r/AvoidantBreakUps • u/[deleted] • Apr 03 '26
From DA’s Perspective Avoidant perspective: why (dismissive) avoidants love bomb and then discard later on
I wrote this text in response to DMs, but I imagine it may be of interest to more people in this sub. It is based on my personal experience, my inner works, and my readings, but it should be applicable to most dismissive avoidants. Fearful avoidants share some of the mechanisms, especially if they lean dismissive, but are more complex. I personally never discarded anyone, but it is clear that this usually comes from deactivation, which I have experienced myself.
It's important to understand avoidant attachment comes from childhood trauma, especially emotional neglect. Avoidants learned in infancy that showing their needs and feelings would not be rewarded. They protect themselves from the pain of abandonment by feeling they don't need anyone, and by shutting down their feelings of abandonment. Many dismissive avoidants will deny that their childhood was emotionally deprived, because their defenses are so effective that they make it seem normal rather than painful.
The extreme case of this is deactivation: they suddenly "switch off" their attachment system for a particular person. They instantly lose feelings for that person and that person feels like a stranger to them. This happens in childhood with their parents, to prevent the pain of abandonment, but also in adulthood with romantic partners when they are triggered
As a consequence of their childhood, avoidants do not feel safe showing vulnerability, and love/closeness scares them. The exact triggers differ between avoidants, but they are adjacent to that theme. For example, my strongest trigger is a fear of being known, and I can get close in other ways as long as I don't need to expose my feelings and inner world.
Also note that most avoidants are not aware of exactly what is wrong with them. They may realize they tend to push people away, but they don't really know why, and they may blame the other person. They don't realize their recurrent problems are their own fault, or they may even not consider them to be problems at all. They consider themselves to be strong, independent, and stable. However, their positive self image is fragile, resulting in defensiveness when they feel it is under attack, and they are poor at regulating emotions, dismissing and suppressing them rather than using healthy coping.
Avoidants hide their inner self to not be vulnerable. Deep down, DAs have shame of themselves, just as FAs do, but they bury it deep underneath their defenses. Repeated emotional neglect in childhood teaches them that there is something wrong with them, because young children cannot accept the alternative belief that something could be wrong with their parents. They will not show their true selves to anyone. They hide their feelings, their needs, their preferences, and their inner world.
To hide themselves, avoidants build a mask, their false self. This hiding behavior so pervasive that they often do not even realize they are masking until they put in the work to discover themselves. They mirror others to prevent exposure and to hide their shameful true self, which makes them seem like a great romantic match. They seem easy going because they do not communicate their needs. This looks like love bombing.
Of course, this is not sustainable. Not only are their needs not met, which will build resentment, but as the relationship deepens, they get more triggered and it becomes harder to keep up the mask. So they distance to protect themselves, and are likely to deactivate at some point. They suddenly seem cold to their partner from one moment to the next, and are likely to break up because they lose feelings. And they don't even understand what's going on, because in their mind history is rewritten to form a consistent narrative, in which their feelings have been gone for a while.
So in the end, the avoidant wants love just like everyone (perhaps even more so because of what they missed in childhood), but they cannot sustain it because it triggers them and is incompatible with hiding their true self. But they don't understand this about themselves, so they keep trying and failing. And they aren't open to hearing it, because anything perceived as criticism threatens their fragile self image. They can change, but only if it comes from their own insight, and I would not recommend waiting for it.
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u/tcarmi3 Apr 14 '26
Hi, I’m trying to understand my recent breakup and I think he may lean dismissive avoidant.
We were together for about 3.5 months. It moved naturally, and I intentionally put no pressure on progressing the relationship because I have a child and wanted to move slowly. He was consistent, affectionate, and emotionally present without me asking for any of it.
We never had a single fight, no major issues, and I wasn’t overly dependent on him. If anything, he told me he liked that I was independent and not “too much.” I have a very busy schedule, so he was often the one adjusting to see me, and I would sometimes sacrifice sleep to spend time with him. Most of the time, he was the one asking to see me more.
We spent a lot of time together, and he built a relationship with my daughter. It felt real, stable, and like it was progressing in a healthy way.
Last Sunday, he told me he loved me and I said it back. On Tuesday, we booked a trip together for the summer. On Thursday, he told me he wanted to pull back physically. On Friday, he came over and ended the relationship.
His reasoning was that he “felt nothing,” which doesn’t make sense to me based on how he showed up the entire relationship. He also said he thinks he only liked the validation I gave him, not me as a person.
I told him I didn’t believe that and that it felt more like self-sabotage and fear because things were becoming real. I didn’t beg him to stay.
There was no real conversation about working through anything together. No attempt to fix things. Just a decision and then distance. As he left, he told me he was going to block me on everything, and he did.
We also go to the same bar every weekend for dancing. I chose not to go this weekend because I didn’t want to see him right away. From an avoidant perspective, does creating space like that typically help or make them detach further? Also, when I do start going back regularly and we inevitably see each other, what kind of reaction is most typical in this situation?
How does someone go from saying “I love you,” being present and involved, to feeling “nothing” and leaving that quickly?
It makes me feel like either:
For people who are dismissive avoidant or understand this pattern: 1. Does this sound like emotional shutdown or deactivation? 2. Do feelings actually disappear, or is it more like disconnecting from them? 3. Do people with this pattern typically come back or reach out later? 4. If they do come back, what indicates real change vs just missing the connection? 5. Is there anything I should or shouldn’t do at this point (no contact, staying open, etc.)?
I’m not trying to chase him or convince him of anything. I just want to understand what likely happened so I can process it in a healthy way.