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If you are anxiously attached or fearful avoidant, you may be actually pushing your dismissive avoidant partner away without realizing it. And this dynamic is something that plays out in literally millions of relationships. One partner chasing, the other partner running. And so in today's video, I'm going to break down five things that you can do differently in a relationship with a dismissive avoidant so that you don't sabotage sharing and speaking your own truth, but you also don't sabotage the relationship with them. And some of these things might really surprise you. Number one, it is so common for both fearful avoidance and anxious attached individuals to over communicate as a means to soothe themselves. And one of the first things you want to touch base with and really get clear about is are you over communicating because you struggle to self soothe? And so you're outsourcing this and trying to resource this soothing almost exclusively outside of you. Or, or is it actually healthy communication? And I think it's a really important thing to check in with because communication and consistency is really important. It's a natural, healthy part of a securely attached relationship. But when we over communicate because we're trying to get that person to do the soothing for us, rather than us being able to show up and soothe ourselves and to rely on somebody else or lean in on them for healthy, consistent communication, those are two separate things. Okay, we ideally want to have in a healthy, secure relationship the ability to self soothe and the ability to rely on people other than ourselves and to be really masters of both ends of that continuum. And when you are, you won't find this need to over communicate and try to get some sort of reassurance or validation constantly just to feel like you're okay or okay in the relationship. And so I think a really healthy question to ask yourself, zooming way out of your relationship or situation, what is a healthy amount of communication and interaction each day with somebody? Is it having a text exchange in the morning, Maybe a phone call in the evening before bed for a few minutes? What's healthy for you? And oftentimes I would speak to people who are even anxiously attached clients and they would say things like, well, actually I guess I sort of like subconsciously expect to communicate all day every day with somebody over text. But when I actually look at that, that's hurting my friendships. That's hurting my ability to focus on my career and be at work and be present. That's hurting my ability to like focus when I go to the gym or have healthy habits because I'm so fixated on like my phone and texting, and that's actually not good for me either. And just sometimes being. And this really brings me to point number two. Question your expectations that you have and decide on something that you truly think is healthy and then really try to stick to that and advocate for that. If you get into a relationship and you're like, okay, this is actually what a healthy amount of communication is and you can really think about it consciously rather than on autopilot when you're feeling triggered or anxious. So when you can think about it consciously and you can actually stick to that and say, look, this is a healthy amount of communication each week, this is what I think is fair on a daily basis. And decide this for yourself and then advocate for that. Like actually tell somebody this is what you're hoping for. Expecting, needing that is so much of a healthier solution than what anxious and fearful avoidance often do when dating a dismissive avoidant, which is sort of be left to their own devices of their subconscious mind and sort of enter into these spaces or moments or times where they just suddenly feel anxious because they're not getting the response that they hoped. And rather than having a healthy conscious conversation ahead of time, instead they're locked into feeling anxious reactively. And then all of a sudden they get into a situation where they're trying to talk about it and they're stressed and they're anxious and it's going well, and that's you communicating from your wounds and fears, not from your needs. And we really have to be able to look at both. We need to be able to be like, hold on, let me make sure I'm communicating for my needs and things that are healthy and rooted in truth, rather than from my emotions. When I'm feeling distressed because I'm fearing abandonment and making it mean I'm not good enough that I haven't heard back from this person. We want to be able to heal our wounds and rewire them at a subconscious level while advocating for our needs. And those are two massive pillars of what it means to become securely attached. Before we go through the next three things that are super heavy hitting and important in here. If you want to do a much deeper dive on the difference between your wounds and your needs and how to communicate from your needs and know what they are, and how to rewire your core wounds, you can actually check out for free for a limited time. Our Emotional Mastery Belief Reprogramming course. So it helps you really master emotional regulation, self soothing, but it also helps you rewire your triggers, these deep fears of Abandonment or betrayal or being not good enough or unworthy, or the fear of being trapped. If you're somebody who's more avoidant, it really helps you go in there and rewire these things. You're not. Not born with them. You can leverage neuroscience and neuroplasticity to rewire them. And it's not even hard, it's quite easy. And you actually get a free gift for life when you check it out, our codependency and enmeshment course. So you can work on healing that too. Okay, number three, a huge way that anxious and fearful avoidance often sabotage relationships with dismissive avoidance is using criticism to communicate a need. Behind every single form of criticism, there's actually a need that has to be met. And so when somebody's saying something like, you don't care about me, you're not spending enough time with me. And instead of saying, hey, I'm feeling a little bit disconnected, I would love if we could plan a fun date night this weekend, or hey, you're not texting me enough. You're not making an effort. What's wrong with you? If we're communicating from that space instead of, hey, consistency and communication really matters to me. Can we work towards that? What does that look like? Let's hash it out instead of going into criticism. And it's actually a good place to start by just scoring yourself, like from 1 to 10, how often do you communicate from criticism and what didn't happen, rather than from actually sharing your need and what you actually want and what that looks like. And it really helps us get a pulse on where we're at in terms of communication and then take really meaningful and empowering strides to move forward, to not get caught in those cycles, because those. Those cycles absolutely just cause devastation in a relationship, especially with dismissive avoidance, who are honestly a little more hypersensitive to criticism as a whole way. Number four, that you may actually sabotage a relationship with a dismissive avoidant is that assuming that space means disinterest. And I think it's really important to note that as a general rule, you know, a dis. They can be really interested in somebody. They could be extremely into somebody, but the way that they are conditioned to connect is not to enmesh, not to spend so much time together all the time. So sometimes a dismissive avoidant, believe it or not, can actually be more interested in their partner than the partner is in them, but still require more space than that person. And I think this really confuses people. But I can tell you, as Somebody who's worked with thousands of couples and thousands of people through our programs. I'll give you one example example to illustrate this. I was working with a couple once. The couple was the fearful avoidant and dismissive avoidant. And it was a husband and wife. They might have just been engaged at the time rather than married, but anyways they were, you know, they eventually were husband and wife. Even if not in that moment. The fearful avoidant was actually having a little bit more relationship doubts. I would meet with each one of them privately as well as together and she was clearly like having to work through some of the things in the relationship in order to invest and commit. Whereas her, her dismissive avoidant partner was like very invested in the marriage, like, was like we're getting married, had a sense of certainty around it. And you know, the dismissive avoidant partners as well still needed a little more space than she did. And this can happen with anxious attached partners as well. I think people think that because you need more space it automatically equates directly into the level of interest. But it's not, it's about your ability to co regulate. It's your ability to manage your emotions and know how to self soothe while in the company and presence of other people. And if you don't know how to do that very well and it's not developed, then you'll keep needing to retreat in order to self soothe. I want to make that really clear that if you assume, you know, a little bit of space means disinterest and then you're constantly trying to close the gap on space as a way to validate or get reassurance about the relationship, you're probably going to fall into this trap of trying to get something that isn't even a representation of what you're looking for, if that makes sense. And so I always say the best thing to do is hash out things in advance. And this really brings me to point number five. It's so important to not sabotage relationships by being able to hash out in advance habits that bridge the gap in your differences. If you are in a relationship and one person needs more space and one person needs more time, rather than constantly having this war for space and time every week and then taking it personally when one person wants more space and then the other person feeling suffocated when the other person wants more time and just hash it out in advance, be proactive, say how much time do you need? How much space do I need? These are ways that we have learned and been conditioned to interact, talk about it and then form healthy habits. Habituate these things. So maybe your partner wants to spend one night a week together and you want to spend three nights a week together. Okay, settle on two and make that a goal. And pick the nights in advance that you're going to spend time together. Because when you have habits and structure to navigate your differences that prevent you from having to go through the same old conversation every week time and time again. When are we hanging out? We don't get to see each other enough. The other person's like, oh, I'm really busy. I'm overwhelmed. Like, just having habits in advance help you proactively navigate all the things that could pull you apart. And it just makes a relationship so much easier. So when we don't do that, we're much more likely to sabotage. That is it for today. I hope this is helpful for you again. You can check out the Emotional Mastery and Belief Reprogramming course all about self soothing, rewiring your wounds, your triggers for free for a limited time and get that codependency course free for life. That link is down below and I hope you enjoyed today's video. Thank you so much for watching.