Recognising the patterns before it is too late
Attachment theory explains how early experiences with caregivers shape adult relationships. While estimates vary, a significant portion of the population has an insecure attachment style, including dismissive-avoidant attachment.
Understanding the signs early can help you navigate relationships more effectively.
Dismissive-avoidant attachment often stems from childhood experiences where emotional needs were neglected or inconsistently met. As Lin Ritter, self-described as having a dismissive-avoidant attachment style, explains on Quora:
“Avoidant attachment types are rooted in the same thing: a childhood in which they were neglected, abandoned, or deprived of love.”
The Honeymoon Phase: Not What It Seems:
When you first meet someone with a dismissive-avoidant attachment style, they may seem ideal. Psychologist Michael Kinsey explains:
“A potent cocktail of hormones floods the body and brain during the honeymoon phase, thawing the heart of a person who is avoidantly attached.”
However, this initial period of seeming perfection often masks underlying issues that emerge later.
10 Early Warning Signs
1. Clingy: Ironically, they are overly attentive to the point of clinginess and quickly fall into a pattern of never leaving your side. Space won’t be something they provide much of. Seems sweet at first. Look deeper.
2. Huge Amount of Eye Contact: Limited Physical Affection: Looking deeply into your eyes while chatting feels like a strong connection, yet there’s a strange lack of prolonged physical intimacy. No long kissing sessions or long hugs in bed.
3. Charm Offensive: Accompanying you to seemingly boring events and activities, opening car doors, and turning up for lunch at your workplace will seem overboard and so charming. Let’s just say the charm is a cover for anxiety, rejection, and abandonment fears.
4. Reluctance to Introduce Family or Friends: Acquaintances seem strangely distant or bemused by them. In contrast, the family seems very tight-knit, to the point of being enmeshed.
5. Avoidance of Physical Affection: As the relationship progresses, they may create physical barriers (like pillow walls in bed) or cut affectionate or intimate moments short.
6. Sexual Intimacy Issues: After the initial passion, something shifts and the passion (poof!) disappears. They may develop sexual dysfunction or lose interest in sex altogether. This will be accompanied by denial, avoidance, and deflection whenever discussed.
7. Unfounded Trust Issues: Despite there being no evidence whatsoever, they may express fears about you leaving or cheating.
8. Emotional Distancing: During group activities, they may seem to forget you’re there, zoning out to help others or keeping busy with many distractions.
9. Non-stop Diatribe: This constantly breaks the circuit of genuine closeness because it’s not a real two-conversation at all. They are just talking at you, like relentlessly.
10. Resistance to Future Planning: Blocking or delaying attempts to build a life together. Those home improvement plans may take seemingly forever. Or never come to fruition. There’s an endless sea of things that go wrong or just haven’t quite worked out. Any discussion leads to defensive anger, denial or circular arguments.
The Shift: From Honeymoon to Reality
Psychologist Justin Matthews notes:
“Only as the relationship matures, and especially if the avoidant is with healthy partners, will they begin to struggle as the need to become more vulnerable triggers their fears of engulfment and abandonment.”
When the initial infatuation wanes, deeper intimacy should be reached. This shift typically occurs around 18 months into the relationship.
Conclusion
I hope these signs help people recognise situations early so they can save themselves some anguish and make solid decisions.
If you recognise the signs in a partner, I’d recommend discussing the issues openly and gaining professional assistance.
And if you are the partner, it’s so important that if you want healthy relationships, you seek therapy with a qualified psychotherapist.
Behaviour doesn’t define us, but it is the glue that holds relationships together.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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