Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / Not All "Avoidant Attachment" Is Avoidant Attachment

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Not All "Avoidant Attachment" Is Avoidant Attachment · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

0:06
Hi everybody, and welcome to the dr.
0:08
Psych mom show, today, we're going to talk about the
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difference between avoidant, attachment and personality level
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variables that make a person less willing to connect.
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And I think this is super important because attachment
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Theory much, like narcissism before it is tremendously in
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Vogue and that means that it becomes, you know, we start to
0:31
not to be able to think clearly about things and to think that
0:34
they are Cure-alls or you know, entire guiding philosophies and
0:38
everything you know has to be you know understood through the
0:42
lens of attachment and it's just not true.
0:46
So I'll be getting into that right.
0:47
After I tell you to subscribe, the most recent episode was on
0:51
highly sexual women, and alpha males and whether you really
0:54
want to be with them, and if you do, what you would have to think
0:57
about, okay? So, attachment Theory, there are
1:03
plenty of ways to understand. People attachment style is one
1:06
of them personality though is is even larger.
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That's a whole field that, you know, most of a lot of
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personality is genetically, you know, inherited and so
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understanding people primarily through their experiences with
1:25
their caregiver, does have its limitations because yeah, sure
1:30
everybody has an attachment style but you know, everybody is
1:33
in just an attachment. Judgment style.
1:35
And some of the focus on attachment Theory, makes people
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forget that there's like a wide variation and normal
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distribution of every every personality trait.
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And so some people just cannot be changed.
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The reason that this is so pernicious, is in theory, it's
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somebody who's insecurely attached and they had great
1:57
therapy and a loving partner, they would be able to grow more
2:01
secure, but, if somebody doesn't want to connect because of Who
2:05
they are as a person, their personality, then ain't nothing
2:08
gonna change that, right? No amount of therapy.
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And no amount of loving connection with an intimate
2:14
partner is going to heal them because they're not broken
2:19
their, they don't need to be healed.
2:21
They are just someone who doesn't really like to connect
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and so that used to just kind of be a thing.
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Like, there are some people that don't really like to connect,
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but nowadays everything is also seen through an Hurley therapy,
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heavy lens and I talked about that in my podcast, my
2:40
subscriber podcast, should everybody go to therapy and it's
2:45
great. You know that people like
2:47
therapy now so that people who need therapy can get it.
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But you know, nothing is, you know, everything in moderation.
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So the idea, I specifically see this with a lot of women that
2:56
date these avoided guys and women are more aware of what
3:01
somebody's avoidant because they're women.
3:03
They're more psychologically. Minded they've been reading
3:06
quizzes about like shit like attachment style whether or not
3:09
it was called that like in Cosmo and teen magazine since they
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were like you know 12 years old so women will frequently be like
3:16
oh yeah my fiance or my boyfriend is avoidant attachment
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but you know, he just needs to work through some stuff.
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He just needs to open up, you know, I think that was enough
3:27
like love and care. He's going to become, you know,
3:30
more securely attached, a lot alike.
3:34
I meet the guy. Guy or like we're talking about
3:36
the guy he's super high on sensation-seeking which is it an
3:39
element of Personality that is not something to be cured.
3:45
That is just how the dude is. He just likes like sensation, he
3:49
likes extreme sports, he likes travel, he likes to experience
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shit, you know. So he's not going to want to sit
3:57
at home and cuddle and it has nothing to do with his
4:00
attachment style at all. He could love his mother and
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I've had We're relatively normal healthy upbringing and yes,
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there are such things, you know, that's raised in dysfunctional
4:11
families. Don't really remember that.
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But yeah, plenty of people have pretty good upbringings, you
4:16
know, and the quite honestly, he just he doesn't like to sit at
4:21
home. He has a low need for physical
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touch, except sex, he's gonna like sex.
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He's young guy right in theory. So we're talking about like your
4:31
average woman that I encounter in her. 20s or 30s.
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That's looking to for her avoid and boyfriends, or husbands to
4:40
turn into a secure boyfriend or husband, which would she thinks
4:45
that means he's going to really settle down.
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He's gonna love to be domestic. He's gonna love to cuddle, he's
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gonna become romantic, not gonna become those things, you know,
4:56
they're there. It's very rare, right?
4:59
We, I want to err on the side of of conservative estimates that
5:04
he's Going to change, you know, because so few people do.
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So let me describe the personality traits further that
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that can masquerade as avoidant attachment in our attachment
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friendly current cultural milieu.
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Right so sensation, seeking High sensation seeking low, need for
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physical touch hyper Independence.
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Like really being very independent dislike of Of you
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know what we call psychological mindedness.
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You know, this is a variable, how aware somebody is and how
5:40
interested they are in psychological stuff.
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They could be very low on that they could be super
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hyper-rational like an engineering type or something
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like that. I got a lot of those guys.
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The wife brings them in says, they must have Asperger's they
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don't have Asperger. Some of them have Asperger's,
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not all of them, you know, some of them just really like math
6:00
and really don't like intimacy, you know?
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I mean like I just who they are. And Are there was like that and
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their grandfather was like that. And that's just your son.
6:08
If you have a son with that guy, maybe like that doesn't matter
6:11
how much love and cuddling you give up.
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And like, you got to think about this young girls that are dating
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really excused from from being naive and this regard because
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they haven't had kids yet, right?
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But some of us have most of us listening to somebody called dr.
6:28
Psych mom have had kids and so think about your children,
6:32
right? I mean you try to love your
6:33
children. You listen, Owing to goddamn
6:35
doctor. Psych Mom, right?
6:36
I'm, you're trying to grow as a person.
6:38
You're trying to be a loving and good parent.
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Didn't you have some babies that were more cuddly and more
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independent than others? I certainly did.
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Right? So that's personality level
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everything isn't about attachment.
6:52
So, I frequently get in therapy women, that are trying to
6:57
describe like this avoidant attachment guy, but he isn't
7:00
like he's a guy that just like, honestly, he loves Sir.
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But she's only going to be ever like really kind of 10 or 20% of
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what he does or things about. That's just how he's wired.
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He's high activity, high energy, low need for closeness.
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It's not pathological, it has nothing really to do with
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anything but how he's wired. You know, it's it it's not it's
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not on Trend to talk about like how much stuff is genetic, you
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know, people like and Especially in our Western culture to assume
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that you could change anything with enough time and effort.
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It's really hard to change your basic personality especially
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because these guys don't want to, you know, they don't really
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want to change their basic personality, they like it.
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And so what can frequently happen is that people are
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different attachment Styles within different relationships
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because you know like imagine even if you were securely
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attached and you had to for some reason, be with somebody who was
8:03
very avoided It would drive you nuts.
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Enough to become kind of preoccupied after a while,
8:08
right? I mean some people are like no I
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would be so psychologically healthy no matter what you do,
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no matter what obviously you know I mean shitty situation can
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make people act totally different but the reality is
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these guys if they if they are made to stay with a woman
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because they don't have the either the balls to break up
8:30
with her or they or she's acting like Like, she'll be okay with
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their personality, but she's really not, or they get her
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pregnant or, like whatever, and they're kind of like, end up in
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a situation like this, they can turn more avoidant, but that
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still wouldn't necessarily be who they started out.
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As they kind of started out as like a high energy High
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sensation seeking low. Need for intimacy guy just super
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like a lot of of natural adrenaline and and and some
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people By the way, don't have the sensation seeking component,
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but they just don't have the intimacy need, you know, they
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don't have the desire for physical touch.
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They don't really have much. They just don't have a big need
9:16
for love, you know? I mean, people, people, all
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people all aren't the same, you know, what this is.
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This is no matter what you do about it, like, people aren't
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going to be the same. Some people need and want more
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physical and emotional intimacy than others.
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So, particularly young women. Women who get very I mean being
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like in your 20s is so funny in retrospect, you be like oh my
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God, we've been dating for three years.
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If I broke up with him, it would be humiliating.
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I thought we were going to get married.
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I love him. I can't believe that he wouldn't
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want to commit to me, of course, he does.
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He says it sometimes. He says it when he's drinking,
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you know, every few months. He says he's even one time said
10:01
something about that. I would be a really good mother.
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So I'm Really thinking that, you know, I think it's his mom
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really. You know, I think she was really
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cold to him and so, you know, I think that with enough time and
10:15
love he's really going to Blossom.
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I was reading attached. Do you know that book right?
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And I really think he's textbook avoiding you like I mean maybe
10:26
but probably not probably he's a guy that just likes to do a lot
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of shit and doesn't value being in a relationship.
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Now Now how can you tell if a guy is avoidant attachment, you
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know, women are on tenterhooks listening and, you know, of
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course, this isn't just for women.
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There's obviously, as I've written about avoid and wives,
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plenty of men, get into the situation too, but the men don't
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start out. Usually, in a situation coming
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to a therapist and at age 28 and being like there's a problem.
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My girlfriend is avoidant attachment like they don't
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fucking know. Like this is like Beyond not
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what they think about. Usually maybe everything's
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changing as I always say with Generation Z.
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Maybe. Everything's going to change,
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but I never seen a man in his 20s and I do work with them.
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Come to me. And say, I think that the
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problem is her attachment Style. No.
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They don't even think, like this women think like this, right?
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And so, the point being, okay, what is then avoidant?
11:21
Attachment avoidant attachment is when he seems to have a lot
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of ambivalence and conflict in his earliest family experiences.
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And he has a lot of negative attitude from that.
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So the classic example that it's pretty prevalent is the man
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whose parents got divorced, right?
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And he has a lot of trust issues then because let's say his
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mother left for a time where his mother treated something like
11:51
this and so you can like like you would you don't need to be a
11:55
psychologist to see. It's like a direct Arrow.
11:58
From some attachment injury. That is very obvious to the
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man's current attachment Style. And it's a man that you have
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tried to break up with him at least a couple times and he
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wants to come back because that's classic.
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So, people who have been secure attachment, they don't they stay
12:17
stuck in the bad situation. The other kind of guys that I'm
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talking about with the personality, where, where they
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just don't require like a lot of love and get really antsy when
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you try to construct them and can find them.
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And they just want to do what they want to do.
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Those guys, if you try to break up with them, they'll say no
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harm. No foul.
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I had a good time. I'm with you and I really
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realized I wasn't making you happy and I wish you the best.
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They're like fucking relief. They're like okay, get me out of
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here. I love this person and obviously
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not making her happy. She's making me take all these
12:46
attachment quizzes. I just got want to go on my
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goddamn ski trip. Go to my job, make some money
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hang out with my friends. This shit is overwhelming those
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guys. They're, they're they don't have
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attachment injuries, they just don't want to be married.
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That's like they, they don't really know how to tell you.
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They're not very mature, the They're dealing with is not very
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mature either as is evidenced by the fact that she's like,
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literally not looking at the red flags in front of her face, that
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the man doesn't want to commit, nobody's being their best self
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fine. But if if it's an attachment
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issue, that could potentially somehow be resolved with
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therapy, then the guy will have these things in his past, he has
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a lot of ambivalence and toward his family, he has a lot of
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trust issues stemming from directly observable.
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Herbal issues in his family frequently involving some form
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of real, kind of coldness neglect abandonment.
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Something like that had to really be an adult at a young
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age had to be hyper independent and so, he's like conflicted in
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your relationship with him. When you say, you want to end
13:55
it, he kind of freaks out, you know.
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And then, of course, when you're back, then he goes back to being
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avoided. And so then you feel really
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gaslighted, but Not like, it's not like he's trying to do that.
14:07
He's somebody who's hooked into this of the pursuer distance her
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Dynamic. Right.
14:13
So but but do you hear kind of what I'm saying?
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What I'm saying is okay, if this guy does have avoid an
14:20
attachment, does he sound like a great catch though?
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I mean like you'd be like I mean, think about how funny it
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is, right? So I'm like, okay, there's these
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guys with a personality that they don't want to commit.
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Then there's some other guys who potentially maybe could get
14:34
attached. But the shoes cured but they're
14:36
even War wounded. They have a deeper history of
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being wounded in their family of origin.
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And so, then the women listening, there's women
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listening, and I feel for you who are like, oh good good, he
14:48
is a terrible childhood experience and Lasting
14:52
attachment issues that are so deep.
14:54
And conflicted. It's incredibly ambivalent about
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romantic relationships. Thank God, though.
14:59
He's that and not the one that just doesn't want it, you know,
15:02
that just doesn't value relationships, girl.
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Are you thinking think more clearly?
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You don't want to get involved with this shit either?
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Neither of these guys is who you want to be with.
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Neither what neither walk. What I want to point out is also
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the avoidant attachment guy. It's no nothing near a straight
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shot to resolving this, and many people with avoidant attachment,
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go to therapy and still stay pretty avoided.
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Although maybe a little bit better try if you're not married
15:32
yet, if you are not married yet to think about that.
15:36
There are plenty of securely attached, men out there.
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And if you never attracted to them after your own deep work,
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therapeutically you very well. Maybe because primarily women,
15:48
with low self-esteem, go for avoidant, men, we all been
15:51
there, you know? And and you got to think about
15:55
what you're what you're setting yourself up for, which is a
15:57
world of hurt, you know, because the attachment issues are
16:01
arguably even worse to commit to Then the guy who just wants to
16:05
go on a ski trips and make his money, you know, because at
16:08
least the guy was going to ski trips and make his money and has
16:11
a personality where he doesn't need a lot of love.
16:13
At least, he's not going to like be conflicted and angry about
16:19
having his needs encroached on. He's not going to like it, but
16:24
he's not going to be angry. The avoidant attachment guy,
16:26
frequently gets angry that's even worse.
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Quite honestly, when you think about committing to a long-term
16:32
partner, somebody who gets angry angry when they feel like
16:36
somebody's trying to smother them versus somebody who's just
16:39
perplexed and like just wants to do his thing, which is more of
16:43
the low intimacy, need securely attached guy, right?
16:48
Who's one day? That securely attached Guy.
16:51
The one who likes to just do his thing sensation Seeker.
16:54
He's going to meet marry a woman who likes the same thing, who
16:58
likes to go about her business to or who has exactly the same
17:01
Hobbies as him, you know, and really To do the same activities
17:05
and then he'll be securely attached to her, you know?
17:07
But he's not going to be securely attached to you because
17:10
you like to sit at home and watch TV and cuddle and he does
17:13
have ever like to do that. So it is a mismatch but you
17:16
know, he could be securely attached to somebody else.
17:18
Mr. Avoidant, attachment is going to make you or somebody
17:21
else miserable because he's so difficult to connect to and he's
17:25
so angry at the world from whatever experiences he had that
17:29
made him avoidant attachment. So, he's so angry at you for
17:33
trying. To be close.
17:35
This is not something you need either.
17:37
This is not a best case scenario.
17:39
This is another bad scenario. If you are the classic woman
17:44
that I work with, because there are so many that want very much
17:48
to be in a romantic relationship with somebody who does like to
17:51
stay home and watch your shows with you and cuddle, not all the
17:54
time, but a large amount of the time and likes to go on dates
17:59
and likes to have sex and likes to be close and and wants to
18:02
talk about the future, you know? The the romantic guy that you
18:07
want, there are these guys out there but you it's going to be
18:11
very easy with them. And if you are not trained to
18:14
think that our relationship could be easy, then you're going
18:16
to ignore them and you are not going to like them in favor of
18:21
the guys who are more difficult that go along with what you were
18:24
raised. To think of a relationship is,
18:26
which is a woman and mostly pursuing, a man that doesn't
18:29
want to spend time with her, you know.
18:30
And if you didn't see this, I'd be shocked.
18:34
You may I've seen it in the gender inverse, but there are
18:36
very few women that get themselves into these situations
18:40
where they all they want, is to be romantic and close and
18:42
cuddle. And then they can't find
18:44
somebody. Because so many guys want this,
18:46
so many guys do want this, that's real, that's reality.
18:49
So many guys really do want to be in love.
18:52
And in fact, the number one reason guys come in on happy and
18:54
couples counseling. It's because their wives aren't
18:56
romantic to them. Sex is a proxy variable as I
19:00
discuss endlessly, for what they really want, which is open
19:03
expression of love. So you, Certainly find these
19:05
guys, but if you consistently find yourself drawn two guys who
19:09
don't want to hang out and be close and be loving in the way
19:12
that you want therapy. Can really help it can really,
19:16
really help pre. I mean, women like, this are
19:19
meant for therapy like they do so well in therapy, they'd like
19:23
nothing more than talking about feelings.
19:25
That's a function problem is that the guy never wants to talk
19:27
about feelings? Well, therapist.
19:29
Love to talk about feelings and they'll talk about them and
19:31
think about them and get to a place where you could And why
19:34
you keep self-sabotaging by going for one of these two bad
19:38
types of guys for you, one of which is actually avoidant
19:41
attachment and has a, why don't know what 1% chance of like
19:46
resolving into a securely attached guy?
19:48
You know, like it maybe not one percent but it's not not much
19:53
more. They always kind of stay
19:54
avoided, by the way. They stay kind of on the
19:57
avoidance side so therapy can help you know, but why are you
20:02
going to get yourself into? Situation where they're always
20:06
going to be on the side of a void at they could get closer to
20:09
the middle but that's never going to be enough.
20:12
Because at some point you're going to wake up, realize your
20:14
value realized that there are men out there that want to be
20:17
close and be so angry at yourself for not waiting till
20:19
you found one or you'll be with mr.
20:22
You know spends 90% of his time outside the house because you
20:26
know he doesn't really need closeness and he's a nice guy
20:29
and he loves you but he never ever wants to spend as much time
20:33
together as you do, wait. It is also going to make you
20:35
unhappy. So if you are one of the very
20:38
few people that is, you know, able to be self aware enough to
20:44
say, I got to get into therapy to change this pattern, then
20:47
good, then let this be a wake-up call to you to do that.
20:50
You can change yourself a hell of a lot easier than you could
20:53
change any of these men. And there are so many men that
20:56
just want to hang out and be close but they don't do anything
21:00
else. Of course they have jobs at
21:01
Hobbies, they have whatever but they're default.
21:04
To want to be close. This is a thing.
21:07
This is real women know this, if they grew up in happy families,
21:11
with fathers, who wanted to be around their mothers, if you
21:14
didn't, and you are one of us adult children of dysfunctional
21:18
families, then you've never seen this.
21:20
So you don't believe it's real. It's real, I promise to you.
21:23
It's real. This really is real.
21:25
So it's really to get so. Yeah, and so many women when I
21:30
publish things like on Instagram and what have you where I'm like
21:33
there are guys out there. Out there that actually want to
21:35
be nice and be close. They're like really like really,
21:38
like they messaged me really, is that really true because they
21:42
were not receiving any such thing, and, of course, there's
21:44
some L equivalent as well. We guys who never saw their
21:47
mother be nice to their father, so they assume that all women
21:50
are mean to men. And then, of course, what do
21:52
they find a woman? Who's mean to them?
21:54
All right, well, I hope that this was interesting to you and
21:56
let you think about things in different ways and please do
22:00
subscribe. Follow me on Facebook,
22:02
Instagram, Tick-Tock you too. So, basically everywhere that is
22:05
a platform I exist and I will talk to you soon.
22:09
Have a great day.