In today's blog I'm going to be talking to you about the dismissive avoidant and how they deal with breakups. It's very apparent that dismissive avoidants and the rest of the personality types all have different ways of dealing with things and breakups are no different.
At the beginning of a breakup you may see the dismissive avoidant block you on social media. If it was a bad breakup and it appears as if they're moving on really easily they won't respond to any of your deep, heartfelt text messages. If they do it will only be a couple word reply because once they get the idea of you not being the one for them then it'll be very hard for them to change that way of thinking. You'll need an adequate amount of time in order for them to come around and to see things the way that you see things. They won't be the one to reach out to you first because they simply don't feel as if they need to. You have to understand that in their mind they already have feelings of abandonment, so when you show a sign that you're about to abandon them as well, they'll believe it and they'll abandon you first.
During a breakup they may want to reach out to you, but they have this protective barrier that's stopping them from doing it because that's what's comfortable for them. It's safe to them and during a breakup they lose their sense of safety with you. If you think of it as a turtle, the turtle has that hard exterior protecting them inside. It protects the soft, fleshy, vulnerable part of them. When a dismissive avoidant sticks their head out and starts to trust people and their environment, and then that’s violated, they'll quickly go back into their shell. It's the exact opposite for anxious preoccupied. You could say an anxious preoccupied is one big exposed turtle without the shell.
The dismissive avoidant tends to ruminate on the break-up for quite a while. To the anxious preoccupied, that's going to look to them as if the person just doesn't care, but that's not the case. They need the time to sit with their feelings and understand if the break-up was an overreaction or not. Once they start to realize all of the good qualities in you, and are able to weigh the good compared to the bad, then that's when they'll be able to view the relationship in a different light. I still wouldn't bank on them to reach out to you first, though. If you were the one to break up with them they need the time to build that trust back up again because it took a very long time for them to trust you to begin with. They don't want to feel that feeling of abandonment and betrayal again.
You may even see them do things like get back with their exes because it's what was comfortable for them. They want what they know and what they're comfortable with. Something that feels safe and secure. Chances are they were able to see their ex in a different light. They were able to see them as being more safe and secure than the person that they were currently with. I see this happening because they don't want to go through the process of letting somebody else into their circle and into their comfort zone. The feeling of vetting any type of new prospect is scary for them.
Ultimately, they feel a deep sense of shame and resentment once the person that they're being courted by or have started to date doesn't work out. If they reveal to people that this is my choice and it doesn't work out, they feel a deep sense of shame and resentment. Then they have to explain it to friends and family which is uncomfortable for them because they don't like to talk about deep emotions. It's too painful which is why they'll be a little bit hesitant to make the relationship go public. They're still trying to figure out their feelings internally. Commitment is a scary thing for them because of previous experiences and things they were dealing with throughout their early childhood.
This is the exact opposite for the anxious preoccupied because they feel like any and everyone could be the one for them. Ignoring the red flags completely. We all want to get our needs met somehow and the way that the dismissive avoidant does it is by turning inwardly and meeting those needs themselves. An anxious preoccupied type can't meet their own needs. They have other people meet those needs for them in some way. So you'll see them both deal with the break-up differently because they're still trying to get their needs met somehow.