You know, this is one of those things I see in my office almost every week, so let me just talk to you plainly about what’s actually happening when someone with avoidant attachment starts to pull away.
First, let me back up. When we talk about “deactivating strategies,” we’re really talking about the nervous system doing its job. The person who learned avoidant attachment as a kid figured out, usually pretty early, that needing people was dangerous. Maybe needs got ignored. Maybe they got criticized for being too sensitive. Maybe they got overwhelmed by a parent’s emotional chaos. Whatever it was, their system learned: *the safest bet is to need less, feel less, and handle things alone.*
So deactivating strategies are essentially the toolkit that nervous system built to turn down the volume on attachment needs. Here’s what that looks like in real relationships:
Mentally exiting. They start focusing on their partner’s flaws right when closeness is increasing. Not because their partner suddenly got worse, but because noticing flaws creates emotional distance, and distance feels safer.
Getting busy. Work, hobbies, screens, anything that creates a legitimate reason to not be emotionally present. It doesn’t feel like avoidance to them. It feels like responsibility.
Minimizing the relationship’s importance. They’ll tell themselves, and sometimes their partner, “this isn’t that serious” or “I don’t really need this.” That thought is protective, not honest.
Suppressing the bid. When they actually *want* closeness, they talk themselves out of reaching. That impulse gets intercepted before it ever becomes a gesture.
Stonewalling in conflict. When emotion rises, they go flat or go quiet. Not to punish. To regulate. Their window of tolerance for emotional intensity is genuinely narrow.
Here’s what I want you to really hear though. These strategies *work.* That’s the problem. They successfully reduce the felt sense of vulnerability in the short term. But the cost is that the partner on the other side feels invisible, unimportant, or like they’re chasing someone who keeps moving the goalposts.
And the tragic irony? The avoidant person usually does care. Deeply, sometimes. Their system just learned that showing that is the most dangerous thing they could do.
If you’re the partner of someone who does this, the instinct to pursue harder makes complete sense, and it usually makes things worse because it confirms for their nervous system that closeness equals pressure.
If *you’re* the one doing these things, I’d gently invite you to get curious about the moment just before you pull back. What just got too close? What were you afraid was about to be asked of you?
That’s where the real work lives.
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Figs is a licensed marriage and family therapist with 16+ years of experience working with couples. He’s the co-founder of Empathi, host of the “Come Here to Me” podcast, and author of an upcoming book on relationships and the systems that shape how we love.
Read more: Attachment Styles in Relationships: How Your Love Pattern Shapes Your Bond
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