If you’re in a relationship with someone struggling with emotional detachment you’ve probably noticed that it’s during conflict that he’s most likely to shut down, to distance himself emotionally from what’s going on, to stop taking much of an active part in the discussion. As we’ve written elsewhere detached personality can affect both males and females but it’s more common with males so we’ll use masculine pronouns here. The psychology that’s essential for you to grasp is that appearances are deceptive. While on the surface he’s calm and composed, while he probably doesn’t do much yelling or even look all that upset, internally alarm bells are sounding and the house is on fire. However unjust it may be, to him your conflict situation is reminiscent of the original threatening, hostile conflict situation in his family of origin, the situation that prompted his psychological solution of emotional detachment in the first place.