Learning to let love in as an avoidant

If you’re an avoidant in your late 20s, 30s, or even 40s, the love of your life might not look or feel like a “fuck yes” at first. Why is that?

Because you’ve built a lifetime of armor around your heart, shielding you from the wisdom it carries. Love for you will have to be a patient process of peeling back the layers of fear that protect you in the form of: unrelenting standards, criticism, doubt, avoidance, disgust, and walls. These processes are called “deactivation”.

Your avoidance was an adaptation to an upbringing most often of neglect, but also of abuse and enmeshment. You learned that the safest place for you was alone. People couldn’t be trusted to show up for you or be interested in you for you, there was always an ulterior self-centered motive.

This leads to you seeking out unavailable partners that recreate this familiar dynamic and feel like a “fuck yes”. Although, this rarely ends well. These partners are the most likely to break your heart and create more walls. Partners that do not recreate this dynamic will feel unfamiliar, and like a “no”. These partners will feel “boring” to you at first and you will feel less “spark”. They can also become the love of your life.

The f*cked up tragedy is that avoidants will filter potential mates through the exact value lens they were filtered through as kids: “what matters is performance, appearance, money, power, beauty, and intelligence.” If these values sound like those of our society, they are, and our society is avoidant AF. Yes, a potentially healthy mate can have many of these things, but if this is your primary criteria it’s dangerously superficial… It’s all head and no heart. And it’s the worst compass you can use for love, for others and for yourself.

A great filter: “what does the youngest part of me think of this person?” The part of you that was open-hearted, before parental and societal conditioning got to you. They have the answer <3