do during sex. So for anxiously attached people, you'll typically experience your whole body and system going into overdrive during sex, like a kind of overactive, mobilised sympathetic nervous system stress response. So this will typically show up as really overthinking, so struggling to just be present and embodied.
[00:11:47]:
Because you're so stuck in your head, you may be thinking, what are they thinking? Are they enjoying themselves? How do I look right now? All of these sorts of insecurities. Am I doing this right? All of that is likely to be, like, very active in your mind, in that kind of problem solving, obsessing mode that will be familiar to so many anxious people, you know, outside of the bedroom. But you'll likely see that kind of experience very much front and center for you when it comes to sex. So in that same overthinking, very, very active mentally, and unable to switch your mind off so that you can actually just relax and enjoy. On the flip side of that, avoidant people also really struggle with being present and embodied, but they tend to go the other way. And this really mirrors your respective stress responses anyway. So you've probably heard me talk about conflict. Same thing, right? Anxious people dial up, and they go into a very mobilized stress response, whereas avoidant people tend to numb out or dissociate, and you'll see that sexually as well for a lot of avoidant people.
[00:12:54]:
They struggle with presence, but because they're kind of numb, they might feel blank, not very present, not very engaged. It might feel if you're partnered with someone who is more avoidant that they're not really in the room, that it feels like they're just totally vacant. And of course, that can impede your ability to connect and really enjoy, and these things tend to reinforce each other. So if you're more anxious and you see your partner who's got their eyes closed or is is just not really present, you can feel that they're energetically not really present, then that's going to send your insecurities really spiraling, wondering if they're having a good time, wondering if you're doing something wrong, and that takes you out of presence even more so, so we can see how those responses bounce off each other insofar as sex is concerned. Okay. The next difference between anxious and avoidant people is that, again, this kind of mirrors what we see outside of sex, which is that anxiously attached people will almost always focus to extreme degrees on their partner's experience during sex. So they're only concerned with their partner enjoying it. So they're very focused on giving pleasure to their partner and ensuring that everything is to their partner's preferences.
[00:14:10]:
Don't worry about me, whatever works for you, so long as you come out of this experience having had a good time and feeling positively about it, that's all I need. Right? And you can hear aspects of the broader relational dynamic in that. Don't worry about my needs, so long as your needs are taken care of, so long as you're happy with me, then I'm happy. Right? So it tends to show up for a lot of anxious people in sex, whereas for avoidant people, they tend to be more focused on themselves. So they're focused on their experience. They may be less likely to go out of their way to take care of their partner unless they're specifically asked to, and they have this sense of, we'll just do the thing, and I'll take care of me, and I'll ask for what I want, and it's up to you to ask for what you want. I'm not going to go out of my way to, you know, accommodate you or cater this to your preferences unless you specifically ask me to. And while that might sound people might hear that and go, oh, wow.
[00:15:05]:
Avoiding people are so selfish. I think it's just important to recognize that both of those ways of of approaching sex are, as always, at opposite ends of the spectrum. Right? And what we really want is to be able to both focus on the other person and ourselves, to be able to advocate for our own pleasure, and our own preferences and our own experience, while also obviously taking the other person into account, and obviously wanting them to be enjoying themselves and their experience to be catered to as much as ours. So, as always, we want to walk off the ledges at our opposite extremes and find our way into a healthy middle. Okay. The next key difference between anxious and avoidant people when it comes to sex is openness to having sex. So anxiously attached people will pretty much now of course, this is a huge generalization, but pretty much always be open to physical intimacy. Of course, within the parameters of life constraints, but it's very rare that an anxiously attached person is going to just be completely closed off to the idea of sex, because there tends to be a general readiness for connection in the system of the anxiously attached person.
[00:16:17]:
So if their partner initiates some sort of physical intimacy, the anxiously attached person is probably going to be quite receptive to that. Whereas for avoidant people, they don't have that same simmer a lot of the time. They tend to be in their own world and it can be quite jarring for them to suddenly switch gears. So if you're the anxious partner and you initiate some sort of physical intimacy or sex with your partner in quite an abrupt way, they might really push that away and go, I'm not in the mood, or not now, or something else that feels quite dismissing and rejecting, just because they struggle to switch gears quickly, and they feel like that's a lot of pressure, and I'm not perfectly ready and in the mood, and so I'm not really open to it at all. And that's quite different to, you'll know this if you're more anxious, that you could probably be convinced or persuaded to get in the mood even if you're not immediately there, because the idea of connection and physical intimacy, sex with your partner is such a a positive one. It's something that you really value very highly, and so it's rare that you'll go to pass up the opportunity, particularly if sex is something that feels strange in your relationship. All the more so that you're likely to want to be intimate with your partner because you feel like it's such an important thing. And that sort of leads me into the last one, which is anxiously attached people, the more strange the relationship has been, the more you're probably going to want to focus on sex, or the more interested you're going to be in sex, because you do see it as almost this panacea that alleviates a lot of your fears and insecurities about the state of the relationship.
[00:18:02]:
So if you're fighting a lot or things have felt disconnected or there's been other stuff going on between you that hasn't felt great, For you as an anxiously attached person, if you have sex, it's likely to feel like, oh, okay. Well, at least we had sex. Right? That's a good sign. That means that things aren't too dire. They still love me. I feel reassured about the state of our relationship because we've had sex. For the avoidant partner, it's likely to go the other way. So if there's been some sort of relational disharmony, if you felt disconnected, they're likely to pull away more, and be less interested in sex rather than more.
[00:18:43]:
Because I think for a lot of avoidant people, again, whether they realize it or not, they can have this programming of, everything has to be perfect in order for me to want to have sex. And if things haven't been great between us, I might just feel generally not particularly interested in being around you or being close to you, because I have some negative associations around that at the moment. And so if I'm distancing more broadly, I'm certainly going to be distancing with respect to sex, particularly when I know that for you it carries this emotional overlay that I'm not comfortable with, so I just tend to become more avoidant with respect to sex altogether when things are feeling a little fraught or tense between us. So those were 5 key differences in how anxious and avoidant people relate to sex. I hope that that's been interesting for you. I know that this is a topic that, as I said, a lot of people really struggle with and and maybe isn't talked about enough, and I think that it's so important that we do talk about it and understand it so that we don't internalise whatever we're struggling with and think that there's something just fundamentally wrong with us as individuals or the relationship, because these really are very common dynamics. And as I said, there are things that can be done. It's not something that you're stuck with forever, but it just requires some awareness as a first step, and then obviously a willingness to be vulnerable and to take risks, because vulnerability is risky, and particularly when it comes to sex, it can feel all the more so.
[00:20:19]:
So being willing to talk about it, being willing to interrupt our own default patterns to the extent that they might be making things worse rather than better, and questioning those stories that we might carry around our worth being tied to whether someone wants us. I know that's a big one for anxious attaches and can make, you know, any of these dynamics feel so much more painful and can really cause us a lot of suffering because we think that we are not good enough, and we need to change ourselves in order for our partners to want us. And as I've laid out today, there's a lot more going on than that, and oftentimes it's about another person's insecurities and their stuff rather than something that you've done or not done, or something about you that you need to change in order to change the situation. So I hope that that's been helpful. As I said, if this has resonated for you and you'd like support with this and all of the other stuff when it comes to anxious attachment, I would love to see you inside Healing Anxious Attachment. You've got a few more days to join. I'd love to see you there. But otherwise, thank you so much for joining me, and I will see you again next week. Thanks, guys.
[00:21:30]:
Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment. If you wanna go deeper on all things attachment, love, and relationships, you can find me on Instagram @stephanie__rigg or at stephanierigg.com. And if you enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a review and a 5 star rating. It really does help so much. Thanks again for being here, and I hope to see you again soon.
Keywords from Podcast Episode
attachment theory, relationships, sex, anxious attachment, avoidant attachment, sexual intimacy, relationship coach, vulnerability, intimacy, attachment styles, emotional connection, physical intimacy, nervous system response, sexual experience, relationship health, relationship dynamics, insecure attachment, relationship struggles, sexual dynamic, partner connection, avoidant partner, anxious partner, relational disharmony, sexual relationship, attachment wounds, healing anxious attachment, Secure Sexuality, anxious avoidant sexual spiral, pursue withdraw dynamic, relationship advice, overcoming insecurity.
#155 Fearful Avoidant and Anxious Attachment: Key Similarities & Differences
In today's episode, we're diving into fearful avoidant (AKA disorganised) attachment and how it differs from anxious attachment. We’ll explore how both types are driven by a fear of abandonment and intense emotions, yet differ in their approaches to intimacy, conflict resolution, and communication. Whether you identify with one of these attachment styles or are in a relationship with someone who does, this episode will give you valuable insights into the dynamics at play and how to navigate them for healthier connections.
In today's episode, we're diving into fearful avoidant (AKA disorganised) attachment and how it differs from anxious attachment.
We’ll explore how both types are driven by a fear of abandonment and intense emotions, yet differ in their approaches to intimacy, conflict resolution, and communication.
Whether you identify with one of these attachment styles or are in a relationship with someone who does, this episode will give you valuable insights into the dynamics at play and how to navigate them for healthier connections.
Fearful Avoidant and Anxious Attachment: Key Similarities & Differences
Understanding attachment styles is crucial for anyone looking to improve their relationships and gain insight into their emotional responses. Two attachment styles often discussed together are anxious attachment and fearful avoidant attachment. While they share some similarities, there are also significant differences that impact relationship dynamics and coping strategies.
High Anxiety About Relationships
A common thread between anxious attachment and fearful avoidant attachment is the high level of anxiety experienced in relationships. For both, relationships often do not feel safe. This anxiety can manifest differently, though. Anxiously attached individuals tend to feel preoccupied with their relationships, continually seeking reassurance and closeness to soothe their anxiety. Fearful avoidants, on the other hand, experience similar anxiety but may internalise it more, leading to erratic behaviours—sometimes drawing close to their partner and other times pushing them away.
Fears of Abandonment and Rejection
Both attachment styles harbour deep fears of abandonment and rejection. For anxiously attached individuals, this fear drives them to over-function in relationships, always striving to maintain closeness and avoid rejection. Fearful avoidants, however, might adopt an “I’ll leave you before you leave me” mentality, ending relationships pre-emptively to avoid the anticipated pain of abandonment. This self-protective strategy is a stark contrast to the anxious attachment’s drive to preserve relationships at nearly any cost.
Struggles with Voicing Needs and Setting Boundaries
A significant challenge that both styles share is difficulty in voicing needs and setting boundaries. Anxiously attached individuals often fall into people-pleasing and approval-seeking behaviours, avoiding conflict in an attempt to secure their partner’s affection. They might quietly resent unmet needs but continue giving and compromising. Fearful avoidants also struggle here, but their approach is slightly different. They might initially also over-give, but their resentment can explode into anger, causing them to view their partner as an adversary. This can lead to dramatic confrontations or sudden decisions to end the relationship, highlighting their fear of betrayal.
Emotional Regulation Difficulties
Emotional regulation is another area where these attachment styles demonstrate both similarity and difference. Both exhibit difficulty managing their emotions, experiencing extreme ups and downs. Anxiously attached individuals often look to their partners to regulate their emotions, feeling out of control when they perceive any threat to the relationship. This can create a sense of urgency to fix any issues immediately. Fearful avoidants, while also struggling with emotional regulation, direct their fear more towards perceived personal threats. This can result in fierce anger and volatility, driven by a deep sense of personal danger, which differs from the anxious attachment's relational focus.
Low Self-Worth and Shame
Low self-worth and shame are core wounds for both anxiously attached and fearful avoidants, but they manage these feelings differently. Anxiously attached people try to compensate for their low self-worth by seeking validation from their partners. They believe that if they can get their partner to love them deeply, it will resolve their feelings of inadequacy. Conversely, fearful avoidant individuals often avoid intimacy to shield themselves from confronting their shame. They might push people away, adhere to a narrative that they're better off alone, or leave relationships to avoid getting hurt.
Navigating Personal Development
Despite these challenges, individuals with both attachment styles are often driven to seek personal development. The feeling of being broken or not good enough can motivate them to explore self-help resources and look for ways to understand themselves better. For anxiously attached individuals, this journey often emphasises finding security in relationships. Fearful avoidants, while also seeking to understand themselves, may focus more on protective mechanisms and building internal resilience.
Understanding the Differences
While there are clear overlaps, the differences in how these attachment styles handle anxiety, fear, and self-worth can significantly impact their behaviours in relationships. Anxiously attached individuals cling to closeness and relationship security, often to the point of self-neglect. Fearful avoidants, in contrast, might sabotage closeness and push people away to self-protect. These strategies can lead to misunderstandings and complicated relationship dynamics, often leaving both parties feeling hurt and confused.
Conclusion
The similarities and differences between anxious attachment and fearful avoidant attachment offer valuable insights into relational behaviours and emotional coping strategies. Understanding these nuances can help individuals recognise their patterns, navigate their emotional responses better, and work towards healthier relationship dynamics. Recognising these patterns is the first step towards making informed changes that lead to more secure and fulfilling interpersonal connections.
Questions for Discussion & Reflection
How do you tend to cope with anxiety in your relationships? Do you find yourself leaning towards seeking closeness or pushing people away?
Reflect on a scenario when you felt deeply hurt or rejected in a relationship. How did you respond to those feelings of abandonment or rejection? Did your response align more with anxious attachment or fearful avoidant attachment strategies?
Are there instances where you've found it particularly challenging to voice your needs or set boundaries? How did this impact your relationship and your personal well-being?
Think about a time when you experienced extreme emotions within a relationship. How did you manage these emotions, and what effect did they have on your relationship dynamic?
Reflect on your self-worth and any underlying feelings of shame you might carry. How have these feelings influenced your behaviour in relationships, and what strategies do you use to cope with these emotions?
Have you ever found yourself over-functioning in a relationship to avoid feelings of abandonment? How has this affected your sense of self and your relational dynamics?
Consider a time when you may have distanced yourself from someone out of fear of being hurt or exposed. How did this affect the relationship and your emotional well-being?
Reflect on your journey of personal development. What drives you to seek understanding of yourself, and how has this journey influenced your attachment style and relationships?
How do you perceive and deal with threats to your emotional safety in relationships? Do you notice any patterns that align with anxious or fearful avoidant attachment?
In what ways do you either yearn for validation from your partner or push them away to protect your self-image? How do these behaviours connect to your deeper fears and insecurities?
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
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Check out my couples course, Secure Together (& save $200 with the code SECURE)
Save $150 on my Higher Love break-up course with the code PHOENIX
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:29]:
In today's episode, I am going to be talking all about some key similarities and differences between the anxious attachment style and the fearful avoidant or disorganized attachment style. Now, I get possibly more requests about fearful avoidant attachment than anything else, which is saying something given that, a, I get a lot of requests about a lot of things, and, b, that the vast majority of my audience falls into the bucket of anxious attachment. But it is really one of those areas that seems to be maybe underdeveloped in online literature and content around attachment theory, and an area that I know a lot of people have an interest in and really identify with aspects of the fearful avoidant or disorganized attachment style. And I'm really looking for resources specific to, attachment style, and I'm really looking for resources specific to that attachment style, because it can kind of get sidelined a little in favor of anxious and avoidant attachment being the 2 dominant insecure attachment styles. And I think that's in part because it's thought to only represent around 5% of the population, so it's obviously the smallest category, although I am a little skeptical as to those statistics. But nevertheless, I am heeding the call in this episode today, offering some insights into the ways in which anxious attachment and fearful avoidant attachment differ. I did do an episode ages ago, probably 2 years ago, about dismissive avoidant and fearful avoidant attachment and the ways in which those two differ.
[00:01:57]:
So if you're interested in kind of that side of the street, you can search for fearful avoidant attachment in the podcast, and you should be able to find that old episode as well. Okay. So that's what we're gonna be talking about today. Before I dive into that, an announcement, today is the day Healing Anxious Attachment is open for registration for the 8th round of the program. If you were already on the wait list, be sure to check your emails for the link. And if you didn't make it onto the wait list but you are keen to get in on the early bird pricing, you can still join that list by submitting your email on my website. That should be all relatively easy to find. But, yeah, I would love to see you inside the program.
[00:02:36]:
It really is, in my mind, very worthwhile. Of course, I'm biased. I recognize that. But the 2,000 plus students who've been through the program in the past 2 years can also attest to its value. And so if you're someone who struggles with anxious attachment and you are ready to really commit to making a change and gifting that to yourself, I'd highly recommend that you check it out, and join us now that registration is open. Okay. So let's dive into this conversation around key similarities and differences between anxious attachment and fearful avoidant attachment. Now I do wanna say at the outset that this is far from being an exhaustive list.
[00:03:11]:
You know, I sat down and brainstormed 5 and stopped there because it was getting long and unwieldy, and I think it'll be a long episode anyway. But I could have easily kept going because, obviously, this stuff is multifaceted. And, you know, I also wanna say at the outset, be wary of labels and generalizations. Now that might sound a little bit, I don't know, hypocritical given that I am speaking about a body of work that has labels and categorizations as a key part of its framework. But I suppose more so a reminder that you don't need to fit into a box. So you might listen to this and go, oh, I see that aspect of myself here, but I'm more aligned with that attachment style over there. I have so many people saying to me, like, is it possible for me to be this? And really, anything's possible. Right? You know what your experience is, so don't feel like you need to decipher yourself, and make yourself make sense, in the context of any given framework.
[00:04:10]:
Rather, we're just looking to understand I've said this before, you might have heard me frame it in this way, how have I learned to keep myself safe in relationships? What are the strategies that I have learned to respond to the relational environment that I find myself in? Okay. That's really all we're talking about with attachment styles. It just so happens that most of the time, people will have a fairly consistent set of strategies that fall into a broad style or pattern. But if you feel like you mix and match and maybe is different in one relationship to the next or one area of life compared to another, none of that is something that you need to solve for. It's all just about recognizing the patterns that we see in our own lives, figuring out how they might be inhibiting us from experiencing the kind of relationships that we want, and learning ways that feel more adapted to where we want to go. Okay. So the first similarity between anxious attachment and fearful avoidant attachment is that they both experience high anxiety about their relationships. So that might seem fairly obvious, but, really, that is core to anxious attachment, obviously, that there's a lot of preoccupation with the relationship and a lot of, kind of, stress and anxiety around the relationship, and so too is that the case for fearful avoidance.
[00:05:26]:
So while it might not look exactly the same way, and there may be some more internalized anxiety among fearful avoidant attachment, both attachment styles will experience a lot of anxiety around relationships in a general sense that relationships are not safe. The origin story of fearful avoidant versus anxious attachment can be quite different, but there is this common thread of not being able to trust in the safety of relationships, and therefore experiencing a lot of anxiety around relationships, intimate relationships in particular, this sense of something bad's gonna happen. I can't really rest in this space of the relationship. Now where they differ from each other in this respect is that most of the time, anxiously attached people will deal with that anxiety that they experience around their relationship by trying to get as close as possible. Right? They're trying to eliminate any distance, any gap, any uncertainty. They try and pull their partner close and keep them there. It's very much a control strategy in terms of how can I soothe this anxiety that I feel? And for the anxiously attached person, control comes with proximity and closeness. For the fearful avoidant attached person, what you might see is more of a either hot and cold strategy.
[00:06:36]:
So maybe I deal with my anxiety by pulling you close sometimes and pushing you away other times, or it might be, more consistent distancing strategies. They might lean more towards that avoidant end of the spectrum in, you know, I experience so much anxiety, but the way that I deal with that anxiety is through pushing away, through isolation, through avoidance. Right? You'll not see that very often among anxiously attached people, that they deal with their anxiety by pushing someone away, and to the extent that they do push someone away, it's usually a test to see if that person will pull them back. You know, I say to you, I can't do this anymore, only so that you beg me to stay, and that's really what I'm hoping for. Whereas the fearful avoidant, if they're pushing someone away and saying, I can't do this anymore, they might really mean it in that moment because that is their self protective strategy is to push the other person away. Okay. The second similarity between fearful avoidant and anxious attachment is that both attachment styles will share some core wounds, and in particular, fears around abandonment and rejection. So this is very much at the heart of anxious attachment.
[00:07:39]:
You will have heard me speak about that before, this fear of abandonment, that the person we love is maybe going to leave us literally, as in leave the relationship, or just not be there for us when we need them, so we're going to feel kind of emotionally abandoned or dropped. This is also common among fearful avoidant attachment, although maybe it might be less front and center. And what's really key here is that, again, the way that they process that fear or work with that fear for anxiously attached people, the fear of abandonment leads us to over function, work overtime to try and, you know, do everything humanly possible to prevent that abandonment from happening. So again, really trying to keep our partner close. Whereas the fearful avoidant attached person might have such a profound fear of being left, being not good enough, being rejected, that they're much more inclined to adopt a I'm gonna leave you before you can leave me kind of strategy. So they might end the relationship because they're so convinced that if my partner sees who I really am, then they're gonna leave me anyway. So I might as well do that first and maintain this sense of control over the situation and avoid the pain of rejection, the pain of loss, and so they're more likely to process that fear through distancing, through, you know, I'll beat you to it kind of thing. That's very unlikely to happen among anxiously attached people, who, as we've talked about, very rarely initiate the end of a relationship.
[00:09:15]:
And oftentimes, if an anxiously attached person does leave a relationship, it might be to go to another relationship. So they they don't often step into the void just because they're unhappy in the relationship. Okay. The next similarity between anxious attachment and fearful avoidant attachment is both really struggle to voice needs, to set boundaries, to advocate for themselves in a healthy, secure way in relationships. So, again, we've talked about this a lot in the context of anxious attachment on the show. You know, that I'm just gonna try and be easygoing, people pleasing, approval seeking, trying to fit in, trying to be liked. All of that is well established in the context of anxious attachment, and you may see that as well in fearful avoidant attachment to a point. And I think that this is really the key distinction, is that whereas anxiously attached people will just do that indefinitely, over give to the point of burnout, and they just keep going and going and going.
[00:10:12]:
While they might quietly be resentful and quietly harbor these stories of, it's so unfair, woe is me, victimhood around, my needs aren't being met, and people violate my boundaries, The fearful avoidant person is much more likely to snap, so they give and give and give, and then they might have this big moment where they almost become enraged, and the other person is seen very much as the enemy, as the person who's taking advantage of me. So that person who they've been giving to, who they've been boundaryless in respect of, all of a sudden, they are seen as this kind of villainous character who's out to get me, who is trying to hurt me. And we can really see the fear of betrayal that so many fearful avoidants have coming up there and driving, oftentimes, a really big response to feeling taken advantage of. And that's, again, where there's a bit of a fork in the road between anxious attachment and fearful avoidant attachment is, you know, the fearful avoidant might have a big blow up and blow up a relationship, and that can be not just romantic relationships, but friendships or work, might have a big falling out with someone because this story of, this person doesn't respect me, they're taking advantage of me', all of those things can feel so big and so true and so threatening to the fearful avoidant, and that tends to trump whatever value the relationship had. That self protection drive tends to trump that. So we can see there that for the anxiously attached person, no matter how resentful they get, there tends to be this override of, the relationship is still my priority. Even if I'm really unhappy in the relationship, even if I do feel like I'm being taken advantage of, I might stay in it and try to persuade and convince and beg and plead with my partner to show up for me to meet my needs, all of those things, but it's likely to be in more of a kind of fawning way rather than a big fight response, which is what we'll typically see with fearful avoidant attachment. Okay.
[00:12:13]:
That leads nicely into number 4, which is both struggle with emotional regulation and can experience really big extreme emotions. So we know that for anxiously attached people, emotional regulation can be very hard, and there's this sense of, you know, I derive my sense of safety from the relationship feeling okay, from my partner being happy with me, and provided that everything's okay there, I can feel relatively calm. But as soon as I perceive a threat related to my partnership, I start to feel very dysregulated, very out of control, and feel this overwhelming sense that I need to do something in order to fix the situation. Right? It's like, oh no, I'm, you know, on the Titanic and hurtling towards an iceberg, and I need to do something urgently, otherwise everything is going to come crashing down, and the panic can ensue there. For the fearful avoidant, it's probably not quite as directly related to a threat to the relationship. It's more likely to be, I'm perceiving a threat to myself, and oftentimes the relationship will be that threat, or your partner will feel like, this person's out to get me, they're going to hurt me, they don't respect me. There's just some sort of danger that I can't put my finger on, and I need to do something. And that can feel very visceral, and again, very urgent, and can drive really extreme emotions.
[00:13:37]:
You'll often find for fearful avoidant attachment that anger very quickly becomes almost rage, and it's like this you know, very, very big emotional response and can feel like a lot of emotional volatility. And certainly, inwardly, that is what a lot of fearful avoidants will describe, that the internal sense of chaos and feeling out of control is really pronounced. So while they share that emotionality, again, and this is a common theme that you'll see in the way that they differ, is that anxiously attached people do tend to have this sense of, like, big emotions, but I'm using my big emotions to try and get through to you. I'm using my big emotions to try to convey to you how much pain I'm in, in the hope that, you know, you'll change your behavior and you'll see me and everything will be fine again. Whereas, for someone with fearful avoidant attachment, the big emotions can just be kind of unbridled expression of fear, rage, overwhelm, whatever it might be. But it's typically not in this sense of I need to express my feelings, but ultimately in a way where I'm still trying to bring you closer. Again, it really might just be, like, a blowout of emotion and a really strong feeling of this person is my enemy. It's not so calculated, almost, in the way that it can be with anxious attachment of, I'm I'm trying to get through you.
[00:14:57]:
I'm still even though I'm so angry at you, you're so upset or inconsolable, I'm still really, like, yearning for you to wrap me up and tell me everything's gonna be okay and that you love me and you understand. It's not like trying to get validation from them. It is really just pure anger, and it's much more driven from this place of feeling personally threatened by the other. That makes sense when we consider the context, the kind of origin story of fearful avoidant attachment, which is typically the people closest to me were also threatening in some way, so there is this real internal struggle around trusting in the person that we love most. Okay. And the 5th and final similarity and difference is that both anxiously attached people and fearful avoidance will typically struggle with low self worth and shame. So a sense of there being something wrong with me, but fearful avoidance in particular will usually have some sort of story, whether it's front of mind or not, that they're broken, that they're bad, that they're defective, there's something wrong with them, and that can obviously drive a lot of behaviors in relationship. We've talked about that a lot on the podcast before.
[00:16:05]:
So that's a common thread that anxiously attached people and fearful avoidants will share. As a little side note, this is also perhaps what drives both attachment styles to typically be seekers, I would say, of, like, trying to understand themselves. That feeling of brokenness, there's something wrong with me, why is everything so hard for me, can often drive us to look for answers, and so anxiously attached people and fearful avoidants will often be very geared towards personal development and that kind of stuff, because they do have this hunger to understand themselves. Now, where they differ in terms of this low self worth and shame is, I think anxiously attached people, again, common theme here, try to make that feeling go away by trying to get someone to love them and choose them. So, if I can get my partner to really love me, you know, I can be the best partner in the world, and, you know, my partner will think that I'm amazing and will live happily ever after, then I won't have to feel unworthy and unlovable. I won't have to come into contact with that shame because I will have resolved it via getting someone to want me. Right? That tends to be the anxious attachment story, whether it's conscious or not. There's this sense of the way to resolve that wound within me that I am not good enough is to make someone think that I am good enough.
[00:17:27]:
And if I get that validation from them, then maybe I don't have to feel that way anymore. Whereas for the fearful avoidant, I think it's more likely that you'll see someone who struggles with shame and low self worth pushing away anything and anyone that might bring them into contact with that shame. So because the shame is so powerful and so overwhelming, and they're perhaps a little less inclined to attach to people and outsource all of their self worth to what one other person thinks of them, they tend to be a little bit more protective of their self image. That's the the avoidance streak coming in. You might find a fearful avoidant saying things like, I don't want to hurt you, you deserve better than me, or I'm better off alone because all I do is hurt people, I'm so broken, I'm so messed up. It's just best that I don't try in the first place, whereas anxiously attached people pretty much always gonna try and keep trying and keep trying and keep trying, because they do just have such a strong blueprint that, like, love is the answer, relationships are the answer. And no matter how broken they feel with respect to relationships, there is just this very, very strong imperative within them to seek out relationships and to feel comforted by intimate partnerships. Whereas, I think the fearful avoidant is more likely, of course, this isn't going to be true in every single case, but more likely to defend against those feelings of low self worth and shame by blocking intimacy, blocking closeness, whether that's through kind of staying away from relationships, more serious ones, or sabotaging them as they get more serious, more intimate, all of those things, they can just be more of a reluctance to go down a path that would require them to come into contact with that shame and that low self worth. So they may have stronger defenses against that rather than deploying the anxious strategy of just getting someone so close and trying to resolve it through relationship in in a sense of getting someone else to convince me of my worth. Okay. So those were 5 similarities and differences between fearful, avoidant, and anxious attachment. As I said, I feel like I could keep going easily with another 5, maybe I'll have to do a part 2 of this one. Let me know if this has been helpful, and I will certainly consider doing a follow-up or elaborating on these topics because I know, as I said, that there is a lot of interest in it and a lot of appetite for more content on fearful avoidant attachment. So do be sure to let me know if this was helpful. You can send me a message on Instagram.
[00:20:02]:
You can if you're listening on Spotify, you can leave little comments underneath individual episodes. And I should say, if you are someone who identifies maybe partly with anxious attachment, partly with fearful avoidant attachment. I always get questions when I'm launching Healing Anxious Attachment, my program, can you take that program if you're more fearful avoidant? I get that question so much that it's actually in the FAQs on the registration page. In short, I've had a lot of people take healing anxious attachment who either at the outset or, you know, partway through realize that they identify more with fearful avoidant. My honest answer is it's a course for anxiously attached people, and all of the examples are geared towards anxious attachment. But the core tools and practices that I teach in the program are the same ones that I'd be teaching for fearful avoidant attachment. So things like nervous system regulation, things like reprogramming of core beliefs, communication skills, boundaries, all of this stuff is common among the healing process for any insecure attachment style, I would argue. So there's certainly a lot of value still in the program to be gained by someone who maybe identifies more with fearful avoidant attachment, but you may just find that the examples don't fully land with you because they're speaking to the anxious attachment experience.
[00:21:18]:
And as we've talked about today, there are some key points of difference, particularly in how you respond to the fear. So while you might identify with the fear, the way that you, you know, have learned to deal with it might be slightly different. Okay. So thank you so much for joining me. Again, really hope that this has been helpful, and do let me know if it has been. But otherwise, I look forward to seeing you again next week. Thanks, guys.
[00:21:42]:
Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment. If you wanna go deeper on all things attachment, love, and relationships, you can find me on Instagram @stephanie__rigg or at stephanierigg.com. And if you enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a review and a 5 star rating. It really does help so much. Thanks again for being here, and I hope to see you again soon.
Keywords from Podcast Episode
On Attachment, attachment styles, relationship coach, Stephanie Rigg, insecure attachment, anxious attachment, fearful avoidant attachment, disorganized attachment, attachment theory, healing anxious attachment, relationships, intimacy, emotional regulation, boundaries, self worth, abandonment, rejection, origin story, personal development, low self worth, shame, nervous system regulation, reprogramming core beliefs, communication skills, people pleasing, core wounds, trust issues, emotional volatility, control strategies, relational anxiety, attachment patterns.