dismissive-avoidant

Avoidant: How to Love (or Leave) a Dismissive Partner

Mailbag: “Avoidant”

I get a lot of good feedback on my attachment books, even seven years after publication. This one was really touching.

I hope you’re well.

I read your book, Avoidant. I normally don’t do this… I mean, reach out to people, like this. I am on the tail end of a short-lived marriage with a dismissive avoidant. The whole ordeal was an explosion of emotional dysfunction. I, at one point, had completely lost it. I was doing frantic things I never do, because of the trauma. Your book helped me more than any of the therapy (there was a lot of therapy) I went through. The analytic in me sent me into heavy research mode. Of course, I had to learn what was wrong with this man (in hindsight, that idea seems a bit humorous). I learned about attachment styles and somehow found your book. OMG, you were so on point. I mean, like an Exacto knife. You helped me find out what was going on with him, as well as myself. THAT part was the most beneficial. I learned that I have preoccupied tendencies, but my partner choices can tip me more. Anyway, you probably don’t want to hear all of my small explanations. Long story short, I really want to impress upon you how much your book mentally helped me. I don’t remember when I’ve been so in tune with a piece of literature. I bought and just finished reading your book Bad Boyfriends. More solid advice. I gave it to my 25-year-old daughter. I want her to completely bypass any of the poor companion options altogether.

Again, I am so grateful I came across your books. Blessings to you and your husband.

— [name redacted]

Kramer vs Kramer, children of divorce.

Reader Mail: Recovering from Attachment Issues (and Helping Children!)

Interesting message from a reader who thoroughly absorbed the lessons of Avoidant and Bad Boyfriends.

I haven’t been able to reach her to get permission to quote her, so I’ll paraphrase and remove any distinctive information.

Thank you for setting out this masterpiece of attachment theory and its connection to the success or failure of relationships.

I feel deeply grateful for your work and I am, at the same time struggling with conflicting feelings of encouragement and also sadness at the reality of what I’m facing, and what my children are facing.

I’ve been working my entire life since a teenager when I read the works of Montessori… and determined that I would make my life better for my children….

I decided in my mid twenties, when I first started counselling, that “the buck stops here” and I started all of the work I could do, including EMDR, CBT; whatever was available on myself, so that my childhood would not be repeated in my innocent children’s lives.

However as your book illustrates so beautifully, the automatic attachment style that I had kept me at the fringes of healthy social relationships, and I have yet to learn how not to be a target for predators.

Your story about the owls gave me a metaphor for much of what has happened in my life. The abundance of untrained owls in the forest looking down and seeing a runner stimulates their automatic hunting instincts. The relationship that begins when there’s a pattern of being attacked and the fears that become programmed create a social structure that seems to be difficult to change… I now run through the forest of social gatherings, trying not to flinch when people approach, and it seems I just make myself more of a target.

I am 62 years old, I’m a Montessori preschool teacher, and I’ve raised my own five children from two different fathers, usually alone as a single mother. I’m still in counseling and I have made progress with my emotional regulation and a meaningful life, but not yet with a significant relationship.

All through my life, the rare men who do initiate relationships with me have each been human beings who were on the dark side pathologically, very good at appearances just like my father who was a well respected professional… and a pedophile.

Beyond my own personal struggle to find healthy attachment relationships, I am deeply concerned about the state of the culture. I researched ACES in my graduate program. I see the trend growing as each year more and more children in my work as a Montessori preschool teacher come in with serious dysregulation, much of which comes from attachment difficulties. Like your young Owls, they are untrained, and they seem to not know their own kind, attacking their peers and teachers and even parents, and are very distrusting.

My long-term goal is to create an organization that works to strengthen understanding of attachment, and to help parents and communities to increase their skills of attachment.

Do you think there is hope? What do you see? Do you have any suggestions, either personally, or for my work with children?

You have already accomplished a great deal in bringing up your children with a special effort to protect them from the consequences of absent fathers. I grew up unfathered, my mother worked hard to support us and I lacked a lot of skills and emotional support good parenting can provide. While a conscientious single parent can create a nurturing environment for children, having two parents gives a child a better chance of having at least one parent who can be relied upon as a safe emotional base. Notably, the absence of a father’s guidance can leave children to the mercies of peer groups and lacking self-confidence to grow into adulthood with a sense of responsibility and the tools to nurture their new relationships and children.

This post featuring a “Fiddler on the Roof” song gets at the responsibility we have to heal our own attachment issues or at least shield our children from them. You have chosen to work on yourself and work to limit the damage your own issues caused, and deserve to have all your work recognized. It’s hard to go through life, much less raise children, with absent or estranged partners. Your life has been meaningful and your work with children no doubt improved the lives of hundreds. Give yourself permission to feel proud of the good you have done in your life.

As I am near your age and was also raised by a single working mother, I thank you as I would my own mother, for all the toil and burden you shouldered. You took a problem and made it a mission!

As for relationships, some of my reviewers were appalled when I wrote about how the odds are stacked against you if you find yourself alone in later life. If you are aware of your own tendency to be attracted to Dark Triad types, you can learn to notice the less obvious, more reliable men who would make good partners — there are always people coming out of good relationships through death or divorce of their spouse, and late-life second, third, or fourth marriages can be the best — because both partners are wiser and often have learned from previous relationships how to be better partners. Resisting your attachment habits of gravitating to the most dashing and apparently capable men will serve you well.

It’s most important of all that you find your partner fun to talk to and be with — after all, the rest of life will be spent less driven by hormones and career, and more by companionship and cozy familiarity. Happiness is someone who understands you and will listen, while being there when you need him.

Your idea of an organization to raise awareness of attachment issues and promote healthier attachment among children and families is a good one, and please let me know if I can help. I and my partner are planning to have two kids by IVF (this late in life that’s safest, with youthful eggs from a donor.) I was one of the very few children in my generation who did not have two active parents, but by now divorce and migration are so common that the rate of underparented children has skyrocketed. And as parents themselves grow less responsible and take less time with their offspring, through economic stress and selfishness, the harm done grows. It only takes a few troubled children in a class to divert so much attention that the rest are neglected. Some inner-city schools that bear the brunt of this phenomenon are mainly run as daycare for children, with little education going on. The societal damage is enormous, with the well-off segregating themselves and their children in (sometimes literally) walled enclaves where public and private schools are still good.

Best of luck on your already-well-lived life. Be happy — you have better chapters ahead.

New Reviews: “Avoidant”

Avoidant: How to Love (or Leave) a Dismissive Partner

Avoidant: How to Love (or Leave) a Dismissive Partner

Avoidant: How to Love (or Leave) a Dismissive Partner keeps reaching new people. The latest reviews on Amazon:

John C.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Study this book, and begin to see everything more clearly.
September 21, 2019
Verified Purchase

Once I heard a little bit about this concept, I went down a rabbit hole of research- starting with this book. Necessary information for folks who want to be liberated from the oppressive feeling of being loved less than you deserve.. and getting back less from your partner, than you are consistently giving to them. This info was a light for me, when I was lost in darkness and frustration over behavior that NO other definition can accurately explain. Attachment avoidant.. I had never heard of it, but now I see it as easily as I can see skin color, height or weight. Getting the knowledge was liberating and empowering- and this book was my first step towards healing and moving forward, happier.

Jeremy Q Wilbanks
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Read?
08-31-19

For anyone looking to understand themselves better as well as the closet people in their lives from an attachment standpoint this is the book for you. The author does a great job explaining concepts and ideas. It helped me a ton as I broke up with my dismissive-avoidant partner. I can now see how we co-mingled for so many years. I can finally move forward opening myself up to a more secure attachment style.
Buy this book, trust me totally worth it! No 🧠 er

I’m 40 and I’m stuck in a long-distance relationship with a dismissive guy…

Email today from a 40 year old reader who recognizes her hoped-for partner, who’s never let her get to know his friends and family, is dismissive-avoidant and she needs to move on. She knows she has to, but it’s hard. My response:

The other book is the first and was aimed at younger people who are looking around. There’s some material Avoidant doesn’t have but it’s probably not worth your time.

Your bf is literally a check-all-the-boxes classic case, not mean like some but not really there for you in bad times.

It’s healthy for you to look away from this or any other relationship for a while and concentrate on yourself and the moment and place you are in. The partner you want wants the you that is happy by herself, who brings her own strengths he can lean on when he needs to.

You have the bird-in-the-hand issue — he has many positive qualities, you like his company, why drop him for the possibility you’ll find someone who’s more fulfilling for you? It is always up to you, but you’ve never been close to him for long enough to see the emptiness of the long run together.

40 is NOT TOO LATE. There are many good quality men coming out of bad first marriages. There is a very good chance that if you start spending your energy on yourself and not this guy, a much more fulfilling partner will turn up at some activity you’re involved with.

Best of luck!


[Note: if you arrived here looking for insight into a dismissive or fearful-avoidant spouse or lover, read: Avoidant: How to Love (or Leave) a Dismissive Partner.]


More on Attachment and Personality Types:

What Attachment Type Are You?
Type: Secure
Type: Anxious-Preoccupied
Type: Dismissive-Avoidant
Type: Fearful-Avoidant (aka Anxious-Avoidant)
Avoidant: Emotions Repressed Beneath Conscious Level
Serial Monogamy: the Fearful-Avoidant Do It Faster
Anxious-Preoccupied: Stuck on the Dismissive?
Anxious-Preoccupied / Dismissive-Avoidant Couples: the Silent Treatment
nxious-Preoccupied: Clingy and Insecure Relationship Example
Domestic Violence: Ray and Janay Rice
Malignant Narcissists
Teaching Narcissists to Activate Empathy
Histrionic Personality: Seductive, Dramatic, Theatrical
Life Is Unfair! The Great Chain of Dysfunction Ends With You.
Love Songs of the Secure Attachment Type
On Addiction and the Urge to Rescue
Sale! Sale! Sale! – “Bad Boyfriends” for Kindle, $2.99
Controlling Your Inner Critic: Subpersonalities
“Big Bang Theory” — Aspergers and Emotional/Social Intelligence
Porn Addiction and NoFAP
Introverts in Management