The Tragic Loop of the Dismissive Avoidant Ex

If you’ve ever fallen for a dismissive avoidant, you’ll understand the frustration — that maddening feeling of emotional whiplash, where closeness feels just out of reach, and vulnerability is a threat they won’t tolerate.

It’s not just painful — it’s confusing - it feels like (and can even lead to) madness, because on the surface, they might seem stable, composed, even charming. But emotionally? They’re a ghost in the relationship.

The hardest pill to swallow? They usually don’t even realise what they’ve done wrong.

Why?

Because dismissive avoidants don’t self-reflect — not in the way that leads to true growth. They bury their emotional wounds so deeply that they start to believe they’re just “not emotional people,” when in reality, they’re terrified of intimacy.

Vulnerability is their trigger. Emotional closeness feels unsafe.

And what happens when they meet someone who actually challenges that — someone emotionally attuned, passionate, maybe even right for them?

They run.

They push that person away, tell themselves “bad timing,” “too intense,” “we weren’t compatible,” and so on — anything but the truth: they were SCARED.

So they reject the one who stirred their soul, who forced them to feel something real. And then?

They settle. 🙄

They marry another dismissive avoidant, or someone who makes zero emotional demands.

Either way, it’s a relationship built on a mutual agreement to never get too close.

One is cold and explosive, the other flat and emotionally dead. No vulnerability. No intimacy. No passion. The sex dies. The communication dies. And slowly, the relationship rots from the inside out.

In the first dynamic, they might even sleep in separate rooms, ignoring the elephant in the house while convincing themselves they’re staying together “for the kids.”

In the second, they might try to reignite the spark with a baby, thinking:

“Maybe if we just follow the script — house, marriage, kids — this numbness will go away.”

But it never does. It just gets WORSE.

Because emotional avoidance is a silent killer. It kills love. It kills growth. It kills joy.

And unless the avoidant does the hard work — therapy, self-reflection, facing their fears — they’re stuck. Stuck in a loop of shallow connections, unfulfilled relationships, and running from anyone who might actually wake them up.

They’ll never truly be happy until they break the cycle. But that would require them to face themselves — and guess what? YES YOU GUESSED IT - they avoid that too!!

So, what do you do if you’ve ever loved a dismissive avoidant?

You let go.

You walk away — not because you didn’t love them, but because they couldn’t love you back in the way you deserved.

And maybe the most tragic part of all? You saw them. You saw their potential, their depth, their wounds — and they still chose the safety of distance over the risk of love.

That’s not your failure. That’s their fate — unless they finally decide to face it.

TR