Two Types of Emotional Avoidance in Relationships and Why It Hurts
Emotional avoidance is common in relationships. People often assume the difficulty is a lack of communication or compatibility, but many patterns begin with how emotions are managed internally.
Avoidance usually develops as a way of coping. It protects against feelings that once felt overwhelming or unsafe. The difficulty is that the same protection can limit closeness and create distance over time.
In therapy, emotional avoidance tends to appear in two broad forms.
Emotional avoidance in relationships describes the patterns people use to keep themselves emotionally distant when intimacy feels unsafe. These avoidance strategies often stem from early attachment trauma or controlling defences that block vulnerability and connection.
The Silence of the Self
Relationships often bring us into close emotional contact. For many people, this also brings anxiety, distance, or repeating patterns of conflict.
It is easy to assume the problem sits entirely with the other person. Often, part of the difficulty comes from how emotions are managed internally.
Emotional avoidance develops when certain feelings begin to feel difficult to tolerate. Love, grief, anger, or vulnerability can trigger anxiety, and the nervous system learns ways to reduce contact with those experiences.
These responses usually happen automatically. They are attempts to stay safe rather than conscious choices.
The result can look similar across relationships, emotional distance, loneliness, or recurring conflict, even though the way people avoid emotion tends to fall into two different patterns.
Type One: Passive Avoidance
When emotional distance developed early
Some forms of avoidance begin in early environments where emotion was not welcomed or safely received.
If sadness, anger, or need led to criticism, withdrawal, or tension, the nervous system learned to reduce emotional expression. Over time this can become automatic. People may disconnect from feelings without realising they are doing it.
In relationships this often looks like:
Withdrawing when conversations become emotionally close
Feeling flat or empty after moments of intimacy
Shutting down during conflict
Struggling to identify what you feel in the moment
The person is not deliberately pulling away. The system is repeating a pattern that once helped them manage anxiety.
The result is often loneliness alongside a genuine desire for closeness.
“Avoidance often develops when feelings felt unsafe earlier in life”
Type Two: Active Avoidance
When control replaces emotional contact
Other forms of avoidance are more active. Instead of withdrawing, the person manages the emotional atmosphere to prevent discomfort.
This can look like:
Keeping things positive to avoid difficult feelings
Deflecting conversations away from vulnerability
Taking control of discussions when anxiety rises
Using criticism, humour, or reassurance to move away from emotion
These responses are rarely intentional strategies. They are ways of regulating anxiety when emotional uncertainty feels difficult to tolerate.
From the outside this can look confident or composed. Internally, there is often tension or fear about what might happen if control is lost.
What both types have in common
Passive and active avoidance look different, but they serve the same function. They reduce exposure to emotional experience.
Over time, relationships begin to feel restricted. Conversations stay safe but not deeply connected. Conflict repeats without resolution. Both people can feel unseen.
Avoidance can reduce anxiety in the short term, while gradually limiting emotional connection.
How therapy helps
Therapy does not aim to remove defences suddenly. These patterns developed for good reasons. The work is to understand them and gradually build capacity for emotional contact.
This usually involves:
Noticing avoidance as it appears in real time
Understanding what anxiety or feeling sits underneath it
Slowing down automatic responses
Developing the ability to stay present with emotion without becoming overwhelmed
Change tends to happen through repeated experiences of noticing and staying.
As emotional capacity grows, closeness becomes less threatening and relationships feel more stable.
A simple starting point
Emotional avoidance is rarely deliberate. It is often a learned response that continues long after the original situation has passed.
Therapy offers a space where these patterns can be observed without judgement and worked with at a manageable pace.
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FAQ: Emotional Avoidance in Relationships
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Avoidance often comes from early attachment wounds where closeness felt unsafe or overwhelming. The body and nervous system learned to protect you by pulling away when intimacy appears.
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That’s common. Avoidance often makes our emotions feel “numbed out” or confusing. Therapy encourages you to name, tolerate, and experience your feelings instead of running from them.
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Not always. Some avoidance is driven by narcissistic defences that aim to control rather than protect. The key is whether avoidance comes from fear and shame, or from a strategy to dominate and distance.
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Yes. Therapy helps uncover the roots of avoidance and create new, healthier ways of relating. It’s not quick, but with consistent work, you can face what was once unbearable and build the capacity for closeness.
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Because what you avoid is what controls you. Therapy helps you face your feelings at a pace your nervous system can actually handle.
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Yes, because the patterns you live today were shaped there. Understanding them isn’t about blame. It’s about reclaiming your freedom now that you’re an adult.
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Yes. But hyper-independence that keeps everyone at a distance can be a lonely place to be. Therapy helps you keep your strength and have the type of relationships you really want to have in your life.
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No. Emotional avoidance is a survival strategy. It kept you safe once, but now it may be keeping you from the life, love and relationships you want. Narcissism is different because it is motivated by control rather than protection.
Written by Rick Cox, MBACP (Accred)
Psychodynamic Psychotherapist, UK & Online
