Love can be beautiful, grounding, and life-giving. But for many, it’s also filled with anxiety, fear, or confusion—especially in relationships that swing between craving closeness and pulling away from it. This painful dynamic, often described as the “co-addicted tango,” is not about being broken or dramatic. It’s about survival patterns shaped in childhood and carried into adult relationships.
At the heart of this dance are two complementary patterns: love addiction and love avoidance. One partner often clings, fearing abandonment; the other distances, fearing enmeshment. Sometimes, these roles even exist within the same person. Understanding the roots of this cycle, especially through the lens of attachment theory and nervous system regulation, is key to healing.
Attachment Styles: The Blueprint for Adult Love
Psychiatrist John Bowlby believed that early relationships with caregivers create internal “working models” that shape how we give and receive love (Bowlby, 1969). If a child feels consistently seen, safe, and soothed, they develop a secure attachment style. They trust that love is safe and that they are worthy of it.
But if love is inconsistent, rejecting, or overwhelming, children often adapt by developing insecure attachment styles. According to Mary Ainsworth’s research (Ainsworth et al., 1978), these can include:
- Anxious attachment: The child becomes overly focused on gaining closeness and fears abandonment.
- Avoidant attachment: The child suppresses their emotional needs and becomes self-reliant.
- Disorganised attachment: The child experiences both fear and desire for closeness, often due to early trauma or unpredictable caregiving.
These survival strategies don’t vanish in adulthood; they resurface in romantic relationships.
Love Addiction and Love Avoidance: Two Sides of the Same Coin
Love addiction, often tied to anxious attachment, shows up as obsessive thinking, emotional dependency, and a fear of being alone. The love-addicted partner may feel like they “need” the other person to feel whole or safe.
Love avoidance, rooted in avoidant or disorganised attachment, involves emotional distancing, discomfort with intimacy, and fear of being consumed by another’s needs. The avoidant partner may feel overwhelmed by closeness and shut down when intimacy intensifies.
According to Levine and Heller (2010), these two types often attract each other. The more the love addict chases closeness, the more the avoidant retreats—reinforcing each other’s core fears. It becomes a dance of longing and fleeing, connection and disconnection.
Trauma, the Nervous System, and Emotional Regulation
To understand why this happens, we need to go beyond psychology and into the body.
Bessel van der Kolk (2015) explains that early trauma—whether from neglect, inconsistent parenting, or abuse—can leave a lasting imprint on the nervous system. These early experiences teach the body that closeness may be unsafe, unpredictable, or even dangerous.
When someone with an anxious attachment style feels abandoned, their nervous system can go into a state of hyperarousal (fight or flight), creating panic, obsession, or anxiety. When someone with an avoidant attachment style feels too close, their system may enter hypoarousal (freeze or shut down), leading to emotional numbness or withdrawal.
These responses are not conscious choices, they are automatic survival reactions shaped by early experiences.
This is why nervous system regulation is a critical part of healing. Learning how to bring your body back into a calm, balanced state can help you step out of reactive patterns and engage in relationships more mindfully.
Containment and Boundaries: Tools for Healing
People stuck in the co-addicted dynamic often struggle with containment—the ability to hold and soothe overwhelming emotions without acting them out. Without containment, anxiety may lead to clinginess or over-explaining, while fear of closeness may lead to stonewalling or disappearing.
Containment is not suppression, it’s learning to stay present with difficult emotions without letting them take over. This skill often requires support through therapy, somatic practices, or trusted relationships.
Equally important are boundaries. For those with anxious attachment, setting boundaries may feel like abandonment. For those with avoidant patterns, receiving boundaries can feel like rejection. But boundaries are essential for creating safety, both emotionally and physically.
Healthy boundaries help us define where we end and the other begins. They allow space for both connection and autonomy—two things that anxious and avoidant individuals often feel they have to choose between.
A Path Toward Secure Attachment
Healing from the love addiction/avoidance dynamic is not about blaming parents or partners. It’s about recognising that our brains and bodies were shaped to survive, and now we have the power to re-pattern.
Here are some foundational steps:
- Understand your attachment style: Becoming aware of your patterns is the first step. Are you more anxious, avoidant, or a mix? Awareness brings choice.
- Regulate your nervous system: Practices like breathwork, grounding exercises, movement, and self-soothing techniques help you respond rather than react.
- Strengthen emotional containment: Therapy (especially trauma-informed or somatic therapy) can teach you how to feel big emotions without becoming overwhelmed.
- Practice setting and respecting boundaries: Boundaries are not walls—they are bridges that help love flow in healthy ways.
- Seek secure relationships and therapy: Healing happens in connection. Whether through a secure partner, friend, or therapist, safe relationships help rewire the nervous system for safety and trust.
- Go slow: For both anxious and avoidant people, it can be hard to sit with intimacy. Take your time. Tune into your body. Check in with your needs and fears. Safety isn’t rushed, it’s built.
Conclusion
The co-addicted tango of love addiction and avoidance is not a flaw, it’s a survival dance. But it doesn’t have to last forever. By bringing awareness to your patterns, caring for your nervous system, and developing emotional containment and boundaries, you can learn to step out of reactivity and into relational healing.
Secure love is not perfect love. It’s consistent, conscious, and rooted in mutual safety, and it begins with the relationship you build with yourself.
References
Ainsworth, M.D.S., Blehar, M.C., Waters, E. and Wall, S., 1978. Patterns of attachment: A psychological study of the strange situation. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. https://mindsplain.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Ainsworth-Patterns-of-Attachment.pdf
Bowlby, J., 1969. Attachment and Loss: Volume I. Attachment. London: Hogarth Press. https://mindsplain.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/ATTACHMENT_AND_LOSS_VOLUME_I_ATTACHMENT.pdf
Levine, A. and Heller, R., 2010. Attached: The new science of adult attachment and how it can help you find—and keep—love. New York: TarcherPerigee. https://archive.org/details/AttachementTheory
van der Kolk, B.A., 2015. The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. New York: Penguin Books. https://ia601604.us.archive.org/35/items/the-body-keeps-the-score-pdf/The-Body-Keeps-the-Score-PDF.pdf