The 3 Core Values Most Avoidants Lack
Want healthier relationships? Time to start screening for these behaviors in your next mate
Avoidants don’t always have to have crazy, unstable childhoods to become allergic to basic decency in a relationship. Sometimes, some of us are wired this way.
But even so, regardless of what’s happened, they learned to disconnect from their emotions to avoid pain.
Or in some cases, they become emotionally one-sided. They might become masters at expressing anger or joy, but other emotions? Not so much.
Either way, full emotional expression and integration aren’t as natural for them as they are for others.
Severely avoidant people likely had parents who were not only inconsistent but also abusive, harsh, demeaning, and outright neglectful.
For example, a few of my severely avoidant girlfriends grew up:
Without a father at all or with an emotionally absent one
With a father who put them in dangerous situations, sometimes involving drugs or crime
Forced to be the “parent” in the household, taking care of siblings or even her own parents.
With unpredictable explosions of anger from caregivers, making them learn to “stay small” and avoid conflict
However, avoidants act cold and detached in romantic relationships because they’re afraid of being reprimanded for showing emotions or expressing a need, as if the same thing will happen to them as it did in childhood.
Children like this grow into adults who unfairly project those same fears onto their partner, downplay their needs, and pull away when things get close.
Avoidance is all about behavior, not labels, even though it has deeper, psychological issues.
The point isn’t to filter people out based on who they are, but rather, what they do, because, ultimately, you’re in a relationship with their actions.
“On both the positive and the negative side, ultimately what you value is what you will have… What you value determines the kind of relationship you most likely will have in the end.”
— Dr. Cloud, Boundaries in Marriage, pages 107 & 108
Ask yourself what you value in others. Especially relationships.
Someone can be a fundamentally good person while simultaneously having values or patterns making them poorly suited for intimate partnership.
So, it’s not a moral judgement or a condemnation of their character, but an observation or a reaction to something that doesn’t work in a relationship long term.
We can often make such judgements about one’s standard behavioral patterns in a relationship as a sign they are not “good people,” or even, conversely, excuse these behaviors because they’re “victims” of their past, and they “just can’t help it.”
We can empathize with where their avoidance might be coming from, but it doesn’t excuse or make their behavior acceptable.
So if you’re ready to find out what 3 core values avoidants, well, I hate to put it… but… avoid, then let’s start.