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Thais
Hello and welcome to the Personal Development School podcast. I'm your host. Thais Gibson, and I create regular podcast episodes to teach you about your relationships, attachment style and the subconscious mind. My goal of this podcast is to give you tools and awareness you need to thrive in your relationships, feel deeply connected, and find harmony and fulfillment in your relationships and personal life.

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Thais
So I hope you tune in here with me each and every week.

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Thais
Have you ever wondered why this mix of avoidant attachment often seems so resistant to making compromises in romantic relationships? Well, if this is something you were curious about today, we are going to talk about the dismissive avoidant attachment style and three key reasons they fear making compromises, and also a little bit about how we can best handle the situation.

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Thais
If you are the loved one, a bit dismissive, avoidant.

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Thais
Now, if you have ever dated a dismissal avoidant attachment style or have a family member or friend or any loved one who is D.R., you'll see that they often feel very resistant to making compromises. And one of the first reasons why that takes place is because they often confuse and conflict. A compromise size with a sacrifice. And the big difference between a compromise and a sacrifice is that a compromise contributes to the greater good between two people, but allows each person to consider themselves a sacrifice is when one person has to lose for the other person to gain.

00:01:45:17 - 00:02:17:02
Thais
But because of the whole point, attachments Self didn't have a lot of modeling growing up for people making compromises for each other and for the relationship. They often assume that meeting somebody else's need actually requires a pure sacrifice. I'll give you an example of this. Let's say, for example, that somebody comes to me and they say twice on Friday night from 10 p.m. till two in the morning, I need you to help me pack my stuff and move out of my house.

00:02:17:04 - 00:02:36:18
Thais
You know, a sacrifice would be me just compulsively saying yes because I just feel guilty saying no or because I think I should. People please and say yes and I don't consider myself and my needs a compromise would be me going, You know what? How do I feel about this person who's asking me for help? Maybe I really love them.

00:02:36:18 - 00:02:53:14
Thais
Maybe they're a dear friend. Maybe I would love to help them and contribute to them. But maybe I have to get up really early on Saturday morning and I have a full day ahead of me. So I probably, in that case, don't want to work from 10 p.m. till 2 a.m., helping them pack their things and move out of their home.

00:02:53:16 - 00:03:11:07
Thais
And in that case, a compromise would be What can I do for this person that also takes my self into consideration? And that may look like me saying, you know what? I can't come help you with that at that time, but I'll bring you by some dinner Friday so that you at least don't have to cook and you can stay focused.

00:03:11:07 - 00:03:30:13
Thais
Or another thing I might do is say, you know what? I can't come at 10 p.m., but I can stop by for an hour at 5:00. How does that work? And so what I'm doing is I'm actually taking myself into consideration and seeing what I can do to be available for that person and making these healthy concessions, making these healthy compromises so I can support that person and my relationship to them.

00:03:30:15 - 00:03:53:15
Thais
But I'm also not just blindly saying yes and agreeing to everything, but because the judgment of a boy that struggles with the ability to actually take themselves into consideration. And I know that people would be like, What do you mean? They take themselves into consideration all the time? Well, not really. They take their survival leads into consideration. They are usually in kind of this state of showing up for what they think they should be doing or nothing.

00:03:53:17 - 00:04:17:05
Thais
They're not like actually emotionally in touch with themselves and understanding where their own boundaries or domain is, which makes it very difficult for them to actually make healthy compromises. So instead, they feel like everything is just a a yes or a no. It's an all or nothing decision. And because they struggle in that gray area as a result of being out of touch with their emotions, they just think that everything is a sacrifice.

00:04:17:07 - 00:04:38:16
Thais
And so, you know, this is one of the biggest reasons that they struggle. And it is so important to have discussions with a dismiss someone, a loved one, if you're trying to improve the relationship, to say, look, I'm not asking for you to say yes bluntly to everything that I do. I'm asking you to consider yourself and see what you can contribute to the relationship because those healthy compromises are required for a healthy relationship.

00:04:38:16 - 00:04:56:08
Thais
And that should be a discussion that you have. And again, if somebody is never making compromises in their relationship, that obviously could lead to dysfunction. But what I've often found in client practice is Mr. More points are really willing to rise to the occasion and show up for people they love. If they have a better understanding of what they're supposed to do.

00:04:56:10 - 00:05:19:05
Thais
And this really brings me to point number two, which is that dismissal avoidance often have this fear of people relying on them and then then not being able to show up. One of the most surprising things for me working in client practice was seeing how many dismissive ones had this really limiting belief about themselves, where they would say things like, I'm not actually capable of having a relationship.

00:05:19:05 - 00:05:39:07
Thais
I'm not actually capable of being what somebody needs me to be. In fact, it's one of the biggest cited reasons for dismissing would point to leaving relationships that they think I just can't ever give this person what they need. And they believe that usually what's actually happening it they have this deep core fear that I am incapable. I am not able to show up for people in relationships.

00:05:39:09 - 00:05:59:10
Thais
And it's not that that's the truth. It's that they've been conditioned to think that they're in a state of learned helplessness. If you grow up in a home or an environment where everybody's kind of out for themselves and everybody's just really self-sufficient and relies on only themselves and they don't communicate what they need to one another, then you don't have modeling for how to give and receive.

00:05:59:10 - 00:06:16:09
Thais
You don't have modeling for healthy exchange. And wherever we don't have conditioning or programing or modeling for different things, we don't know how they work. It is so easy to get trapped in a feeling of learned helplessness and then to just shut down, which, of course, you know, is a dismissal avoidance coping mechanism.

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Thais
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00:06:40:06 - 00:06:44:00
Thais
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00:06:44:00 - 00:06:57:14
Thais
So because of this learned helplessness, they may really avoid making compromises and allowing for our expectations to be there in a relationship because they just feel like they can't understand what they're supposed to do.

00:06:57:16 - 00:07:18:00
Thais
And they may not show this overtly because they can be very stoic. But when you really dig in to a dismissive, avoidant, as somebody who worked with many, many clients, or if you have a loved one and you actually ask them, you know, do you feel this sense of helplessness around knowing what to do, sometimes you'll often hear the answer is yes.

00:07:18:02 - 00:07:37:02
Thais
And in this case, it can be very helpful to improve communication, to say, Hey, this is all I'm asking for, and this is the period of time I'm asking for it. And this brings me and if you can say, for example, hey, you know what I would need for a compromise is just you being able to show up for X amount of time or just a little bit here and there.

00:07:37:02 - 00:07:58:03
Thais
You know, giving me is like really clear, like almost painting a picture of what you're needing and what it looks like. And by improving the quality of communication, you may see that the dismissive point actually feels like, this is clear, that makes sense. I can do this. So being really clear and communication goes a long way. Again, this is not me saying do all these things for the dismissive avoidant to show up.

00:07:58:03 - 00:08:27:22
Thais
Obviously we want this mutual exchange, but it's very valuable to try these things before just writing something off, because oftentimes you can be pleasantly surprised. I always say to clients who are who would say things and you're like, I don't know, should I really stick around in this relationship? I'm not sure. Should I try things out, as I would say, set a deadline for into it for two or three months, Do everything you can to improve communication, to clarify things, to work through problems, and either the person's going to show up in a really beautiful, amazing way and you're going to be so impressed.

00:08:27:22 - 00:08:52:04
Thais
I'm not going to give so much momentum in the relationship whether or not and then you have a clear decision to make and the skills of everybody from all insecure attachment styles. Right. So anyways, this brings me to point number three, which is that this myth of a buoyant optimist, single in these all or nothing ways. Okay, So they may assume that if you're asking for something, it's for this huge period of time.

00:08:52:06 - 00:09:22:07
Thais
And they'll often, because they have their own difficulty expressing their needs, you know, they're really good with their survival needs and their boundaries. Like, no, I need space now. I need time to self-regulate. But they're not going to expressing their needs and knowing what they need from other people. So they often think that when you ask for a need that you're asking for, like if you say, Hey, I want to spend more quality time in a relationship commitment avoidance thing, like I can never spend time alone again, they'll often think, give me kind of worst case scenario format, like, okay, you need to give me seven nights of a week and I can never do

00:09:22:07 - 00:09:41:14
Thais
anything on my own. And it's like their own, just like anybody else with a core fear might say, this person, white light ones are going to lie about everything forever. Or all this person pulled away once they're going to abandon me 100% of the time. You know, we jump to these worst case scenarios when we have our own preexisting or wounds or fear.

00:09:41:15 - 00:10:01:03
Thais
Is this this avoidance do this in a pretty big way. And so when you can be clear about time boxing, what you mean from a distance of avoidance, when you can say to I dismissive someone, hey, I need more quality time. And now it's like date night once a week for 3 hours or that looks like us talking on the phone for 15 minutes a day.

00:10:01:03 - 00:10:11:23
Thais
Like you can communicate what your needs are in a time boxed way. They will see that these things are actually not so scary and they're quite achievable and it really helps mitigate some of these different challenges.