Why Anxious and Avoidant Daters Spiral, and How Leadership Can Reverse It
Matthew Hussey
Early dating can make people act like someone they can't stand. Matthew Hussey opens with a familiar complaint: "I hate the person that I am with this person. I do not recognize myself." He argues there is a specific reason this happens. When someone tries to be vulnerable without understanding their own patterns, and without understanding the other person's, a damaging cycle can start: the other person comes on strong, you get invested, they pull back, you get pulled in, they pull back further, and then they are gone. To explain this cycle and how to break it, Hussey turns to attachment theory.
Two sides of the attachment spectrum, and who gets sympathy
Hussey describes attachment as a spectrum. Anxious people sit at one end, avoidant people at the other, and more secure people are in the middle. He says he has received questions for years from people on both sides, and that all of them can get locked into a spiral that is bad for everyone.
He finds it notable that people sympathize more easily with the anxious side than the avoidant side. In his view, anxious people appear to have their hearts broken by an external force, another person, so their pain is obvious and it's easy to side with them. Avoidant people appear to be hurting themselves: they can't figure out what will make them happy, they push people away, and they isolate. Hussey calls their pain "a more private pain" that others often don't see, the pain of loneliness and of always searching for something elusive.
His reframe is that everyone on the spectrum is reacting to something from their past. Each has overcorrected in some way because of pain from childhood with parents or caregivers, and each is trying to find love while facing a particular kind of challenge. Rather than judging people for how they are, Hussey believes that finding love requires becoming someone who brings people together, and brings another person together with you. First, though, he says you have to understand the downward spiral that affects so many people in early dating.
The downward spiral, step by step
To illustrate, Hussey proposes a scale. Secure attachment is zero in the middle. Anxious attachment runs from 1 to 10 on one side and avoidant attachment from 1 to 10 on the other, with 1 the mildest and 10 the most extreme.
In his hypothetical, a two on the anxious side meets a two on the avoidant side. Neither is extreme, but their tendencies point in opposite directions. The anxious person shares that they need a little reassurance. The avoidant person reads this as slightly uncertain or insecure energy. Hussey voices that person's reaction: they want the other person to be sure of themselves, because the best way they know to be sure of someone is for that person to be sure of themselves. When that isn't there, they feel a bit of contempt and want to back away.
So the avoidant person becomes a little cold. Hussey says it isn't enough for a secure person to notice, but it is enough for an anxious person's hypervigilance to register that something has changed. The anxious person mentions it, or clings a little tighter, and their anxiety goes from a two to a three. The avoidant person then notices more texts and more questions about what they're doing, feels "a little bit oppressed," and their avoidance goes from two to three. The anxious person's anxiety climbs to four or five and they turn up their needs. The avoidant person jumps to a six.
In Hussey's account, the result is two people pushing each other further into the extremes of their natural inclinations. The anxious person becomes an extreme version of themselves that they don't like and that isn't their normal self. The avoidant person feels justified in calling everyone crazy and concluding that they can't find anyone right for them because everyone becomes "too much." He presents this as the mechanism behind the "I don't recognize myself" feeling from the opening.
The upward spiral
Hussey says the same dynamic can run the other way. Suppose two people understand how to bring out the best in each other. Someone slightly avoidant understands that the other person needs to feel cared for, stays consistent in their communication, and shows that they like the other person. The person who normally leans anxious feels good around them, becomes more themselves and more confident, and "maybe they even walk into the room with a little more sass." He calls the result an attraction upward spiral, where each person becomes more drawn to the other because each is bringing out the best in the other.
His condition is that neither person approaches dating reactively or passively. They have to approach it "from a place of leadership," and he says leadership looks different depending on which side of the scale you're on.
What leadership looks like on the anxious side
For someone who leans anxious, Hussey suggests setting aside what the comfort zone wants and focusing instead on a vision of the relationship you want long-term. He gives an example. In the safe, secure relationship you'd want, would you expect a partner out with friends to text every hour so you know they're thinking of you? He answers no: you'd want them to enjoy themselves. So the question becomes what it would look like to model that kind of relationship now.
He stresses that this isn't because the person already feels safe in the relationship. The reasoning is that if you can't have the relationship you want with this person, you'd rather not be in it long-term and would prefer to find that out early. Instead of giving in to the urge to seek safety, the anxious person embodies the communication, transparency, and security they want their ideal relationship to have. Then they see whether the other person can meet them there without them feeling disrespected, overlooked, or taken for granted.
What leadership looks like on the avoidant side
For someone who leans avoidant, Hussey focuses on how they interpret the other person's interest. Avoidant people might normally find someone's interest a turn-off, or feel something they dislike when they feel safe. He suggests seeing the other person's vulnerability in liking you and making an effort as a sign of strength. It may be the kind of strength the avoidant person struggles to have, and the kind of vulnerability they are usually too scared to show. Instead of treating it as weakness and a reason to pull away, he proposes treating it as a powerful quality and as something to learn from.
Hussey presents these as only one example of leadership on each side. When both people lead, he says, "a healing environment" forms. People can see that they can be with someone whose inclinations differ from their own and still have a beautiful relationship, because both are working on themselves and correcting past mistakes.
"Love requires leadership"
Hussey's central claim is that love requires leadership, and that people have the power to get themselves out of the trap of early dating. The move he recommends is to decide to be the person who brings out the best in others. If the other person can't rise to that, and can't heal or give more when you bring your best, then they're not for you. He also says you have to stop playing the game where everyone must accept you exactly as you are, and where, if things don't go perfectly, the fault must lie with the other person.
He defines the right relationship as one where both people are accountable for their patterns and start healing the more destructive ones, in the company of someone who creates a healing environment for that work. Returning to his scale, he says some people will only inflame your painful tendencies and will always take you from a two to a ten, no matter what. Others, because of how they show up, can bring you from a five to a one or a zero. He ends with a question for the viewer: "Am I the person who's doing that for somebody else?"
Early dating sucks. One of the worst parts of early dating is that it can make you act like someone you're not, someone you can't stand. Have you ever been in a relationship or in a dating scenario with someone and thought, "I hate the person that I am with this person. I do not recognize myself"?
Well, there is a very particular reason why this happens. When we are trying to get vulnerable with someone, but we're not aware enough of our own patterns and we're certainly not aware of their patterns, it can lead to this very dangerous cycle. They come on strong initially, you get invested, they then pull back, you then get pulled in, they then pull further back, and before you know it, they are gone. What happens here?
In order to talk about this, I want to talk about attachment theory. And that kind of spectrum of there are people who are anxious, there are people who are avoidant, there are people who live in the middle, who are more secure. Because I have had questions for years from both sides of that attachment spectrum. The problem is that all of these people can get locked into a kind of spiral that's bad for everyone.
I think what's interesting is that we find it much easier to sympathize with people who live on the anxious side of the spectrum than we do on the avoidant side of the spectrum. It feels like people on the anxious side are always getting their hearts broken by some external force, by another person, whereas people on the avoidant side are always hurting themselves. They're people who can't figure out what's going to make them happy, push people away, self-isolate. So, their pain is in some ways a more private pain that we often don't see them going through, which is the pain of loneliness, the pain of constantly searching for some elusive thing. People on the anxious side, their heartbreak is extremely obvious. Someone hurt them, and now it's easy to sympathize with the person who has been hurt by somebody else.
But, if we just look at it like everyone on this spectrum is someone who is reacting to something from their past, someone who has overcorrected in some way based on pain they went through in childhood with their parents or their caregivers, and we're all just trying to find love and having our own unique brand of challenge in searching for that, we can say, "What would be something that would bring us together?"
I'm a big believer in the idea that if we want to really find love, rather than judging people for the way they are, we have to be someone who brings people together and bring someone together with us in a powerful way. But, we have to first understand the downward spiral that happens for so many people, especially in early dating.
Let's imagine that there's a scale with secure attachment at zero in the middle, anxious attachment on this side going from 1 to 10, and avoidant attachment on this side going from 1 to 10. So, 1 being the mildest form of both sides, 10 being the most extreme. Now, let's say that someone who's a two on the anxious side meets someone who's a two on the avoidant side. Neither one of them are in the extreme, but they both have tendencies in different directions.
The person who's a two on the anxious side shares that they need a little reassurance. And the person who's on the avoidant side picks up on that as slightly uncertain or insecure energy. So, now when this person comes along and shows that they're a little uncertain of themselves, the avoidant person is like, "I don't like this. I want you to be sure of yourself, because I want to be sure of you, and the greatest way I know to be sure of you is if you're really sure of you. But, right now you're not showing that, so now I have a little bit of contempt for that, and now I kind of want to back away a bit."
So, now in response to this person needing a little bit of reassurance, the avoidant person gets a little bit cold. Not so much that a secure person would pick up on it, but someone who's a two on the anxious side, it's just enough that their hypervigilance picks up on the fact that something's slightly different in this person. So, they mention it. Maybe they even cling on a little tighter because they can feel this person's energy changing.
So, when this anxious person feels that shift in energy, their anxiety goes from a two to a three. And when it goes to a three, they start clinging on just a little bit tighter. When the avoidant person feels this, they're like, "Wait, why is this person now texting me a little more than they used to? This person's asking me what I'm up to. I feel a little bit oppressed here." Now, their avoidance goes from a two to a three. When the anxious person feels that, their anxiety goes from a three to a four or a five. So, now the anxious person starts turning up their needs with the avoidant person. When the avoidant person feels that, all of a sudden they go up to a six on the avoidant side.
And what happens is you've got two people who are pushing each other further and further into the extremes of their natural inclinations. When that happens, the anxious person is likely to become a version of themselves that isn't even the normal version of themselves. It's an extreme version of themselves that they don't like. And the avoidant person feels justified in calling everyone crazy and saying, "God, I just can't find someone who's right for me. Everyone ends up becoming too much, demanding too much." But, these two people have got into that downward spiral. Now, you can also have upward spirals in dating.
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If two people understand how to bring out the best in each other, you can have someone who is ever so slightly avoidant, but understands the need to make someone feel cared for or to be consistent in their communication, and so they show that they like someone. And then the person who's normally on the anxious side of the spectrum says, "I feel really good around this person." And so, they start to feel a bit more themselves and a bit more confident. Maybe they even walk into the room with a little more sass. All of a sudden, you have this attraction upward spiral, where both people are getting more and more into each other because they are bringing out the best in each other.
But, in order to do that, we have to go into dating not in a reactive or a passive way. We have to go in from a place of leadership. And leadership looks different depending on what side of that scale you're on.
If you're on the anxious side, leadership might be saying, "Instead of giving in to what my comfort zone wants, what if I put my vision on the kind of relationship I want to have?" In other words, when I think about the safe, secure relationship that I want to exist in long-term, what does that look like? If someone goes out with their friends, do I really expect them to text me every hour just so that I know they're thinking of me? No, of course not. I want them to go and have a good time with their friends.
So, if that's the kind of relationship I want, what would it look like to model that kind of relationship now? Not because I feel safe and secure in this relationship, but because if I can't have the relationship I want to have with this person, then I'd rather not be in it long-term, and I'd rather find out now. So, instead of giving in to the urge to get safety, let me start to embody the kind of communication, the kind of transparency, and the kind of security that I want my dream relationship to have, and see if that person can meet me there without me feeling disrespected and overlooked and taken for granted.
What does it look like to lead on the avoidant side? It might look like understanding that someone who is into you, where you normally might find that to be a bit of a turnoff or a bit like, "If I feel safe, there's something about that that I don't like." What if you saw someone's vulnerability in liking you and trying with you as actually a sign of strength, the kind of strength that maybe you struggle to have, the kind of vulnerability that you're too scared to have most of the time? And instead of looking at that as a weakness, you start to look at it as a very powerful quality in this person. And if we start seeing it like that, instead of seeing this as someone to be repelled by, we see this as someone to learn from.
So, this is only one example of leadership, but leadership can happen on both sides. And when it does, what happens is a healing environment gets created, where we recognize that I can be with someone, even someone whose natural inclinations are different than mine, and still be in an environment where I can have a beautiful relationship. Because when you find someone like that, when two people are both leading, improving themselves or correcting the mistakes of their past, what you have is a dynamic where both people can actually bring out the best in each other.
Love requires leadership. And if we want to free ourselves from the mess that is early dating, we have to realize that we actually do have the power to get out of that trap ourselves. And the thing we can do is start leading. We can start saying, "I'm going to be the person who brings out the best in other people." If they can't rise to that, if they can't heal or give me more when I bring my best, then they're not for me. But I have to stop playing the game of everyone just needs to accept me exactly as I am. And if that doesn't go perfectly, then something was wrong with them.
The right relationship is the one where we can be accountable for our patterns and start to heal some of our more destructive patterns. But we do so in the company of a person who actually creates a healing environment for us to do that. Some people will only ever inflame your already painful tendencies. They will always be the people who take you from a two to a 10 on the scale, no matter what. But other people, because of the way they show up, will be able to bring you from a five to a one or a zero. You have to ask yourself, "Am I the person who's doing that for somebody else?"
Thank you so much for watching. Leave me a comment. Let me know what you thought of this. And if you enjoyed this video, I promise you you will enjoy this one a lot. Go check it out, and I will see you next week.
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