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how AVOIDANTS react when you PULL AWAY...!!

Channel: Guided Awareness
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gD-56Hg6L-o

The speaker, a therapist, claims an avoidant's reaction to pulling away depends entirely on the motive: strategic pulling away to win attention backfires, while genuine pulling away to create balance can actually draw an avoidant closer.

Key points

  • Anxious individuals learned in childhood that needs only get met by acting out ("tantruming"); they carry the belief that some behavior, including pulling away, is needed to get attention. The speaker says relationships are not supposed to work this way.

Strategic pulling away (to gain attention)

  • An avoidant may briefly react and try to resolve the issue, but over time senses the behavior is not genuine and reads it as dishonesty, control, or manipulation.
  • This produces a cycle: the avoidant gives momentary attention, then pulls further away each round, and the tactic works less and less until they leave. The anxious partner experiences this as a sudden discard.

Genuine, persistent pulling away (more common in fearful avoidants)

  • Example: a fearful-avoidant woman with body-image issues deactivates from touch; a dismissive-avoidant man reads her discomfort as rejection of him and feels deeply unloved.
  • This type is not a leave-cycle; the dismissive partner stays but stays emotionally wounded. Avoidants (especially male) associate bedroom activity with vulnerable connection, so disruptions there can trigger deeper withdrawal.
  • Fix: reassurance. State plainly that the withdrawal is your own issue and has nothing to do with them.

Momentary pulling away (can build connection)

  • If a secure or fearful-avoidant partner pulls back briefly, a dismissive avoidant may yearn for more rather than feel suffocated, provided you address it ("I was just busy/stressed, we are fine").
  • For anxious partners, easing off can add healthy balance: text fewer full play-by-play details, ask for reassurance less often. Too much detail can make an avoidant feel insecure ("do you like me more than I like you?"). Do this out of warmth, not spite, or the avoidant will sense the negative motive and leave.

Timelines

  • Loosening rigid timelines (e.g. marriage before 26) makes an avoidant more willing to commit, because they feel their choices matter. Avoidants rarely show how they feel, and dismissing their stated boundaries pushes them away.

  • Closing caveat: never stay with someone who mistreats you. The speaker says anxious-secure pairings often work better, and that anxious-avoidant pairings are possible but hard; avoidant-avoidant (fearful + dismissive) tends to work best in her practice.