#155 Fearful Avoidant and Anxious Attachment: Key Similarities & Differences
In today's episode, we're diving into fearful avoidant (AKA disorganised) attachment and how it differs from anxious attachment. We’ll explore how both types are driven by a fear of abandonment and intense emotions, yet differ in their approaches to intimacy, conflict resolution, and communication. Whether you identify with one of these attachment styles or are in a relationship with someone who does, this episode will give you valuable insights into the dynamics at play and how to navigate them for healthier connections.
In today's episode, we're diving into fearful avoidant (AKA disorganised) attachment and how it differs from anxious attachment.
We’ll explore how both types are driven by a fear of abandonment and intense emotions, yet differ in their approaches to intimacy, conflict resolution, and communication.
Whether you identify with one of these attachment styles or are in a relationship with someone who does, this episode will give you valuable insights into the dynamics at play and how to navigate them for healthier connections.
Fearful Avoidant and Anxious Attachment: Key Similarities & Differences
Understanding attachment styles is crucial for anyone looking to improve their relationships and gain insight into their emotional responses. Two attachment styles often discussed together are anxious attachment and fearful avoidant attachment. While they share some similarities, there are also significant differences that impact relationship dynamics and coping strategies.
High Anxiety About Relationships
A common thread between anxious attachment and fearful avoidant attachment is the high level of anxiety experienced in relationships. For both, relationships often do not feel safe. This anxiety can manifest differently, though. Anxiously attached individuals tend to feel preoccupied with their relationships, continually seeking reassurance and closeness to soothe their anxiety. Fearful avoidants, on the other hand, experience similar anxiety but may internalise it more, leading to erratic behaviours—sometimes drawing close to their partner and other times pushing them away.
Fears of Abandonment and Rejection
Both attachment styles harbour deep fears of abandonment and rejection. For anxiously attached individuals, this fear drives them to over-function in relationships, always striving to maintain closeness and avoid rejection. Fearful avoidants, however, might adopt an “I’ll leave you before you leave me” mentality, ending relationships pre-emptively to avoid the anticipated pain of abandonment. This self-protective strategy is a stark contrast to the anxious attachment’s drive to preserve relationships at nearly any cost.
Struggles with Voicing Needs and Setting Boundaries
A significant challenge that both styles share is difficulty in voicing needs and setting boundaries. Anxiously attached individuals often fall into people-pleasing and approval-seeking behaviours, avoiding conflict in an attempt to secure their partner’s affection. They might quietly resent unmet needs but continue giving and compromising. Fearful avoidants also struggle here, but their approach is slightly different. They might initially also over-give, but their resentment can explode into anger, causing them to view their partner as an adversary. This can lead to dramatic confrontations or sudden decisions to end the relationship, highlighting their fear of betrayal.
Emotional Regulation Difficulties
Emotional regulation is another area where these attachment styles demonstrate both similarity and difference. Both exhibit difficulty managing their emotions, experiencing extreme ups and downs. Anxiously attached individuals often look to their partners to regulate their emotions, feeling out of control when they perceive any threat to the relationship. This can create a sense of urgency to fix any issues immediately. Fearful avoidants, while also struggling with emotional regulation, direct their fear more towards perceived personal threats. This can result in fierce anger and volatility, driven by a deep sense of personal danger, which differs from the anxious attachment's relational focus.
Low Self-Worth and Shame
Low self-worth and shame are core wounds for both anxiously attached and fearful avoidants, but they manage these feelings differently. Anxiously attached people try to compensate for their low self-worth by seeking validation from their partners. They believe that if they can get their partner to love them deeply, it will resolve their feelings of inadequacy. Conversely, fearful avoidant individuals often avoid intimacy to shield themselves from confronting their shame. They might push people away, adhere to a narrative that they're better off alone, or leave relationships to avoid getting hurt.
Navigating Personal Development
Despite these challenges, individuals with both attachment styles are often driven to seek personal development. The feeling of being broken or not good enough can motivate them to explore self-help resources and look for ways to understand themselves better. For anxiously attached individuals, this journey often emphasises finding security in relationships. Fearful avoidants, while also seeking to understand themselves, may focus more on protective mechanisms and building internal resilience.
Understanding the Differences
While there are clear overlaps, the differences in how these attachment styles handle anxiety, fear, and self-worth can significantly impact their behaviours in relationships. Anxiously attached individuals cling to closeness and relationship security, often to the point of self-neglect. Fearful avoidants, in contrast, might sabotage closeness and push people away to self-protect. These strategies can lead to misunderstandings and complicated relationship dynamics, often leaving both parties feeling hurt and confused.
Conclusion
The similarities and differences between anxious attachment and fearful avoidant attachment offer valuable insights into relational behaviours and emotional coping strategies. Understanding these nuances can help individuals recognise their patterns, navigate their emotional responses better, and work towards healthier relationship dynamics. Recognising these patterns is the first step towards making informed changes that lead to more secure and fulfilling interpersonal connections.
Questions for Discussion & Reflection
How do you tend to cope with anxiety in your relationships? Do you find yourself leaning towards seeking closeness or pushing people away?
Reflect on a scenario when you felt deeply hurt or rejected in a relationship. How did you respond to those feelings of abandonment or rejection? Did your response align more with anxious attachment or fearful avoidant attachment strategies?
Are there instances where you've found it particularly challenging to voice your needs or set boundaries? How did this impact your relationship and your personal well-being?
Think about a time when you experienced extreme emotions within a relationship. How did you manage these emotions, and what effect did they have on your relationship dynamic?
Reflect on your self-worth and any underlying feelings of shame you might carry. How have these feelings influenced your behaviour in relationships, and what strategies do you use to cope with these emotions?
Have you ever found yourself over-functioning in a relationship to avoid feelings of abandonment? How has this affected your sense of self and your relational dynamics?
Consider a time when you may have distanced yourself from someone out of fear of being hurt or exposed. How did this affect the relationship and your emotional well-being?
Reflect on your journey of personal development. What drives you to seek understanding of yourself, and how has this journey influenced your attachment style and relationships?
How do you perceive and deal with threats to your emotional safety in relationships? Do you notice any patterns that align with anxious or fearful avoidant attachment?
In what ways do you either yearn for validation from your partner or push them away to protect your self-image? How do these behaviours connect to your deeper fears and insecurities?
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Join the waitlist for Healing Anxious Attachment
Check out my couples course, Secure Together (& save $200 with the code SECURE)
Save $150 on my Higher Love break-up course with the code PHOENIX
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:29]:
In today's episode, I am going to be talking all about some key similarities and differences between the anxious attachment style and the fearful avoidant or disorganized attachment style. Now, I get possibly more requests about fearful avoidant attachment than anything else, which is saying something given that, a, I get a lot of requests about a lot of things, and, b, that the vast majority of my audience falls into the bucket of anxious attachment. But it is really one of those areas that seems to be maybe underdeveloped in online literature and content around attachment theory, and an area that I know a lot of people have an interest in and really identify with aspects of the fearful avoidant or disorganized attachment style. And I'm really looking for resources specific to, attachment style, and I'm really looking for resources specific to that attachment style, because it can kind of get sidelined a little in favor of anxious and avoidant attachment being the 2 dominant insecure attachment styles. And I think that's in part because it's thought to only represent around 5% of the population, so it's obviously the smallest category, although I am a little skeptical as to those statistics. But nevertheless, I am heeding the call in this episode today, offering some insights into the ways in which anxious attachment and fearful avoidant attachment differ. I did do an episode ages ago, probably 2 years ago, about dismissive avoidant and fearful avoidant attachment and the ways in which those two differ.
[00:01:57]:
So if you're interested in kind of that side of the street, you can search for fearful avoidant attachment in the podcast, and you should be able to find that old episode as well. Okay. So that's what we're gonna be talking about today. Before I dive into that, an announcement, today is the day Healing Anxious Attachment is open for registration for the 8th round of the program. If you were already on the wait list, be sure to check your emails for the link. And if you didn't make it onto the wait list but you are keen to get in on the early bird pricing, you can still join that list by submitting your email on my website. That should be all relatively easy to find. But, yeah, I would love to see you inside the program.
[00:02:36]:
It really is, in my mind, very worthwhile. Of course, I'm biased. I recognize that. But the 2,000 plus students who've been through the program in the past 2 years can also attest to its value. And so if you're someone who struggles with anxious attachment and you are ready to really commit to making a change and gifting that to yourself, I'd highly recommend that you check it out, and join us now that registration is open. Okay. So let's dive into this conversation around key similarities and differences between anxious attachment and fearful avoidant attachment. Now I do wanna say at the outset that this is far from being an exhaustive list.
[00:03:11]:
You know, I sat down and brainstormed 5 and stopped there because it was getting long and unwieldy, and I think it'll be a long episode anyway. But I could have easily kept going because, obviously, this stuff is multifaceted. And, you know, I also wanna say at the outset, be wary of labels and generalizations. Now that might sound a little bit, I don't know, hypocritical given that I am speaking about a body of work that has labels and categorizations as a key part of its framework. But I suppose more so a reminder that you don't need to fit into a box. So you might listen to this and go, oh, I see that aspect of myself here, but I'm more aligned with that attachment style over there. I have so many people saying to me, like, is it possible for me to be this? And really, anything's possible. Right? You know what your experience is, so don't feel like you need to decipher yourself, and make yourself make sense, in the context of any given framework.
[00:04:10]:
Rather, we're just looking to understand I've said this before, you might have heard me frame it in this way, how have I learned to keep myself safe in relationships? What are the strategies that I have learned to respond to the relational environment that I find myself in? Okay. That's really all we're talking about with attachment styles. It just so happens that most of the time, people will have a fairly consistent set of strategies that fall into a broad style or pattern. But if you feel like you mix and match and maybe is different in one relationship to the next or one area of life compared to another, none of that is something that you need to solve for. It's all just about recognizing the patterns that we see in our own lives, figuring out how they might be inhibiting us from experiencing the kind of relationships that we want, and learning ways that feel more adapted to where we want to go. Okay. So the first similarity between anxious attachment and fearful avoidant attachment is that they both experience high anxiety about their relationships. So that might seem fairly obvious, but, really, that is core to anxious attachment, obviously, that there's a lot of preoccupation with the relationship and a lot of, kind of, stress and anxiety around the relationship, and so too is that the case for fearful avoidance.
[00:05:26]:
So while it might not look exactly the same way, and there may be some more internalized anxiety among fearful avoidant attachment, both attachment styles will experience a lot of anxiety around relationships in a general sense that relationships are not safe. The origin story of fearful avoidant versus anxious attachment can be quite different, but there is this common thread of not being able to trust in the safety of relationships, and therefore experiencing a lot of anxiety around relationships, intimate relationships in particular, this sense of something bad's gonna happen. I can't really rest in this space of the relationship. Now where they differ from each other in this respect is that most of the time, anxiously attached people will deal with that anxiety that they experience around their relationship by trying to get as close as possible. Right? They're trying to eliminate any distance, any gap, any uncertainty. They try and pull their partner close and keep them there. It's very much a control strategy in terms of how can I soothe this anxiety that I feel? And for the anxiously attached person, control comes with proximity and closeness. For the fearful avoidant attached person, what you might see is more of a either hot and cold strategy.
[00:06:36]:
So maybe I deal with my anxiety by pulling you close sometimes and pushing you away other times, or it might be, more consistent distancing strategies. They might lean more towards that avoidant end of the spectrum in, you know, I experience so much anxiety, but the way that I deal with that anxiety is through pushing away, through isolation, through avoidance. Right? You'll not see that very often among anxiously attached people, that they deal with their anxiety by pushing someone away, and to the extent that they do push someone away, it's usually a test to see if that person will pull them back. You know, I say to you, I can't do this anymore, only so that you beg me to stay, and that's really what I'm hoping for. Whereas the fearful avoidant, if they're pushing someone away and saying, I can't do this anymore, they might really mean it in that moment because that is their self protective strategy is to push the other person away. Okay. The second similarity between fearful avoidant and anxious attachment is that both attachment styles will share some core wounds, and in particular, fears around abandonment and rejection. So this is very much at the heart of anxious attachment.
[00:07:39]:
You will have heard me speak about that before, this fear of abandonment, that the person we love is maybe going to leave us literally, as in leave the relationship, or just not be there for us when we need them, so we're going to feel kind of emotionally abandoned or dropped. This is also common among fearful avoidant attachment, although maybe it might be less front and center. And what's really key here is that, again, the way that they process that fear or work with that fear for anxiously attached people, the fear of abandonment leads us to over function, work overtime to try and, you know, do everything humanly possible to prevent that abandonment from happening. So again, really trying to keep our partner close. Whereas the fearful avoidant attached person might have such a profound fear of being left, being not good enough, being rejected, that they're much more inclined to adopt a I'm gonna leave you before you can leave me kind of strategy. So they might end the relationship because they're so convinced that if my partner sees who I really am, then they're gonna leave me anyway. So I might as well do that first and maintain this sense of control over the situation and avoid the pain of rejection, the pain of loss, and so they're more likely to process that fear through distancing, through, you know, I'll beat you to it kind of thing. That's very unlikely to happen among anxiously attached people, who, as we've talked about, very rarely initiate the end of a relationship.
[00:09:15]:
And oftentimes, if an anxiously attached person does leave a relationship, it might be to go to another relationship. So they they don't often step into the void just because they're unhappy in the relationship. Okay. The next similarity between anxious attachment and fearful avoidant attachment is both really struggle to voice needs, to set boundaries, to advocate for themselves in a healthy, secure way in relationships. So, again, we've talked about this a lot in the context of anxious attachment on the show. You know, that I'm just gonna try and be easygoing, people pleasing, approval seeking, trying to fit in, trying to be liked. All of that is well established in the context of anxious attachment, and you may see that as well in fearful avoidant attachment to a point. And I think that this is really the key distinction, is that whereas anxiously attached people will just do that indefinitely, over give to the point of burnout, and they just keep going and going and going.
[00:10:12]:
While they might quietly be resentful and quietly harbor these stories of, it's so unfair, woe is me, victimhood around, my needs aren't being met, and people violate my boundaries, The fearful avoidant person is much more likely to snap, so they give and give and give, and then they might have this big moment where they almost become enraged, and the other person is seen very much as the enemy, as the person who's taking advantage of me. So that person who they've been giving to, who they've been boundaryless in respect of, all of a sudden, they are seen as this kind of villainous character who's out to get me, who is trying to hurt me. And we can really see the fear of betrayal that so many fearful avoidants have coming up there and driving, oftentimes, a really big response to feeling taken advantage of. And that's, again, where there's a bit of a fork in the road between anxious attachment and fearful avoidant attachment is, you know, the fearful avoidant might have a big blow up and blow up a relationship, and that can be not just romantic relationships, but friendships or work, might have a big falling out with someone because this story of, this person doesn't respect me, they're taking advantage of me', all of those things can feel so big and so true and so threatening to the fearful avoidant, and that tends to trump whatever value the relationship had. That self protection drive tends to trump that. So we can see there that for the anxiously attached person, no matter how resentful they get, there tends to be this override of, the relationship is still my priority. Even if I'm really unhappy in the relationship, even if I do feel like I'm being taken advantage of, I might stay in it and try to persuade and convince and beg and plead with my partner to show up for me to meet my needs, all of those things, but it's likely to be in more of a kind of fawning way rather than a big fight response, which is what we'll typically see with fearful avoidant attachment. Okay.
[00:12:13]:
That leads nicely into number 4, which is both struggle with emotional regulation and can experience really big extreme emotions. So we know that for anxiously attached people, emotional regulation can be very hard, and there's this sense of, you know, I derive my sense of safety from the relationship feeling okay, from my partner being happy with me, and provided that everything's okay there, I can feel relatively calm. But as soon as I perceive a threat related to my partnership, I start to feel very dysregulated, very out of control, and feel this overwhelming sense that I need to do something in order to fix the situation. Right? It's like, oh no, I'm, you know, on the Titanic and hurtling towards an iceberg, and I need to do something urgently, otherwise everything is going to come crashing down, and the panic can ensue there. For the fearful avoidant, it's probably not quite as directly related to a threat to the relationship. It's more likely to be, I'm perceiving a threat to myself, and oftentimes the relationship will be that threat, or your partner will feel like, this person's out to get me, they're going to hurt me, they don't respect me. There's just some sort of danger that I can't put my finger on, and I need to do something. And that can feel very visceral, and again, very urgent, and can drive really extreme emotions.
[00:13:37]:
You'll often find for fearful avoidant attachment that anger very quickly becomes almost rage, and it's like this you know, very, very big emotional response and can feel like a lot of emotional volatility. And certainly, inwardly, that is what a lot of fearful avoidants will describe, that the internal sense of chaos and feeling out of control is really pronounced. So while they share that emotionality, again, and this is a common theme that you'll see in the way that they differ, is that anxiously attached people do tend to have this sense of, like, big emotions, but I'm using my big emotions to try and get through to you. I'm using my big emotions to try to convey to you how much pain I'm in, in the hope that, you know, you'll change your behavior and you'll see me and everything will be fine again. Whereas, for someone with fearful avoidant attachment, the big emotions can just be kind of unbridled expression of fear, rage, overwhelm, whatever it might be. But it's typically not in this sense of I need to express my feelings, but ultimately in a way where I'm still trying to bring you closer. Again, it really might just be, like, a blowout of emotion and a really strong feeling of this person is my enemy. It's not so calculated, almost, in the way that it can be with anxious attachment of, I'm I'm trying to get through you.
[00:14:57]:
I'm still even though I'm so angry at you, you're so upset or inconsolable, I'm still really, like, yearning for you to wrap me up and tell me everything's gonna be okay and that you love me and you understand. It's not like trying to get validation from them. It is really just pure anger, and it's much more driven from this place of feeling personally threatened by the other. That makes sense when we consider the context, the kind of origin story of fearful avoidant attachment, which is typically the people closest to me were also threatening in some way, so there is this real internal struggle around trusting in the person that we love most. Okay. And the 5th and final similarity and difference is that both anxiously attached people and fearful avoidance will typically struggle with low self worth and shame. So a sense of there being something wrong with me, but fearful avoidance in particular will usually have some sort of story, whether it's front of mind or not, that they're broken, that they're bad, that they're defective, there's something wrong with them, and that can obviously drive a lot of behaviors in relationship. We've talked about that a lot on the podcast before.
[00:16:05]:
So that's a common thread that anxiously attached people and fearful avoidants will share. As a little side note, this is also perhaps what drives both attachment styles to typically be seekers, I would say, of, like, trying to understand themselves. That feeling of brokenness, there's something wrong with me, why is everything so hard for me, can often drive us to look for answers, and so anxiously attached people and fearful avoidants will often be very geared towards personal development and that kind of stuff, because they do have this hunger to understand themselves. Now, where they differ in terms of this low self worth and shame is, I think anxiously attached people, again, common theme here, try to make that feeling go away by trying to get someone to love them and choose them. So, if I can get my partner to really love me, you know, I can be the best partner in the world, and, you know, my partner will think that I'm amazing and will live happily ever after, then I won't have to feel unworthy and unlovable. I won't have to come into contact with that shame because I will have resolved it via getting someone to want me. Right? That tends to be the anxious attachment story, whether it's conscious or not. There's this sense of the way to resolve that wound within me that I am not good enough is to make someone think that I am good enough.
[00:17:27]:
And if I get that validation from them, then maybe I don't have to feel that way anymore. Whereas for the fearful avoidant, I think it's more likely that you'll see someone who struggles with shame and low self worth pushing away anything and anyone that might bring them into contact with that shame. So because the shame is so powerful and so overwhelming, and they're perhaps a little less inclined to attach to people and outsource all of their self worth to what one other person thinks of them, they tend to be a little bit more protective of their self image. That's the the avoidance streak coming in. You might find a fearful avoidant saying things like, I don't want to hurt you, you deserve better than me, or I'm better off alone because all I do is hurt people, I'm so broken, I'm so messed up. It's just best that I don't try in the first place, whereas anxiously attached people pretty much always gonna try and keep trying and keep trying and keep trying, because they do just have such a strong blueprint that, like, love is the answer, relationships are the answer. And no matter how broken they feel with respect to relationships, there is just this very, very strong imperative within them to seek out relationships and to feel comforted by intimate partnerships. Whereas, I think the fearful avoidant is more likely, of course, this isn't going to be true in every single case, but more likely to defend against those feelings of low self worth and shame by blocking intimacy, blocking closeness, whether that's through kind of staying away from relationships, more serious ones, or sabotaging them as they get more serious, more intimate, all of those things, they can just be more of a reluctance to go down a path that would require them to come into contact with that shame and that low self worth. So they may have stronger defenses against that rather than deploying the anxious strategy of just getting someone so close and trying to resolve it through relationship in in a sense of getting someone else to convince me of my worth. Okay. So those were 5 similarities and differences between fearful, avoidant, and anxious attachment. As I said, I feel like I could keep going easily with another 5, maybe I'll have to do a part 2 of this one. Let me know if this has been helpful, and I will certainly consider doing a follow-up or elaborating on these topics because I know, as I said, that there is a lot of interest in it and a lot of appetite for more content on fearful avoidant attachment. So do be sure to let me know if this was helpful. You can send me a message on Instagram.
[00:20:02]:
You can if you're listening on Spotify, you can leave little comments underneath individual episodes. And I should say, if you are someone who identifies maybe partly with anxious attachment, partly with fearful avoidant attachment. I always get questions when I'm launching Healing Anxious Attachment, my program, can you take that program if you're more fearful avoidant? I get that question so much that it's actually in the FAQs on the registration page. In short, I've had a lot of people take healing anxious attachment who either at the outset or, you know, partway through realize that they identify more with fearful avoidant. My honest answer is it's a course for anxiously attached people, and all of the examples are geared towards anxious attachment. But the core tools and practices that I teach in the program are the same ones that I'd be teaching for fearful avoidant attachment. So things like nervous system regulation, things like reprogramming of core beliefs, communication skills, boundaries, all of this stuff is common among the healing process for any insecure attachment style, I would argue. So there's certainly a lot of value still in the program to be gained by someone who maybe identifies more with fearful avoidant attachment, but you may just find that the examples don't fully land with you because they're speaking to the anxious attachment experience.
[00:21:18]:
And as we've talked about today, there are some key points of difference, particularly in how you respond to the fear. So while you might identify with the fear, the way that you, you know, have learned to deal with it might be slightly different. Okay. So thank you so much for joining me. Again, really hope that this has been helpful, and do let me know if it has been. But otherwise, I look forward to seeing you again next week. Thanks, guys.
[00:21:42]:
Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment. If you wanna 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 5 star rating. It really does help so much. Thanks again for being here, and I hope to see you again soon.
Keywords from Podcast Episode
On Attachment, attachment styles, relationship coach, Stephanie Rigg, insecure attachment, anxious attachment, fearful avoidant attachment, disorganized attachment, attachment theory, healing anxious attachment, relationships, intimacy, emotional regulation, boundaries, self worth, abandonment, rejection, origin story, personal development, low self worth, shame, nervous system regulation, reprogramming core beliefs, communication skills, people pleasing, core wounds, trust issues, emotional volatility, control strategies, relational anxiety, attachment patterns.
#154 4 Reasons You Keep Attracting Situationships
In today's episode, we’re exploring the common patterns and beliefs that lead people into situationships — those ambiguous, frustrating "almost-relationships" that never quite become something more.
In today's episode, we’re exploring the common patterns and beliefs that lead people into situationships — those ambiguous, frustrating "almost-relationships" that never quite become something more.
If you’ve ever found yourself stuck in a situationship and wondered why it keeps happening, this episode is for you. We'll dive into four key reasons why you might be attracting these kinds of connections and how to start breaking free from the cycle. Specifically, we'll cover:
How a fear of rejection stops you from expressing your desires
The saviour complex and trying to change the emotionally unavailable person
The tendency to prioritise chemistry over true compatibility and authentic connection
Tolerating situationships out of a fear that you can't do any better
If you’re tired of finding yourself in situationships, this episode will help you identify the underlying beliefs and behaviors contributing to the pattern. You'll learn practical steps to start attracting the kind of relationship you truly want.
Discovering the Root Causes: Why You Keep Attracting Situationships
Navigating the modern dating world can be a labyrinthine ordeal, especially when one continually finds themselves caught in the limbo of situationships. While a situationship may initially seem like a dynamic, casual arrangement, it often lacks crucial foundational elements like trust, commitment, and clear intentions. This grey zone can leave individuals feeling used, frustrated, and perplexed as to why such patterns keep recurring in their love lives. Let’s delve into four core reasons why one might keep attracting situationships and, more importantly, how to break free from these cycles.
1. Fear of Rejection
A profound fear of rejection can drive individuals to avoid directly communicating their desires and expectations within a relationship. This is especially true for those with anxious attachment patterns. The fear often stems from a deep-seated worthiness wound, leading to a reluctance to express genuine needs for fear of being rebuffed. Instead, one might skirt around important conversations, relying on indirect methods to gauge the other person's interest.
When the avoidance strategy is in play, there's a tendency to tiptoe around defining the relationship, creating an environment ripe for a situationship. Cultivating a strong sense of self-worth and being comfortable with potential rejection can significantly alter this dynamic. Being upfront about what one wants might be daunting, but it is a crucial step towards attracting a partnership that aligns with one’s true desires.
2. Hope of Change
A common mindset trap is the belief that if one can just hold on and be patient, the other person will eventually change their stance and commit. This often aligns with the archetype of the "rescuer," who believes that with enough love and understanding, they can bring about a transformation in their partner. Many fall into the fallacy of thinking that persistence will eventually yield the relationship they fantasise about.
However, trying to love someone into availability rarely works and often leaves one feeling inadequate and frustrated. It's crucial to recognise the patterns and acknowledge that meaningful change comes from within the other person, not from external pressure or persistent efforts. Trust that there are individuals who are already available and eager for the type of committed relationship you seek.
3. Prioritising Chemistry Over Compatibility
While chemistry can undeniably ignite the initial stages of a relationship, it shouldn't overshadow essential elements like compatibility and consistent connection. Some may get swept up in the intoxicating allure of chemistry, overlooking red flags or misalignments in core values and goals.
It's essential to balance the heady rush of chemistry with a clear-eyed assessment of whether the relationship meets other fundamental needs. Consistency, reliability, and mutual respect must complement the excitement chemistry brings. An awareness of this tendency allows one to make more discerning choices, leading to healthier and more fulfilling relationships.
4. Fear of Being Alone
A fear of being alone can propel individuals to stay in unsatisfying situationships. The thought of facing solitude or the perception of repeated 'failed relationships' can be too daunting, leading to a compromise on one’s standards and desires. One might cling to a connection that is clearly unfulfilling, simply because it feels better than being without any companionship.
Learning to appreciate and enjoy one's own company can be transformative. It provides a solid foundation of self-worth and makes it easier to walk away from a relationship that doesn't serve one’s needs. Remember, it's better to be alone than to be with someone who makes you feel more isolated than solitude ever could.
Moving Forward: Creating Healthy Relationship Patterns
Understanding these underlying reasons for attracting situationships is the first step in transforming relationship dynamics. Here are a few actionable steps to help move towards healthier, more fulfilling relationships:
Communicate Directly: Practice clear and honest communication about your needs and expectations from the outset. This not only sets the tone for the relationship but also filters out those who are not on the same page.
Self-Worth Work: Engage in activities and practices that bolster your self-esteem. Whether it’s through therapy, self-help resources, or support groups, strengthening your sense of worthiness is pivotal.
Value-Based Choices: Make a conscious effort to prioritise compatibility and mutual respect over fleeting chemistry. Write down what core values are non-negotiable for you and use this as a guide.
Embrace Solitude: Learn to enjoy your own company and view time spent alone as an opportunity for personal growth, rather than something to fear. This can break the cycle of settling for less than you deserve.
Breaking free from the cycle of situationships requires a combination of self-awareness, consistent practice, and often, a shift in mindset. By addressing the root causes and making deliberate, informed choices, it is entirely possible to cultivate relationships that are healthy, committed, and deeply fulfilling.
Questions for Discussion & Reflection
Reflect on your experiences in situationships. Do you see a pattern of behaviour or choices that might be contributing to this dynamic? How do these patterns relate to your sense of self-worth?
Do you find yourself avoiding direct conversations about your relationship goals out of fear of rejection? How has this avoidance impacted your relationships?
How often do you feel tempted to "rescue" or "change" your partner in hopes of creating the relationship you desire? Reflect on moments where this has or hasn’t worked in your favour.
When it comes to chemistry versus compatibility, which do you find yourself prioritising more? How has this emphasis influenced the types of relationships you attract?
Can you identify times when you stayed in a relationship because you feared being alone or felt that having some connection was better than none? How did that affect your overall well-being?
Think about a past relationship where you accepted less than you deserved. What beliefs about yourself were underlying your decision to stay in that relationship?
How do you currently approach the ending of a relationship or situationship? Do you find yourself internalising blame or feeling like a failure? Reflect on how this affects your self-esteem and future relationships.
Are you aware of any signs of emotional unavailability in the people you attract? What steps could you take to ensure you only pursue connections that align with your relationship goals?
Reflect on a time when you clearly communicated your needs and desires in a relationship. How did it feel, and what was the outcome? What does this teach you about the importance of self-advocacy?
What does a healthy, committed, and secure relationship look like to you? Write about the characteristics and values you want in this type of relationship, and reflect on whether your past choices align with these ideals.
Use these prompts to deepen your understanding of your attachment patterns and uncover ways to cultivate healthier, more fulfilling relationships.
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Join the waitlist for Healing Anxious Attachment
Check out my couples course, Secure Together (& save $200 with the code SECURE)
Save $150 on my Higher Love break-up course with the code PHOENIX
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:28]:
In today's episode, we are talking all about situationships, and specifically four reasons why you keep attracting situationships into your life. Now for anyone who's not familiar with the term situationship, a situationship could sort of be defined as when you're dating someone and it's more than just a casual encounter. Maybe you've seen each other regularly and you talk a lot and, you know, it sort of starts to feel like a relationship, but it lacks, you know, those core features of maybe exclusivity or maybe you haven't talked about anything formal like that, and there's this reluctance to put a label on it. And so the relationship just sort of drifts on, without, you know, any of the foundational elements like trust and commitment and clarity, that really allows something to feel like an actual relationship. So it exists in this in between space, this limbo between something and nothing. And unfortunately, you know, from speaking to so many people, this is a really common trope of modern dating, and it's something that I think some people more than others are susceptible to.
[00:01:46]:
And that's really what we're going to be talking about today because as much as we can throw our hands up and say, why me? This is so unfair. Everyone is emotionally unavailable and all I want is a committed, healthy, secure relationship. But, you know, when it keeps happening again and again and again, it's just not really honest to suggest that we don't have a part in it. You know, that's really a common theme in everything that I share and teach, is taking responsibility for the ways in which we are creating our own destiny, be that for better or worse. So if you are someone who notices that you keep ending up in these, you know, in between noncommittal relationships where you feel like the other person is taking a lot but maybe not giving much in return, rather than just villainizing them and playing into a story where you are the victim of, you know, everyone being emotionally unavailable in the modern dating world. We're going to be looking today at some of the ways that you might be you know, unknowingly and unintentionally perpetuating those dynamics, and what you can do to shift away from those things, and really deliberately only make yourself available for the kinds of connections that really appeal to you and that are, you know, taking you in the direction that you really want to be going, rather than wasting your time, with things that ultimately feel like a bit of a dead end. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. Before I dive into that, a reminder if you've listened the past couple of weeks, you would know that Healing Anxious Attachment is coming back.
[00:03:19]:
So in less than a week I will be opening registration to early bird folks on the waitlist. This is round 8 of the program. It's one that I'm really excited for. I'm going to be including more of a live component than I have in recent times. In my experience with running the Secure Self Challenge, which you might have heard me talk about or maybe you participated in, it's really made clear to me how important that community aspect is. And so for this round, and likely for future rounds of Healing Anxious Attachment, I'm really going to be putting more of an emphasis on that community and life component. So we're going to have a community space as well as several live calls with me where you can connect and ask questions, to really make sure that you have not only accountability, but support as you go through the program. And I think that that can be really helpful for folks.
[00:04:13]:
I know that moving through an online course, can feel a little bit lonely at times and maybe hard to motivate yourself to stay on track with, so hopefully these little tweaks to how I'm going to be running the program will really help you with that. So if you're interested, please do jump on the wait list. The wait list is just there to, guarantee you access to early bird pricing and ensure that you can save your seat when doors open in less than a week's time. So, do that via my website, or the link is there in the show notes underneath this episode. Okay. So let's talk about situationships and some of the reasons why you might find yourself in these relationships again and again and again. So the first reason is that you have a really deep fear of rejection, and so you avoid directly communicating about what you want and where things are at. So I think this is probably true for a lot of people with more anxious attachment patterns is that, you know, coupled with that fear of abandonment is that fear of rejection.
[00:05:21]:
And I'd say the common thread there is that worthiness wound, this sense of not being good enough, not being, you know, desirable, attractive, smart, funny, whatever. We don't really see our own value, and so we really, really fear someone else confirming our perception of ourselves, which to me is really what lies at the heart of a fear of rejection is, you know, I already reject myself so deeply, and so if you don't want me, then that acts as confirmation of all of my greatest fears that I am, you know, not worthy of being wanted or chosen by anyone. And so, oftentimes, when that's the base layer, when that's what's sitting underneath, you know, our behaviors and what's driving us, when we're dating, we tend to pursue more indirect ways of gathering information, of scoping out whether someone's interested. You know, we avoid just directly saying, hey, here's what I'm looking for. Are you looking for the same thing? For fear that the answer will be no, and then we'll take that to mean something about us at a really fundamental level that, you know, if we were otherwise, if we were someone else better, then they would want more of a relationship, then they would want to commit. And again, this is just such a fallacy. It's such a signal. You should really if you have those sorts of internal thoughts, that's a really good sign that you have some worthiness stuff going on and that it's driving this, you know, indirect pattern, where you're afraid to advocate for yourself for something as simple as, like, what am I looking for in a relationship? You know, avoiding those sorts of questions.
[00:07:03]:
And I hear this all the time from people saying, like, when is it too soon to start asking someone? We've been, you know, texting for 4 months, and we've only met up once. You know, how should I navigate this? Am I being too needy? It's really important to understand that your reluctance to just come out and say, here's what I'm available for, here's what I'm not available for, that is where your dysfunction meets theirs. So you're like, yes, this person might be, quote, unquote, emotionally unavailable. They might be, you know, taking advantage of the situation. They might be, you know, only available to sleep with you, but not to actually spend time with you or get to know you or other things like that. But you're participating in it, and you're tiptoeing around them because you don't want to be rejected. You don't want to lose the connection, and that lack of directness, that fear of actually just saying, here's what I want, and being really comfortable with the fact that they might want something else, and that doesn't mean anything about you. You might be disappointed if they want something other than what you want.
[00:08:09]:
That might be a shame, but it doesn't mean that, you know, no one's ever going to want you or want the same thing as you. So really look at that and go, Am I tiptoeing? Am I avoiding a conversation for fear of what that might uncover? And just remind yourself that if they don't want the same thing as you, that's going to become apparent sooner or later. And so do I want to be wasting my time, you know, trying to turn this into something that it's never going to become, so that I can feel good about myself or feel like I've won in some way? I think that that's a very easy path to go down when we struggle with self worth, but it is not going to lead you to the kind of relationship that you want. It's likely going to lead you, round and round in circles of frustration and overwhelm and confusion and doubt, and that's not what we want our relationships to be characterized by. And this leads me really nicely into the second reason why you might find yourself in situationships again and again and again. And that is that you convince yourself that if you can just hold on, then, you know, over time you'll be able to influence them to, you know, choose you, to want you. Like, if you can kind of sink your teeth in, then eventually they'll change their mind. So even if at the start they say, I'm not really looking for a relationship, but then, you know, they keep messaging you and you keep meeting up and sleeping together or whatever it might be, but it stops short of anything more committed than that, you might be telling yourself, like, oh, well, I'll just take, you know, this watered down version for now, but if I can spend more time with them and, you know, be really loving and thought full, then they'll see how valuable I am, and surely they will change their mind.
[00:10:00]:
Right? If I can just, like, love them into availability, then everything will be good. Again, I think we can really fall into this trap when we have, you know, not only the unworthiness thing, but when we have that, like, rescuer streak in us. We tell ourselves that we are gonna be the one to change them, to save them. You know, we understand their unavailability, and if they could just open up to us and be vulnerable with us, we'll hold space for them, and they'll feel so seen, and then they'll really see the value in us, and all of that savior complex kind of stuff that we can get stuck in. Again, I say this not from a place of, you know, blaming or shaming. I am very susceptible to this myself, as is anyone who has that combination of a worthiness wound with really strong emotional attunement. It's very easy to put ourselves in that role of coach and therapist and think that we can, you know, transform someone. We can be the inspiration for their big metamorphosis into the version of themselves that they could become if they, you know, sorted all of their intimacy fears out or whatever it might be.
[00:11:12]:
Trust me when I say that that is not again, it's not a role you want to play. It's not a road you want to walk down, because you'll always know deep down that even if that works in the sense that, you know, they change their mind, you'll know that it was because you had to convince them in this insidious kind of way. So don't fall into that trap of trying to, you know, convert someone, persuade them, influence them into being available for a relationship with you. Trust that there are people who are available for a relationship with you who would jump at the opportunity to be in relationship with you, rather than feeling like you need to kind of steward someone into readiness for something like that. Okay? Alright. The third reason that you might find yourself winding up in situationships is that you're a sucker for chemistry, and you tend to prioritize chemistry over things like compatibility and connection. Now, chemistry is not a red flag, and I think that there's a lot of talk about this on social media. You know, we talk about chemistry as if we need to be really wary of chemistry.
[00:12:20]:
I don't think that's necessarily true. I think chemistry can be a beautiful thing about the start of a relationship, and it's really lovely to have good chemistry with someone. But we just don't want to be guided by chemistry and overlook all of the other things that might not be a fit. You know, we don't want to be like a moth to a flame, where chemistry blinds us to everything else that might be present or absent in the connection when those other things are important to us, in order to feel satisfied with, you know, pursuing something. So again, I think that among people with more anxious attachment patterns, there is this tendency to really latch on to, like, oh, we have such amazing chemistry. Oh, we have such an amazing connection. It would be you know, it would feel like a sin to let that go because whenever I'm with them or whenever I'm talking to them, I feel so amazing. You know, I feel like we just get along so well.
[00:13:15]:
We can kind of, you know, really over index on this chemistry thing as, like, oh, it has to mean something that we have this incredible connection. Right? Oh, they're so charming. Oh, they make me feel so, you know, special and seen and all of these things. Again, nothing wrong with that, but we really need to also be paying attention to, is this person consistent? Are they reliable? Do they want the same things as me? Do their words and their actions match up? If there's no substance underlying that chemistry or that connection, then we're likely to be led astray, and we're much more prone to ending up in these situationships, some approximation of what we really want, because we've gotten carried away by how good it feels when we are connected with them. And then we, you know, get stuck in that cycle of chasing the high and kind of frantically wanting to get back to connection. So, you know, if they're not texting regularly or, you know, they're available and then they cancel at the last minute, rather than seeing that for what it is and going, okay. This person's probably, you know, not really committed to spending time with me. You know, they're a bit flaky.
[00:14:27]:
They're unreliable. That's not what I'm looking for. We instead go, oh, what did I do wrong? Have I upset them? How do I make them want me? Do I need to work harder so that this discomfort that I'm experiencing doesn't happen again, and I can, you know, secure them and the time together so that I can, you know, turn this into something more? I think we really need to see things for what they are, and sometimes chemistry, or a really strong connection, can blind us to reality. So just be mindful of that. Again, this won't apply to everyone, and chemistry is not in and of itself a problem that we need to solve for or be suspicious of. Again, I get messages from people being like, do I need to worry if I have good chemistry with someone? No, of course not. But it is good to bear in mind that some people, and you'll probably know if this is you, chemistry can lead you astray, or it can cloud your judgment or cloud your discernment, around other things that may or may not be in alignment about the relationship. So, just be careful about that if you know that that's you, and if you know that it has historically led you to end up in situationships or relationships that aren't actually in alignment with what you want, what you value, and how you want to be treated.
[00:15:46]:
Okay. And the 4th reason that you might find yourself ending up in situations time and time again is you fear that you can't do any better and that something is better than nothing when it comes to relationships. So if you're someone who really struggles with being alone, again, this is all very much connected to that worthiness thing. If you think that just having some connection, even if it's really not in alignment, if it's not what you want, but maybe you don't think you can do any better, maybe you've really struggled with being alone, maybe you've had a string of, you know, so called failed relationships, not that I would use that term, but I know a lot of people use it about themselves. If you've had that kind of relationship history, and you don't want to feel like a failure again, and you don't want to face what it might mean about you to get excited about someone and then be let down or disappointed again, because you tend to internalize that and make it mean something about your worth, your value, your lovability, in those circumstances, you might just hold on and, you know, stay connected because the alternative feels too painful, too scary, too overwhelming, too uncomfortable to bear. And so again, this might feed into some of those other things we've talked about where, you know, I'll just hold on and then maybe I can make them change, or with time it will get better. All of those stories we might tell ourselves, and I would say lies we might tell ourselves, not always, but often, a part of us knows on a deep level that the relationship isn't right, but we either hold on or we keep going back for fear that, you know, it's it's the best we're going to get even though it's so far short of what we truly want. So you might find yourself, you know, holding on or accepting much less than what you want or something very different to what you want, because you don't want to be alone, or even if it's not about being alone.
[00:17:39]:
You know, I hear a lot of people say, I'm actually okay with being by myself. It's not that I struggle to spend time alone, but it's what we make it mean when a relationship ends, and we have to let go of the fantasy that we had about what it could become, and how wonderful it could be. I think that's where it really stings. That's where it really hurts and kind of gets at our self worth, and all of those voices in our head can get really, really loud where we worry that it's always going to be this way, and we're always going to be stuck in this cycle. You know, the great irony of that is that the fear of always being stuck in the cycle is actually what keeps us in the cycle, because we hold on then, and we accept less than what we deserve. So it can be a really vicious downward spiral, if we allow it to be. So a really important thing is to go, you know, I'm not going to continue to participate on these terms. I'm not going to make myself available for something that falls so short of my standards, you know, my hopes, my desires for the kind of relationship that I want in my life, and you really have to trust that more is available to you if you're going to make that call.
[00:18:43]:
Because of course, if we really do believe that nothing better is out there for us, then why wouldn't we accept so much less, right? So that is a big mindset piece, a big, you know, self belief piece that we do need to address at the outset, if we do want to really up level in terms of the quality and caliber of connection that we are attracting, and pursuing in our lives, in our dating. Okay? So I hope that that was helpful, insightful, maybe you saw some of yourself in those patterns. And you know, again as always, this is not intended to make you feel bad about yourself. Quite the contrary, it's intended to empower you to take responsibility, to understand yourself, always with compassion, you know, recognizing that much of this comes from some pretty deep wounds that so many of us carry, so it's not something that you need to beat yourself up about, nor is it something that you need to feel, you know, condemned to a lifetime of being stuck in that pattern. All of this stuff is able to be unlearned and we can, you know, learn more effective and more aligned strategies for creating the life and, you know, the relationships that we want, and that's really what we're doing here. So, sending you lots of love. If today's episode resonated with you, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a review or a rating, and definitely consider jumping on the wait list for Healing Anxious Attachment because everything that we've talked about today is very much in keeping of what we dive deep into over 8 weeks in that program. So I would love to see as many of you there as possible. Otherwise, thank you so much for joining me, and I will see you again next week. Thanks, guys.
[00:22:10]:
Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment. If you wanna 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 5 star rating. It really does help so much. Thanks again for being here, and I hope to see you again soon.
Keywords from Podcast Episode
situationships, modern dating, fear of rejection, anxious attachment, relationship coach, emotionally unavailable, commitment, self-worth, worthiness wound, noncommittal relationships, dating patterns, attachment theory, relationship guidance, boundaries in dating, communication in relationships, avoiding rejection, vulnerability in dating, trust in relationships, transforming relationships, emotional attunement, chemistry in relationships, compatibility in dating, prioritizing connection, avoiding loneliness, rescuing behavior, unhealthy relationships, secure attachment, online course, live coaching, relationship program