The Invisible Erosion of Self in Avoidant Relationships

Are you sacrificing your sense of self for love?

Source: Pexels/Dany Ochoa

Relationships can be scary.

Your partner could betray you, leave you, or simply not love you. You can also lose your sense of self in the process of loving someone else.

Often, what we fear doesn’t materialize.

But that doesn’t make the fears feel any less real.

That’s especially true for those with avoidant attachment who prioritize staying independent and maintaining distance because they feel uneasy with emotional intimacy and closeness (Mikulincer, 1998). The self-protective logic is that putting up walls, resisting closeness, and self-reliance help us avoid getting hurt.

What if what you’re worried about isn’t really happening?

The Delusion Hypothesis

Anyone focused on protecting the self will be especially concerned about losing who they are or sacrificing aspects of their identity for the relationship. Researchers believe that those with avoidant attachment may be so concerned that they sense a loss of self when it doesn’t really exist. The self-loss is a delusion (Hughes and colleagues, 2024).

I asked lead researcher Erin Hughes, an assistant professor at Fairfield University, where this idea originated. She explained, “Seeing that avoidantly attached people reported losing aspects of their self-concept didn’t really track with the literature. It is usually anxiously attached folks who are more open to changing who they are for their partner.” This led the researchers to speculate: “Perhaps avoidantly attached people feel like they are changing due to, perhaps, being overly defensive against their partner, but maybe they’re not actually changing.”

How They Did It

To study this, the researchers conducted four studies using cross-sectional and longitudinal methods to track changes. Importantly, they compared avoidant individuals' own reports of self-loss to external metrics such as partner reports and objective ratings from outsiders to assess actual self-loss. This allowed the researchers to compare perceptions of loss to reality.

What They Found

Those with avoidant attachment reported experiencing more loss of self in their relationships. Those perceptions of self-loss were associated with being less committed to the relationship. Who could blame them? They thought the partnership was eroding the self.

Yet, they were wrong. As Hughes explains, “Avoidantly attached people perceive losses to who they are due to their relationship that, according to outside sources, does not seem to be happening, and this perception negatively impacts their commitment.” This suggests that those with avoidant attachment, "see changes to who they are in a particularly negative light, even if they aren’t actually changing.“

Interestingly, Hughes shared that “securely attached people showed the opposite “delusion,” where despite being asked to be less, they didn’t perceive it that way.” Secure individuals give their partner the benefit of the doubt, and “this positive delusion could be better for relationships in the long run.“

How To Use These Findings

This pattern of misperceiving loss is problematic. To avoid it, Hughes suggests, “There are several ways people could use these findings in their everyday relationships. One way is to consider your relationship from an outside perspective, our reality and our partner’s reality are two separate things. If we can keep that in mind, then when we can start to consider whether how we understood our partner’s actions is actually how they meant them.”

She also suggests that couples can reconsider their partner's intentions. For example, “When your partner asks you to lower your Sunday NFL consumption, it doesn’t have to be thought of as reducing your football fan identity, but instead could be thought of as increasing the time you two could spend together before the work week starts.”

This reinterpretation makes the request less threatening to the sense of self. It also refocuses and emphasizes benefiting the shared bond between partners.