Avoidant Attachment and Jealousy
Jealousy is suppressed by the deactivating strategy and may be used as a retrospective rationalization for exit rather than communicated in real time.
The avoidant nervous system is activated by jealousy-triggering events but the deactivating strategy suppresses the signal. The jealousy surfaces later, in rationalized form, as a reason the relationship was always problematic.
Dependency and jealousy were experienced as humiliating — evidence of need that the early caregiving environment did not support. The system learned to suppress jealousy as a component of the suppression of all attachment need.
Denying jealousy in the moment, using it later as justification for withdrawal or termination. May also show controlled jealousy — pointed observations delivered without emotional acknowledgment.
Identifying jealousy at the moment of activation rather than in its suppressed retrospective form. Distinguishing between jealousy as relational data and jealousy as a rationalized exit strategy (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2007).
Buunk (1997) documented that avoidant individuals report lower jealousy but show it through behavioral withdrawal. Guerrero (1998) found avoidant partners more likely to respond to jealousy with distance-increasing behavior.
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