#80 How Do I Get My Avoidant Partner To Open Up?
This week, I’m answering the community question, “How do I get my avoidant partner to open up?”. I’ll dive into how to pave the way for more genuine, authentic connection and what that looks like for people with avoidant attachment styles and anxious attachment styles within relationships.
This week, I’m answering the community question, “How do I get my avoidant partner to open up?”. I’ll dive into how to pave the way for more genuine, authentic connection and what that looks like for people with avoidant attachment styles and anxious attachment styles within relationships.
WHAT WE’LL COVER:
Preferences of wanting to receive information
Trust wounds in avoidant partners
Self-serving behaviour that could be impacting this issue
Insight into their experience
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Use the code JUNE50 for 50% off 3 masterclasses or the Higher Love Course - www.stephanierigg.com
Apply for my 6-month Homecoming Mastermind
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
0:00:00.09 → 0:00:30.08
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. You. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of On Attachment.
0:00:30.22 → 0:01:02.23
In today's episode, I'm going to be answering the community question of how do I get my avoidant partner to open up more? So this is a very frequently asked question, as you can imagine. I know that it's something a lot of more anxious partners struggle with and really desire is to have more depth and connection with their partner, particularly a partner who leans more avoidant. So I'm going to be unpacking that a little today. And importantly, and I would say more importantly than the actual, how do I get my partner to open up more?
0:01:02.32 → 0:01:59.10
As you can imagine, if you are familiar with my work and my philosophy, I think the more revealing inquiry here is what is it within me that needs to control or influence that? What part of me feels unsafe with them not telling me everything right away or feeling like I can't reach parts of them, how much of my desire to get them to open up is about them versus me? And I think that when we can get a little curious about that and take responsibility and really own the parts of us that maybe want to control someone or want to change them, want them to be more like us or as we would like them to be, then we're more able to approach those situations with a level of conscious awareness. And hopefully that will pave the way for more genuine, authentic connection, rather than connection that is, with a motive of control attached to it. So that's what we're going to be talking about today.
0:01:59.20 → 0:02:40.00
Before I dive into that, a couple of quick announcements you might have heard me share in the last episode that for the month of June I am offering a 50% off sale on my online courses and master classes. So included in that is my Higher Love course, which is my breakup course, and my three master classes how to navigate anxious, avoidant relationships, better boundaries and sex and attachment. So for the month of June, you can use the code June 50 on my website, the checkout area, to save 50% on all of those products. So if you've been interested in going a little deeper with my work, now is a great time to do that. We'll link all of that in the show notes for you.
0:02:40.77 → 0:03:05.15
Second announcement is just to share the featured review, which is Stephanie's an incredible teacher on attachment. Not only theories covered, but so many good examples of practical implementation. I've had experiences learning about attachment theory that made me feel like I'm a bad person because of how I tend to behave in relationships with Stephanie. I never feel that I've learned so much from listening to her, and I've only just scratched the surface on the many episodes available. Also, her voice is very pleasant and soothing.
0:03:05.20 → 0:03:24.76
She has a wonderful accent, and her way of facing her words makes it very easy to understand. Thank you so much, Stephanie. You're making a huge contribution by creating this valuable content. Thank you so much for that beautiful review. It's kind of you to say that my voice is very pleasant and soothing because I got a message from someone on Instagram yesterday telling me to please make my voice more professional because it sounded unnatural.
0:03:24.82 → 0:03:52.47
So apparently you can't please everybody, but it's nice to have the alternative perspective. So thank you so much for your review and your kind words. 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 those master classes that I mentioned a little while ago. Okay, so let's dive into this conversation around how do I get my avoidant partner to open up? So let's acknowledge the starting point for anxious people.
0:03:52.62 → 0:04:34.60
Disclosure. And arguably, over disclosure is a way to fast track connection a lot of the time. So even if it's very early in the dating process, something that a lot of anxious people will relate to is, I want to tell you everything about me, and I want you to tell me everything about you as a way to fast track us to depth. Right. I don't want to hang out in this in between uncertain thing where our relationship isn't really intense yet, and I lean on disclosure as a way to bypass that in between stage that uncertainty and fast track us straight to really intense connection.
0:04:34.79 → 0:05:28.13
So as is the case a lot of the time, noticing that as an anxious person, you probably sit at one extreme or one end of the spectrum when it comes to disclosure or opening up. And sometimes that can be maybe over disclosure, so it can be a lack of boundaries. I think that if we look at some of those descriptors of the various attachment styles, you'll see anxious people over disclose, avoidant people are very protective of disclosure and might under disclose or not share much of themselves with someone. And secure attachment is somewhere in the middle, right? I share an appropriate amount with people, but I don't blurt out everything and all of my deepest, darkest secrets and my history and my family struggles and my trauma and everything, because that might be too much too soon.
0:05:28.25 → 0:06:23.76
So I suppose I say that just to invite you to reflect on am I sitting at one extreme and judging someone or expecting them to meet me in my version of doing things my way, which maybe isn't healthy either. And I think that we can see that kind of dynamic play out a lot in anxious avoidant relationships is that we tussle over which extreme should win out, when really the goal is to meet in the middle. So I think when it comes to getting someone to open up, we first have to acknowledge that that is driven by our preference from the other extreme. Now, that is not to say that desiring connection with someone via feeling like you know them on a deep level is problematic. I don't think that it is problematic.
0:06:23.82 → 0:06:59.53
I think that's really understandable and natural and can be healthy at the same time. We do need to acknowledge that there can be a level of protectiveness from the avoidant person around sharing parts of themselves with other people. There can be trust wounds. Certainly for more fearful avoidant people, there can be a real betrayal, fear and not trusting in people's good intentions and feeling like the more I share of myself with you, the more potential you have to use that against me or hurt me. So I want to keep you at arm's length.
0:06:59.58 → 0:07:37.50
Or maybe if I do share something with you, then I retreat because I feel like I really regret sharing things with you. But I think that we do have to get really curious around how much of me wanting you to open up is because I genuinely want to know you better from an open hearted, agenda free kind of way. And how much of it is because I can't tolerate the distance that I perceive from not being able to reach you, from there being things about you that I don't know. Because as we know for anxious people, information feels safe. The more information we have, the more in control we feel.
0:07:37.55 → 0:08:01.08
The less information we have, the more out of control we feel. That uncertainty tends to feel really destabilising and can feel like you can't mobilise to keep yourself safe because you don't know what you're dealing with. And those blanks we tend to fill in with worst case scenarios, right? We catastrophize, why would they hide something from me? Why wouldn't they share it with me?
0:08:01.53 → 0:08:33.15
It must be something really bad or they don't like me, or there's something awry here. We become very, very suspicious of someone not sharing everything with us. Again, because our preference and our baseline is to share everything with everyone in a way that again, we use that to fast track connection. So we are suspicious and judgmental of the ways in which someone might be different to us and we think that it necessarily spells trouble. So I do think that we have to get honest and own.
0:08:33.30 → 0:09:11.50
How much of this is me wanting you to open up? Because I want to feel more connected to you and how much of it is I would feel more in control of you and our relationship and I would feel safer if I had more information. Because the more information I have, the more options I have, the more strategies I feel like I have at my disposal. To troubleshoot, to problem solve, to preempt something bad happening. But without that information, I feel like I'm going in blind to this situation where I feel like I'm going to have to protect myself and not going to be able to do that because I'm not armed with that information.
0:09:11.87 → 0:09:50.61
I think the other piece of this is that the other kind of self serving piece and as always, I say self serving not in a judgmental way because I am guilty of all of these things. But the other self serving thing can be if you loved me, you would tell me, right? That's the logic from the anxious side. It's if you really cared about this relationship, you would share everything with me. And so the fact that you don't want to share certain things with me or you're not opening up to me makes me feel rejected or unloved or suspicious or any other thing.
0:09:50.65 → 0:10:43.75
But I'm making it mean something about how much you care about me or how much you love me. And again, that is a very good example of projecting what something would mean if it were us onto someone else who's very different to us. So just recognising all of those different limbs that might be playing out here that might be influencing your need for someone else to be a certain way and how much of that is genuinely about them and how much of it is about you and arguably about control. So putting that to one side and that's kind of a whole inquiry in and of itself is all of the pieces within us that want to get someone to open up and actually looking at, okay, what would be the conditions which would support someone to feel like they could open up? And for an avoidant person, we have to look at the core wounds and the fears there.
0:10:43.79 → 0:11:21.45
And a lot of the time that is around, I don't want to be controlled. I don't want to feel like someone is trying to take away my privacy, my independence, my selfhood. And so feeling like someone is literally or figuratively looming over them and demanding that they open up or making them wrong for not opening up on someone else's timeline, that's usually going to exacerbate it rather than alleviate it. Right. That's going to really lead them to dig their heels in and reinforce the need for self protection rather than to support them to feel safe.
0:11:21.55 → 0:11:48.29
You can't just demand that someone feel safe enough to open up to you. You have to kind of earn that. And earning that might mean building trust incrementally over time and releasing the grip on trying to control someone or trying to make demands of them that are more than they are able to give at a certain point in a relationship or a certain point in their own journey. Right? This stuff can feel intensely vulnerable and unsafe.
0:11:48.39 → 0:12:47.18
And I think we have to really remind ourselves of that rather than just asking these questions of how can I get them to do this thing that I want them to do. There's a lot more in it than that. I think the important thing to add to all of this is it's really reasonable and understandable to want to know that someone is connected to their own emotional landscape. And I think to the extent that your desire to get your partner to open up is because it feels unsafe or otherwise destabilising to you to feel like there's something going on that not only you don't understand, but your partner doesn't understand. If you listen to a recent episode I did with Connor Beaton, a guest that I had on, he works a lot with men, and we spoke in that episode in the context of men that what we really desire from someone in partnership is, can I trust that you know what's going on with you?
0:12:47.36 → 0:13:19.91
And you have self awareness around that, and you have the tools and the resources to do whatever you need to do to take care of it. And I think that that is really the crux of it. And when we feel like someone is not only cloistered but also in denial about there being something wrong or something that needs their attention, that's when it starts to feel really unsafe. And that's where on the anxious side, you probably start escalating and going into this panicky frenzy of, you have to tell me there's something wrong. I know there's something wrong.
0:13:19.95 → 0:13:46.44
Why aren't you telling me? Just open up to me. Because we feel like if they don't understand what's going on with them or they don't know, then how are they going to take care of it? And that can feel really unsafe and really stressful. So I think that that aspect of it, to the extent that that's your experience, feeling like you don't have trust in the fact that they're self aware enough to know what's going on for them and to manage that for themselves, I think that's really understandable.
0:13:46.47 → 0:14:28.17
And maybe the middle ground then is to say I don't need you to tell me everything that's going on. But it would be helpful for me if you could just reassure me that whatever it is that you've got it under control, or that you're taking care of it, or some other reassurance that isn't. I need you to bear your soul to me so that I can launch in and fix it and go into that Caretaker mode, but at least give me some sort of insight into what you're experiencing and what you're going to do about it. Right? And I think when we can ask for that from a more restrained place rather than a demanding place and a place that's tell me what's going on for you, and then I'm going to mobilise straight away into trying.
0:14:28.18 → 0:15:02.66
To fix it, which might feel like a boundary violation for the other person. Or we can do it in a more restrained way, in a more trusting way, a way that says I trust you and I respect you. And I know that you'll take care of it, but it would really help if I could get a little insight into what you're going through that feels more balanced and that feels like more of a healthy middle ground, rather than poking and prodding and demanding that someone open up so that you feel better about it. So I suppose it's a long winded way of saying how do I get someone to open up? I don't know that you do get someone to open up.
0:15:02.68 → 0:15:54.75
I think people open when they're ready and if they're opening before they're ready because you've made them, that's probably not a great outcome, is it? We really want people to open from a place of a natural unfolding and unfurling of their authentic self in a way that feels really true and honest rather than getting someone to share parts of themselves that they're not ready to share or that they feel really reluctant to share. And then that being cloaked in fear or self protection and probably not feeling that great on either side. I think when we can trust that in time, if we are loving and respectful and trusting of one another, that that revealing just happens. It takes place naturally because the safety is established between you in a really genuine way.
0:15:54.90 → 0:16:21.73
And so I think that if you can cultivate that patience and trust rather than needing someone to operate on your timeline of opening up or revealing themselves or disclosing certain things, then I think that that's maybe the better path. Now, of course, all of the caveats, all of the what about this? What about this? What about someone lying to me? Or I'm not talking about any of that.
0:16:21.77 → 0:17:01.23
Right? Really talking about sharing emotionally disclosing things about fears and insecurities recognising that that's much harder for some people than others. And that doesn't mean that they're bad or wrong or broken, but just trying to accept our partner's process and trust their ability to make those decisions for themselves rather than feeling like we need to step in and steward their personal development process for them. Which, as I've said, I think is a really easy place for more anxious people to go. But it costs us a lot because once we step into that role of coach or therapist or caretaker, that can become the balance point in the relationship.
0:17:01.35 → 0:18:03.28
And that can be the role that we cement ourselves into, which for a time might feel good because we might feel needed or we might feel in control, but ultimately it costs us a lot because then who's there to support us when we've anointed ourselves, the support person in the relationship? It can skew things in a direction that ultimately doesn't serve us. So I realised that was a lot of different limbs and thoughts and reflections and probably wasn't the answer you were looking for if you were hoping for a nice, neat three step process on how to get an avoidant person to open up. But I hope that it's given you something a little more nuanced and layered to reflect upon, and ultimately an invitation into greater self awareness, greater self responsibility, and maybe more acceptance of your partner and more trust and respect for them in a way that will naturally give rise to opening and safety in your relationship. If you've enjoyed this episode, as always, I'm super grateful.
0:18:03.34 → 0:18:26.53
For those of you who can leave a quick review or a rating or a feedback little comment thing on Spotify, share it with the people in your life. It all really helps and adds up and is a huge support for me in continuing to get the word out about the podcast. Otherwise, I look forward to joining you again next time. Thanks, guys. Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment.
0:18:26.63 → 0:18:45.70
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 you again soon.
#71 Is he avoidant or just not that into me?
In today's episode, I'm answering the question of "How do I know if someone is avoidant or just not that interested in me?" This is a question I get A LOT - and the answer might surprise you.
In today's episode, I'm answering the question of "How do I know if someone is avoidant or just not that interested in me?" This is a question I get A LOT - and the answer might surprise you.
I'm going to share a common misconception about avoidant attachment in early dating, as well as some hard truths about why we seek out people whose behaviour leaves us questioning whether they're interested or not.
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Apply for my 6-month Homecoming Mastermind
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
0:00:00.41 → 0:00:43.49
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. You hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. In today's episode, I am answering one of the most frequently asked questions that I get, which is how do I know if someone is avoidant or just not that into me?
0:00:43.66 → 0:01:19.49
So I know that a lot of you listening will relate to this question purely by virtue of how often I get asked. It really is something that I'm hearing all the time from people. How can I figure out, particularly in early dating, whether the way someone's behaving towards me, which might feel sort of unclear or ambiguous or maybe not super interested? Do I put that down to the fact that they're not interested? Or is there something more different at play here that might be their attachment patterns, their avoidant attachment style?
0:01:19.83 → 0:01:41.43
How can I tell the difference and what do I do about it? So that's what I'm going to be talking through today. Before I dive into that, just want to share the featured review for today, which is this is the only podcast I wait for new episodes to be released every week. It's just that good. Even when I don't think the episode is going to be related to me, I find a new way to apply it to my life and be able to better understand the people around me.
0:01:41.47 → 0:02:00.41
I recently started Stephanie's Anxious Attachment course, and it has flipped the way I experience relationships. I can't thank Stephanie enough for this magical gift of a podcast that came into my life just when I needed it. Thank you so much for that beautiful review. I'm so glad that you've been loving the podcast and healing anxious attachment. That is all very lovely feedback.
0:02:00.46 → 0:02:47.69
So thank you so much for sharing. If that was your review, please send an email to podcast@stephanierig.com and my team will set you up with free access to one of my master classes as a way to say thank you. Okay, so let's talk about whether they're avoidant or just not into you. This big question that I always get before I answer it, and I won't be answering it in any sort of yes or no way, obviously, but I do just want to give the caveat and emphasise that there are a million and one different answers to this question depending on context and all of those things. So please don't take what I'm going to say as being true for your situation, but rather as something to reflect upon and to apply to your situation to the extent that maybe it feels insightful.
0:02:47.74 → 0:03:19.35
But if it doesn't, then leave it. There's no need to panic and draw some sort of conclusion about someone else's behaviour based on what I'm about to share. I am just sharing observations and reflections from my experience and what I know to be true. So with all of that out of the way, with all of the disclaimers out of the way, I think that when we ask this question of is someone avoidant or just not interested in me? We are perhaps misunderstanding how avoidant attachment shows up.
0:03:19.47 → 0:04:06.64
A lot of the time, in my experience, dating avoidant people and working with avoidant people and working with many, many anxious people who date avoidant people. Fair sample size. In early dating, most avoidant people are not in their avoidant mode, meaning they haven't been triggered yet. So their strategies of withdrawing or going hot and cold, those sorts of things probably haven't been activated yet, right? That tends to come into play a little bit later when things become a bit more serious, when they start to feel pressure, when they start to feel like there's a bit more reliance on them or dependability or they're expected to do things or all of that stuff that we know can feel overwhelming for an avoidant leaning person when their freedom starts to feel like it's being impinged upon in some way.
0:04:06.67 → 0:05:07.64
But usually it's not at the very early stages of dating and I do tend to find that the people asking this question of how do I know if someone's avoidant or just not interested in me? Are usually asking that at a pretty early stage of dating, right? So I think that if you've been on one or two dates with someone, or you've just been messaging them a lot on an app and their behaviour is such that you're questioning whether they're interested in you and you're going, oh, is it just because they're avoidant because they're being really indifferent and they're not really messaging me, they're not putting in any effort, they're whatever, fill in the blanks. I think in many cases I think a lot of the time when we find ourselves asking that are they avoidant or just not interested in me?
0:05:07.74 → 0:05:28.22
At the very early stages of dating? Perhaps we're looking for an explanation that is better preferable than the thing that we're afraid to hear, which is that they just might not be interested in us. I should also say these things aren't mutually exclusive. Someone could be avoidant and not interested in you. So I think when we're trying to go, oh, is it this or this?
0:05:28.37 → 0:06:05.67
And how do I know whether it's one or the other? We have to recognise that there's a Venn diagram and there could be both, right? That's a bit of a side note. So the first kind of key piece here is that in my experience in early dating, avoidant people tend to show interest in people that they are interested in most of the time. Of course, not always exceptions, of course, but avoidant attachment doesn't usually manifest as being really coy or disinterested or indifferent towards people that you are actively pursuing and actively really interested in.
0:06:05.76 → 0:07:04.26
The avoidant stuff tends to come a little bit later when the relationship feels like it's becoming exclusive or there's other pressure or seriousness involved in a way that then activates some of those attachment fears and their accompanying strategies. The second key piece, and this is more important by a long shot, if you are asking yourself this question of are they avoidant or just not interested in me? And this is the question of does it matter and what part of you wants to go on that expedition of finding out the answer so that you can solve it right? If someone's behaviour towards you is so confusing and inconsistent and indifferent and whatever else that you are already straight out of the gate asking these questions are they even interested in me? Or is there some sort of label I can put on them that makes this behaviour make sense?
0:07:05.03 → 0:07:39.75
Does it really matter what the answer is? Do you want to persist in pursuing that connection when you're feeling like this? And to be very clear, this is not about demonising avoidant attachment and avoidantly attached people. If you're familiar with my work, you know that's not my philosophy at all, but a big part of my philosophy is taking responsibility for our part. And what I see all too often is anxious people going through a world of pain because they persist with people who the signs were there from the beginning.
0:07:39.80 → 0:08:24.92
It's not even a sign, it's just plain to see oh, I was wondering whether it was because you're avoidant or you didn't even like me and rather than just going oh well, if I'm asking that question, that's probably all I need to know. I stick around and I try and be more of this or less of that, or try different strategies and techniques and ways to get your attention and ways to make you happy and make you show up and make you interested in me. Why do we see someone's indifference towards us or inconsistency as an invitation to try harder? That's what we really need to ask ourselves because that's where the growth is. And this is particularly true for you if it's a recurring pattern, if you consistently ask yourself this question of is someone avoiding or just not interested in me?
0:08:25.02 → 0:09:18.24
Whenever we notice ourselves as the common denominator in a pattern in our relationships, that's where we have to look in the mirror and go, okay, what's going on for me here? And this is one where we have to go okay, what is it about someone else's disinterest or someone being lukewarm about me that feels like an invitation to prove myself and to try harder and to make them want me? Because that is our work, that is our worthiness stuff coming up. And if we're doing that with someone who isn't really interested then we are almost certainly just going to strive and strive and strive in the face of someone who didn't ever really care for us all that much in the first place, who was maybe kind of ambivalent towards us. And we made it our mission to change their mind, to convert them to be the one.
0:09:18.61 → 0:10:00.87
And then we feel so hurt and disappointed when that doesn't come to fruition and we make it mean something about us and we fail to see how much of a role we've played in creating that situation and bringing ourselves to where we are. We throw our hands up and go, why does this happen to me? Why do I attract people like this? When really we've been a main character in that story again and again and again. Okay, so this wasn't really meant to turn into me standing on a soapbox and giving you this pep talk, but I think it's an important one because, as I said, I get this question all the time and it breaks my heart to see people who have a blind spot around their part in their pattern.
0:10:01.03 → 0:11:04.20
So if you are someone who is dating and you're feeling this question of why do I always attract avoidant people, why do I always attract people who are uninterested in me or who treat me in this very lukewarm way? I think the better question is, why do I look past the behaviour itself and try and find an explanation for it so that I can then roll up my sleeves and get to work in trying to change them? Or change the way they feel about me, rather than just seeing it for what it is and directing my energy and attention elsewhere towards a person or even just myself and my life in a way that is far more fruitful and nourishing and supportive for my well being. Why do I make it my mission to change someone's mind about me? I think that's the really fertile ground for deep insight about ourselves and our patterns and whatever wounds might be driving those patterns.
0:11:04.26 → 0:11:31.12
So I hope that that has been helpful. It might not be the answer that you were expecting when you started listening to this, but it might be the answer that you needed to hear if this is something that you struggle with. As always, super grateful if you could leave a rating or a review. If you're listening on Spotify, you can now leave a Q and a response at the bottom of the episode. So grateful for all of your ongoing support and I look forward to seeing you again soon.
0:11:31.22 → 0:11:55.98
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.