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How Avoidants Actually Fall In Love (It’s Not What You Think) — Transcript · YTtoTranscript

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How Avoidants Actually Fall In Love (It’s Not What You Think)

Adam Lane Smith · 6,905 words · 35 min read · EN-ORIG

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Below is the complete, readable transcript of How Avoidants Actually Fall In Love (It’s Not What You Think) by Adam Lane Smith on YouTube. Read the full text, copy any part you need, or generate a transcript for any video with our free tool.

Avoidant people fall in love in exactly 20 steps. These are 20 specific stages that happen in a very predictable sequence, from the moment they choose to start seeking out love before you even meet, to the initial attraction of connecting, through the chaos of the middle, all the way to either secure bonding on the other side or a complete

shutdown of all emotions and all bonding. Now, here's why this matters to you. If you've ever been with somebody who started out warm and present and interested, then slowly became distant and cold and unreachable, and you couldn't figure out what you did wrong, you didn't do anything wrong. You just didn't know which step you were on.

Today, I'm going to walk you through the exact secret internal process of how avoidant people process love. The steps that most people never see coming. The steps that explain why everything felt so good at the beginning and then fell completely apart. The steps that avoidant people, by the way, will never ever consciously admit to you. This is

the pattern that runs behind the scenes. This is the pattern that runs most often without them even realizing that it's there. It's time to pull back the curtain on exactly what happens in an avoidant partner's head and heart. I'm Adam Lane Smith, the attachment specialist, and I have worked with thousands of couples

where avoidant attachment style was destroying the connection between them. And I've seen exactly where relationships break down because partners don't understand what's even happening inside the avoidant person's brain. By the end of this video, you're going to understand exactly which step they're on at any part of the process. You're going to know why they do what

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they do, and you're going to stop taking it personally, because it's not about you. It's about neurobiology. Now, I'm mostly going to talk about the ethical avoidant experience here today, not much about the manipulative avoidant style. But, I will say this, if you follow along with me today, you will see the exact point where good intention can

slip into manipulative behaviors instead. So, let's get started at the beginning. So, there's a phase at the beginning called the conceptual phase. And in step one, it's called conceptual love. Avoidant people begin to experience attraction in this phase. Avoidant people don't really fall in love with a person first. They fall in love with the intellectual idea of love.

They usually don't realize this is happening, but they're looking for that feeling of a bonding hormone called oxytocin. It's a feeling of coming home, of being safe, of belonging to a group or a person, and feeling an intimate safe connection. Now, you're supposed to experience this first with your mother. Most avoidant people didn't. Or if they

did, it was yanked away from them when their mother was cold, disconnected, overbearing, overly emotional, and it was severed. So, even before they have memories, the oxytocin was removed from them, and they were never allowed to feel it again. They have an understanding that there's a feeling somewhere, but they don't know how to

get it. Their system says, "Love exists, but I'm not sure it exists for me." They fall in love with the intellectual concept of it because they don't have an experience to track back to. Now, another problem here is that in most avoidantly attached people, their oxytocin receptors are blocked. Cortisol actually closes these receptors and

blocks them so that you can't get bonding hormones even if someone does release them in you. Even worse, avoidantly attached people usually prevent any activity that would actually give them oxytocin in the first place. So, they have an idea an intellectually of what love could feel like, but they have no concept that they themselves are

the one preventing it, that their lifestyle and their brain and neurobiology is preventing the very feeling they're looking for. I'll say it this way. They love the idea of love, but they have very little idea about the actual practice of love. Now, step two is love modeling. This is where it gets really interesting. Avoidant people

start by envisioning what love could look like intellectually, what it would act like, and maybe feel like, almost like a math equation. They come up with what I call a partner model. The person who would give me the feeling I would want would probably look like X. Now, unfortunately for an avoidantly attached

person who hasn't experienced oxytocin bonding properly, that model is based on three key things. First is the reduction of fear. Things that make me uncomfortable, things that make me feel too vulnerable, things that make me feel too open, too many emotions. Reduce my fear. The right partner will reduce my fear and not challenge me in those

areas. Number two, an absence of expectations or pressure. The right partner won't be pushing toward marriage. We would have at least 15 years to consider it before we even put a label on the relationship so that we can really take our time. No pressure, no expectations. The reason for this is not that avoidant people

hate expectations. The reason is that they project everyone's expectations to be absolute maximum, and they don't conversate about what they are, when really most people's expectations are down here. This is because the avoidant person's parents and caregivers probably had expectations this high, and now they project that everybody does. Okay? The third thing they look for is

the presence of endless dopamine. I only bond through dopamine. Dopamine is all that gives me pleasure. I don't get oxytocin, and I get very little serotonin because I can't engage in emotional connection with people, only intellectual. So, I need endless dopamine hits. The problem is this will never actually work because novelty dopamine of a new partner wears off at 5

to 7 months. It is a doomed pathway that will never work. Are you seeing the problem yet? An intellectual model of a perfect partner will never inspire fear or discomfort, will never have expectations or pressure, and is always delivering an endless impossible supply of dopamine. This is why avoidant people are not happy.

They're not looking for deep emotional bonding. They don't know what that is. They're looking for someone who feels good without requiring vulnerability, and who would play well into the story they would ideally like to live. This is not, by the way, because avoidantly attached people are narcissistic monsters who want to mistreat other

people and harvest them for good feelings. It's because they don't have a concept of anything beyond this. They say, I will offer these three things, and you will offer them to me, and we can both be happy. They think that's a win. Step three is what I call scoping. Now they start scanning. They're

tracking carefully how other people fit their model. You've heard plenty of people say, you know, they're perfect on paper, but I just don't feel anything. That's this step. An avoidant person is intellectually evaluating whether someone in their world matches the criteria, but they're not feeling a connection because feeling requires vulnerability that they're not willing

to give yet. This is, I want other people to fit this mold. Most avoidantly attached people will engage in casual sex, plenty by the way, so they're willing to date plenty of people and sleep with plenty of people who don't miss meet that pattern, but they say, this person doesn't meet my pattern, so

they'll never be my person. We'll just exchange temporary dopamine for a little while. They usually don't realize the other person is bonding to them. It's I'm looking for Mrs. Right, but I'm willing to take Mrs. Right Now while I'm finding her. Now, rarely, something else may happen, but it does happen enough that they come to me for help on this.

Sometimes, an avoidant person gets swept up by someone who love bombs them completely. Usually someone with their own severe attachment issues, usually loud disorganized or even crossing over into borderline personality disorder. The intensity feels like connection because it's flooding them not only with dopamine, but for the first time overwhelming them and shoving oxytocin

into their receptors. It is such a saturation of it that the avoidant person is blindsided and confused and has no idea what's happening. It's one of the strangest patterns I've ever seen play out and sometimes they come to me deeply confused and unsettled about what's happening and they want more connection, but now they're even more

afraid than they were before because that person usually ends up devastating them. Now, let's pretend that second piece hasn't happened yet. Sometimes it does, but it's an outlier. Most of the time people enter step four, trial and error. They start dating cautiously. Not obligation, right? Not pushing into commitment and labels yet, sifting

through the market. Avoidant people at this point usually prefer no commitment flings or one-night stands or situationships, especially if their first attempt at a relationship ended really badly, okay? If they're doing this in their early teens, they might take whoever's around them and it goes catastrophically badly. Then for the rest of their life they have this sob

story about how when I was 16, it went so bad and she cheated on me, now I can never commit again. By the way, now I'm 56. Right? 40 years ago someone hurt me and confirmed my fears, so I can never open up to anyone ever again. I hear that actually quite a lot, okay?

But by their 20s, most avoidantly attached people are very ruthlessly strategic. Trial and error. Low commitment, maximum gain, testing the waters. Okay? This is the perfect time for them to start using dating apps, which reward that kind of behavior because you're just playing and getting back on the app again and again and

again. A lot of times their earliest experiences do usually involve getting smitten with somebody again, but it goes badly because the avoidant person doesn't know what real love is supposed to feel like. They pull back, they try to please the other person, they just try try stay distant, they pull away, and even if they pick a good partner,

they will usually sabotage it without realizing it, cause hurt, and drive the other person away. Even worse, again, they connect with loud, disorganized or personality disorder, and they feel gutted, and they say, "I will never allow someone to do this to me again." Now, after the initial crash, usually with a big relationship at the

beginning, they develop this model, trial and error. Get more calculated, get more ruthless, be more strategic, promise nothing. Now, this leads us into step five, thought contenders. This is where they tend to zero in on a few candidates, okay? They pick the best prospect, or someone that really tickles their fancy. This person looks right to

me, so I'll choose to figure it out. Here's what most partners that have this happening don't know. At this point, the avoidant person is laying down internal conditions. These are secret requirements that the prospect is supposed to meet, that they will never tell you. They won't communicate these clearly to you. Now, this is a shame,

because if they actually laid down clear expectations openly, that would usually fix the relationship for most people, but they keep these silent and internal. And that brings us to the commitment phase. The commitment phase is second, and this is where people get confused, because they say, "Adam, why do avoidant people even get married?" It's because

they believe through trial and error that nothing better is going to come, and that they're never going to feel the feeling they've wanted, so they may as well try to build a family and see if maybe that's fulfilling. Most of them are not sociopaths who just want to play the field forever and hurt other people.

Most of them want to build a family. They just say, "I guess happiness is beyond me, and I'll never feel it. But, you know what? Maybe I can feel it over time if I build a family." This leads us to step six, playing the part. With the internal conditions in place, the avoidant person commits and starts fully

dating you. Maybe they put a label on it. Maybe they get engaged at this point. But, here's what's happening underneath. They don't really know how it's going to go. There's There's internal, let's just see where this goes system playing out inside of them. Usually by this point in the first five to seven months the

novelty dopamine is still there. So they're still feeling good and enjoying experiences with you, but it is beginning to dwindle down. And this is why the avoidant person is usually highly pessimistic here. When avoidants commit, they are excessively pessimistic, but they choose to wave that away in the moment cuz the dopamine still feels so good and they have a

little bit of hope. Just the smallest amount. Usually they'll tell you hope is dangerous, but they have the smallest amount of it. If they're ethical avoidant, they model their own part of the love story. They try to give you that love. I will never give you reason to be afraid. I will never put

expectations or pressure on you and I will try to give you endless dopamine. They try to do what they think is a good partner. Usually this means overworking, financially providing and building physical safety. That's the first two levels of safety, but they don't know that level three and four exist. They don't know about emotional safety or

bonding safety. So they hyper fixate into being the perfect provider and protector. They choose to wave away their fears because they think this could work. They try to fill the role. They try to do what they can as far as they understand. If they're manipulative, they might be mostly trying to get what they can out of you.

They're afraid you're going to turn on them and hurt them, but at least they've said I don't trust anyone on the planet, but at least I distrust you the least. Stay with me. Okay? Either way, the avoidant person at this point is playing a part. I don't mean they're faking it. They may really love you, but they're

playing a part. Now in step seven, first wins, some initial requirements get met. They feel like it's working out. Yeah, this is okay. This is fine. You know what? I have to settle somewhere, so it may as well be here with you. That's not very romantic by the way, which is why they don't externalize any of their

thoughts or feelings to you. But remember, the avoidant person is not oxytocin bonded to you. They prevent that. Their receptors are still blocked by cortisol. And they also aren't vasopressin bonded to you, the the hormone responsible when we solve problems together. If you've ever met an avoidant person, when there's a problem, they suddenly go dark, pull away, don't

speak to you, and avoid eye contact, go to the garage, and solve the problem alone there, and then come back to you pretending nothing has happened. So, there's not many opportunities to vasopressin or oxytocin bond with. This is not a full biochemical payoff at all for them. It's not real bonding. At best, the avoidant person gets dwindling

dopamine. Okay? The person they're with makes them feel good in certain moments. Other pieces will not, and they'll just fall it the honeymoon phase. They say, "We had so much passion. It was so easy. No disagreements. Everything's felt so fresh and exciting. We just clicked." Now, when a partner says that, they're usually describing incredibly high

oxytocin bonding on their end. Okay? The avoidant partner is giving them high oxytocin. "I love you. You're great. You're fantastic. Here's attention. Here's time. Here's care. Here's low expectations. You're wonderful." You feel better in that moment than you've ever felt in your life. However, the avoidant person is getting dopamine. These are not the same experiences, and

dopamine must inevitably fade. This leads us to step eight, human inconvenience. Irritation starts building in the relationship. People are humans. So, the avoidant person is bonding with a human who now has expectations, desires, and needs. Maybe you get sick. Maybe it's your time of the month. Maybe you're grumpy. Maybe you're hungry. Maybe

you're scared. Maybe work requires too much of your attention, or maybe you want more of their attention and work's taking them away. Because the person is not biochemically incentivized to stick with the relationship through vasopressin and oxytocin, they start feeling a rise of cortisol against you instead. Man, this sucks. How much of

this do I have to do? They come home and say, "Hey babe, how was your day?" And she goes, "Oh, it was tough." And his brain says, "Man, are you ever going to have a good day? It's always bad with you." Even if it's not, his brain says that. The pleasure also starts to diminish for

them as the novelty dopamine wears off hard. Expectations increase at the same time. So, the avoidant person starts asking themselves, "What am I even doing this for?" This leads us right into step nine, what we call fracturing. Now, the tension point is a perfect relationship must be this, but a flawed human will be this.

Okay? The perfect model begins to crack because nobody is perfect. Confusion and then resentment often begins to build. This becomes a ruthless calculation. How long can I, the avoidant person, continue as I see my pleasure and joy dying, and as my expectations and costs are rising through the roof? They're running a model in their head

like someone running a business projection. They're forecasting the trajectory, and it doesn't look good. My costs have tripled as my profits have gone through the floor, and I'm now in the red every single month, and I'm exhausted and going to debt just continuing to keep my doors open. This hits hardest at step 10, what we call

the dopamine cliff. Up till now, it's been a dwindling supply of dopamine, but here's the number of steps that changes everything. But, here's the number that changes everything. Month Let me change that whole sentence again. Here's the step that changes everything. Up till now, the dopamine has been dwindling, but month five to seven, this is the

novelty dopamine cliff. The dopamine that was making the person feel so good drops off hard, very hard. That person that they're connected to is no longer giving them anywhere near the hits that they were getting before. Maybe none at all. And at the same time, again, expectations rise through the roof at 5

to 7. You want a label. You want a relationship. You're thinking about moving in together. And frankly, rightly so. At 5 to 7 months, I think you should be talking about engagement. If you're in a healthy relationship, that is. Avoidantly attached people have never felt less connected to you before. So, the pressure goes up, the dopamine drops

through the floor, and the avoidant person feels like they're getting zero benefit from the relationship at all. And in fact, this is where temptation sets in because now everyone else in the world gives them more dopamine than you do. Every Instagram model, every little DM from somebody, every message they get from somebody else, people they pass at

the Now, this is where everybody else on the planet starts to give them more dopamine than you do. This is where temptation sets in. That girl on Instagram, that girl at the gym, that person who texted them their ex in their phone, everybody looks more attractive than you because the dopamine cliff makes you the least attractive person in

their life. The pressure is through the roof. They feel like they're getting no benefit. And now, they don't know why they're doing this, and they feel like they have already lost. Now, this is the point right here that I need you to hear. If you've been through this pattern, the passionate beginning, the slow

withdrawal, the eventual shutdown, it wasn't your fault. The avoidant person was looking for a feeling their own brain chemistry was preventing them from having. They wanted to feel at home with you. They wanted the oxytocin experience, but their receptors were blocked from childhood. And every time they got close to real vulnerability, their nervous system shut it down. They

loved the idea of loving you. They feared the reality of loving. Not because of who you are, but because how their system is wired. I also want to say this, if you're the avoidant person who's watching this and you're recognizing this pattern, the same applies to you. Your brain developed a survival adaptation that made perfect

sense for the environment you grew up in. Of course, you didn't want to connect. Of course, you didn't want to be vulnerable. Of course, you couldn't trust anybody there. That pattern just doesn't work today in the environment you're trying to build now with a partner who actually loves you. A stable partner is not going to be the

same as the people that adapted you in the first place. That's why you're not going to be happy today. You've blocked off the parts of yourself that are capable of building your own happiness. The question here is not if you can change this, cuz you can. The question is what happens next. This leads us into

what we call phase three, the reckoning. And step 11, specifically the darkest reckoning moment. This is the point where the avoidant people think they have to do internal work on themselves. For some reason, I'm not connected to my fiance, my spouse, my wife, my husband, my boyfriend, my girlfriend, whoever it is. For some reason, I'm not connected.

They're perfect on paper. It must be my fault. I've done this 15 times already anyway. It always ends up this way. I must be broken. So, they shift toward full avoidant mode, trying to figure out things alone inside. They go even more internal and even more shut off. You start feeling less connection than ever,

and they're more more silent. From 5 months and 7 months, that's another dopamine cliff, they start to go dark. Okay? Over the next 3 to 5 months, they'll probably share less than they ever have before. Nothing, in fact. They're ruthlessly calculating in their head. Every time you see them, they are thinking very hard about something and

distracted, but won't tell you what it is. From 7 to especially 12 months, they're asking themselves, "How long can I endure this as it gets worse and worse. Can I just buckle down, settle, give up, and hope someday that a family fulfills me? Now, this is where step 12, the rupture, happens. Some kind of a big

disagreement hits. They finally admit this is not what they signed up for. The expected feeling is gone. There's anger, there's panic, there's destabilization on both sides. Everything the avoidant person now is is afraid of happening starts happening. The relationship feels like a trap. I don't know. I I'm just not feeling it. I I just am not feeling

it. What do you mean? It's been 12 months. You told me you loved me. You told me you want to get married. We're supposed to be getting married soon. You gave me a ring last week. Yeah, I know. I I just I'm just not feeling it. Maybe we're not meant to be together, which of

course, to the avoidant person, sounds like you're proposing a topic to discuss intellectually, but to the other person, especially if they're anxious, sounds like abandonment. "Maybe we're not meant to be together." says, "I am leaving you right now." Of course, everything begins to feel worse. Okay? The other person's panicking, hurt, afraid, confused, and

the avoidant person doesn't have the bonding chemicals that would make working through this feel good or feel worth it. They don't have a vasopressin or oxytocin bond. Dopamine is gone. They have nothing left. This is where step 13, the decision, comes in. Around month 11 or 12 after the rupture, they make a

very firm decision. Avoidant people usually say something that's like this very pridefully, "I never go back on decisions once I make them." They make a silent, internal, flawed decision based on information that's not quite true. The decision is internal alone. They say, "I'm never going to feel right with you. I thought it was

going to feel great, but it doesn't. It never equaled out to the feeling like home that I was looking for. I never reached the point I thought I did or would, so the relationship is inherently flawed and doomed. It is time to end this experiment and admit it won't work. Thank you for trying. I wish

you the best. Goodbye. They make this decision internally without even speaking to you. This is what they're thinking about from 7 to 12 months. Five months of silent internal calculations that you're not allowed to have a part in. Now, ultimately the process here is that they didn't bond properly. Not because the partner was wrong

necessarily, because the avoidant person's system never allowed the bond to form. And to be clear, this is not intentional, I choose not to bond with you, it's I want it and don't know how to make it happen and I'm afraid of what would happen if I did these stupid things like talking and being

vulnerable, not realizing that's actually what would build the connection. This leads us to step 14, the fork. Two paths open up at this point once they've made the decision, okay? Path A, they decide to shut down. They say, "I'm out." They blow up the relationship, it's done. They walk away believing they made a rational decision

based on how they felt. They don't realize the feeling itself was inherently flawed, okay? This is the problem. They blow it up, they're done, they go back on the dating market, they usually grab Tinder within 3 days and find someone else to have sex with to get the dopamine back into their system.

Right? The starvation and hunger they've had all this time, they say, "Ah, I'm just going to enjoy myself for a little while, no big deal." And they run back into the dopamine wheel. Path B, they choose to surrender at this point. They give up their shell and they shrink towards a low energy state before

showing vulnerability. It's a kind of giving up, but in a direction of openness rather than escape. This is where they might say, "All right, something's not right here and I don't know what it is." Usually an avoidant person doesn't do this on the first pass through the cycle. They might do this at

35, 45, 55, 65. I had someone come in recently do this at 78. He had been avoidant his entire life and at 78 years old said, "You know, maybe something's off with me. I wonder if that could be the answer." 78 years old. Imagine 78 years of cycling through these over and over and over and over. Nobody's more

frustrated than the person who realizes that at 78, by the way. Now, if an avoidant person takes path A, they get back on the hamster wheel and do it again. If they take path B, even if they blow up the relationship and then take path B, or if they take path B during the relationship, ideally,

right? It leads us to step 15, the repair. [snorts] And this leads into phase four, the rebuild. If the avoidant person has a partner who's actually nurturing and understanding, somebody who is not a doormat and anxiously attached in that way and collapses, but someone who does have expectations, but is patient, kind, and gentle. Gentle

accountability, clear expectations, but reasonable and loving, okay? If the avoidant person therefore has mostly a secure relationship with a mostly secure person, they can actually start rebuilding the trust. The avoidant person might say, "Hey, something is not right here and I don't know what it is. Something doesn't feel right. I'm not feeling what I would hope to feel." And

at this point the partner might be able to say, "Okay. Let's talk about that. What would you need?" If the partner's more secure doing their attachment work, they might say, "Tell me what you would need. What do you actually need? Let's build this together." Here's where anxiously attached people get this wrong. The

anxiously attached brain inevitably says, "I'm doing something wrong." So then the brain says, "What would I need to do?" And that's what they ask their partner, "What do you need me to do? What do you need me to do? What can I do for you?" The avoidant The anxious person is trying to fawn and please and

the avoidant person immediately goes to, "Well, what would give me dopamine?" Well, wear these outfits, right? Do these things. Act this way. Do your makeup different, right? Wear a bikini, stand on one leg in a bucket of potato salad and flap your arms like a flamingo. Anything that might change the dopamine. This is where people start

talking about opening the relationship. Well, you don't make me feel good, but maybe if I could sleep with other girls prettier than you, it would work. By the way, never works. I highly recommend not taking that path, but that's where they'll open it up and say, "I don't know." And the anxious person says,

"Well, what would be worse? You leaving me or you cheating on me?" Well, it's not cheating if we agree. Okay, I guess. This is where a lot of anxious people say they pressured me into opening the relationship. Not usually. We made an agreement that I didn't like but said I would and would go along with and

pretended to be okay with. Quite often I've seen that dynamic play out, especially among younger couples. Okay, that is not the answer. The answer here is getting something besides dopamine. Okay? We have to be properly bonded through oxytocin and vasopressin, which is why a more secure partner saying, "How can we build a connection that

feels right? What would you need? Not what should I do? What would you need? Under what circumstances would you get that feeling?" And the avoidant person's brain says, "I don't know." By having that calm conversation about needs, feelings, and expectations, the avoidant person feels received and cared for and not demonized. But they also start

trying to figure out how to solve a problem. They begin vasopressin bonding with their partner. For the first time ever, the avoidant person feels received, loved, and connected. This is where they start to feel that feeling of at home that they've always been chasing. By having this conversation with a reasonable, calm partner who

doesn't try to perform but tries to co-create, that's when avoidant person who's ready can begin changing their dynamic. This leads us to step 16, the reset. Now, over a period of time, the avoidant person might detect that they're hyper-tuned for stress. This is where if they come in and work with me and my team, we begin recalibrating

their nervous system. Your nervous system runs so hot and so intense that you're chronically in a sympathetic nervous system activation mode in your vagus nerve. We need to get you to a parasympathetic rest and digest mode, a second mode. For avoidant people, the language they like, especially men, is a you have a war mode, let's give you a

peace mode. That's what's been missing for them. Okay? They need to feel and experience things like their own emotions, vulnerabilities, emotional truth, received well by other people. I am cared for. You listen to me and don't get angry or scared or upset. You listen and work with me. It doesn't even mean agreeing

with them. It means treating them like a human being and staying calm. Okay? This is a stressful period for them, but that means it's a high vasopressin bonding period for them. By going through stress and fear and pain with someone else who guides them through it, or even just walks beside them, they vasopressin bond

to that person. That opens the receptors for oxytocin. As the cortisol diminishes, they start to feel oxytocin in love. They're bonding through oxytocin receptors that have been dusty and cobwebby. Actually, they've shifted away from oxytocin. They shift back to receive oxytocin again. It's a fascinating process to watch because the avoidant person becomes addicted to that

feeling, which is what they were afraid of, by the way. But it's someone safe and loving, so they keep coming back to it. You can tell they love it and are unsettled at the same time, but their whole life begins to skew. This leads us to step 17, what we call the recovery.

This takes anywhere from 12 to 18 months of diligent additional work with their partner. In year two and year three of a relationship, they can become fully connected, emotionally bonded. Hey, it gives them a second mode to flip into. Instead of taking away their operator mode or war mode like they like to call

it, it gives them an additional peace mode to rest and recover in. I can go to work and flip into war and operator mode. When I come home, because you are there to receive me, because I don't have to guard myself with you or guard my thoughts, because I can share unfiltered thoughts with you, I can let

my shield down at home. I can actually rest with you. That's the feeling of oxytocin that they've been denied all of their life. That's what they were starving for, biochemically starving for, by the way. This leads into step 18, the rebuild. They [snorts] begin to rebuild secure attachment, what's called remade secure. Not just with their partner, but by the

way, everywhere else in their life, too. What feels incredible with one person, their brain starts to say, "I wonder if I can do this with my best friend." They can deploy secure behaviors with their kids, if they have children together, with their family, with their friends, with other people. They can start finding a lot more joy and life, the

feeling they were always looking for. By the way, I have plenty of couples come in who have been married for 20 years, he has an affair, it's revealed, and she says, "Okay, I need to understand what happened. I'm willing to work with you, but I don't know what you did or why." And he says, "I don't know, either."

And that kicks him into this entire process where he begins saying, "I need to understand me, because I'm angry at myself for breaching my ethics and allowing myself to do this, and I will never do it again. So, I need to change." And that kicks him into this loop. This is where he begins to deploy

that love with everyone else in his life, and his entire world changes. He feels like a human being for the first time ever, and he feels like others love him. Now, this leads into steps 19 and 20, which can sometimes happen simultaneously or so rapidly they blend together. It's what remade security feels like. Okay? Remade security feels

like on the inside something very specific. My clients describe it like this. You are allowed to have thoughts or worry about things and you can immediately check in with the other person. Hey, I'm having this thought. Is this accurate or not? Hey, I think you expect this thing from me. Is that true?

Hey, what do you actually want from me? Hey, I'm worried you might be mad at me about something. Are you actually? And if so, what do we need to do about it? I I don't want to play that game anymore. Hey, here's a challenge that I'm experiencing. Do you think you could work with me in on troubleshooting this

together? It's being able to fully resolve fear very quickly and reliably and consistently. That creates a bonding process that changes the neural pathway because you're directly confronting the fear. Now, it's a long process and the reason I split this into two steps is this. One, you begin doing this, but you're uncertain about it. And two, this becomes your new

normal behavior because you love it. You're biochemically incentivized to do it. It's rewarding. It feels good. You remap those fears and thoughts on neural pathways again and again and again until you get to a place where it becomes almost effortless and natural for you. You're doing it so consistently you're not having those big fear sparks

anymore. The most beautiful part is that your life has no more guessing in it in your relationships. Full transparency that's comfortable for you. You are understood and you understand others at the same time. And you can feel at home in your relationships. Family, friends, partner, maybe even professionally. Everything begins to feel safe and

settled and now you get to enjoy the fruits of all that work. You don't have to worry the way that you used to. Now, here's the real question of what separates the relationships that transform from the relationships that stay stuck in the same loop. Both kind of couples actually love each other. Both kind of couples wish it would work.

The difference is knowing which step you're on and what that step actually requires from both of you. The couples who transform understand that avoidant bonding doesn't work like regular bonding at the beginning. You can't oxytocin your way into their heart if their receptors are blocked from you. You have to go through vasopressin

first. That means problem solving, shared challenges, facing fear and hardship together and overcoming it. Another way of putting that is this, your nervous system knows you are safe through actions, not just through empty words. Knowing these 20 steps puts you ahead of 90% of people who are trying to navigate avoidant attachment style. You

now understand what's happening and why. What you need next is the how. The specific tools for each step, the exact language that works, the strategies that match avoidant neurology instead of fighting against it. That is why I created the video course called how to love an avoidant man. It walks you through the rebuild steps in detail.

What to say, what not to say, and how to build the vasopressin bonding you're looking for. Now, for those of you who need additional help to understand what to do. And frankly, that's going to be all of you cuz you've never gone through this together before. What you need Now, a lot of people I know are going to need

additional help on this because you've never gone through it before and if you knew how to do it, you would have done it by now. That's why I put together my limited time Valentine's Day sale. I want you to have the tools that are accessible to you at price points that feel comfortable so that you can make

sure you know what to do going forward. So that you can go into those rebuilding steps in details and come out with confidence. How to navigate through the withdrawal effects as well without triggering more withdrawal and especially how to create specific conditions where secure attachment becomes possible not only for you as a

couple, but in the rest of your life, too. The link for that Valentine's Day special is down in the description below. Now, if you found this video helpful, I want to show you something that people miss entirely. There's a very specific test that avoidant men run in relationships that looks like disinterest, but is actually a very

critical opportunity for rebuilding the relationship. Get that one test wrong and you will trigger even more withdrawals. But if you get it right, you'll build the exact kind of trust that opens the door to the deeper steps. There's a very specific test that avoidant men run in relationships that looks like disinterest, but is actually

a very critical opportunity. If you get that one wrong, you will trigger more withdrawals. But if you get it right, you'll build the exact kind of trust that opens the door to the deeper steps. That video is right here.