Romantic relationships can be perplexing. One day you’re feeling intense joy and affection, fear, anger, and sadness the next. As the time you spend with your partner grows, so does the range of feelings you’ll experience.

Perhaps you’ve once felt the strong urge to feel close to another, yet were terrified of how they would react. Or maybe you knew someone who pursued you relentlessly at the start, but suddenly pulled away at the first sign of intimacy.

Both of these are classic symptoms of a fearful avoidant individual, a deep-rooted emotional and behavioral response to relationships.

On the other hand, someone who thinks and acts as if they don’t need anyone could be dealing with a dismissive avoidant attachment style. Prioritizing self-sufficiency, they avoid emotional vulnerability like the plague.

If you’re unfamiliar with pop psychology terms, you may wonder what attachment style exactly is, and what the difference is between fearful avoidant and dismissive avoidant attachment styles.

Here’s everything you need to know and more.

What Exactly Are Attachment Styles?

An attachment style describes the way an individual behaves in a relationship. This can include their desire for intimacy and closeness, as well as their sensitivity to possible issues in the relationship.

British psychologist John Bowlby first proposed the attachment style theory in the 1950s. Unlike other popular personality classifications, such as the Myers-Briggs, attachment theory is grounded in scientific research. 

Mary Ainsworth, an American psychologist, later expanded Bowlby’s work by conducting the “strange experiment” and identifying the various attachment types, divided into:

• Secure: This is considered the most functional attachment style. Securely attached individuals have a high emotional awareness, don’t fear abandonment, and are generally happier in relationships.
• Anxious/Ambivalent: As its name implies, people with an anxious attachment exhibit anxiety in their social relationships. They get so invested in their romantic partner that it borders on codependency. 
• Avoidant: An avoidant person is someone who doesn’t want to rely on others or vice versa. To do this, they actively avoid situations that demand intimacy. They often struggle to see the good in themselves.

Three attachment types

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According to attachment theory, how a person was treated by their caregiver (usually the mother) during childhood can become a predictor of their attachment type in their bonds with others.

For instance, if the primary caregiver has successfully responded to their changing physical and emotional needs, the child is more likely to develop a “secure” attachment style as an adult.

Someone with a secure attachment isn’t afraid of intimacy. They’re warm and trusting and are usually able to communicate their needs and feelings well.

On the other hand, a child who’s experienced confusion, fear, and inconsistent physical and emotional care is likely to have an “insecure” attachment as a grown-up.

An individual with an insecure attachment style typically experiences difficulties processing and understanding their own and others’ emotions.

Different sub-personality styles can be derived from the three primary attachment types, including the fearful and dismissive avoidant.

Understanding Fearful Avoidant vs Dismissive Avoidant Attachment Styles

While they may look different at first glance, fearful and dismissive avoidant attachment styles have many similarities.

Suppressing their emotional needs, both fear and avoid intimacy. Individuals with either fearful or dismissive avoidant tendencies may also use distance as a primary coping tool to maintain control and emotional safety.

Fearful Avoidant Individuals

Fearful Avoidant

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Fearful-avoidant individuals crave closeness with others. However, this need comes with a strong fear of intimacy, often due to a deep-seated fear of rejection. 

While they want to have authentic and meaningful bonds, they may struggle to trust the people around them. This results in a toxic push-and-pull dynamic in their adult relationships. They may also avoid the very genuine relationships they so crave.

Causes of Fearful Avoidant Attachment

Also called disorganized attachment, past trauma, broken trust, and negative experiences are the primary causes of a fearful-avoidant attachment style.

Someone with a fearful attachment is likely to have experienced profound fear when they were a child. For instance, when one or more caregivers exhibit frightening behaviors in their presence.

Verbal and physical abuse, or showing excessive anxiety, can all be attributed to its development. Children who fail to receive comfort from their parents when they need it.

Under normal circumstances, caregivers provide a secure base for the child to feel safe and protected. Kids are also wired to approach their parents for security and comfort when they’re scared.

However, when these basic needs aren’t sufficiently met, they develop a pattern of reaching out for help and then pulling away.

In other words, they become stuck between the cycle of needing reassurance and suppressing it because they know their caregivers can’t give it to them. 

Without proper intervention, a child can carry this fearful-avoidant tendency into adulthood. It can affect their interpersonal relationships and how they interact with their friends, spouses, and children. 

It’s not uncommon for a fearful-avoidant person to view themselves and everyone else in a negative light.

Fearful Avoidant Characteristics

A type of insecure attachment, people who are fearful-avoidant exhibit a combination of preoccupied and dismissive attachment styles. They typically struggle with:

• Low self-esteem: Low self-esteem and trauma are closely related. Someone who couldn’t get proper care when they were younger may think they’re unlovable and undeserving of support.
• Fear of rejection: Due to their poor self-concept, they believe that the people they love will eventually reject them. As such, they may withdraw from the relationship as a preemptive behavior.
• Push-pull dynamic: Wanting love, closeness, and connection, but detaching when the genuine bond begins to deepen may leave a fearful-avoidant person’s loved ones hurt and confused.

Symptoms of fearful-avoidant patterns can be observed as early as childhood. A child with an insecure upbringing often shows signs of hypervigilance, always feeling like something is wrong or there’s danger.

Moreover, they avoid eye contact, exhibit concentration issues, and struggle to keep friends. They may be incapable of regulating their emotions or keeping personal boundaries.

How Fearful Avoidant Attachment Influences Your Relationships?

It’s fairly common for fearful-avoidant individuals to move quickly from one short-lived romantic relationship to another. Despite their desire to form deep bonds, they keep their partners at arm’s length, avoiding real commitment.

They may leave as soon as they feel emotionally vulnerable and find another “safe” new partner to escape loneliness. 

Repeating this cycle of engagement and detachment, they create a volatile pattern negatively affecting several aspects of their lives.

Because of their poor self-image and self-criticism, individuals who are fearful-avoidant are more likely to suffer from various depressive and anxious disorders, as well as other health issues, such as chronic pain.

Dismissive Avoidant Individuals

Dismissive avoidant

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Dismissive-avoidant individuals appear incredibly self-sufficient. That means they’re emotionally independent to the extreme point of walling themselves inside their own bubble.

Maintaining a high self-reliance, they refuse to seek help from others and, similar to a fearful-avoidant person, back off from their partner when they feel they’re getting too close or dependent.

As a defense mechanism, they can set plenty of boundaries to prevent anyone from getting in. They tend to value their autonomy above all other needs.

Causes of Dismissive Avoidant Attachment

A variety of factors can contribute to shaping someone’s dismissive-avoidant tendencies, most of which start in childhood.

Dismissive or uninvolved parenting is among the most cited reasons. This refers to an unhealthy parenting style where the caregiver is unresponsive to the youth’s growing needs. 

Showing little to no care, they appear dismissive, indifferent, and sometimes even downright neglectful. They spend little time with their kids, providing no supervision and setting few or no expectations.

The children, in turn, don’t feel love and support growing up.

Over time, a child from a dismissive household learns not to expect anything from their caregiver. They no longer express their needs, and remember to avoid relying on everybody else besides themselves.

Developing a sense that other people can’t offer them security, they often become emotionally distant and distrustful.

A small child’s dismissive-avoidant behavior can differ from an adult’s insecure tendencies. However, studies agree that they retain many key characteristics of the initial attachment style.

Dismissive Avoidant Characteristics

Besides placing a higher value on their independence, a dismissive-avoidant person may exhibit one or more of the following traits:

• Shallow connections: Surprisingly, many dismissive-avoidant individuals have busy lifestyles, with many friends and sexual partners. However, these connections tend to be shallow or brief.
• Low tolerance for conflict: Due to their past experiences, they no longer fear abandonment. As such, whenever conflicts arise in their relationships, someone who is dismissive-avoidant is typically the first person out the door.
• Distancing behaviors: To avoid deeper bonds that make them feel vulnerable, they often employ distancing tactics. They avoid deep talks, minimize affection, and cancel plans to create emotional space.

Additionally, those who experience neglect and unmet needs as a child can become secretive as an adult. They keep their plans and activities private and seek control and autonomy in most situations.

In some cases, they fabricate a front of superiority, manifesting excessive self-confidence to mask their deepest insecurities.

How Dismissive Avoidant Attachment Influences Your Relationships?

Despite their self-reliant facade, dismissive-avoidant people encounter various issues with their personal and social lives. As the avoider, they typically don’t meet their own needs. 

Humans are social animals and have an innate desire to cultivate genuine connections. This can leave someone with a dismissive-avoidant attachment style disconnected and unfulfilled in this vital aspect.

They may have difficulty reaching out, regardless of how badly they need help and support, and instead choose to carry their burdens quietly and alone.

For those who care for an individual who is dismissive-avoidant, their deliberate emotional distancing can feel hurtful and confusing. People typically need a genuine emotional connection to feel secure in a relationship, but this need is usually left unmet.

Some of their deactivating strategies can involve rejecting physical interactions, such as hugging, holding hands, and sexual encounters.

They make excuses to avoid commitment, saying things like “I’m not ready,” or “Let’s just keep things casual for now.” Dismissive-avoidant attachment style is linked to infidelity.

Bottom Line: Coping With Fearful and Dismissive Avoidant Attachment

If you have a fearful or dismissive avoidant attachment style, you may prefer not to change things because it feels “safer” and you think it works for you. 

However, if your attachment style is hindering you from building better relationships with your loved ones, there are various steps and expert help you may consider taking.

Learning more about your attachment style, prioritizing honest communication, and utilizing mindfulness techniques have all been shown to help improve behavioral and emotional awareness.

That said, changing behaviors stemming from past trauma and negative experiences isn’t always so easy. Speak with your counselor or therapist about available interventions.