fearful-avoidant

Review Roundup: Avoidant, Bad Boyfriends

While I’ve been working on other projects, more reviews came in for Avoidant: How to Love (or Leave) a Dismissive Partner. There’s also been some activity on my older book, Bad Boyfriends: Using Attachment Theory to Avoid Mr. (or Ms.) Wrong and Make You a Better Partner. As usual, readers are invited to take questions and concerns to the Jeb Kinnison Attachment Type Forum to discuss attachment issues and their own special situations.

Here I’ll recap the better reviews, leaving out the obvious axe-grinding ones. It’s not uncommon for a reviewer to react negatively for personal reasons and then take it out on the book. Those reviews are self-identifying.

For Avoidant:

5.0 out of 5 stars – Five Stars
By Kate on January 21, 2017
Excellent read! Very informative.

5.0 out of 5 stars – Great to read with your partner
By J Harrison on January 18, 2017
Incredibly helpful. Great to read with your partner, to help guide those difficult conversations.

5.0 out of 5 stars – Along with Wired For Love and Marriage Rebranded
By room7609 on January 9, 2017
If you’re reading this then I know you can relate. This book, along with Wired For Love and Marriage Rebranded, saved me and my marriage. Read all three and ask your spouse to do the same. You’re welcome. 😉

5.0 out of 5 stars – WOW
By M. M. Jackson VINE VOICE on December 25, 2016
Fantastic, fantastic book. Very therapeutic and helpful. A window into the soul of these tormented people who, knowingly or not, manage to so thoroughly torment. I’ve read a few treatments of the subject, this has been the best by far yet. Expands upon his “Bad Boyfriends” book (which also applies to girlfriends, in my case) and in fact pretty much includes a lot of the same material, which you will find expanded here. Between the two, buy this one.

For Bad Boyfriends:

5.0 out of 5 stars – Excellent Primer on Attachment in Relationships
By stephen jensen on January 23, 2017
I’ve been reading a lot on attachment theory lately and so far this has been the best summary of the theory and its implications on relationships. It is focused, dense with insight, and unflinching. Highly recommended. Don’t let the primacy of “Boyfriend” in the title mislead you- its intended audience is everyone.

5.0 out of 5 stars – Five Stars
By S. Boydon on January 1, 2017
This is worth buying because it’s hands-on with lots of material.

5.0 out of 5 stars – I would recommend this book.
By Stephanie P. on December 27, 2016
Well written and correlates to other scholarly or reliable books on attachment theory. My daughter is a childhood and adolescent development major so the links between infancy to dating partners made sense when discussing portions of this book with her as well. The percentages of healthy attachment style adults over 40 was a bit depressing, yet makes me feel better about how hard it’s been to find a good partner after leaving a long term marriage. It’s not that my online profile needs help, it’s truly rough out there.

5.0 out of 5 stars – A book like Kinnison’s reminds me that there are many ways to …
By Catherine Coan on September 24, 2016
Attachment theory can seem limited — avoidant, anxious, secure, I get it! — but it’s not. A book like Kinnison’s reminds me that there are many ways to know a thing. In this case, at the level of love relationships, delving deep. Excellent!

2.0 out of 5 stars- There are much better books focusing on men’s relationship issues
By L. A. Duranon on October 9, 2016
This book is NOT for men. Despite the parenthetical attempt to make this non-gender-specific in its subtitle, this book is really geared toward women’s relationships. If you are a man, don’t buy this book. There are much better books focusing on men’s relationship issues.

On that last review, I’m guessing the reviewer finds it disappointing that I see the attachment types as largely independent of gender — the sexes differ on average, and in particular avoidant and preoccupied traits are reinforced by sex role stereotypes, but there’s no special “men’s point of view” about relationships. I have run into lots of men whose wives are dismissive and rebuff their attempts at intimacy, inverting the usual stereotype. Dismissive women and preoccupied men are more likely to have developed camouflage to hide their true feelings, since “society” is more likely to disapprove of the needy male and the intimacy-avoidant female.

“Attachment Style and Saying I Like You” – Typevolution Blog
Insecure and Secure - credit Sarah Anderson

Insecure and Secure – credit Sarah Anderson

I noticed a clever post at Type•volution linking to this blog’s attachment type pages. The author imagines some typical conversations between the various attachment types, amusingly capturing the flavor of typical interaction scripts for each combination. Recommended reading!

55th Amazon Review of Avoidant – “The Most Helpful Book I Have Read in My Entire Life.”

Avoidant: How to Love (or Leave) a Dismissive Partner has sold tens of thousands of copies since it was published two years ago. I am gratified by the number of people who have written me to tell me it helped them, and the thriving community at the Jeb Kinnison Attachment Type Forum which discusses attachment issues and helps people who have been injured.

Today’s really good Amazon review:

5.0 out of 5 stars The opinion of an avoidant woman
By Ragnar Lodbrok on September 25, 2016
Format: Paperback|Verified Purchase

 

This book literally changed my life. I am a woman and always had an attachment style that is sometimes fearful avoidant sometimes dismissive avoidant. Everything the author describes about avoidant people matches perfectly what I am, what I did or do and how I feel. I stumbled across other avoidants in my life and like the author says the relationships between me and other avoidants were always short lived because the “why bother” factor was just too much.

This book is priceless both for avoidants like me and for non avoidants. I think almost everyone in their life will happen to date some avoidants, especially if you are still single above 30. This book gives you the tools you need to exactly understand where you stand. It saves you so much pain. For me, it has helped understand why I always feel caged when in a relationship, why I never seem to find the right person despite being very attractive and extremely fit. Also it allowed me to understand how poor my communication is and how out of touch with my emotions I am.

Many of the men I dated told me I behave like a man. I always act like I don’t give a damn about relationships (and in most cases I don’t give a damn for real). I could never figure out why they would say so and the book clarified that avoidants are more often men than women so now I also understand why my dates had that feeling that I behaved like a man.

I would seriously give this book 100 stars. So far I can honestly say it has been the most helpful book I have read in my entire life. I read many books about relationships but this went right to the core, the root reason, why my relationships were always disfunctional. As an avoidant, they were bound to be disfunctional because I made them so. Now with this awareness I think I can learn to be better and hopefully start a secure and mature relationship

Goodreads Review of “Bad Boyfriends” – “This book will save singles immense pain…”
Bad Boyfriends Audiobook Cover

Bad Boyfriends Audiobook

A new Goodreads review of Bad Boyfriends: Using Attachment Theory to Avoid Mr. (or Ms.) Wrong and Make You a Better Partner:

Kimberley rated it 5 stars out of 5 – “it was amazing!”

Bad Boyfriends is a guide to help women (or men) navigate the world of dating, particularly helping them in weeding out “avoidant” men (or women) who don’t have the capacity of participating in a healing, nurturing, healthy relationship without a great deal of therapeutic support and deep work. This book is going to save singles immense pain if it helps them discover this attachment style (and other pathologies) early on, before much time is invested in the relationship. My ex-boyfriend has been heroically honest with the women after me that he begins to date, letting them know that this is his attachment style, and so far, no woman wants to begin a relationship with him. I don’t think relationships work with this type of person because if they meet another avoidant, neither can sustain a relationship beyond a month or two. If they meet someone with an ambivalent attachment style, like me, it will become a living hell for the ambivalent partner. The avoidant doesn’t feel the pain of loss when a relationship ends and actually welcome the end and is relieved by it. There is some hope for an avoidant if they can be with a partner with a history of secure attachment. It will take a great deal of patience on the partner’s part and the ability or desire to be alone a lot.