They have an "avoidant" attachment style.

A person whose attachment style is avoidant may be sabotaging your relationship or setting you both up for failure without even knowing it.

Usually, this kind of defense mechanism comes from a childhood trauma of abandonment and it means that relationships are unpredictable and temporary. An avoidant partner won't be able to commit in the long run because they simply can't maintain relationships for that long.

"This is an unconscious attempt to make sure that they never again go through anything like they went through with their original caregiver," psychotherapist Alison Abrams told Business Insider. "The irony is that by engaging in these defenses that we've learned we are actually recreating the very thing we were trying to avoid."

[Photo via Reshot]

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