Avoidants are as sensitive to signs of not meeting your needs as anxious are to signs of disconnection.

An avoidant partner fears disappointing you as much as an anxious partner fears abandonment.

I recently saw a post from a big influencer account describing avoidant attachment as a red flag and a number of anxiously identifying followers agreeing with comments like "bye boy, bye". It really bothered me.

Not only because I have a soft spot for avoidants but because this attachment style is often misunderstood, with even some literature painting it in a bad light.

Both anxious and avoidant are insecure attachment patterns and neither is better than the other. Both are responses to a lack of attunement and coregulation, and each has its own set of difficulties as they try to protect themselves from getting hurt.

Because anxious attachers' hyper-vigilance is more obvious, it's less known that avoidants are also hypervigilant.

An avoidant is terrified of disappointing you, failing to meet your needs, or not being enough for you.

Getting the message that they're falling short, activates in them the belief that no matter how hard they try, they will never be good enough, and they will get hurt. And they may overthink their way to a conclusion that it's safer to be alone.

Now imagine this hypervigilance in combination with an anxious partner who requires continual reassurance, puts the relationship through unspoken tests, threatens to leave, and is nearly impossible to soothe.

An avoidantly attached partner's nervous system perceives this as far from safe and their coping strategies are activated, further triggering the anxious partner, and round the cycle, they go. The avoidant may then overthink their way to a conclusion that it’s safer to be alone.

With awareness and compassion for each other, all insecure attachment styles can work their way towards a secure pattern.

Let's be aware of our differences so that we can soothe each other's hypervigilance and co-regulate our way to feeling secure.

Sending all avoidants a lot of love.