Transcription
There we go. It works. Hello, everybody. Sorry for the tech glitches. We're starting just a little bit late, but that's okay. I'm here today to talk about avoidant women. You know, for every, let's say, for every 20 couples I get that are anxious woman, avoidant man, okay, anxious woman and avoidant man, for every 20 of those, I probably get one that is an avoidant woman and an anxious man. Now, a lot in the comments say, "I'm an anxious, I'm an avoidant woman." Totally get it. Hello, welcome to the channel. Glad I'm really glad you're here. Uh, there are quite a few guys popping into the comment sections now and saying, "Hey, I'm with an avoidant woman." Because yes, one to 20 sounds like a huge discrepancy, but when you're talking about hundreds of thousands or millions of people, you're still talking about a big chunk of the population. So there are a lot of couples out there that are an anxious man and an avoidant woman.
Today, I want to talk about why is that pairing less, less common? Number one. But number two, when you are in a relationship with an avoidant woman, or if you are an avoidant woman, again, hello, how can you make a relationship work? How can you make romance work? What are they looking for? What are the risks? What are the dangers? Does it really mean something for an avoidant woman to be in a relationship? Is it that big of a deal? Okay, I want to talk to you about that today and show you exactly what I've seen from my 15 years of training experience. I actually work with quite a few avoidant women on the back end in my coaching practice. A lot of coaching couples come in and yes, avoidant man, avoidant woman, anxious man, I work with this quite often. So yes, one to 20, but still, when you run the numbers with thousands and thousands, it ends up being a lot. Welcome to the chat, everybody. Glad you're here. I cut your live. Hey, disorganized. Ah, okay. I got you. I got you. I think I have mixed anxious, a few other attachment styles. You have one attachment style. One. There are eight attachment styles. You have one. So if you have mixed anxious, you have anxious attachment and avoidant attachment combined, you are either probably the loud disorganized, which is wildly explosive out there, not awful, but but very turbulent, back and forth, and back and forth, hot and cold, and you drive yourself crazy. Or quiet disorganized on the inside, a little bit anxious on the outside, primarily avoidant. You're very sweet and kind and silent, and you are basically a doormat for other people. And you mostly attract people with personality disorders. That would be the female equivalent, by the way. For for the ladies out there, too, there's there's eight styles. You are one. Okay? You are one. So Arkon, you're one of those styles. I'm disorganized attachment style, leaning towards anxious. Avoidant woman, anxious man. There you go. Very, very, very, very, very uncommon. Very uncommon. Um, not unheard of by any means, right?
So the research shows that about 20 to 25% of the adult population of the US right now is avoidantly attached. The vast majority of those are men. The research shows that about 20 to, yeah, about 20, 15 to 20% of the adult population is anxiously attached, right? Primarily female. We don't really have names, by the way, for like an anxiously attached female. We just say she's very insecure and very worried. We don't really have names necessarily for like an avoidantly attached man, except like avoidant man. Now we've developed a label. But we do have names for the opposite. Okay, an anxiously attached man is a nice guy. Nice guy syndrome. Nice guy problems, right? It's, we, we view it in a massively negative light. Uh, it's the, we call it effeminacy. It's the inappropriate, uh, presence of feminine traits where there should be masculine traits. It's not that he's a, a feminine man, he's an eminite man. Okay. We also have, and I won't even say them, but derogatory names for women who have avoidant attachment style. There's a number of expressions of avoidant attachment style in men and women, and a number of ways that it can manifest. With avoidantly attached women, one thing that I have seen quite often, not always, but quite often, uh, is their their experience in sex. Their experience in the bedroom. Quite often, it is much more of a dopamine activity to them. It has less overwhelming emotional weight to it. Uh, it doesn't mean they're just going to go out and do it with anybody everywhere for as many people as they can. Some might, especially down toward the more manipulative spectrum. Again, ethical avoidant, manipulative avoidant, right down that spectrum, and then personality disorders off the end. It's not that they're just going to go find a bunch of random people. Again, they might, especially down on the manipulative side. But typically, what it means is they are not as wrapped up in the wild romance of it. They are not swept away by passionate kisses, and it's not like the one and only human being I will ever be with for the rest of my life. You complete me. That's not generally the experience for avoidantly attached women. The bedroom experience often is a lot more dopamine-based. It's a lot more of what we call mate maintenance, right? Of, I will do these things for you as an ongoing series of ways to care for you because it is a need that you have. It's not like she has no needs of her own and never feels anything. It's that she is aware of them and tracking them like variables on a spreadsheet. I've actually seen avoidantly attached women track their their the number of times they are having sex with their male partner on a spreadsheet to make sure that he is adequately cared for. I've actually seen this. Don't let anyone tell you that avoidantly attached women don't love the men in their life. They do. It's just, it's a little bit of a different love style. Just, it involves spreadsheets. Um, but it's, I, I have seen that play out quite a few times. You guys chat, if you're gonna laugh at that, that is totally fine. Um, chat, let me know. Anybody out there an avoidant woman, or does anyone have an avoidant girlfriend or avoidant wife? I would love to hear that. I, I'm in love with an avoidant woman, or I am an avoidant woman. Let me know, chat. I have a very avoidant girlfriend. Okay, wonderful. I hear that. I hear that. They can actually be enormously sweet. A lot of guys, um, how do I want to say this? Avoidantly attached women have a presence of very masculine energy typically because they have to. What is avoidant attachment style? It's that adaptation that says, nobody's coming to help me. I'm on my own. I can't watch. I, I can't trust anybody. No one's gonna watch over me. I'm not looking for a prince charming to come sweep me off my feet. I have my own horse, my own armor, and my own assault rifle, and I will be taking care of myself. If you would like to ride slightly behind me or slightly in front of me, where I can keep an eye on you, that's fine. But I'm going to be handling business myself. These women typically, typically are not comfortable necessarily in a stay-at-home mom role. They can be with the right man who is stable, but most of the time they don't trust other people to be that stable. So they usually excel in business. They usually often own a business, uh, or they're really heavy into like executive work or something like that. They, they run something in some capacity where they have ownership of that money.
Avoidantly attached women rarely get swept up into romance. In fact, the idea of romance often confuses them. Sometimes they snort at it. Um, they not, they don't tend to watch romance films. They tend to watch, uh, well, I mean, murder shows. Murder shows where they're like, yep, saw that coming. Yep, that happens. Yep, everybody will let you down. Yep, I'm sure my last boyfriend probably would have tried to kill and eat me too, like stuff like that, right? They're a lot more, well, a bit more cynical about the world, typically. The problem that most people encounter with avoidantly attached women is two things. One, they often and primarily pair up with anxiously attached men who are craving their approval. This, this often, how do you want to say, disgusts the avoidant woman and it actually turns her off and makes her pull away, which then activates the chase behavior from the man. So then he chases her for that approval and connection. And as he tries to please her, please her, please her, she kind of relaxes into it and lets it happen, but maybe begrudgingly. Okay, she experiences what is that thing that women say, the, the ick? She experiences the ick quite often, but she subverts that and says, at least I know what he's going to do and I can trust him to be himself. Okay, she doesn't sense maliciousness in him, which is why they, avoidantly attached women tend to go for anxiously attached men because he's not malicious. He will often follow what she has to say. He will listen attentively and he tries to please her. And that usually, it's not that she has to have absolute tyrannical control, but that does give her the level of control she's looking for to feel safe and calm in a relationship. Now, sometimes, and I've seen this quite often, uh, avoidantly attached women get to a point where they say, I am exhausted from all this hypervigilance. I need a man who is way more masculine and aggressive than I am. But then they again pair up with anxiously attached men and try to convert them into full secure men. Like, I like and I trust. I like and I trust you to be you. Now, I need you to go out and become a hulking caveman. And he's like, not, he's like a Pomeranian purse dog kind of thing. Typically, it's not that he can't convert. It's just that that's the pressure that begins to start. Right? An avoidantly attached woman is saturated in that masculine energy, hypervigilance, guard, logic, ruthless logic, and constant risk assessment. It's not a comfortable place for women. They can do it when forced, but it's not a comfortable place for most women. So most avoidantly attached women are exhausted. Quite often, most of the time, their mood is very low. Um, their bedroom drive often tends to be very low. Well, no, the first year, her bedroom drive is often very high, especially the first seven to eight months. That novelty dopamine is really strong. And then from there, it's a mate maintenance behavior and a dopamine-seeking behavior. Sometimes these women do engage in adult videos. Typically, these, these women sometimes will, but again, it's more of a dopamine feature. Will they cheat? Sometimes. But again, that's when with avoidantly attached women, what I have seen primarily, they will cheat at year four or five rather than year one or two. Like like some avoidant men, they cheat later on as they find that their partner is not working with them. Again, usually because she is paired with a very anxiously attached man. So all of this is a negative. We're going to talk about what to do about some of this. And these are just generalizations about the women, the avoidantly attached women that I've worked with quite extensively through my history. Um, my girlfriend is avoidant, but you're not describing her. Only partially. She's more feminine than you're describing. That can happen. Um, it's not like when I say masculine energy, I don't mean that they dress like Conan the Barbarian and that they get like ridiculously ripped like Arnold Schwarzenegger and that they bench press you. I don't necessarily mean that. Um, but I mean, even if they're very much in feminine, they're, they're dressing feminine, feminine makeup, heavy makeup, sometimes jewelry, right? Nice designer outfits. Um, even if they're doing that, it's still very much, I control my environment. I'm very clear about what I want. I'm not going to settle for less than what I want. And pushing really hard. A lot of, a lot of people who complain about really what they call bossy women, they're actually just avoidantly attached. Very often. Some have personality disorders, total other realm. But the ones where she's logical, but very bossy, and very direct, and really sharp boundaries, and and other people are like, a little put off, that's usually an avoidantly attached woman. Okay, that's usually what that is.
What do I do when I'm at that crossroad between the two types of men? Typically, the answer here is for the avoidantly attached woman, because again, there's so many layers to avoidantly attached women. I love them. They're great. They're fantastic. Some of the, some of the best content creators actually that I've worked with have been avoidantly attached women. No drama, all business. It's great. Um, now, avoidantly attached women often have something very, very difficult that creates a problem, a major problem for them and for others, is very low oxytocin levels and often what's called an oxytocin phobic response. So when they start to feel oxytocin bonded, when they feel closeness, um, after the bedroom act, when, when their partner is trying to snuggle with them, holding hands, playing, tickling, laughing, joking, they don't feel that. They feel much more mechanical because their oxytocin is low and it feels uncomfortable. So they pull back. A lot of, many avoidant women after the bedroom act, after sex, they'll, they'll pretty much get up out of bed pretty quickly, go wash up in the bathroom as an excuse, and then like get dressed really fast and be like, all right, I'm ready to go and do something else. They'll start cleaning or they'll move on. They don't want that physical intimacy, the aftercare. It's not comfortable for many of them. Not all of them, but many of them are uncomfortable after the bedroom act. It, it was a dopamine experience to them, and now they, they feel vulnerable, and they don't like it. They don't like it because it's sending danger signals to them somewhere along the line. And here's the thing, women are designed to need a lot of oxytocin. It's a basic bonding hormone for them that they need. For men, men too, but women are really, really in need of it. And it, something always feels wrong when they don't get it. So the avoidant woman, her senses are always telling her something's wrong, but she doesn't know what it is. So she just assumes she has a lot of faulty stress signals that are just all the time on. It's like a car, car alarm that won't stop going off. High levels of anxiety, high levels of stress. She eventually burns out on it and just like numbs herself and and sort of just pushes it away so she doesn't feel it all the time. Okay, that's why I mean when I say they're in their masculine energy, constant stress, constant risk assessment, constant protectiveness and defensiveness. Not mean defensiveness, just being defended. So then you try to bond with them, and a lot of guys, anxiously attached guys, they say, "How do I get my wife to love me more? To be happier? To smile?" And he reads any kind of advice for the other 90% of women on the planet who operate a different way, and none of it's going to work for avoidantly attached women. Okay? If you come at them with romance, they're going to say, "How much did you spend on these flowers? This was stupid. We could have used this money to buy more ammunition for the zombies." Like, like that's almost like the approach they take. Like, why are you being romantic? This does not compute. Please explain what you're doing immediately, or I will incinerate you. That, that's that approach when you try to use that weird, those weird romantic gestures. And God help you if you try to use red pill tactics on them and start like dread game, manipulating them, threatening to go date somebody else. That is the end. Like that is the way to absolute. Tell her I am done with you. This relationship is finished. I am trying to seize control of you. That's where she ends it. She will be done. So red pill absolutely is the opposite of effective for these women, as it is for healthy and secure women as well. But even the romantic stuff doesn't tend to work.
What does work? What usually does work is talking to them about possibilities. Most avoidantly attached women don't know it's possible to be comfortable and calm in somebody else's presence. They don't actually know that they can let their guard down with you. They really haven't had that before. They probably hurt as children, sometimes hurt as children, if you know what I mean, but but usually let down as children. Uh, maybe Dad bailed out, maybe Mom bailed out, maybe both bailed out, right? Somehow she was left alone in this world in some way where she had to take care of herself and she had to handle other people's emotions. And along the way, her mechanism of safety was probably parenting a parent and and handling them so they'd hold themselves together enough to get her food and shelter for the night. And then getting out as soon as she could. That's usually the mechanism. Sometimes these women marry young so they can get the heck out. Other times they don't marry at all because they launch into a career as fast as they humanly can and they rely on their own ability to earn a paycheck. So keep that in mind. That's where she's at. Most of these women don't know what it's like to let that guard down, and they're actually quite frightened to do that. They're very frightened to do that. Even if they don't, they might not use the word frightened, it's very deeply uncomfortable, which is really why they have that oxytocin phobic response quite often. Okay, chat, if I'm, if I'm spot on, let me know over there. Spot on. If I'm way off, let me know. Way off. But this is the experience I've had working with the vast majority of avoidantly attached women. Um, often times they're afraid of being trapped. They're afraid of being objectified. They're afraid of being mistreated. They're afraid of the bad malicious intentions of others, or even the foolish intentions of others. But they, they do not like excessive attention. Typically, the women who do like excessive attention, it's usually not avoidant attachment style. It's usually more of like a per, like manipulative style, or manipulative avoidant style, or over into personality disorder territory. The ones who thrive on attention and then weaponize it and use it and saturate in it, that's their mechanism of safety is endless amounts of attention, right? Those are the ones the red pill always talk about. That's more like personality disorder territory, way over there. Um, spot on. I watched my dad betray my mom early on. Yeah, 100%. See, 100%. Um, exactly. Spot on. Resonates with me. There we go. Good. Glad to hear that. Thank you, chat.
This is what I've experienced with avoidantly attached women. Now, it's a sad story because they are not getting the oxytocin bonding they need, which means their GABA is crushingly low. So they are absolutely vulnerable to endless waves of cortisol that they have to dissociate from. Avoidantly attached women dissociate a lot from their needs, from their feelings, from their pain, from their desires, from romantic feelings, from hope. They have an endless wave of dissociation from everything soft and sensitive because they think that that will get them killed or eaten alive, kind of thing. They push it all away. Avoidantly attached women survive by dissociating, meaning separating themselves from it. "I will not associate with my own feelings anymore." They block it out. So when you ask her, with an anxiously attached dude, it's like reading a book, like, "How to Love an Avoidant Woman." "Oh, she has needs. I should take care of her needs." He's like, "What are your needs?" And she says, "What the hell is that? What do you mean, what are my needs? Who are you? Who sent you? Was it the CIA? Are they tracking me?" That's usually how this comes in. And then when he presses, he's like, "No, no, no, I swear, I'm not here to kill you." Then she's like, "Okay, I don't have needs. So thank you for the conversation. I think that we're done here." And she goes on with whatever she was doing. That's usually how that conversation goes because she dissociates from it so hard, she doesn't even know what it's like to be able to ask somebody for her needs. Like, she might say, "I need food. I need water. I need shelter. I occasionally need sleep. And, uh, I need a little bit of dopamine here or there, but I can survive without that for years at a time if necessary." Those are the needs she'll come up with, right? Like, hardcore survivalist girlfriend kind of thing. But that's, she doesn't really understand like, "I need to feel safe." "No, I've never felt safe, so I don't need that. That's a nice to have, and it's a luxury, and I don't have that. I don't have the capacity for that right now. No one should feel safe in this world. No one's coming to help me." That's usually how they'll answer that.
Helping them understand that this is not a natural state of living. It's not a wrong, like bad state, but it's not a natural ongoing state that should thrive. It's not going to allow her to thrive. If she has children, they're going to grow up with with this residual trauma. This is a mother who accidentally passes on residual trauma behaviors and a lot of anxiety to her children. Her sons will usually crave her approval and then be resentful against her for not giving them, and she won't know what's going on. So she'll have constant tension with her sons, battling them, criticizing them, and then they'll grow up craving her approval but not knowing how to get it. They'll go out and they'll marry a very critical woman, usually as well, who's avoidant or or disorganized and chaotic. And then she'll have a battle with her, her daughter-in-law as well. It's, it's a really ugly cycle. I've seen that a lot of times too. But, um, long-term couples can actually stay together for quite a long time. This is not as disruptive of a pattern, um, in some ways. Now, what it will do is create a very deeply, deeply unhappy marriage, especially into year five, six, seven, 10, like very deeply unhappy. Everything will be pretty okay until all of a sudden it's not, and then everyone is so in pain all the time, and no one knows what to do about it. And it creates this endless battle. Okay, if the woman is anxiously attached, she's likely to try to smooth everything over for another decade. If she's avoidantly attached and doesn't know how to do that, it's just going to go all out into like really painful trench warfare, kind of shooting at each other, continuous fighting. But she also won't know why the man is wanting you get divorced. Because this is just what relationships do. She's going to wonder why he's so insistent on emotional connection. She's going to wonder why things don't work out and why he's so emotional. She's going to wonder why he has feelings. She's going to wonder why her children have so many feelings. I, I've seen this time and again. And this is not to demonize avoidant women in any way, shape, or form. Again, they have such crushingly low oxytocin that they are very mechanical at this point. This is why there are very few avoidant women out. I shouldn't say it that way. This is why the percentage of avoidant women is so low compared to avoidant men. That's usually what it is. Once a woman begins getting some oxytocin into her system, usually it feels so amazing. Her system like drinks it up like the desert like guzzling rainwater. And then she begins shifting drastically towards secure behavior because she craves it because her system recognizes, "Oh, this is what I need." A lot of avoidantly attached women, the moment they get an oxytocin bond, unfortunately, quite often with men who are very, very manipulative and can slip in under their guard. What then happens is she becomes almost approval-seeking of him because she doesn't know how to live without this. It almost triggers like a pseudo anxiety state in her. Sometimes it is not a disorganized style, the blend of the two. It's not true anxious attachment, but it's a fear state brought on by now losing this oxytocin she's never had before.
Some avoidant women actually get this with their child, interestingly. Because she's the child is born, oxytocin comes in for the birth, oxytocin comes in for the breastfeeding. She gets oxytocin and overbonds to the child. And now she has like this overwhelming connection where like Dad is kicked out of the bed, Dad is old news, he's like rotten liver on the front porch. And like Mom sleeps, like co-sleeps with the baby until the baby's like, I mean, not 40 years old, but like practically like unending breastfeeding up to like age four, five, six. Um, I've actually heard like a phrase of that they say, um, breastfeeding addiction is something that's being introduced because women, some women cannot get oxytocin any other way because they've never felt it, only while breastfeeding, which is largely what oxytocin is actually for. Um, is is the the milk letdown. So it's, it's very, very common for an avoidantly attached woman either to be so distant from her child that she can't hardly breastfeed and she can't stand it, it feels uncomfortable, it's like sandpaper to breastfeed, even because the oxytocin feels so bad, or to like overconnect and boot Dad out of the bedroom. Very, very common for that to happen, even if he's just emotionally booted out of the bedroom at that point. I've seen that happen, um, quite, quite, quite often. So with all of that in mind, Sarah, thank you so much for joining, becoming a supporter of the channel. I appreciate you so much. Thank you. I am going to get to members-only chat at the end and take questions just from the members. So remember that down here at the bottom when it says join members-only chat, you guys are going to have that toward the end. Um, you get priority in comments, you got priority here as well. So my wife of 17 years is an avoidant woman. How do I help her? Can me really hard to feel in love sometimes. So Matt Biggs, I do have a couple resources for people out there right now who are watching this. Maybe you're an avoidant woman and you're like, "Okay, Adam, I'm not quite as wild as you explain here, but I am, I am on that that spectrum. What do I do?" Um, I have a video here on this channel that's called "How to Love An Avoidant Woman." It explains what avoidant women need in a relationship. Explains the oxytocin bonding, it explains the sexual difficulty sometimes that they have, it explains all of this bonding challenge that they have. I'd recommend watching that video, "How to Love An Avoidant Woman." It's a picture of a woman running away from like a red heart. Um, go watch that video. It will lay out for you what is possible. What avoidant women need more than anything else is possibilities. They've never had the possibility given to them of a loving, trusting relationship. It's never been possible for them, so they've never understood that they can even hope for it. They're afraid to hope for it. So there's that. Um, other people who want an extended version of that, not only if you're an anxiously attached man, maybe as a man, and you have an avoidantly attached woman, or you're in a marriage together, I did build the video course called "How to Love An Avoidant Man." Now, I did that again because it's like a 1 to 20 ratio for people that I work with, 20 avoidant men to one avoidant woman. So it is built for anxious woman, avoidant man, but the, it is exactly one for one applicable inside the course for avoidant woman, anxious man. So you can easily watch it. Just when I say man, flip it to woman, and when I say woman, flip it to man inside your head. Watch the course. It walks you through how she can build a trusting system, to measure trustability in other people, sort out 90% who are not trustworthy, keep 10% who are, start relaxing and bonding with them, work through oxytocin phobic behaviors, build more of an intimate structure, how he can communicate to her very differently, have to communicate in a risk-focused language and be measurable. If you walk up to her and say, "I need to feel loved," she's gonna say, "What have you been smoking? Like, what does that mean? What does loved feel like? I don't even, what you want some dopamine? Okay, we can go to the bedroom real quick." Like, most avoidant women will say that. They'll be like, "Anytime, anywhere, whatever you need, just tell me. I will go to the bedroom immediately within three seconds." And the guy's like, "I don't want that. I want to actually share emotional intimacy with you and bonding and connection." And she's like, "Why? Who are you? What do you care? What do you mean?" Like, "This is what guys want. Like, just let me know. Just tap me on the shoulder and I'll just go." And he's like, "No, I really want you to share this with me and have bonding and intimacy." And she's like, "That's gross. Like, you're being weird. Just tell me when you want to go and I'll just take my pants off really quick." That's that's usually how that goes. In your three, four, five, it really falls apart to that. And then the man feels guilty having sex with her because he's like, "I'm taking advantage of someone. I'm just taking from you. I'm not bonding with you. You're not enjoying it. I feel like I'm doing a transaction in an alley somewhere. Like, I, I don't, I don't want this." And then she gets frustrated because she's like, "Why won't you let me take care of you? I just, it doesn't mean anything. I'm just gonna take care of you really fast. Why are you making a big deal out of this?" This is why nice men, uh, anxious men, and avoidant women fight so hard about sex in relationships because both of them want it and neither one of them understands what the other one actually wants, if that makes sense. Endless battles. Anyway, inside the "How to Love An Avoidant Man" video course, it will walk you through the process of bonding and building that emotional intimacy. So if you're watching this, you need that help, make sure you check out that course. Uh, you're welcome to email me. I work with couples on this all the time. You guys, if you're in a couple like this and you need some help, uh, shoot me an email, support@adamsmith.com. You know that I work extensively with couples. I was a licensed marriage and family therapist for many, many years. Now I coach people on pretty much every continent except Antarctica so far. If anyone out there is from Antarctica, write to me, let me know. I would love to cross that continent off. I'd have bingo that way. But this is what you guys need to know about avoidantly attached women today. Okay, some of them are horrifically manipulative. These are usually the ones on dating apps. They're in hookup culture. They're bragging about how no man can bring them to climax, how they never connect to men, like La Hoya, it's all, you know, "I'm so much stronger and better than men." That's usually those manipulative avoidant women who are who they follow. What's that woman, Shirley 7, like just milk men for all the cash that that she possibly can, kind of thing, gold digger kind of approach. That's usually that. Also, that's sometimes off into personality disorder territory and a narcissistic personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder. Um, this is not borderline personality disorder. That's something quite different. That's that blend of anxious and avoid, more focused on abandonment and and gaining control to prevent abandonment by force. This is much more, "No one is ever going to help me. I have to gain total control and I will leverage whatever I can." That's that manipulative spectrum. I'm not speaking to that spectrum today here. You guys, everything here has been the vast majority of avoidant women who are ethically avoidant. Okay? They want to be left alone, or not even. They want to be non, not controlled. They don't want to be controlled. They don't trust anyone to make their choices for them. They don't trust anyone to control their money. They don't trust anyone to to uplift them because they saw Grandma get abandoned with nine kids on the farm and have to sell her teeth for food, kind of thing. Like she's used to like horror stories like that. Women raised her and said, "Don't ever trust any man ever. He will eat you alive." And then those women were also mean to her, so she also doesn't trust women. And so she doesn't trust anyone. That this is, this is a pretty typical story for avoidantly attached women. They're, they're, they're trying to do right in a very hard world where no one has ever really helped them or taken care of them or given them that love or respect that they're looking for. And they don't believe that anyone's going to and they've given up hope of that. So when you go at them expecting romance, intimacy, bonding, all of that stuff, they don't really have that in them at the moment to really offer. But I will say this, if you can help an avoidantly attached woman understand bonding and intimacy and give her a taste of it, they usually develop a taste for it quite quickly. They become very jealous and possessive of you, and then they become a bit approval-seeking of you, not full anxious, but really care for you. And then you have somebody by your side who is very logical, somebody who is very focused on improvement, someone who's going to watch you for risks, someone who's going to take care of you, someone who's going to guide you in the right direction, sometimes with a swift boot up your butt, and somebody who is going to over time grow into secure attachment and probably push you to do the same. So dating an avoidant woman or marrying an avoidant woman is not for the faint of heart, and it often will eat you alive if you're not prepared for it, like an anxiously attached man who doesn't do his work. Okay? But if you marry an avoidantly attached woman, you damn well had better become a very secure masculine man because that's ultimately what she's looking for, even if she at the moment doesn't trust anyone to really step forward and then for her to take a rest. She doesn't really trust that yet. Show her that. Become the best masculine leader you can. I don't mean Andrew Tate. I mean mature masculine servant leadership kind of style where you are self-sovereign and now you use that to help the people that you care for. That's really what they respect. They respect that. And it's a moment of absolute relief when they have somebody that they can finally trust. And you will never have someone be more grateful to you than an avoidantly attached woman who finally feels like she can rest and be safe with somebody. So keep that in mind. Again, I've got help if you guys need help with this. I've got a course. I've got, uh, I've got coaching. I have my private group. There's avoidantly attached women in there as well, or men who are married to them. Um, but just keep in mind, check out that video here on this channel. It's a free resource, "How to Love An Avoidant Woman." It's available here on this, this channel. It will walk even avoidant women through what is possible, what is possible in an intimate relationship. So I'm going to pop over here. I'm going to open up members-only chat, and you guys are going to start throwing me questions about this, and I would love to hear your questions. Please, please, please share them over in chat. Chat, what do you have for me? Members over there, what do you got? And remember, if you want priority, hit the join channel right here. Hit support the channel. Pop in or join the Inner Circle. All of that is good. There's perks associated with all of it. But let me know. I really want to connect with you here, and you get chat priority. You pay for a month, you get chat priority all month in these members streams and in comments. So chat, what do you got for me? What questions do you have today about avoidantly attached women? I would love to hear. Let me know. Aussie, currently in the US, able to catch you live. Hey, there's so many of you. I will say I've noticed a strange phenomenon that the same, I don't know if if there's more avoidantly attached women in Australia, or if just the avoidantly attached women from Australia find me faster than anybody else does. But it does seem like quite a few of the avoidantly attached women do seem to be in Australia. Um, I don't know. I don't know. Maybe it's the animals. The animals eating everybody makes you more avoidant. I have no idea. There's a way to throw out a cliche, huh? Sarah, a lot of women think this way. "I'd rather have a friendship with a guy I like than be in a relationship with him because friendships last longer and romance die quickly." This is true. It, well, it's true that many of them think that. It's not true that friendships and relationships are going to last longer, die quicker. It, it's that she doesn't know how to sustain a romantic bond where the expectation is emotional intimacy. It's, it's a skill issue, and it's the men that she picks issue. Okay? Eventually, they will push for emotional intimacy. She doesn't know how to provide that. She can sustain a friendship for much longer without emotional intimacy. Very, very hard to do that as a lover, as a wife, as a, as a close companion in that way. So it, it's a skill issue, and it's the fact that she doesn't know how to begin doing that. That's the problem. Okay? That's the issue. It's kind of like, um, if you have a car and you drive it without ever getting an oil change or anything on it ever, and it grinds down into oblivion and the engine catches on fire, and you're like, "Dang, cars are stupid and worthless. I'm going to go back to riding a horse because at least they just eat grass and poop, right?" It's, it's kind of the same idea. You have to learn how to do the maintenance on your car, and then your car is way more efficient than a horse is in most ways. That's the problem. She doesn't know how to run the constant maintenance that maintains a romantic relationship. That's the issue. Skill issue.
Arkon, what does it mean to fall in love too fast and constantly be suspicious they're going to leave you? Uh, I mean, that's an attachment issue. That means you are not going through the four levels of trust as I've laid them out. Uh, you are leaping ahead into the feelings, and then there's no trust established. So you don't know what they're going to do, so you don't know them. This is something that a lot of people with attachment issues do. You can be avoidant, you can be disorganized, you can be anxious, but whatever it is, you're not taking the time to go compatibility testing, to ask the deeper questions, to push on red flags, to take that time and have those conversations. You, you've seen my three-date method earlier on this channel. I, I recommend watching that again. That will help enlighten you. But that's what that means is you're jumping over all the levels of trust and landing in a bunch of feelings instead. That's what most people get wrong. That's why 98% of dating relationships break up. Sarah, I think a lot of avoidant women, even men, have wrong understandings of romance, childish expectations. They don't know it's not that different for friendship. You know, they, um, I will say this, avoidantly attached people actually take romantic relationships more seriously than pretty much anyone else on the face of the planet. They take them so overwhelmingly seriously that they are utterly terrified of failing their obligations in them, but also they are afraid of being trapped and death to death inside of them. They are very aware of the costs. In fact, they often exaggerate the costs in their head because they're used to arbitrary, demanding people from childhood. They don't want to get trapped like that again. But they also don't see any of the benefits of a committed relationship. Remember that the novelty dopamine dies for men primarily, seven, five to seven months. For avoidant women, it seems to last a bit longer. They can kind of milk it out, maybe like six, seven, eight, even nine months, maybe even a year. She can kind of milk it out, even into, I've seen avoidant women be able to milk dopamine out further, uh, but eventually it falls off a cliff, and she gets no benefit from the emotional bonding. Now it's just a bunch of work that she has to do, and it's just, "Okay, well, now I have someone who sits on my couch and eats my food all the time, and, uh, in return, I have to have sex with him whenever he snaps his fingers, kind of thing." That's it. It turns into a very dwindling proposition. That's what avoidantly attached people see is massive cost, almost no benefit, with with benefits actually plunging every day, devaluing constantly. That's the problem. So it's when you can show them what a benefit is in romantic relationships, what it looks like, what it feels like, what, what it offers to them, how it helps them grow, when you can show that to them on paper, scientifically, I have my video, the the biochemistry of avoiding attachment style here on this channel. When you can walk them through that, and then help them into a relationship where they can begin slowly testing it and experiencing it for themselves, everything changes. Once they have that experience, everything changes because they feel it and it resonates so strongly. It just takes time to get them to that place where they feel like they can run the experiment.
Arkon, what's the biggest danger of dating if you haven't healed your attachment? I'm a man who wants to date secure women. The biggest danger if you haven't fixed your attachment is finding someone who is crushingly insecure, and so you get into a doomed relationship pairing with someone who has a personality disorder who fools you and love bombs you at first, so then you are destroyed or almost closely to it. Um, or you find someone who is great, and then you sabotage it through your paranoia. Those are really the three big risks that I see with with dating without healing attachment. Now, you only have to get your attachment to maybe like 70 or 80% secure. It doesn't, and can't be perfect. It just has to get to a place where you're mostly secure enough to have the conversations, lean in, have the red flag talks, push a little bit, say what you want, ask what they want, push on those conversation pieces, really do compatibility testing. You have to be able to do those things. If you can't, don't date. Like, work on friendship first. You should be healing with friends and family instead, not trying to find some random person on a dating app or something like that who's going to instantly heal you. You should be looking for that. I don't mean you, Arkon, specifically, that you're doing that. I mean, many people are doing that. Many people have that expectation. "I'm alone and and afraid and terrified and naked in this world, and I have only a sharp stick and my crushing insecurity. I should find a lifelong romantic partner." That, that's what a lot of people are doing right now, you guys. It's, it's tragic, uh, but it's also very, very misguided. Good questions. Any other questions here today, chat? I got a couple minutes if we got them. I have a couple minutes if we got them. Eve, there you are. Watch your recent podcast on Grief with Hava. That was a great podcast. Oh, she was fantastic. Um, and very legitimate. Like, before and after. Like, it wasn't one of those where they show up and they're like, and then they're like, nice during the podcast, and then afterward they like, she was legit before, during, and after. She was a solid person. Um, my boyfriend is recently going through a loss of his own. Is there a way to be best supportive without activating him further? Quite honestly, having a context-driven conversation with him. "I know that you are grieving. I know that it's, it's hard for you to let people in, and I am not going to battering ram my way in, but I want to be here for you during this time because you are my partner. And I have number one, an obligation to help you, but number two, your hurt is my hurt. I'm hurting because you're hurting, and I want to help you. I know that you're a good person, and I want to see you through this. I would like to know a couple of ways you'd like me to help you through it. And if you don't know those things, because many..."
Guys, don't. Then I could propose a couple of things I might do to help you through it. Can we do that together? This is recorded, by the way, so you can go back and get all of that. But that's the conversation I recommend you have. Um, you could shoot it in text message. It's better to say it, even if you have to read it off a phone. Like, "Hey, I had an expert craft this for me." Read it off a phone, whatever. But, but that's the message that you need to give right there, if that makes sense.
Aran, I'm going to try focus on trying to heal my attachment first. But a girl I've had my eye on as a single mom, her son doesn't see his dad. Do kids with stepparents often grow up with attachment issues? Yes, yes, yes. Because we get our attachment from our primary parents. Yes, a stepparent can sometimes step in and fix or heal some of that, but usually not 100% because the original wound is there. That kid will then get a better benefit, but it's still often a tough experience. So, yes, you can, you can be a good stepparent. And good stepparents are incredible. I am never down on stepparents. Like, that's a heavy task to take on, and I respect people who do. But it is a hard battle typically because that kid is going to have a really big wound, and you're going to have to try to learn to work on that with them.
I do have a video here on this channel, um, "Seven Ways to Bond with Your Stepchild," I think is what it's called. It's like two years old, so forgive me, guys. I think I'm wearing like gold chains and like a V-neck shirt, but you know, I look like the Ganga of Love. But go back and watch that. The ways to bond with your stepchild, that would be really helpful.
Sarah, I have a strong Vpress in bonding with an avoidant man for almost a year because we share a lot of common hobbies. So our bond didn't die due to novelty issue, but I'm dying for more oxytocin. Yeah, so that's, that's a conversation you're going to need to work on with him. Um, if he's open, if he's Vasa presson bonded to you, he's probably open to learning a little bit more. The problem, he's so oxos phobic, he's intimidated physical cuddle and be close. If he's open to working on the relationship, I would W start with my video, "How to Love an Avoidant Man." I have like three of them here on this channel. No, no, no, no. Better video. It's like the most views I have on this channel, most watched view. Okay. Um, "What a Man with Avoidant Attachment Style Needs to Be Happy." Okay, it's the most watched video on this entire channel. "What a Man with Avoidant Attachment Style Needs to Be Happy." Watch that video. Put that title into YouTube with with Adam Lan Smith. Watch that video. Sit and watch it with him. Most avoidant men in the comments say this video made me cry like a baby. Okay, it will show him what's possible. And then if he loves that, I do have other videos on the channel. I have my "How to Love an Avoidant Man" course. I have all kinds of resources for you guys. But check out that video first. Watch that with him. Sarah, that's what I very much recommend right there. Say, "Hey, I have a video, and it tells me what I can offer you in a relationship so that you can be fulfilled. It is not what you owe me, it's what I can give to you. Would you like to sit and watch this with me? Can we watch it tonight?" And you sit and you watch it. It's like 30 minutes, 25 or something like that, and it, it should help him at least start to conceptualize that. Most of the avoidant men who came into my co, who come into my coaching practice in the last year, have all cited that video as the reason they came in. So it's, it's powerful.
Aran, followup question. When dating a single parent, how do you form a strong bond? They will always have to put their kid first. You have to talk to them about it and understand that that's the role that you're going to have in their life, and you have to understand that and be strong enough to be able to manage it. And then you talk about what that means, and you talk about what sacrifices are expected and which ones are not. You talk about if it's a timing issue, you talk about it. If they're going to shoot in the head and dump you on the side of the road kind of thing, what does that look like? What does it mean to put the kids first? You have that clear, exact conversation with that person right up front. That's why you have to have secure attachment to be able to do that. That's it.
All right, guys, I have to go. I got a coaching client. I actually have, I quite a few coaching clients today, back to back. So I'm excited to be able to help so many people. So thank you for being here again. If you need help, you are welcome to shoot me an email, support@adamsmith.com. You can just go to my website, adamsmith.com. You can send like, contact me, you can shoot an email through there. You can leave comments here, whatever you need. I am here to help. Drop your questions, avoidant ladies out there. I hope that I did a good job explaining. Please give me like a hell yes if I did, or like, "Way off, Adam, like, what the hell were you thinking?" Let me know. I'd love to hear from you. Um, I just wanted to put a resource out there because a lot of you were asking questions, and I want the world to know that you're not, you're not bad women by any means. You're actually usually pretty cool women. Like I said, some of my favorite collaborations I've ever had with female creators, very avoidant women, super cool, low drama, like super business, easy, easy interactions. It's incredible. So much love. Take care of yourself, you guys. I will talk to you again real soon.
Uh oh, community post. I posted a community post lately, uh, this morning, that has all the live stream times for the next three weeks. I'm, I'm shifting them around because I want to test different times to see who can come, to see who enjoys it, like when the biggest crowd is, when people are happiest, like, and want to talk about attachment. Go check out the community post here on my channel. It's text, it's written, it has all those live stream times. Put on your calendar. Let's meet up then at those times. I'd love to connect with you guys. All right, I'll talk with you real soon.