Dismissive avoidants can fall in love easily, but they're afraid of commitment. Commitment seems to go against their core value of freedom. They feel trapped when they have to commit. They also fear losing themselves and their cherished 'space' in the relationship.
Often there are no clues before they dump you. They won't have had the hard conversations. The Dismissive-Avoidant is afraid of, and can't tolerate true intimacy. They were raised to not depend on anyone, or reveal any feelings, so their first instinct when someone gets close to them is to run away.
Individuals with dismissive-avoidant have a fear that their freedom is going to be taken away. This could be due to having dominating parents as children; either their parents were always in their face telling them what to do, or taking away their freedom.
Instead, avoidant attachers often dissociate and “flee” from their fear of rejection and closeness. They typically develop a fierce sense of independence as they expect that others will let them down. So to avoid becoming a target, they learn to rely only on themselves.
Because people with an avoidant attachment style fear not being lovable or good enough, feeling criticized or judged by loved ones can be particularly painful. Especially when it comes to things that they are not so comfortable with, such as their emotions and feelings.
You'll trigger their abandonment wound, and they'll tell themselves their fears were justified. Dismissive-avoidants are highly sensitive to rejection. It's part of why they reject others pre-emptively. But their need for independence is often more potent than their fear of rejection.
People with avoidant personality disorder have chronic feelings of inadequacy and are highly sensitive to being negatively judged by others. Though they would like to interact with others, they tend to avoid social interaction due to the intense fear of being rejected by others.
All About Avoidant Personality Disorder. You want to feel accepted by others and be successful, but an underlying fear of rejection holds you back. If you have avoidant personality disorder, you likely experience two conflicting desires.
Individuals with fearful avoidant attachment are a combination of the preoccupied and dismissive-avoidant styles of insecure attachment. They believe they are unlovable and also don't trust other people to support and accept them. Because they think others will eventually reject them, they withdraw from relationships.
People with a dismissive-avoidant attachment style do not want to rely on anyone, and in turn, do not want anyone relying on them. They value their freedom highly, believing that they function at their best by themselves. They have no need for support or reassurance, so they may seem very confident.
But because people with that attachment style have so much trouble reaching out to others, she says that dismissive avoidance "can make it hard to admit you need help and support, and [this can] leave you suffering in silence."
A dismissive avoidant attachment style in adulthood is one of the insecure attachment styles characterized by the lack of desire for emotional connection with others. While they distrust others, they have high self-esteem and see themselves in a positive light.
People with an avoidant attachment style believe that they can only rely on themselves for comfort and support because they have learned that others could not be relied upon to meet their critical needs. Seeking help from others evokes a powerful fear of being abandoned, rejected, or disappointed.
A person with a dismissive-avoidant attachment pattern may be aloof toward the needs of another person, in particular a romantic partner. They tend to be pseudo-independent, caring for themselves but finding it challenging to attune to their partner and feel empathetic toward the other person's wants and needs.
Once again, people with a dismissive-avoidant style showed that they did care about relationships. Dismissive avoidant students reported higher self-esteem and positive mood than non-dismissives—but only when told that surgency predicts future interpersonal success.
The dismissive avoidant comes off as a person who is emotionally unavailable, cold, and kind of unfeeling, but they do have feelings. They do care about people and the people that they do care about they care deeply about. They have you as a friend for life if you're able to maintain a healthy relationship.
Characteristics of Someone Who is Love Avoidant
They're afraid of commitment, whether it be to a relationship, a weekend away, or any activity which could lead to a more intense feeling of bonding or closeness. They're suspicious of others, finding it difficult to build trusting feelings or a relationship.
This means that anxious types pair with avoidant individuals because avoidant people behave in a dismissive way. In the same sense, avoidant people attract anxious partners who make them feel smothered. This confirms their belief in what a relationship should look like.
On the other hand, people with an avoidant attachment may be attracted to anxious partners because their pursuit and need for closeness reinforce the avoidant person's need for independence and self-reliance. Anxious and avoidant partners may also seek their partner's traits due to wanting those traits in themselves.
Avoidant personality disorder is characterized by feelings of extreme social inhibition, inadequacy, and sensitivity to negative criticism and rejection.
Avoidant Personality Disorder Causes and Risk Factors
Having another mental health condition like depression or anxiety. A family history of depression, anxiety, or personality disorders. Childhood abuse, trauma, or neglect. Trauma including suffering an extreme incident of ridicule or rejection in childhood.
The dismissive avoidant tends to ruminate on the break-up for quite a while. To the anxious preoccupied, that's going to look to them as if the person just doesn't care, but that's not the case. They need the time to sit with their feelings and understand if the break-up was an overreaction or not.
They were raised to not depend on anyone, or reveal any feelings, so their first instinct when someone gets close to them - is to run away. They try to limit their exposure to their partners by manipulating their responses, usually by not responding to messages.
They're always looking for the red flags, and they will find them, so when you go no contact with the dismissive avoidant, don't expect them to reach out to you. They won't text you because likely when you were in a relationship with them, you were the one to initiate most of the contact.