Why Making Dismissive Avoidant Ex Jealous Is A Bad Move

Purposefully inducing jealousy to either make an ex come back or as revenge for an ex breaking up is popular advice. Some people claim making their ex jealous ‘worked’ to get them back together, and maybe it did. A lot depends on an ex’s attachment style and that’s why it’s important that you read this before you go trying to make your dismissive avoidant ex jealous.

All attachment styles including securely attached experience feelings of jealousy when presented with jealousy provoking situations, but the experience of jealousy and the expression of jealousy e.g. how upset someone gets and if they engage in detective or protective behaviours is significantly different for each attachment style.

To understand just how much influence attachment styles influences the experience of jealousy, I’ll contrast the experience of anxiously attached and dismissive avoidant since these two attachment styles seem to be opposite of each other.

Jealous anxiously attached prioritize getting rid of the threat

According to studies (Sullivan 2021, Deng et al. 2023), anxiously attached and fearful avoidants experience more worry and suspicion, feel jealousy more intensely and are more likely to express jealousy in destructive ways. The reason for this is a negative self-view and fear of abandonment both of which make anxiously attached and fearful avoidants hypersensitive to rejection and to being replaced.

Jealousy makes them doubt their relationship worthiness, seek more closeness, express more affection and engage in detective behaviours such as surveillance of their partners or exes. Those with an anxious preoccupied attachment style become obsessed with a partner or an ex seeing or dating someone else. Feeling threatened by a rival, they increase their social media visibility while at the same time concerned that an ex might misunderstand their messaging.

Depending on the jealousy provoking situation, anxiously attached blame themselves as having done something that pushed a partner’s or ex towards the perceived or real rival relationship. Fearful avoidants only blame themselves if they’re emotionally-invested in the relationship, but like with all things fearful avoidant, if they’re emotionally invested and you try to make them jealous, they may become very jealous or show little to no jealousy at all, and instead become more avoidant and more concerned about showing weakness and vulnerability. They may also escalates from low jealousy to high jealousy relatively quickly.

Jealous dismissive avoidants prioritize self preservation

Dismissive avoidants in general experience lower levels of jealousy and feel less fear and sadness due to their tendency to minimize the importance and need for closeness and intimacy and tendency to downplay emotions. When there’s a threat of a rival relationship they may not fully recognize the extent of the threat and may deny that they feel jealous because the thought that there might be a possibility for a competing relationship isn’t something they focus on.

When a rival relationship actually does exists, dismissive avoidants prioritize self preservation over getting rid of a rival or saving the relationship. Rather than view the rival relationship as a threat, they see it as an underlying flaw in their partner’s or ex’s character. And unlike anxiously attached and fearful avoidants who tend to aim responsibility and anger toward the real or imagined rival in their partner or ex’s life, dismissive avoidants aim responsibility and blame toward their partner or ex.

This is consistent with dismissive avoidants’ positive self-view and view of relationship partners as unreliable and untrustworthy. The feeling that they’re with someone they now see as even less reliable and trustworthy makes them want more emotional and physical distance.

Jealous dismissive avoidants have vulnerability hangover

The only responsibility dismissive avoidants take for how they feel is allowing themselves to feel jealous and/or express jealous thoughts or behaviour, or what Dr Brené Brown calls a vulnerability hangover; an unpleasant feeling people have after taking an emotional risk or sharing their deepest feelings and needs.

A vulnerability hangover can cause regret and embarrassment, and in some dismissive avoidant the need to regain back control of what they lost when they allowed themselves to become vulnerable. Regaining back control may be a desire for independence or an attempt to get back together.

In a dismissive avoidant’s mind, there’s this other rival relationship that is playing out outside of their control and it’s making them feel vulnerable, to regain back control of their experiences and environment, they need to persuade their ex to leave the new man or woman, and sometimes this means getting back with an ex. While this looks like making a dismissive avoidant ex jealous worked to get them back, a dismissive avoidant coming back is less about fear of losing an ex to someone else and more about feeling vulnerable and exposed. After the vulnerability hangover wears off, they will end the relationship with a promise to themselves never to allow themselves to be that vulnerable and exposed again.

Dismissive avoidants who’ve been cheated on react with anger and hostility

Feeling jealousy alone may not generate anger in a dismissive avoidant. They’re not as concerned about losing someone or being abandoned and often feel that lashing out in anger because a partner or ex chose someone else over them is showing that relationships are so important to them. But if there is evidence that you purposely tried to make a dismissive avoidant jealous, they will react with anger and hostility, and in some cases seek revenge.

This is because dismissive avoidants don’t like it when someone tries to manipulate them, and secondly, dismissive avoidants (and fearful avoidants) who have been cheated on or left for someone else often have romantic betrayal trauma which makes them more likely to react with anger to someone purposefully trying to make them jealous.

The anger is often a trauma response from actual betrayal, and purposefully trying to make them jealous was just the trigger. But a dismissive avoidant’s anger may also come from feeling “disrespected” by the attempt to manipulate them.

The takeaway is don’t purposefully try to make a dismissive avoidant jealous in an attempt to get them back. You will get no reaction at all or get a trauma triggered response. Either way, it’ll make a dismissive avoidant trust you less and may even make them want nothing to do with you.

RELATED:

Signs A Fearful Avoidant Ex Is Feeling Jealous (Triggered)

How A Fearful Avoidant Ex Feels About You Seeing Someone Else