The Avoidant Personality and Silent Divorce

I want to talk with you about the Avoidant Personality and how it effects your marriage.

Here are some of the indications that an avoidant partner is effecting  your marriage:

• You don't get enough information from your partner to plan ahead. Too much is secretive.
• Confronting never seems to work. They always avoid confrontation and seem to slip away. You can't get answers or solutions. Nothing gets resolved.
• You find that your partner is backing out of things more and more. You do less together and are on your own more.
• Intimacy seems to be avoided in the sexual relationship. Something seems off.
• Your feelings don't ever seem to get acknowledged.
• The avoidant partner never shares their feelings and rarely gives any personal information, so it feels like you are strangers.

How do you deal with this situation if you observe this in your partner?
There are some things to avoid until you get a professional assessment of the situation.

• Don't declare you are going to get divorced. This may trigger unexpected and undesirable actions from the avoidant partner.
  
• Don't demand you both go to a marriage counsellor unless they suggest it or are open to it without a lot of pressure.
  

Do talk to a professional - set up a consultation - to get their reading on the situation. Here is the thing:

• If the avoidant pattern is not extreme, there can be possibilities of improving the situation.
  
• If the avoidant pattern is a strong one then some forms of short-term interventions will make a shart-term difference as long as these activities are maintained.
  
• If you want to divorce and fail to have your consultation, you will stir up some trouble more extreme than you can imagine. you need to do this carefully and not preemptively.
  

You may contact me for that consultation by phone or in person. A new fee schedule is being put in place for new clients. That is $150 per hour session with George and $215.00 for a 90 minute sessions. 

I qualify as a professional consultant on this issue as a registered psychotherapist with training in psychology and psychological assessment. I trust you will find that I am knowldgeable about the Avoidant Personality and Silent Divorce in terms of recognition of the pattern, understanding the consequences and perhaps a unique understanding of the dangers of a sudden break-up with the Avoidant Partner.

George Hartwell M.Sc. (416) 939-0544.