• Do you ever find yourself dodging tough conversations , or skilfully change the subject when things get a bit too real in your relationship? 
• Do you keep people at arms length? 
• Are there other parts of your life and relationship that you are avoiding, such as suppressing certain feelings, or putting off making certain decisions? 
• Do the ways you avoid lead to feeling inadequate, not good enough or self doubt.
• Does avoidance create more conflict with your partner?

This episode explores the pervasive issue of avoidance in relationships and why men tend to pull away from their partner. 

Avoidance is something many of us do—sometimes without even realising it—and it can quietly chip away at your relationship and your self esteem.

• Why do many blokes often pull away?
• What are the belief systems that create avoidance in your life?
• How does facing up to and changing these patterns actually bring you closer in your relationship, or closer to your own values. 
• Practical steps designed to change patterns of avoidance

If you’ve ever wondered why you tend to steer clear of the deep and meaningful stuff in your relationship and your life this is the episode for you.

Do you want to learn more ways to improve your relationship skills?

Check out our Online Mini Course:

‘From Shut Down to Communication – 4 Relationship Boosting Strategies for Men’ 

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Contact us – howard@menandrelationships.com.au

If this episode raises a need to get some counselling support Howard is available for consultations in Australia. 

If this episode raises a need to get some counselling support Howard is available for consultations. 

Check out his private practice:

Men and Relationships Counselling

Or reach out to a professional in your area.

TRANSCRIPT

Speaker A: Do you ever find yourself dodging tough conversations with your partner or skillfully changing the subject when things get a bit too real in your relationship? Do you keep people at arm’s length?

Are there other parts of your life that you are avoiding, such as suppressing feelings or procrastinating decision making? Or do the ways you avoid lead to feeling inadequate or not good enough or self doubt?

Avoidance is something that many people do sometimes without even realizing it, and it can gently, quietly chip away at your relationship and your own self esteem.

So why do many blokes often pull away?

What are the belief systems that create avoidance in your life?

How does facing up to and challenging these patterns actually bring you closer in your relationship and closer to your own values? If you’ve ever wondered why you tend to steer clear of the deep and meaningful stuff in your life, this is the episode for you.

Welcome to mantalk, a podcast of real conversations about life, your life, our life, and the emotional well being of men. My name is Howard Todd Collins. I’m the director of Men and Relationship Counseling.

Thank you for being there. Sit back and relax and join me for this latest episode of ment.

Hello, hello, hello. I hope you are well wherever you are. This is the second episode of the ManTalk podcast for 2026. I am mindful of the fact that I tend to record these slightly in advance of time, so I’m sitting here with you in the second week of January.

You’ll be listening to this at some point in the beginning of February.

So I hope wherever you are in the world that you’ve had some time to rest and relax through the Christmas New Year period and you’re entering the year in a,

I don’t know, in a more rested way, if that’s possible.

The man talk podcast is continuing every month. This is the second one of the year. The second solo episode last month was me and my dulcet tones talking to you about setting intentions for the year.

This one is also me on my own some,but the conversations or the co hosted conversations with Ryan that have actually proven very popular will continue.

Ryan and I are just having a little bit of a break break from the co hosted. He’s away on holiday at the moment, he’s back shortly and we’ll be continuing the conversational style all being well in March of this year.

This particular topic, though this conversation today is really about avoidance and the reason why it matters so much is because it tends to show up in my conversations with both men and women and couples all the time.

Avoidance is what creates all sorts of barriers to genuine connection. Connection.

It also creates problems in terms of trust and intimacy.

So if you’re the kind of guy who knows that you’re avoiding difficult conversations or emotions,

whatever issues you’re having if you’re not showing up will remain unresolved.

And that can, of course, build up over time,leading to misunderstandings and resentment and emotional distance. So avoidant patterns tend to lead to isolated unsupported and unfulfilled relationships, which is why it’s so important to talk about.

Avoidance prevents open communication making it very hard to express needs or address problems.

So if you’re aware of your own pattern of avoidance, this is a really good subject to be looking at because essentially addressing avoidance in its own way becomes essential for relationship satisfaction, but also really important to look after in terms of your emotional wellbeing as well.

So what does avoidance in relationships look like? It’s that tendency to steer clear of difficult conversations or difficult feelings or situations that will make you feel uncomfortable or threatened in some way.

Now, it is a learned coping mechanism. It’s not a character flaw.

This pattern has evolved over time, and we’ll look at that in the next section.

The avoidance is what creates the distance and unresolved tension and that disconnection within relationships.

So if you’re mindful and aware that you may end up avoiding conversations by changing the subject quickly, or you’re withdrawing from disagreements and you’re kind of burying yourself in your own head or in work, or avoiding follow up discussions with your partner, that emotional withdrawal is part of avoidance.

And also if you’re avoiding any kind of intimate communication by staying very busy this kind of distraction is also part of the avoidant pattern.

So, you know, if your partner wants to talk to you about certain things and you’re just saying you’re too busy or you’re too tired and you’re using that busyness as a shield to avoid deeper connection and conversations.

So why does avoidance patterns exist? How do they show up?

But why do they show up in some and not others? What are the origins of avoidant attachment?

You know, like many of the episodes of the mantalk podcast, I’m very mindful of you know, describing various psychological traits or patterns very carefully in a way way, because I’m not in he business, in the podcast of providing advice per se, and it’s certainly not therapy.

But some of these themes and some of these issues that get to be raised by men in my work are very much to do with their own personal development and psychological growth in terms of who they are.

And this segment is really looking at a particular pattern that exists for many of us. And this is not intended as advice, but I want you to listen to this and see whether you recognize, recognize aspects of yourself.

And if you do, I want you to be able just to take care of some of the information that you’re listening to.

The intention for this segment is to look at where very, very broad brushstroke of an idea of where avoidance patterns come from. But I’m very aware that this origin of this style of relating comes from some really significant psychological developmental work that many people do in therapy.

And if you’re not in counseling or therapy, but you’re very invested in your,you know, your own personal development and your own sort of change pattern in your own life, then be mindful that if you’ve not spoken about some of these things before and it raises something in you, then I encourage you to seek out some support if it’s not with me, but with somebody else who is available to consult with to understand the origins of where some of your relational patterns are coming from and that you, you want to do some work on it, which I think is a great idea.

And that is the purpose of this segment, to raise some awareness within yourself.

Now, avoidance in relationships is not universal.

There are some men and women who are more prone to it than others. The difference often stems from a combination of early life experiences cultural influences, and individual personality traits. Now, in terms of early emotional environment, this is where we look at your own upbringing, your own childhood.

So if you are aware that you grow up in emotionally dismissive or disapproving environments, you are more likely to have developed some kind of avoidance patterns unless you’ve done some work on it already.

So if as a kid or as a young boy your feelings were ignored or minimized or punished, you would have learned to suppress or hide your feelings partly to stay safe, but also to gain approval and avoid any kind of negative consequences.

If you look back at the male role models of your life, your own father, but also other caregivers,

if there were many men in particular who were rarely expressive in terms of vulnerability or their emotions you would have internalized this belief system in some way that emotions were unsafe or certainly not manly.

And then there’s your own cultural social conditioning that would have come into play in your own life. You know, there are many parts of society, even today, that still reinforce the idea that men should be stoic and strong and self reliant.

It’s still that classic Big boys Don’t cry, which teaches boys to avoid showing up in terms of their vulnerability.

And we’re still influenced by media, you know, where men are portrayed as, you know, problem solvers or rescuers as opposed to emotional beings.

And that can lead to kind of shame and ridicule in terms of emotional openness. So these are another reasons why many men avoid these kind of more emotional conversations.

And then there’s the kind of more temperament individual differences. You know, you may well be a bloke who is just naturally more expressive,or you may be a bloke that’s more reserved.

So your own genetics and your own personality play a role in how comfortable you are to express yourself emotionally and your own life experience to date.

Whether you’ve experienced a lot of loss in your life or significant trauma or repeated negative experiences with being vulnerable, this will all reinforce various strategies like avoidance to protect yourself.

So in terms of the theory, some of the notions of attachment theory are really significant to think about. I’ll put some links into the notes in the show notes of the podcast.

But there are some kind of useful things to think about when it comes to attachment theory.

So let me present you some of the basics.

Attachment theory is a psychological framework. It basically explains how our early relationships, our relationships, relationship with our parents,

the caregivers that were around us when we were growing up, that shaped the way that we connect with other people throughout our whole life.

It was developed by psychologist John Bowlby. The theory suggests that the emotional bonds that we form as kids influence our sense of security how we handle emotions, and how we relate to partners, to friends and even colleagues at work as adults. Now, there are several main styles of attachment. You would have heard of this before.

The main one that people tend to focus on in terms of healthy attachment style is the secure attachment. It’s where we feel comfortable with closeness and trust and we can express ourselves emotionally openly without any worry or fear.

And then there’s avoidant attachment, which is what we’re looking at today which is where people tend to distance themselves emotionally to avoid vulnerability and struggle to rely upon other people.

And then there’s an anxious attachment where people often worry about feeling rejected or being abandoned or not feeling valued.

And that tends to lead to more needy, heightened sensitivity often looked at in some way as being very clingy or overly needy. And then there’s ambivalent or disorganized attachment.

It’s where there’s a kind of mix of behaviors where people are feeling both drawn tobut also fearful closeness and There’s a combination of these styles that tend to overlap each other.

Now, understanding your attachment style is kind of important here because essentially it will help you to make sense of your pattern. The way you communicate with the world your partner included, but also the way you feel about yourself. And knowing more about styles of attachment can maybe guide you towards healthier or different ways to connect.

Avoidant attachment, as I’ve mentioned before, is very much created through early life whatever that was for you in shaping the way you relate to other people emotionally.

It really is about the avoidant part is where really your needs were not met enough as a young bloke, for whatever reason, parents or caregivers were not available enough to you.

Either they were dismissive or very busy or distracted, or even outrightly rejected projecting of your emotional experience.

So it basically forms at moments where you as a kid would have attempted to seek comfort or at least express distress of some kind and it was met with indifference or even criticism. And you would have learned therefore, that showing emotion is not helpful and it’s even dangerous.

And you would have then learned to cope more independently, become more self reliant.

A kind of consequence of that is the way you may well suppress your emotional needs and avoid that kind of emotional closeness essentially to prevent disappointment or rejection.

So the long term impact of that you can see is as adults it would have been difficult to trust other people.

You would have avoided the intimate conversations that we’re talking about and find it hard to express yourself emotionally now. You know, not everybody develops these patterns. Actually, what’s interesting in my conversation, when clients are looking back at their own family of origin they may well experience various forms of secure attachment with one parent but not the other.

Or they may well have experienced more secure attachment styles with a grandparent as opposed to their own parent. There are many people that have grown up in supportive, warm validating, fostering secure attachment experiences in their own family.

And there are some people that have a mixture of both.

I guess the point here in terms of you understanding your own avoidant patterns is what it is that gets in the way for you and what it is that you need to develop to aim towards a more secure style.

And we’ll look at that in a moment. What does tend to happen in avoidant patterns for some people is not just in relationships, but avoidant patterns show up in other areas of life.

Now, people with avoidant attachment patterns also display versions of avoidance outside of intimate relationships across other areas of life. So here are some common examples. And once again, you may recognize yourself in some of these, and maybe not all of them.

But pay attention to some of these common examples of life that also tend to trigger avoidant patterns. One is workplace relationships or workplace avoidance. This is where you may find yourself avoiding difficult conversations with a colleague or with a manager or a supervisor.

Or you may find yourself sidestepping feedback in some form because you’re worried about the rejection that you may feel, or even withdrawing from team activities or team projects because it creates some uncomfortability or discomfort in your workplace.

Avoidance is very common because we spend a lot of time at work. Those relationship patterns that you have will be played out in your work role in some form.

Another very common example in terms of avoidance in life in general is about social anxiety or social withdrawal.

This is where you may be more consciously aware of friendships being very superficial.

Or in some cases, there are many men that I meet who have kind of let their friendships go for a focus on their relationship with their partner or their role as a father, but they’ve let relationships go or they’ve got friendships that are quite in some way surface level friendships that aren’t particularly deep emotionally steering clear of any kind of experiences that are more sharing or more emotionally vulnerable.

Another really common form of avoidance is emotional numbing. I’ve spoken about emotional numbing before in this podcast. It’s really about where we distract ourselves whether it be excessive work or consistent constant screen time where we’re doing something that numbs ourselves from whatever we’re feeling.

These are very common activities like hard work and excessive screen time, or even excessive physical fitness or hobbies that are all kind of at surface level, very important.

But if they are designed to get you to avoid confronting other parts of your life, uncomfortable emotional stuff then it’s more numbing. It’s not particularly healthy to keep avoiding completely by getting distracted in other things.

It’s a form of avoidance, as is conflict avoidance Very commonly in relationships, avoiding conflict is something that we’ve spoken about before.

But even in family or social situations where you may find yourself just retreating or withdrawing or wanting to change the subject because it’s creating some discomfort in you or there are some people that use humour as a way of deflecting away from serious topics.

Another common avoidance technique which is kind of interesting to think about is about self care neglect, as in avoiding your own needs for self care. You may well focus all your attention on caring about and caring for other people in your life, important people, your partner, your kids, your family and so on.

But if it’s only about caring for others. The risk is that you then neglect your own care, your own self care needs and avoiding that is part of the struggle.

And the final one, which is something again you may recognize in yourself, is being cautious or overly risk averse.

And this includes avoiding new experiences or challenges or even new opportunities because it creates so much fear that you may fail in some way or you’re worried about being criticized for not achieving something you want.

A classic one is there are many people that stay stuck in their same job forever.

That safety and familiarity is very important. And sometimes that’s fine, of course, but there’s also an aspect of that where people are stuck in staying safe because they’re risk averse in challenging themselves to do something new.

Now these are all examples of patterns. They’re not prescribed as such. You may see these in yourself.

Avoidant patterns do also tend to show up in some internalized beliefs.

That is the narratives that we’re kind of in our heads what we are saying about ourselves.

So what are those internalized beliefs and what is required to make the change?

Beliefs are these thoughts or ideas or comments or values that we hold in our head.

Usually we think them and we believe them.

Some of those internalized beliefs help us to you know, live worthwhile lives and have worthwhile relationships and help us to feel healthy and connected to the world.

And some of our beliefs are restricting us. They’re kind of getting in the way in some form. And the common narratives that I hear in conversations with a lot of men that I work with do tend to kind of sit in this avoidant category.

Sometimes they’re quite restricting in their belief system.

And the important part of this is to begin to recognize them.

And this is the purpose of this particular segment. I’m going to go through some common ones to think about. And I want you to just,

just for a moment reflect whether that’s something that you believe in or whether you’ve believed in it before and maybe you’ve changed it.

And just to use this exercise as a kind of curiosity to work out whether that belief system or the belief system I’m going to be talking about is something that gets in the way for you.

The most common one that comes in the sort of more avoidant category is where men say to themselves,

I can only rely upon myself. This is the belief that depending on other people is risky because it will lead to disappointment.

And so the core value is self sufficiency.

The second one, which is very common is, and this is very male. It’s not Only men. But it’s very blokey.

Emotions are a sign of weakness. This is a kind of deep seated belief that showing any kind of feeling or emotion, especially vulnerability or fear or sadness, is actually a weakness.

And it’s certainly not masculine.

Emotions are a sign of weakness. There’s a limiting belief in some form and in that sense if you believe it, you will avoid any kind of emotional expression.

Here’s another one. If I get too close to people or if I get too close to a partner, I will lose my independence. This is a kind of fear of intimacy.

It threatens a sense of autonomy or a sense of control.

Here’s another one classic one, People will let me down if I open up.

This is where that strong expectation that others are unreliable or other people will reject ourselves in some form if they start to, you know, know, see a real self emerging, that that will not be accepted.

It’ll be criticized or it’ll be rejected outright.

People will let me down if I open up.

And another kind of one that’s connected to this is I need to stay in control.

This is a kind of belief that maintaining emotional distance and control is absolutely necessary to avoid being hurt or overwhelmed in some way way.

Another one that’s a bit similar to the one I was saying before about emotions are a sign of weakness is my needs are not important.

This is a kind of self dismissal or minimizing emotional needs, which is really significant here because if you see your emotional needs as not being important,

you’ll get kind of caught up in this very classic limiting belief that many men have is if I share my feelings, I’m going to burden them with, with them.

I do not want to burden other people.

Here’s a classic one. If I ignore my feelings, they’ll just go away. This is the tendency to suppress or distract from uncomfortable emotions in the hope that they will just resolve on their own.

And sometimes they do resolve in the short term. But what I tend to find, and you will probably know this,the more we avoid and suppress whatever we’re feeling tends to come up in other ways.

And the final one, which is a really difficult one, it’s a belief system that keeps people very stuck is the feeling or the thought,

I’m better off alone. The narrative here is that solitude is safer and more manageable than risking connection and the potential pain that comes with it.

Now these internal beliefs are really important to look at. To recognize any of them in yourself is a really big step. Because know when you take that step,

to start to consider how that affects your attachment style, particularly if it’s avoidant.

If you start to recognize that these are problems for you or they are blocks for you,

it opens the door for some self reflection for some ideas of doing things differently in your relationship. And when you start to enter that personal development you’ll start to feel the emotional growth.

And again, if you start to recognize these in yourself and you’re feeling stuck and you’re not sure what to do about it, then reach out for some help.

So I want to go through with you as we go to the end of the episode really is how to change some of these patterns. What is it that you need to do or you can do that can actually start to make some of these changes possible.

So here are some practical suggestions for you to consider around changing this more avoidant pattern that you may recognize in yourself. There’s some real life examples of what you can do.

The first thing you can do is to start small and to start to practice moments where you’re more open to conversations in your relationship with your partner.

So this is about just kind of recognizing that you can share your experience of your day. For example,

so if, you know, if your partner asks you how was work? And you just say, yeah, fine,

and that’s it, you know, maybe that, maybe it was fine.

But there’ll be moments in your day or in your week or in your weekend where there’s more going on than just that.

So start to practice small acts of being more open. Describe your experience of the day to your partner. If you start small steps to build more comfort in expressing yourself,

you’ll get the practice of it. You’ll start to think and see the value of starting small. Not big moments, but small acts. More often small acts of being open. The second step you can make is just to consider whether your belief system is getting in the way.

You know, challenge this kind of notion,

maybe of the mindset of being tough and strong and stoic and unemotional. If that’s part of your belief system, let’s see whether you can reframe your strength as being more courageous, to be more open and honest.

So if you are feeling overwhelmed in the week you’re having, or you’re struggling with something,

just start to recognize it and maybe share a bit of it with your partner or at least with someone you trust,

that you’re actually finding things a bit tough right now. Start to think about honesty and openness and connection is as powerful as being the tough guy.

Schedule regular check ins with your relationship with your partner. You know, start thinking about a night of the week could be a Sunday,

where you just share the highs and lows of the week you’re having.

Talk about the routine of just breaking the withdrawal or the emotional withdrawal that you have in part of your avoidance time style.

And if you’re in conflict at times, start to practice using I statements to express yourself.

If you feel like you’re not being heard,

own the feeling of frustration.

Try and avoid the blame and seek support. If you’re recognizing that these patterns are really difficult for you to break and they’re hard to work with because they can be then reaching out to do some therapy or go into a men’s group or find somebody you trust to start recognizing that these avoidant patterns are getting in the way and you want to make the change.

You know, quite simply,self awareness is so important here. If you’re aware that your avoidance is stopping you, then start to show up in a different way by checking in with yourself. What are you feeling,

what are you avoiding and what do you need?

Start to practice naming your emotions.

Talk about it to yourself or with someone you trust. I feel sad or concern or anxiety or shame or fear.

Those small steps, often with your partner, that we’re talking about before.

Stay present. Learn to practice being fully attentive to your own emotional needs.

And remember that these kind of changes,

they do take time, they require patience and they require compassion within yourself to work towards the changes that you want to make. The importance of recognizing and addressing avoidance will help you to start leaning into more healthier,

more connected ways of being in your life and in your relationship.

I want to encourage you to reflect and to try and make one small change this week as you’ve been listening to the episode.

Thank you for being there. I would love to hear your thoughts about this episode and anything to do with mantalk. You can follow me on Instagram at mantalkwithhoward. I now have a little TikTok going.

You can find me there mantalk as well.

If this episode sparks an interest that you want to do some more work on yourself,

all that information to work with me is in the show notes.

If you enjoy the podcast, let your mates know. It’d be great to get more people involved.

And thank you for listening.

Thank you for being there. If you like what you hear,give me a review of where you found the podcast and I look forward to speaking with you again in the next episode of Man Talk.