Love Life with Matthew Hussey - 301: Essential Insights for Understanding an Avoidant

Episode Date: June 18, 2025

Do you keep attracting emotionally unavailable partners? Are you dating someone who pulls away just when things get close? When this happens, it’s easy to feel lost and wonder if the person you’re dating is avoidant or simply not that interested. In this episode, Matthew, Stephen, and Audrey dive deep into the topic of avoidant attachment, exploring how it develops, signs to look for, and what you can do if you’re dating someone with avoidant behavior. Topics Covered: The 5 key traits of avoidant partners. Why avoidants and anxious people are magnetically drawn to each other. Whether we overuse the “avoidant” label as a defense mechanism. How early experiences shape attachment patterns. What to do if you’re anxiously attached and dating someone avoidant. How to tell the difference between an avoidant and someone who just doesn’t want a relationship. How to anticipate the needs of a more independent partner. The importance of not mistaking emotional unavailability for “value.” Links: DatingWithResults.com – Free training for finding love without the chaos of modern dating. JoinLoveLife.com – Become a member and access exclusive live coaching sessions and courses. AskMH.com – Try Matthew AI and get real-time coaching from an AI trained on Matthew’s advice. MHRetreat.com – Book your place for the October Miami Retreat (virtual + in-person options available). Cozy Earth – Get 40% off loungewear and bedsheets with code LOVELIFE at CozyEarth.com

A lot of anxiously attached people are not people who immediately scream when they're feeling insecure. They are quietly anxious because what they grew up learning was minimizing their needs, not having a voice. Don't do anything that could scare love away. Welcome back to the podcast everybody, this is Love Life. I am Matthew Hussey and I'm here with Stephen Hussey and Audrey Hussey and today we are talking about the A word avoidance. Have you dated and avoidant recently? Is some of the pain of your dating or love life coming from having been attracted to someone like this? How has it affected you? What have been your frustrations? We are going to be talking about the avoidant traits that you can expect to see when you date someone like this.

Do we over label people avoidance? Is it possible that someone could just be not ready to commit but not be an avoidant? Why are avoidance so attractive and do you naturally attract avoidance more than you attract anybody else? We're going to talk about where avoidance comes from, we're going to talk about how anxious attachment styles and avoidant attachment styles interact and we talk about how different attachment styles interact with each other. We also do a brand new segment of Steve's sleeves. It's only got two E's. And we have a love lifeline question from one of our dear listeners. This is going to be a great one we're excited for you to listen. By the way if you are one of our dear listeners. This is going to be a great one. We're excited for you to listen.

By the way, if you are one of our live loves, that is our love life members, you can also expect some great stuff coming up. We have a new member orientation on the 18th of this month. Audrey is doing a live coach check-in on the 20th. I will be doing a check-in with all of you myself on the 23rd and Stephen on August the 5th you're going to be doing an entire masterclass on how to create a life in your spare time that attracts more quality people into it so

that you massively increase your chances of finding love. We call it the flame method and you're going to be breaking that down in detail in this masterclass on August the 5th. All of that is happening inside our Love Life coaching program. You can join if you're not a member already at joinlovelife.com. We also have a free dating training called Dating With Results that you can watch right now at datingwithresults.com. This is a super powerful foundational training

for anybody who is single and looking for love, who is sick and tired of the pitfalls of dating today and all of the nonsense that you have to deal with when you're trying to find love, who maybe is sick and tired of dating or fearful of dating at the very least but doesn't actually want to give up on finding love. This is a very practical training it is essential watching for anyone who does want to find love in 2025 and you can watch it at datingwithresults.com for free right now.

That link again is DatingWithResults.com Alright, let's get into the episode. It's good to be back with everybody and with you too, Matt, Stephen. Hello Audrey and Matt. Yeah. Well, we have just been together, of course, in Boston. Guys, hear this out. We have been everywhere for the last two weeks. I'm gonna go through everything we've done

because it actually makes my head spin when I list it out. And every time I've been sharing it with people, they're like, whoa. So it's impressive. It's impressive how much we've worked. So for the last two weeks, we started out in Mexico where you did a speech in front of 5,000 people. Which was fun and a bit scary.

You were very good. We then flew back to LA for 24 hours. We went from LA to Dallas, where we did another speech on stage with Jay Shetty. And then from Dallas, we flew to New York where we frankly didn't really do a lot of work. We just took a day off and, you know, gallivanted around the city.

Oh, thanks for the invite. Well, it's okay because the following day we flew to Boston and then we met you there. And I was invited. You were invited. And from Boston, we actually went to Cape Cod, which is where we did our Club Free 20 weekend getaway. Club Free 20 is a group that we have,

a very close coaching group of really wonderful people. And we basically every year go away and do a camping trip together. And this was our big weekend getaway and it was really, really fun. So that was in Cape Cod. We stayed in Airstreams. We cooked s'mores. Yeah. We saw whales. We saw a lot of, we didn't, we saw like entire posse of whales. We did. Dolphins. Dolphins didn't even register because there was so many whales. And producer David and I got lobster rolls and clam chowder. Yeah, there was a lot of chowdery. I ate my share of chowder. Matt is basically 50% clam chowder by this point. That's true. But then from there, Matt and I went to Nantucket, which was the most like glorious, sweet little,

perfect Pleasantville town I've ever been to. Steve, there's no, you can't even like find a CVS. There's no like big chain stores of any kind. You're not gonna find a Zara there. No 7-Eleven. No 7-Eleven. It's just all like independent stores. Everything looks perfect.

There's beautiful flowers outside of every shop. It's crazy. I've never seen anything like it. It was amazing. And we've done a good job of this, haven't we? We make a point of taking our moms away, like once or twice a year and just having an adventure with them.

And it's really, really special. We're creating these memories. Anyway, that was all in the space of two weeks and we got back last night. And now we are here with you lovely listeners and we're so excited to dive into today's subject, which is? Avoidance.

Those little nuggets. Why are we talking about avoidance today? We're talking about avoidance. Those little nuggets. Why are we talking about avoidance today? We're talking about avoidance because it comes up very very often when people talk about people who won't commit they always use the word avoidance. Do you think they overuse it? Well I want to discuss that but it's it's very as a very common thing people are always complaining about dating them. I want to talk about some of the traits of them you can expect so you can spot them,

so it's easier to know. And then kind of discuss why do people attract them? What can you do about it? Things like that. And before we dive into this, I wanna say for anyone out there whose attachment style is more avoidant, this is not an episode where we are in any way bashing

people who are avoidant, but rather just diving into this attachment style because it's talked about so much. Trying to understand them better to begin with. I am historically avoidant. So I got no beef with avoidance at all. I definitely have had to work on that over my life.

Would you say you're a misunderstood creature? Absolutely, and not just for that reason. Right. Yeah, absolutely. What other reasons for that reason. Right. Yeah. What other reasons? I'm a complicated man, but I would say yes. Spoken like a true avoidant. Don't get me to talk about emotions.

Um, no, I would say I have had a history of feeling smothered or like this is someone is too much in a relationship. I need a lot of independence. So, but I wanna talk about, you know, uncovering some of those behaviors. So, all right, let's get into some traits of avoidance. What are some common patterns, some common behaviors we would see in avoidance?

All right, so first of all, just an unease with too much emotional intimacy or just emotional distance, wanting to keep people at arms length, they can still seem warm, but they often pull back when they feel things are emotionally intense or too vulnerable. So that's the first one. Second one, hyper-independence or excessive desire for autonomy. So they really, really value self sufficiency and almost have a reflexive like, I can and should handle everything myself. Like I can handle myself, I don't need someone.

If I've got a problem, I'll fix it. So they might not often share when something's wrong, or if they are unsatisfied in a relationship, they'll just kind of reflexively go independent and pull away, like I need to take care of me. Another one is just suppression of their own feelings and needs. Like they might just, if they have a need, they'll just bury it and they'll kind of, you know, rather than sharing hurt or anxiety, they just kind of like bottle it up. Fourth one, low level of trust. So feeling like they are worried, they cannot trust someone else with their happiness or wellbeing.

There's kind of already a doubt about someone's motives, about relying on someone too much, they expect to be let down. So they might make sure I can't really rely on someone too much, they expect to be let down. So they might make sure I can't really rely on someone in that way. And the last one is distancing tactics when closeness gets too much. So when they are close with someone, they might have a really close moment and then put distance between them. Like that was too much sharing. Like that was too, that was too close or too vulnerable.

So they'll go on this like push pull of like these distancing tactics. You know, a time where I think that's really, really common is when you're dating somebody and it's going really, really well and you feel like, maybe you've just been on like a weekend away together or like you've kind of almost, you feel like you've like almost reached

this next level with them, and then suddenly that person pulls away. That's such a common experience. And it is because suddenly it all got a little bit, bit too much. Well, that's what's so confusing about it, right? It's, it happens right at the moment where you actually felt like things were going really well.

Yeah, where the emotional connection deepens and then suddenly it like spooks the other person. They're really interesting. The low trust one is in some ways the really dangerous part of this because the way you framed it, Steve, is you can have low trust because you don't trust someone with your feelings,

with your happiness, which suggests a wound. And wounds make people sympathetic. And when we feel, oh, they do want love, they do want me to make them happy. They just don't trust me with their feelings. They just don't trust me with their happiness because they've been hurt in the past or they grew up not being able to trust the people around them with their feelings. That creates a very sort of sympathetic lens, which by the way, I'm not saying is wrong to have that sympathy for someone, but with that sympathetic lens comes a feeling of wanting to prove to someone that we can be the person that they can trust, that we can be the person who can make them happy, who they can open up with. That gives rise to what can actually end up being a very toxic pattern of us thinking we're going to

be the one to finally get someone to lower their guard and they're going to see that they can do it with us. Yeah, it's interesting where it comes from because it can kind of come from two very different places. Like it can come from a parent who didn't, this is the theory, it can come from a parent who either you felt like your needs were not valid or were not listened to. Like you expressed emotion and they just told you, you were being stupid or they made fun of you or they made it like it's unsafe to express who I am. So the avoidant then shuts down and goes, it's not safe for me to properly express myself. So they go,

I've got to take care of all of my needs myself. It can also come from a parent who was really emotionally smothering and overbearing. And if you felt like that parent really depended on you, you go, I cannot get in that situation again where I'm responsible for someone's happiness. I cannot allow my life to be taken by someone else, like replicate that relationship with my parents. So I see every closeness as this person's needs are going to completely swamp mine. So it can kind of be like two different kinds of, you know, parent relationship.

Yeah. I, if I give you an inch, you're just going to consume me. Right. Yeah. And also I think when parents are smothering in that way, intentionally or otherwise, they become also quite manipulative because they're kind of manipulating their children into having their needs met. And they don't do it in a, manipulative is a triggering word for people,

you know what I mean by it. Like the parent will be using and relying on the child's love and energy and support as a means of making themselves feel okay. And they'll do unconsciously whatever they can to secure that bond and that love. And I think that is also a breeding ground for the trust piece of it, which you talked about,

because then you go, well, my caregiver, the person who I'm supposed to be able to trust and who's supposed to put my needs first is forever putting their needs first and kind of manipulating situations to make sure that their needs are met because they also have a wound that they haven't worked on. And this isn't to criticize parents who do this

because I think that we're all just children in adult bodies, we're all four year olds in grownup bodies at the end of the day. But that is often what happens. And I think then you learn to kind of not have that reference point for just that safe, secure attachment where your needs came first. And that could come from, on one hand, on a perhaps more insidious end of the spectrum. It could come from having a narcissistic parent who thinks their needs are the only thing that matters. And therefore just using you as a means to an end

and smothering you in that way. But it could also come from a parent who has a very anxious attachment style. And in that sense, it's interesting that anxious people, anxious parents can create avoidant kids. people, anxious parents can create avoidant kids. So we were traveling last week in Dallas and we were in a hotel which shall not be named and Audrey, right as we were trying to get to sleep,

started complaining about the absence of cozy earth bamboo bed sheets. I did. You're a bit hot, bedsheets. I did. You're a bit hot, weren't you? I was. Didn't feel soft enough, did you? You guys, we've talked a lot about these bedsheets, but once you try them, you will see

that you can't really go back to regular bedsheets and not feel disappointed. These bedsheets are just so soft and so comfortable, and they keep you cool at night, and I'm just absolutely obsessed with them. So well done, Cozy Earth. Audrey can't travel anymore thanks to you. Well, I do plan to travel in this hoodie.

Oh yeah, what's that? It's a lovely soft hoodie I got from them. And I also got their everywhere pants. I am always looking just to be comfortable when I go out to dinner, but I don't want to just wear like sweatpants. And these actually look good and they're really comfortable. And when you love a pair of pants, you'll wear them a thousand times.

These are going on every time I go out to cinema, dinner, lunch. They are my everyday pants now. And I am wearing right now the all day tee, which is something I'm not going to be taking off any time soon. If you want to get a present for someone you love, either a guy in your life or yourself, if you want to buy the pajamas, the Audrey wears every night or the bed sheets that we sleep in every night, you can get all of them at cosyearth.com. And the best part is that we here at the Love Life podcast have a discount code

for you that gets you a whopping 40% off everything. Use the code lovelife at checkout and you can get a 40% discount. All of that is at cozyearth.com. Don't forget to use your discount code, lovelife. Stay cozy, friends. We actually ran a poll. We polled our audience and got thousands of votes just to kind of dig a little bit deeper around, you know, their attachment styles and ultimately like

who they felt, the kinds of partners they felt they've attracted in the past as well. And so some of you would have probably voted for this as well. The first question we asked was what is your attachment style? Can you guys guess what the kind of ratio and percentage was? And don't look at my page, Stephen. I'm gonna say the majority of people said anxious. I am gonna say anxious or secure. Well, you're absolutely correct. It was a landslide.

Anxious was voted at 58% with only 10% avoidant, 12% who voted secure, and 19% who said they didn't know either way. But yeah, 58% of people voted anxious. That's a landslide. It is staggering. Yeah. Well, I think as well avoidance can typically be more inclined to think they might not need a relationship. So maybe they're less inclined to go looking for relationship advice. Yeah. And so we, we actually had a follow-up question that we asked everybody. Um, because we felt like it would be an interesting piece of data to collect. Given these results, we asked what attachment style do you attract the most? So we asked the same group of people. We asked whether it was anxious, avoidant or secure.

What do you guys think? And don't look at my page, Stephen. I know our audience well enough that it's definitely gonna be avoidant. Avoidant? You're correct. And it was crazy. We actually had 75% of people, thousands of votes

that voted avoidant and only 13% that voted anxious and 13% that voted secure. I find those results really staggering. Well, I think there could be some interesting implications there, like some of them could just be that, and I have heard this before, that there are by almost the numbers more avoidant people are in the single dating pool. So you are more likely to meet avoidance.

Like on dating apps. Like anxious people self-select for relationships. Right. The avoidant people are more likely to keep being single again and again. So in some ways, like on a dating app, it's going to skew slightly towards avoidant. And I think they say men are more likely to have the avoidant attachment type. So it may just be that people out there dating again and again might be meeting like the same kinds of men, things like that. So I could see

there just being a numbers thing at work here. I could also just see it that if you're in that cycle of frustration where someone keeps pulling away, yeah, it's just likely that's the dynamic that's going on because an anxious person might chase, I want to be in a relationship more to kind of, you know, they're more likely to be the chasing one. But you know what's interesting as well is I think that if you have a repeated amount of bad experiences in dating, you become more anxious because you almost start to doubt yourself. You start to build all these reference points for the fact that people don't commit,

people can't be trusted, people pull away, et cetera, et cetera. So it kind of works as a vicious cycle where I think that even people who maybe started out as more secure become more anxious by entering this dating pool, which has more avoidant people and avoidant tendencies. And it's also interesting to me because I think that, you know, we know it's, it's very common knowledge that avoidant people have an avoidant attachment

style tend to attract people with an anxious attachment style and vice versa. They're kind of like peanut butter and jelly, although they end up oftentimes not working with one another, but they attract each other quite often. And what I think is interesting about that is that, the reason you become anxiously attached oftentimes is because your needs weren't met and validated by your caregivers. And so you were in a place where you felt

like you were working for love and having to earn love and love was inconsistently given to you. And I think that if that is your blueprint for attachment and dating and relationships and connection, you're then the perfect kind of, you're then obviously going to be attracted to an avoidant person who completely reflects that exact same blueprint back to you in adult form.

It's almost like the most familiar thing you have always known is to be the one who's constantly trying to earn that love and earn the other person. So it feels so familiar and I think that's why people end up kind of repeating those cycles together.

Yeah and there are two common patterns in anxiously attached people that perpetuate those kinds of relationships. So on one hand if you're anxiously attached, you might have the pattern of immediately becoming very needy with someone, asking for a lot very quickly because you need a lot of reassurance up front, you know, having a very sensitive kind of dial for when someone's feeling a bit cold, and then having perhaps an extreme reaction to that in certain cases and all of that is going to be very triggering for the avoidant. So it's it almost becomes a little bit self perpetuating that anyone who has the potential to be avoidant because again this isn't we're not talking here in today's conversation about all avoidance being bad and they're not all the same.

There's a spectrum of avoidance. Yeah. And some people are obviously terrible bets for a relationship because they're on the extreme end of avoidance. Others are, you know, they have the potential to become more secure and more loving and closer around the right person, or their worst avoidant instincts will get triggered around someone who's quite anxious and anxious people are more likely to trigger the worst side of avoidance. But there's also the other side of it, which can become really toxic, which is

So the other side of it, which can become really toxic, which is a lot of anxiously attached people are not people who immediately scream when they're feeling insecure and start putting massive pressure on someone. They are quietly anxious because what they grew up learning was minimizing their needs, not having a voice, don't do anything that could scare love away. So they end up not speaking out and suffering in silence, which is why a lot of anxious people, and I can certainly relate to this, you know, have in their lifetimes gone on, they're on a constant roller coaster in their own mind. But on the outside, it seems like everything's okay. And an avoidant there doesn't, all that happens is we reinforce the avoidance behavior. What they learn is

it's okay. The way I kind of come in and out of your life, the way I come in close and then push you away, I can keep doing that. Yeah, they don't learn the boundaries. They don't learn any boundaries because the anxious person, that kind of anxious person is just trying to please and be whatever they need to be in order to not scare someone away. So now you get into a very toxic pattern

where someone who's anxious, the avoidant has no idea what pain and suffering the anxious person is going through. And only learns it one day when that person explodes or has a, you know, true like emotional kind of meltdown of just tears and pain. And you have no idea how I've been feeling this whole time. And the avoidant person is like, wait, what? And then of course, with all those tears, triggers the massive avoidance,

and I can't deal with this, and then they go cold. So there's multiple ways that that avoidance either gets reinforced or cemented or appeased or triggered. I have a question for you guys. You know, 75 75 was it 75? Yeah. 75% of people said that they attract avoidant partners.

How much of that do you guys believe is a true individual with an avoidant attachment style versus a person who isn't actually ready for a relationship. So therefore they're kind of one foot in, one foot out. And they're kind of behaving like an avoidant in the way that they're interacting with that person. But they're not necessarily avoidant. They're just not actually willing to commit. And we kind of label them as such,

because that's the label that makes the most sense, I guess. Do you guys think there's anything to that? So as in people aren't committing, not because they're avoidant, but because they just aren't that into the person or- Correct, but then we don't have that information and sometimes our ego can't take that truth because it's like a very painful thing

to think that somebody we really like just isn't wanting to commit to us and they're just not interested in a relationship with us. And I and I've been there, so it's, it's something we've all been through, but it's, it's a painful thing. So as a result, we go, well, they're just very avoidant and it's almost like the easiest thing to reach for as an explanation. Do you think that happens a lot? Or do you think that, you know, majority of those 75% of people are actually

dealing with avoidance? Look, I think self-reflection is really, really hard. And when we don't, when someone hasn't given us specific information on why maybe they've backed off, what they didn't like, a behavior maybe that didn't register for them as attractive behavior,

or maybe registered for them as quite insecure behavior, or even troubling behavior. You know, these things happen in dating all the time. We see something and we go, oh, I really didn't like that. And that doesn't come from a place of avoidance. It just comes from a place of going that is too early for me to, to be. Making myself responsible for this behavior in you or, and, and so I think

some people back away simply because they go, I don't owe someone an explanation at this stage, but I also don't want to have to stay and try to resolve something with someone I barely know. So I'm just going to back away. Well, and they think I don't want to give someone a super personal criticism about their character to end something that lasted a month or two. And it is easy to say, oh, they're an avoidant an avoidant. You know, we, we that just kind of slapping that label on someone is a very easy thing to do. It's easy for a guy to say, oh, it's just like these women are crazy. They're just so demanding.

You know, when what he doesn't have is self-reflection of going, maybe I'm struggling to have a normal conversation. Maybe I'm ignoring the fact that I've actually made a connection with someone and God forbid, they actually thought maybe that was going somewhere. Do you know where it gets really confusing though, is that I've seen a pattern in a lot of the people I know and the people we coach who are more secure.

And when you're more secure, you make allowances for people's imperfections. You tolerate the fact that people are gonna come with things about them that you're kind of agnostic about or don't really love, but you actually take in the whole person. Doesn't mean everybody's right for you, but you end up having a wider pool of people

that you consider to be right for you because you're much more at peace with not that person, kind of not having to jump through all these hoops in order to make you feel comfortable in your attachment. And so to an extent, somebody being hypercritical in dating and if they're constantly rejecting people, that kind of is a form of avoidance, I would argue.

Because I know for me, when I did the tests in Attached, I ranked as anxious avoidant. And I was like, I'm not anxious avoidant, I'm just avoidant. Sorry, I'm just anxious. I really relate to all the feelings, but I don't relate to avoidance. But then I really started looking at it and I was like,

oh, but I really am because I'm constantly dismissing people before I know them for really stupid reasons, for very shallow reasons. I just get put off people very easily. And actually it's because that is in the form of avoidance. It's kind of, I'm sure it was in the list that you listed earlier, Stephen, it's that kind of like, unless you're perfect,

or unless you make me feel like I'm having to earn your love and so I feel safe in that position of chasing, you're not like for me. Do you know what I mean? Whereas I think if you're secure, you're much more able to just take in a person as they come to you as a whole. And this is where we have to be really careful not to oversimplify ourselves, other people or life

because it's very easy to label someone else or to over identify ourselves with a certain way of being. And then that kind of in a way it becomes our own prison that we've put around ourselves that this is who I am. This is the way that I am. And the fact that you can change so much in the right relationship should actually help free you from that identity in the same way that I actually think it's a really important experience to have in your life,

to be with a person, I'm not suggesting this is a kind of medicine for people, but I actually think that the relationships that have made me the other, where I have suddenly been thrust into or pushed into an attachment style that I don't normally relate to. Those are really important exercises in empathy. Because then when you, if you're not normally the anxious one, if you're an avoidant normally and then you're with someone who makes you feel or even if if you're secure normally and normally like anxious people drive you crazy as a

secure person because you're just a bit like oh my god can you just be relaxed like me if you suddenly find yourself in a relationship with someone who makes you terribly anxious that allows you to access something next time around the next time you're with someone and they experience that anxiety with you, for whatever reason, you know, maybe there's something about the dynamic that's put you in the driver's seat a little bit, or maybe you've taken the driver's seat unconsciously

without knowing it. Maybe there's some power dynamic that's unspoken that's put you in a situation where you kind of have more control or leverage, or that person would naturally feel more insecure. Instead of having contempt for it, when you know you've been in those shoes before and you know how bad it feels, it actually can breed a kind of compassion and empathy that allows you to reach out to someone and communicate differently with them. And that

empathy might be the thing they need to make them feel heard and make them feel more secure. So it's not always simple and it is important to not over identify and also to have empathy for the other side. I'm curious, Steven, you said you think avoidance get a bad rap. Well, I just think this is an imbalance of criticism. I would argue, and I actually agree with you on that. I would argue there's too much credit if we're talking about imbalances given to avoidance for being attractive. Right.

It's like disproportionately avoidance get the hate while anxious people get the sympathy. But I would also say disproportionately avoidance get the sex sexy card. Right. Whereas anxious people get the like, you know, the, the, the ugly card, the, ah, yuck. I don't want like, that's not a good thing. And they get way too much credit for being attractive. Right. Because their avoidance makes them look hard to get. It's like you're an aloof sexy cat who can't be pinned down. Oh, and by the way, guys, we talked about our free training, Dating with Results at the top of the episode. This subject we talk about at length in that training. So you should definitely go and

check it out. It's, yeah, it's one of the main subjects that we talk about, but continue. Getting attracted to the wrong people and how it happens and how we rewire ourselves. To stop being attracted to the wrong things so we can actually find a proper partner that makes us happy. So do you think when people are attracted to avoidance, do you think they need to learn to deal with the avoidant or stop finding avoidant traits attractive? Well, I, I think that we have to really try to sober up in these situations and say, what exactly am I attracted to here? Like what I, okay. I let's say you've got, you've been triggered into like feeling really into someone. Ask yourself what happened that

tipped me over the edge into this kind of obsessive state about this person? Because if I had a really lovely date with them and I felt really good in their company and I felt really at home and it just felt comfortable and it felt good and I was like, oh, I'd really wanna do that again. That's one thing. If someone not texting you for the last two days starts to trigger an obsession, it's not that you've seen more of that person

and that's triggered an obsession, it's that that you've seen more of that person and that's triggered an obsession. It's that that person disappeared and that triggered obsession. So we have to be very careful in looking at what triggered these very heightened feelings of anxiety or desire or attraction. Was it a wonderful moment I just had with them? Yeah. Or is it the fact that they just had with them? Yeah. Or is it the fact that they,

I sent them a text this morning and they still haven't texted me back five hours later. Those insights can be very revealing because if your desire, your curiosity, or your obsession is piqued by someone's absence or by how hard to get they've become, then it has nothing to do with their inherent value. It has to do with this,

the economics of how rare and difficult they now seem to obtain. And that's the trick. That's the mind trick. That has nothing to do with how valuable this person is. What you just said there is so important. The economics of attraction around, you know, if somebody is not available,

if they register as emotionally unavailable or inconsistent or kind of able to take us or leave us, what our brain does unconsciously oftentimes is decide that that must be because they are very valuable, that they have lots of options, that they're very kind of sought after because they're able to take us and leave us and that we must now, you know, earn their love

and try and fight to get them because they are this rare valuable birds that we will, you know, will slip through our fingers if we don't double down on. And it's, by the way, this happens so quickly and so subconsciously that it's, we barely even notice it's happened. There's sneaky avoidance.

It can literally be, if it sneaks up on you, this feeling of, oh my God, I can't stop thinking about this person. And, oh my God, why did I send that? They've now gone off me. They're now not texting me. They're not like, we don't realize that all of a sudden the car has been hijacked by the part of us that is wounded

by the part of us that by ego, by this feeling that, oh my God, if they're out of reach, they must be valuable. If they don't like me, they must be valuable. If they don't like me, they must be more valuable. We don't realize that's all taken the wheel. And all we just, all we notice is, I suddenly feel awful. I suddenly feel terrified. I suddenly feel like I can't live without this person. I, that's that, but when we get that feeling, we should pay really close attention to it and say, why is this feeling so extreme right now? What's going on with me that this feeling is so extreme?

You know, a little hack that I have that I think might be useful for everybody listening is if you find yourself in that cycle and you almost kind of start veering into this like anxious state because of trying to get that person, reminding yourself that the best way to attract and to almost have even somebody who's more avoidant, leaning, be attracted to you, is to model a secure attachment.

And the way to do that if you're not feeling secure in that moment is to almost think of somebody who you know, who you really respect because they're very secure in the way that they approach relationship and say, what would they do in this situation? Would they find this attractive? Would they find this acceptable? You know, how would they respond to the fact that they haven't heard from this person?

And trying to almost model what you imagine their reaction would be versus what your kind of instinct is, which might be the completely wrong behavior to have in order to actually get that person to like you. I find that tool so useful and I use that regularly in so many parts of life and in communication especially. I'm just like, how confidently would this person do that conversation? Yeah. No, it's really, really useful.

Yeah, that's a great one. We have a question, our love life line question that came in, which I think we should dive into right now. It's all about this subject of avoidance and how to work in a relationship with somebody who is more avoidant. Do you want to do the honours? Well, this is from Jackie who says, with this month exploring how attachment style matters, can you explain how to work with avoidance in relationships? How do you create space for them and give them their sense of independence and autonomy that they are seeking while also being able to balance out the closeness and intimacy that we ourselves seek? Is there a section somewhere in love life that has

conversation topics to bring up, date ideas and or how to pick up on when they are starting to pull away to address it earlier on so that we can work through the relationship? Thanks Jackie. Great question. So how do you create space, let's start with that one, how do you create space for avoidance to give them their sense of independence and autonomy that they're seeking while balancing out the closeness and intimacy that we seek? I'm a big believer in the very basic idea that a relationship is a team. And as a team, one of the things that we want to be doing as a great teammate ourselves is anticipating needs. Anticipating needs means I don't just wait for you to come to me to tell me what you need when you're at a breaking point. And in a way, I, it, this is going to be hard. This is a tough truth, but it's something I think worth doing

for people who want to win in relationships. Gonna sip my tea from Matt's tough truth. Take a sip. No. Okay, you ready? Lay it on me. It's for sure up to somebody else to communicate with us what their needs are, right? That is a responsibility someone has to take ownership for

if they want a successful relationship. If we want a successful relationship, we won't wait for someone to communicate their needs to us before we seek to meet them. We did a full episode on this. We talked about in our relationship, kind of what was the thing that made you, somebody who was a little bit anxious, avoidant,

but avoidant at times, actually want to commit to a long-term relationship, then marriage and everything else. We talked a little bit about that subject. I wanna link the episode in the show notes, because I think people would really find that episode valuable. Yeah, we'll link it in the show notes, but this is a very, very important concept. Again, I'm going to state this in the only terms, the best terms I know. This is for people who really want to win in relationships, who truly are taking a winner's approach to relationships.

There is a double truth, like there's a kind of catch 22. It is both your job if you want a great relationship to communicate your needs to me. If I want a great relationship, it's my job not to wait for you. And not waiting for someone to communicate their needs before we seek to meet them is saying okay if I have the sense that independence, autonomy, having certain space needs is important to you then I

can actually do a really great job of anticipating that and if I can anticipate that by for for example, saying, hey, I know that you having some time to yourself really matters to you. Do you want me to give you some space at some point this weekend or this week so that you can have a night to yourself or so that you can have some time doing something

you really wanna do by yourself? The ability to say that to someone who's never had that said to them and always feel like they're having to fight for space is like balm for a wound. Oh yeah. It's huge. Because now what you get is, Oh, I, you've got me. I don't have to cause a huge trait of avoidance.

And by the way, anxious people are like is I can't trust you to have me. You don't have to because a huge trait of avoidance and by the way anxious people alike is I can't trust you to have me. You don't have me so I have to get myself and because I feel like I have to solely rely on myself to meet my needs I act out in and I almost create more if you're an avoidant I create more space than I need just to make sure I've got myself. And then a common thing for avoidance is you create so much space that you're then sitting in that space and going, be really fun if someone was with me right now. You know, you like you overdo it, you overcorrect. So if you know someone's got your back, you don't feel the need to overcorrect. In fact, you ease up,

you like drop your shoulders and unclench because you're like, Oh, you've got me. I don't have to worry about getting me. You've got me. And now there's a kind of gratitude that comes with that. It like creates space for someone to say, well, how do I, it's like, you want to say, thank you. You want to be like, how do I show up for you? And because you're no longer worried about your own needs in the same way, you actually have bandwidth to think about someone else's needs. I think that is an excellent point.

And I think it also helps if you are expressing your needs, be as specific as you can. Like if you are just saying, I just feel distant and we need to be closer. Like that again is just, or just you're so distant or whatever. That's going to make someone feel like tense, but even just expressing, acknowledging need. Like I know you value your space, but it would really mean a lot to me if we plan something for Saturday afternoon together, it would, you know, I'd really love us to do something and just us and giving, they can compartmentalize that a bit then going, Oh, I know like that's what's needed

rather than just dig, they're going to insert themselves into everything I do. And it's just going to take over everything and they're never going to feel satisfied if it's just like This is what would make me feel close to you What this is the need and it would really mean a lot if we even spent all Sunday together I know you might need your time on Saturday evening or whatever But I'd really love to us to book Sunday together and book something nice together What would be this person Jackie did ask for date ideas or topics to bring up? So Steven, I'm curious if there are any topics to bring up that you think are a good way to get an avoidant talking in terms of date ideas.

I think it's quite nice to balance. What I see as very connected dates where you are very consciously giving energy to each other, like, let's say dinner would be an example where you're spending a couple of hours sitting in conversation with someone with dates that require less of a person in that way. So you can imagine sitting side by side reading together. Right. And teaching, educating someone that not every date, it can't be no dates are connected, but not every day has to be this proactive giving of energy that some dates fall into the category of being in company. Yeah, I really agree with that. I mean, speaking personally, it's nice to know that you don't always have to be super on emotionally.

And again, avoidance can do emotional conversation. They can do, you know what I mean? They can be very affectionate, loving, so I don't think we should confuse these that avoidance are like cold fish because they can actually be very, you know, affectionate, warm, all those things. It's their style when they feel like things are too intense, but I think knowing you can have low intensity interaction with someone really makes you just feel like, oh, we can just like, we can just hang out on the couch and like, I could be, I could be doing something. They could be doing something else for a couple of hours and then we'd get to chat and have dinner. Just knowing there's that option makes you feel like, okay, cool. This is livable. And even sometimes again, going back to kind of preempting or anticipating,

if you know, for example, that the two of you are long distance and you're about to spend like a week together, which is a very common scenario, right? If you're long distance, you can't keep hopping over for a one night date. At some point, you're gonna have to be like, let's commit some real time to spend together

because that's otherwise doesn't justify one of us hopping on a plane or taking a very long drive to be with the other. But then of course, the avoidant in that situation is going to be like, we're going to be together for five whole days, or we're going to be together for a whole week, alarm bells are going off in that person's head. They may not be communicating them, but they are being, they are going, how am I going to handle this? If someone said to you, Hey, by the way, um, I know that we're planning on being together for this whole week, but it's also, I also know that

if we were in our own space and we weren't long distance, we would kind of see each other for part of the day, other parts of the day we'd be on our own. And I don't want you to feel like just because we're traveling to see each other, neither we can't have any space during that time. That's a beautiful thing to say because now you're saying you don't have to worry. Yeah, it's huge, huge. And they may or may not want that, but like, it's huge just to know I can say it, it's okay, you're going to have something to do, which is why showing independence is attractive to avoidant people because they go, okay, they have things they're interested in, they have things that occupy them, it's not just me that's occupying them. I think

that's massive. And even on that trip or whatever, or even just in normal week, I think avoidance can tend to do well if they know what the rituals are. It'd be really nice if we booked dinner for Tuesday night. Okay, cool. Tuesday night is gonna be me very on. I'm gonna do that.

Or whatever your rules are for calling. whatever you're, you don't have to have like strict ones, but being like, Oh, let's have our Saturday morning call and coffee or whatever. And just knowing like, okay, we've got, it's like, and then I'm allowed and then it's okay. If I'm like, Oh, and now I just want to be in the house, but I want to do my own thing in my room for a bit. Yeah, give people the blueprint to how to make you happy. I think is a really good, really good rule. And Jackie, to answer your final question of where inside the Love Life membership, you can find resources for how to, you know,

get the attraction back if somebody's trying to pull away, what you can do, how to address it, how to communicate it, et cetera. We actually have a course I think you're gonna find incredibly useful called Get the Attraction Back, Reignite the Spark When They Pull Away. It has so much incredible practical advice that is really, really suitable for you

or for anyone going through a situation where they feel like the person they are dating has pulled away and they're just trying to kind of work out if they can actually get back to a place of synergy together with them. So that is called get the attraction back. And by the way, ask Matthew AI as well. If you, we're gonna move on to Steve's sleeves

because it's that time again. But if you haven't already tried, for everyone out there, if you haven't tried Matthew AI and you wanna know what you can do when an avoidant pulls away, go and ask that question of Matthew AI right now at askmh.com. Get your own personalized game plan.

Well, it's that time again, Steve Sleeves. is Game Plan. Well, it's that time again, Steve Sleeves. It's Steven Sleeves where we all perceive dilemmas and a game or two and questions about cheese. Did you just come up with that on the spot? I am a writer. Do we deal with questions about cheese? Cheese has come up several times. Well, my memory is hazy on that but okay Good stuff Steve sleeves. So

We're gonna play security exclamation mark Okay Who doesn't love a good board game with an exclamation mark? So I'm going to give you some scenarios. I want you to tell me the secure response to them. Okay. So you express your feelings to them. You might say how lovely this is going, how much you're into it, whatever it might be. And they don't give you a very emotional or engaged response back, but their actions seem to show that they are into you and they're very consistent with planning stuff, but they just don't really give you the words you want to hear. What's a secure response though?

I suppose the secure response would be to go based on their actions and allow for them to express love and their feelings in the way that they want to express love and their feelings. However, I think additionally, the secure response is that if that's not enough for you and if over time you feel like you're always the one reaching and trying to kind of get validation by offering validation

and you're never really getting that kind of affirmation back then the secure response would be to talk about that and to express that that's the need that's not being met right now. And that you completely understand that you're different in expressing your emotions and your feelings, but that for you, it's actually something

you would really appreciate if they put a little bit of effort into doing. Security. Security. Is that what we do at the end of each one? I think so. Yeah, okay. If security has been achieved.

Okay, your favorite movie is the first Su suicide squad, widely considered the less good suicide squad film. They're so random. Well, I wanted it to be like a film. Favorite. I want it to be a film. I want it to be a film most people consider bad. So your favorite movie is the first suicide squad, but they won't give it a chance.

When you talk to them about it, they avoid the situation entirely and play it off like it isn't important. I'd say there's a lot of films that I'll give you a pass to avoid with me because we don't have to like all the same movies or want to watch all the same movies, but this movie really matters to me. It's Suicide Squad 1. It's my favourite version of the Joker. Yeah, it really, this one, this one means something to me. And if for no other reason than to humour me, I would really love to have a night where

I'll get you all your favorite snacks. But I'd really love a night where we watched Suicide Squad one together. Okay. I think that's nice. I like that. Security. Security. Security.

Well, that's it everyone. By the way, retreat tickets. Do you have yours yet? Retreat is starting to come up now. It's in October on the 18th and 19th. By the way, retreat tickets, do you have yours yet? Retreat is starting to come up now. It's in October on the 18th and 19th. You can get tickets at mhretreat.com. It's happening in Miami. You can either join us there in person

for one of the limited seats, or if you wanna join us virtually because you can't make it to Miami in person, you can get a virtual ticket too. They're all on the page, mhretreat.com. And by the way, this is a two-day experience. So don't worry if you're thinking, oh, but I can't take a week off work or anything like that. This is a much easier experience for you to be a part of.

Two days of immersion, to work on your confidence, your patterns, anything that could be holding you back in your life and truly changing that inner voice that constantly doubts you and holds you back. This is the key to you powerfully moving forward in your life and getting what you're worth. MHRetreat.com is the link for tickets. Thank you for watching as always or listening if you're listening to this. We appreciate all of you. Thank you Stephen Thank you Audrey. Thank you everyone. Thanks guys