The Silent Struggle of Avoidant Attachment
By Colleen
Have you ever felt like love is something you want, but only from a distance? Do you crave connection but shut down the moment someone gets too close? If you find yourself pulling away when relationships become serious, struggling with deep conversations, or feeling overwhelmed by emotional intimacy, you’re not alone. Avoidant attachment isn’t a conscious choice, but a protective response that often develops in childhood when vulnerability felt unsafe.
For many, this pattern follows them into adulthood, making love feel both desirable and terrifying at the same time. While independence can feel safe, it can also lead to loneliness, frustration, and relationships that never quite reach the depth they were meant to have.
How Avoidant Attachment Develops
Avoidant attachment forms in childhood when emotional needs go unmet. Vulnerability may have been ignored, dismissed, or punished, teaching the child that expressing emotions leads to rejection. Some were forced into independence too soon or raised by emotionally distant caregivers.
As adults, they struggle with closeness, not due to a lack of care, but because they’ve learned that relying on others is unsafe. Love feels overwhelming, and distance becomes their way of coping.
Avoidant Attachment in Dating: The Push-Pull Cycle
Dating can be challenging for those with avoidant attachment. Early on, relationships feel exciting with no demands for emotional closeness. But as soon as intimacy starts to grow, fear sets in.
For example, a woman met a man who seemed perfect; intense texting, spontaneous dates, and talk of a future together. But when she matched his commitment, he pulled away, claiming she was “too needy” and “putting pressure” on him, despite him setting the emotional tone early on.
This is the cycle of avoidant attachment: to protect themselves, they may blame or emotionally manipulate their partner, making them feel guilty for wanting connection. This leaves the partner feeling rejected and desperate for reassurance, which causes the avoidant to retreat further.
Over time, this behavior can become emotionally neglectful or even abusive. Avoidants may dismiss their partner’s concerns, invalidate their feelings, or withhold affection to maintain control and emotional distance.
Avoidant Attachment in Marriage: Living with an Emotional Wall
Marriage should be a place of safety and connection, but for someone with avoidant attachment, it can feel suffocating. They may love their spouse deeply, but vulnerability still feels like a threat. This often results in shutting down during emotional conversations, withdrawing when their partner expresses hurt, or avoiding intimacy in favor of work, hobbies, or distractions.
A man had been married for ten years when his wife finally broke down, telling him she felt invisible. Every time she tried to express her emotions, he would shut down, tell her she was overreacting, or change the subject. He wasn’t overtly unkind, he just couldn’t handle emotional depth. To protect himself, he dismissed her feelings and blamed her for wanting “too much.” Over time, she felt like she was married to a stranger, despite sharing a home, responsibilities, and even a family.
This dynamic is especially painful for partners with an anxious attachment style, who crave reassurance and connection. They push for closeness, the avoidant partner pulls away, and a painful cycle of rejection and longing repeats over and over.
In some cases, avoidant individuals resort to more overt forms of emotional neglect and abuse. They may use passive-aggressive behavior, stonewalling, or even gaslighting to create emotional distance. If their partner tries to get close, they may lash out in anger, making the other person feel as if they are the problem for simply wanting intimacy. This can be deeply damaging to the anxious partner, who begins to feel unworthy of love and connection.
The Mental and Physical Effects of Avoidant Attachment
Suppressing emotions takes a serious toll on the mind and body. Many avoidant individuals struggle with anxiety, depression, chronic tension, fatigue, and emotional numbness. Without deep connections, they may feel disconnected from both their relationships or themselves.
Unprocessed emotions often lead to unresolved anger. Without a healthy outlet, feelings build up and spill over as frustration, irritation, or exhaustion—often without realizing the root cause is emotional suppression.
Anger and Control: Pushing People Away on Purpose
To maintain their emotional walls, avoidant individuals often rely on control. This can look like deciding when and how emotional conversations happen, if at all. It can also show up as using anger, sarcasm, or dismissiveness to shut down vulnerable discussions. Some create rigid boundaries, not as a means of healthy self-care, but as a defense mechanism to keep others at arm’s length.
At its core, this isn’t about cruelty, it’s about fear. Fear of being hurt, fear of losing control, and fear of needing someone only to be let down. Unfortunately, these control tactics often leave their loved ones feeling rejected and unworthy of love.
When an avoidant person is repeatedly confronted with emotional needs they don’t want to meet, they may resort to anger as a weapon. They might lash out, accuse their partner of being dramatic, or make them feel like their emotions are unreasonable. This cycle of blame and rejection can be deeply damaging, leading the partner to either walk on eggshells or shut down completely to avoid further pain.
Breaking Free from Avoidant Attachment
If you recognize yourself in these patterns, know this: you are not broken. You are not incapable of love. You learned to protect yourself in ways that made sense at the time, but those same defenses are now keeping you from the deep connection your heart truly craves.
Healing starts with self-awareness. It requires recognizing that avoidance isn’t strength, it’s fear in disguise. Self-reflection and safe relationships can help you learn to trust intimacy and express emotions without feeling overwhelmed. The goal isn’t to lose yourself in another person, but to find a way to let love in without fear of suffocation or abandonment.
You Don’t Have to Do This Alone
Avoidant attachment isn’t a life sentence, it’s a learned pattern that can be unlearned. With the right support, love doesn’t have to feel like something to run from; it can become a place of safety, connection, and deep fulfillment.
This is Part 3 in a series on Attachment. Check out my other articles for more!
Part 1 What’s Your Type?
Part 2 Anxious Attachment – Seeking Love but Fearing Loss
Part 4 Disorganized Attachment – When Love Feels Both Safe & Scary
