The Anxious-Avoidant Trap: Attachment's Big Badda Boom

The anxious-avoidant trap is the big bada boom of attachment. But how common this attachment combination really is? And what to do with it?

There is no question: the anxious–avoidant trap is trouble. It describes what happens when two opposing adult attachment styles collide within a relationship.

When Charles Dickens wrote: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”, could he have been describing an anxious–avoidant relationship?

You might be wondering: do I have a confession to make or a relationship pattern of my own to work through? You will be disappointed. Yes, I might have had my fair share of Mr Bigs – the quintessential avoidantly attached man – but those days are behind me now. There will be nothing like it here. Instead, I am merely following my co-author on many pieces here, Pascal Vrticka, down this rabbit hole, explored in his recent post The Anxious–Avoidant Trap: Fact or Fiction? Pascal has done all the legwork and I am just offering a more narrative and therapeutically tuned version of what he found out.

I want to talk about this because, in my experience, out all attachment combinations, the anxious-avoidant combination takes up the most airtime. So I am wondering whether there really is such an extraordinary gravitational pull between the anxious and the avoidant attachment styles, as pop-psychology wisdom would have it. After all, if such a pull does exist, it is important to understand it and unpack it in therapy.

Adult Attachment Styles In A Nutshell

Attachment is a biological mechanism that compels children to seek care from reliable and close others in times of real or perceived threat. These reliable others are referred to as attachment figures.

More recently, attachment has also been described as our primary mechanism for social allostasis. In other words, it is the process through which we rely on others to maintain our homeostasis – our state of physical and psychological equilibrium, the sine qua non of every form of life.

Attachment is prominent in childhood but while it takes different, maybe sometimes more subtle or even symbolic forms, attachment persists throughout our lifetime. In adulthood, perhaps unsurprisingly, it is the romantic partners that often take on the role of attachment figures.

Research in social psychology generally defines four adult attachment categories: secure, avoidant, anxious, and fearful-avoidant. The three latter attachment styles - avoidant, anxious and fearful-avoidant - are said to be insecure attachment styles.

A Word About Neurobiology of Attachment

Attachment is not only evident in relational patterns and behaviour. Today we know that attachment leaves a deep imprint on a person’s biology, including patterns of brain activation and connectivity, physiology, endocrinology and even epigenetics. Each attachment style does so in its own idiosyncratic way, making it possible to define a neural signature for each attachment style (that is pretty cool, right?). In other words, attachment patterns run deep permeating our biological make up and defining who we are beyond just our behaviour in relationships.

Attachment System Activation and Anxious-Avoidant Dynamic

The biological system that is activated when we perceive a threat, whether physical or psychological, and that compels us to seek the help of close others, our attachment figures, is called the attachment system. Because ultimately it is about survival, the attachment system, particularly when “felt security” is not attained quickly, carries tremendous power.

In the case of anxious–avoidant couples, these attachment energies, once activated, push in opposite directions. Having worked with people in therapy on both ends, anxious and avoidant alike, I can attest that it can at times resemble a Molotov cocktail of a relationship. It is the attachment big bada boom.

Indeed, the two attachment styles employ opposing strategies in pursuit of their “attachment goals” (see the diagram about attachment styles above). When perceiving threat, an individual with an anxious attachment style will typically employ hyperactivating strategies. This means that they will often escalate and intensify their attempts to receive attention, reassurance, proof that the other cares. They may be perceived as “clingy” or “needy” and might even resort to protest behaviours (strategies such as sulking, acting out or looking for attention outside of the relationship).

In contrast, an individual with an avoidant attachment style is more likely to resort to deactivating strategies. Under pressure, they tend to require space, distance themselves from others (including their attachment figures) and rely on their own strategies for emotional regulation, most often through emotional suppression. In such moments, empathy is not a forte and they are unlikely to be receptive to the distress of others. In fact, a requests for emotional support is likely to drive them even further away.

Such is, in a nutshell, the infamous anxious-avoidant dynamic.

Trap or Vortex?

So what's the deal with the anxious–avoidant trap? I first came across the idea in the book Attached – the same book that helped propel attachment theory into stardom ( I like the book, by the way, it is really what got me into attachment in the first place).

A considerable portion of Attached is dedicated to this idea of inexorable pull of the anxious and avoidant attachment. The word “trap” refers to the idea that we do not see it coming, but once we are in it, it is difficult to escape. According to the book, this is how we end up being drawn into and stuck in an anxious–avoidant relationship. While the authors never state it explicitly, I feel as though the concept has been taken to mean that these relationships are somehow common 'trap' we fall into. And to be sure, given the intensity of the dynamic, “anxious–avoidant vortex” might be an even better descriptor.

At any rate, at this point the anxious-avoidant trap (or vortex) has become part of attachment lore.

Internal Working Models of Attachment

According to Attached, these couples are formed and endure, despite their incompatible needs – one partner consistently seeking more intimacy, the other consistently seeking less – because they confirm each other’s deeply embedded beliefs about the self and the world.

What is really being referred to here are the internal working models (IWMs) of attachment: a set of internalised rules and expectations about others that, according to attachment theory, are forged in the crucible of early relationships. These are deeply held beliefs, often sitting partially or entirely outside awareness. The idea is similar to the script in Transactional Analysis.

And they are funny things, the deeply held beliefs. Even if they are negative or painful, there is still comfort in seeing them confirmed. It is almost like saying: “I knew it all along”. Like touching or poking a sore spot, it is, strangely, soothing. It is the devil you know.

So in terms of these IWMs or script, anxious and avoidant attachment are essentially each other’s worst nightmare come true.

For the anxious partner, the avoidant confirms their deepest fear and script belief: I am unlovable and others are distant, indifferent, and might abandon me.

For the avoidant, it works the other way round: the anxious partner seems to prove the belief that others are clingy, needy, and not competent enough to cope with problems.

Which is exactly how hyperactivating the attachment system might look like. It sure does look like trouble.

This dynamic epitomises the opposites attract hypothesis when it comes to how couples are formed attachment-wise (aka complementarity hypothesis).

The idea that the opposites attract has something narratively satisfying about it, don't you think? In fact, many works of fiction have made use of this. Think of Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice or Sex and the City, to name just a few.

But then again satisfying narratives can be so treacherous. In fact, let me present an alternative narrative, that is, in my opinion as seductive. It goes like this:

We are attracted to what is similar to us. We see beyond the surface and recognise the deep imprints that our relationship experiences have left upon us. Shared formative experiences are more likely to lead us to see the world in the same way and to understand each other's emotional needs and reactions. Ultimately, it is trauma bonding meets kindred spirit type of thing.

This nifty competing narrative too that also has some empirical support. It is referred to as the similarity hypothesis.

There is also a third hypothesis: everybody wants to be with a secure person. It is the attachment security hypothesis.

So Is Anxious-Avoidant Trap Really A Thing?

So is this combination really common, as pop-wisdom would have us think? In other words what is the prevalence of different combinations of attachment styles in couples?

The information here is scarce. One study found that secure-secure combination to be around 56.9% of all couples. For simplicity purposes, let's go with very rough estimates of how distributed is each attachment style in the population. That would be 60% for secure attachment, let's go for 15% for avoidant, 15% for anxious and the remaining 10% for the fearful-avoidant. Let's do little maths now.

With 56.9% of all the couples being secure-secure combination (vs 36% expected by chance) we can see is that secure-secure couples are over-represented in this sample. In other words, the most likely combination, by far, even if taking into account that secure attachment is the most common attachment, is a relationship between two secure people.

And what about anxious-avoidant combinations. Well, according to simple statistic combination outlined in the figure above we would expect 4.5% of all couples to be anxious-avoidant combination. Is that estimates accurate(ish) or is it that these couples are over-represented? Well, it is impossible to say - we simply don't have the numbers yet.

It Is a Thing: Real vs Hypothetical Relationships

Another study looked at the attachment structure of couples and hypothetical couples, trying to crack this puzzle (this study was a meta-analysis - meaning that it combined the findings from several other studies).

A hypothetical couple is essentially an experimental set-up in which a participant is presented with descriptions of hypothetical partners and asked to rate how much they think they would fancy them, based on those descriptions.

Like the previous study, they found that the secure people have a preference for secure partners.

Now going back to 'insecure' couples, an interesting picture starts to emerge.

When asked hypothetically, people appeared to believe that they would be more attracted to those who displayed similar attachment traits to their own. This seems to lend support to the similarity hypothesis. In other words, in theory we believe that we are attracted to those who show attachment traits akin to ours.

Yet, in real couples, the 'opposites attract' hypothesis seemed to prevail. In other words, in real-life couples, the insecure couples tended to go for their opposites. And this lends some support to the 'anxious-avoidant trap' narrative, with the caveat that the results are not consistent over all studies and no definitive conclusion can be confidently made.

Additionally, this provides an interesting idea to chew on: if true, this results make us look like we are not particularly proficient at knowing what we are genuinely attracted to, as indicated by the discrepancy between hypothetical partners and real-life partners. To be taken with a pinch of salt (as other factors might explain it).

But overall, yes, it appears that this meta-analysis provides some support for the concept of the 'anxious-avoidant trap'.

Relationship Satisfaction And Relationship Stability

Now that we have established that the anxious-avoidant trap might indeed be a thing, how do people actually fare when they are in such relationships? Are they happy? Are these relationships stable?

Although this is not specific to the anxious-avoidant combination, there is evidence that couples in which one or both partners have insecure attachment are less stable and experience lower relationship satisfaction.

Another study concludes that "the results for anxious-avoidant pairings suggests that this is a particularly dissatisfying combination for both individuals". Damn, no arguing with that…

So What Is the Upshot (Including For Therapy)

When I teach the neuroscience of attachment workshops, I will always cover the anxious-avoidant trap. Not because it is the most common pattern in couples (we have seen that the secure-secure is) but because it does happen. And now we know that the research seems to support the idea that there is indeed something to this anxious-avoidant gravitational pull.

If working with someone who has an insecure attachment, whether anxious or avoidant, dating the attachment opposite is probably not the best idea, if the choice is available at all. Discussing this in therapy, and exploring in detail the reasons why (as I have attempted to do in this piece), is, I believe, a good idea.

On the other hand, if working with someone who is already engaged in an anxious–avoidant relationship dynamic, it is important to understand that the disagreements, arguments and tensions in the couple will not always be expressed in terms of optimal emotional distance, as we do, using the language of attachment theory. In their daily lives, people rarely speak about it in this way. Rather, the tensions are more likely to arise around seemingly mundane matters, at least at the surface level. The opposing attachment dynamic is nevertheless likely playing out underneath. In therapy, it is important to bring these invisible attachment undercurrents into awareness and help the client frame them as such, gradually unpicking how they underpin the day-to-day life of the couple.

Finally, I would like conclude the same way Pascal does in his post: attachment can and does change. And so, maybe no attachment combination has to be a 'trap' with no escape.

As always, thank you so much for reading🙏.

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Shoutout and a huge thanks to Dr. Pascal Vrticka for sharing his thinking and references on this topic. He has essentially done all the legwork for this piece, I am just a messager.

Some Solid Attachment References

1. Attachment definitions and concepts

2. Attachment Myth-busting

3. Attachment Q&A

4. Intro to attachment research

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