They Don't want to Love You but Don't Want to lose you - the Most Dangerous Person of All

There’s a particular kind of heartbreak that doesn’t just shatter you once — it lingers, gnaws, and leaves scars that can take years to heal. It’s the devastation of loving someone with a dismissive-avoidant attachment style.

I know this pain firsthand.

At first, everything feels incredible. The chemistry is undeniable, the intimacy electric, the connection intoxicating. But as soon as real vulnerability and closeness are required, they vanish.

Not fully gone, though — that would be far easier. Instead, they hover. They send the occasional text, just enough to keep you tied to them, unable to move forward.

It's almost as if they have a radar for knowing when you're moving on. They seem to sense it when you start dating someone else, and just when you think you might be getting over them, they pop up again and shatter your progress.

It's unimaginable cruelty and can decimate a person's mental health.

This sporadic “breadcrumbing” can stretch on for years, slowly unraveling you until you don't even know who you are anymore.

It isn’t until you finally cut them out of your life — often through therapy and deep inner work — that you begin to see the truth: they are profoundly damaged. They want real love but are incapable of holding it.

They don't want to love you (they're incapable of it) but they don't want to lose you either, so they keep you as an option, sporadically checking in to see if you respond. They aren't EVER even ONCE thinking about your emotions - ONLY THEIRS.

To protect themselves, many dismissive avoidants settle into relationships where love isn’t truly present. They may marry someone they don’t deeply love, because there’s no emotional risk in it. But this isn’t love. It’s a calculated move — a risk assessment disguised as commitment. And it doesn’t work.

Everyone loses in this equation:

• They lose because they never allow themselves the fullness of real love.

• Their partner loses because they’re in a relationship without emotional intimacy.

• The person they rejected loses because of the years of mixed signals and rejection — ...until they finally see the bigger picture.

  
  

And yet, there is one person who can eventually win: the one who chooses themselves. The one who does the heavy lifting in therapy. The one who sits with the pain long enough to heal, learn, and rise.

And somehow when you get to this point you are able to forgive. Because you realise just how damaged the dismissive avoidant person is. You feel pity because you know they will never experience real, true emotional connection with anyone.

And years later when it finally hits them they'll see how they missed the best thing that ever happened to them - YOU. And they'll have to sit with their shame as they realise what they did and how they LOST YOU.

By that point you've moved on, you've healed, you've grown. You've chosen someone who DOES see you, who IS willing to connect on an emotional level, who IS capable of real love.

You'll take your understanding from the avoidant and couple it with your ability to love, sharing that beautiful gift with someone DESERVING.

And that is the biggest win of all.

TR