Welcome to on Attachment, a place to learn about how attachment shapes the way we experience dating, love and relationships. I'm your host, relationship coach and attachment experts Stephanie Rigg. And I'm really glad you're here Hey, everybody, welcome back to another episode of On attachment. I'm really excited about today's episode, we're going to be talking about five ways to support an avoidant partner. This is going to be a two part series next week being five ways to support an anxious
partner. And it's really in response to the many questions that I get from people on Instagram and elsewhere. Now wanting to know like, what's best for me to do in order to support my partner to feel safe to open up to feel reassured, you know, whatever it might be, depending on the particular struggles that you are navigating in your relationship from an attachment point of
view. So I'm hoping that through today's episode, and through offering, these are ways that you can support and avoidant partner that you might notice some shifts and maybe you might notice that in implementing these things, your partner becomes a little less guarded, a little less prone to withdrawing or pulling away and a little more trusting in the safety of
the relationship. So before I dive in, I just want to clarify pre empting the questions I'll inevitably get around this, am I talking about dismissive, avoidant, or fearful avoidant or both? When I say an avoidant partner, I think today's episode will largely apply across the board. It's probably more suited to dismissive avoidant partners. But I think equally everything that I'm going to speak to today would apply in the context of a relationship with a fearful
avoidant person. I will also say that this is not specifically from the point of view of an anxious li attached partner. But a lot of the triggers that can come up and that we're going to try and solve for in this episode are probably more pronounced are cute, where one partner is anxious and the other is avoidant. So this will also apply if you're a secure person in a relationship with an
avoidant partner. But if you are in that category, you're probably less sensitive to the withdrawal behaviors of the avoidant person to begin with. So you might not be as troubled by them as the anxious person usually is. Okay, with that out of the way, let's dive in. So the first thing that I really want you to do here in supporting your avoidant partner is please do not villainize them, or use their avoidance
against them. Okay. This is really important to me, really is a guiding principle and all of my work around attachment and my content. And I know that it's something that people appreciate because I often get this feedback is avoidance isn't bad or malicious. Or, you know, it's it's not worse than relationship anxiety. And I think that there can be this story that like avoidant people, you know, that
it's almost a dirty word. And you'll see content floating around and even, you know, in published works, that I would argue, does kind of demonize avoidant people. And in so doing, I think, really dehumanizes, avoidant people, and I think that's a problem. Because, you know, we need to remind ourselves that avoidant people are people in pain and fear in the same way that any other insecure attachment style
is in pain and fear. It just so happens that, particularly if you are anxious that you're not going to like the strategies that they use to keep themselves safe when they are in fear. Because those strategies mean they pull away from you when your strategies are to get close to them. And so there is this, you know, real rub there, and you can have really opposing strategies, but, you know, it's not, it's not a better or worse
thing, right? It's not something where you should be trying to tell them that they're wrong for being the way they are. And certainly that's not going to help the cause of creating safety in the relationship, which will in turn, allow them to feel more secure and rely less on those distancing strategies. I think it's really important as well, like, so often I get asked the question of, How can I make my partner recognize or understand that
they are avoidant? Is it worthwhile telling them like should I show them this book or this post or whatever? And you know, like, I understand wanting to bring your partner into the fold if you're in a process of learning about relationships during personal development work, and you see validation of the patterns that you notice in your own relationship, and you really want them to see that as well. I
think that's okay. But we do have to be really honest and really mindful of how much of that is about wanting to show them so that you know, you can support and help them or they can support and help themselves, and how much of it is to prove a
point. So you might have been saying to them, and having these ongoing fights around them pulling away then withdrawing, and, you know, then being emotionally unavailable, whatever your gripes are, you know, and then you happen upon attachment theory, and it seems to explain it all. And then you want to, you know, weaponize that against them and use it as proof to support your argument.
I think if your desire to get them to see that they are avoidant comes from that place, it is going to really hinder rather than help the cause of creating a secure relationship, and you have to be quite honest about where that's coming from. And trust that they've got their own process. And they will do that in their own way and in their own time, and it doesn't have to look like your process. So that's number one, please don't villainize them, or use their avoidance against them.
The second point is to really respect their need for space, privacy, autonomy, and separateness, right? Again, we really want to remind ourselves that different does not mean wrong, or bad, or threatening, and dangerous, right. But for an anxious person, space, privacy separateness can feel exactly that, right, it can feel really, really unsafe, really threatening, can create a lot of insecurity and mistrust. But it's important to zoom out and go okay, like, if not for my
particular sensitivities. At the other end of the spectrum, you know, there's nothing inherently wrong with someone who really values space, and autonomy and independence. And again, it's really important to contextualize these behaviors for the avoidant person in that, for them hyper independence and extreme levels of self sufficiency, that's a survival strategy that they have usually had in place for a very long time for a lot of people since early childhood. And so that is,
that is what they know. Right? And that's worked really well for them for a long time. It's kept them safe when they needed it. And so if you sort of come barreling in and start telling someone why they're wrong for that, and you know, bursting down the walls against their will, it is going to feel really invasive and overwhelming. So as much as it again, might conflict with your preferences, I think you need to worry if you don't
need to. But if you want to support your partner, really respecting their need for space, rather than projecting your own desire for extreme levels of closeness again, I'm speaking from the perspective of an anxious person, I guess it's about getting curious about what a middle ground might look like, while really allowing and accepting that when your partner does pull away or avoidant partner does pull away, they're trying to self regulate right
there. Actually, it might not seem like it, and often, they won't be consciously processing it in this way. But they're trying to self regulate. So that's a really good cue that they're feeling a bit overwhelmed. And they're trying to find their way back to equilibrium to safety. So they're not actually doing that to hurt you, right. So as much as possible, if you can not take
that personally. And instead really just respect it much more likely that they are going to relax and soften into the togetherness, right? And really become more comfortable with interdependency rather than perceive the relationship as a really fundamental threat to their way of being and their ways of creating safety. Okay, the next
one here, is so important. And I mean, this applies across the board and relationships, but particularly in this dynamic is to communicate clearly directly, and quite literally, with avoidant people. Okay. Many avoidant people do not have the vocabulary. They just don't have the same toolkit when it comes to emotion. So identifying their own feelings, attuning to other
people's feelings. And again, this is an example where we see anxious and avoidant people sitting at opposite ends of the spectrum, in that for the anxious person who is hyper attuned to other people's emotional states, and is constantly reading environments and trying to preempt other people's needs and micromanage that Then make sure everyone's comfortable all the time. The avoidant person doesn't do this, okay? And, again, not better or
worse, just different. So it's like, okay, what would it be like if I could step out of my way of experiencing the world and step into someone else's shoes when they might not have that same tendency or those same capacities or abilities. And so projecting your own abilities onto someone else, and then being disappointed when they can't read your mind, when they can't Intuit how you're feeling, when they perceive a situation differently to you. It's really
counterproductive. It really doesn't get you any closer to what you want. It just creates visceral gridlock in your relationships. So it's not their fault. You know? Again, I think so often I hear anxious people saying things like, anyone would know that I'm feeling like this. It's so obvious, like what is wrong with you. And it's just I get the frustration. I've been there. But it's also really
unhelpful. And shaming and blaming someone for not knowing something that you haven't told them is really counterproductive. And it's just not how you get closer, right? It's not how you build a secure relationship. So communicate very clearly, when this specific thing happened. I felt this, it would be really helpful for me going forward, if we could agree to whatever, right. Don't leave lots of blanks in there for them
to fill in. as uncomfortable as it might be for you to really directly ask for your needs. That's your best chance at having the mitt. So clear communication is your friend in relationship with an avoidant person. This leads me nicely to the fourth point, which is to be very mindful of blame, criticism and accusations, anything in that category of communication.
Okay. Avoiding people have a real sore point, like a real sensitivity around feeling inadequate around feeling like they're always disappointing people. No one's ever satisfied, even though they feel like they're trying really hard. And this sense of them feeling like they're doing their best, but continually having someone be upset, be highly emotional, and
dysregulated. And telling them that they're not good enough telling them, you know, that they're unavailable, that they unreliable, that whatever it might be, right. It is received by the avoidant person, it's just so overwhelming, because they don't really know how to engage in those kinds of
conversations. And it feels immediately like intense conflict to them, and almost invariably will lead to defensiveness followed by you know, stonewalling, shut down, just total withdrawal, because they, they don't know how to be
with that. Again, by contrast, with an anxious person, an anxious person is feeling blamed or criticized, their response is likely to be, you know, launching into explaining almost over explaining, and trying to change the other person's mind because they don't want to be disapproved of, but they feel the need to do something about that to get back into control of the story, whereas an avoidant person just won't engage. Because they don't know how to.
So it doesn't work, you know, and if you are in a relationship, and you notice that you can get you know that your frustration, or your pain often comes out in the form of blame and criticism, try flipping that around and getting curious and going, Okay, what's, what's the thing that I actually want? What is the desire underneath my criticism? And can I express that instead, so you know, getting angry at someone because they never make time for
you. Of course, that's just going to be received as blame as criticism as not good enough as accusation and is going to immediately prompt someone to adopt a defensive stance. So if instead you could say, Hey, I, I feel like we're a little bit disconnected at the moment, and I really miss you, can we make a time to hang out sometime soon? I'd really love that. That's usually what you actually want.
It just feels more vulnerable to say it like that rather than to, you know, throw the hand grenades at them in the hope that you get a response or you that you get changed behavior via criticism or coercion. But yeah, I would really encourage you to be very mindful in particularly with avoidant people of anything that feels blamed me or or highly critical because they typically won't
respond well to that. Okay, the last one here is to reflect upon how you might have different love languages to your avoidant partner and to try speaking their love language some of the time rather than only speaking yours or expecting them to speak yours and then being upset that you feel unloved right. So I assume that most people listening are familiar with the concept of love languages. But to recap for those who aren't The Five Love Languages are
words of affirmation. So, you know kind loving words of reassurance, physical touch, quality time gift giving, and acts of service. Now, avoidant people and of course, you know, this huge individual variation here, that goes for everything I say that particularly here, but what I often say is that avoidant people will usually tend towards the the nonverbal and the less overtly intimate love languages. So, things like gift giving, quality time, and
sometimes acts of service. So these feel much less vulnerable for an avoidant person as a way to show love. But they do value quality time they value experiences, so you know, doing things together and might be like, you know, going on a hike together, or, you know, going out for a nice meal or, you know, doing something together and connecting via doing, connecting via shared experience. gift giving is fairly self explanatory, right?
They, they use things rather than words as a way to show care, love, affection, and acts of service is, you know, doing something on someone's behalf.
So helping someone out. Anxious people, on the contrary, tend to be almost exclusively and of course, it's a generalization, but I'm yet to meet an anxious person I've worked with a lot of them, who doesn't immediately say words of affirmation and physical touch, are they love languages, almost exclusively, anxious, people love being told, you know that their partner loves them, then they're gonna leave them all the reasons that
they love them. It's like this very overt and direct form of, you know, love and reassurance and physical touch the physical closeness and intimacy is very much the preference of the anxiously attached person. So this is yet another example where we potentially have a bit of a clash. So if you are on the anxious side, and you have an avoidant partner, and you lament the fact that they are maybe not very forthcoming with words of affirmation, maybe they're not very physically affectionate,
not very touchy. I get it. And certainly, you know, this isn't about you, doing 99% of the compromising, but this being an episode about how to support an avoidant partner, try and look at the ways that they're showing you love in their way, right, through quality time through gift giving, through, you know, thoughtful, nonverbal things that maybe are less vulnerable ways for them to show that they
care. And, you know, start to really receive those things as acts of love, and show appreciation for those really be very direct in being, you know, grateful and thankful to your partner for those experiences that they are likely to perceive and value as connective experiences.
And equally, you know, consider ways in which you could show them love using their love languages, right, so maybe it's giving them a thoughtful gift, or arranging a really thoughtful date or something like that, that falls into the quality time or gift giving category. Okay, so that was five ways to support an avoidant partner in your relationship. I hope that this has been helpful, as I just alluded to, you know, this is not about one person having to do all the work to support the
other. And this is a two part series. So please tune in next week for five ways to support an anxious partner. It's just about cultivating greater understanding and, you know, healthy interdependency, healthy compromise, so that we can really build mutually respectful, secure safe relationships. If you've enjoyed this episode, please do leave a review. If you're listening on Apple podcasts, it's immensely helpful only takes you, you know, 30 seconds and is hugely helpful to me and I really,
really appreciate it. If you're listening on Spotify or elsewhere, leaving a five star review. It makes a lot of difference. So thank you so much for your support. And I will see you guys again soon. Thanks for joining me Thanks for joining me for this episode on attachment. If you want to go deeper on all things attachment, love and relationships. You can find me on Instagram at Stephanie underscore underscore Rigg or at
Stephanie rigg.com. And if you enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a review and a five star rating it really does help so much. Thanks again for being here and I hope to see you again soon.