Dismissive avoidant attachment often gets a bad rap and, sometimes, that can be justified based on “bad” behavior in relationships. That said, dismissive avoidant people are also widely misunderstood.
If you find yourself in a relationship with a dismissive avoidant partner, that doesn’t mean that you two are doomed — but you will need to deal with some complex attachment issues.
Attachment styles describe the ways people feel and behave in their relationships as a result of their family and childhood background. You’ll typically hear that there are four main attachment styles, known as secure, anxious, avoidant and disorganized. However, those last two can also be grouped under the umbrella of avoidant attachment, with “avoidant” denoting dismissive avoidant attachment and “disorganized” referring to fearful avoidant attachment.
For those of you who suspect that their partner might have dismissive avoidant attachment, we spoke to three relationship experts about what that means, and how to move through it both individually and as a couple.
What Is Dismissive Avoidant Attachment?
Dismissive avoidance can often look like coldness from the outside, but on the inside it’s a way to protect yourself from connecting with the needs that your family of origin couldn’t meet. “You became the kid who didn’t cry when you got hurt, didn’t ask for help with homework, figured everything out alone,” said Sabrina Zohar, a dating coach and podcaster. “It worked. You became capable, independent, self-sufficient.”
While this strategy might have kept you emotionally safe in childhood, in adulthood it translates into a paralyzing fear of intimacy and vulnerability. “You’ve built a life that works perfectly fine without deep emotional connection — until someone wants in, and suddenly every alarm in your system is going off,” said Zohar.
While dismissive avoidance can look like not caring, it’s actually based in the fear of caring too much. “A [dismissive avoidant] person truly believes they cannot rely on others to show up or care for them,” said Reesa Morala, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and owner of Embrace Renewal Therapy & Wellness Collective. “Which creates a pattern of shutting people down or distancing first so no one can prove that view — that I am not worth someone showing up for — is true. That would be too painful. So instead, they convince themselves they don’t need anything from anyone, and they withdraw.”
What’s The Difference Between Dismissive Avoidant And Fearful Avoidant Attachment?
Our attachment styles are hardwired during childhood, when we were highly dependent on our parents or caregivers to provide emotional and physical safety. Their presence was a matter of literal life or death, which is why attachment behaviors run so deep and are so difficult to change.
“Attachment patterns show that children who grow up in emotionally and/or physically neglectful homes or had inconsistent caregivers in childhood are more likely to develop an avoidant attachment style,” said Zoe Spears, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in Los Angeles. “From a young age their core needs for safety, security, stability and connection, all necessary components for healthy development were unmet.”
“The message was clear: Your feelings are too much, and nobody’s coming to help you with them. So you stopped having feelings that required other people.”
Zohar described the childhood caregivers of a dismissive avoidant adult as “physically present but emotionally absent.” Your childhood may have looked stable on the surface, but you were basically taught that your emotions were inconvenient. You might have heard “stop crying” or “you’re fine” or “don’t be so sensitive” a lot growing up. “The message was clear: Your feelings are too much, and nobody’s coming to help you with them,” said Zohar. “So you stopped having feelings that required other people.”
The two types of avoidant attachment are really quite different from each other. “Dismissive avoidants genuinely believe they’re better off alone,” said Zohar. “Independence isn’t just a defense mechanism, it feels like freedom. Closeness feels suffocating, and you’re OK with keeping distance.”
Meanwhile, “Fearful avoidants (disorganized attachment) are caught in hell desperately wanting closeness while being terrified of it,” said Zohar. “One day they’re all in, the next they’re running. Dismissive avoidants don’t want the closeness in the first place. Fearful avoidants want it so badly it scares them.”
Dismissive Avoidant Or A Narcissist?
Dismissive avoidance and Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) are completely different beasts, but the problem when you’re the partner of a person with dismissive avoidant attachment is that both can show up in the same way, outwardly. The major difference between the two is the person’s internal motivation for their behavior.
“NPD differs from DA in that those with NPD have an inflated sense of self-importance and grandiosity,” said Spears. “They will often surround themselves with those who elevate their status and can easily disregard someone who doesn’t possess something that they want, which can lead to emotionally manipulative or explosive behaviors.”
Dismissive avoidant people, on the other hand, pull away when they feel too vulnerable, not because they can no longer get something they want from their partner.
“Those with a dismissive avoidant attachment do deeply crave love, but are fearful of vulnerability,” said Morala. “Someone with NPD is usually not searching for deep love but rather only interested in how something will serve in protecting their sense of self, and will often use manipulation or exploitation to avoid any hint of a message of inadequacy on their end.”
How Does Dismissive Avoidant Attachment Show Up In Dating?
Dating a dismissive avoidant person can feel refreshing at first, because there is little drama or neediness involved, but things get sticky if you try to talk about anything below the surface. “Dismissive avoidant behaviors can show up during the dating stage in the form of preferring to stick to topics they know well or are not hot-button topics,” said Morala. “If emotions are getting too high, they may often opt to break the tension by making a joke out of it, convincing you that it’s not that big of a deal, focusing on the solutions, or just avoiding it altogether.”
Dismissive avoidants will often avoid talking about your relationship’s future. “They might ghost when things get too real, or keep you at arm’s length while technically still dating you,” said Zohar. “It’s not cruelty, their nervous system is screaming ‘danger’ every time vulnerability shows up. They’re dating with one foot already out the door.” Or if they don’t totally ghost you, they might come up with excuses for their unavailability, according to Spears.
How Does Dismissive Avoidant Attachment Show Up In Partnership?
An intimate relationship with a dismissive avoidant partner can feel incredibly lonely. “Your partner needs excessive alone time, not just normal introvert recharge, but pulling away whenever emotional intensity rises,” said Zohar. “During conflict, they shut down completely or leave. Talking about the relationship feels like pulling teeth. When you’re upset and need support, they offer solutions instead of presence, or nothing at all.” They might also consistently prioritize the other aspects of their life over you.
But a relationship with a dismissive avoidant is not all bad, which is part of the reason their partner might choose to work on the relationship rather than leaving. “Here’s the confusing part: They show up practically.”
They’re reliable, they follow through on logistics, they’re not cheating or lying,” Zohar adds. “But emotionally? You’re standing outside a locked door, knocking, and nobody’s answering. You move toward them, they step back. Every single time.”
Unfortunately, your attempts to bring your dismissive avoidant partner closer may often backfire. “Some partners express that it feels like there is a piece that their partner is holding back and although they can feel it, or try to point it out, or encourage them to disclose it — those attempts only seem to push their partner further into their hole with a complete physical retreat or biting back,” said Morala.
Can You Have A Healthy Relationship With A Dismissive Avoidant Partner?
If you’re in a relationship with a dismissive avoidant partner and it’s negatively affecting you, you’re probably wondering whether you can go on like this and hope to have a healthy relationship.
While you can certainly have a “stable, drama-free relationship with someone who also doesn’t need emotional intimacy,” this doesn’t amount to a “healthy” relationship. “That’s two people living parallel lives,” said Zohar.
Healing needs to happen for a relationship involving a dismissive avoidant person to progress healthily.
“Without healing, that person will keep doing their protective moves and leave their partner feeling shut out and disconnected,” said Morala. “These moves will likely not serve those relationship goals and lead to a buildup of resentments, only reaffirming the core attachment fears of a dismissive avoidant person and inspire them to only double down on those moves and put healing even further away.”
What Can You Do If Your Partner Is Dismissive Avoidant?
It’s incredibly important if you’re in a relationship with a dismissive avoidant to understand that their patterns are not about you. “Don’t chase them, chasing makes them run faster,” said Zohar. “Give space, but not at the expense of your own needs. Be consistent, not demanding. Show up without expecting them to match your emotional intensity.”
You can, obviously, initiate a productive conversation with your partner. “Ideally, have an open conversation if possible in a non-shaming or blaming way and collaborate with the DA on identifying their need for space — pushing will only drive them away further,” said Spears.
“Give space, but not at the expense of your own needs. Be consistent, not demanding. Show up without expecting them to match your emotional intensity.”
Unfortunately, if your partner isn’t willing to take steps to heal, the relationship will continue to feel unfulfilling at best. “The reality however, is that most people will find it hard to date someone who is dismissive avoidant if they are wanting a deep emotional partnership,” said Spears. “This can often result in a power struggle where the partner of the DA either forfeits to the DA’s need for distance or will choose to end the relationship due to lack of emotional and/or physical availability.”
For Zohar, therapy is crucial for dismissive avoidant partners who want to learn how to be OK with intimacy — especially for the sake of an existing or future important relationship. “Not just any therapy, find someone who actually understands attachment and nervous system regulation,” the expert said. “You need to learn what triggers your shutdown response. When does intimacy start feeling like too much? When do you create distance? What does it feel like in your body when someone gets too close?” And then begins the difficult work of changing your hardwired responses to triggers and changing some of your most foundational beliefs.
There Are Attachment Wounds, And Then There’s Bad Behavior
Our attachment style isn’t our fault, and knowing about your partner’s dismissive avoidance can be healing in itself, as you begin to understand why they are the way they are. “Dismissive avoidants get demonized because their pain is invisible. Anxious attachment gets empathy because it’s loud,” said Zohar. “Dismissive avoidants are equally dysregulated. We just can’t see it because they go quiet and pull away. So we call them cold. Unfeeling. Emotionally unavailable. We mistake their silence for not caring when really, they’re drowning and don’t know how to ask for help.”
Still, every person’s behavior is their responsibility. “‘I have dismissive avoidant attachment’ doesn’t give you permission to emotionally abandon your partner without consequence,” said Zohar. “It doesn’t mean your behavior doesn’t hurt people. It doesn’t mean they have to accept it.”
What makes a person with dismissive avoidant attachment a good partner is their willingness to acknowledge their impact on the other person and to work on themselves.