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you might not know this.. but THIS BUILDS LOVE with AVOIDANT

Channel: Guided Awareness
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PttmNoZ6UnM

The speaker's core claim: avoidants need reassurance too, just in a less obvious spot than anxious partners; giving it (and easing off the pressure) builds love rather than being people-pleasing.

Key points

  • Avoidants need reassurance, but where an anxious person needs it (their stated need), an avoidant needs it exactly at their trigger point.
  • Relationships work through negotiation: both partners give up something and walk away partly satisfied, not fully getting what they wanted. Sounds unromantic but is common in successful relationships.
  • The common, "tangible" example: a partner anxious about their outfit just wants to hear "you look great." Avoidant fears are less direct, so their reassurance need is harder to spot.
  • An avoidant's classic trigger is timelines (e.g. marriage). They struggle to negotiate this; pushing it often makes them say "I can't give you what you want, we should break up."
  • Reassurance for an avoidant means signaling acceptance and removing pressure: "I'm not asking for anything right now, I love you as you are, I'm willing to see this through even if we never marry."
  • Speaker claims this is not people-pleasing IF you genuinely feel it; it is people-pleasing only if you don't actually want to adjust and are just appeasing.
  • You can still state your need directly once and negotiate it down (e.g. "maybe once a month"); you do not have to repeat it. Anxious partners over-repeat because as children their needs were only met after an emotional outburst.
  • Just by showing up, answering messages, and staying for a year-plus, an avoidant has already compromised heavily "behind closed doors"; their presence is itself a negotiation.
  • Speaker says when partners genuinely back off the timeline, avoidants often heal and later come around on their own (e.g. eventually agree to marry); claims to see this "all the time."
  • Two illustrative (admittedly made-up) cases: an anxious mother easing pressure on her dismissive-avoidant adult daughter, and an anxious girlfriend reassuring her marriage-averse avoidant boyfriend.
  • No one is entitled to love/connection on demand, even in a relationship; sometimes you must temporarily let go of a need until the partner is more comfortable.

Note: speaker presents these as a therapist's clinical observations; the examples are explicitly invented and no studies are cited.