This is a complete guide to understanding why a fearful avoidant pulls away.

You’re going to learn,

So, if you’re ready to understand exactly why a fearful avoidant acts they way they do then you’re in for a treat.

Let’s begin!

Let’s start first with the traditional anxious person.

Anxious Attachment Style: This person typically requires a lot of attention and affection. They really like to feel close to their partners, it’s not uncommon for them to want to spend every single day with them. The core wound of them is that they have a fear of abandonment and being alone and so that’s what usually triggers their anxious behaviors in relationships.

Next we have the avoidant attachment style.

The Avoidant Attachment Style: They are a person that does not like a lot of emotional intimacy or vulnerability within a relationship. They typically revert a conversation back to someone else to talk about themselves to avoid the spotlight. Often that’s how you’ll figure out if they’re avoidant or not. Ultimately they are afraid of having a deeper emotional connection and it all can stem from their experience in childhood. They’ve learned that any time they are vulnerable, it can be used against them and therefore they don’t rely on other people.

Finally we have the fearful-avoidant attachment style.

The Fearful-Avoidant Attachment Style: It’s always best to think of a fearful avoidant as having a combination of both anxious and avoidant attachment behaviors. What’s really interesting about them is that a lot of time their partner (the person they are with) will dictate what attachment style is more likely to come out.

Let’s talk a little bit about that last part because I don’t see many of my peers peeling back the layers on this.

Imagine that your partner is a fearful avoidant and let’s assume you’re a pretty anxious person.

What behaviors will your fearful avoidant exhibit?

Generally you’ll start to see avoiding behaviors crop up.

The opposite is true if you exhibit avoidant behaviors in the relationship. In that case your fearful avoidant partner will start to exhibit anxious behaviors. In some of my latest articles and videos I talk about this paradox that lies at the heart of the fearful avoidant.

They desperately want a relationship but they are often too afraid to let someone close enough to give them they love they crave.

Many people who enter into relationships with them find themselves extremely confused because the fearful avoidant likes to get close to people very quickly. However, you’ll see that after a month or two goes by there’s this subtle pull back and they begin to freeze when commitment starts to exist.

So, what’s going on here?

Ultimately it’s that avoidant quality of losing their independency within a relationship, even though they have an anxious quality that drives them to have emotional connection.

The paradox is a doozy.

Above I briefly mentioned the concept of core wounds.

If you want to understand why each of the insecure attachment styles is acting the way they are acting understanding their core wounds is essential. Let’s start with the two basic ones and we’ll go from there.

So, the reason for all anxious behaviors from an anxious attachment style can be traced back to the root of this core wound of “I don’t want to be alone.” We see this a lot with our breakup clients.

Most of our clients tend to lean anxious while most of their exes tend to lean avoidant,

This means that every single time they do some crazy behaviors like,

The reason for that is that ultimate fear of abandonment. Not to say that being anxious is “bad.” On the contrary, Coach Tyler often will point out that anxiously attached people are some of the best problem solvers.

Of course, exactly like an anxious persons behavior can be traced back to their core wound so too can an avoidant person.

The avoidant is terrified of losing their independence and as a result they push people away in relationships when that person gets too close.

So, I hope you’re seeing the pattern here.

Every single action an anxious or avoidant will take is usually rooted in their core wounds. There is one odd exception though and that is fearful avoidants. This entire article is structured around the idea of helping you understand why a fearful avoidant pulls away.

Just take a look at their core wound, right?

Well, it’s a bit more complicated than that because the fearful avoidant has two core wounds.

Do you see now where the paradox comes into play with these types of individuals?

They contain BOTH the core wounds of the anxious and the avoidant.

So, how do you make sense of why they are doing what they are doing? Weirdly it’s best to look at your own behavior in the relationship with them.

If you were being particularly anxious then their avoidant side gets triggered.

If you were being particularly avoidant than their anxious side gets triggered.

So, to answer the question that this entire article is dedicated to. Usually if a fearful avoidant is pulling away from you it’s because you are triggering their avoidant core wound of, “I don’t want to lose my independence and I feel like I may be losing myself in this relationship.”

Without a doubt this is the number one question we get asked on our coaching sessions.

And here’s the truth,

There’s really not a whole lot you can do to fix the situation.

The “dating advice” industry has you incorrectly primed to look for a magic bullet. This one thing you can say or “text” to turn things around but according to our research the smartest thing to do is that when a fearful avoidants “avoiding” side gets triggered is to give them their space.

Here’s a few reasons why.

A lot of the times when an “FA”  has someone that comes in and tries to do a lot of things for them, they don’t feel deserving of it, because of the core wound that they have inside of them already.

So they like to help others, but they don’t like other people to help them. And that’s where the disconnect sometimes goes, where it’s better to leave them in their own space to work through whatever stress that they’ve gotten inside their head, because they make very emotionally based decisions.

They don’t make always the most logical ones. Then later, they figure out, oh, they were just overwhelmed.

And now they’re okay.

So a lot of the times you’ll see them recover within the next three to five days so leaving them alone is really a great way to deal with the situation.

Of course, it’s always easier said than done especially when many of our clients have anxious attachment styles. Remember above when I mentioned that the anxious attachment style is arguably the greatest “problem solver?” Well, I’ve noticed they tend to have an extremely difficult time with letting a fearful avoidant have space.

It literally goes against everything they’ve been programmed to do since childhood.

After all, they need to “fix this.”

If you think this is going to be you then here’s my best recommendation, find a problem or purpose you can solve outside of your partner and focus on that for a while. Lately I’ve been really in to helping my clients find their “magnum opus.”

Basically that thing that you want to be remembered for the rest of your life and by focusing on that, on something outside of your relationship and problem solving it, it might be enough to help you begin to exhibit more securely attached behaviors.

Which is what everything you do should be about.

We’ve actually had some success with this reframing of priorities.

Often in my success story interviews with clients you’ll hear them talk about the basic concept,

“When they pull back, you pull back.”

Essentially a much cooler way of saying, “I need to give my partner space.” What they don’t usually disclose during those interviews is what they are doing with that space they are giving their ex.

Psst… here’s the secret;

They are focusing on problem solving something that they feel gives their life meaning.

I suggest that’s the place you start if you find yourself in a similar situation.