Connor Beaton explains why dismissive-avoidant men pull away from partners who show emotional availability. Their nervous system reads love as a threat, triggering coldness and the belief that their partner is too needy. This pattern roots back to early relationships with their mother, where intimacy learned to feel dangerous.
The moment that she really shows up, that there's emotional availability, that she's consistent, that she's genuinely loving and nurturing and compassionate, you start to Homer Simpson into the bushes. You just start to fade away. You pull back, you find yourself getting a little bit more cold, you find this hypervigilance showing up, and you start to pull away. Maybe you might find yourself saying she's too needy, or her love is just too intense, or it feels like she needs too much from me, or it's like this is too much too soon. And what's actually happening inside of you, inside of the dismissive avoidant man is that your nervous system is responding to what it perceives to be a threat. And it's not because that woman is actually dangerous. This is the misperception. This is the misinformation of the nervous system in that moment. It's actually because love feels dangerous and that love and intimacy has always felt like a threat. And that's because of the dynamic that you experienced with your mom growing up.
How to Raise Strong, Unshakable Boys in Today's Culture, with Dr. Shefali Tsabary
