Attachment styles play a significant role in how we interact with our partners as adults. What is attachment, you may ask? Attachment is “a strong emotional connection, such as the bond between a child and caregiver. In psychology, the concept of attachment helps explain development and personality.” In a past article I described the various types of attachment, touching briefly on the dismissive-avoidant type. Having a dismissive-avoidant attachment style can cause challenges in building a strong emotional bond with your partner if you aren’t aware of your own triggers and patterns of behavior.
Individuals who are dismissive-avoidant, in general, value independence and autonomy. Although these traits are positive, an issue arises when the individual creates distance from others when they feel the relationship is a threat to their independence, which includes any sense of emotional closeness. Shutting down and detaching is a common strategy used once they become overwhelmed with emotions. Intimacy is uncomfortable for individuals who have a dismissive-avoidant attachment style, which includes being emotionally open and emotionally vulnerable with another person. They deny the need to be in any type of emotionally intimate relationship and will find reasons for why a relationship will not work. Individuals who have this attachment style will keep their partners at arms length in order to avoid feeling the discomfort of emotional closeness. Engaging in these behavioral patterns doesn’t allow a relationship to grow, leaving the other person feeling frustrated and unwanted.
Where does this behavior and belief system stem from? We develop our attachment styles at a very young age, with parents being our primary attachment figures. The bonds we form growing up help set the foundation of how we relate to others in the world. Children who have developed a dismissive-avoidant attachment may have had parents who were not responsive or were even rejecting of their needs. When children are in emotional distress, nurturing and helping them can develop a more secure attachment. If a parent is unavailable during times of distress, or is even rejecting, their children are left to soothe themselves and develop their own solutions to the problem. These children learn that depending on someone else will not yield positive results and they can only rely on themselves for comfort.
These children grow into adults who are self-sufficient, but who also don’t allow themselves to reach out and be vulnerable to others. An intimate partner who attempts to be emotionally close to these individuals can be perceived as clingy or needy. A common response to this from a dismissive-avoidant type would be to withdraw and shut down, leaving that partner highly anxious and disconnected. Having a dismissive-avoidant attachment style is less about maintaining independence and more about suppressing a desire to connect and bond with another person, which is a natural human tendency.
The trouble with having a dismissive-avoidant attachment style is that individuals often blame external factors for their challenges in relationships. In order to feel some sense of control or autonomy, individuals with this attachment style will often engage in behaviors to keep their partner at what they personally feel is a safe distance. Examples of these behaviors would be things such as focusing on small flaws with their partner; shutting down when their partner talks to him or her; being secretive; being detached, even when the relationship is going well.
If you feel you relate to some of these things I’ve described, you may be wondering how you can move from a dismissive-avoidant attachment style towards a more secure attachment. The first step is awareness of these behaviors. Pay attention to your initial reactions toward your partner. If you find yourself focusing on small flaws within your partner, consider if this is relevant to making the relationship work. Pay attention to your role within the relationship; how are your own behaviors allowing the relationship to grow and allowing the two of you to create a stronger sense of trust and openness? Does shutting down help create a sense of openness? Does being secretive about your routine build trust between the two of you? Consider how you connect with your partner. In what ways do you build security within your relationship? One of the greatest challenges for individuals who function under this attachment style is an understanding of underlying needs. Therapy can help you understand and work through avoidant patterns of behavior so you can begin developing more meaningful relationships within your life.
Beautifully written article. Thank you.
Thank you for this article! My fiancé ended our long relationship & engagement suddenly with no warning, communication, discussion or attempts to figure things out. So much of it was great but every once in a while there was something that if I expressed a need with a strong emotional attachment it was like I fell in a bottomless hole. I got silence, avoidance, dismissing and as a result I felt anxious & unsupported and uncared for. My emotional response to it was visceral. On those occasions the needs I was expressing were not big deal or impossible but his response created a break in trust that left me wanting to know I could count on him as my partner. He tried to show me he cared in so many ways but we would keep coming to this “thing”. Thank you so much for your article. It has finally explained to me what that was and I see it so clearly in our interactions & his family history. Knowing what it was allows me the space to grieve.
I’m so sorry to hear about your breakup! I’m glad to know this article provided you some insight. Take care of yourself, Anne.
Hi. I am so sorry to hear about your break up. I have the same traits and I am trying to get help because I see how it hurts the people around me. Most time, I act like this because it is extremely difficult to trust what people give and for some reasons, emotional attachment is a problem like when someone expresses hoe they feel about me, I just switch off even when I know what they are saying could not be more sincere. For the longest time, I was attached to dramatic relationships because they gave me the assurance that they wouldn’t last and somehow, the familiar pain felt good. I am trying to be a better person and learn to stay committed to human relationships as I’ll rather be committed to things that aren’t tangible because they don’t express feelings or expect me to express mine. It’s even weird that sometimes, when people tag me as their ‘best friend’ or ‘sister’ or whatever, I can legit feel my heart skip a bit and my head would probably swell from panic. I realized I have to let God teach me and help me unlearn what I have always known all my life. It’s a struggle but I know I’ll get there.
I wish you all the best in the future.
Thank you so much for your article, Zoe! It’s so well written and describes partners with dismissive-avoidant attachment style exquisitely. It’s really saddening to understand the reality of how much our childhood upbringing affects our relationships in adulthood (a lot of times without us noticing the impacts, perhaps until later down the track… or not at all). I truly believe that my previous partner has a really good heart, though he fits perfectly with all of the things you have described. It’s really helped me understand why the relationship felt so insecure, frustrating and disappointing. Although I noticed the patterns of how our attachment styles played out (I’m anxious and he is a dismissive avoidant), and tried to soothe myself when he seemed unresponsive, it felt immensely difficult to believe/feel that he would be there for me (esp. in times of need) and that I was important to him. Understanding all this really brings clarity and healing, and definitely helped me when I was grieving/moving on.
I’m glad this article helped you, Luz! Good luck to you and your partner!
How does counseling help the person with an insecure dismissive avoid attachment?
Hi Chuck! Counseling can help bring a person’s attachment style to awareness and then actively work on effective communication as well as coping strategies to manage some of the feelings that can get triggered within a relationship.
It is only only in the last 18 months I have found a therapist who talked about Attachment wounds and family systems..like I found the final piece of the jigsaw to my Avoidant tendencies..I have been in therapy prior to becoming aware and telling a therapist I don’t know how to be in a relationship..being told I did and that everything one is different. I felt so upset when another relationship with a man ended as a result of my feeling trapped and smothered resulting in severe anxiety and panic attacks as I really liked him and there was good chemistry but the closer we got emotionally the more terrified I felt. I wish I had understood my behaviour and been able to manage the anxiety and panic attacks.
I’m glad you’ve found a therapist that helped you understand attachment and how that affects our adult relationships! Good luck to you, Bernadette!
Ouch 😉
Hi Lane, you’re welcome and I’m glad you found this article helpful. There are some great books out there if you’re interested in learning more about attachment; there is a link to a book that I reference in this article.
Thank you for writing and posting this article. It has helped me gain some new insights into a recently failed friendship with a person whose behavior seems to align with the Dismissive-Avoidant Attachment style. I’m curious to learn about how being in a relationship with someone who is Dismissive-Avoidant may bring out co-dependent behaviors in friends/significant others who otherwise do not have co-dependent tendencies in their relationships with Securely Attached individuals.
I have been in relationship with dismissive avoidant Woman for 3 years and I have changed from being very positive, optimistic, strong Man into someone constantly dealing with anxiety and depression.
Everytime when things were getting too nice, too loving and too intimate she was pushing me away and becoming selfish, uninterested and rude and creating absolutely unnecessary silly issues, arguments and then wanting a breakup saying she is unable to commit and do full on relationship.
But at the same time she use to come to me and telling me how special I am and how lucky she is that she has me in her life and how much she cares about me and look forward to lots together.
This cycle continued for about 3 years and few months ago she dumped me again and started casual, sex only relationship with somebody else
I am now though suffering from depression and anxiety.
Dismissive avoidant people are unable to maintain any serious relationships and they are not interested in changing either . !
I am dismissive-avoidant and am not interested in changing. I agree with the traits listed here and I have all of them. And I know where it comes from (my childhood and parents). But I do not have relationship problems, because I don’t have relationships. I have no desire to listen to a woman’s problems and be her emotional tampon. And my feelings are none of her damn business. So I avoid women and completely understand if they want to avoid me. In fact, I expect them to avoid me and if one liked me I’d think she was an idiot. I know I SHOULD NOT be with anybody, and I won’t be. I can’t see how being in a relationship could benefit my life, so I prevent it from happening. The way I do it is I completely ignore women. I don’t look at them, approach them, or talk to them. If one talks to me I ignore her and walk away. You might think I’m miserable but I’m actually very happy. No one bothers me, and I do exactly what I want to do every day. I know you are pushing counseling because you need to make a living, but I know exactly who I am, why I’m the way I am, and the best way to deal with it. And it’s working out well.
John, that is just so sad to me. Not matter how “happy” you say you are. By the tone of your response, I say you are an angry, unhappy soul and my heart goes out to you.
Beth that is highly judgemental as to someone’s choices. You are thrusting an individualistic pathologizing stance onto soneone else’s management strategies that are working for them and alleviating the pain others would experience with them. Not everyone wants or needs to change to be relationship normative or “secure”. People can choose ways of being that are not aligned with yours, regardless of their reasons. I wonder if the angry tone is for you and your imposed assumptions that everyone must choose intimacy and move to secure attachment or they are flawed. Your pitying of his unhappiness was your own defense mechanism and it is infantilizing and deliberately emotional hurtful — quite a microagression and use of power. I hope you are a licenced practitioner…you need supervision.