In the previous chapter, we discussed problems arising from the anxious-avoidant clash and possible ways to resolve these issues. In some cases, however, even repeated efforts to improve the situation fail, and the interaction between these two attachment styles can become truly harmful. Unfortunately, in these cases, anxious and avoidant people can bring out the worst in each other. “Abnormal” becomes the norm.

I met Craig when I was in college. He was cute and sporty, and I admired the way he looked. Plus, he was a tutor in physics, my major, doing work that seemed far more advanced than mine, so I thought he was brilliant. From the beginning, however, there were things about his behavior that confused and upset me.

Fortunately, Marsha went on to meet someone with whom she has a happy life. While with her new partner, she was able to change her job to one more rewarding and to develop a new hobby. She’s never again experienced the emotional turmoil that she felt with Craig.

Marsha and Craig’s story exemplifies how bad an anxious-avoidant trap can become. Craig didn’t feel comfortable with too much intimacy, so he missed no opportunity to put up emotional barriers between himself and Marsha—creating uncertainty at the beginning of their relationship, keeping their status unclear, having to be “pushed” into marriage, belittling her, avoiding sex, and using numerous other deactivating strategies. Clearly he possesses an avoidant attachment style. Marsha has an anxious attachment style. She longed to be close to Craig, she was the driving force behind their marriage, and she was preoccupied with the relationship—initially she cried every day because of his behavior, a form of preoccupation, and later she constantly thought of divorce, another way to focus on the relationship. In a typically anxious manner, she fluctuated from highs to lows, depending on the signals from Craig, and resorted to protest behavior (threatening to leave but never actually following through). Her attachment system remained chronically activated, at least during the first few years—before she became indifferent to him.

Note Marsha’s statement that Craig was “the least sexual person I ever dated.” Avoidants often use sex to distance themselves from their partner. It doesn’t necessarily mean they will cheat on their partner, although studies have shown that they are more likely to do so than other attachment types. Phillip Shaver, in a study with then University of California-Davis graduate student Dory Schachner, found that of the three styles, avoidants would more readily make a pass at someone else’s partner or respond to such a proposition.

But sex was hardly the main concern for Marsha during the time she was with Craig. It constituted just a fraction of the deactivating strategies used by Craig, day in, day out, whether with friends or in the privacy of their own home; his deactivation was relentless and never-ending. In short, Craig treated Marsha as if she were the enemy, in sharp contrast to the loving and caring persona he exhibited to the rest of the world (“Craig was a great guy and he made a good impression. People who knew him superficially thought he was really nice”). That dichotomy confused Marsha. Of all the people in the world, she was the one closest to him, and yet he treated her the worst. How could he be so nice toward everyone else and so mean to her? It didn’t make sense, and she thought that if she could make him see that he was hurting her, then he could treat her as well as he treated everyone else.

Do these statements apply to your situation? Chances are that if you’re getting the cold shoulder, if your partner is much nicer to strangers and usually “pleads the fifth”—choosing not to talk to you—you’ve become the enemy. Your only crime has been to become too close to someone who can’t tolerate it.

Many people in anxious-avoidant relationships think that the “royal inner circle” doesn’t really exist, and that all people have the same inner-circle experience. They assume that other people are simply not being honest about what goes on behind closed doors. But we’re here to tell you that it does exist and it’s not even a rare occurrence. After all, secure people make up over 50 percent of the population and their inner circle is treated like royalty.

Many people who live in an avoidant-anxious trap have a hard time admitting to themselves and others that they are in a bad predicament. They’ll admit that they’re not completely satisfied with their relationship, then will qualify it by saying, “But who is? All couples fight, all couples get upset. How are we different from them?” They talk themselves into believing that their partner’s behavior is not so bad. Others, like Marsha, are aware of their dire situation, but can’t take the necessary steps to bail out. They might make an attempt, but get overwhelmed by the pain associated with leaving. Then they experience the rebound effect.

Once you’re convinced that you’ve become the enemy, why is it still so hard to walk away? First, because it is very painful. As painful as it is to be mistreated by your partner, severing an attachment bond is even more excruciating. You may understand rationally that you should leave, but your emotional brain may not yet be ready to make that move. The emotional circuits that make up our attachment system evolved to discourage us from being alone. One way to nudge us back to the safety of our lover’s arms is to create the sensation of unmistakable pain when we find ourselves alone. Studies have found that the same areas in the brain that light up in imaging scans when we break a leg are activated when we split up with our mate. As part of a reaction to a breakup, our brain experiences the departure of an attachment figure in a similar way to that in which it registers physical pain.

What happens when you do reunite with your partner after a breakup? Myron Hofer, a colleague of Amir’s from Columbia University and a leading researcher in the field of the psychobiology of mother-infant attachment, describes a fascinating discovery in one of his studies. When rat pups are separated from their mothers, a number of physiological reactions occur: their activity level goes down, their heart rate goes down, and so does their growth hormone level. In Hofer’s studies, he gradually replaced each maternal attribute with an artificial substitute: He first warmed the pups with a heating pad, then fed them so their stomachs would be full, and later patted them with a brush, imitating their mother’s licking action. He found that each intervention helped with one aspect of their separation distress. Feeding the pups helped maintain their heart rate at a normal level, warming them helped keep their activity intact, and brushing them helped raise their growth hormone secretion.

Even without knowing about the rebound effect, Marsha could see that she was in trouble. After all, she had experienced the rebound effect before. Marsha was afraid that she might have a change of heart again, and she was greatly relieved when Craig took matters into his own hands—standing by his word to leave, the next time she threatened him with divorce. The night she said she wanted out, everything happened very quickly. She packed a small bag and called her sister to pick her up right away. From an attachment perspective, this was a very well-planned departure.

Long before she actually made a break, Marsha had been unconsciously preparing her escape by beginning to deactivate her attachment system. After trying for years to make things work with Craig—by explaining her point of view, falling apart emotionally, and excusing his behavior—she finally gave up hope. In our interview, Marsha told us that whereas during the first few years she would find herself in tears on a daily basis, during the last year, she almost never cried. Emotionally, she was already starting to detach. She no longer believed that anything would change or, in fact, that Craig could change. She started to notice more and more of his faults and stopped concentrating on the occasional positive experience they shared. The process she went through was the same one that avoidant people engage in all the time: In order to avoid becoming too close, they focus on their partner’s negative qualities and behaviors to keep their partner at bay. Marsha, although anxious, started to use deactivating strategies after having been burned emotionally by Craig countless times. Deactivating is a necessary process that must occur in order to get someone out of your (attachment) system. Starting this process while still with your partner, however, doesn’t guarantee that you won’t experience the rebound effect. Once your attachment system is reactivated as a result of separation, all bets are off. In Marsha’s case, having started the deactivation process did help her get safely through the initial breakup phase and the eventual divorce.