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The Avoidant Can Love You With All Their Heart (And Still Leave You Feeling Empty)
Last week, a woman told me she finally understood why her relationship felt so exhausting. She’d been with her partner for four years. He was kind. Loyal. Present in all the ways that look good on paper. And she loved him. Genuinely.
But here’s what she said that stopped me: “I spend more energy managing my hunger than I do actually being fed.”
She wasn’t talking about food. She was talking about the strange, slow starvation that happens when you love someone who loves you back, but whose love never quite reaches you.
If you’ve been in a relationship with someone avoidant, you probably know exactly what she means. And if you’re honest with yourself, you’ve probably spent a lot of time wondering why knowing someone loves you doesn’t make you feel loved.
Here’s the uncomfortable thing most people in these relationships eventually have to confront: love, as it turns out, is not the same as nourishment. And being loved by someone who can’t reach you is its own particular kind of loneliness.
