Fearful Avoidant Attachment Style

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Fearful Avoidant:

Afraid of being abandoned while also fearing too much closeness in relationships. The Fearful Avoidant (FA) can swing between fear of abandonment and fear needing to rely on others. They can be overwhelmed by their own emotions and express volatility in relationships. They often feel confused and exhausted by relationships, as relationships bring many of their fears and triggers to light. They crave for a depth of connection and yet fear/distrust it at the same time. They often experience many highs and lows in relationships. Fearful Avoidants tend to be hypervigilant, present with people, charming, likeable, generous in close relationships, nurturing, and resilient. They can be very deep and intense, hot and cold in relationships, suspicious, headstrong and extremist at times. They can often be “all or nothing” type of thinkers and tend to have big emotions.

Common Core Wounds:

• I am/will be betrayed
• I am unsafe
• I am untrustworthy
• I am bad
• I am/will be abandoned
• I am trapped
• I am helpless/powerless/out of control
• I am not good enough
• I am disrespected
• I am/will be unloved
• I am weak

Typical Needs in Relationships:

• Emotional Depth
• Passion
• Trust
• Presence
• Safety
• Novelty
• Growth
• Independence
• Freedom
• Intimacy
• To feel wanted

Typical Needs in General:

• Growth/opportunity
• To feel empowered
• To feel seen and heard
• To feel connected
• Respond well to criticism if it is delivered respectfully
• To feel understood by others
• To express their opinions
• To feel respected by others
• To feel emotionally connected

Behavioral Coping Mechanisms:

• Testing
• Withdrawing to decompress
• Stonewalling
• Spitefulness
• Criticism
• Emotional volatility
• Fight, flight, freeze and fawning
• Excess of ”creature comforts” (Ex. Binging on TV, food, gaming, alcohol, gambling etc. (Not always the case but can be common)

How They Handle Conflict:

• Oscillate from people-pleasing to wanting to stand up for themselves at times (under-expression to over-expression)
• Sometimes jump the gun/make assumptions about a situation before completely investigating it
• Can act from a place of panic and volatility at times
• Feel a need to “over-defend” themselves in conflict at times
• Can become spiteful if they feel hurt
• Ultimately once the dust has settled, they are often excellent at empathizing and seeing another’s perspective
• Like to handle things directly (approach-oriented > avoidant)
• Likely to put their need for approval from others ahead of their own preferred outcome at times
• At times will try to manage others’ feelings around conflict above their own
• Can struggle with guilt post-conflict
• Sometimes can be a bit too sharp with their words

Relationship to Boundaries:

• Often without boundaries in close relationships
• Eventually will become frustrated with feeling taken advantage of (partially due to their lack of boundaries) and at times lash out, feel guilty, go back to being boundaryless/over-giving
• May feel like they are good at setting boundaries but if you look closely, they are setting boundaries almost exclusively from a place of charged emotion/anger. This is different than being an empowered, assertive boundary setter without having to get angry.

Common FA Expectations:

• Nobody should ever break their trust
• No lying, ever
• Their romantic partner should be as giving as they are
• Their romantic partner should always respect their independence
• They should always feel wanted by their partner
• Partner should always make them feel wanted
• Partner should be faithful in thought, emotion, opinion, action