How Can You Tell If You Or Your Loved One Has Severe Attachment Wounding?

When Trauma Survivors Push Away The Ones We Love (& Fear) The Most

Attachment trauma that results in avoidant or especially disorganized attachment typically results from severe relational trauma in childhood, when caregivers were either neglectful or even violent. Especially if caregivers actively induced fear in the child, rather than being a source of co-regulation and comfort, attachment wounding is all but unavoidable. Disorganized attachment stems from a fearful avoidant attachment bond that was created in childhood, when the child fears the caregivers because of violence, sexual abuse, neglect, and terrifying behaviors on the part of the caregivers. Avoidant attachment is less severe and stems more from emotional neglect than from physical or sexual violence. But it still creates real challenges in relationships.

[If your partner or adult loved one has avoidant or disorganized attachment, and you’re more securely or anxiously attached, you’re invited to a weekend Zoom workshop to support those who struggle with these adaptations in relationship, called Healing Attachment Wounds In Relationship. Learn more and register here.]

Typically, people who grow up to demonstrate the behaviors of severe attachment wounding had inadequate or absent safety and connection growing up. With nobody to comfort them when they were terrified, and nobody to help them get core developmental needs met, they grow up with chronic nervous system dysregulation and serious trust issues. They often wind up fearful about trusting others who are safe, but they may paradoxically trust dangerous people, further reinforcing the terror of intimacy.

There are a number of ways in which avoidant or disorganized attachment wounding in relationships can play out:

They Trust Untrustworthy People & Distrust Trustworthy Folks- Because their autonomic nervous systems did not develop properly, their safety and danger radar may wind up backwards. As such, they can be very gullible, naive and trusting with highly abusive individuals and very distrusting with people who are reasonably safe, loving, caring, gentle, and available for intimacy. Especially if you’re the first safe person someone with attachment wounding has tried to love, you’re likely to get the worst of their distrust. Expect to be tested in ways that feel supremely unfair. But remember, it’s not their fault. 

Difficulty Knowing Or Asking For What They Need- As little ones, these folks had their needs intentionally rejected and neglected. So they learn to shut down having much awareness of even their most basic needs. If they do become aware, they’re terrified of asking you to help them get their needs met, since fear of rejection is so strong.

“Come Hither, Go Away”- Those with attachment wounding still want closeness, even if it terrifies them. They may crave connection or jump from one relationship to the next, but they might run as soon as you lean in. As soon as you start opening your heart and making yourself available for intimacy, as soon as they start attaching, they may start pulling out all the stops to push you away. It can feel very confusing to you, if you’re the one who’s actually available for real connection, healthy intimacy, and more secure attachment.

Stoicism & Emotional Invulnerability- Especially with male-identifying people with attachment wounding, the cultural conditioning that shames men for being emotional or vulnerable plays into their excessive fear of vulnerability and intimacy. They often pride themselves in being an immovable rock, able to stand steady when the waves of emotion fly around them, while remaining untouched themselves. It can feel shocking for them to realize that it’s unhealthy to repress emotion and much healthier to be vulnerable with their partners, friends, and family. They tend to find it very scary to open up, no matter how kind, trustworthy, and gentle you’re being. 

History Of Choosing Unsuitable Partners- People with more severe attachment wounding may have a history of picking abusive partners who won’t challenge their need to avoid intimacy. Before you, they may have partnered with abusive, exploitative, betraying, transactional, or even criminally abusive partners- since, especially with disorganized attachment, they tend to recreate the dangerous relationships of their childhood. The more abusive partners they’ve had, the most their fears of intimacy become hardened and strengthened. By choosing unsuitable partners, they confirm their belief that nobody out there can ever be trusted. This makes it very hard on you.

Bizarre Acting Out Behaviors- If they inadvertently wind up with someone who is capable of intimacy and wants to be close to them, they may pull out all the stops to push you away. Their fear of intimacy often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because they behave so intolerably if someone tries to get close, they may behave in ways that cause their partners to leave, thus confirming their belief that nobody can be trusted and everyone will ultimately reject them. Because they don’t trust others, they can also be untrustworthy if intimacy is threatened. Even those who consider themselves of high integrity might be surprised to realize they’re lying, breaking promises, cheating, and otherwise throwing “decoys” in a misguided attempt to push you away.

Challenged With Regulating Strong Emotions- Normally, kids get help from their “good enough” parents learning to self-regulate when they get angry, scared, sad, jealous, or disappointed. But if nobody has taught your partner how to handle the kinds of strong emotions that can arise in the presence of genuine intimacy, it can feel overwhelming to you both.

Heightened Fear of Abandonment- While people with severe attachment wounding may fear connection, but they also fear being alone, fear abandonment, and can be clingy if the stability of the relationship is threatened. Because they cannot tolerate intimacy, they may become easily jealous if you exhibit affectionate or emotionally intimate behaviors with anyone else, even friends or your children. Seeing you be affectionate with anyone else may trigger strong fear of abandonment.

Power Imbalance- Those with attachment wounding may want you to be vulnerable- so they can feel in control- but they might struggle to share mutuality in vulnerability, which tends to put them in the “one up” power role. That power makes them feel safer, but if you challenge the power imbalance because you want more reciprocity and emotional intimacy, they will tend to resist sharing power.

When Loving Someone Who Has Been Hurt Becomes Your Altruistic Act Of Love, Your Service, Or Your Spiritual Path…

Everyone deserves to be loved by someone safe enough and trustworthy enough, even those who have been severely hurt in childhood. Trying to get close to someone with severe attachment wounding is a challenging journey, and it’s not for everyone. Just like someone who decides to climb Mount Everest might approach the challenge with both trepidation and enthusiasm, knowing the risks involved, those who choose to partner with someone with severe attachment wounding but are not severely wounded in attachment themselves may have a very particular kind of hard road ahead.  

It's not quite right to compare grown adults to children, no matter how wounded their inner children might be. But just like a foster child is likely to make life difficult for a loving, generous-hearted foster parent, your adult partner is likely to act out, violate your boundaries, resist your bids for connection, get clingy or avoidant if you get too far away, and test you severely in their attempts to discern if you can be trusted. This makes it very difficult to have an equal, reciprocal relationship, because you are likely to wind up caregiving more than you’re cared for, which might make you feel burned out and resentful.

Your real growth work, should you choose to accept the challenge, is to walk the razor’s edge between attending to your partner’s significant needs- without throwing your own needy parts under the bus and neglecting yourself. This often means intensive Internal Family Systems work on your own parts, who deserve the same or even greater degree of care than your partner’s parts will need. This can be a deep, meaningful, and lovingly intimate journey to explore your own wounded parts and your own protector parts. 

Without the inner journey that requires caretaking your own parts first, it will be nearly impossible to have a healthy relationship with someone with severe attachment wounding. But if you can learn to walk that razor’s edge, while also getting some of your own intimacy needs met with family and friends, outside the relationship, choosing to partner with someone with attachment wounding can be incredibly rewarding and full of heart-opening moments. You become the welcoming committee for so many parts in your partner that may never have been loved by anyone. And you might be surprised how many parts in yourself will be evoked so you can love them more deeply yourself.

If you’re capable of being patient enough to earn the trust of their young parts and their protectors, while also attending to the needs of your own parts, you have the potential to be the recipient of a tremendous outpouring of gratitude from both your partner and your own parts. The reward can be a lot of love and loyalty, since people with attachment wounding who do the hard work of healing can be incredibly affectionate and devoted partners, friends, and family members. You’ll also enjoy the rewards of your own altruism, since choosing to partner with someone with attachment wounding can be a great act of service to another human being, as part of a spiritual path that prioritizes service to those in need of more love.  

The key is to do this without spiritual bypassing, codependency, or martyrdom. This is not about throwing your own parts under the bus in order to prove you’re unconditionally loving with someone else (while being the opposite of unconditionally loving with yourself.) The nuances are tender- and can be quite confusing.

These are some of the issues my psychiatrist partner Jeffrey Rediger, MD, MDiv and I will be attending to in our upcoming Zoom weekend workshop- Healing Attachment Wounds In Relationships. This particular workshop is aimed more at the securely or anxiously attached partner who is struggling to love someone avoidantly attached or with disorganized attachment. Can you still come if you’re the avoidant or disorganized partner? Yes, of course. Just be forewarned that it’s aimed to extend empathy towards the people trying to partner with difficult to love partners who fear or avoid connection, so it could be triggering if you’re the one who struggles more with intimate connection.

Either way, you’re invited to join us if this pattern resonates with you. Or feel free to pass this on and invite others…

Learn more about Healing Attachment Wounds In Relationships here.

*Artwork by Sherri Howe