Your Avoidant Ex Isn’t Coming Back Until You Do This

If your avoidant ex hasn’t come back, it’s not because they don’t love you enough. It’s not even because they want to be alone.

It’s because they think that connecting with you is going to be dangerous so they hold back.

But there is something that you can do to ease their fears so they’re able to cross that gap and come back to you.

The one thing that will make an avoidant ex come back is this: Emotional Independence.

This is key to not only attracting avoidants in the first place, but to making them commit to you and stick around for the long haul.

So let’s talk about what exactly I mean by Emotional Independence, how you can create it within yourself, and how you can show your ex that you have it.

What Is Emotional Independence And How Do You Create It?

So what is emotional independence… and why does it matter so much with an avoidant ex?

It means you can handle your own emotions without needing another person to constantly steady you.

You can feel lonely, anxious, stressed, or disappointed… and still stay grounded.

That doesn’t mean you become cold or stop caring. It simply means a relationship adds to your life.

It doesn’t become the only thing holding it together.

And this is where many people go wrong after a breakup.

They don’t just miss their ex… they rely on their ex.

Their ex became their comfort, their confidence, their routine, their emotional centre.

So when that person pulls away, everything feels like it’s collapsing.

That panic creates pressure. You overanalyse texts. You need reassurance. You want to talk constantly. You feel desperate to fix things right now.

And avoidants feel that energy immediately. Because one of the main things avoidants pull away from is feeling responsible for someone else’s emotional state.

Even if they still love you, if closeness feels heavy… they retreat.

This is why chasing harder often backfires.

The more you try to force connection from fear, the more they associate you with pressure.

But when you become emotionally independent, things change. You stop needing every text to go well.

You stop treating them like the solution to your pain. You become calmer, more confident, and easier to be around.

And now reconnecting with you no longer feels like signing up to carry your emotions.

You become someone they can choose… not someone they have to manage.

That shift is powerful not just for getting an ex back, but for every relationship you’ll ever have.

So how do you build emotional independence starting today?

STEP ONE: Stop Trying To Fix It

One of the reasons that people fail to get back an avoidant is because they’re stuck in repair mode.

They see the relationship as broken and they’re trying to put it back together.

They think if they say the right things in the right order it’s going to fix all the issues that they’ve been having and make things go back to the way they were a few months ago.

But guess what: a few months ago, things were hurtling down the path towards the breakup you’re now experiencing.

It didn’t just happen out of the blue one day…it’s been months or years in the making.

So forget about fixing things between you and your ex. The relationship you had is over and that’s a good thing.

This breakup is a chance at a fresh start where you can build something new…something better.

STEP TWO: Cope The Right Way

If you’re about to text your ex, stop. Ask yourself, why do I want to reach out to them?

I think you’ll find the answer isn’t that you need them to survive and that your life without them is worthless.

It’s that you’re feeling anxious, sad, disconnected or out of control.

So instead of using your ex to try to relieve these bad feelings, find another outlet.

For me, it’s going for a walk, calling a friend, reading a book.

You need to find the coping skills that settle your nerves and centre you.

If you don’t have them yet, take the time to experiment and try new things.

Just watch out for negative coping skills like doomscrolling on your phone, overeating, or binge drinking… these may relieve the pain for a minute, but will only make it come back stronger.

Taking the right path—finding new coping skills that help you—is going to be hard.

It won’t be as immediately satisfying as texting your ex would.

But over time, it’s going to get easier, and more effective. And the realization that you can feel better entirely on your own is priceless.

When you really believe that you don’t need your ex to feel better, everything becomes way easier and avoidants feel far less pressure.

STEP THREE: Reframe Love

A lot of us never really think about love and relationships in a conscious way.

It’s so instinctual that we just naturally connect with another person and grow together.

But that doesn’t mean that we don’t have beliefs about how relationships are supposed to work, what they represent, and what they offer.

And some of these beliefs are toxic. For example, here’s one I’ve heard a lot: love means never having to say you’re sorry.

The idea being that if your partner knows you love them, then you don’t have to apologize because you obviously had good intentions.

If you think about this for two seconds, I think you’ll realize that this is complete nonsense.

Just because you love someone doesn’t mean that you’re suddenly going to be completely unselfish and never make a mistake or that the other person won’t need to hear an apology to feel your love.

Here’s another one: “when you find the right person, everything will be easy.”

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that even the healthiest, strongest relationships only became that way through hard work on both sides.

There are so many of these beliefs that we hold that can make us act entitled and oblivious and cause us to hold our partners to impossible standards.

I think many people hold the belief that it’s our partner’s responsibility to cheer us up whenever we’re feeling blue. And while this is a nice idea, it can lead to you relying on your partner too much.

And then what happens when BOTH of you are having a bad day?

THIS is why emotional independence is so important.

When you realize that your happiness is your responsibility, you’re going to see that you’ve been making your relationship the only pillar holding up your life and how you need other forms of support if you’re going to make it.

STEP FOUR: Master Your Anger

Anger is destructive. To counter this, we try to push it down and lock it away where it can’t hurt us or our partners.

But when we don’t deal with our anger, it turns into jealousy, scorekeeping, passive aggression and resentment.

And after a breakup this is even more harmful. Even if we still love the other person, we feel a lot of resentment towards them for giving up and running away.

For rejecting us and leaving us in the dark…And this is a natural response to this situation. It’s not wrong to feel this way.

What is wrong—or, at least, counterproductive—is letting your anger rule your actions and change the way you treat your ex.

And if you can’t escape this mindset, you’re going to lose them…no exceptions.

I’ve seen so many people torpedo their relationship with their ex this way.

It’s like the more time they spend with their ex, the better things are going, the more unhappy they become. Because their ex seems happy instead of ashamed or apologetic.

They don’t acknowledge the mistakes they’ve made and they do nothing to make it right. It’s like they’re just trying to brush it under the rug.

RELATED: Your Avoidant Ex NEEDS You (What Happens When You Walk Away)

And I hate to say it, but your ex is actually the one in the right here.

At this stage, nothing good can come from hashing out issues like these. Sure, maybe you’ll feel better, but maybe it’ll just start a bigger fight and remind you of mistakes that you weren’t even thinking about.

So really, your ex may feel really terrible but they’re keeping these feelings to themselves. Not because they don’t care but because they don’t want to rock the boat and risk upsetting you.

So remember, a time will come for these conversations but that time is not until the two of you are back together and have established a safer footing.

So, for now, give your ex some grace, accept that they’re trying, and stop waiting for an apology.

STEP FIVE: Achieve Your Dreams

Now living your perfect life is a pretty high level expectation to put on yourself.

But here’s the thing…you don’t have to actually achieve all of your dreams before you reconnect. What you need to do is take SMALL STEPS in the right direction.

One of the reasons that relationships fail is that we make them our whole world.

Then, when things cool off, we look at our lives and we feel like we’re stuck in a rut. Our body, our job, our hobbies, they all feel like a dead end.

But this is just what happens when we stop striving for something better. Our world becomes small…limited.

And so do the people around us. It seems like everyone is just going to be the same flawed person, forever.

But life didn’t get boring…WE got boring. Because we stopped looking for what’s next.

So to combat this, you need to make big moves. Think about what you want, set goals, make a plan, and start working towards it.

This can be as small as doing a single pull up or as big as opening a restaurant…what matters is that you make a sincere effort and look far ahead into the future.

And sincere is the key word here. I’ve seen people who put their effort into appearing like they’ve changed.

They take a couple of gym selfies or they tell anyone who will listen that they’ve quit drinking, hoping it gets back to their ex.

And while some of them actually get back in contact with their ex, once they actually see each other in real life, their ex is immediately able to tell that nothing has changed…and so they don’t stay.

You really can’t fake this one. So, unfortunately, you will actually have to improve your life.

But once you get started, even if it’s only a few small steps, your confidence and self assurance will start to build.

You won’t even need to tell your ex that you’ve started training for a tough mudder, or play them the song you’ve written…they’ll feel the difference in how you carry yourself and where your priorities are.

This is often enough to make your ex see that you’ve changed and that if they do come back, things will be different this time around.

STEP SIX: Hire A Professional

If you’ve tried everything and nothing has worked, you need to seek outside help. I’ve personally helped tens of thousands of people transform their relationships with their exes and reconnect for good.

It’s not enough to go off feelings and vibes here…real experience wins every time.

Did you know that I offer one-on-one coaching via email? Click here to learn about my approach and see if I’ve got any spots open right now.

I tailor my advice to your specific situation and together we work out a custom strategy to help you get your ex back in your arms.

Once you sign up, we can start talking immediately and begin the process of rebuilding what you’ve lost.

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.