No Contact Works Differently With Dismissive Avoidants

No contact works very, very differently with dismissive avoidants.

To understand exactly how no contact affects a dismissive avoidant ex, you must first understand a dismissive avoidant attachment’s response to separation from attachment figures.

How dismissive avoidants deal with separation from an attachment

When a meaningful bond is disrupted or broken, the brain registers it as a threat to safety, and each attachment style responds differently in an attempt to restore stability.

Some people move toward connection, others pull away, and some fluctuate between the two.

Dismissive avoidant deal with separation with:

• Suppressing or downplaying distress
• Creating emotional distance to maintain a sense of control

Some studies have shown that: It doesn’t matter if a dismissive avoidant is just imagining a separation, physically separating from a romantic partner or if the separation is temporary or permanent their behaviour is consistent.

Studies on airport separations, one by Fraley and Shave, show that dismissive often exhibit unique, detached behaviours — a lack of distress and reduced proximity-seeking — when separating from partners.

This doesn’t mean a dismissive avoidant loves less or isn’t going to miss their ex, it means that while separation makes someone with an anxious attachment want an ex and a relationship even more, no contact makes dismissive avoidants want connection less.

No contact intensifies this process. With no reassurance, no closure, and no feedback, we’re left alone with our default way of coping with separation and disconnection. This is where attachment patterns become most visible — not as labels, but as strategies for dealing with separation anxiety

Based on how they react to separation, a dismissive avoidant is likely to react to you going no contact in the same pattern.

1) They often don’t notice you’re doing no contact

When you go no contact or stop contacting them, a dismissive avoidant ex many not even notice you’re doing no contact. They’re just relieved that you are not blowing their phone and acting all needy and clingy.

Even when a dismissive avoidant realizes that the silence and quiet means no contact, they brush it off as mind game playing, attempts to manipulate or control them.

Keep in mind that most dismissive avoidant relationships are either casual or short-term, and many dismissive avoidants at some point or another in the relationship feel manipulated, controlled and trapped.  So while you’re giving your dismissive avoidant ex “time to miss you”, they’re just happy not to be in a relationship anymore.

This is why dismissive avoidants very rarely reach out after the breakup or during no contact.

2) They take your need for no contact at face value

They see you going no contact as you being in pain and “too emotional”, and leave you alone.

They’ll not reach out because they think you will when you’ve dealth with your emotions. They don’t want to have to deal with an “emotional you”.

“Leave them to process” is also what they expect you to so when they need space.  o they’ll leave you alone.

But the longer no contact goes on, a dismissive avoidant’s ex’s thoughts about you needing time to get your emotions in control and get yourself together change.

In a dismissive avoidant’ mind, it shouldn’t take you that long to get your emotions in control. It usually takes them a few days to a couple of weeks at most to self-regulate and be ready to re-engage. If you struggle this much to get your emotions in control, how can they trust that your emotions won’t be a problem in the future.

This is especially true if control of your emotions was one of reasons for the break-up. Needing 30 days or more of no contact to deal with your emotions is proof that they were right to end the relationship, and right not to take you back. It’s like waving a red a red flag to a dismissive avoidant ex.

3) They see how you handled no contact as disprect 

A dismissive avoidant ex may get angry — not because you went no contact but — because of how you went about it.

In a dismissive avoidant thinking, “You didn’t have to cut me off. All you had to do is ask me to leave you alone, and I would. No questions asked”.

And if a dismissive avoidant wanted to stay in contact or be friends after the breakup — because they’re trying to make up for the hurt they caused you or because they think staying in contact will make you see them not as a bad person — you cutting them off and going no contact is a slap in the face and a bruise to their ego.

In fact “just cutting them off” may strengthen the low priority they pace on relationships — what’s the point of being in a relationship when they can be perfectly okay with no contact and no connection. Maybe they’ve been right all along, relationships are overrated.

Re-introducing you back into their life after weeks of no contact is inviting back expectations, demands for their time and space, drama and everything they don’t like about relationships.

Should you go no contact with a dismissive avoidant?

Knowing how they respond to separation, should you still go ahead and go no contact?

There are reasons to go no contact on a dismissive avoidant. They’re not exactly the easiest people to love or be in a relationship with, and dismissive avoidants can sometimes be emotionally neglectful and even abusive — and it may be necessary to cut them off, for good.

And no contact in it’s purest form — what it was originaly designed for before it became the “rule” for getting an ex back — isn’t really about them. So if you wan to go no contact for you — do it for you.

But if you are trying to make a dismissive avoidant miss you and come back crawling, you should think really hard before you go no contact.

1. Even if they miss you, dismissive avoidant are too proud to reach out. They’re not cut out for that kind of vulnerability.

2. People and relationships are not something dismissive avoidants cling to. When you reach out after no contact, a dismissives avoidant will likely treat you like somebody they used to know. Well, because you are.

Bottomline (an no contact experts hat eme for saying this out aloud):

No contact plays no role in a dismissive avoidant reaching out or coming back

It’s nice to think that you made a dismissive avoidant miss you and reach out by going no contact, but that’s just an illusion of control. If you don’t believe me, watch how things quickly go back to a dismissive avoidant controlling how and often you talk to them. You can’t manipulate and control someone whose existence is about resisting being controlled.

Dismissive avoidants as you should know by now do what they want to do.

This is why many people find them very difficult to be with. If a dismissive avoidant ex wants to reach out or come back, they will — whether you go no contact or not.

If a dismissive avoidant ex doesn’t want to reach out or come back, they will not reach out or come back— whether you go no contact or not.

This is how independent dismissive avoidant are — and how they protect their independence.

RELATED:

Dismissive Breakup Stages After A Break-Up

When Do Dismissive Avoidants Start “Longing” For An Ex

How Avoidants Leave Open The Option To Reconnect With Exes

The Right Time to Reconnect With a Dismissive Avoidant Ex