Dating a Dismissive Avoidant: 5 Common Misconceptions

Dating someone with a dismissive-avoidant attachment style can be confusing – this attachment style is often misunderstood, and can seem cold to partners who are low in avoidance. However, people with high attachment avoidance do want love, perhaps even moreso than others [1]; so why do we so often mischaracterize this attachment style?

In this article, we’ll talk about what it’s really like to date someone with a dismissive-avoidant attachment style, how they experience love and intimacy, how they behave in a relationship, and whether or not a dismissive-avoidant attachment style can change.

Dating a Dismissive Avoidant

At first, it might not be obvious that you’re dating someone with a dismissive-avoidant attachment style. There might be clues in their general attitudes to relationships, such as wanting to date casually at first or take it slow, but these aren’t necessarily signs of avoidance – lots of people with secure attachment styles would also prefer to take things slowly while they get to know you.

DISCOVER YOUR ATTACHMENT STYLE

However, as the relationship progresses, the avoidant attachment system can easily become overwhelmed. Closeness and intimacy doesn’t feel safe to someone with a dismissive-avoidant attachment style, so they can start to pull back. If they’re not good at communication or emotional regulation, this can feel confusing and hurtful, and leave you wondering why dismissive-avoidants pull back when the relationship is going well.

They’re not being confusing and hurtful on purpose – in fact, they’re pulling back because their feelings are real. As they start to feel closer and less autonomous in a relationship, they can engage in “deactivating strategies” that create a distance that feels safe again. Once they feel safe, they might re-engage in the relationship, leading into a hot and cold dynamic that can feel even more confusing.

How a Dismissive Avoidant Experiences Love

It’s tempting to blame dismissive behavior on a lack of love, but this isn’t really what’s happening. People with dismissive-avoidant attachment styles do want to feel love and are capable of experiencing it, but it might not always look the way you expect – especially if you have an anxious attachment style.

Common misconception 1: “Avoidants don’t want love”.

People with high attachment avoidance can appear to have “walls up”, defending themselves from love even though they want to experience it. If you’re high in attachment anxiety, you might find it difficult to understand why your partner doesn’t want to move as quickly or act as “couply” as you do. If your attachment style is secure, you might find it easier to understand but still feel uncertain about the pace of your relationship.

Everybody’s different and everybody prefers to show and receive love in different ways. It might be worth having a conversation with your partner if you think there might be a mismatch – for instance, they might be more comfortable receiving love through practical support rather than emotional support, and, in turn, they may not know how best to show you love until you tell them.

How to Make a Dismissive Avoidant Feel Safe

Autonomy is important to someone with a dismissive-avoidant attachment style – when they pull away, trying to pull them back in will only push them away further. Allowing them to express their autonomy helps them to feel safe. One study on attachment styles and relationship conflict found that the worst outcomes occurred when one partner withdrew and the other kept pushing or escalating [2].

When conflict arises, someone with a dismissive-avoidant attachment style might need time to process before they’re ready to discuss the problem. When they’re ready to talk, soft communication strategies have been found to work best: expressing value and positive regard for your avoidant partner, being sensitive to their needs, acknowledging their efforts, validating their point of view, and showing positivity about the relationship can support problem-solving and decrease avoidant withdrawal [3].

Common misconception 2: “Avoidants will always pull away when you try to give them support.”

A groundbreaking piece of research found that people high in avoidance respond best to very low or very high levels of practical support, but that they don’t respond well to anything in between [4]. While low levels of support keep an avoidant partner in their comfort zone, very high levels of support could override their beliefs that others are unreliable, proving beyond a doubt that their partner is “able and willing to be helpful”. Practical support, like offering solutions and helpful information, is typically better received than emotional support for people high in avoidance.

Dismissive Avoidant and Intimacy

Kissing, Touch, and Physical Affection

If you and your partner have different attachment styles, it’s likely you experience touch differently too. As with emotional closeness, greater attachment avoidance has been linked with greater discomfort with physical closeness and affection [5].

Research has suggested that people high in avoidance believe they are more likely to use touch to avoid a negative outcome, and less likely to use touch to move toward a positive outcome – but their day to day behavior isn’t that different compared with people lower in avoidance [5]. Another interesting finding from this study was that partners of people with greater attachment avoidance are more likely to use touch to prevent a negative outcome, such as feeling badly about themselves, which predicted lower ratings of relationship quality for both partners.

Common misconception 3: “Avoidants don’t want physical intimacy.”

Another study found that touch frequency was beneficial for well-being even for people with attachment avoidance and people who express a discomfort with closeness [6]. This doesn’t mean that you should ignore your partner’s boundaries, but that conversations about touch with your avoidant partner might involve supporting them to see the benefits for both of you.

START YOUR ATTACHMENT HEALING JOURNEY

Dismissive Avoidant and Sex

Dismissive-avoidant approaches to sex are similar to their approaches to other kinds of touch. For someone with an avoidant attachment style, sex might not be as intimate or emotionally meaningful as it is for people lower in avoidance – but this doesn’t mean it can’t be those things.

The impact of sex and touch for an avoidnant partner may be dependent on the context. If they’re in a positive relationship that they feel safe in, they may feel greater benefits and more comfort with sex and touch.

Dismissive Avoidant Relationship Behaviors: Why Do They Shut Down?

For dismissive-avoidants, relationships don’t feel safe because they have learned that others will not be there for them. This makes it scary to trust and rely on others, even if they want to be in loving relationships. When relationships feel too intense, whether due to high conflict or fear of intimacy, they might:

• Experience avoidant deactivation
• Self-sabotage to create distance
• End the relationship for any reason

Common misconception 4: “Avoidants don’t care.”

Even though they can appear to be unbothered, avoidant behaviors are actually masking high stress. We know this from studies showing that avoidance takes cognitive effort, and increased demand on cognitive load leads to a collapse of these avoidance strategies and increased negative self-evaluation [7]. In other words, avoidant behavior is a protective mechanism, rather than indifference.

Do Dismissive Avoidants Get Jealous?

If you have more attachment anxiety and lower avoidance than your partner, it might feel like you have vast differences in how you experience jealousy. You might be right – but first, we need to understand jealousy a little better.

One way of looking at jealousy is to separate it into 3 categories: behavioral jealousy, emotional jealousy, and cognitive jealousy [8]. These are described below:

One study found no differences between secure and dismissive-avoidant individuals on their scores across all 3 types of jealousy, while people with high attachment anxiety typically scored higher on behavioral and cognitive jealousy [9]. In fact, higher avoidance was associated with lower jealousy in this study.

This doesn’t mean that dismissive-avoidants don’t feel jealousy, just that they may be less likely to experience it than people lower in attachment avoidance. Jealousy is a normal human emotion, and we all feel jealous sometimes.

Studies have also found a possible difference in how we cope with jealousy depending on our attachment styles – in one paper, attachment avoidance predicted lower likelihood of coping using constructive communication and higher likelihood of coping with jealousy using destructive-avoidant communication, like silence and negativity [10].

Two Dismissive Avoidants in a Relationship

We’ve talked a lot about when one partner is more avoidant than the other, but what if you’re both dismissive-avoidant in a relationship?

If you’re both dismissive-avoidant, you might have an easier time managing your need for autonomy but find it difficult to resolve conflict. Dismissive-avoidants respond best to soft communication, yet are the most likely to express anger and withdrawal – so communicating during conflict can be particularly tricky for you [3]. Having an awareness of both of your attachment styles and how they interact can help you to improve your communication in your relationship.

Can a Dismissive Avoidant Change?

If you’re finding avoidant behaviors in your relationship challenging, you might be wondering whether attachment styles can change. The good news is, yes, they can – and they generally skew more secure with time [11].

Common misconception 5: “Avoidants can’t change.”

Positive relationship experiences are one of the most effective ways to gain earned secure attachment. By showing your partner that you’re reliable, that you care about and listen to their needs, and that you can be consistent, you gradually teach them that relationships are safer than they thought.

This change won’t happen overnight – it’s a gradual process and it likely won’t be linear. If the avoidant partner makes active efforts to increase their attachment security, they might be able to achieve an earned secure attachment style quicker (but still not quickly).

Conclusion

A dismissive-avoidant attachment in relationships can present challenges, particularly if the other partner is high in attachment anxiety. You will hear lots of advice and information about how to date a dismissive-avoidant, but there are several common misconceptions you might run into.

DISCOVER YOUR ATTACHMENT STYLE

People with the dismissive-avoidant attachment style do want love, they can just find it more difficult to feel safe in it. Their avoidant protective mechanisms may come across as indifference, but they actually mask high levels of stress. Soft communication and high levels of support can help an avoidant partner to feel safer navigating conflict, and positive relationship experiences like these can, over time, lead them to develop an earned secure attachment style.

FAQs About Dismissive Avoidant Relationships

Why does my dismissive avoidant partner avoid kissing?

A dismissive-avoidant partner could avoid kissing for lots of reasons, and not all of them are necessarily related to their attachment style. While it’s true that dismisssive-avoidants are less interested in physical touch, they tend to show the same amount of affection when observed day to day – so something else might be going on if your partner is avoiding physical contact.

What does a dismissive avoidant look like after sex?

People with dismissive-avoidant attachment styles can find the emotional intimacy involved in sex uncomfortable, and they might be less likely to experience it as something that forms an emotional bond. They might be uncomfortable with displays of emotional intimacy after sex, but this depends on the nature of their relationship.

Can two dismissive avoidants have a successful relationship?

Two dismissive avoidants can have a successful relationship, but they might find it difficult to navigate conflict. It would be important to learn how their attachment styles interact and what to do to support each other.

Do Dismissive Avoidants Love Bomb?

Dismissive-avoidants might be more comfortable during the early stages of a relationship, leading them to make promises they can’t keep and act in ways they can’t sustain. This could look like love bombing, but it isn’t an intentional attempt to manipulate the relationship – instead, it happens because discomfort sets in once the intimacy starts to build.

Why does my DA partner pull away when things are going well?

High intensity, whether due to conflict or intimacy, can be uncomfortable for a dismissive avoidant partner. When things are going well, your dismissive avoidant partner can feel scared to lose their autonomy or rely on someone else, leading them to pull away even though things were good.

References