A dismissive avoidant doesn’t want to grapple with his emotions.

He prefers not having to deal with them at all.

He thrives on avoiding emotional attachments.

This is why he doesn’t let anyone he is dating get too close to him emotionally.

While you were dating him, every time you wanted to dig deeper into who he was as a person, he shut you off.

He never pried too deep into getting to know you as a person either.

He doesn’t want to be privy to all of that information so that he isn’t lulled into developing an emotional attachment to you.

This is why it is so effortless for him to be dismissive of someone he is in a relationship with.

Having control of himself and any relationship he is in is critical.

He maintains control of himself and the relationship by not encouraging the formation of deep emotional attachments.

Deep emotional attachments lead to a reliance on a partner.

He doesn’t want to rely on you as his partner, or anyone else for that matter.

There is a fear within him that in relying on you, he becomes dependent on you, and he doesn’t want that.

By becoming dependent on you, he loses control, and this is a terrifying outcome that he never wants to experience.

In the same vain, he doesn’t want you to become dependent on him either.

That is why all of his cold behavior is a constant in the relationship.

He never wants you to get so comfortable that you rely or depend on him.

That’s too much of a burden for him to carry around as your boyfriend.

By maintaining a fairly distant relationship with you, he not only maintains control, but he stays inside his comfort zone.

As someone with a dismissive avoidant attachment style, staying in his comfort zone is absolutely precious.

Since your relationship with him ended on bad terms, he has realized that his comfort zone within the relationship was never as comfortable as he was accustomed to from previous relationships.

You called him out a number of times about his lack of self-awareness and emotional intelligence, and he didn’t take too kindly to that.

A dismissive avoidant doesn’t like to be called out.

For one, it’s a sign that he has lost a degree of control of the relationship, and secondly, it means that you are confronting him about a trait that he is fully aware he lacks.

This creates emotional volatility and conflict.

He despises this.

One of the main reasons why he avoids closeness and emotional attachments in relationships is so that he doesn’t have to be confronted with his own lack of emotional intelligence.

He knows that when people get too close in a relationship, they ask questions, judge, and critique.

Being judged and critiqued for his lack of emotional attachments and closeness to people isn’t something he wants to be confronted with.

A relationship that ends on bad terms means that somewhere along the line he lost control of the situation.

You weren’t complacent in maintaining a safe emotional distance, and challenged him on the status quo repeatedly.

This is where he feels he failed, and is a lesson learned for him.

Instead of reflecting on how his avoidance of emotional attachment led to a bad ending to the relationship, he plans to double down on his intention to keep any future relationship from getting this out of control.