← The Thais Gibson Podcast
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So I get asked all the time by people, why does my dismissive avoidant partner shut down around sex, especially when we're in a longer term relationship. And in this video we're going to unpack exactly all the reasons why this commonly happens. And also we'll cover some key steps about what to do instead. So first and foremost, you know, it often becomes a theme for a lot of people, whether they're in a situationship, a romantic relationship where they'll be dating a dismissive avoidant, and the first six months or so will be totally normal. And then around the six month mark, sometimes all the way up to like the year, year and a half mark, the dismissive one will start to shut down and kind of pull back. Usually at first happens emotionally, and then over time it can actually begin to happen more and more to the point where it's literally bleeding into the person's sex life and it's actually changing the dynamic around intimacy as a whole. And there are a few core reasons why this takes place. And oftentimes I'll see the partner of a dismissive avoidant because of the way they personalize that, which, like, of course, you're a human being, it's very easy to personalize that, like, oh, is it me? What's wrong with me that this is happening? What did I do? You know, and, and we'll see a lot of these different circumstances play out. But the reality is often when you're taking it personally, then what ends up happening is the way you respond to that actually causes them to shut down more. Now this is not on the person being shut down from, right? It's not the person's responsibility to fix or change this. But I find that it's really helpful for these individuals to have context for why this is happening. And then you can initiate a conversation or a different way of operating in a relationship to see if that person also wants to transform with you and to do the work in the relationship with you. And either they will and they'll show up and you'll become more securely attached together as a result, or they won't. And this is why we also want to set a deadline around these things, right? So if you're not getting your needs met, whether it's sexually, emotionally, in many different ways in a relationship, you want to set a deadline, you want to be like, okay, I'm really going to pour my heart into this for X amount of time, for two months, three months, six weeks. I mean, it depends on a lot of different factors, you know, Are you married? That brings a whole different topic of conversation. Are you dating for a year or two years? Have you been together for six weeks? You know, there's going to be a different sort of timeline or deadline we want to put around how long we pour into a relationship relationship for. But if you don't see the needle move and you don't see transformation happen at the end of that deadlined period, then you may want to reconsider whether it's the right relationship for you. So when it comes to sex for dismissive avoidance, dismissal avoidance tend to when. When they're. And we talk about this all the time on this channel, but we talk about how dismissive of winds operate in their feelings minus their fears. So you'll generally see that they're in their romantic feelings for somebody until these fears come up. Now, because we take our parent relationships as children and at a subconscious level, the way we were treated there, we expect to be treated as adults because essentially what happens is our parents are our primary attachment figures as children. And then we replace our primary attachment figures psychologically with our romantic partners as adults because it's the person we're the most vulnerable to and open up the most around, et cetera. And so what happens is if as children we didn't feel safe being ourselves, we didn't feel safe being seen, we didn't feel safe, you know, communicating or hashing out conflicts. If we felt criticized or really sensitive to criticism, if we didn't feel like we were being built up enough and we felt instead that we were sort of being neglected or torn down more frequently, then as a child, you are going to be programmed to feel that that's on the horizon when you become an adult and invest in relationships romantically. So the first few months before you actually build an attachment, these things don't apply in the same way. You're just in your feelings. There's not much to fear yet. But as the relationship dynamic progresses and there's more intimacy, there's more closeness, there's more vulnerability. These vulnerable moments, these vulnerable aspects of yourself remind you of childhood. And because your subconscious mind stores everything. And then when, when you have these catalysts that remind you of past experiences, it surfaces old memory and emotion to, to the surface. This is how a trigger works. Essentially. It's like something happens to you and your subconscious goes, oh, what's our experience of this? It opens its filing cabinet and all the past emotion of that trig event floods to the surface. So, you know, if you didn't feel safe, if you didn't feel seen. If you felt like you had to become hyper reliant and create space from your caregivers to create relief the moment you start building that attached attachment based bond as an adult. Some of those things are likely to come online, especially around vulnerability, closeness, because, you know, whether we like it or not, being a child is a vulnerable experience, right? And we're really reliant on our caregivers at that time. So even though it's a totally different experience, you know, even though we're now talking about sex as an adult and obviously not talking about that in the childhood context, you know, it doesn't mean that those same core triggers won't be there. That, that when we feel vulnerable, we might feel unsafe, we might feel afraid. And what you'll see is when DAs feel afraid, when they feel criticized, they self soothe and they cope with that by pulling away and creating distance. And you know, it's a known thing that dismissive woidants will minimize their attachment needs as a form of self preservation or self protection. And so this doesn't just happen emotionally, this happens around sex and intimacy. And usually you'll see it sort of drip out. It starts with like the emotional components and then there might be like the physical space components, like creating more space. And then over time das will end up pulling away more and more until the point it often bleeds into people's sex lives. Now there's a lot more about this to be said. That's the first major theme. The next major theme that I think is really important to recognize is that dismissive avoidance are not in their bodies very much. They're not like present in their physical experience a lot of the time. Dismissive avoidance are very intellectual, they're very up here. And oftentimes they're actually mildly dissociated, mildly disconnected from their bodies, from even knowing what they feel, from experiencing sensations in their bodies. And they can really become quite, you know, intellectualizing of not just their emotional experiences, but even their, their physical or sexual experiences. So if you're ever with a dismissive avoidant and they feel criticized or they feel, even if they're just criticizing themselves around sex or if they feel a sense of pressure to perform or to show up in a certain way, oftentimes will get so in their heads about the experience of sex that it can have an impact on their ability to be present, to enjoy the experience of having sex, to like really show up and you know, be attuned to the person that they're having sex with. As well. And so as a result of this, it can actually make the experience of sex something that feels uncomfortable or unsafe. And you know, if you ask to dismissive avoidant, they would never say, oh yeah, I feel unsafe around sex. Or they, you know, generally won't speak like that. But the reality is they're often in sympathetic nervous system mode. They're, they're often uncomfortable. You know, after working with so many clients and having these discussions with people so frequently, you know, what I found is that when you start actually asking more and more questions to dismissive avoidance, they'll say, yeah, I am in my head a lot. Yeah, I guess now that I think about it, I'm not really in my body. I'm not really present for the experience itself. And so over time, you know, because of their own subconscious programs, and then the way that they cope is to constantly create distance and also to sometimes flaw find, they can end up in a position with somebody where it just doesn't feel comfortable to the same degree or in the same way. And again, this tends to happen more and more the deeper the attachment bond is formed. So with all this being said, there's a couple ways of approaching this. Number one is you can communicate with the person that you're in a relationship with or sleeping with, and you can let them know that like, hey, you know, these are some of the things that are important to me around sex. It's important to have intimacy in the relationship. I noticed that we've been pulling away from each other and that's okay, but can we make an effort to be present, to do more things together? And the more that you can get into a position to normalize sex and not, sorry, not normalized sex, normalized discussions about sex, the easier and safer it becomes to actually have intimacy. Right. The more it's like comfortable and safe to just even have these discussions, the easier it will be to also proceed to have sex. Number two, the more a dismissive avoidant feels unconditionally accepted instead of judged, the more willing they will be to be vulnerable. And that includes and you know, has a huge impact on sex. So if it's missing white and feels nitpicked, criticized, you know, if they feel like somebody's kind of giving them a hard time or judging them in certain ways, they can withdraw dramatically. And it will have a huge, huge impact on the relationship around sex. And so it's going to be really important that there's a sense of acceptance, this sense of, hey, you know, there's no pressure. I'm we're just here to have an experience together. And the more that that's there, the easier it will also be. And last but not least, the more that there's actually a sense of overall safety in the relationship dynamic. And I say safety, and I know that when I say this, it sounds like, you know, most dismissive avoids will never tell you they feel unsafe, but they walk on eggshells in terms of, like, what people think about them. And if they don't think that it's that they're being fully accepted, or if they think that they're being shamed or criticized in any way, they won't even, like, they'll just pull away, right? They won't even, like, try to have that discussion or be vulnerable or hash it out. They'll often just pull away. So the more that there is a sense of not just being accepted, but actually empathize with emotionally in the dynamic. And believe it or not, this affects, like, it. Like, if you're criticizing a partner about their career, it can bleed into that they feel criticized in general, and it can bleed into their relationship to sex. So it's not like a unilateral thing. But the more that that's there as a whole, usually the better the connection will be. Now, I say this with also this, you know, really important kind of, I guess, disclaimer, which is, you shouldn't walk on eggshells, right? You should be able to practice having more open conversations, more open discussions about your likes, dislikes, your needs sexually and in multiple areas of life. You should also put yourself in a position where you're empathizing and you're accepting of your partner, but in a way where you're also being able to communicate and have acceptance and kindness and compassion as well. And this is why, you know, earlier in the video, I mentioned the deadline. If you're starting to date somebody and you're seeing this, have these discussions, practice some of these skills and tools, and then set a deadline, right? If you see the needle moving, which actually in the vast majority of cases working with clients, I would see the needle move dramatically in a short period of time, then you've got your answers, right? Hey, this is a solvable problem. This is something we can break through together in a relationship. If instead you don't see that, if instead you see sort of a flat amount of growth, no shifts, no changes, no improvements, despite you really pouring in and trying to show up and kind of lead the way in this dynamic in a healthy form, then you have an answer, right? Which is that this person probably won't change. And so then you have to ask yourself, am I okay with this kind of relationship dynamic forever? And for a lot of people, the answer might be no. So that's a place you really want to get to. In a lot of cases, I see people become secure together because facilitating open conversations about needs, being able to empathize more effectively with each other's perspectives, being able to be more present, more attuned to each other. I mean, all of these are massive steps on the path to becoming secure, but it could also go the opposite direction. But at least you know, right? At least you're getting to the bottom of these things and gathering this information and you can decide what to do next. So I hope to shed some light on, you know, the sort of intimacy, sexual shutdown that can happen a lot of times for dismissal, avoidance, and relationships. I hope you enjoyed and thank you so much for watching. If you're enjoying this channel, please, like, share and subscribe. And I can't wait to see you in tomorrow's video.