Know This Before You Contact Your Avoidant Ex

You miss them, you regret how things ended, you just want to hear their voice.

You think if you can just talk to them, you can work it out and be happy together, again.

Well before you hit send on that carefully crafted text message, stop.

Because this moment is make or break for your relationship. Depending on what you say, and how you treat your ex right now, you could lose them forever and end up all alone.

The truth is that you can win back your avoidant ex, but it’s going to require you to treat your ex in a way that you don’t expect.

It’s going to require you to really understand avoidant attachment—and how it silently controls your ex’s behaviour—before you even make your first move.

The Truth About Avoidants

So first, I’m going to hit you with some good news: there’s something major that most people get wrong about avoidants.

People seem to be under the impression that avoidants care less than other people, that they don’t feel love as deeply.

Because they always have one foot out the door, they never really get attached and so it’s easy for them to just pack their bags and move out of your life at the first sign of trouble.

They think it’s easy for them to find someone new and forget about you, forever.

But in reality, the opposite is true. Avoidants are good at hiding their feelings. They’re good a pretending they don’t care about you.

They’re good at keeping their emotions inside and acting like they don’t exist.

But if you’ve ever tried to push down your feelings, you know that it doesn’t really work.

It only gives them more control over you because they come to dominate your thoughts and drive your behaviour subconsciously.

So you give your feelings way more power than they’d have if you could own them, acknowledge them, and work through them.

The real difference between avoidants and the rest of us is that they avoid.

They feel these feelings of love and connection—intimacy—and they get scared. They worry that they’ll lose their freedom and their individuality. They worry that they don’t have the emotional tools necessary to keep up this connection with you.

Now it’s not always just pure love and desire that’s making them feel this way.

Chances are they do have issues with the relationship and with your behaviour. But again, they don’t know how to bring them up and so they let them stew and molehills become mountains.

All this really means is that—in most cases I see—the avoidant doesn’t leave because they lost feelings.

They leave because their feelings are becoming too strong—too overwhelming—for them to handle with their limited emotional skillset. They feel like they’re being consumed by these feelings and since they don’t know how to talk about them with you, they think their only outlet is to run away.

They think that it’s the only way to get relief and so they find an excuse to break up and get as far away from you as possible.

How To Approach Your Avoidant Ex

So that’s good news, right? Well it’s good to know that your ex isn’t over you or set on moving on, just yet at least. But it also means that it’s going to completely change how you should approach them.

Because many people go into this situation thinking that their avoidant ex lost feelings, that they pushed their avoidant ex away with their behaviour. And so they approach their ex with the mindset that they need to show their ex that they’ve changed. They try to convince their ex to come back.

And while that makes sense for an ex without avoidant attachment, it’s the wrong approach for an avoidant ex.

Because it can lead you to over the top behaviour that will actually scare your ex away. When you reach out to your avoidant ex and try to connect with them directly, you can easily cross the line and make them feel cornered.

Because avoidant exes aren’t typically in need of more passion, attention and focus.

What they really need is to feel safe, to feel in control and to feel like you respect their boundaries.

So those need to be your goals here. You don’t need to totally change your personality or maximize your ex’s excitement or anything like that. Here’s what you need to do instead:

#1. Be A Safe Place

Part of the reason your ex left is the same reason that they’re now staying away: they started to associate you with stress and pressure. Avoidants hate the feeling that someone wants something from them emotionally. That’s actually one of the core pillars of avoidant attachment…the fear of people who wish to change them and manipulate them emotionally.

So now every time you reach out to them—even with a basic text—they can feel the desperation. They know that you want them back and that this text is just the opening salvo.

And if your conversations always lead to big fights, pleas for attention, or even you begging them for another chance…then can you really blame them for feeling this way? You’ve done all you can to associate yourself with danger in your ex’s mind.

So you need to prove them wrong and change the association they currently have with you.

And you can do this by just slowing down and keeping things casual. So however you start the conversation, don’t drag it out. Don’t try to force them to talk about the breakup or their feelings. Don’t pry into their life too deeply.

And don’t focus on winning them back…focus on the connection.

#2. Find Emotional Independence

Avoidant or not, one of the main reasons that people feel smothered has to do with their partner’s unrealistic expectations of them. Now I’m sure you didn’t expect them to cook your every meal, give you a foot rub every night and buy you jewelry every day.

But your emotional expectations can be just as harmful and overwhelming as your physical ones…and often you’re not even aware of them.

What I see most often is people making their partners responsible for their emotional wellbeing. So if you’re upset, you put it all on your partner to make you feel good again. There’s a difference between wanting your partner to cheer you up when you’re feeling blue and making it their responsibility to make you feel good at all times.

Because when you have this expectation—even subconsciously—then when you have a bad day, you subconsciously blame your partner for not making you feel better…and you resent them for it. It sounds crazy but I see it all the time.

And, of course, your partner feels this pressure you’re putting on you and they become hyper aware of your emotional state, trying to manage your feelings. It’s exhausting.

And the same goes for the reverse. It’s common for people—especially those who date avoidants—to become totally fixated on their partner’s feelings.

And avoidants tend to be less expressive, it’s easy to assume that they’re sad, disconnected, or otherwise upset.

So then you make it your mission to cheer them up. But you often just end up bothering them and coming across as clingy and obsessive.

Because, in reality, they weren’t upset at all. They were just chilling and you came in and disturbed their peace.

You need to break this cycle by developing emotional independence. Emotional independence is the ability to regulate your own emotions within your own mind and body, without making them someone else’s problem.

So people without emotional independence turn to unhealthy coping skills like drugs, alcohol, or food every time they feel discomfort. Or they call up their friends and vent to them until their friends feel frustrated and used.

People with emotional independence work through their feelings on their own time. They think deeply, journal, process and they move forward after regaining their emotional centre.

This is not an easy thing to gain. It can take years of careful attention and practice but it’s extremely possible and it’s invaluable if you want to lead a happy life.

And, of course, if you can even begin the process, it’s going to completely change your relationship with your avoidant ex. You won’t have to say a thing to them. They’ll feel the difference in how you treat them and they’ll be so relieved that they’re no longer in charge of cheering you up or talking you down.

Removing this pressure from the dynamic is often enough to make them come back to you for good because it’s one of the things that’s been bothering them for the entire relationship.

#3. Give Them Back Their Agency

To avoidants, committing to a relationship feels like trading independence for intimacy. But a healthy relationship doesn’t need to feel that way.

One of the primary things that avoidants feel they’re giving up is their AGENCY…their ability to choose how the relationship develops, how quickly things move and what it eventually looks like. And in a way, they’re right, because of how avoidance shapes their behaviour.

The pattern is easy to see. The two of you connect and they start to pull away. They’re still present but they’re always at a distance. That means it’s up to you to push the relationship forward, to try to get them to connect with you and to determine the flow of the relationship.

Because they’re stuck in a state of constant retreat, they’re always reacting to your actions rather than making active choices.

So this puts you in the driver’s seat in a way that neither of you feel good about. They feel pressured and you feel neglected.

But it’s easy to correct this imbalance. All you have to do is give a little bit of the power back. And the way you do this is by letting them set the pace.

So once the two of you have started to reconnect a bit, you just need to defer to your ex more than you typically would. Wait for them to text you first. Let them decide where and when you meet up. Give them space to think things through.

This is going to be difficult, I know, but it’s essential to repairing the connection you have. Because it makes them feel like they are finally able to have some control over how the relationship develops.

And if you can do this effectively, they’ll start to realize that they want to spend more time with you. Instead of running away from you, they’ll be pursuing you actively. Because really, all they need is a little space to see how much they want to be with you.

Brad Browning

Brad Browning is widely regarded as the world's most trusted breakup experts, boasting over 12 years of experience working with clients from around the world. Brad's #1 best-selling breakup reversal guide, The Ex Factor, has helped more than 130,000 people from 131 countries to re-unite with an ex. Brad is also the author of Mend The Marriage, a comprehensive self-help guide that teaches married couples how to save their dying marriage and prevent divorce. Brad’s YouTube channel has over 400,000 subscribers and 50 million views, and he has been featured in a number of well-known media outlets and industry journals.

Know This Before You Contact Your Avoidant Ex

By Brad Browning

The Truth About Avoidants