Hey what's going on my beautiful people. This is your certified life and relationship coach, Coach Court. In today's video we're going to be talking about one of the most popular videos that I've ever released on this YouTube channel. It's “Five Signs That A Dismissive Avoidant Actually Cares”.
I felt like that it was long overdue for this video to be shot and I wanted to just revisit a video that I did probably back in like 2021 or 2022. Now I know what people are going to say in the comment section “who cares if they care, they're a narcissist”, ‘they're this, they're that’, but the whole purpose of me doing this video, once again, is for you guys to get an understanding that it's not anything personal that they're doing to you. I'm going to tell you that a lot of the way that we operate as human beings is 95% subconscious. So when you're in a relationship with someone that's more on the avoidant side, they can't even understand consciously, what they're actually doing. Once again, if you ever get yourself involved in a relationship with someone and you know your mental health is starting to slip, I would suggest that you exit this relationship. There's a good chance that they may do some harm to you emotionally, that will take a very long time to heal.
Visiting this video again, the very first sign that they care is they will give you their time. What I mean by that is they will make you a priority in their weekly or daily schedule. This is when a lot of people will get confused, because in the beginning of the relationship they have this healthy appetite for connection, for time spent, for quality time, quantity time, whatever you want to call it. As they get their belly filled, that's when they start to pull back and they start to seek more of that autonomy, completely changing the way that they were operating at first. Here's my suggestion to you. When they start to do that, I personally said it is okay for you to question what's actually happening. I know your biggest concern is pushing them further away, but how far will you bury your own needs and your concerns before you start to protest and address this issue in an unhealthy way? You should address this issue when you have more self-control, when you're more self-regulated, before you actually get triggered into that very anxious state.
Number two is they'll offer their space. So if you ever get involved with an avoidant and they offer for you to stay the night, they offer for you to move in, that is a sign that they're being way more vulnerable than they normally are. I have a video on the channel called, “Don't Move In”, which is about the avoidant attachment style. I do think that you can navigate a relationship with an avoidant very healthy. This means, you have to talk about what's going to be quality time, what's going to be alone time, when are they going to be available to you emotionally, because guess what, just because they're around you physically, that doesn't necessarily mean that they're emotionally there. I'm actually coaching a couple dismissive avoidant clients right now about just this same issue. What does quality time look like for you, and what does it look like for them?
Number three is they'll offer up their money and their resources. Because of the way that they were raised, they pretty much had to hoard a lot of their resources because there wasn't anyone that was coming to save them. So what they've learned to do is to be very frugal, be very stingy if I'm being honest, with their resources, but then you start to see the shift and they start to see you guys as ‘we as a team’. There's a book called “Wired For Love” by Stan Tatkin. I would suggest you get that book because it's about attachment styles and how you incorporate the “We” instead of the “I” and the “You”. When you see an avoidant able to do that, and they're starting to offer more resources, starting to offer to pay for things, then that's a good sign.
The fourth one is they will apologize. The reason that I put this in here, year after year after year, is because they will. When you start to see an avoidant becoming more secure or even starting to care more about you, they'll start to reflect on how you're feeling and what your experience is. I've had a lot of people that come to me asking if someone that was an avoidant may not have been on the spectrum, may not have some sort of autism, because they're not able to put themselves in the other person's shoes. I've seen this topic come up over and over again. Sometimes you have to ask, well were they? I've had clients even tell me that they have always thought that their partner was on the spectrum or their partner had told them that ‘hey maybe I may be on the spectrum’. So do your research there. You can dive down a rabbit hole a little bit further, if you feel like your person may not be just an avoidant. Maybe there's something else going on, but when they start to apologize to you, they let you know that ‘hey I understand where you're coming from and I feel what you're feeling right now’. They don't care about the toxic shame that they feel from being always wrong in their childhood or always being the scapegoat. I see a lot of times they were the scapegoat. Any insecure attachers period, I saw as being more the scapegoats when they were younger, then you know they're putting their pride to the side to make sure that the relationship proceeds in a healthy manner.
The fifth one is they will follow up on a previous argument. So let's say that you guys had a disagreement and they may have checked out. What happened usually, in someone who has a dismissive avoidant attachment style’s childhood, is a lot of things got swept under the rug. There weren't a lot of conversations being had. There may have been some uncomfortable emotions or some tension, but the family members rarely came back to the table to talk about what they're feeling. Why they said what they said, or why they blew up, or why things got out of hand. So when they really have feelings for someone and they start to self-reflect, they're able to come back to the table with those conversations, to help make the other person feel comfortable. Usually what happens is you have that avoidant and that anxious dance going on. The anxious person usually always takes responsibility and accountability for whatever the situation was, even if they were trying to communicate their needs in a healthy manner. If the avoidant pulled away and started to shut down, they still took accountability for that because they felt like maybe I shouldn't have said anything. When an avoidant starts to understand who you are and sees that you may have become disregulated from that argument, they'll come back to the table and then they'll apologize like I said before.
So guys if you found this video of any value, please like, comment and share. You can reach out to me on my other social media accounts: Instagram is [iamcoachcourt], Facebook is [coachcourt] and right here on YouTube is [coachcourt]. Thank you guys and always remember, when you go be love, you'll never have to find it. Namaste.