Two Anxious (or Avoidant) Hearts Don’t Always Beat as One (Part 2)

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We’ll finish by describing how breakups reveal attachment styles, how to audit your attachment style, and how to move into healthier dynamics.

If you didn’t read the first part, click here.

Breakups reveal attachment styles.

The bitter end reveals what we couldn’t see before.

Avoidant patterns:

• Quick emotional disconnection

• Reluctance to process the breakup

• Rapid return to independence

For insecure relationships, avoidants see the breakup coming before their partner because they’re often the ones to initiate. They’ll stuff down their feelings for their spouse or partner long before the breakup happens.

This is when they check out.

And then they discard the relationship. As a result, the other person feels blindsided, but amazingly, the avoidant goes on as if nothing happened.

They will go out partying, socializing, hooking up, or whatever their go-to distraction is, meanwhile they’ll claim they need time to heal.

Sure, they may cry or get upset during this process, but it’s not from the pain of the breakup. It’s more like their inner child is feeling overwhelmed from finally confronting these situations.

Anxious patterns:

• Intense emotional distress

• Difficulty accepting the end

• Prolonged attempts to reconnect

I don’t know what else to say other than for the anxious person being dumped, this is an overwhelming situation.

Take the night my fiance left.

I remember it vividly because I was struggling to sleep before work the next morning. My mind wouldn’t let me rest. I was panicking and my body was in the fight and fight response.

Plus, in the following months, I lost a lot of weight from stress. And it took close to a year and a half to fully process everything.

How breakups shift suppressed attachment tendencies

However, when faced with real loss or boundaries, avoidants may:

1. Display intense fear of abandonment

2. Make desperate attempts to reconnect

3. Show uncharacteristic emotional vulnerability

4. Switch from distancing to pursuing behaviors