What Fearful Avoidants Are Really Afraid Of

Fearful avoidants have the hardest path to love, second only to the people who choose to date them.

If you’re dating a fearful avoidant, you can expect a lot of confusion and mixed signals that make it difficult to connect.

But there is hope. If you can understand how fearful avoidants operate, you can make it work.

And it starts with understanding what fearful avoidants are truly afraid of.

What Is Fearful Avoidance?

So let’s talk about fearful avoidance. Basically, fearful avoidance is the combination of two different attachment styles: anxious and avoidant. This is why you may sometimes see it called the anxious-avoidant attachment style.

Anxious attachment is characterized by a sense of preoccupation around the relationship and romantic partners. Someone with anxious attachment is overly sensitive to their partner’s behaviour and mood. They take a missed text or a slight frown as a threat to the relationship. They struggle to regulate their emotions or be alone.

They’re preoccupied with how others think and feel, so they adopt people-pleasing behaviour to mitigate these feelings because they often struggle with their sense of self.

They’re distressed by distance and so they adopt clingy and desperate behaviour that can be off-putting to their partners. These are the people who ask: “Do you really love me? Do you care about me? Is everything okay?”

They’re constantly worried about the relationship and about not being enough for their partner and they let these anxieties guide their actions.

But that’s just half of the equation. The other half is avoidance.

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The avoidant attachment style is characterized by extreme independence, fear of intimacy and a tendency to separate from others.

Avoidants struggle to form romantic connections because they’re afraid to get close to other people. They often lack the emotional skills that others take for granted. They have a strong tendency to self isolate and keep their feelings bottled up.

Their response to stress or issues in the relationship is to take space from their partner and work it out on their own.

They can be seen as cold, flaky and unfeeling by those close to them. They can fail to fulfill the needs of their partner due to their tendency to run away from both conflict and connection, leaving their partner holding the bag, emotionally.

So how can a person be both anxious and avoidant? Well that’s where things get interesting. Fearful avoidants have features of both of these attachment styles. They tend to swing from one extreme to the other with no warning.

To understand this, let’s talk about what they’re afraid of…

What FearfulAvoidants Fear

The fear faced by fearful avoidants can be all-consuming and it can interfere with their ability to connect with their partner. Understanding these fears and where they come from is going to be crucial whether you are a fearful avoidant or you’re trying to date one.

1. They fear intimacy AND they fear being alone.

The fearful avoidant struggles to get close to other people without feeling smothered. They find romantic relationships stifling because they restrict their freedom and represent a threat to their sense of self. In my dealings with fearful avoidant clients, they describe it almost as a sense of claustrophobia…an intense feeling of being trapped and a powerful desire to break free of these constraints.

This fear makes them act irrationally because it overwhelms their logical brain. They know that their actions hurt their partner, the relationship and–ultimately–themselves but they’re unable to stop their behaviour.

At the same time, unlike the typical avoidant, they’re also driven by an equally powerful fear of being alone. This is why there are times when they’ll act clingy and desperate.

They might ask you for a lot of validation and compliments. They may be upset if you can’t spend all your time with them. They’ll keep telling you how much they miss you and insist that you communicate with them constantly.

Of course, they do love you and care about you, but they’re also very afraid of being left alone without you. It’s a powerful loneliness and an equally powerful fear of connection. This is what makes fearful avoidance so destructive to both the avoidant and those who love them.

2. They fear you relying on them emotionally.

Emotions can be a great source of pain for a fearful avoidant. Partly because they lack the emotional regulation skills that many of us take for granted.

So while most of us feel some fear when we think about committing to one person for the rest of our lives, or get bummed at the prospect of showing up to another family gathering without a partner, for the fearful avoidant, these feelings can be truly debilitating.

This is why they may associate emotions with a negative spiral of fear and shame. So it shouldn’t be surprising that the idea of taking on YOUR emotions on top of that is troubling for them.

Now, your partner shouldn’t be your one and only source of emotional support, but it’s perfectly normal and healthy to rely on your partner emotionally. You’re essentially trusting them to be there, to be your sounding board and your shoulder to cry on. You want someone who can lift you up or to talk you down when things get bad.

A fearful avoidant may see this as something they’re simply not capable of. They can’t even manage their own emotions, and now they’re expected to help you deal with yours? It can feel like too much.

On top of that, one of the things they’re most scared of is the idea that this is forever. You see, the more you rely on them emotionally, the more you have invested in them. And since they know they’ve been unreliable in the past, this scares them.

What if they simply run out of emotional bandwidth when you need them most? What if you ask them questions they don’t have the answer to? What if they feel crushed under the weight of your emotional demands?

These are the questions that go through their head whenever they start to feel anxious about the relationship.

3. They fear being rejected and replaced.

Fearful avoidants are afraid of being alone, but they’re even more afraid of being abandoned.

Because—even though a fearful avoidant may not know anything about attachment theory—they know that they struggle in relationships, and most of them know that THEY are the main driver of these struggles. They’ve seen relationships fall apart again and again due to their emotional issues.

They’ve felt powerful negative emotions and acted irrationally…and they’ve suffered the consequences.

Now, every time things fall apart, they blame themselves. They feel unlikable, unloveable, and impossible to be with. And this creates a vicious cycle for fearful avoidants. They fear rejection so they cling on tighter. They feel slighted so they pull away to protect themselves.

And every time they are rejected, whether this is as big as a divorce or breakup, or as small as being denied a kiss because they have morning breath, it feeds into their negative behaviour because in their mind, it proves them right: they are difficult to love.

Of course, this goes hand in hand with jealousy, which–for the fearful avoidant–is the fear of being replaced. Since they don’t put much stock in themselves as a romantic partner, they imagine that you could easily replace them and have a happier life with just about anyone.

They fear their issues will cause the end of the relationship, and this is a valid fear because it really does happen all the time.

4. They fear being overmatched in emotional conflicts.

As we’ve said, fearful avoidants failed to develop some key emotional skills in childhood, at least as far as relationships are concerned. So as adults, they struggle with emotional regulation and communicating their feelings.

This is one of the reasons that they often avoid conflict and intimacy…because they lead to conversations they can’t handle.

I think of it like this. Have you ever been to a foreign country where you can barely speak the language? Someone asks you something on the street and you say the two or three words you know. Then, assuming you’re fluent, they launch into a long diatribe and you’re just standing there scratching your head.

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This is how a fearful avoidant feels when it comes to certain more complex emotional conversations. They can fake it for a while, but pretty soon they’re going to be lost and it’s going to be painfully obvious and embarrassing.

They’ll rarely come out and admit this because they feel shame at not understanding this stuff…they fear their ignorance is going to push you away. So they’ll typically fall back on their two go-to tactics: they’ll either smother you with love and attention—love bomb you, essentially–or they’ll pull away, dismiss your concerns and change the subject.

These tactics can be like putting up a wall between the fearful avoidant and their romantic partner. And on some level this is exactly what they want because of number five….

5. They fear being known.

I’m sure we all feel this way one way or another: you want closeness with another person but you fear opening up and letting them see your true self.

Will they still care about you when they see what your family is like? Will they still respect you when they see that you still have that teddy bear on your bed? Are they going to still love you when they know the shameful secrets from your past?

These are very normal feelings but for fearful avoidants, they’re often magnified. This is not only because they’re more prone to fear and struggle to handle it, but also because their attachment style has created some legitimate red flags in their behaviour and their personalities.

So maybe they ghosted a long term relationship. Maybe they moved in with someone after two dates. Maybe they’re afraid to say I love you.

These fears will further feed into their tendency to smother and avoid.

Soothe The Fearful-Avoidant Fears

So with all these fears, you may wonder if it’s even possible to get close to a fearful avoidant, much less make them feel better. And while you can’t completely change their personalities or take away all their anxiety, there are things you can do to help a fearful avoidant feel safe within the relationship.

1. Be specific about your needs.

Don’t make them guess about how you feel. One of the biggest issues that a fearful avoidant has is that they live in their own head. They push and pull because they’re feeling pushed and pulled by their own emotions. One second they think you’re going to leave them and the next, they think you’re getting too close.

And in large part, this is driven by the expectations that they believe you have.

They may think that if they don’t text you for three hours, you’re going to be upset, so they force themselves to communicate more and then they resent you for it. They may think that you expect them to take you on fancy dates every weekend even though they can’t afford it. They may think that you’re mad at them because you don’t use enough emojis in your messages.

Unfortunately, you can’t control their thoughts, but you can help prevent them from spinning out by being extremely clear about your intentions and your feelings.

So how often you want to be in contact, when you need time alone, what kind of relationship you want to have, how much time you want to spend together, your sexual needs: these are all things you can spell out overtly if they’re causing problems for you or your partner.

You don’t have to write them a manual for dating you but err on the side of over-explaining things to them to help them understand and avoid assumptions. Then when your partner starts to spiral because they haven’t bought you an expensive gift in a while they can say “oh, I remember they said that they don’t need anything fancy. Even a bouquet of flowers once in a while makes them feel special.”

I know it can feel less romantic to spell things out for your partner but too much mystery can get you into trouble, especially if your partner is a fearful avoidant.

2. Don’t expect to change them.

Remember that attachment styles can change with time and circumstance, but they can’t be manipulated to fit your needs. This person had this attachment style long before you came along and chances are they’ll have it for the rest of their life.

So don’t try to change them into a different person. No matter how gentle you think you’re being, all you’re doing is putting them under pressure and setting yourself up for disappointment.

This doesn’t mean that they’re not responsible for their actions, but you need to figure out if you want them for who they actually are or just for the potential of who they could be.

Firm boundaries are your friend here. Make it clear what you won’t tolerate and then don’t tolerate it. It’s not about making them prove their love for you, but seeing if you’re capable of creating the life you both want, together.

3. Don’t walk on eggshells.

It’s important to be aware of your partner’s triggers and be willing to cut them slack, but don’t ever let it get to the point where you feel like you’re walking on eggshells just to keep them happy. This is just a recipe for resentment for both of you.

You need to be able to be honest with your fearful avoidant partner. If they screw up, let them know or don’t be surprised when they do it all over again.

Honesty may cause problems at times, but at least the problems will be out in the open where they can be dealt with rather than hidden.

By the same token, don’t keep them at a distance out of fear of triggering their anxiety. If you can’t hold them close and be intimate with them then this relationship is not going to work out long term.

4. Be realistic about their capacity.

In my work, I notice a very common pattern. You meet someone, you’re attracted to them and embark on a relationship. As you get to know them, you start to see their red flags. You see that they have a few traits that truly clash with your own and would make it essentially impossible for you to be happy together.

But instead of ending things, or even talking about it, you keep quiet and hope that it will get better the longer you two are together. You just let the resentment build, waiting for that magical moment when they change and become the person who you want them to be.

This attitude is what kills relationships. Of course, the other person is accountable for their behaviour, but if you don’t like them at their best, you’re never going to be happy together and you’re both wasting your time.

So try to understand them and be honest with yourself about whether you two are actually compatible. If you can do that, you’ll have the best chance at happiness

Brad Browning

Brad Browning is widely regarded as the world's most trusted breakup experts, boasting over 12 years of experience working with clients from around the world. Brad's #1 best-selling breakup reversal guide, The Ex Factor, has helped more than 130,000 people from 131 countries to re-unite with an ex. Brad is also the author of Mend The Marriage, a comprehensive self-help guide that teaches married couples how to save their dying marriage and prevent divorce. Brad’s YouTube channel has over 400,000 subscribers and 50 million views, and he has been featured in a number of well-known media outlets and industry journals.