Why Fearful-Avoidant Attachment Makes You Push Away People You Love, According to ‘Almost Adulting’

You’re into someone who swears they like you…yet your brain keeps screaming “run!” Welcome to avoidant-land. On Almost Adulting, host Violet Benson gets real about dating with a fearful-avoidant attachment style—and how to stop self-sabotaging something real.

Not all avoidants are heartless…some are just scared sh*tless

When most people think about avoidant attachment, they lump everyone who “needs space” into the same category: emotionally unavailable, commitment-phobic, cold. But attachment theory says otherwise. There’s a huge difference between someone who doesn’t want closeness and someone who’s just terrified of losing it once they have it.

“Even though I’m describing myself as avoidant attachment style person, I have what you call fearful avoidant attachment style,” Benson explains. “I feel that normally people describe us as heartless people who don’t want relationships, but it’s really not the case.”

She’s right. Researchers divide avoidant attachment into a few types, and only one of them truly fits that “emotionally unavailable” stereotype.

• Dismissive avoidant: The lone wolves who pride themselves on independence and suppress emotions to avoid relying on anyone. They’re not scared of intimacy—they just don’t value it. 
• Fearful avoidant (aka disorganized): The walking contradiction—craving love one second, terrified of it the next.
• Anxious avoidant: The push-and-pullers who want validation but panic when things get too real.

A study found that fearful avoidants show activation in both the attachment system (wanting connection) and the fear system (expecting rejection) at the same time. Basically, their brains are sending mixed signals—get close, but not too close.

“Somebody with a fearful avoidant attachment style, they crave intimacy and closeness. They want to be chosen. They want to choose someone,” Benson says. “But the moment they sense any type of vulnerability…the smallest little pattern break will make me want to withdraw because it’s a fear of being hurt.”

Why their brain keeps looking for the exit

Fearful avoidants aren’t trying to play games. Their wiring just tells them that love equals danger. “I look for things about him physically that should turn me off about him. I look for patterns in his behavior,” Benson admits. “The smallest thing that makes me think, ‘Oh, is that him liking me less? Is that him playing me?’ So I can kind of try to detach emotionally. I want to run half of the time.”

That instinct comes from early survival training. Psychologists say this attachment style often forms when a caregiver is both comforting and scary—like a parent who’s affectionate one moment and unpredictable the next. The child learns that closeness isn’t safe, so even as an adult, the brain keeps scanning for signs that intimacy could hurt.

Research backs that up. Studies show people with disorganized or fearful-avoidant attachment have hyperactive threat-detection systems. One study in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience found that these individuals show heightened amygdala activation—the brain’s fear center—even during positive and negative outcomes. 

“When things feel consistent, my system relaxes,” Benson says. “Although sometimes a calmness can feel foreign, even suspicious to me. That’s why then my brain will start to look for different patterns…okay maybe this is the shift like this is where the other shoe drops.”

For anyone dating a fearful avoidant, this is the part that makes you feel like you’re losing it. You’re steady, kind, and consistent—and they suddenly need “space” because you texted differently than usual. It’s not personal. Their nervous system is just trying to protect them from a threat that doesn’t actually exist.

“It’s basically a battle for someone with a fearful avoidant attachment style,” Benson says. “We are stuck between emotional hunger and emotional independence.” So when they start to pull away, what they’re really doing is trying to regain control. “I’ll start to overanalyze micro behaviors,” she adds. “I’ll start to feel safer by pulling away because it allows me to then be in control.”

How to make it work

For fearful avoidants, the magic move is pausing. “I don’t send the crazy text,” Benson says. “I write things down. Then I see how I feel in a couple hours.” That’s real emotional regulation. According to Brown University Health, reframing your thoughts before reacting—a practice called cognitive reappraisal—literally calms the brain’s fear response. Sometimes, two hours of breathing room can save a whole relationship.

She’s also learned to stop expecting her partner to “fix” her emotions. “What’s been healing for me is not expecting my partner to do more,” Benson shares. That’s straight from therapy textbooks. Experts call it “distress tolerance”—riding the emotional wave instead of making it everyone else’s problem. It’s messy, but it works.

On the flip side, if you’re dating a fearful avoidant, your superpower is stability. “The man I’m dating is secure attachment style. That’s why he’s able to give me the space that I need,” Benson says. Secure doesn’t mean boring—it means you don’t crumble when they need space. You can stay calm, consistent, and kind without chasing. That steady energy is what teaches an avoidant brain that love isn’t a trap.

“I’m hoping that with repetition, it will eventually teach my nervous system that connection can in fact survive without constant control,” Benson says.

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