Love Avoidance - a Personal Story

The following is an example of how love avoidants attempt to connect to others, and the difficulty that comes from trying to gain intimacy in this manner. This comes from Jerry, a client I worked with. He kept a detailed journal while in a treatment facility for his sex addiction and love avoidance. He allowed me to take this part from his journal to help others understand love avoidance.

When I was at The Meadows, I was entranced by my therapist, Beth. I wanted her to love me and pick me above all the other members of the group. I wanted to feel special, but I never felt I could get close to her. One day I knocked on the group room door and asked if I could speak with her.

I sat down and she turned from her desk and faced me. I was suddenly nervous. What exactly was it I wanted to say? That I loved her and wanted her to love me? That sounded way off kilter. “I don’t feel close to you.” I stammered out. Only for a second did she have a look of surprise on her face.

“What do you mean?” I looked around the room, searching for the right thing to say. “It’s like …I can only get so close to you and then there’s this wall. Why can’t I get inside?” I felt beads of sweat form on my forehead and knew I was wringing my hands, but couldn’t stop it.

Beth sat back in her chair. “You want me to let down my boundaries with you?”

I nodded my head. “Ok.” She situated her chair so she was sitting directly in front of me, a few feet away. “What I want you to do Jerry is to watch my hands. As I separate them, I’ll be letting down my boundaries.” She put her hands together, like she was praying in front of me. She slowly started to open them. This was it! I was going to get inside and have a special place in her that none of the other guys had. Yet as her hands started to open up, I found myself backing up in my chair. My head started to go back and to the side…and I had a combination of feeling suffocated and nauseous.

“What’s a matter? Isn’t this what you want?” she asked.

I nodded my head and repositioned myself in my chair. “Yes.” I said defiantly. I wasn’t sure what was happening, but without getting “inside” Beth's boundaries, I didn’t think I could trust her, rely on her, or believe her when she said she cared about me. She started to open up again, letting down her boundaries. I again, instinctively, reared my head back and felt like I was covered in slime.

Beth put her hands back together and asked me what I was feeling. “I…feel icky…gross – like something bad is happening.”

And then she said the one thing has stuck with me more than anything else she ever told me. “Jerry, you believe that love means you get lost in someone, enmeshed with them. That has been your relationship with your mother and father. Yet when you are enmeshed, you feel suffocated. You are completely vulnerable – no boundaries what so ever. And neither did your mom or dad. So you feel icky or gross being that intimately connected to your parents.” She moved her chair a little closer. “It is because I DO care about you that I keep my boundaries up. By keeping my boundaries up around you, it shows I respect you. It helps to keep you safe – not engulfed by me, not lost inside of me. Now you can start to concentrate on yourself and start to discover who Jerry is.”

Suddenly, I didn’t want to be that “special someone.” I wanted her to keep on doing what she was doing. In that moment, I so appreciated all the hard work she did in her own journey of recovery. And she helped me to see, for the first time, that my definition of love was scary and twisted. No wonder once I started to get emotionally close to someone, I’d have to create some distance in the relationship. Love meant I’d have to lose myself in someone else. Love was to be engulfed, enmeshed, boundary-less around the object of my affection. And that was so terrifying, I’d run from it. I’d cheat on my lover, start fights, withdraw emotionally, or get lost in one of my addictions to keep some distance. And then with too much distance, I’d feel abandoned and lonely, so I’d try everything to get back“inside.” This was to be a cycle that would hurt me and almost everyone I had a relationship with – even my children.

More on Love Avoidance

 Many wounded adults actually avoid love, becoming restless around persons who might provide genuine care and nurturing.  In these cases, the closer the adult come to obtaining the reality of love, the more they will push their partners away.  This move, becoming avoidant and trying to create emotional distance within the relationship, is fueled by a fear of intimacy.  Indeed love avoidants fear intimacy.  Some love avoidants push away love as a test to see if their partner will continue to love them even when they are acting disagreeable or unpleasant.  This behavior is a result of the conditional and irregular love the wounded adult experienced as children from their caregivers. 

  The struggle for the love avoidant is that he/she, like anyone else, wants to feel love and closeness.  Regardless of what the past emotional, physical and/or sexual wounds might be, there is still an intrinsic desire for the security and affection and healing that comes from love.  What the love avoidant will look like in a relationship, then, is to come in close and fast and make intense connections.  As the relationship continues, the avoidant will start to distance him/herself from their partner.  If the relationship continues, eventually the love avoidant person will seek to re-ignite the passion and intensity that used to be felt in the past.  With time, distancing will occur again. 

For most love avoidants, they are very good at beginning relationships, but horrible at keeping and maintaining a relationship.  There is a lot of pulling in and pushing out – pulling in their love interest and then once the connection happens and the relationship becomes deeper, they push their partner away. 

Origins of Love Avoidance

Avoidant love behaviors also arise from the co-dependent wounds found in the origins of the relationship with one’s parents.   Again, to refer to Pia Mellody, those who exhibit love avoidant behaviors usually come from families where the parents are emotionally enmeshed with their children. Enmeshment means that there are poor boundaries in the parent-child relationship. This can take the form of the parent who uses the child as a confidant, like a substitute spouse – looking for emotional support and emotional intimacy from the child.  It can also take on the appearance of a child being made to be dependent on the parents – squashing the child’s ability to become autonomous and independent.

            As the child grows into adulthood, he or she will want to be in a relationship and work hard to make that happen. What they use to help establish a relationship is often based on intensity, creating closeness rapidly, and exhibiting a great deal of charm and sexual energy.  Yet once the relationship has been formed, the individual will withdraw emotionally and even physically. Those not married will be able to see a string of past relationships that made it to a certain point and then dissolved. Some might hear their partners tell them they are afraid to make a commitment.  And so the wounded adult using love avoidant behaviors remains alone within him/herself – tortured by being afraid of the very thing they want – love, security, affection, and nurturing.    

            As the love avoidant sees the relationship he/she is building with another – and intimacy begins – withdrawal will occur.  The person will withdraw either physically, emotionally or both.    Love avoidants can be men or women, and struggle to maintain friendships – same sex or otherwise.  Once in a relationship, a love avoidant will often feel overwhelmed, suffocated and emotionally exhausted. 

The following are love avoidant behaviors done in order to create space within the relationship.  See if any of these fit with what you do in a relationship:

causing arguments, staying up after partner has gone to bed, becoming obsessed with work or some other activity, being defensive, turning arguments back on the other person so they look like they are all at fault, compulsively flirting with other people, thinking of other people when you have sex with your partner, avoiding physical affection – snuggling, holding hands, etc. flamboyant and charming outside of the relationship and withdrawn and sullen inside the relationship, feeling a sense of shame about who you are, allowing guilt and shame to be motivating factors for what you do in a relationship.

There are some love avoidants who never seek out people.  They struggle to be around people and are often reclusive.  They may want relationships and are sick and tired of being so lonely, but see that first step as too much.  Many suffer from depression.  They can go months and years without being in a relationship.  Regardless of what the love avoidant behavior is, these types of wounded people live in fear of intimacy but crave the affection and nurturing that comes with that kind of a relationship.

My Book Is Here!

After years of trying to get published, I have finally been blessed to see it happen.  First came a manuscript for adult survivors of childhood trauma.  Then came a trilogy of fiction called The Oppenhiemer Chronicles.  Then came a study guide for the LDS Church's Addiction Recovery Program.  And yet, time after time, I recieved rejections.  Countless rejections - to the point that I stopped counting (over 200 since 2004).  I recieved a priesthood blessing in 2004 to never stop writing.  In 2005 I recieved a blessing stating that the Lord knew the thoughts and intents of my heart and that the righteous desires of my heart would be given to me.  Years past, but I never forgot those blessings.  Eventually, though, I lost hope.  And then a thought came to me - Put your life in order.  Come unto Me and repent.

I changed my focus to do just that - return to the Church and apply the Atonement of the Savior in my life.  I kept writing, but now my writing was focused on the Atonement.  A year after I was re-baptised, my manuscript for helping LDS recovering addicts work the Church's 12 step program was picked up by Leatherwood Press.  7 1/2 months later, the book is now on shelves at Deseret Books, Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other LDS book stores.

The righteous desires of my heart are coming to pass.  And my heart is full with gratitude.  My hope is that this companion guide will help others overcome their addictive struggles.  Even more than that, however, this guide can be used for any problem - simply replace the word addiction with your problem.  The result will be the same - you will come to access the Atonement in a deeper and more profound way. 

Love in this mortal, fallen sphere

I have learned that to love someone here on earth is to love an imperfect person, whether that be a mother, father, son, daughter, brother sister or spouse.  I think my wife understands this best of all.  The imperfect partner will sometimes sin, and sometimes have weaknesses that will harm others.  Sometimes he/she will hurt others intentially – sometimes simply by being imperfect. 

It is very difficult to love and trust someone that is imperfect without experiencing pain, sadness, and fear.  Often these emotions are overwhelming.  The best way to manage those emotions, heal from those wounds and still love and trust is to turn and recieve the help of the Savior. 

He asks us to offer up a broken heart and a contrite spirit to show our love and gratitude to Him.  Yet offering up a broken heart and a contrite spirit is not just for forgiveness - experiencing the cleansing power of the atonement - but is also to be able to weather the storms of imperfect love.  we need access to the atonement in order to be able to love and be loved in this mortal fallen world. 

It is very difficult to be vulnerable – to be open and willing to love (vulnerability and willingness are parts of what a broken heart and a contrite spirit is) without the cleansing, healing, comforting, forgiving power of the atonement. 

Loving – giving it and receiving it – requires a broken heart and a contrite spirit. 

Trusting – opening up to another – requires a broken heart and contrite spirit. 

A broken heart feels, is vulnerable, is living a life without walls or self imposed protection, without withdrawal/isolation or escaping and hiding. 

And the protector of that broken heart? None other than the Savior of the world. 

A contrite spirit is humble, willing – to forgive, to repent, to own one's actions, to try again, to reach out and to love again, to reconcile one's self to God’s will. 

A contrite spirit is willing to say “I’m sorry,” just as much as saying “I love you,” or “I forgive you.”

A contrite spirit lets go of the past when the past has been processed through the broken heart. 

A contrite spirit forgives and doesn’t bring up the resolved past.  A contrite spirit trusts in moving forward.