Both pursuer and avoider styles are rooted in early attachment insecurity. They each carry inherent biases that complicate relationships through-out life. Here I want to comment on the pursuer style.
Commonly, the pursuer is viewed by both in the relationship, as the one most knowledgeable about emotional connection and attachment. Sometimes they are viewed as the “expert” in matters of emotion and connection. And, because they swim in emotional waters far more than their avoiding partner, this is partially true. However, because the pursuer adaptation commonly forms in an early history of childhood abandonment and chaotic family life (oftentimes traumatic), their pursuing attitude can leave them emotionally dysregulated and vulnerably exposed. They are typically the “carrier of closeness” in the relationship, but the form of closeness that they habitually seek is actually a “compensatory over-closeness” rather than the closeness of secure attachment.
This is a situation where the pursuers emotional seeking of the other Is “fused” rather than differentiated. That is, “the emotional seeking of the other” is dominated by “compelling inner need” for exact “tune-in” from the other. At these times, the pursuer ends up in protest towards their avoidant partner when sufficient attunement is missing. (Of course, this then activates the avoiders distancing defenses and a negative cycle ensues, wherein the pursuer ends up getting less than they had before the cycle). There is a problem however with the pursuers seeking of contact, and that is, even when they get close to the contact they seek, these good moments do not necessarily instill in them an experience of secure attachment going forward. In order for that to happen a deeper form of healing has to happen for them with their avoidant partner.
There is a complicated problem in all of this, that only gets resolved through persistent “eft unpacking” of the negative cycle. The problem is… the pursuer, and oftentimes the avoider, both assume that “the fused picture of relational contact” is the healthy form of close attachment that somehow the relationship needs to arrive at. But, it is not! And this gives both in the marriage the wrong idea of what they are striving towards. It creates a dysfunctional vision to guide the couple.
This confusion lives in both pursuer and avoider in different ways. For the avoider, the buy-into of the fused/over-close vision of connection commonly leaves them retaining a despairing conclusion that they will never measure up to how a relationship is supposed to be. For the pursuer, the persistent seeking of fusion closeness leaves them feeling chronically anxious that somehow what they seek with their partner never lasts.
