I know it’s not the story you tell yourself as an anxiously attached lover but, this is the hard truth… #anxiousattachment #avoidant #obssessed #relationshipcoach

I feel like so many people don't understand the complexity of an anxious and avoidant relationship. So do not make the same mistake. Anxious partners do not become obsessed with an avoidant because of their presence. It's actually the opposite. An anxious partner becomes obsessed with the cycle of the dopamine spikes that comes with the connection from the avoidant. It's because an avoidant comes on so strong at the beginning of a relationship which completely validates all of the anxious partners desires and wants and qualities that they require in a partner. But when it's withdrawn, what does the anxious partner do? They attach to the beginning to that beginning connection to that dopamine fixation and this is what they're actually obsessed with. The potential of that person showing up again and again and again and it's like a psychological game at that point. How much can I give for this person to come back? What do I have to do for this person to come back? What can I forgive or change or alter for this person to come back? It's not that they're unaware that this person is going to shut off and pull away. They already are expecting it. Of course the anxious doesn't want to admit it but it's like a challenge and it's an unhealthy one but it's one that they can quickly adjust to to say all right this is a way for me to prove myself and an invitation for me to teach this person love. The biggest mistake that the anxious makes in the process of this is thinking that you can teach and avoid it how to be in a relationship and how to remain present. You cannot love them into gaining those qualities but here's where the truth actually creates the real complexity. The anxious partner is fully aware of who this person truly is outside of their survival strategies outside of their nervous system dysregulation. The anxious partner knows beyond the potential. You don't understand is that the secure and regulated version of the avoidant is only a potential variant of their personality because it's very easy for them to become triggered and dysregulated and shut off because they're used to suppressing their emotions. They're used to isolation. They're used to pulling away in self-preservation. What the anxious partner proceeds to do is combine the potential of this avoidant partner with the actual person that they know is beneath all of the trauma and then their provider identity and their fixer mindset is in full activation for the duration of the journey. This is why it takes the anxious partner so long to become burnt out on the hot and cold and it's not that they're blind to the challenge itself. It's the fact that the dopamine feels so good when they're actually connected in their self-fulfilled that they crave it. The cycle becomes something that they're willing to welcome into the relationship as part of the avoidance identity but the greater issue is that this is a lose-lose challenge for the anxious partner because what you don't understand is that when you're in full activation chasing, over-explaining, over-compensating, giving, pressuring, pleading, you are constantly triggering the avoidant. Opposite of that, the regulated, secure version of you that knows when to kind of shut it off or pull away or set a boundary is also going to trigger the avoidant because now the avoidant partner has set these unrealistic expectations that you will remain someone that will always reshape themselves to fit the avoidance bubble to accommodate the avoidance emotions, right? So when you show up as any version of you that does not meet those expectations, the avoidant becomes hypercritical of that and that creates you into a character in the avoidance mind that does not meet the expectations. So for the anxious partner, you're not obsessed with this one-sided confusing dynamic or these amazing qualities of this avoidant person. You're obsessed with the dopamine high that's attached to the cycle of when they choose to give out of convenience and when you're challenged to show up when it's not convenient. Whether you want to call it people-pleasing or being big-hearted, it's just an opportunity to constantly prove yourself which will then validate yourself worth.