Why Anxious and Avoidant Attachment Styles Keep Finding Each Other in Relationships

Understanding Anxious and Avoidant Attachment in Relationships

I want to start with some honesty and a little personal disclosure. For most of my life, I have found myself in romantic relationships with people who showed some form of avoidant attachment. It happened again and again.

My current partner is much more secure in how they connect emotionally. At times an avoidant response still shows up, but it is rare. This shift did not happen by accident. We went to therapy together and worked intentionally on our relationship patterns. At the beginning of our relationship we struggled quite a bit, and I slipped back into my old anxious attachment habits. Getting to where we are now required patience, self awareness, and a lot of work from both of us.

Why I Kept Attracting Avoidant Partners

In many cultures there is a common message that relationships are supposed to be difficult. People expect emotional distance or inconsistency from their partners. There is also a harmful belief that people who fall on the more masculine side of the spectrum should hide their emotions or avoid expressing vulnerability. At the same time, people on the more feminine side are often labeled as needy or dramatic for sharing their feelings openly. Those beliefs create confusion around emotional intimacy. They also make insecure attachment patterns more likely to continue.

For a long time, I believed relationships simply worked this way. I did not know any other model for romantic connection. I just assumed I had to work really hard to get my partner to engage with me, so when I felt that in relationships, I moved toward it.

Looking back, I can see another important truth: a part of me believed I did not deserve stability, consistency, or loyalty in a relationship. Because of that belief, I was drawn toward partners who had strong avoidant attachment traits. I rarely felt confident that they were fully invested in the relationship. Their emotional distance made them difficult to read, and that uncertainty triggered my anxious attachment response.

The Anxious and Avoidant Attachment Cycle

When someone has an anxious attachment style, relationships can feel unpredictable and emotionally intense. I often expected something negative to happen next. I stayed on alert for signs that the relationship might fall apart. I recognize now that because I was familiar with that relational pattern, I gravitated towards it. Even though I didn’t like it, a part of me felt comfortable with the dynamic because I had the skills and behaviors to engage in it.

And because of the fear that I felt about partners eventually leaving, I tolerated situations that did not meet my emotional needs. I assumed there was nothing better available. I sacrificed my own desires just to maintain some form of connection. I can see this clearly when I consider the people I dated. I look back now and wonder “what was I thinking?! That person was not a good fit for me.” But before I did my healing work, I pursued those kinds of relationships anyway.

These relationships also had an addictive quality: I wanted the relationship deeply. When a positive moment happened, even a small one, it felt powerful and hopeful, and I somehow believed that everything would be fine moving forward. Then the connection would disappear again, and I would find myself chasing that feeling.

The obsessive energy that sometimes shows up in early relationships is common. What I experienced felt different. My thoughts were not driven by excitement or admiration—instead, I spent a lot of time feeling anxious and afraid. I worried they were losing interest, planning to leave, or being unfaithful. The emotional stress was exhausting.

When You Do Not Recognize Your Own Attachment Style

Another factor that made these patterns stronger was my lack of awareness about attachment styles. I believed my anxiety existed because of my partner's behavior. I never considered my own role in the dynamic, or the fact that I had any agency in how I approached the relationship or how I managed my emotions. Because of that, I gave away a lot of personal power in relationships. I focused heavily on my partner's moods, reactions, and decisions. My own needs and boundaries slowly faded into the background, which of course made me feel miserable.

Over time I lost connection with myself. When it came time to clearly express what I needed in a relationship, I struggled to identify those needs at all. I had participated in a relationship dynamic that simply did not work for me. What I know now is that if I had understood what was happening in terms of attachment styles and relational patterns, I would have handled myself very differently. I would have focused more on how I was showing up, I would have had better boundaries, and I would have defined my expectations more clearly (and stuck to them).

Reflecting on Your Role in Relationship Patterns

If you are currently in a relationship with someone who has an avoidant attachment style, it may be helpful to pause and reflect on your own attachment patterns.

This reflection is not about blame. Relationship dynamics involve both people. Looking inward creates an opportunity to understand how you show up in connection with others. It allows you to take responsibility for your own growth while protecting your emotional well-being.

You might start by asking yourself a few questions:

How do you usually behave in romantic relationships? Do you notice repeating themes or patterns?

How do you communicate your needs? Do you express them clearly or hold them back? When you do share them, what tone do you use? Are you already resentful and upset when you get to the point where you are ready to share how you’re feeling?

How do you feel when your partner becomes emotionally distant or unavailable? What is your typical response?

When your partner does offer emotional closeness or support, how do you react? Are you able to receive it, or do you push it away because you are used to disappointment?

These questions can reveal valuable insights about anxious attachment patterns, emotional triggers, and relationship expectations.

Healing Anxious and Avoidant Attachment

Relationships between people with anxious attachment and avoidant attachment can feel very challenging. Each person's coping strategy activates the other person's fears. Even so, I believe relationships can also be places where healing happens. I have experienced it personally and I have worked with many couples from an attachment framework. Does every relationship work out? Definitely not—but that’s true regardless of whether the anxious-avoidant dynamic is present.

Attachment styles develop through our life experiences. They are adaptations to our environments and to the relationships we formed earlier in life. No one chooses their attachment style at the beginning—but once we have more resources and awareness, it’s important to move toward healing and security. Each of us has work to do in this arena.

People with avoidant attachment did not decide to become emotionally distant. People with anxious attachment did not choose to feel constant worry about connection and abandonment. What each of us can choose is whether we continue repeating the same patterns or begin doing the work to heal them.

If we think about attachment styles as existing along a spectrum, there is always the possibility of moving toward a more secure way of relating. Secure attachment involves emotional safety, honesty, mutual respect, and consistent communication. Reaching that place requires effort, self reflection, and often professional support. It takes willingness from both partners to grow and to face uncomfortable emotions.

The work can be difficult, but building healthier relationships is entirely possible. As a therapist who has studied attachment for more than fifteen years, I have witnessed growth and change in people of all attachment styles and backgrounds. The right tools, support, and guidance make all the difference.

Warmly,

Elizabeth