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How to Make an Avoidant Miss You: 13 Proven Techniques Are you struggling to connect with an avoidant partner? Or maybe your ex is avoidant and you want them back. Whether your partner is pulling away or you broke up, we’ll help you draw your love back to you.

1. 1 They withdraw when partners get close to them. They pull away from romantic partners because they’re afraid of being hurt. Since commitment scares them, they’ll run if you give them too much attention. It’s also hard for them to fully trust their partner, so they feel really insecure in relationships.
   • People usually become avoidant because they didn’t have a secure bond with their partner or caregiver. As a result, they learned to rely on just themselves.
   • Because they’re afraid of commitment, avoidants often have very short relationships.
2. 2 They are very independent and like other independent people. They do a great job of taking care of themselves, so they feel like they don’t need anyone else. If you show them a lot of affection, they may call you “needy.” However, deep down inside, they really want to make a connection with someone.
   • Mutual independence is actually really healthy in a relationship. It’s great to have your own friends and hobbies separate from your partner.

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3. 3 They seem cold because emotions make them uncomfortable. They may hesitate to open up about how they feel, and they’ll get really antsy when you share your feelings. It may seem like they’re unfeeling, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. They have emotions just like anyone else, but they haven’t learned how to express themselves.
   • If you’re in a relationship with an avoidant, going to therapy can help you learn to communicate with each other.
4. 4 They crave love like everyone else, despite their fear of intimacy. They’re just afraid they’ll never find a good partner, so they often panic when relationships start to get serious. An avoidant can fall in love, so don’t give up on them if they’re important to you.
   • An avoidant needs time to learn they can trust you. Once they feel secure, they’re more likely to commit to you.

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1. 1 Give them space when they pull away. Avoidants need lots of space to feel comfortable in a relationship. Since they’re afraid of commitment, spending too much time with them will make them feel smothered. When they start to grow distant, respect their need for time apart, even though it might be hard. By giving them space, you’re helping your relationship.
   • by limiting communication and staying away from their regular haunts. Take care of yourself during this time by doing things that you love, like hanging out with friends, watching movies, or exploring your city.
   • Remember, absence makes the heart grow fonder, so let them wonder what you’re doing.
2. 2 Stop communicating with them until they reach out. You have to withdraw to make someone miss you. When you go quiet, they’ll wonder what’s going on, and they’ll think about you more. Eventually, curiosity will get the better of them, and they’ll message you. Instead of texting or calling, wait for them to make the first move.
   • Some people go no-contact with avoidants. However, it’s best to reply when they message you. If they feel like you don’t care about them at all, they may give up on you. Remember, they’re afraid of getting hurt.
3. 3 Take a break from social media. Seeing your posts makes an avoidant feel like they’re communicating with you because they tend to get a lot of fulfillment from interacting with people on social media. It’s a safe way for them to get attention and belonging without getting hurt. When your partner pulls away, stop posting on social media for a while. Instead, enjoy being in the present.
   • Avoidants are also really careful about what they post. They’re hesitant to post about their romantic relationships because they fear both commitment and a public breakup. Posting about your relationship too soon or too much may inadvertently drive them away.
4. 4 Hang out with other people. Being with friends shows an avoidant you won’t depend on them. They want a partner who has a thriving social life so they don’t feel held down. Plus, spending time with friends is fun. Nurturing your friendships helps you have a healthier relationship overall, so schedule plans with your friends and family.
   • Although you don’t want to post too much on social media, go ahead and post a photo of you with your friends. You want to ensure that your avoidant partner sees you out with others.
5. 5 Focus on living your best life. Avoidants want a partner who’s independent, so pursue what makes you happy. Start by, such as,, and treating yourself. Additionally, work on your hobbies and invest in your interests. Have some fun by:
   • Learning a musical instrument.
   • Taking a painting class.
   • Joining a recreational sports team.
   • Hiking on Saturday mornings.
   • Attending an improv workshop.
   • Making a short film.
   • Writing a novel.
   • Training for a marathon.
   • Volunteering at an animal rescue.
6. 6 Act like you’ve moved on. Moving on makes you seem less attainable, which is like catnip to an avoidant. They’ll be asking themselves “did I make a mistake?” as soon as they think you’re over them. Pretend you’re moving on by focusing on the present, not on your past relationship. Start working on a personal goal or go out and try something new.
   • Make a single post on social media about your awesome new adventure. You might take a pic of a painting you did or the first day of you learning to play guitar. Then, go back to your social media break.
   • The one caveat here is that you shouldn’t try to make an avoidant jealous by going out on dates. Remember, they’re afraid of being hurt. If they think you’re with someone new, they’ll usually give up on your relationship.

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1. 1 Reconnect via text or social media. Keep some distance between you at first so they’re more comfortable. Social media works great because they tend to use it as a social outlet. Send them a casual message or text to say “hey” and check in. Hopefully, they’ll respond back because they miss you. You could say:
   • “Hey, how have you been? 😛”
   • “I saw a TikTok today that made me think of you. 😆 How are you?”
   • “It’s been a while! 🙃 What are you up to?”
2. 2 Show them what they’re missing out on by looking your best. When you’re going to see them, to catch their eye. Additionally, and, Just be yourself because your uniqueness is what makes you hot. After they see you, they won’t be able to stop thinking about you.
   • You might even change up your look a bit to draw their eye. Try a new haircut or a fun new outfit.
3. 3 By mysterious because avoidants like to unravel mysteries. One way to is to limit what you say about yourself. Share details a little at a time to keep them curious. Additionally, don’t tell them everything you’re thinking and feeling. Make them wonder what’s going on in your head.
   • Be vague about what you’re doing when you’re not with them. Say, “I’m hanging out with the girls this weekend,” or “I’m taking a class this Tuesday.” Let them ask for more details before you provide them.

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1. 1 Compliment them because avoidants are often less confident. They also tend to struggle with criticism and are easily hurt. To counteract this, tell them how amazing they are so they feel valued. Be specific about what you love about them so your compliments feel sincere. like this:
   • “You’re so smart.”
   • “I love spending time with you because you’re so fun.”
   • “You have the best sense of humor.”
   • “You look amazing today.”
   • “This color is perfect on you.”
2. 2 Take things slow. Avoidants will shut down if they feel like you’re rushing them. Let your partner take the lead in the relationship so things progress at their pace. It might feel like you’re going nowhere sometimes, but your partner will slowly grow more comfortable in your relationship. They just need to be sure you won’t leave.
   • If you start feeling frustrated, go out with a friend and vent about your feelings. It’s okay to be annoyed with your partner from time to time.
3. 3 Be patient with them. Avoidants need a lot of time to commit to someone. Because they’re so afraid of getting hurt, they’ll pull away and come back several times before they feel secure. Be persistent with them because that’s what they need to be secure in your relationship.
   • Try to remember that they aren’t pulling away to hurt you. They’re just trying to protect themselves.
4. 4 Make them feel secure by being trustworthy. Since avoidants worry about rejection, they want to know they can trust you before they’ll give you their heart. To build trust, always be there for your avoidant partner when they need someone to talk to, and make sure you follow through on what you say. Additionally, only make promises you can keep so you don’t have to let them down.
   • Everyone makes mistakes, so don’t be too hard on yourself if you disappoint your partner occasionally. If that happens, and promise to do better in the future.

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1. 1 They keep coming back to you. Because they’re so independent, avoidants often prefer short-term relationships to long-term partnerships. They usually pull away when things start to feel serious. If an avoidant keeps coming back to you, it’s likely that they really love you. They’re just nervous about letting their guard down.
   • An avoidant can get into a serious relationship, but it takes time. It might help for you to go to couple’s counseling together.
2. 2 They’re affectionate with you in public. Because they’re uncomfortable with commitment, avoidants don’t show very much affection, especially in front of others. When an avoidant starts showing affection, it means they really care about you. Holding your hand in public might not seem like a lot, but it means something to them. If they hug or kiss you in public, they’re probably really into you.
3. 3 They open up about how they feel. Avoidants are super uncomfortable with emotions and tend to avoid them. When they really care about you, they’ll have serious conversations with you, even if they’re nervous. They may not be gushy or overly loving, but they’ll try to connect with you.
   • Avoidants tend to say “I love you” less often, and their tone may sound unemotional. Despite that, they really mean it.

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Advertisement Written by: Dating Coach & Matchmaker This article was written by and by wikiHow staff writer,, Laura Bilotta is a Dating Coach, Matchmaker, and the Founder of Single in the City, her dating and relationship coaching service based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

1. With over 18 years of experience, she focuses on helping singles date more intentionally, encouraging them to let go of negative patterns so that they can attract the love that they deserve.
2. Her experience, skills, and insights have led to thousands of successfully united over 65,000 singles through events and one-on-one matchmaking coaching sessions.

She has been the host of The Dating and Relationship Show on Global News Radio 640 Toronto (AM640) for 6 years and is known as The Hookup Queen of Clubhouse; her popular singles club, Single in the City, has over 95.5K members who regularly join in weekly dating and relationship-focused rooms.

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“I’m dating a gentleman who exhibits characteristics of avoidant attachment. This article has provided me with some great tips for communicating. I’m not as offended by his behaviors now that I understand his behaviors and needs.”,”

: How to Make an Avoidant Miss You: 13 Proven Techniques

Do avoidants ever miss you?

Dismissive Avoidant: Does My Dismissive Ex Miss Me? In today’s blog I want to discuss the dismissive avoidant and whether or not they miss you. This will be short and to the point. Yes, the dismissive avoidant misses you, but they miss you later on. In the beginning they’re going to be relieved that they have their freedom.

1. They can get their independence back and they get to go and do what they want to do without having to answer any questions to anybody.
2. I see too often people bash dismissive avoidants and make them feel as if they’re evil villains, but they’re not.
3. They feel the same way that we feel.
4. They have emotions the same way that we do, they just feel them differently and they don’t feel them as intensely as a person that is anxious preoccupied.

What they miss about the relationship is the togetherness and the closeness. They may not miss the relationship in itself because relationships take a lot of work. They don’t like that. They don’t like to have to deal with all the negative feelings and emotions that come along with having these really deep conversations all the time.

They are people who do feel and this is coming from lots of dismissive avoidants that I’ve worked with; and a lot of anxious preoccupied people who have also been able to re-attract their dismissive avoidant ex. They do feel, they just don’t like the feeling of vulnerability. Part of the reason because they had to be so strong for so long, so having to show all of their wounds and all of their insecurities to somebody is a very vulnerable and unsafe space for them.I know many people are reluctant to believe that the dismissive avoidant ever cared about them, but I can assure you that they did care for you.

Those moments where you were together and they were really there and present with you, they did care for you. Just at some point something happened that made them deactivate from you. Throughout the first 90 days (honeymoon phase) you fall in love with the “trial version” of that person.

1. The one that gave you all the benefits and all of the love.
2. You see lots of potential in them and we get hooked on the potential of what that person could be.
3. You have to understand this has nothing to do with you.
4. They have been scarred.
5. Even if it wasn’t abandonment, it could have been something that was formed as a child.

I would say for a high percentage of those people it was something that happened to them as a child, so this is just their way of functioning. If you’re the dismissive avoidant reading this blog, listen, I want you to understand this. We do love you and we do care for you.

It’s really hard for us to come closer towards you if you shut us out. Not everybody’s going to hurt you. Not everybody’s going to try to take advantage of you. I know that when people are showing you genuine love, you feel like you’re being manipulated, but that’s not the case. I’m sorry if something happened to you in the past that actually proved that to be false.

When you’re feeling like you’re detaching and you’re deactivating from somebody, we really want you to communicate with us. State specifically what it is you want for us to do instead of running away. The more that you run away from that person that’s coming towards you, the more they’re going to want to chase.

If you’re able to, just pause, let them know how you’re feeling, let them know you need some time, and ask for some space. Then, I want you to take it a step further. Don’t just say time and space, give them some type of time frame. For example, ask them to give you a couple days or weeks in order to sort your thoughts out and understand how you’re really feeling about this situation.

Let them know you’re getting overwhelmed. That will help you out in two ways. One, it’s going to help you out by allowing the other person to have a little bit of clarity on where their future is going because anxious people are anxious about the future.

That will give them a little bit of clarity and something substantial to grasp onto when they’re feeling like things are spiraling out of control. And two, it’s also going to give you the freedom from your anxiety too. You don’t have to feel a certain way when you back away because you have stated clearly what you needed and what you wanted in order to feel safe and feel comfortable.

Just that communication alone is going to go a long way as far as helping you heal your style as well as helping that person become more relieved from their anxiety. : Dismissive Avoidant: Does My Dismissive Ex Miss Me?

Why don’t avoidants miss you?

How you can effectively make your avoidant ex miss you – One of the first things to understand and accept for figuring out how to re-attract an avoidant ex is that you need to behave in a manner that will work for someone with an avoidant attachment style.

1. Usual tricks like manipulation or jealousy will not cut it for dismissive avoidants or anxious fearful-avoidants,
2. They’ll just be urged to distance themselves even more from you.
3. So, firstly, please remember to play by your ex’s rules.
4. Do what your ex wants you to do.
5. Respect that.
6. After coming to terms with this, the next thing you need to do to learn how to make an avoidant ex miss you is to avoid your ex! Providing adequate space and time to your ex is essential in learning how do you get love avoidant back.

This space and time provided to your avoidant ex are important for various reasons. These include:

The avoidant ex, whether fearful-avoidant or dismissive-avoidant, is getting what they needed and asked for out of the breakup Your ex gets enough time to process their emotions effectively. Your avoidant ex also has the time to look at the relationship from a rational perspective while processing their feelings. Giving time and space to your ex will also help them respect you for respecting their needs. It will show your ex that you are a good listener and quite wise by nature. Your ex will also get the opportunity to see you for the person you indeed are instead of the person they thought you were in their head.

Patience is another key aspect of effectively learning how to get a fearful avoidant back. The value and time and space can only be effective in getting your avoidant ex to miss you if they are given enough time. At this point, you may be wondering: will an avoidant miss you? The thing is, when you’re patient enough to give them a lot of time and space, they will initially get back to their everyday life.

They will neither miss you nor demand time or attention from you. But then slowly, as they try to carry on with their everyday life, they will experience various stressors in their life, which in turn will possibly make them miss you. Consistency in giving your avoidant ex space is also key for making an avoidant ex miss you.

If you’re not consistently giving them space, they’ll get irritated. For instance, if you gave them space for a few days and then started communicating with them, telling your avoidant ex that you miss them, love them, and want them back, it won’t help you.

What happens if you don’t chase an avoidant?

Sixth stage— A small bliss – Whatever reason may be that you finally pull away, avoidants would be at peace (initially) because they’d be finally free from all your questioning, expectations, and emotions. “These emotions suffocate them, the confrontation piles up anxiety inside their core, and questioning leaves them bewildered.” They would be happy because they finally have no tipping points to be scared of and no responsibility to adhere to.

How do you convince an avoidant to come back?

13 Ways to Get a Fearful Avoidant Back – wikiHow If you want to reconnect with a fearful avoidant ex, you’re probably wondering what the best approach is. Someone with a fearful avoidant attachment style won’t respond to grand gestures, emotional apologies, or attempts to make them jealous—so what are your options? In this article, we’ll explain how to make a fearful avoidant miss you, reforge your bond, and move forward together.

1. Fearful avoidants need time and space before they start missing you. In the past, you probably noticed that the more you pushed to get closer to your ex, the more they withdrew from you. This is very common behavior in fearful avoidants. It may sound counter-intuitive, but if you want to get back together, make yourself scarce by going, That means no texting, calls, or DMs.
   • Give your ex a heads up if you don’t want to blindside them. You might say, “I think the best way for both of us to get the space we need is to stop communicating for a while. I would love to reconnect once we’ve both calmed down and processed our emotions, through.”
   • If your ex reaches out during the “no contact” period, it’s best to acknowledge them. If you ignore them, they may feel rejected or ashamed, which will make them avoid you in the future.

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1. This is a subtle yet effective way to make yourself scarce. A fearful avoidant will use social media as an anonymous way to check up on you after a breakup. Try to limit your posts or stop posting entirely so they have no information to go on. Creating a little mystery will make them wonder what you’re doing, and that’s when a fearful avoidant is most likely to start missing you.
   • You can always set your social media profiles to private or even block your ex, but these strategies may backfire with a fearful avoidant. Blatantly snubbing your ex could make them feel rejected.

1. Use a non-confrontational platform to reopen lines of communication. It’s unusual for a fearful avoidant to reach out first (even if they secretly want to), so you’ll have to after a period of no contact. It’s important to ease back in slowly, so start with something low-key, like a text or DM. Keep the message short and light to avoid alienating or scaring them. You might say:
   • “Hey! I just wanted to reach out and see how you’re doing these days. Lmk.”
   • “Drove by your favorite taco truck today and thought of you. Hope you’re well!”

1. Nostalgia can be a powerful motivator for fearful avoidants. After a period of no contact, people with this attachment style usually start to assume that the relationship is truly over—and that’s when the nostalgia kicks in. If you want to make your ex miss you, play up the nostalgia factor by bringing up a few of your relationship’s greatest hits. You might say:
   • “Remember that night we picnicked on the beach? We brought my telescope and looked at the stars. That’s one of my favorite memories.”
   • “I heard our song the other day. It immediately took me back to that night when we put it on repeat and danced for hours. Love that memory.”

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1. A fearful avoidant craves appreciation and approval. This attachment style is rooted in low self-esteem developed as a child, probably as a response to mixed signals they received from a parent/caregiver. They felt confused and let down by these mixed signals, and they dealt with that anxiety by withdrawing. Deep down, though, a fearful avoidant longs for connection and deeply appreciates loving encouragement. You might say:
   • “I knew you’d ace that test, Erika! You’ve always been brilliant.”
   • “You play the piano beautifully. I’m so impressed by your talent.”

1. This offsets a fearful avoidant’s tendency to focus on the negative. People with this attachment style live in a constant state of anxiety and fear, which makes them feel understandably negative about things. If you want to get back together with a fearful avoidant, avoid doing or saying anything to make their anxiety worse. The goal is to make them feel safe around you, so remember to be calm, kind, and upbeat.
   • Speak to them in a soothing tone of voice.
   • Point out the silver lining when something bad happens.
   • Support their feelings, but try to share a more positive perspective.

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1. Fearful avoidants seek out partners who do their own thing. As you’re reconnecting with your ex, be sure to keep up with your solo activities and friendships. Get out there and keep living your best life! Pushing for alone time and hanging out too frequently will scare off a fearful avoidant. They value their own freedom very much, and they’re drawn to partners who can be equally, Do things like:
   • Hang out with your family and friends regularly
   • Make time for your hobbies and interests
   • Focus your energy on school or your job

1. If a fearful avoidant feels rushed or overwhelmed, they’ll withdraw. This is the key thing to remember about fearful avoidants: pushing for closeness ultimately pushes them away. Move at their pace and wait for them to signal that they’re ready to forward with the relationship. If they react poorly when you broach the subject, pull back right away so you don’t scare them off.
   • For example, if you mention getting back together and they immediately shut down, back off for now. They aren’t ready yet.

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1. Put yourself in their shoes to truly understand their feelings. Imagine what it’s like to feel scared, anxious, and afraid to get close to another human being. This is what life is like for a fearful avoidant, and it can be difficult for a person to endure. It’s easy to get upset with your ex for shutting down or withdrawing, but remember that the problem isn’t personal and try to find compassion for them.
   • Your ex developed fearful avoidant tendencies because something unpleasant happened in their childhood that made them this way. If you’ve never talked about that together, consider bringing it up now so it’s out there on the table. If they aren’t ready to talk, that’s okay.

1. That way, you can fix the issues and move forward as a team. Fearful avoidants usually back out of relationships because they feel overwhelmed, unheard, or distrustful. If you’re considering getting back together, the best solution is to sit down with your partner and nail down exactly what went wrong. Keep in mind that they may try to avoid this conversation, so don’t force it. They’ll talk when they’re ready. To start a dialogue, you might ask questions like:
   • Do you have specific needs that I wasn’t meeting the first time around?
   • What aspects of our relationship made you uncomfortable or unhappy?
   • What behaviors can I work on to make you more comfortable in the future?

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Reconnecting with a fearful avoidant takes time—and that’s okay. You probably want to get back together as soon as possible (which is understandable), but try to remember that patience is the key to successfully interacting with a fearful avoidant. Make it clear to your partner that you’re here for them. You can provide comfort and support if they need it, but give them all the space they need until they feel ready.

1. You can’t change their attachment style—only they can do that. You can have a successful relationship with a fearful avoidant, but remember that they can’t change overnight. Attachment styles are formed early in life, so they’re deeply ingrained.
   • Couples therapy can help you understand each other better and work through attachment style differences.

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Ask a Question Advertisement This article was written by and by wikiHow staff writer,, Dr. Liana Georgoulis is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist with over 10 years of experience, and is now the Clinical Director at Coast Psychological Services in Los Angeles, California.

• Co-authors: 4
• Updated: July 17, 2022
• Views: 63,868

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Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 63,868 times. : 13 Ways to Get a Fearful Avoidant Back – wikiHow

Do Avoidants care if you move on?

1. Initiate the breakup & suppress negative emotions – To begin with, avoidant attachers are more likely to instigate a breakup, as they typically prefer to keep relationships on a surface level and avoid confrontations with their partners. However, regardless of whether they are the instigator of a breakup or not, avoidant attachers tend to repress or avoid expression of their intense emotions in the aftermath.

Do Avoidants reach out after no contact?

There are very specific things that will happen with a person if you go in no contact with them and they have a certain attachment style, In this blog, I want to talk to you about what will happen when you go into no contact with a dismissive avoidant.

• It is completely different from any other attachment style.
• Right away when you go no contact with a dismissive avoidant, if they were the one to break up with you or vice versa, they are going to feel some sort of relief.
• You have to remember, for the dismissive avoidant, they’re taking a gamble by getting into a committed relationship with you.

When they let people close to them in, it’s tough for them because they don’t like to be vulnerable. So, when you break up with them, or vice versa, they’re going to automatically feel relief. They’re going to feel like they can have their freedom, that they can have their autonomy back, and they feel like they can have their space.

If you’re waiting for them to reach out to you, you shouldn’t hold your breath, because they typically don’t like to be friends after. They will cut off the communication with you and they’ll feel alright that you’re moving on with your life. The dismissive avoidant puts you on a pedestal and when they see the flaws in you, which they look for just so they can come up with a reason to distance themselves, they come to the conclusion that you aren’t the person for them.

They have an unrealistic view of what relationships are supposed to be, This is something that has formed from their childhood. They struggle with all-or-nothing thinking. There’s no more wasting their time with you. They’re always looking for the red flags, and they will find them, so when you go no contact with the dismissive avoidant, don’t expect them to reach out to you.

1. They won’t text you because likely when you were in a relationship with them, you were the one to initiate most of the contact.
2. They’re now in their own world, they’re doing their own thing, and they don’t feel as if they need to be connected with you, especially if things weren’t going well.
3. If things were rocky, they definitely will try to distance themselves emotionally and start their deactivating strategies,

Distancing is one of their deactivating strategies. Will the dismissive avoidant come back ? Chances are they don’t lose their feelings for you. They’re just like everybody else. They don’t lose their feelings for you, but it’s going to take a while for them to start feeling the break-up.

In the beginning they’ll feel the initial relief and then after about eight weeks, around the two-month mark, they’ll start to reimagine a relationship and start to actually grieve for the relationship. They start to really grieve the relationship far later down the line than the other attachment styles.

They don’t want to feel that pain and that disappointment that comes with breaking up. They have a hard time accepting it. They start to really sit and think about what went wrong maybe a month and a half to two months down the line. That’s when you will want to reach out to them and see how they’re doing.

• If they were to reach out to you beforehand – before that month and a half to two month mark – it’s probably to come up with some kind of excuse to get you to talk to them.
• They’ll say something like, “I left something at your house, or you left something at my house.
• How do you want to organize this? How do you want to get this thing settled?” They don’t want to look vulnerable and they don’t want to make it seem like they’re actually chasing after you.

That’s one of their biggest fears. They don’t want people to feel like they have to rely on them and need them in their life. That’s something that goes all the way back to their core wounds. When either their own caregiver or their parent wasn’t there for them when they really needed them in their developmental states.

Or in their previous relationships that didn’t work out, when they reached out for that person they really let them down, so now they put these walls up. If you were to go no contact with them, they’re going to automatically assume you are leaving them just like everybody else. I have coached many people who feel that exact same way that have the dismissive avoidant style.

So you have a much better chance of getting them back if you were to keep things light, Don’t try to force the relationship and don’t try to get them back right away because they’re going to get annoyed with you. They’re going to get angry because they’re going to feel like you’re trying to control them and force them into doing something that they’re not comfortable doing.

You have to let them do that on their own. You have to let them come to you. When they feel like they have gotten over the negative emotions that they feel from the breakup, they start to create small talk. The reason they do this is because they want to see where you stand mentally and if you actually still miss them.

They won’t come straight out and say it because rejection feels horrible to them. When the dismissive avoidant style was being formed they had to basically do things on their own. They were independent and they had to learn how to do a lot of things on their own.

• They had to become adults quicker than they wanted to, so when somebody comes into their life and tells them they’re not doing something the right way or that they can do something much more efficiently, they will feel insulted.
• They don’t want someone to come into their life and try to make them do things differently than they have done them.

They have a hard time making changes and dealing with change. That’s why they like to keep things simple and in the way that they know works because it’s always worked for them. Can you get a dismissive avoidant back ? Yes, but it’s very difficult. It takes a lot of work.

• It’s going to take a lot of trust building because if you guys broke up and they felt like the relationship just wasn’t going the way they wanted it to or that you’re not the one for them, it’s going to take a lot of rebuilding of their trust to get them back.
• Is it worth it? I would say that it is.
• Dismissives can be some of the most fulfilling relationships that you can have, but on the flip side they are the ones that will most likely, just in general, have short-term hookups in between you guys breaking up.

They are okay with having these superficial relationships and not dealing with relationships that involve too much emotional engagement. They’re just like everybody else. We’re all human and we want companionship and we want love, but for the dismissive avoidant, when a person gets way too close to them, they can’t sustain it for a really long time because they’re going to start looking for their exit.

Do avoidants fear losing you?

By Tamara Hill, MS, NCC, CCTP, LPC on July 8, 2015 Have you ever had a relationship with someone who appeared loving and interested in the relationship, only to later pull away when things got too “involved?” Did you raise a child who would hug you and show you unconditional love one moment, and the next totally detach from you as if you were a stranger? What about your own mother or father.

Did they love you in a strange way, often equating “separateness” or “independence” with love or strength? If this sounds familiar, then perhaps this article is for you. About 5.2% of the US adult population is affected by avoidant personality disorder and almost every contributor (about 60)in the comments sectionclaimed to have experienced a relationship with avoidant characteristics.

This article will explore avoidant personalities and offer tips on how to cope with an avoidant personality. Most of us struggle with attachment and need an appropriate amount of time to develop an intimate, loving relationship with someone else. Even children learn to love their parent(s) overtime and through various experiences.

1. We don’t come into this world loving anyone, we grow to love someone and to cherish who they are.
2. Once we understand who that person we love is, we develop normal attachments that help us communicate our needs, wants, and hopes.
3. A wife learns that if she talks to her husband after work, she will more than likely be able to get him to fix the garage over the weekend.

Or a son learns that when he draws his mom a picture she will make him his favorite dinner. Healthy human relationships are reciprocal and we understand what keeps relationships healthy and moving forward. We don’t typically fear abandonment, rejection, or loss without reason.

We don’t feel the need to carry this burden. Healthyrelationships are stablebecause everyone in the relationship understands boundaries, needs, wants, weaknesses, and even strengths. But sadly, someone with an avoidant personality disorder, finds it very difficult to develop healthy relationships with boundaries.

Individuals with this disorder also find it difficult to trust or express their deepest feelings for fear of abandonment, rejection, or loss. Avoidant personalities often draw near to people they love or care about, and later pull away out of fear. The avoidant personality almost has a very fragile ego, self-image, or understanding of how relationships are to operate.

Many are loners or isolators who are too fearful to enter relationships or maintain the one’s they already have. It’s as if the avoidant personality engages in the “he loves me, he loves me not” game with every relationship encountered. Some people refer to the avoidant personality as “shy” or “timid.” But the personality characteristics far exceed shyness.

There is an underlying fear of becoming “transparent” in a relationship or fully experiencing the relationship. Many people with avoidant personality disorder live in a fantasy world that helps them feel emotionally connected to the world. For example, a woman with avoidant traits may fantasize that her boss is interested in becoming her husband and that they truly love each other even though he’s happily married with 7 kids.

Avoids activities that include contact with others because of fear of criticism, rejection, or feelings of inadequacy. For example, some individuals avoid work or call off because they are tired of feeling like their co-workers are ridiculing them for mistakes made.

Unwillingness to engage in interpersonal relationships unless they are certain of being approved of or liked. My experience with avoidant personalities is that they will often push the limits to see if you will still approve of them. I once had a teen client who would push every button she could think to push on me until she began to believe that perhaps I was on her side after all.

Preoccupation with rejection, loss, or ridicule. I would go so far as to say that the preoccupation can become an obsession. It is important for clinicians to differentiate social anxiety from avoidant personality traits. In other words, individuals with social anxiety also isolate, seem shy, are unwilling to get involved unless sure of being liked, and has a preoccupation with being accepted.

Becoming easily hurt when rejection or criticism is perceived, experienced, or assumed. An individual may find it very difficult to forgive someone or get over someone who has not approved of them in some way.

Inhibited or fearful of engaging with others is something that occurs a great deal for avoidant personalities. The person may not raise their hand in class or step up to ask a question for fear of being made fun of or of not being accepted. As a result, many struggle with social skills and fitting in.

According to MedPlus through the National Institute of Health, about 1% of the population has avoidant personality disorder. It’s important to keep in mind that personality disorders such as avoidant personality disorder is a long-standing pattern of character traits that have occurred over time.

1. Research is still unsure what causes personality disorders but a combination of genes and environment have been cited.
2. Other research points to no single cause of this disorder.
3. Having worked with a variety of adolescents who demonstrate borderline personality traits, I have had my fair share of experience with avoidance and avoidant personalities.

As a result of consulting with many experienced elders in the field, I developed a list of approaches that families can take to cope with the avoidant personality. But this list is also useful for anyone dealing with an avoidant personality:

1. Don’t force them to face you : If you consider all of the symptoms above, you will see that an avoidant personality struggles with many emotional and perceptual challenges that make relationships with others very difficult. To make matters worse, some individuals also struggle with depression or anxiety or anger management difficulties. These are called co-occurring disorders. Some individuals are held captive by their symptoms and struggle to be what others need them to be. Forcing the individual to “perform” in ways that they are not capable of performing in, will only shame them further.
2. Give them ultimatums at the right time : Some people need to understand how their behaviors and emotional needs are affecting you. One of the biggest problems individuals face when trying to cope with someone’s personality disorder is feeling unloved, ignored, and empty. You must not forget that personality disorders include inborn, pervasive, and chronic behavioral patterns that are not likely to be changed. In fact, psychotherapy and medication are often not effective for personality disorders. Someone with avoidant personality has extreme social fears and it won’t be easy to “snap” them out of their state of existence so that you can finally have an equal relationship. It’s okay to tell the person that if they do not open their heart and mind to treatment or understanding how their behaviors affect others you will have to leave the relationship. After All, you have a life too. The individual needs to be reminded of reality.
3. If you feel trapped, get out : The individual suffering from symptoms that hold them captive certainly needs you to understand them, but they also cannot help themselves or you. This makes getting out very difficult because while you want to help the person, you are “dying” in the relationship. This is often the storyline of women who are in abusive relationships in which the perpetrator claims “I need you” while they slowly abuse the person over and over again. Abuse at the hands of someone with an avoidant personality disorder often includes psychological and emotional abuse. Don’t be afraid to reach out for help, pursue support groups for loved ones, seek your own therapy, separate, or leave the relationship completely. Your sanity depends on it.
4. Approach things with grace and tact : Sometimes it is necessary to have a very frank conversation with the sufferer. But conversations should always consider everyone’s feelings, challenges, and needs. You want to attempt to walk away from that conversation with a feeling that something has been accomplished. If everyone walks away more angry, offended, or defensive, something is wrong. You want to express your concerns, your observations, and your worry in a tactful manner. If you can find some “objective” pieces of information to bring into things you should do that as well. Try to keep your opinions limited. You don’t want to trigger the avoidant person’s defense mechanism, you want them to think.
5. Be mindful of their frame of reference : Sometimes trying to avoid triggering the avoidant person’s defence mechanisms is a challenge. Some individuals are sensitive and anything you say can be misconstrued as an attack on their character or abilities. When this happens, remain mindful that you are probably not the problem but that the person is defensive because of their symptoms. If you keep this in mind, you can at least attempt to control your own emotions in response to their defensiveness. You don’t want to lose perspective and add fuel to the fire.
6. Understand that sometimes there is nothing to “save:” I’ve received multiple emails about this article in the past asking if the relationship with the avoidant person should be saved. My response has always beenmaybe. Some relationships need to end and there is nothing left to save. Other relationships should have never began so ending it will be a great relief for everyone. Still, other relationships are more involved and will require more thought and planning. Ending a relationship dependents on a variety of factors including but not limited to:
   • Your relationship status: marriage; years together; having a family together
   • How open everyone isto change
   • financial stability

Is this something you have noticed in someone close to you? Have you noticed your loved one show you kindness and love one day, only to later appear nonchalant about you and detached? Perhaps they have an avoidant personality. As always, feel free to share your thoughts and experiences of this complex disorder.

How long do Avoidants disappear for?

Dismissive Avoidant: What They are Thinking During NO CONTACT In today’s blog I want to talk to you about the dismissive avoidant and what goes through their mind during no contact and when you’re implementing a no contact rule. First, I don’t think you should call it the no contact rule.

I think that no contact sounds like somebody is manipulating. I think you should call it the self-discovery rule because you should be discovering yourself when you’re not communicating with that person. You should be working on yourself and creating a healthier mindset for yourself. I want to share an email from somebody who reached out for some advice.

Instead of responding via email, I’m going to respond here. “Hi, I really need your help. My two year relationship ended when my ex-boyfriend broke up with me three months ago. I really loved him and believed that we had a pure and real relationship. The reason for our breakup was that he believed we were incompatible and couldn’t be happy with each other long term.

That led to him losing his feelings for me. I, however, have faith that we can be happy with each other. I was heartbroken. Begged and pleaded a little initially and then slowly stopped communicating with him. I developed my thinking, matured up, and began focusing on myself.” Now, after this email she also disclosed that she had discovered that he had started talking to somebody (one of their mutual friends) and had started posting on social media with this person.

So back to the email. “I have now tried to cut contact from both of them. I still love him and this situation really hurts. What should I do? Re-establish an emotional connection with him or completely cut off and see whether he even cares to miss me? Is dating another friend who became their confidant after our breakup still classified as a rebound? What can be done now? Please help.” I would say do what sits right with your soul.

I don’t believe that this relationship started right after the breakup. I think this could have been something that crossed over into the original relationship which is the reason that he ended up being with this person almost immediately after they broke up. She believes that he may be a dismissive avoidant.

That could be true, but usually dismissives are private. They don’t like to share their relationship status with people and they don’t like people being in their business. The fact that he was so open to do that feels like there was something else going on.

• He could have just not been into the relationship anymore.
• This is all speculation and based off of the little bit of email exchanges we’ve had.
• She went on to ask if him being an avoidant had anything to do with the rebound relationship and how to get him to miss her.
• First up, you can’t get him to miss you while he’s still in this relationship.

That’s going to be something really difficult to do because right now he’s probably in the honeymoon phase and it’s really hard for people to see clearly when they’re in the beginning of the relationship. The phase where nothing their partner does is flawed or they can’t see the red flags.

So I would distance myself from both of them. Don’t check their social media, don’t check anything that has anything to do with them because it’s just gonna make you hurt more. It’s going to delay your healing process. You have to heal from this breakup in order to move on. As far as what the dismissive avoidant is feeling during no contact, the first phase they’re going to be feeling is the relief phase.

They are going to be happy to be out of the relationship, they are going to be happy not to have to show up as a certain person with certain expectations put upon them, they are going to try to bury those feelings in the beginning and that’s going to be for about the first month.

• They are going to most likely be posting things that they are doing in the community or doing with other people.
• They are going to be excited to not have the drama and the stress that comes along with the relationship.
• You may see them reaching out to you or orbiting your social media.
• They might be liking posts and they may even send you a message.

Just a real light toned, “hey just checking in on you,” message, but that doesn’t mean that they want to get back with you. That doesn’t mean that no contact is actually working. It could be them just trying to either break from you or just not be completely gone out of your life.

• What I’ve learned is when people break up with you they will most likely try to offer you the friend zone, especially if he wasn’t a bad person.
• If you were somebody who actually turned out to be a really good friend, but just not a romantic candidate, then they will probably offer you that up front.

As far as the dismissive more specifically, most likely they’ll just fade to black and you won’t hear from them after that first month. Around almost a two month mark is when the dismissive avoidant is going to really start to feel things. They are going to start feeling the breakup.

• I’ve coached clients and they told me that that’s the time where they start to get emotional and they start to regret the breakup.
• They start to feel silly for even thinking about reaching out to you because most likely they think that you may have moved on.
• Here’s the beautiful thing about the no contact rule, though.

At that point, if you’re the person that was broken up with by the dismissive, this should be the point where you are starting to see with a little bit more clarity. Your anxious side is starting to subside and you are able to think with much more clarity.

• You are able to make the choice of whether or not you want to even entertain or re-engage with the dismissive.
• If you’re the one that broke up with them, though, I would say that they are probably thinking about you.
• Probably wondering what you’re up to.
• Wondering if the breakup was something that was real.

During the stages of grief you have the bargaining stage and the denial stage. They probably are in that denial stage and then that sad stage around that two-month mark. I would say that is when they are the most open and willing to re-engage with you again and want to have you in their life.

Going through a breakup isn’t fun. Having to break someone’s heart and having your heart broken is not something that either one of the people want to have to deal with. So if there is a potential of things being able to be repaired or reconciled, that is the time where you want to make your move. I do not recommend you doing this if you are not in the place mentally to be able to be more patient because you’re going to re-engage, but you’re going to still have to be patient with them.

You will have to wait for the turtle to come out of the shell. The dismissive avoidant comes off as a person who is emotionally unavailable, cold, and kind of unfeeling, but they do have feelings. They do care about people and the people that they do care about they care deeply about.

They have you as a friend for life if you’re able to maintain a healthy relationship. I know that a lot of coaches would tell you to walk away and never look back, but the heart wants what the heart wants. If there is a chance that you can have this person back without losing your sense of sanity and without jeopardizing your mental health, I’m all for that.

I’m all for going after what you want. : Dismissive Avoidant: What They are Thinking During NO CONTACT

Do Avoidants come back after ghosting?

Do avoidants ever come back? – Yes, but let’s clarify. Avoidants do sometimes cycle back around to those they have shut out, disappeared on, and ignored. However, just because they come back this doesn’t mean this is a viable relationship. You may believe that this avoidant person was perfect for you.

1. If they just give you a real chance at a relationship, they will see this too you may also think.
2. These are understandable thoughts.
3. It’s agonizing being ghosted sometimes.
4. Yet, a person who ghosts has revealed themselves to lack healthy relationship skills.
5. Even if they come back, they will likely still struggle with avoidance.

This attachment style will leave the two of you stuck in a cycle. Over and over again, your shared intimacy will trigger them to create distance from you and shut you out.

Do avoidants regret breaking up?

Do dismissive avoidants feel regret after the break-up? – Yes. Some dismissive avoidants feel regret the break-up as soon as it happens, especially if they had formed some form of attachment. Some dismissive avoidants try to get back together right after the break-up and other’s offer a friendship out of regret.

Most f the time however, a dismissive avoidant ex’s regret is not “I wish we were still together” but more like “I wish this didn’t happen.” And believe it or not, there are dismissive avoidants who feel really bad for hurting someone who cared for them and tried to love them but found it too hard. Many dismissive avoidants know they’re “not easy to love”.

Even dismissive avoidants who aren’t that self-aware deep inside know “something is not right” about their relationships. Some dismissive avoidants will even tell you they’re “difficult” to be in a relationship with. At times, a dismissive avoidant will warn you that they will hurt you or break your heart even before the relationship begins.

How does an avoidant deal with no contact?

4. It Helps Plot The Future Of Your Relationship – During no-contact and especially no contact with a fearful avoidant, pondering about our relationship is paramount. With time, and the weakening of the rose-colored glasses, we tend to start seeing it as it really was — not as we want it to be.

This ultimately helps you make a more rational decision of how to move forward: to try to get your ex back or close that chapter of your life for good. A fearful avoidant during no contact acts slightly differently from other attachment styles. Going no contact with them can become extremely distracting and often requires a lot of discipline.

The fearful-avoidant does not express remorse or sadness over heartbreak in the initial weeks of the breakup. During this time, they’re busy avoiding their emotions until they get too hot to handle — this usually occurs around the 3-5 week mark. However, simultaneously, the individual in the no contact process comes towards a more centered and stronger place as they usually stop grieving the relationship forgone and start to look ahead.

How long should no contact be with an avoidant?

Going No Contact With A Fearful Avoidant In today’s blog I want to talk to you about the fearful avoidant and going no contact with them. I want to share an email that relates to this topic from one of my previous coaching clients. It says, “hey coach, I know it’s been a while and I just wanted to reach out and say thank you for our calls.

• I am a lot less anxious and have decided to move on from my ex.
• I dove deep into the resources that you provided which helped a lot.
• Please share this story with the community.
• I didn’t get my ex back, but I feel it was a success because I have my life back again.
• Cheers!” Here is a little background on that story.

He was dating somebody that he saw to be a fearful avoidant because of some of the things that she was doing. We came up with a plan for re-engagement and how he would try to reconnect with her. But by the looks of it, he decided to move on. Usually what happens when I don’t hear from my clients again is they either chose to move on or they’re living “happily ever after.” I like when I get success stories like this and when people reach out and let me know where they’re at in their journey.

It helps me get a bit of insight on my coaching and also insight on some of the value that you’ll take away from having sessions. So he didn’t get his girlfriend back, but he also got his life back. That’s what happens when you’re in your activated state. You really lose yourself and you forget who you are.

So we are going to talk about going no contact with a fearful avoidant. During no contact, or I like to call it self-discovery, the fearful avoidant will feel a bunch of different emotions. They have the activating and deactivating so doing no contact is kind of a flip a coin whether or not they’re going to reach out to you.

From the fearful avoidants that I’ve worked with, they want to reach out and they have really intense deep emotions a lot of times, but they’re too fearful to reach out. If you know that they’re a fearful avoidant they’ll need consistency from you. You have to continue to keep doing the same things and keep showing up the same exact way or else they’ll get spooked off.

They’ll get a little fearful of trying to build something further with you, especially if you’re feeling like you’re just as emotionally in turmoil as they are. What I’ve seen in the past is the fearful avoidant most likely will reach out to you first and before the month mark.

• If they don’t then you can reach out to them around three to four weeks and just kind of see where they’re at.
• You can see how they’re doing and just care for them.
• Really show up in a safe and nurturing way.
• You’re just inquiring about their life and wondering how they are.
• We are supposed to go into relationships to bring something to that person’s life.

To give to them and to know when it’s time to let go. If you feel as if a person isn’t in love with you anymore, or doesn’t want you anymore, you should love them enough to be able to let them go and to allow for them to go out and find somebody who aligns better with them.

1. Someone who aligns with their energy, their ways of thinking, their belief systems, and with their level of intimacy.
2. And you can find that too.
3. You can find somebody that mirrors your same energy.
4. What I’ve seen from people in the past is when that person does reach out they will tell them something like, “you have no clue that I was actually thinking about you the whole time and I was actually wanting to reach out to you, but I didn’t know whether or not you still wanted me.

I didn’t know if you were upset with me or if you were holding some type of grudge with me. I noticed that you stopped liking my posts. You stopped showing up the same safe and comfortable way that you were in the beginning.” Many times the fearful avoidant won’t reach out because they feel as if they’re making a fool out of themselves.

If they said something in the past that was really hurtful and damaging they won’t reach out because they feel like the damage has been done. They really get triggered into their fearfulness and they start to deactivate themselves from the relationship in general. They may go out and participate in escapism by maybe going out and drinking and burying themselves in xbox or ps4.

I had another client reach out to me that went on a sabbatical. She went away for two weeks after her DA deactivated from her. What she was doing was she started to chase after him and she started to really outpour all these loving feelings and emotions.

• Writing really long text messages to him because she just wanted to connect with him so desperately.
• Then when she realized that this was all fruitless she started to pull herself away and started to heal herself.
• She got back into what she liked to do and got back to her hobbies and some of her passions.

She was able to detach herself by temporarily deactivating and coming back and revisiting some of the text messages and messages that she sent out to him and realized that the person that was sending these messages was a totally different person. She realized she made a lot of mistakes when she was in her activated state.

In closing, I just want to say going no contact works with pretty much every attachment style, but it’s different for the fearful avoidant. You have to give it that time of three to four weeks in order for them to start to feel those emotions for you again and actually get back into their activated state.

: Going No Contact With A Fearful Avoidant

What triggers avoidants to pull away?

Vulnerability is one of the biggest triggers for a dismissive-avoidant due to childhood wounds. Dismissive-avoidants value independence. Any need to rely on someone else triggers a sense of weakness. Fear of being trapped and controlled by someone else.

Who are Avoidants attracted to?

Characteristics of The Love Avoidant:

Love Addicts are attracted to people with certain identifiable and fairly predictable characteristics, and people with these characteristics are attracted to Love Addicts in return. The primary attribute marking all of the characteristics on the “model” partner for a Love addict is avoidance, which seems incredible to their partners since Love Avoidants come on to their partners so strongly at first.

Characteristics:

1. Love Avoidants evade intensity within the relationship by creating intensity in activities (usually addictions) outside the relationship.
2. Love Avoidants avoid being known in the relationship in order to protect themselves from engulfment and control by the other person.
3. Love Avoidants avoid intimate contact w/their partners, using a variety of processes such as “distancing techniques.”

A fundamental trait of the relationships Love Avoidants have with others is real abandonment. Love Avoidants don’t share who they are in a realistic way with their children. They conduct life from behind protective emotional walls, and, like unseen puppeteers, they continually try to control the choices of other people with whom they are seeking relationship.

Two Fears: One Conscious, The other Unconscious:

Love Avoidants consciously (and greatly) fear intimacy because they believe that they will be drained, engulfed, and controlled by it. In childhood they were drained, engulfed, and controlled by somebody else’s:

1. Neediness
2. Reality
3. Existence

And they don’t want to go through that experience again.

• Unconsciously: Love Avoidants fear being left at some level. The fear in adulthood stems from being abandoned as a child by the caregiver, since when a child is forced to nurture the parent, the parent abandons the child’s needs for nurture.
• Love Avoidants really want a relationship, but they also fear them: Since Love Avoidants usually had very little human contact in childhood that relieved the pain, fear, and emptiness of abandonment, they did not learn that a relationship can relieve these feelings. But this unconscious fear of being left draws Love Avoidants towards relationships, even though they have great difficulty making a commitment or connecting to their partner.

Why are Love Avoidants Attracted to Love Addicts?

Love Avoidants recognize and are attracted to the Love Addict’s strong fear of being left because Love Avoidants know that all they have to do to trigger their partner’s fear is threaten to leave. Love Avoidants believe that being in control this way will allow them to escape being drained, engulfed, and controlled, and at a deeper level to avoid being left themselves.

Same Two Fears Conscious Fear Unconscious Fear Love Avoidant: Intimacy Abandonment Love Addict: Abandonment Intimacy Evading Intensity within the Relationship:

• Love Avoidants keep intensity w/i a relationship to a minimum.
• They can avoid intimacy because they focus on something outside the relationship. (ie. addictions)
• Because of the addiction, they are not available for intimacy. This creates a distance in the relationship the Avoidant wants.
• The Love Addict gets the feeling the Avoidant is not really in the relationship because they are not.
• The addiction outside of the relationship the Avoidant focuses on gives him/her a sense of energy, of being involved in life; they don’t feel such energy within the relationship because they keep it at a low intensity. A Love Addict’s awareness of this absence of energy furthers a sense of too much distance from her partner.

Intimacy:

Intimacy involves sharing information about the self with a nonjudgmental listener. Avoidants avoid intimacy because of an intense fear of being used, engulfed, controlled, or manipulated if they share themselves with someone else. These fears come from childhood where caregivers used information to manipulate them into taking care of the caregiver.

Avoiding Intimacy within the Relationship:

1. Using walls instead of Healthy Boundaries
2. Using distractions
3. Staying in control of the Relationship
4. Addictions

Control in the Relationship:

• Love Avoidants try to control the $, be the powerful one, and have more value as a way to be in control of their partners. This deep need to be in control stems from their greatest fear: that someone else dictate who they have to be.
• They get a sense of empowerment that comes from rescuing and being adored by the needy, and apparently helpless, Love Addict.
• Be right in all situations, because being wrong is to lose control.
• Sometimes physical power and abuse to control.

Addictions:

1. Create intensity outside the relationship.
2. Medicate intolerable reality.
3. Get the attention of the Love Addict. The message to the Love Addict is “There’s something more important than you in my life.” This keeps the challenge of winning the Avoidant’s heart in the center of the Love Addicts attention.

Frightening the Love Addict with the effects of the addiction.

Enmeshment vs. Proper Bonding: Proper Bonding: Functional emotional connection from parent to child that is rooted in a MATURE, STABLE place, that nurtures and supports the child. Enmeshment: The energy flow is extracted from the child to nourish the parent.

• Enmeshment is a form of emotional sexual abuse. Parents who draw their children into their relationship are usually too immature to be intimate with another adult; they find it too threatening and too painful. But they realize they can be intimate w/their children because the children (1) are vulnerable, and (2) won’t abandon them, but must stay near them for survival.
• The Avoidant had a parent whose relationship with him was more important than the relationship with their spouse.

In the Family:

Love Addicts : needless, wantless, quiet, good, isolated, and unconnected – not taking anything from the family.

Love Avoidants : similar to the Love Addicts, but went a step further. As children they too did not take anything from the family; they also had to pull from their own resources to support or nurture the parent(s).

Love Avoidants: Being a “Higher Power”, but being Engulfed:

Avoidants can grow up feeling very good about themselves in their role in the family of origin because they see that they must have been quite special to be taking care of one or both parents. They learn that to be connected means they get to be the High Power to someone else, and yet it also means to be drained (engulfed). Such children often come to believe they are better than others.

Can Love Avoidants be Love Addicts and Vise Versa:

Some people grow up in families in which they experienced enmeshment from one parent and abandonment from the other, or perhaps one parent enmeshed with them for a while, then abandoned them. In the family of origin of people who were both enmeshed and abandoned, there was no appropriate emotional bonding. Therefore they have the capacity to operate out of either set of characteristics, those of a Love Addict or a Love Avoidant

Such people usually alternate between being a Love Addict and Love Avoidant. A Love Addict might be abandoned by an Avoidant, then say, “Well, nuts to this. I’m never going to get that hooked again.” So this person meets a very needy person and become the Love Avoidant in control. When this doesn’t work, they switch back to the Love Addict role.

Sometimes couples can take turns being the Love Addict and the Love Avoidant, because they both may be sex addicts, work addicts, or alcoholics. When this happens it creates the most intense, crazy, often homicidal relationship of all.

Facing Love Addiction: Pia Mellody Couples therapy and couples counseling with a licensed and experienced therapist like Suzanne Rucker will strengthen your relationship and help resolve the issues that are causing you to struggle. Contact Couples Therapist Suzanne Rucker at 407-967-9313 or by email [email protected] Suzanne would like to help her clients find happiness in life. Are you depressed or anxious wondering how you can get through the next day? Do you feel over-worked and under-appreciated? Do you have a difficult maintaining your weight, managing your finances, coping with your own addiction or the addiction of someone else, or maybe you are having a hard time getting along with your spouse or a difficult teenager? There is relief.The first step, which is the most difficult, is making the call to seek help and direction for a better life.

1. Suzanne Specializes In: Relationship Problems, Recovery & Strengthening, Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Management, Sexual Addiction/Love Addiction & Co-Dependency (women & men), Addictions (drugs, alcohol, shopping, etc),Trauma,Personal/Sports/and Corporate Coaching.
2. Clinical Training: CSAT : Suzanne is trained in sexual addictions from the prestigious IITAP institute and Patrick Carnes, EMDR (eye movement and desensitization and reprocessing): Suzanne offers this processing technique for relief from traumas, anxiety, depression, addictions, fears, phobias, and test anxiety.

EMDR can also enhance sports and speaking/professional performances, Prepare/Enrich: Suzanne can help you learn how to build stronger relationships through communication and conflict resolution skill building. This program is ideal for premarital counseling, marriage preparation, marriage counseling, and marriage enrichment, Suzanne earned her MS in Counseling Psychology from Palm Beach Atlantic University.

Will an avoidant leave me?

BREAKUPS – If we are unconsciously taught the mandate “don’t have feelings, don’t show feelings, don’t need anything from anyone, ever” – then running away is the best way we can safely accomplish that mandate. ​ Relationships are stressful to someone with an avoidant attachment style.

They want connection like everyone else, but their deepest fear is that love and closeness come at the cost of personal freedom, They will worry that the other person is investing in the relationship more than they are and begin to feel engulfed, While they want a relationship, because it’s hard to express their needs they fear being controlled or told who they should be, and fear disappointment and instability,

Inherently if someone likes them and starts to lean on them, they don’t believe they will be able to live up to their partner’s needs or expectations. As a result relationships quickly become obligating, guilt-ridden and burdensome, For a while they may pretend to be in the relationship while secretly hoping their partner will leave them.

1. Relationships involve interdependence, but avoidants would prefer everyone take responsibility for their own emotional needs – it feels wrong to be burdening their needs and desires on another and engulfing to be on the receiving end.
2. Intimacy can make them feel inadequate and unworthy, and concern for the emotional well-being of their partner can produce a fear of failure so great it is easier to retreat to what they do know – being alone,

T heir core beliefs tell them they’re not good enough, s o they often run from love, because ultimately, unconsciously, they don’t feel they deserve it. Love and affection incite feelings of vulnerability so are threats – avoidants avoid love to avoid hurt, and when they encounter reliable love are drawn to try to spoil it to prove to themselves it can’t be real.

They will hurt the people who show they care about them the most. ​ To be happy in a relationship is to be comfortable being who we truly are and knowing that will be respected by our parter. But avoidants often feel great shame over their natural avoidant impulses, so it is very difficult for them to do this.

This instinctive need to hide themselves can produce anxiety and depression, and a feeling of the need to escape, Ironically the deep assumption of rejection and instability on revealing their true selves, and the resulting protectiveness and discomfort around getting closer, make that very rejection and relationship breakdown more likely.

In doing so the avoidant unconsciously seeks confirmation of a deep-rooted belief: that relationships are by nature unreliable and cause pain, in a self-fulfilling prophecy. Avoidants are afraid of and incapable of tolerating true intimacy, Since they were brought up not to depend on anyone or reveal feelings that might not be acceptable to caregivers, their first instinct when someone gets really close is to run away,

Ultimately, avoidants would like their needs for connection and companionship satisfied, but they’re often reluctant, afraid or unwilling to satisfy a partner’s needs for safety, support and deeper connection in return, And they must run from any strong emotions because they are too associated with pain and trauma.

Avoidants will use many justifications (to themselves as well as others) to avoid exposing these basic truths. They have fewer break-up regrets and feel relieved at leaving their partner, but will then seek out someone the same. They’re generally not loyal to stay through the tough times and are likely to leave when you need them most (until they develop enjoyment in the sense of value and purpose that caregiving can provide, avoidants are more likely to leave when there are new children or when their partner has a serious illness, for example).

Avoidants unconsciously assume emotional abandonment and internalised early on it was safer not to try, so subconsciously must always protect themselves by staying one step ahead and distancing from any threatening situation. Being the one to leave also allows them to keep their self-image of self-sufficiency, control and independence intact.

​ SELECT ARROWS: ​ ​ When a secure person is considering leaving their partner, they may have been either initially less attracted to them or large problems came between them, which, appreciating their investment, they stay the course to try to work through first. An avoidant doesn’t need significant problems, able to drift away as gradually their need for space will dominate, and the prospect of distance or a new partne r is more attractive than the work their relationship requires.

It’s far more appealing to get carried away with fantasies of a new, seemingly perfect relationship, than it is to sit down and deal with the messy, stressful process of facing any inadequacies, building on and improving what they already have. For an avoidant it often feels safer not to try than to fail.

1. This is not their fault – during a relationship their anxiety is constantly being triggered by closeness, which quickly becomes exhausting,
2. So avoidants need to keep a defensive eye on the possibility of situations becoming too emotionally demanding, and forestall by distancing themselves, meaning they are very vigilant in their monitoring,

They are often dissatisfied in relationships and ready to exit as soon as they experience relationship difficulty – once the distance they require is threatened they can take the first opportunity to leave that is presented. It is interesting that while avoidants perceive themselves to be often the ones exiting relationships (and may even secretly feel superior because of it, in their over-valuation of self-reliance failing to appreciate that letting oneself be vulnerable enough to attach to someone and working through difficulties is the braver position than running), it is often because a partner has in some way put down their limits, boundaries for avoidant behaviour they won’t tolerate, needs/requirements, called them up on something which requires facing an emotionally difficult issue, or simply been emotionally open, all of which avoidants retreat from.

The decision can often ‘happen’ to coincide with partners wanting a demonstration of more commitment, or a relationship challenge to be faced – this makes avoidants feel trapped and exit is typically a fear-based response, not a logical one. Without understanding themselves, avoidants are highly dependent on use of these strategies to regulate their anxiety.

If these are questioned or called up and they are forced to confront them, they often just exit. An avoidant’s normal strategy in conflict is to shut down and retain control of the power balance by not compromising and forcing their partner to cave. If this is not possible – if, for example, their partner does not back down or the avoidant is unequivocally at fault, they have no strategy left for protecting themselves within the relationship.

So avoidants in fact feel a desire to leave because they may not be ready to confront and take responsibility for their own behaviour, although they will not normally recognise this is why they are pulling away – they will find another reason. In that sense the duration of their relationships, like other insecure styles, may be less to do with the specific qualities they believe they are (not) finding than they realise, and more to do with who can handle/acquiesce to avoidant tactics.

Some avoidants, however, may sit in relationships unhappily for a long time, not understanding what is in their power to change within it. ​ It becomes very difficult for avoidants to put a relationship first when feeling rejected or inadequate, so it is often during times of distress, when their partners show they need them most, that avoidants can be triggered to leave,

If someone shows a serious emotional need then avoidants tend to unconsciously assume they cannot meet it, things are going to fail and they must at all costs avoid repetition of childhood abandonment – so this immediately initiates major doubts about the relationship and an instinct to protect themselves.

They feel out of control – of the situation, of their emotions – and an avoidant must have control of these at all times. And they can struggle to take responsibility for avoidant behaviours, because they have been programmed to avoid at all costs the vulnerability it would necessitate – vulnerability creates an instinctive feeling of needing to push away from their partner rather than to head towards them to resolve things.

• Avoidants can at heart be so terrified of criticism, that it may unearth a shameful internal truth or uncontrollable emotions, that they would often rather end a relationship as not right than do the necessary introspection required to solve things.
• Pushing away from and penalising any distress or suffering allows them to keep their own emotional suppression systems intact.

​ However, even when feeling this way, not all avoidants instigate breakups with the emotional labour that entails. Some may just emotionally check out of the relationship and allow their behaviour to drift until their partner has no choice but to call it.

1. Uncomfortable with a positive image of themselves, they may push away and force a partner to look at their faults until such a point as this image becomes irreperable – confirming the avoidant’s greatest fear as well as their belief that their partner must be unreliable.
2. ​ This often operates at a deeply unconscious level.

We all want to think of ourselves as moral people. Trained to be hyper-socially conscious, some avoidants subscribe to a strong moral code, When their avoidant protective instincts and actions start to conflict with their value system it can be deeply confusing and destabilising for avoidants’ sense of self,

• Without looking compassionately inside (and avoidants have little self-compassion), the only way they can square this is by whoever they are with at the time not being ‘right’ for them – no matter how much this pattern repeats.
• ​ The avoidant person has a lack of emotional connection to memories which allows for an inconsistency of feeling that is hard for others to understand,

Not conscious of a remembered landscape of feeling, they are able to change their feelings from wanting to rejecting seemingly at random, So when their trigger systems become activated, avoidants feel the urge to end relationships without a reasonable explanation and enact breakups without warning, often without answers, simply as they don’t have the access to their emotions to understand it themselves, which can give them a reputation for being cruel or flaky but is equally confusing for them.

1. They don’t have words to explain why they have changed from enjoying time with their partner to suddenly finding them stifling – because it’s a primal trigger, not a rational choice.
2. In that moment they may not appreciate that they feel differently when triggered to the rest of the time.
3. When a partner expresses distress, upset or anger at the breakup, which of course they would be expected to, this only confirms to the avoidant that the partner is emotionally overwhelming, t hat staying with them would be too much of a drain of guilt, and they double down on their decision.

Subconsciously this amounts to the control of putting a partner in a situation where they are most likely to show they need them, to issue distress signals, and then rejecting them for that very need. Hurting their partner may be upsetting but, unlike other styles, perversely for avoidants it can sometimes unconsciously also feel good and what they need – hurting their partner pushes them away, they feel the more powerful one, and back in control.

Do Avoidants push away people they like?

Dismissive-Avoidant Attachment – This type of attachment is characterized by the independent, “lone wolf” persona. They rarely depend on others for emotional comfort or support. They avoid being intimate and vulnerable and push away those who get too close.

• Dismissive-avoidants typically have few close friends; they do not want to depend on others, and they do not want to be depended upon.
• There is a lack of commitment due to being extremely self-reliant.
• Independence can be a good thing — to an extent — but the person who forms dismissive-avoidant attachments takes their need for independence to an extreme.

However, this individual tends to open up emotionally when there is a shared experience or crisis. The bonds that do form with this individual are deep and emotionally charged.

Do Avoidants end up alone?

Attachment Avoidance & Social Loneliness – Studies have found that avoidant attachers are less likely to date or seek relationships. In other words, they are more prone to having smaller social circles and, thus, may stay single for longer periods of time.

1. Avoidant attachers are thus more susceptible to social loneliness and isolation.
2. Even when avoidant attachers do engage in dating and relationships, those relationships are usually casual and short-lived.
3. Avoidant attachers tend to feel threatened by emotional intimacy and use various defense mechanisms.

They typically exaggerate their qualities and positive attributes and minimize their weaknesses and limitations. They might also feel extremely defensive and distressed when their partners bring light to their imperfections and flaws. On the other hand, avoidant attachers might look down on their partners and be quite critical of them.

Do Avoidants care about you?

Dismissive Avoidant: 5 Ways to Tell an Avoidant CARES So you’ve gotten yourself into a relationship with somebody that you believe to be a love avoidant and in that relationship you don’t know if they actually care about you. Well, in today’s blog I’m going to give you five ways to tell whether or not your avoidant cares.

1. The first way you can tell your avoidant cares about you is when they give you their time.
2. Avoidants tend to not want to give anything or anybody their time or their energy.
3. If it doesn’t serve them any purpose, they won’t do it.
4. So if they are with you and they are giving you their time, that is a really good indication that they care about you and they are putting you as a priority.

It’s a sign that they’re moving towards having something a little bit more substantial with you. The second thing that they will do is they will offer their space. I often don’t recommend moving into an avoidant’s home because things can get real rocky and things can fall apart unless you lay out a good plan on how you guys are going to cohabitate.

1. You should have a clear vision on what space is going to be yours and what is going to be theirs.
2. Also, what quality time is going to look like because most of the time they may not want to be around you.
3. When you guys were dating and going through the courtship stage they probably felt like they had to be there to entertain you.

But when you move in with them or they give you their space, that’s a huge indication that they care about you and they want to make things work. When an avoidant offers up what they need to offer up in order to make you feel comfortable and safe, you need to do it in the correct way, because nothing can make an anxious and avoidant dynamic fall apart quicker than you moving in with them.

1. Make sure that you do it the correct way, but if they’re offering it to you, they care about you.
2. The third way that they will show that they care about you is when they give you money, resources, and things that they worked hard to get.
3. For example, if they offer to give you something that they think you can benefit from before they sell or donate it, they are showing they care about you and want you to feel comfortable.

The fourth thing that they will do is they will come back to an argument or a disagreement that you guys had. This is when they are starting to move towards becoming more secure with you. They will come back to things like uncomfortable conversations. They will bring it back up, talk about it, and will want to resolve the issue.

I see this more with men who are avoidants that are trying to become more secure and they want to communicate better with their spouses. This is them showing that they care and those are the times when they see the potential in their partner. They are able to not just sweep things under the rug and not make you feel like you are not important.

The last thing they will do is they will apologize. This may seem like common sense and like something that you should already know, but for them apologizing makes them feel shameful. Avoiding attachment style is an insecure attachment style which means they already feel like they can’t bring anything to the table.

They don’t know how to operate inside the relationship so when you bring something up and you demand an apology it’s going to be really tough for them. It probably goes back to when they were always being blamed and always had to take the responsibility for the things that they did. It makes them feel inadequate.

I know people will say narcissists don’t apologize either, but narcissistic tendencies aren’t an attachment style. You can have an anxious attachment style but also be a narcissist. There’s an overlap so don’t continue to compare them to people that you know have that character flaw.

Do Avoidants take a long time to text back?

3. Slow to text back – Dismissive avoidants don’t like instant back-and-forth texting unless it’s urgent or they’re really interested. Their typical response is to take their time when texting back. To them, it doesn’t matter when you text back as long as you do text back.

Do avoidants ever regret losing you?

Do dismissive avoidants feel regret after the break-up? – Yes. Some dismissive avoidants feel regret the break-up as soon as it happens, especially if they had formed some form of attachment. Some dismissive avoidants try to get back together right after the break-up and other’s offer a friendship out of regret.

1. Most f the time however, a dismissive avoidant ex’s regret is not “I wish we were still together” but more like “I wish this didn’t happen.” And believe it or not, there are dismissive avoidants who feel really bad for hurting someone who cared for them and tried to love them but found it too hard.
2. Many dismissive avoidants know they’re “not easy to love”.

Even dismissive avoidants who aren’t that self-aware deep inside know “something is not right” about their relationships. Some dismissive avoidants will even tell you they’re “difficult” to be in a relationship with. At times, a dismissive avoidant will warn you that they will hurt you or break your heart even before the relationship begins.

Do Avoidants actually care about you?

Dismissive Avoidant: 5 Ways to Tell an Avoidant CARES So you’ve gotten yourself into a relationship with somebody that you believe to be a love avoidant and in that relationship you don’t know if they actually care about you. Well, in today’s blog I’m going to give you five ways to tell whether or not your avoidant cares.

The first way you can tell your avoidant cares about you is when they give you their time. Avoidants tend to not want to give anything or anybody their time or their energy. If it doesn’t serve them any purpose, they won’t do it. So if they are with you and they are giving you their time, that is a really good indication that they care about you and they are putting you as a priority.

It’s a sign that they’re moving towards having something a little bit more substantial with you. The second thing that they will do is they will offer their space. I often don’t recommend moving into an avoidant’s home because things can get real rocky and things can fall apart unless you lay out a good plan on how you guys are going to cohabitate.

You should have a clear vision on what space is going to be yours and what is going to be theirs. Also, what quality time is going to look like because most of the time they may not want to be around you. When you guys were dating and going through the courtship stage they probably felt like they had to be there to entertain you.

But when you move in with them or they give you their space, that’s a huge indication that they care about you and they want to make things work. When an avoidant offers up what they need to offer up in order to make you feel comfortable and safe, you need to do it in the correct way, because nothing can make an anxious and avoidant dynamic fall apart quicker than you moving in with them.

Make sure that you do it the correct way, but if they’re offering it to you, they care about you. The third way that they will show that they care about you is when they give you money, resources, and things that they worked hard to get. For example, if they offer to give you something that they think you can benefit from before they sell or donate it, they are showing they care about you and want you to feel comfortable.

The fourth thing that they will do is they will come back to an argument or a disagreement that you guys had. This is when they are starting to move towards becoming more secure with you. They will come back to things like uncomfortable conversations. They will bring it back up, talk about it, and will want to resolve the issue.

I see this more with men who are avoidants that are trying to become more secure and they want to communicate better with their spouses. This is them showing that they care and those are the times when they see the potential in their partner. They are able to not just sweep things under the rug and not make you feel like you are not important.

The last thing they will do is they will apologize. This may seem like common sense and like something that you should already know, but for them apologizing makes them feel shameful. Avoiding attachment style is an insecure attachment style which means they already feel like they can’t bring anything to the table.

1. They don’t know how to operate inside the relationship so when you bring something up and you demand an apology it’s going to be really tough for them.
2. It probably goes back to when they were always being blamed and always had to take the responsibility for the things that they did.
3. It makes them feel inadequate.

I know people will say narcissists don’t apologize either, but narcissistic tendencies aren’t an attachment style. You can have an anxious attachment style but also be a narcissist. There’s an overlap so don’t continue to compare them to people that you know have that character flaw.

Do avoidants ever regret leaving?

Understanding When A Fearful Avoidant Will Actually Feel Regret – I hate to sound like a broken record because I talk about this all the time but I feel it’s important to mention.2019 and 2020 were the year of the interview for me. I conducted dozens of interviews with our success stories to find out what worked for them. But what really shocked me with our success stories had to do with the timing of when the emotions of the breakup hit them. With most attachment styles there is an immediate grieving process that begins. Secure people grieve. Anxious people REALLY grieve.

• But avoidants well, they have a wave of relief that overtakes them initially.
• This euphoria is often rooted in a release of pressure due to the confines of a relationship breaking down.
• But that doesn’t mean they don’t grieve.
• This might be crazy to wrap your head around but we’ve found consistently among our success stories that avoidant exes tended to come back after our clients completely moved on.

Most of the time someone comes into our orbit wanting an ex back, This is energy that comes through when they begin the communication process with their ex. If you’re overcome with this energy or extreme want it almost telegraphs your intentions and your ex is wary of everything you’re doing or saying.

Yet our success stories would often give up on their exes after getting frustrated and THAT’S when they saw results. Why? Well, our research has shown that a fearful avoidant will only give themselves permission to “long” or have “nostalgia” for a breakup after they are sure there is no chance of a reconnection ever happening.

I talk about that concept a lot in this video. But the theory behind it is sound. We already know that an avoidant hates thinking about the past or the present. So, the only way they’d ever consider doing so is if all chances of reconnection are entirely removed.

Do avoidants ever want you back?

Today we’re going to talk about if fearful avoidants ever come back after a breakup. Believe it or not the answer to that question is a little bit complicated. We have found that on average a fearful avoidant will not initiate a reconnection with you. However, there is a window of time where they do consider it and if you time it right you can get them to come back if that’s what you want.