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Avoidants Secretly Hope You Do THIS When They Stonewall

Channel: Chris Seiter
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUVGAzEKaBc

Reframes avoidant stonewalling as a self-soothing defense rather than rejection, arguing that avoidants secretly want connection and respond best to space plus gradual, low-pressure bonding rather than attempts to fix them on the spot.

Key points

The core wound and trigger points

  • Stonewalling is withdrawing/shutting down when overwhelmed or physiologically flooded; the speaker says people miss what triggers it.
  • The avoidant core wound is a need to maintain independence; commitment escalation (date, relationship, meeting parents, ring shopping, marriage, house, kids) forms a ladder of "trigger points."
  • Each avoidant has a different threshold for when their independence feels threatened.

Why the wound forms (Erica Kazar interview)

  • Emotional regulation is internalized only after age three, and only if a caregiver regulates the infant's emotions; by age three about 85% of the right brain (the part that creates felt safety) is developed.
  • Ocean analogy: avoidants grew up in "choppy waters" without a caregiver to bring them to "calm Caribbean" calm, so they learned to self-soothe and rely only on themselves -- a habit carried into adulthood as stonewalling.

Boiling frog and the real goal

  • Boiling-frog parable (acknowledged as not literally true): avoidants react to sudden change but tolerate gradual change.
  • Avoidants do want connection and commitment; stonewalling is a defense, not rejection. The goal is not to make them stop stonewalling but to create safety for gradual change and dialogue.
  • Cites John Gottman: 86% of couples using the "dreams within conflict" approach reach deeper understanding; the goal is dialogue, not solving the conflict.

Attachment is fluid; respond like a secure person

  • Wuthering Heights (Heathcliff anxious, Catherine avoidant) illustrates the destructive anxious-avoidant push-pull.
  • Per therapist Tara Spears, attachment is formed, maintained and reformed in relationships, not changed alone; an insecure style can move toward secure when paired with a secure partner.
  • KISS response: when they pull back, you pull back. The anxious move is to fix it immediately; the secure move is to give space.

The SPACE formula and tactical empathy

  • SPACE = Severity of stonewalling, Previous patterns, Avoidant comfort level, Communication attempts, Emotional climate; each adjusts a baseline number of days (e.g. mild 1-2, moderate 3-5, severe a week+). A worked example yields 8 days.
  • After giving space, reconnect using Chris Voss's "tactical empathy" and "labeling" (from Never Split the Difference): name the avoidant's feelings back to them (e.g. "I don't want to overcrowd you") so they feel understood.

Reception

  • Heavily skeptical and weary sentiment; many top comments reject the premise of accommodating avoidants.
  • Several note avoidants do not stonewall bosses, coworkers or friends -- only intimate partners where there is real risk of being hurt.
  • Recurring theme: this is the avoidant's own work to do; commenters frame stonewalling/silent treatment as emotional abuse and reject "coddling."
  • The 8-day space figure drew specific pushback as unacceptable in a marriage or co-parenting situation.
  • A widely praised long comment describes the anxious-avoidant "trauma bond" as chasing a chemical "spark" over a slow-building "fire," advising self-love and walking away.
  • Multiple personal accounts of being secure until an avoidant partner (often triggered by a milestone like pregnancy) turned the relationship painful.