So you've gotten yourself into a relationship with somebody that you believe to be a love avoidant and in that relationship you don't know if they actually care about you. Well, in today's blog I'm going to give you five ways to tell whether or not your avoidant cares.
The first way you can tell your avoidant cares about you is when they give you their time. Avoidants tend to not want to give anything or anybody their time or their energy. If it doesn't serve them any purpose, they won't do it. So if they are with you and they are giving you their time, that is a really good indication that they care about you and they are putting you as a priority. It’s a sign that they're moving towards having something a little bit more substantial with you.
The second thing that they will do is they will offer their space. I often don’t recommend moving into an avoidant’s home because things can get real rocky and things can fall apart unless you lay out a good plan on how you guys are going to cohabitate. You should have a clear vision on what space is going to be yours and what is going to be theirs. Also, what quality time is going to look like because most of the time they may not want to be around you. When you guys were dating and going through the courtship stage they probably felt like they had to be there to entertain you. But when you move in with them or they give you their space, that's a huge indication that they care about you and they want to make things work. When an avoidant offers up what they need to offer up in order to make you feel comfortable and safe, you need to do it in the correct way, because nothing can make an anxious and avoidant dynamic fall apart quicker than you moving in with them. Make sure that you do it the correct way, but if they're offering it to you, they care about you.
The third way that they will show that they care about you is when they give you money, resources, and things that they worked hard to get. For example, if they offer to give you something that they think you can benefit from before they sell or donate it, they are showing they care about you and want you to feel comfortable.
The fourth thing that they will do is they will come back to an argument or a disagreement that you guys had. This is when they are starting to move towards becoming more secure with you. They will come back to things like uncomfortable conversations. They will bring it back up, talk about it, and will want to resolve the issue. I see this more with men who are avoidants that are trying to become more secure and they want to communicate better with their spouses. This is them showing that they care and those are the times when they see the potential in their partner. They are able to not just sweep things under the rug and not make you feel like you are not important.
The last thing they will do is they will apologize. This may seem like common sense and like something that you should already know, but for them apologizing makes them feel shameful. Avoiding attachment style is an insecure attachment style which means they already feel like they can't bring anything to the table. They don't know how to operate inside the relationship so when you bring something up and you demand an apology it's going to be really tough for them. It probably goes back to when they were always being blamed and always had to take the responsibility for the things that they did. It makes them feel inadequate. I know people will say narcissists don't apologize either, but narcissistic tendencies aren't an attachment style. You can have an anxious attachment style but also be a narcissist. There's an overlap so don't continue to compare them to people that you know have that character flaw. Attachment style is an attachment style, character flaw is a character flaw, but that's a whole other avenue for another day.