WHEN ANXIOUS AND AVOIDANT PARTNERS SPIRAL

https://www.youtube.com/@theschooloflifetv/community One of the most distressing of all eventualities in romantic life is when an anxiously attached partner and an avoidantly attached one end up, without in any way meaning too, and while there is still a lot of goodwill in the air, generating an unbounded vortex of panic and fear which neither of them understand and which they cannot pull themselves out of before matters collapse in a state of fateful hurt and distrust. Years after the event, after a few more failed relationships, one or either of them is liable to look back with complete puzzlement (and some regret) on the chaotic episode and wonder how and why things should ever have spiralled so badly. This is one kind of explanation. Within both anxiously and avoidantly attached people lies a distinctive and exaggerated core fear, the result of an unattuned and neglectful childhood - and a hugely unhelpful and outsized response to this fear. For the anxious party, the fear is: ‘I’m going to be abandoned and I won’t be able to survive the loss in any way. My entire being depends on the person I love’. And the accompanying response belief is: ‘I must therefore cling and protest and argue until the end in order not to lose my adored person.’ For their part, the avoidantly party’s core fear is: ‘other people can’t be relied upon. They hurt you, they betray you, they blow hot and cold, they don't have your true interests at heart’. And their response to this deep fear is: ‘I must therefore put up enormous barriers, say nothing - and disappear - or else I will be overwhelmed and engulfed. I am never really secure until I am alone.’ With such twin psychological mindsets operating beneath the surface, it is only a matter of time before one or other of them manages to unleash the other’s core fear and both will not notice that they have ended up in an insidious pattern of being violently scared and - simultaneously - violently scaring. We can imagine a situation where the anxious person calls on their avoidant partner and finds that they are, for whatever reason, especially distant or silent. Perhaps they’ve gone on a trip, or they are working hard, or they’re exploring a new way of being around their friends. Rather than responding as a secure person might (namely, by thinking: ‘I’d prefer that this person would be available but I can survive without them being so. My life doesn’t depend on anyone but me…’) the anxious person slips into their most arcane and insidious fear: that they cannot do without their loved one and that if there is no answer from them, they must start to grip ever harder. As a result, like the proverbial unskilled motorist who slams on the brakes on a turn precisely when they shouldn't, they keep knocking, they insist, they beg, they leave forty-five messages on the other’s phone - every hour. They can no longer in any way regulate themselves. All of which is of course exactly hellish - and truly shocking - for the avoidant person. In the face of such demands, which evoke the boundary violations and betrayals of their childhood, the avoidant person may feel no option but to stonewall. They can appear deeply sadistic as they withhold all signs of reassurance just when they are needed, but they are not trying to make the other person suffer. They are just terrified that they will be be annihilated by the noise and insistence. Both people have lost their reason. For the anxious partner, this is probably the first time they’ve ever allowed someone to matter this much. And for the avoidant one, this may be the first time someone has ever needed them this much. It doesn't feel good for either of them. What would be required at such moments is - of course - steadiness on both sides. The anxious party should remember that they are, whatever it may seem, no longer a vulnerable child but a resourceful adult. They can survive the loss of this person, were it to come to that. It wouldn’t be ideal but it would be eminently OK. They are far stronger than they think. And the avoidant party should similarly remember that they aren’t going to be overwhelmed as they once were, they don’t have to run away and could afford to speak a word or two. They have also left childhood behind. Unfortunately these two people, who are probably very clever and mature across all other areas of their lives (and perhaps very lovely too), can entirely fail to see what is at play. Both eventually withdraw nursing their wounds with the help of mistaken ideologies of love. The anxious one concludes: ‘I knew they would abandon me, people can never be trusted’. And the avoidant one concludes, with equal darkness and suspicion: ‘I knew they were too much, I have to be on my own’. Both may feel ashamed in ways they cannot quite master: ashamed that they were so cruel to their partner on the one hand, ashamed that they were so undignified with their begging on the other. In the face of such shame, they may fall for the comforting notion that there is someone out there with whom it could just be easier. They ignore that it would probably be a lot wiser to work through their childhood distortions within their established relationship rather than by searching for new difficulties (and trouble) elsewhere. But by the time any insight is reached, it’s likely to be far too late. The avoidant one may be deep in a state of numbness (it can be impossible for them to process what’s happened), their friends and perhaps even therapist may have got the wrong end of the stick (‘find yourself someone less intense…’) while the anxious one will have fallen prey to similar fantasies around alternatives (someone out there can love me perfectly, someone will spare me any feelings of doubt whatsoever…). They might even be vaunting the charms of new love - and believe in them, for now. A few lucky ones among us can succeed at love by instinct alone. The rest of us - who have come from more troubled places - have no option but to try to reach calm and steadiness through introspection, reading and a lot of inner therapeutic work, in which we strive with all our intelligence to untangle past from present, and separate out fears from facts. It can be the achievement of a lifetime.

Image: Tokyo, Gardens of the Imperial Palace