Understanding Avoidance of Intimacy

Your survival depends on the ability to cultivate intimacy. As Thomas Lewis talks about in his book, "A General Theory of Love," an infant's life depends on intimacy with a caregiver to regulate basic physiological and emotional functioning. This regulation through connection continues throughout life.

However, if you are like most people, you have had formative experiences in which you moved toward intimacy and got the message that it wasn't okay and possibly that it was dangerous.  At some point in becoming more and more intimate with someone in your life, these previous experiences motivate you to defend against the very thing you need.

Defending against intimacy can take a variety of forms.  Let's look at three common reactive patterns; mistrust and suspicion, avoidance, and cognitive dissociation .

1. Mistrust & Suspicion

Mistrust and suspicion can be habits of body, heart, and mind.  When there is any ambiguity about what's happening, reactivity sometimes arises to fill in the blanks.  The central thinking error with mistrust and suspicion is that if you can predict hurt, it will hurt less when it happens.  Thus, your mind can run wild predicting moments of betrayal, rejection, and abandonment.  Unfounded mistrust and suspicion can push you towards all sorts of behaviors like spying, encouraging gossip, and asking a lot of investigative questions of the person for whom you have mistrust. Questions like the following are cues that your mind might be caught in this particular form of reactivity:

• Where were you?  

• Who were you with?  

• Was that person flirting with you?  

• Are you really committed to this relationship? 

• Why are you late?  

• Do you really care about me?

Each time you engage in behaviors like interrogating, seeking gossip, spying you reinforce the reactive pattern. This reactive pattern blocks the formation of a secure bond which would bring you relief from the anxiety of mistrust and suspicion.

1. Avoiding  

Avoiding is sometimes a less obvious form of defending against intimacy.  Avoidance patterns often leverage socially acceptable behaviors like; over working, becoming intoxicated, and pursuing achievements.  If you are running a reactive pattern of avoidance and someone close to you challenges you, you might find yourself responding one or more of the following ways:

• Denying responsibility with phrases like, "That's just the way I am,"  or "You're just trying to control me." 

• Criticizing the other person with accusations of them being too “needy” of being selfish.

• Gas-lighting the other person with phrases like, “You are imagining things.” “It’s all in your head.”

• Making unilateral decisions that affect both of you. This might include, for example, making large purchases with shared money, planning a major trip and telling your friend or partner at the last minute, deciding not to show up at a major event and texting your decision right as it starts.

If you are running an avoidance pattern, you likely resist commitment and opt for vague agreements that leave a way out should intimacy become too much.  Even in the moment of making small decisions with someone, revealing what you really want or don't want and committing to an answer can feel scary when you are caught in this pattern. Authenticity seems like a risk.  And without authenticity there is no true intimacy. 

Ironically, if you run an avoidance pattern you may pursue a facsimile of intimacy in relationships or situations in which you don't have to fully reveal yourself.  Such instances of sudden "intimacy" trigger a rush of pleasant body reactions while not challenging a sense of safety.  This can trigger a pattern of addiction to emotionally seducing others.

Of course, all these avoidance patterns block the opportunity to create a secure and healthy relationship to intimacy.

Finding those that can truly offer consistent authenticity and compassionate presence gives you the opportunity to heal your relationship to intimacy.  To avail yourself of this opportunity there is to become mindful of all the ways you defend against intimacy and then to take a step towards risking intimacy with a person who has earned your trust.

True intimacy is a rich and satisfying aspect of life that grows out of authenticity and the willingness to experience the discomfort that sometimes accompanies its pursuit.

Practice

Take a moment now to identify an example in a long term trusted relationship that has allowed you to show up authentically and experience a true sense of intimacy.