People with insecure attachment styles experience abuse and neglect as children. They struggle to maintain healthy relationships with both themselves and other people. Usually, how we interact with others reflects how we interact with ourselves. Anxious and avoidant attachment styles are the two different kinds of insecure attachment styles.
People who are anxiously attached rely on their relationships for self-identity and fulfillment. Intimacy and anxiety in their relationships are both very high. People who avoid intimacy, on the other hand, frequently steer clear of them. Relationships with them are frequently strained. Their relationships suffer as a result because their partners have a hard time developing a strong connection with them.
Perhaps the worst form of communication is texting. There aren’t any nonverbal cues. No immediate response from the other person. I am awaiting their text reply. These issues further weaken human interaction that is already tenuous.
You’ll see the important considerations for texting an avoider after that.
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Avoidant and Anxious Relationships
People with insecure attachment patterns (avoidant, anxious, and dismissive attachment) usually choose partners who share their worldview. To put it another way, people with anxious attachments and avoidant attachments frequently find themselves in relationships.
Anxiously attached people are eager to get close to their partners and seek high levels of approval and intimacy from them, but avoidants find this behavior to be suffocating and will usually start to withdraw. The anxious partner will then try to approach their avoidant partner more.
This way, both partners reaffirm their pre-existing beliefs about romantic relationships and stay stuck in the “anxious-avoidant trap.”
So, the question is:
How can you tell if someone is averse to getting close to you? How do you text them, then?
Tips on How to Text An Avoidant
1. Text Frequency
Avoidants usually refrain from texting when they are first getting to know someone. They don’t text frequently, as you’ll discover. Before they can text you more freely, they need to give you some time and space to get to know you. Don’t send them a ton of texts at this point.
2. Relationship Stage
When they sense mutual interest, avoidants will text a lot more than they do when they are just getting to know someone. As the relationship progresses, they’ll again text infrequently for either of the following reasons:
a. The relationship has gotten too close, and they feel the need to withdraw
Try to limit your texting them during this time. Allow them the space and time to process their fears. Try to help them get over their connection fears if they’re honest enough to share them with you.
b. They’re comfortable in the relationship and don’t feel the need to reach out as much
It’s okay if there are fewer texts between you two as your new normal. If you have a strong sense of attachment, infrequent texting won’t bother you. However, if you’re an anxiously attached person, you might feel that your need for connection isn’t being met. The best course of action in that situation is to express your needs to your partner and look for areas of agreement.
3. Directness
Avoidants frequently communicate in a blunt manner. They will be frank with you and won’t sugarcoat anything. Sometimes, this can come across as rude. Early on, they’ll let you know if they’re interested in getting to know you or not. Be as direct as you can when texting an avoidant. It is more likely that they will open up to you if you are more open with them.
4. Text Back
Except when they are interested, avoidants typically take a while to reply to texts. When their guard is down, and they experience safety in a relationship, they’ll text back more often and quickly.
Don’t assume they are uninterested if they don’t text you back right away. They could be examining you. So that they can open up more, and extend your reach more. They will eventually demonstrate disinterest if they continue to avoid texting you and remain relatively private.
5. Practice Patience
It’s crucial to exercise patience when dealing with attachment types, even though the avoidant person’s actions during an argument may annoy or enrage you. For a reason, we establish attachment patterns. As we previously mentioned, these actions have served to protect us from harm at various points in our lives.
Although it is possible to alter our attachment style, changes rarely take place quickly. Both of you will need to be persistent, patient, and patient. Instead of using pressure or control (which might make them do the exact opposite! ), practicing patience while texting will give avoidant types time to change their terms.).
6. Stress
When under stress, avoidants distance themselves from their lovers. This means that when they are under stress, they won’t text their partner as frequently or at all.
Do not text an avoidant if you notice that they are stressed out. Allow them the space and time to deal with their stress. If they come to you for comfort, offer it, but don’t give them too much information.
Why Text Avoidant is Difficult？
The majority of the time when people claim to have communication issues, what they really mean is usually difficult to convey. Or they have trouble comprehending what their partner is actually saying. And the reason for this is that we frequently communicate from a defensive position or use words that are meant to mean one thing to us but another to our partners.
We don’t want to come off as overly vulnerable in either case. We also don’t want to come off as foolish or incapable. Talking about the relationship and how we feel about it will feel like an invitation to go trampling through a minefield if we find it difficult to comprehend and express our feelings clearly. With these coded messages that we send to one another, we thereby mask our meaning, and this is largely unintentional. We are unaware that we are acting in that manner. In actuality, the unconscious traits of defense mechanisms define them.
These defenses also hide the things that are being defended from our own conscious minds. But avoidantly attached people aren’t the only ones who have communication problems. However, this is the rationale behind the manner in which those with avoidant attachments interact with others.
For example, certain phrases will set them off. And if you are aware of those expressions, communicating with your partner will be much simpler. Some of the text phrases that might feel particularly annoying to those with avoidant attachment are:
“More so than you know yourself, I am familiar with you.”
“If you really loved me, you wouldn’t say that or need to do it.”
“Everything is fine; I’m not harmed.”
“It doesn’t count if I have to ask, though.”
“You’re lying/cheating on me if you keep [insert anything] a secret.”
“You don’t know me at all if you can’t understand that.”
Final Thoughts
Dismissive avoiders often think that texting is a waste of time, so they will occasionally try to cut down on the amount of time they spend texting by only responding to a portion of the message. Usually the part that doesn’t call for a lengthy response. Because they feel powerless to change it, this can be frustrating for their partner. Instead of letting this become the norm, say:
“You have not responded to X.”
Request X before moving on in the conversation.
