Man (Un)Caved

(Un)locking: Hearts in the Labyrinth - The Dance of Love Addicts and Avoidants

• Shane Coyle

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Ever found yourself drawn to someone who seems perpetually out of reach, emotionally speaking? It's a story as old as time, yet the reasons behind these attractions remain a complex dance of our deepest fears and desires. On Man, Uncaved, I, Shane, take you through the labyrinth of love addicts and love avoidants, unraveling the patterns that lead us into the arms of those who might seem least equipped to satisfy our emotional needs. With the insights of Pia Melody as our guide, we dissect the hidden fears that propel love addicts' fear of abandonment and love avoidants' dread of true intimacy—offering a mirror to our own relational blueprints.

The fabric of our current relationships is often woven from the threads of our childhood experiences. We're not just talking about the typical "mommy and daddy issues" here; it's about understanding how emotional neglect and enmeshment with a parent can distort our perceptions of self and others. In this episode, we dig deep into how these early life experiences shape our inclination towards either clinging too tightly or pushing love away. It's not uncommon to find solace in substances or other damaging behaviors as a substitute for the emotional fulfillment we crave, but by dissecting these behaviors, we move towards the possibility of rewiring our approach to relationships and finding true connection.

As we come full circle, the intricate interplay between love addicts seeking security and love avoidants chasing autonomy takes center stage. Sharing personal anecdotes and the stories of those who've walked this path, we explore the tug-of-war between the need for intimacy and the fear of it. The key, as we will uncover together, is cultivating self-intimacy—the internal foundation that determines our ability to nurture and embrace love in our external world. Join me on this expedition into the human heart, where we confront our shadows to find our way to healthier, more authentic relationships. This is Man, Uncaved, where the journey inward is the bravest quest of all.

Speaker 1:

Chasing after someone who is emotionally not available is not an expression of love. It is fear that makes us chase. Love doesn't chase or beg. Both are actually responses out of fear. So that's what we're going to take a look at tonight to really understand if we are exhibiting certain patterns and what is at the root of these patterns and what is that core wounding underneath that pattern. So join me today on Men Uncaved. Again, my name is Shane and if you haven't been here before, welcome, and if you've come back to listen, thank you so much for joining.

Speaker 1:

I think these episodes are entertaining and informative, as well as hopefully cause a shift in perspective to help you along this journey called life. So, with that being said, let's jump in today's episode. So this is really based on a lot of what's called Pia Medley. If anybody doesn't know Pia she is, I want to say back in the 90s she talked about love, addiction, love, the fear of intimacy and codependency, the idea behind the love addict and the love avoidant. We're going to put them into those two labels for now that both come with their own conscious and unconscious fear. So first, let's start with the love addict's fear. Again, when I say conscious and unconscious. We're really referring to what's called a primary fear and a secondary fear, the one that is really leading the march and the one behind it. So, looking at it from the love addict's lens, the love addict tends to have a conscious fear of abandonment and an unconscious fear of intimacy, and we're going to break this down a little bit to understand more intimacies. The one that I like to say is into me, I see, which I didn't know, which was in Love Guru, and so when I do this in my groups, people are like Love Guru with Michael Myers. But that idea of into me, I see, is this ability to have self-care, to emotionally be in, tuned and embody our own emotions, to recognize our own emotions. The core of that intimacy, on that emotional level, is love. I'm going to come back to that as we go back and forth with these two ideas of love addict and love avoidant. So, holding that space of the love addict fear of abandonment is the very conscious primary fear, the underlying secondary fear, fear of intimacy.

Speaker 1:

Holding that space for a minute, let's move over to what would be called the love avoidant. Now, the love avoidant has the primary or conscious fear of intimacy with the unconscious secondary fear of abandonment. So you can kind of see how they play a little out with each other. Right One, the love addict don't leave me, I can't be alone. But I don't know how to be in a relationship because I'm actually not in a relationship with my own self. The love avoidant I don't know how to be in a relationship because I'm not really in an emotionally stable relationship with myself Remember fear of intimacy. I don't know how to be in my emotional space, but please don't leave me, so you could see how that can lead to toxicity.

Speaker 1:

Obviously in relationships and when I'm looking at relationships, I want to widen our lens, just for a little bit. So let me put a couple words onto that. Yes, we are. When we hear love addict, love avoidant, we tend to go to romantic relationships. Of course, that's where our mind tends to go. We're looking at our past relationships, our current relationships. What I really want to look at is a wide lens.

Speaker 1:

This plays out in family systems. So this could be with your parents. I know there were some patterns there with my own mom. This could be with your parents. I know there were some patterns there with my own mom. This could be with your friends and ultimately this could be you and you, because that idea is, if we are not having intimacy with ourselves, knowing our emotional experience and knowing what to do with that, having kind of an emotional sovereignty around that, then the truth of the matter is that we've abandoned ourself and this could also be a substance. I really want to put that into place. This could be a substance because behind our own substance people, places or things we chase through drugs, we chase through alcohol, codependency, sex, love we can chase gambling, shopping. That is a relationship and within that relationship we are trying to get our needs met. So these are emotional basic needs love, belonging, validation. However, especially if it is around a substance to the degree that it could be really a dependency, or within that relationship, again, it's toxic. So now you're in a toxic relationship. Stepping back from that, what patterns are we repeating? That we keep engaging in toxic relationships. So let's break these down a little bit more to have a deeper understanding of these concepts. So if we were to take again the love addict, we're going to start with the love addict.

Speaker 1:

The primary or conscious fear is fear of abandonment. Now, to understand that abandonment and to have a fear of abandonment, we must look at childhood experiences because, remember, people, what is our first relationship? Where was our first relationship started? Of course, in the house, in that family system, your primary caregivers. So to have a fear of abandonment as a very conscious fear, we can gather that there must have been abandonment there. But also, understanding abandonment lives in physical abandonment. It also lives in what's called emotional neglect, could feel very abandoning, these ideas of fear of abandonment.

Speaker 1:

Children live in fantasies when there's a lot of neglect, when there's a lot of physical abandonment, and that could look like creating fantasies, and some of these fantasies are really what fairy tales are driven out of right. So we have the hero to save us, we have the knight in shining armor, we have the princess we must save, and these are archetypes which actually would be more of the mature masculine if we're looking at it from the hero lens. Or that could be the princess in shining armor or the goddess to save me From what? What are they saving me from? Remember, the child can't be with a lot of that pain, they don't know what's going on, the loneliness you live in fantasy to deny the reality in order to cope. This is a very early coping strategy.

Speaker 1:

Let's take a look at the love avoidance Now. The love avoidant comes with their conscious or primary fear of intimacy. Now remember, at the root of intimacy, to have intimacy is actually love. If we can have a sense of emotional intimacy with ourself, that's self-love, it's self-caring. But then again, if love is the answer and all you need is love, then why would this individual's fear be around the idea of love? Now let's go down this individual's childhood to understand how that could be created into a fear in adult relationships.

Speaker 1:

What it can look like is what's called a meshment within the family system. So this could be a mother or a father that uses the child as their emotional center. Now they might not be directly saying that you know, you're in charge of meeting all my needs. It is definitely covert and indirectly displayed. That way it could be the hovering mom, the hovering dad, the smothering mom, the smothering dad that doesn't allow the child to individualize, to grow, to move, which leads into codependency factors If the mother or the father tends to do everything for the child, which leads to cognitive deficits later, not learning how to live in life.

Speaker 1:

Enmeshment with the mother or the father using the child for their emotional needs. You're in charge of my love, you're in charge of my comfort, you're in charge of my safety, and validation is really smothering to the child. Now, again it's smothering and it is disguised as love. The child learns that love is suffocating. So the fear of intimacy, the fear of emotional connection, is suffocating. I lose my sense of self when I'm being used to meet my parents' needs. Actually, really, what's happening is a child is being set up to take care of the mother or the father, and this is very abusive on an emotional level. And again, it's disguised as love.

Speaker 1:

Now, recognizing as well that we can have one parent in a love avoidant pattern and one parent in a love addict parent for that child, which can lead to disorganization, especially, say, if the we'll just use the example of the father is a little distant emotionally. Well, where does the mother get her needs met? Well, she can use the children or the child to meet that need, especially when the spouse is absent. So this leaves a very disorganized attachment, it leaves confusion with the child. One parent is one way, one parent is the other way, or, if it is a single parent, one parent can exhibit both, and that was a situation with my mom. It was sometimes it was very love addict, pulling in, and then it was the love avoidant, the chasing for love. Again, this could also exist in one parent.

Speaker 1:

The cardinal signs of this type of relationship could be very high highs and low lows. Could exhibit very hot and cold tendencies. Knowing that now stepping back and looking at family systems, looking at friendships, looking at romantic relationships as well as substances. Again, cardinal signs high, highs, low, lows. So high and the withdrawals, the highs and the withdrawals. And within relationships that high, high, that low, low would be trauma, bonding the highs of it and the withdrawals. So let's talk about how these wonderful people meet each other.

Speaker 1:

Now, this is always not to a T, so play around with these ideas. I'm not saying this is always how it plays out, but let's just use this, for example, that the addict, the one that has the primary, the love addict, the one that has the primary fear of abandonment I can't be alone, I don't know how to be alone, I'm scared to be alone tends to usually be the one seeking the relationships. Because, again, remember, there is this fantasy or illusion out there that someone to potentially save me, save me from my emptiness, save me from my loneliness, and which we'll get into another episode but really what is called the other esteem, so using other meaning, anything outside of us, to gain our esteem, and we'll talk more about this in another episode. The love addict they tend to draw in the again, taking the concept of fantasy, tend to seek someone who might look good on the exterior. Now let's move over to the love avoidant, the one who has the primary conscious fear of intimacy. That individual can tend to build a lot of external validation. So maybe they have and again, this is all relative maybe they have the good job, the good car, they have their own apartment, maybe they have money, what looks appealing to say, the love addict, he or she that looks great too, because it's the knight or the princess in shining armor. They have their life together. So we can create these fantasies, idealizations that that person is the one who will save me, being that, they say, the love avoidant doesn't tend to move into relationships too fast. That would be more of the love addict, but the love avoidant, again building the exterior. Where can we get the feeling of feeling loved? Where can we feel validated? Where can we feel a sense of belonging and safe? We can use our external environment so you can receive the validation, you can receive the safety and love from those exteriors. So for the love avoidant that feeds the emotional needs within that individual, I get all my needs met outside. Okay, now that we got those two ideas put in place with the love addict and the love avoidant, let's talk about how they meet. It was a smoke-filled room. They saw each other, they walked. It was slow motion.

Speaker 1:

So what happens is, again, the love addict tends to seek the love avoidant, not really wanting to get into relationships. But if someone is texting you and hey, I'm thinking about you, I want to see you and I guess you know chasing, I guess, could be the word then you're going to get some needs met. You're going to feel powerful, you're going to feel loved, you're going to feel in control. So the love addict tends to be the word. Then you're going to get some needs met. You're going to feel powerful, you're going to feel loved, you're going to feel in control. So the love addict tends to be the pursuer. The love avoidant is getting all those dopamine hits feeling in control, feeling love and feeling validated. Now the love avoidant says, okay, let's try, let's see what we can do here. So they decide they want to go into a relationship. Now, hopefully we're all adults here. If we're not all adults listening to this, I'm going to just, you know, earplugs, earmuffs.

Speaker 1:

So first part of a relationship is very physical. Right, we're reenacting animals in the Serengeti, we're pouncing on each other. You know it's very sexually driven and that's usually what happens, and usually we can get the first six months. We can get maybe a year out of it, and then there's what happens is a decline in all of that, because what causes longevity of relationships? I mean, look, the sex is great. However, what causes longevity of relationships is actually a thing called intimacy. Now this is where it gets really interesting, and when that decline starts to happen, we call it something. We say the honeymoon is over and usually what's happening is because, yeah, the sex is there, but now the intimacy is showing up. You know, six months a year, year and a half.

Speaker 1:

Now we actually have to get to know each other a little bit more. We have to see how we hold emotional space for each other a little bit more. We have to see how we hold emotional space for each other a little bit more. You're having a bad day, I'm having a bad day. How do we communicate that? Arguments, disagreements start to happen. But remember both of them. The love addict has a unconscious fear of intimacy and the love avoidant has a conscious fear of intimacy. So what can start to happen is remember into me, I see, makes it available to. Into you, I see.

Speaker 1:

If I cannot hold emotional space for my own self, then I don't have space for your emotions. See, my emotions overwhelm me. So what can happen is you're gonna come home, you're gonna have a bad day, whatever's going on. You got in an argument with your brother, sister, mother, father and you're going to come to me with all of these emotions. Or you're going to get in a fight with me and you're going to come in with all these emotions and I'm not going to be able to handle it. And so what can happen is, unconsciously, we can quiet that other person down. This could be very passive, passive-aggressive ways that we do that so that I can have more relief, so that I can feel more in control, so that I could feel safe and comfortable.

Speaker 1:

Now, using that to understand. That's what happens sometimes in families If there's an emotionally immature parent that doesn't know how to be with his or her emotions and that child. Remember that child is coming in and guess what that child is? Only that child is only emotions, constantly, and endless energy. Anybody who have a kid, we know they have endless energy. It's the energizer buddy bouncing around. They're emotional and they need to have that and it's very vulnerable and it's very loving. However, if we haven't done our own work as parents to recognize our own emotions, then we can try to control them so that we can feel more comfortable. And this is where the abuse starts to live in. And again, abuse, you know, small T, big, big t the emotional invalidation can start to happen which leads to internalized shame for the child.

Speaker 1:

But when this starts to happen, with the love addict and the love avoidant within the relationship, when that honeymoon phase is over, what can tend to happen is the well, there's a couple things that can tend to happen. The walls go, go up. It can happen on both sides. The walls can go up. They both start to pull away from each other, actually, because they're both rooted out of a fear. They're both rooted out of fears, the love avoidant. The walls go up. What can tend to happen is sometimes the love addict can tend to. You know, look for the next one, I'm going to date myself, everybody. But the Rolodex comes out. You swipe, you wink. I mean it can happen on both sides because what the individual wants to do is just stay in the honeymoon phase. And I see a lot of relationships with people they just want to rotate around the honeymoon phase because they don't want to get into the really emotional stuff, they don't want to get into the really emotional intimacy stuff.

Speaker 1:

Now, again, the timeline is different for everybody. Now, when the walls go up, say for the love avoidant, and the walls go up, it sends off this internal alarm for the love addict Because, remember, the primary fear for the love addict is I can't be alone, it's scary to be alone. So it brings in this internal alarm, because that is familiar to the love addict the emotional disconnect, the physical disconnect. We are aware we're not talking the same anymore, we're not hanging out the same anymore, we're not doing the same things anymore. So this brings in it sounds off this internal alarm for the love addict. Now what can tend to happen is the addict tries to, and that's what that quote is about.

Speaker 1:

Chasing someone who's unemotionally available is not love, it's actually fear. And we're going to talk about how it's fear on both sides. It's actually the flip side of the coin. The fear of this person pulling away from me goes deep for the love addict. Remember, this probably was their early relationship experience, so it is deep on a cellular level for them. So what can tend to happen is they use manipulation strategies. They grasp Unfortunately, if there's kids involved, you can use kids as collateral, which is abusive for the children involved, using the children as collateral to try to get that person. The idea is to hook that person back into the relationship because, again, that fear of abandonment goes so deep for that love addict. It is so deep, it is uncomfortable. Their body is frozen, I can't breathe, I'm in my anxiety, I'm in my panic, and the reason why is because this is so familiar.

Speaker 1:

So they will attempt to try to hook, chase that person back in. This could be via text, stalking, you know all of the things and it's all really just forms of manipulation. Say, there's a light that goes off and they love addict, I deserve better. They pull away and they start to leave the relationship. Now what happens with the love addict? I deserve better. They pull away and they start to leave the relationship. Now what happens with the love avoidant? Remember, the love avoidant also has a fear of abandonment as well. So now the coin flips, and now the love avoidant is fear of being alone, because that's their unconscious fear that is in the shadows behind them. So now the abandonment shows up for them I can be alone flips, and what the love avoiding can tend to do is use another form of manipulation, and that form of manipulation is called seduction, this love bombing acts. Now that fear is showing up.

Speaker 1:

But again, at the core of it is a manipulation strategy. It is called seduction, to hook the love addict back into the relationship. Now I'm just going to speak candidly about myself, because this has actually happened. But what happens when that seduction can come in from, say, the love addict? And I say love addict because now the love avoidant has actually flipped into the addict role and you're getting all these texts I miss you, I want to see you, or whatever the seductive manipulation strategy is.

Speaker 1:

Well, guess what happens to the love addict? We light up like a fucking Christmas tree. Right, we are opening up our mind, we're secreting the dopamine. Oh, I'm the one. He or she finally realizes that I'm the one. He or she finally realizes that I'm the one and we light up like a Christmas tree because we want to live continuously in the fantasy and not in the reality. We want to live in the fantasy of someone to save me and all of a sudden we broke up yesterday but it's been eight hours and they did a yoga class and they did meditation and they went to therapy once.

Speaker 1:

So the love addict jumps back into the relationship and the love avoidant with the love avoidant and maybe you get that six months and, oh my God, he or she is so readily available, they're so open. We really work through some stuff in that eight hours and what happens is you get six months, maybe you get a year again. What happens again, here we go, the decline. We have another what's called honeymoon phase is over, you have intimacy show up one more time and the walls go up again. It's called the dance of intimacy, and this pattern tends to live out over and over and over again in relationships, romantic relationships, friendships, it could be family systems. The idea is how do we start breaking these patterns? I guess that's what everybody wants to know. That's always the question. Okay, so here's the pattern.

Speaker 1:

Now, how do we break through from this. Well, what we are doing in this healing or transformational work is that we're learning to have intimacy with ourself and once we can have a sense of into me, I see, understanding our own experience, embodying our own experience we're able to put certain boundaries. From that place we can have our internal boundaries and understand external boundaries. We can understand what feels good and what doesn't feel good for us, how we can make moves. Now I'm not saying making those moves, especially if in the relationship you have to end the relationship. It's just not that that square piece is not going to fit in that circle hole. We have to make those moves, but even in that in itself will be a sense of self-love and intimacy. The idea is that I'm worth more and I'm not going to put myself. So that would be a healthy internal boundary. Now I'm not saying that you have to break up just because this is happening. I'm saying the willingness that both parties are taking responsibility for their own behaviors, feelings and thoughts. And once we start learning this intimacy with ourself, then we don't abandon our own self anymore and then we know what our worth is and we're saying that doesn't feel good and I have to leave or whatever that looks like and as we keep doing this inward journey, then the idea is that we can hold more space for that other person at the core of having intimacy with ourself. We can understand the idea of what is called compassion and we can understand empathy from that place.

Speaker 1:

Love, this stuff Again. I speak about this not because I have mastered this by any means, but because I am growing. These are some challenges that I had to look at within my own self, my own patterns of love addict and love avoidant. Remember, it's the flip sides of the coin. So in one relationship, say, if our partner is coming more love addict, we can tend to move into our love avoidant pattern. Now, if the partner we're with is more a love avoidant, then we can go back into our love addict behaviors. It's the chase, and it's truly the chase for a sense of intimacy into me, I see, because we are lacking that own intimacy with ourself so we continue to chase it externally.

Speaker 1:

Now, it's not to say that we can't have intimacy in a relationship and then wanting that from our partner. However, if we do not have it for ourselves, we cannot give or receive anything we do not have for our partner. However, if we do not have it for ourselves. We cannot give or receive anything we do not have for ourself. And I think that tends to what breaks down that relationships again from going back into the beginning with that quote is that they're both fear responses. The love addict is in fear and the love avoidant is in fear and at the root of what their fears are, abandonment, intimacy. So I hope you enjoyed this episode tonight. This is man, uncaved again. My name is shane. We need to come out of hiding.