Why Avoidant and Anxious Partners Find It Hard to Split Up

there is a certain sort of relationship
that is alternately passionate fiery and
painfully unfulfilling and that tends to
puzzle both outsiders and its
participants a relationship between one
person who is a psychologist putted
anxiously attached and another who is
avoidant lis attached there is in such
couplings a constant game of push and
pull the anxiously attached party
typically complains more or less loudly
that their partner is not responsive
enough they accuse them of being
emotionally distant withholding cold and
perhaps physically uninterested to the
avoidant lover for their part stays
relatively quiet but in their more fed
up moments complains that the anxious
party is far too demanding possibly mad
and as they put it pejoratively too
needy one person seems to want far too
much the other far too little the
unhappiness unfolds in a cycle at the
start the anxious partner loves the
avoidant one with great intensity but in
time also growing frustration the
dissatisfaction grows ever more intense
until eventually one day fed up with so
much seeming rejection the anxious
partner overcomes their fears decides
they need something better and tells
their lover that they’re off at which
point the avoidant party undergoes a
complete sir change their greatest fear
that of being engulfed in love
disappears at a stroke and reveal
something that is normally utterly
submerged in their character a fear of
being abandoned wholly liberated from
the threat of being engulfed the anxious
one may by now have packed their bags
the avoidant one gives free rein to all
their reserves of pent-up romanticism
and ardor which feel utterly safe to
bring out now that there seems so little
danger of reciprocation
despite their fury the anxious person
here’s the honeyed words and forthright
promises and after some initial doubts
can’t help but be won over
the formerly distant partner appears to
become in the nick of time as they’d
always wanted them to be a warm soul
there is no reason not to return after
all it’s not that they didn’t love this
person it was the feeling they weren’t
loved back that was making things
impossible for a time there is bliss and
it seems that the couple are headed for
long-term happiness liberated from their
anxiety around engulfment the avoidant
partner gives free expression to love
liberated from their fear of abandonment
the anxious one is left feeling secure
and trusting but soon enough the
problems return things become as it were
too nice for the avoidant partner it
seems the anxious one isn’t going to
leave them anymore they’re just gonna
stick around and seek ever greater
closeness and so the old fear of
engulfment returns they have no option
but to start to pull away again and get
distant which gradually proves
intolerable once again to the anxious
partner within weeks or months the pair
are back in the same situation
fierce arguments return the words needy
and cold are once more in circulation
it’s time for another crisis and another
threat of departure it may go on like
this for years or a lifetime from the
outside it is almost fired from the
inside simply hellish but there are a
few ways out the avoidant party can
realize and learn to tolerate their fear
of engulfment conscious party can grow
conscious of their unnatural pull
towards unfulfilling people refuse to go
back after a crisis and seek a future
with more secure and reassuring sorts or
yet more hopefully for the couple both
partners could acquire a vocabulary of
attachment theory they could come to
observe their repetitions gains some
insight and aspects of their childhoods
that drive them on and learn not to act
out their compulsions they can learn the
games that they’re unconsciously playing
and then to the relief of all who care
for them and to the redemption of the
relationship they can refuse to play
our book sorrows of love helps us all
handle the inevitable sorrows of love if
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