← The Thais Gibson Podcast
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Dismissive avoidance do show love, but not usually in the obvious, more emotionally fluent ways that people tend to expect. So in today's video, I'm going to help break down for you the less visible and more subtle ways that avoidance definitely express love in relationships, why their love and act of giving love can be so easy to misunderstood or completely misread, and how to tell the difference between genuine love versus bare minimum effort, because there is a difference. So one of the first things you want to understand before I get into the four major ways that dismissive avoidance do show love is that people all tend to give love as they would need to receive it. So if you take somebody who's more anxious in relationships and they need a lot of reassurance and validation, how are they going to express love to their partner? Through a lot of reassurance and validation, because that's how they best receive love. If somebody else needs a lot of acceptance in a relationship and needs a lot of freedom, they often express love in that way. Now, we're going to get into four major points, but I actually want to start by just telling you a story. And this is has nothing to do with the four ways that dismissive avoidance express love, but it's a good analogy for it. I had a family member once who said that she had a good friend who was going through a really hard time and she was talking about her friend and she was truly deeply concerned. Now, this family member was also dismissive, avoidant, and she said, yeah, I want to reach out and talk to her and just catch up. I really miss her, but I know she's going through such a hard time. I just want to respect her space. And I said to my family member, I said, hold on a second here, but I know based on what you told me about this friend that this friend is. Is probably not needing space. They probably need to be checked in on and see that you care and want to know that somebody's there and asking them questions and being present. And she said, well, won't that feel like a violation of her boundary? Like, won't you just need space to process with what's happening with her family? I said, no, absolutely not. You could tell that her friend was more fearful, avoidant and fearful avoidance want to know that somebody's showing up and asking the hard questions and is really for them. And I remember she was really hesitant to do it, but she did. And her friend ended up really appreciating it and actually expressing that she had wanted my family member to check in on her more often. So we all tend to give love as we would need love. Now, I'm not going to sit here and say one of your four points here is that dismissive avoidance want to be loved through freedom, although that's actually quite true. But it's not going to be one of the four ways that dismissive woods are actively expressing love to you. Although that definitely is a pattern. So let's start with the first one. Dismissive avoidance tend to show love through being consistent and reliable more than through expressing emotional language. So dismissive avoidants are not always the most expressive bunch as we know, but they often show up through practical support, reliability, making time for you. You will always hear dismissive avoidance say things like if I didn't want to be here, I wouldn't be here. And that is very true for them. A lot of other attachment styles they can be people pleasing or they can kind of do things that go against what they want. Dismissive avoidants are very mindful of their own time because they really value their time to themselves. So they only do things that they actually want to do. So if you see them being consistent and relax reliable with plans, it's definitely a sign of unique interest. And when I say consistent and reliable, this means like they see you on a regular basis throughout the week, at least once a week, regularly. They make time, they initiate plans. A lot of people think dismissive wouldn't never initiate plans that more leans towards that they're probably just not interested in you. Because dismissive avoidance, although they won't be very expressive, they definitely tend to initiate, they'll want to see you on a weekly basis. There will be some degree of consent, consistency in how they show up. So this is your first major point that you can really take a look at. Now the challenge becomes that if you only are looking for verbal reassurance, you may miss the form of how they actually give love and care. And this will bring me to some of the other points. It doesn't mean though, before I get on to the next three, that you needing more reassurance verbally from your dismissive apart partner is wrong. It's actually really healthy to make sure that we are communicating love to our partners in our lives or even our loved ones as a whole through the way that we need love. If you need to have more reassurance in the relationship, that should be a discussion that that's important to you. You should tell your partner that. And if they need a sense of consistency or stability or reliability more from you, that should be A discussion from their end. That's how healthy secure relationships work. There's a communication of both parties needs from either end. This brings me to point number two. Dismissive avoidance definitely tend to express love through more acts of service in terms of love languages, love. So this is a less vulnerable love language, which of course kind of fits the bill for a dismissive avoidant, as you can imagine. But a dismissive avoidant will express love through sharing their personal space, through doing things that are actually acts of love. Cooking you dinner, taking your car to the shop, doing some chores like taking out the garbage for you when they're at your house. Those types of things where they are literally working to take actions towards you to make you feel supported and cared for and noticed. These are massive things for dismissive avoidance. This is like them bearing their heart to them. In fact, I've had so many conversations with dismissive avoidance over the years who have said things like, yeah, you know, when I really care about somebody, I'll go shovel off their car before they wake up or I'll go take the trash out for them every time I stop by their house. And they feel like that's them really putting themselves out there vulnerably because it's a big love language for them. And of course, as you can imagine, this is usually something that they are looking for receiving. They're usually feeling like, oh, if you bring me a coffee or you cook me some, some dinner or things like that that makes them feel like, oh, they're supporting reported, they're cared for, they're checked in with. Because through actions instead of words is a huge way the dismissive avoidance tend to communicate love. I have two more here. The last one is going to be the biggest one by far and it's going to be the one that surprises you the most. And most people are shocked to see this, but it's such a heavy hitting one for dismissive avoidance. But number three, before we get to number four, is that dismissive avoidance will ask meaningful questions about you. If a dismissive avoidant is truly interested in you, they don't even want to have surface conversation. You will see them actively trying to get to know you. They'll ask meaningful things. They'll say things like what are you looking for in a partner? What do you want in a partner in the future? How do you react in a conflict? What are the biggest things that upset you? They'll ask you questions because you can see their wheels turning, or they're truly trying to get to know you because they're actually trying to see like do you fit into my life? I potentially see a future with you. I want to see that this future is aligned versus if you've been dating a dismissive avoidant and you've never really felt like they ask you a single meaningful question about trying to get to know you more deeply, it could be a sign that they're not really around here for the long haul. They're not really here for those types of intentions. So it's a really good thing to discern the situation by Are you seeing those types of meaningful questions? Is somebody thinking about you and how you would be in a relationship and in a partnership and are they really trying to understand you in that way? I just want to pop in here and let you know we are doing a seven day free trial to the All Access Membership Pass at PDF, which means you get access to literally everything inside of the school. And this includes the four live webinars I do with our students every single week. And on top of that you get access to to all of our different courses. We have over 55 different courses on Relationships, Communication, Boundaries, Emotional Mastery, Guilt and Shame. Learning your needs. So many different facets that are really important to master our lives and feel really good about our lives going forward. And last but not least, there's a daily community event. We have trained facilitators and coaches who are in there doing that work, showing up to support you on your journey every single day. Please join me on hand the other side. Come check it out, see if it's a fit for you. I'd love to see you there. Go ahead and sign up by clicking the link in the description box below. Last but not least, this is the biggest one. Dismissive avoidance. Love you through acceptance. The biggest way dismissive avoidants are usually hoping to be loved is through being accepted for who they are. This is massive for dismissive avoidance. I have never met a dismissive avoidant who didn't say that this was extremely important to them and something that they were looking for in a relationship. Now I think people hear this and they think, oh my gosh, accepted the way that you are. That must mean that I can't say anything to give feedback or if you're not meeting my needs, I can't talk to you. No, it's the way that we communicate. So you can go to somebody and maybe you asked for some help and support around the house and they did the laundry but they folded it wrong. It doesn't mean that you just like accept you're like, oh, I communicated my needs and I have to pretend like it was perfect. No, you would go to the person and be like, hey, I so appreciate that you're showing up and supporting me. It means so much to me. And thank you for hearing me out and for doing the laundry. Just for future reference, usually fold it this way and I put it over there instead of in that closet. And thank you for looking out. And so that way you're having the conversation and you're still, you're just communicating in an accepting way. You're kind, you're starting with something validating, you're sweet. But then you're communicating your needs within that framework. And this is something that securely attached people naturally do extremely well. A lot of people. Some. Well, sometimes I see comments on the Internet where people will say, no, I shouldn't have to communicate nicely like that. I should be able to just tell it how it is. Well, if you want to become securely attached, something that securely attached people do extremely well. They know how to communicate while being mindful of each other. And they're just sweet and thoughtful about their communication and they make an effort to become good communicators because learning to communicate properly is literally one of the most important life skills you'll ever learn. It will help you in all relationships, not just with partners, but also in friendships and family relationships, in co working relationships, business partnerships. I mean, the list goes on being accepted, meaning that you're not judging, you're not critical of them, you're not harsh, you're mindful, you're thoughtful with your communication and you make an effort to frame things in a positive way, saying what you're looking for, not what you don't want. So the difference between saying, you don't care about me, you don't spend any time with me, versus, hey, I really want us to spend more time together. I value our time. Can we plan a fun date night this weekend that will get you heard, the other one will not. So these are four major ways with tools that will help you really understand whether or not a dismissive avoidant is showing love in the way that's often there for them. And this really speaks into their needs and what needs they have in relationships as well. So hopefully this gives you that full package and set of insights. And I just want to say here, it can be really hard if you're with somebody who has different needs in a relationship and it can often go over our head. So I just want you to know that love is healthiest when it becomes visible. When it becomes actionable, when it becomes something that we understand each other in a much deeper way. And you can absolutely get there. And this will have a massive turning point in terms of how it's impacting your relationships as a whole, in all relationships. And if you're here to learn about this today, you should be proud of yourself, because you're not sitting back and just doing relationships on autopilot. You are here to support yourself and your loved ones in building the best relationships of your life. That's what we do here on this channel. So I hope you subscribe and stick around. And thank you so much for watching.