Post by annieb on Mar 30, 2018 16:57:32 GMT
From the outside, "Avoidant" appears to be a good label for me. Perhaps I'm just trying to avoid the label, "Avoidant", but it seems to me that I might be more concisely labeled as, "Bonding-Challenged". I don't consciously avoid bonding with my wife rather, I don't know how to bond with her. My old reactions to her attempts to force a deeper emotional connection with me would result in my pushing her away and blaming her for being frustrated, hurt and too emotional. I was unable to recognize the problem in myself therefore it must be her's. She is/was an Anxious-Preoccupied and I am/was Dismissive as opposed to Fearful -- I'd push back but not run away resulting in a long lasting but unsatisfactory marriage for both of us but we didn't know why.
I'm pretty sure I didn't bond with my parents properly, nothing traumatic, most likely from their lack of basic emotional skills and before I was consciously aware of anything. Since neither of them was erratic or missing, I have no fears of being abandoned. From my limited viewpoint, I had a perfect childhood, no bad memories, few memories at all when it comes to a relationship with my parents. Perhaps, Fearful-Avoidants are a bit further along the spectrum of being able to express their emotions since they become fearful when presented with a bonding opportunity. In my case, I don't adequately sense my feelings and simply push back to avoid something I don't know how to accomplish or don't subconsciously feel comfortable doing.
I've noted other's postings, being they secure or preoccupied, that they wonder how their partners could have gone on so long in their relationships without telling them of their past, hiding their childhoods, not admitting to their problems, lack of growing up and immaturity, etc.,. Therein lies the heart of the problem; Avoidants don't consciously realize that they have a problem, therefore they rationalize the problems as belonging to their partner's. It's taken me a very long time to realize and admit that I'm the problem, my wife has her issues with being preoccupied but I accentuate her issues instead of calming and supporting her as a more secure person might do. You can't in my estimation, blame Avoidants for our disabilities nor expect us to magically own up to it.
Most marriage counselors and psychotherapists are of no use in the case of Avoidants as they either haven't dealt with us individually or don't acknowledge our existence. An Avoidant would never willingly go to a therapist as we don't recognize that there's a problem. How will the psychotherapy field learn to help Avoidants if they never see us? Most therapist's cookbook approach is to bond with the patient and then get them to share their feelings. Guess what, the therapy relies on two things that are most challenging for the Avoidant, bonding and accessing our feelings. So where does this lead; umteen different therapist, lots of money, frustration and little to show for it.
Much of this portion of the website is devoted to the partners of Avoidants, I see no other comments from other Avoidants. That's the way of an Avoidant, we wouldn't look at this site other than to figure out what is wrong with our overly-emotional partner? But this begs the question; If ~25% of the population is Avoidant, as has been speculated and there's no successful treatment for our disability, is it wise to leave us wondering around oblivious to our condition and passing on our bonding issues to the next generation? Shouldn't the therapy community recognize such a widespread problem and stop treating all of our issues in the same cookbook approach? If so many of us have an undiagnosed problem, ruining countless relationships, shouldn't someone look into helping the disabled and not just advise people to either stay away from us or dump us if you're already in a relationship? Seems like we're all hiding our heads in the sand hoping this epidemic will go away. From the looks of it, it's getting worse.
I welcome comments or questions from which ever side of this issue you come from.
Steve
