The Gift of Anxious-Avoidant Relationships
So much of the content around attachment theory focuses on the challenges that anxious-avoidant pairings can present. And while those challenges are undoubtedly very real, there are also real gifts within an anxious-avoidant dynamic when the individuals involved are prepared to meet in the middle. Today I’m sharing what those gifts can look like, and tips on making the most of your anxious-avoidant relationship so that it can become a space for healing.
WHAT WE’LL COVER:
How different attachment styles respond to stress
Leading with compassion and care
The work that needs to be done with both attachment styles
Lessons and opportunities within anxious-avoidant relationships
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Use the code JUNE50 for 50% off 3 masterclasses or the Higher Love Course stephanierigg.com
Apply for my 6-month Homecoming Mastermind
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
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Episode Transcript
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You're listening to On Attachment, a place to learn about how attachment shapes the way we experience relationships and where you'll gain the guidance, knowledge and practical tools to overcome insecurity and build healthy, thriving relationships. I'm your host, relationship Coach Stephanie Rigg and I'm really glad you're here. Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. Today's episode is titled The Gift of Anxious Avoidant Relationships and I'm going to be talking all about what some of the maybe under recognised or unexpected upsides of an anxious avoidant relationship can be.
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So obviously, most of the discussions that we have around these particular attachment dynamics tend to be focusing on the ways in which it can be really challenging. And I will be the first to acknowledge and admit that it absolutely can present a lot of challenges to navigate those sometimes conflicting attachment dynamics. But I think there's also a reason that this pairing is so very common and there are certainly gifts present in that dynamic when the individuals involved are committed enough and have a capacity to do the work, to meet in the middle. And as a bit of a spoiler alert, I think that we could summarise The Gift of anxious avoidant Relationships as being that it invites us into the middle rather than hanging out at the extremes of our attachment patterns, which might be ostensibly conflicting. It really does invite us off the ledge and find some healthier way of being that is more akin to a secure centre point.
0:01:45.94 → 0:02:49.26
So I'm going to be sharing that today what those gifts can look like and where the growth edge for a more anxious leaning person versus a more avoidant leaning person can lie in those dynamics. And I suppose also some tips on how you can make sure that you're making the most of your anxious avoidant relationship so that it can be a healing relationship rather than one that reinforces painful patterns and old ways of being that maybe entrench you in your insecurity rather than inviting you into those new healing experiences. So that's what today is all about. Before I dive into that, a couple of quick announcements. A reminder again that for the month of June you can save 50% off my Masterclasses, including my best selling how to Navigate Anxious Avoidant Relationships masterclass, which is very much on theme with today's episode, so you can save 50% with the code June 50 on my website.
0:02:49.36 → 0:03:24.23
You can also go to the new On Attachment website onattachment.com and all of that is there should be relatively straightforward to find. My Master classes and my Higher Love course which is my breakup course is also on sale, so you can cheque that out for the month of June while I am gallivanting around Italy, you can enjoy a discount on my courses. Second quick announcement is just to share the featured review. This was a comment from Spotify which is stephanie is so insightful, sometimes hard to hear the information she shares is necessary and absolutely powerful. She's helped me to create change in how I show up in relationships.
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Thank you so much for that beautiful review. I really appreciate it. And I agree. I think this stuff is hard to hear sometimes, but maybe it's the stuff that is hard to hear that is the most important to hear because it does hold up that mirror and invite us to get honest and get curious about our part in a dynamic. And that is ultimately what creates the possibility of growth and change.
0:03:46.88 → 0:04:26.88
So I'm glad that that's been your experience. If that was your review, please send an email to podcast@stephanierigg.com and my team will set you up with free access to one of my master classes. Okay, so let's dive into this big conversation around the gift of anxious avoidant relationships. Now, as I foreshadowed in the introduction, I will not lie to you and say that these dynamics are easy, that it's really not that hard, and you just have to do a three step plan and then all of a sudden you are free of the challenges that can arise in this anxious avoidant dynamic. That would be dishonest, and it's certainly not been my personal experience either.
0:04:26.93 → 0:05:22.91
I have been through the ringer, I've experienced a not so good anxious avoidant relationship and my current relationship, which I certainly lean more anxious and my partner leans more avoidant. But we've managed to navigate those dynamics in a way that feels so much healthier but also really healing for us both. It has allowed us to both relearn and rewire and reprogram a lot of our old stories around what it means to be in relationship, what it means to love and be loved, to depend on someone. And so I'm speaking today not only as coach and teacher, but also as human who has walked this path and continues to walk this path. So anxious avoidant relationships can be challenging.
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We all know that most people listening are either in one or have been in one. And so we all know that that can be hard, right? For very obvious reasons. Some of the core needs around relationship things like connection, intimacy, time spent together, whole attitude and approach to needs, conflict. Anxious people and avoidant people can really differ in the strategies that they use to create safety for themselves.
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And this is essentially what we're talking about when we're talking about attachment styles is how do I respond to stress in relationship? For an anxious person, their response to stress and stress is usually caused by distance or uncertainty. I go in, right? I try and close the gap, I try to get closer to you to restore connection, which makes me feel safe again. For a more avoidant person, the way to deal with stress is I need to retreat, I need to create distance for myself.
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And the cause of stress is likely to be feeling smothered or feeling like there's been a loss of self or loss of independence, feeling criticised, feeling blamed, feeling controlled or attacked. And so we have these conflicting wounds and seemingly conflicting strategies because in times of stress, and most often in relationships, stress is contagious. So if one person is stressed, the other will become stressed. And in this time of stress, team Anxious wants to close the gap and team Avoidant wants to widen the gap. And so it really can be hard for both people to get what they need in those moments when you are feeling stress in your relationship.
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So just wanted to set the scene and acknowledge like, yes, this can be really challenging. And all of the dynamics that flow from that, all of the behaviours and all of the permutations of that dynamic essentially boil down to the differing approaches to stress management. I always really appreciate that way of viewing these attachment dynamics because I think that it's very humanising and very compassionate. And despite the fact that the strategies look different, the core desire is I'm trying to create safety for myself. And so it's much harder to blame or judge someone for doing the same thing that we're doing.
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They're just doing it in a different way, they're just trying to create safety the same way you are, and they just might have learned a different strategy. So while that starting point, and I think again, it'd be fair to acknowledge that most couples do not have the tools, do not have the capacity to get out of that rut. Because the vast majority of us go through life, go through relationships blind, more or less, we are on autopilot and that is simply because we are doing what we've always done, right? We're doing what we've learned. And those strategies have served a purpose in our lives.
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They've kept us safe and so we will continue to do them until we have a level of conscious awareness around them and awareness of the impact that they're having and the ways in which they might actually be inhibiting us from experiencing the kind of relationship that we desire. But in times of stress, we get selfish, right? And we become really tunnel visioned and we default to our tried and tested strategies for creating safety. So how do we shift these patterns in a way that allows us to access the gift of anxious avoidant relationships? This is really the essence of the work, right?
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And it's so, so powerful and so, so important and it's something that I really deeply believe in at a fundamental level, because I do believe that when done right, this dynamic can heal us, right? So what does this look like? I already alluded to the importance of compassion, and I think that the more we can see someone with compassionate eyes and get curious about them, as well as getting curious about our own stuff, all of a sudden there's these new possibilities that emerge because instead of seeing that person as a threat which is what we will all do by default when we feel stressed in relationship we see lions everywhere, we start to see them as a person in fear and we start to be able to relate to them with a compassionate heart and with that energy of care. And I think that from that place we can start considering oh okay, this person that I love and care about is feeling stressed, how can I support them, what might they need? And finding ways to access that and really take steps towards a middle ground, as I said before, it's like coming off our ledges at the extremes and taking steps towards the centre where we can find space for both of us to exist and thrive here.
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So how do we then access this gift of anxious avoidant relationships? How do we shift into growth mode in our anxious avoidant relationship rather than pain mode or stuck mode? And I think the thing I want to focus on here and that I want to invite you to focus on is that for the anxious person in any relationship, your primary work is in your relationship with yourself. Because your baseline focus is always going to be on safety via the other person or security via the other person to a degree that is an over indexation, meaning I am overly reliant on you to make me feel safe. I have an underdeveloped capacity for self regulation and for self soothing and for being with myself.
0:10:51.47 → 0:11:32.39
And so that is your work. And you will have heard me say that before on the podcast, that the greatest gift you can give yourself as a more anxious leaning person, whether you are single or in a relationship, is to build up your comfort. Level with being by yourself or diversifying your energy so that you don't become so exclusively focused on your relationship as the source of all satisfaction and worth and comfort in your life. Because I think that is the default mode for a lot of anxious people. So the anxious person's primary work is in self regulation and self focus pivoting from focus on the other back to focus on the self.
0:11:32.51 → 0:12:39.96
Contrast this with the avoidant person's primary work which is in co regulation because their ability to be with self is pretty well developed and arguably the avoidant person tends to be overly reliant on their very well developed capacity to be either alone or to self regulate or to be comfortable with their own company. And so when you're in an anxious avoidant relationship, as the anxious person, you are going to be called to do the very work that is most important for you to do more broadly, which is become more comfortable with self regulation because your avoidant partner is likely to test that in you. Right. They are going to give you plenty of opportunity to work on that growth edge, which is being by yourself or being able to self soothe. Because if they have a greater preference, for example, independence or time apart or space, that's going to really test you.
0:12:40.06 → 0:13:45.54
And again you can either use those tests as an opportunity to reenact old patterns, to spiral, to escalate, to protest, to make meaning out of the fact that they need more time or space or whatever it might be. Or you can take that as the training ground and go okay, this is my opportunity to build up my own capacity to be with myself. Rather than, for example when your partner is wanting some space or they're doing stuff on their own that doesn't involve you, rather than just counting down the minutes until you're going to come back into connection, you get to see what is possible in that space in your own relationship with yourself, in your life. And whether that's spending more time cultivating friendships or hobbies or other points of interest in your own life rather than feeding the tendency to over index on your relationship which is, as I said, an easy place to go for most anxious people. Now for the avoidant person, you are going to get called into your growth work as well.
0:13:45.59 → 0:15:08.46
Because if your growth work is in increasing your comfort level with closeness and intimacy and connection co regulation, learning to meet someone else's needs or to increase your capacity to be needed, then your anxious partner is going to give you plenty of opportunities to work on that as well because they do have really high connection needs. They do want to be close to you, they do want affection and love in a very overt way and so they are going to call you into your growth edge, they are going to test you and they are going to invite you to step towards those experiences. That might be uncomfortable but it might just be the exact medicine that you need. And again, you can see that it can be either healing or if you let the old patterns take you into their grip then you might experience that as oh, these people are too much, it's too overwhelming, too demanding, too needy, not safe, right? But can you see here that for both people their primary work is being called forward in this relationship and if there is enough safety, if there is enough commitment and love and care and respect in the relationship, then you will both be invited into the medicine that you need in order to become more whole, right?
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So again, for the anxious person, wholeness lies in finding more balance within yourself by building up the self part. And for the avoidant partner, wholeness lies in finding that balance by building up the togetherness part because the self part is already well developed. And so through this dynamic you both get to meet in the middle. You both get to become more whole and more balanced individually and relationally. So that is what I wanted to offer you as an insight into the gift of anxious avoidant relationships, both as a reminder of your individual work, if you are more anxious or more avoidant, a reminder of the essence of your work.
0:15:53.12 → 0:16:48.13
And of course, that can look like a lot of different things in Practise, but that is kind of the North Star and reminding yourself if you're in an anxious avoidant dynamic, that that is your work within the relationship as well. So the next time you're being frustrated or hurt or triggered, reminding yourself, what is the lesson for me here? What's the opportunity? Am I digging in my heels at an extreme place and am I reenacting or entrenching or reinforcing old patterns? Is there an opportunity for me to step off the ledge and take steps towards the centre, to cultivate more wholeness and more balance within myself, more trust and safety in my relationship in a way that will allow it to be healing and restorative rather than fracturing and reinforcing of those old painful patterns?
0:16:48.23 → 0:17:32.21
So I hope that that's given you something to think about and maybe given you some hope if you are in an anxious avoidant relationship. As I said at the start, I know that the dominant discourse around this tends to be quite negative in focus, emphasising the ways in which this dynamic is painful and hard, doomed even, depending on who you listen to. So I hope that it gives you a sense of what's possible and the opportunities that exist for you within this dynamic when it's done right. If you've enjoyed this episode, so grateful as always. If you can leave a five star rating or review, you can leave a little comment on Spotify, share it with the people in your life, share it on social media, it all helps so much and I appreciate all of you and I look forward to seeing you again next time.
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Thanks, guys. Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment. If you want to 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 five star rating. It really does help so much. Thanks again for being here and I hope to see you again soon.