Explore anxious avoidant attachment style, its signs, causes, how insecure, anxious, and avoidant attachment develops, and parents’ and caregivers' influence.
Have you ever noticed someone wanting closeness but then pulling away at the same time? That’s a pretty common sign of anxious-avoidant attachment, a type of insecure attachment that can make adult relationships feel messy and confusing. It’s like your heart wants connection, but something inside keeps holding you back.
This usually starts with how parents or caregivers met—or didn’t meet—your emotional needs as a kid. People with anxious-avoidant attachment might seek reassurance from their partner one moment and push them away the next. It’s that mix of anxious and avoidant attachment styles that can make close relationships feel like a constant tug-of-war.
Being in a long-term relationship with someone like this—or realizing you have this style yourself—can be really draining. Avoidant individuals often seem distant, while anxious partners may feel extra insecure. Read on to get a clearer picture and understand anxious-avoidant attachment and how it might show up in your relationships.
Anxious-avoidant attachment, also known as fearful-avoidant or disorganized attachment, is when someone longs for closeness but also pushes it away. It often feels like being caught in a cycle—wanting intimacy but fearing it at the same time. This pattern usually traces back to early experiences with caregivers, and those early dynamics can make it harder to develop a secure attachment or steady connections in adult relationships.
People with anxious-avoidant attachment often show patterns in their thoughts, feelings, and behaviours that can make close relationships feel confusing or challenging.
People with this attachment style may really want connection but get anxious or pull away when things feel too close, showing the tricky dynamics of anxious and avoidant partners.
Anxious and avoidant partners often act in confusing ways—one moment seeking reassurance, the next withdrawing—which can make relationships as an adult feel unpredictable.
Someone with this attachment style may struggle to trust their partner or attachment figure, which can make building secure relationships extra challenging.
People with anxious-avoidant attachment usually hide their feelings and have a hard time expressing their needs, leaving them feeling disconnected from themselves.
This attachment style may experience low confidence and a negative self-view, making intimate and healthy relationships more challenging.
Attachment theory explains how our early relationship with caregivers shapes attachment in adult and intimate relationships. Understanding these four main attachment styles can help people recognize patterns in their romantic relationships and work toward secure relationships.
Characteristics: People with this attachment style may feel torn between wanting closeness and fearing it, combining traits of both anxious and avoidant attachment styles.
Behaviours: They often show confusing dynamics of anxious-avoidant in adult attachment, swinging between seeking intimacy and withdrawing, and may struggle with trust and emotional expression.
Origins: This attachment style is often formed through inconsistent or frightening interactions with a caregiver, leaving people with this attachment style unsure whether their emotional needs will be met.
Characteristics: Individuals with a secure attachment style feel comfortable with intimacy and independence.
Behaviours: They can communicate their needs clearly, trust their partner, and maintain positive relationships as an adult, supporting healthy relationships and emotional closeness.
Characteristics: People with an anxious attachment style may feel anxious about abandonment and crave closeness and reassurance.
Behaviours: They tend to seek constant reassurance from their partner and may feel anxious or become clingy in intimate relationships, which can affect healthy relationships with anxious and avoidant partners.
Characteristics: Avoidant individuals tend to value independence and self-sufficiency over intimacy.
Behaviours: Avoidant partners may push others away, avoid emotional closeness, and prefer solitude or surface-level relationships, making it challenging to develop secure attachment or maintain healthy relationships.
Anxious-avoidant attachment (a.k.a. fearful-avoidant) is when someone craves closeness but also feels scared of it, making trust and intimacy complicated. On the surface, they seem independent, but emotionally, they often struggle with trust and vulnerability.
People with this attachment style tend to fear being overwhelmed or controlled, which creates a strong need for personal space and makes emotional vulnerability difficult.
When stress, confrontation, or emotional intensity surfaces, avoidant types usually withdraw or shut down as a way to protect themselves.
Avoidant attachment may show as a strong focus on autonomy and self-reliance, making it uncomfortable to depend on a partner or express vulnerability.
This is common in two attachment styles—anxious and avoidant—where people may alternate between seeking closeness and distancing themselves, creating confusing dynamics in romantic relationships.
People with this attachment style may want relationships but fear losing independence, leading to difficulties in developing secure attachment or maintaining healthy relationships.
Individuals with anxious or avoidant attachment often suppress their own feelings and struggle to respond to a partner’s emotions, keeping vulnerability hidden.
Avoidant individuals may find it difficult to trust their partner or empathize with their needs, often stemming from an early relationship with their parents.
Anxious attachment style tends to feel insecure and worry that any mistake could lead to rejection, reinforcing emotional withdrawal.
An avoidant partner may feel that personal needs, work, or independence take priority, sometimes at the expense of the partner’s emotional needs.
This attachment style usually creates a cycle where the need or desire for connection clashes with the fear of intimacy. Anxious and avoidant partners may feel frustrated or emotionally whiplashed by inconsistent behaviour, making it hard to develop secure relationships. Understanding this attachment style can help people recognize these patterns and work toward healthier dynamics in romantic relationships.
Anxious-avoidant attachment usually starts when a child grows up with parents or caregivers who feel distant or unpredictable. They learn to depend only on themselves, and that habit can stick around, shaping how they connect in adult relationships.
When a parent or caregiver isn’t always emotionally available, children learn to withdraw from emotion and hide their needs. This can later show up as a dismissive-avoidant attachment style, where people feel safer keeping distance in relationships.
Experiences like neglect or abuse can influence three insecure attachment styles, including anxious, avoidant, and fearful-avoidant attachment styles. This makes individuals with anxious attachment or avoidant types more cautious about trusting others.
Kids often develop a belief that they must rely on themselves and shut down their emotional needs. This attachment style may affect attachment in adult relationships and even influence how an avoidant partner may feel in close relationships.
Repeated experiences where emotional needs are ignored or rejected teach children that closeness is risky. Avoidant attachment style may favour distance, while anxious individuals may feel torn between wanting closeness and fearing it.
Children learn to comfort themselves instead of turning to others, which can make avoidant styles feel safer being independent. Over time, this can create a pattern where attachment style may feel distant or conflicted in adulthood.
People with this attachment style may experience anxiety about depending on someone else, even when they really want closeness in intimate relationships.
Even when they want closeness, people with an anxious-avoidant attachment style may push their partner away as the relationship gets more intimate, showing the tensions that can occur between the two attachment styles, anxious and avoidant.
This fearful-avoidant attachment style often creates a push-pull dynamic: wanting closeness but feeling safest when alone. It can make consistent trust difficult, but understanding these patterns can help people work toward secure relationships.
Avoidant attachment is a type of attachment often shaped in childhood when parents or caregivers fail to respond to a child’s emotional needs. In these situations, children develop an insecure attachment, learning that showing feelings or seeking closeness only brings rejection.
Parents who are distant or dismissive leave the child without comfort and reassurance. Later, this may echo in adult relationships where an avoidant partner may feel uncomfortable meeting emotional needs.
When caregivers ignore or criticize feelings, the child learns emotions are unsafe. As adults, these individuals may struggle when a partner has an anxious attachment and seeks frequent reassurance.
Phrases like “stop crying” or “toughen up” teach children to hide vulnerability. In intimate relationships, this often looks like avoiding emotional conversations with a partner.
While independence can be positive, overemphasis without warmth teaches children to equate love with self-sufficiency. As adults, avoidant individuals may prioritize independence over closeness, leaving partners feeling distant.
When parents or caregivers don’t really notice or respond to a child’s emotions, that child can grow up feeling invisible. Later on, as an adult, it can be frustrating in relationships—especially when a partner is looking for closeness that feels hard to give.
Harsh or shaming reactions to distress push children to shut down emotionally. Later in life, this often shows up as emotional guardedness in close relationships.
Children hide their feelings and avoid asking for comfort, seeing vulnerability as unsafe.
They take pride in independence, avoiding reliance on others.
As adults, they may appear distant, especially when responding to a partner’s needs in close relationships.
Children in this environment learn that emotional needs are not valued. This belief continues into adulthood, where avoidant partners may struggle to balance independence with intimacy, while anxious partners may become frustrated by the lack of closeness.
Being in a relationship with a person who has an anxious-avoidant attachment style can feel like being on a rollercoaster. People with this type of attachment want closeness but also pull back when things get too real. That push and pull can make intimate relationships feel a little shaky, especially over the long run.
You’ve probably seen this play out: an anxious partner’s need for constant reassurance meets an avoidant partner’s need for space. These attachment styles can lead to a cycle where one chases while the other pulls away, leaving both feeling frustrated.
People with anxious tendencies often become anxious about losing their partner, while avoidant individuals tend to shut down the moment things feel too emotional. It’s like one partner wants to talk everything through, and the other just wants to disappear until things cool down.
This type of attachment requires a lot of emotional safety, but with anxious-avoidant traits, trust doesn’t always come easily. It can feel like you’re never sure if the relationship is strong enough, even when both partners really care.
With different attachment styles in play, emotions can get messy. An anxious partner’s need for constant connection may conflict with an avoidant partner’s guardedness, making it extra hard for either person to feel fully seen or understood.
When these attachments tend to mix, the relationship often gets stuck between closeness and distance. Without some awareness and effort, patterns from preoccupied attachment or avoidant styles might keep partners from ever feeling like they’ve built a truly secure attachment.
A lot of anxious attachment triggers come from the fear of being rejected or left behind. Things like emotional distance, mixed signals, or sudden changes in the relationship can stir it up. Conflict, feeling dismissed, or when a partner pulls back can also bring on that anxious need for reassurance.
When a partner seems distant, distracted, or less affectionate, it might be interpreted as rejection.
Delayed replies, long silences, or inconsistent contact can activate anxiety and fears of being left.
Whether it’s a partner requesting alone time or being away for travel, physical separation can heighten insecurity.
Disagreements usually feel more threatening when the partner shuts down or pulls away during the tension.
Hearing statements such as “you’re overreacting” or “you're too sensitive” can feel like rejection of one’s needs and feelings.
Transitions like a partner starting a new job or moving to a new place can cause too much worry about stability.
Feeling like one partner is more committed than the other can set off anxiety.
Suspecting a partner of pulling away emotionally or being unfaithful can amplify anxious thoughts.
These core fears make even ordinary situations seem threatening.
Childhood neglect, inconsistent care, or abuse can create lasting patterns of insecurity, making it extra challenging to feel safe in adult relationships.
The good news is yes — with the right support, people can shift from an anxious-avoidant style toward secure attachment. Change requires self-awareness, vulnerability, and consistent effort, but it is possible.
Developing an understanding of attachment helps people recognize when patterns from this style arise in their relationships.
Therapy offers guidance in exploring how the attachment style developed and how it continues to affect adult relationships today.
Anxious partners may experience a need for reassurance, while avoidant partners may struggle with closeness — learning vulnerability helps balance both.
Being with a secure attachment figure provides stability, showing that intimacy and independence can exist together.
Attachment patterns may persist to show up under stress, but with action, people can gradually build healthier habits and develop secure attachment.
Anxious-avoidant attachment can make love and connection feel like a constant tug-of-war, where closeness is wanted but also feared. This style is also shaped early in life, often when caregivers couldn’t provide consistent emotional support.
Because of that, the attachment style continues into adulthood, showing up in the way people handle intimacy, trust, and vulnerability. An attachment may experience repeated cycles of pushing away and pulling close, which makes relationships feel uncertain.
Still, with therapy, supportive partners, and a better understanding of attachment, it’s possible to break those old patterns and habits. Over time, people can move toward secure attachment and build healthier, more balanced connections.
Attachment styles affect how people show up in close relationships, and each one has its own patterns.
Anxious attachment style: People often feel worried about being left, so they look for constant reassurance from their partner.
Anxious-avoidant attachment style: This is more of a push-and-pull—someone might want closeness but also back away when it feels too intense.
Fearful avoidant attachment style: Sometimes tied to disorganized attachment, this shows up as wanting love but also being afraid of getting hurt, which makes relationships feel confusing.
In attachment theory, an anxious attachment style is one of the insecure attachment styles that starts early in life and carries into adult relationships.
Caregiver influence: It usually develops when caregivers are inconsistent—sometimes warm and available, sometimes distant.
Core needs: People with this style really want closeness and reassurance from their partner.
Emotional impact: Things like delayed texts, silence, or emotional distance can set off anxious attachment triggers.
Relationship patterns: This can lead to overthinking and worrying about whether their partner truly cares.
Avoidant attachment style often starts in childhood as a way to cope when caregivers aren’t emotionally available.
Early experiences: Avoidant children learn it’s safer to keep their feelings to themselves because reaching out doesn’t get them comfort.
Coping strategy: They learn to hide their emotions and depend only on themselves.
Adult patterns: As adults, avoidant individuals may struggle with closeness, avoid sharing emotional needs, and keep partners at a distance.
Protective wall: Independence feels safer than risking rejection or vulnerability.
The good news is that attachment styles can shift—they aren’t set in stone forever.
Self-awareness: The first step is recognizing patterns of insecure attachment.
Therapeutic support: Talking to a qualified counsellor or therapist can help process old wounds and build healthier habits.
Healthy relationships: Having a partner or close friend who’s consistent and supportive helps rebuild trust.
Skill-building: Learning new ways to communicate, manage emotions, and ask for needs can move someone closer to secure attachment.
For avoidant children, their attachment style takes shape early, based on how their emotional needs were (or weren’t) handled.
Caregiver role: If feelings were ignored or dismissed, kids learned not to ask for comfort.
Learned behaviour: They shut down emotionally because it felt safer than being rejected.
Long-term impact: This often turns into an insecure attachment style that sticks with them into adulthood.
Relationship struggles: Later in life, they may find it tough to let people in or share when they feel vulnerable.
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