The skills in the anorexic’s addiction are any and all manipulations that create distance.  I want to express that they are skills and they are refined skills to weaken their spouse or discover new weaknesses in their spouse. Most addicts refine their skills over time. The food addict can tell you the best ice cream, donut shop, or even the best steakhouse in town. The shopaholic can tell you the best stores and when these stores have their best sales for anything you could want, so you can buy more for less (that’s heaven for the spender). Similarly, over time, the intimacy anorexic gets better at discovering or honing additional methods for intentionally creating pain for the spouse, to create distance. If silence drives them crazy, they apply more. If anger works, it would become more intense, or more often. If it is shaming, then there will be more of this. Once you dig a little deeper into any addiction, it is insidious and intimacy anorexia is no different in that respect. It gets quite dark as you go further into this disease.