How Your Dismissive Avoidant Communicates Without Saying a Word

To have an adult relationship, you must communicate like an adult. Makes complete sense, but for those with attachment wounds, that’s asking a lot.

And so, I used to just assume that the main issue of someone with moderate or severe avoidant attachment was that they don’t communicate.

I was wrong. They actually do.

Just not in the way that you’d expect. Nor in a way that is necessarily clear and/or healthy for the relationship.

And to be upfront, I can’t exactly say what went through the minds of my previous partners or of anyone else, but by understanding some of my own dismissive tendencies, here’s what I know.

This is the kind of thought process I’ve had before:

“My partner is supposed to just know.

I mean, I know how I feel, why can’t they see that too? Why can’t they see that what they’re doing is upsetting me?

I’ve given so many second chances at this point and I just don’t understand why they haven’t changed.”

But a second chance isn’t a second chance if you don’t articulate that with your words.

If you don’t push air through your vocal cords and move your tongue to form words, how is your partner going to know what to change, or how to change it?

So, while your dismissive avoidant might not have “direct” conversations with “you” in their heads, there’s an unspoken feeling that they’ve communicated with you.

They’ll assume things like crying, stonewalling, sulking, silent treatment, or certain facial expressions, are enough. You know what I mean — that sort of 5th-grade-ish type of behavior.

Why they do this

Dismissive avoidance is, how should we say, a “coping mechanism” that was learned or developed in childhood.

Rather than it being a personality trait, it’s a way to describe a certain set of behaviors that often show up in romantic relationships.

The dismissive-avoidant, just like someone with an anxious attachment, suffered some kind of abuse, trauma, neglect, or abandonment growing up.

It could have happened once or twice, but more than likely, the parent-child dynamic that created this type of coping strategy was an ongoing pattern.

And unfortunately, most people don’t grow out of it.

They’ll take their emotional shells into their love lives and it messes up their relationships.

So, essentially when your avoidant partner refuses or avoids to communicate openly, instead they will use indirect, non-verbal cues to try to get their point across without risking rejection — which would reinforce a belief that I am not good enough or something like that.

How do you spot it?

I’d recommend doing your due diligence as soon as possible when you start seeing someone new.

Here are a few things I’ve personally seen that typically hint at dismissive avoidant behavior:

They say directly, “I’m a people-pleaser” or “I tend to shut down during conflict.”
Your partner never argues or disagrees with you — They just “go with the flow.” It’s easy to think arguing is a bad thing, but disagreement is part of a healthy relationship
It doesn’t seem like you really “know them.” Your partner is rather aloof or distant and doesn’t let you in

For the sake of brevity, I’m not going to include cookie-cutter questions to ask a potential partner, like “How do you handle conflict?” Well, I guess I just included one, but the point is, you can look those up on your own time.

But from experience, the best way to gauge who you’re dealing with is how they answer questions.

For instance, I’ve asked, “How’s your dating experience been so far? How long have you been single?” That sort of thing.

But the red flags immediately came up when I got really vague, ambiguous answers that didn’t really make sense or satisfy my question.

The reason for this is simple, the avoidant will do whatever they can to limit the potential for rejection.

Which is why they’ll be as indirect as possible.

In a more “text-book” kind of way, dismissive avoidants can initially appear stoic, grounded, or “unfazed” without a relationship, but deep down, their self-esteem is very low.

Frankly, you might even get them confused with someone who is more secure and emotionally available.

But the facade will only last so long.

A dismissive-avoidant will be hyper-independent, overly self-reliant, and will often “pull away” from others to feel safe. One of the greatest struggles for them is being vulnerable, and expressing intimacy or closeness is inherently “risky” to them.

When they’re triggered or overwhelmed, they have a tendency to “shut down” and remove themselves from the relationship or situation.

So now that we know what they’re like, their behavior starts to make more sense.

To an avoidant who feels like they’ve been “communicating” with you the whole time, they might even outwardly say, “I’ve made so many compromises with you already” by the time they’re pulling away.

Yet it’s quite possible for you to not remember when there was actually any verbal communication.

The reason you can’t remember is simple. There wasn’t any.

How to get them to communicate openly

If your avoidant partner has a real tendency to pull away at times citing “I need space,” now might be the time to make some changes.

But as I’ve learned, it’s incredibly tricky to get them to talk. Their default state is avoidance.

Here’s why it’s a challenge:

How do you know when to start setting limits with them?
You can’t force someone to communicate.

You’ll need to set some ground rules with yourself before you enter into a new relationship (or start setting some now).

Like if the person you’re seeing frequently dismisses you or ignores your attempts at communication. Or you could set a rule like, after three to five dates, if I feel like I’m carrying most of the conversation then it’s time to move on.

Another rule could be, that I won’t go more than one to two months without steady “progress” in the relationship (like if every interaction feels shallow or surface level).

Ultimately, it’s up to you to know yourself and to know when it’s time to “have the talk.”

You just have to ask, Am I tolerating behavior that is not meeting my needs?

To actually have a crucial conversation so that they’ll open up, you must set your intentions from the start. Be clear about what the problem is without resorting to argumentative “You” statements.

Verbally and clearly express your wants and needs. If you’d like more insight on this, consider downloading your copy of my boundary-setting guide here.

“I love you and I enjoy our time together, but I feel like our relationship has been lacking depth and connection.

For me to continue investing time into our connection, I need open and honest communication. I’m here to support you and keep things safe, and my goal is for us to better understand each other.

So is a more open and direct dialogue possible?”

Highlighting and reinforcing the idea of a “safe space” is not something to overlook.

What I’ve found is if I had cultivated a stronger framework for the relationship with my avoidant partners, their need for safety, consistency, and certainty would have alleviated a lot of their doubt.

With them being relaxed, communication would have been more likely to happen.

But the final, and perhaps most important thing is to define what the consequences are if those needs aren’t met. It’s not about punishing them, but about what you will do.

And that could mean leaving the relationship in order to protect your well-being.

What do they gain from doing this

I can’t speak for every person, but most of the things we do — even the things that don’t benefit or the things that outright harm us have a “payoff.”

Usually, the payoff is a confirmation of some kind of belief.

For those who suffer in secrecy, who let resentment build up instead of just verbally expressing their wants, it can be a badge of honor for them.

Suffering becomes something that’s “noble” or “admirable.” Something to point to and say, “Look how bad I’ve got it, see what my partner has done?”

Don’t take this the wrong way.

I don’t mean to invalidate any of the truly terrible things that may have happened to you or anyone else. I’m well aware that real harm exists.

However… what often looks like victimhood is really just a lot of resentment that’s been caused by unspoken needs or unmet expectations that were never properly communicated.

Without communication relationships fail.

And if it has nothing to do with “being a martyr” or something like that, it might be this.

Everyone has two options with the time and energy they’re given in life.

You can fantasize about reaching your goals or taking action
Committing to actually doing the work

And only one of them will lead to real change.

However, to the dismissive avoidant, fantasizing, “playing out” a conversation, or hoping things will change gives them a warm, fuzzy feeling.

Instead of just saying what needs to be said, they fuel their addiction to their thoughts this way.

If they were to get what they were dreaming about, what would they pour their energy into now?

They’d be lost.

For the dismissive-avoidant to verbally communicate and express what they need or what needs to change, and for you to make those changes, they wouldn’t know what to do.

This is how we get back to the “payoff.”

For either dismissive or fearful avoidants, we have to go back to childhood.

Their nervous system is not accustomed to stability.

So a partner who agrees to change or make the necessary adjustments for the sake of the relationship just doesn’t jive with their nervous system that is primed for chaos.

The fantasy of potential change is more comfortable. It doesn’t trigger their fight, flight, or freeze response like real change would.

Or you could get more mundane. You could also say that a lot of people assume their partner is more in tune with their feelings than what’s actually true.

Because your experiences seem so real and visceral to you, your initial assumption is that it’s the same for your partner. But it’s not.

No one is a mind reader.

Even the best, most “emotionally available” people can make mistakes with reading body language, vocal tonality, inflection, the vibe (especially), and all the other small things that convey more meaning than words can on their own.

And it can be quite jarring when reality doesn’t match what we expect.

Yes, even with a little bit of awareness, you will usually have an idea that “something’s wrong,” but without someone directly telling you, often it’s just a guess as to what the real problem is.

Like you could say something out of touch or unhinged and think nothing of it.

But shortly after your partner’s behavior changes. They’re cold, distant, quiet, and if you “read the room” right, it’s likely that what you said was the cause.

(But at the end of the day, it’s not your job to try to guess someone else’s thoughts or feelings. Their responsibility is to communicate them.)

…

There’s one last thing for me to say.

Often, the idea of merely sitting down with someone and saying, “Hey, this is what I need from you” is usually the last thing most people think about or want to do these days.

So, it comes down to this, Is a relationship where the main ethos is avoidance, worth it?

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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