Ask Tulsa Bae: Who’s Anxious, And Who’s Avoidant? 

Welcome to Ask Tulsa Bae, where we take your questions on dating and romance, shake our heads mournfully at them, and pass them on to Corinne Gaston, our local dating expert. Got a question? Send it to dating@thepickup.com, or fill out our Google Form! Now, on to the column. 

Dear Tulsa Bae,

I wanted to get your thoughts on the Anxious and Avoidant attachment relationship and how to best navigate it pre- and post-breakup.

Thanks,
Attached

Dear Attached,

If you’re reading this in the middle of a breakup, or bracing for one, I’m really sorry. That’s a tender place to be. And if you’re not, your question tells me you’re at least trying to make sense of an unbalanced and possibly emotionally painful situation, since both anxious and avoidant attachment types come from wounded places.

Attachment theory has exploded into the mainstream over the past decade, and it can be a useful lens, but it can also become a distraction if we use it to pathologize ourselves or our exes too much instead of tending to what actually hurts. Because of that, I won’t rehash everything about attachment theory here. But my shorthand take on the anxious/avoidant dynamic is this: both are rooted in abandonment, just expressed differently.

Anxiously attached people often abandon themselves to keep a relationship, ignoring their own needs and boundaries, because they are deeply afraid of being left. Avoidantly attached people abandon others (and themselves, when it comes down to it) to avoid feeling overwhelmed, because they fear losing their sense of self in a relationship. Anxious and avoidant partners are two sides of the same coin, and together they often create relationships rife with tension and confusion. One partner feels neglected; the other feels burdened. Each tries to get their needs met in a way that triggers the other’s wound. Spoiler: neither ends up getting their needs met.

Okay. Pop psychology bit done.

I do think attachment theory can be genuinely useful. It can help people identify unhealthy patterns, understand the “why” behind them, and make different choices. I’ll raise my hand here.  Books like Attached and Liberated Love helped me realize I’d been operating with a “fearful avoidant” attachment style (also called disorganized attachment). As much as I craved intimacy, I was simultaneously afraid of being rejected or hurt, and of being trapped in the wrong relationship. 

When I got close to someone romantically in later adult relationships, I’d start pulling away and quietly building a case for why the relationship wouldn’t work. Even when things were good, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Instead of recognizing that waiting for the shoe was part of my own baggage, I treated it as evidence (or worse, my “intuition”) that something in the relationship was wrong, then used it as an exit ramp. One foot was always out the door. I couldn’t get rejected or trapped by the relationship if I left first, right? 

Big yikes. I know.

I’m very happy to say I’ve worked through many of my unhealthy patterns, including that old attachment style. They came from a deep place of hurt, and healing them required therapy with a trusted psychologist, vulnerability in close friendships, relying on mentors and elders, self-reflection, and, most importantly, deliberately choosing different behaviors that often felt counterintuitive after years of doing the opposite.

I hate to think that if I hadn’t done that work on myself, I might have gotten a few months into my current relationship, thought “this is too good to be true!” and fabricated a dropping shoe so I could leave in typical fearful-avoidant fashion.

I don’t want to talk too much about myself, but I hope my example shows how one attachment style can play out in real life when it and the why beneath it are not addressed.

Where attachment theory starts to go sideways is when people hyper-fixate on its labels and use them to pathologize themselves and others. And there’s a whole market for it. There are plenty of self-appointed relationship “gurus” on YouTube and TikTok offering tips on how to win back your avoidant ex or manage your anxious partner. Don’t get sucked into this! Games, gimmicks, and over-fixation on labels don’t lead to loving, reciprocal companionship. If you find yourself endlessly Googling “what does it mean when my avoidant boyfriend does X?” or “how do I get my anxious partner to stop doing Y?” while struggling to communicate directly and honestly with your partner, then you may have a bigger problem.

Once you understand your attachment style, it’s okay—healthy, even—to put down the self-help books or Quora search and go see a therapist instead. Real transformation happens when you work on healing harmful dating patterns and make different choices from a healthier place, which a licensed professional can guide you with. If you can recognize when you’re about to act from an anxious or avoidant place, you can interrupt the pattern and make a decision more aligned with a secure attachment style (the Holy Grail!). My two cents: that’s the best use of attachment theory.

Now, back to your question about breakups. “Pre-breakup,” I recommend (as a former Fearful Avoidant) that you check in with yourself first to make sure that you’re not self-sabotaging a good relationship by ending things prematurely. Sadly, it can be easy for us. I can’t speak for those who skew more Anxious, but I think it’s worth asking yourself similar questions no matter your attachment style: Is the relationship good for you? Is it loving and safe? Use that to help inform your decision.

Post-breakup, no matter which way you lean, I suggest that you try not to fixate on whether you or your ex are acting in an “anxious” or “avoidant” way. Breakups are hard. Period. Studies show that the loss of a romantic relationship registers in the brain similarly to physical pain, regardless of attachment style or whether the relationship lasted three months or three years. So let yourself grieve. And when you’re ready, you can reflect on how you behaved in your last relationship and how you can work on being more secure in the future.

Healthy relationships make room for both intimacy and independence. And many relationships are made up of people who aren’t perfectly secure in their attachment style, but can flourish together if they have room for grace and growth. If you can’t work it out and find balance, it doesn’t mean you’ve failed. It could simply mean you and your partner may not be a match, and that’s okay.

Use attachment theory as a tool to better understand parts of yourself, but don’t rely on it alone. Consistent work with a therapist will likely be much more effective in helping you recognize your patterns (attachment-adjacent and otherwise) so you stop reenacting the same old wounds with new people. That’s the good news in all of this: we can all change our attachment styles! With healing, someone who is anxiously or avoidantly attached today can become secure tomorrow.