Avoidant Exes Regret The Breakup When You Tell Them This

A breakup with an avoidant ex is never easy.

You’re in tears and it’s like they don’t even care at all.

There’s a fundamental disconnect between the two of you… a gap that you just can’t bridge.

So I understand the impulse to try to make them regret the breakup. This isn’t about revenge… it’s about making them see what they’ve lost.

And the good news is that if you follow my advice, not only can you make your ex feel like they made a mistake, you can also bring them back to you for another chance.

First, you need to know that just because they may act like they have no emotions, it doesn’t mean that your avoidant ex truly doesn’t care about you.

Most often, this coldness is just a mask. Avoidants are very good at hiding what they feel inside.

But this mask works so well that they’re often confused about their own feelings. All they can do is keep stonewalling, ignoring and running away.

So then how do you access these emotions, and how do we get them to stop running? Well first off, let’s talk about what not to do.

Mistakes People Make When Talking To Their Avoidant Ex

Many people don’t know how to treat avoidants. And it’s hard to blame them. Every avoidant, by definition, struggles to communicate their needs and emotions clearly… so that leaves you with a mixed up picture of what they’re thinking and feeling.

And that’s why so many people make the kind of mistakes that cause avoidants to get upset, turn away, and ultimately back off for good. These are the mistakes that caused disconnection in your relationship and led to the breakup.

This isn’t to blame you for what happened, because you were only doing what came naturally to you. But with avoidants, following your intuition doesn’t work.

And it’s not going to work after the breakup, either. You’re not going to get your ex to feel regret by trying to shame them for breaking up with you. You can’t insult, bully or embarrass them into missing you.

You also can’t be overly kind, gentle or caring towards them. You really can’t be too aggressive in any way or it’s going to be obvious that you’re trying to manipulate them and change their feelings towards you.

Avoidants are extra sensitive to manipulation. Whereas most exes will at least be flattered by your desire to win them back, avoidants will only feel threatened.

How To Handle Your Avoidant Ex

Basically, you want to hide your emotions the way THEY’RE hiding theirs. This will accomplish a couple things.

First, it will make your ex feel safer. Because avoidants are threatened by emotional outbursts and don’t often know how to navigate difficult emotions, they feel safer when things are more low key and less emotionally charged. So if you can be more chill, your ex will be attracted to that.

And second, it’s going to make your ex worry about losing you. THIS is the real emotion we’re trying to elicit in your ex: that fear that you’re going to move on and leave them in the dust. If you can make them feel this, they’ll not only regret the break up but they’ll come running back to you in hopes of winning you back.

So if they’re used to seeing you sad and depressed or overly friendly, or even angry, then they know that you want them back. But it’s when you drop all that and become casual and restrained that they’ll think that you’re totally over them.

Once you’re able to calm down and keep your emotions to yourself in front of your ex, you’ll be in the perfect position to begin winning them back for good.

So stop telling them how much you miss them, how they need to come back, and how you’ve changed.

And stop spending all your time talking to them. It doesn’t matter how much you’re able to keep your feelings inside, if you text your ex ten times a day and cancel your plans to hang out with them, there isn’t going to be any doubt that you’re still interested.

This is where No Contact can be so effective, because not only does it give your ex a chance to process the breakup and start to miss you, it starts to put your feelings for them in doubt which makes them want to chase you.

Basically, by changing how you treat your ex and going No Contact, you get your ex into a zone where they’re not sure what you’re feeling and what you want from them. That’s going to make them curious and curiosity is going to create interest.

What To Say To Your Avoidant Ex

Again, we need to be subtle here. Don’t proceed with this step until you’re back in regular contact with your ex.

Because whatever message you send them out of the blue is going to be picked apart… and if your ex has a brain in their head, it’ll be very clear what you’re trying to do.

You want this to be an offhand remark that seems totally casual and real, rather than a targeted nuclear strike on their emotions.

So by now you’ve evened up the playing field a bit and you’ve gotten back into more regular contact. What can you say to them to make them regret the breakup and kickstart their feelings for you?

This is the message you want them to receive: you’re moving on to bigger and better things, they messed up by ending things but you don’t hold it against them because—and this is crucial—they’re just not capable of giving you what you need in a relationship.

But you don’t want to say it in these exact words. Here’s how you should handle it.

You get them talking and then, mid conversation, you stop responding to their messages for a couple of days. Then you hit them with something like this:

“Sorry I missed your text! I’ve been really busy. I know this breakup has sucked for both of us but I’ve finally started to accept that it’s all for the best.

I guess it took me awhile to see what you saw: you just can’t give me what I need in a relationship…and that’s okay.”

Despite the casual tone, this is a heavy message because of what it’s going to mean to your ex. It’s going to make them feel a lot of pain for how they handled not only the breakup, but the relationship itself.

It’s going to confirm for them the avoidant’s biggest fear: that they’re not able to make a committed relationship work because they lack the capacity for intimacy and vulnerability.

Now I’m sure they never expressed this to you. In fact, they probably made you feel like you were the problem: a classic avoidant tactic to avoid accountability.

And that’s because deep down, they’re terrified of the idea that it’s all their fault.

That if they weren’t so avoidant, then the relationship would have been better for both of you and they’d never felt the desire to end things.

And this idea is going to destroy their hopes of starting a new relationship.

Because if this is their issue, then why would it be any different with someone else?

They’ll see that, while they can run from you, they can’t run from themselves.

This is going to hurt them deeply, and it will probably make them pull away from you for a bit.

They’ll be lost in their own head. But over time, this message is actually going to bring them back to you.

Because it will show them that you’ve been paying attention. You were able to really figure out what makes them tick.

You really see them. And you acknowledge this stuff without casting harsh judgment on them.

Just like many people, avoidants fear being judged by someone who truly knows and understands them.

This would feel like the ultimate exposure for someone who has worked so hard to avoid intimacy and vulnerability.

So knowing that you don’t have any hard feelings towards them for the breakup…it makes them feel drawn to you. It makes them think that maybe they’d misjudged you.

They’ll see that they did actually let you in—even if it was unintentional—and the results weren’t nearly as catastrophic as they expected.

So maybe getting closer to you is not only possible, but it’s the best option for them moving forward.

Next Steps

So again, don’t expect your ex to get this message and show up at your door with flowers ten minutes later.

This is just laying the groundwork for them to slowly realize what they’ve lost.

Don’t be concerned if they don’t respond how you’d like them to.

They may change the subject or even leave you on read. But trust me, they’re thinking about what you said all day.

The important thing is that you never need to bring this up again, or try to push them to respond to you.

This is only going to make them realize that this message wasn’t so innocent. And if they feel like you’re manipulating them they’re just going to run away.

So let it sit and give them space. You’ll come to see that giving an avoidant space is almost always a good move.

People really resist this idea because they don’t want to give their ex what they want.

They think it will set a bad precedent where their ex can just show up whenever they feel like it and then disappear. And yes, there is some truth to this, so you really have to strike a balance.

But giving your ex space isn’t about sacrificing your own needs or letting them run the show.

It will actually help you get what you want from them in the long run. Because when an avoidant is left alone they start to miss you. This goes for both in a relationship and after a breakup.

And because they don’t feel pressured to stay in constant contact, it becomes their choice to reconnect with you.

This is powerful because avoidants so often feel pressured by their romantic partners and that causes resentment.

Whenever they make the active choice to reach out to you first, it strengthens your bond.

Because it reinforces the neural pathways that associate YOU with their desires. Instead of being an annoyance who is always bugging them for attention, you become what they’re striving for.

Your scarcity becomes your strength…your appeal. And it’s going to attract them in a powerful way, if you can keep your distance.

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.