Avoidant Relationships and Sex

Avoidant Relationships and Sex

I know that I had promised to move through the book “Attached,” with you all chapter by chapter, but I have been remiss. I apologize. I keep the book in my nightstand. When I get a couple hours, I veraciously gobble down as much as I can.

The last couple chapters have been about issues with Anxiously Attached people mated with Avoidantly Attached people. How to make this kind of relationship work if you are already in one, seems to be a bit of a stretch for the person who is the Anxious one. I guess, because I am more toward anxiously attached, I am sincerely compassionate with those poor partners who endure the ever-annoying habits of the Avoidantly blind, almost narcissistic behavior.

Among many things that I found in the chapters that I read, one thing that stuck out like a daylily in a rose garden is: If a person is avoidant attached, which means that he or she is more attached to working hard, independence, doesn’t like to get too intimate, then this person may have some real issues in bed.

One thing that an anxiously attached person wants as well as a secure person is intimacy. Sexuality and intimacy go hand in hand. Sex should commence from a state of intimate behavior. For instance, romantic touching and caressing, may evolved to passionate kisses. Kisses may lead to rubbing each other’s bodies then genitals, which in turn could lead to passionate sex.

But for the avoidantly attached, the sexual part of a relationship is just one more chore or thing he/she must do to be a part of this relationship. He/she often resents having to take part and may avoid it completely. But if the avoidant is trying hard to overcome his/her issues, the avoidant may change character in the middle of the intimacy and simply take over, as if there is a chore to be taken care of and completed. There is a immediate disconnect that happens then with the intimacy. When orgasm is achieved with the avoidant, then this same avoidant person may cuddle up with his/her partner and resume normal behavior without even caring about satisfying the anxiously attached.

Now from the anxiously attached point of view this is like being led down a path of great emotion, then suddenly being blindfolded and raped, albeit with unconscious willingness to please your partner. After which, you clean up and end up in bed getting caressed. Then you convince yourself that all is well, because intimacy had actually happened to some degree.

The truth is that sexual intimacy had been bypassed by your avoidant partner completely. He/she must be called on the carpet or this kind of sexual behavior will go on forever like that. I promise you will never be satisfied with that part of your relationship. You may live with it, put up with it, and even accept it as his/her way of loving you, but it will never be real intimacy unless some real work is done to unhook from the inherent problem of intimacy.

As you can see, I love this book. If you haven’t read it yet, it is simply called “Attached,” by Levine and Heller. I highly recommend it to anyone who is either seeking relationship, because you want to avoid everything that you can, going into new relationships that can lesson the chance of being with the wrong person. Or if you are already in a relationship, it will help you make sense of many things that have gone wrong emotionally and sexually for so many years. It is my new relationship handbook.

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Bo Sebastian is a Hypnotherapist and Life & Health Coach, available for private sessions to QUIT SMOKING, Lose Weight, New Lap-Band Hypnosis for Weight Loss, CHANGE YOUR MIND, CHANGE YOUR LIFE! at 615-400-2334 or www.bosebastian.com.

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