The Truth About When Avoidants Come Back – Transcript

00:00If you've ever had an avoidant ex come back after months or even years of silence, you've probably wondered to yourself, "Did they finally realize what they lost? Do they finally realize the mistake they made in losing me?" And the answer might be yes, but in most cases, it's no, not in the way that you think. So, in this video, I'm going to explain why avoidants often come back, especially dismissive avoidants, and what's really going on beneath the surface here, and how to handle it when

00:27they do come back. So, here's the thing. They often come back when the threat is gone. And what's the threat? Emotional closeness, emotional intimacy. Your expectations felt overwhelming. Emotional intimacy felt threatening. Vulnerability triggered anxiety, internal anxiety that they suppressed. And commitment felt suffocating cuz a commitment ties into intimacy. At the end of the day, intimacy, accountability, vulnerability, all these things that really trigger

00:55them, it all stems from one core wound, defectiveness. When you're dealing with a dismissive avoidant or a fearful avoidant that leans heavily dismissive, you are dealing with a person with a core wound of shame. It's the defective wound. And that's because they were emotionally neglected in childhood in a very profound way. But it's not just the emotional neglect. They also had a very critical, controlling parent, often a narcissistic parent that was very

01:21dismissive of their emotions, rejected their feelings, but demanded that they catered to the emotions of that parent, while also putting heavy expectations on them, expectations that they struggled to meet.

01:35So, they learned to suppress their emotions. They learned it wasn't safe to be vulnerable or have needs. And they also personalized that environment growing up to feel defective and unlovable, like there's just something wrong with them.

01:48And they also learned that anybody you get close to is going to smother you and control you like that narcissistic parent did. That's what they subconsciously associate closeness with. So, intimacy, emotional closeness, vulnerability to them means I get exposed for being defective. My partner will realize that I'm just a disappointment. They're not going to like what they see when I lower my walls, and they're going to reject me, but they're also going to smother me and control me. So, closeness means anxiety

02:14to them. So, once they get too close to you, their nervous system lights on fire with danger, danger, danger. You see, in the beginning they were able to show up, but that's because there was no real deep emotional intimacy yet. It was still new. It was a novelty, a fantasy.

02:30They were riding the dopamine wave, dopamine being the reward hormone. They were loving how you're making them feel, and that's what love is to most unhealed dismissive avoidants is how you make them feel in that moment. They were never exposed to healthy love as a child. Healthy love is also a choice, that choice you make to choose your person.

02:50But, that was never modeled to them. So, they're they they'd love to escape things, to numb out, right? The dopamine chase here, the validation there, the distraction here, because it all distracts them from feeling the emotions that they're trying to avoid, because feeling emotions was unsafe. That was modeled to them.

03:07And, it's all about creating emotional distance. It gets real Oh. Gets Feels like danger, right? Now, there's accountability. Now, you have expectations on them. Now, you're expecting them to really be vulnerable. Now, you're expecting them to commit at a deeper level. And, that all triggers the defectiveness wound. So, they exit to relieve themselves stress. You're devastated. You're discarded. Your heart is shattered, but they are feeling

03:33relief. So, it starts to feel safe again, because the threat is gone. Now, there's emotional distance between the two of you. So, once they leave, the pressure disappears. The expectations disappear, because you're not in a relationship anymore. Their anxiety disappears. Now, they start to ruminate on you. They start to fantasize about you in an idealistic way.

03:56And you become the one that got away, especially if you're in no contact and you're not chasing them. Now, they feel safer because they're missing you. They're no longer feeling the pressure of having to meet your needs and show up for you and be vulnerable and meet your expectations or anything of the sort. So, they they suddenly become nostalgic once it feels safe again. Because it's always about the fantasy. The fantasy is an escape.

04:20That escape helps them escape themselves, escape the emotions that they're trying to avoid. It's one escape after another if you actually look at the way they conduct their lives. Feeling their emotions they that feels deeply unsafe to them.

04:35Again, they learned emotions unsafe, vulnerability unsafe, so it's constantly a quest to suppress those emotions and to avoid feeling any internal discomfort. They have no process to deal with painful emotions.

04:48So, missing you doesn't mean that they're ready. Missing you doesn't mean that they've changed. This is the reality. You're dealing with a person that avoids dealing with discomfort. You're dealing with a person that avoids feeling and exposing their own shame.

05:03That core wound of defectiveness is a wound of shame. And shame is a toxic emotion. People often confuse it with guilt, but they're not the same thing. Guilt is a healthy emotion. Guilt means you have a conscience. Guilt is your brain's way of saying, "I did something wrong." And if you feel guilty, you can make amends if you hurt somebody or you could stop repeating whatever behavior that you feel guilty about. But where Whereas guilt is, "I did something wrong," shame on the other hand is, "I am something wrong. I'm defective. I'm

05:30not lovable. I'm worthless." And shame is a toxic emotion, and the only healthy resolution to shame is to heal it. But this is a person that's been running from facing their own shame their whole lives. And that shame is why accountability and self-reflection is so painful and so difficult for a dismissive avoidant. As a matter of fact, this is why most of them never change because taking accountability and saying, "Ooh, I hurt this person or I have this shortcoming."

05:58Taking that accountability in a meaningful way becomes the emotional equivalent of confirming that shame. See, I hurt this person is proof I'm defective. Ooh, I have this shortcoming. I sabotage intimacy is proof I'm defective. It's proof I'm worthless.

06:12It's so incredibly painful for them. They have no process to deal with that. So, what they do almost instinctively is the mental gymnastics to make everything they feel or do not their fault. So, instead of saying, "Ooh, I failed to meet my partner's needs."

06:26The partner becomes too needy. They turn it around to make it not their fault because if it's not their fault, they don't have to feel the shame. But because of this, they learn absolutely nothing from every failed relationship. Absolutely nothing.

06:41And the reason they're coming back is not because they've learned a lesson about losing you. It's because they feel safe. Their nervous system is calmed down and they're missing the validation you gave them. They're missing the attention you gave them. They're missing how you made them feel. They're not really missing you per se, at least not in the healthy way. They're missing what you do for them.

07:04So, they're missing you. They They might even think they regret losing you. "Oh, I made a mistake." But there's not deep accountability, right? So, when they come back, you feel, "Ah, you feel validated. Oh, they did regret it. They did miss me. I did mean something to them. Oh, they said they They made a mistake. Oh, they They're not going to do this again, right? They They've learned they don't want to be without me. They're not going to discard me again." Wrong.

07:32Because if they haven't done the deep inner work, if they haven't healed those wounds of shame and they haven't taken radical accountability and really dove in to work on their attachment issues, the same fears, the same triggers around intimacy, vulnerability, accountability, all of that is still going to be there.

07:50And yet, in the beginning, it may seem like they've really changed. And that's because, again, you are now the new escape again. Because there's been distance. Now you're giving them all this validation, you're giving them all this attention. They're getting that flood of dopamine again, the reward hormone.

08:06But, as the relationship becomes more real again, expectations are they they go up, intimacy goes up, accountability is needed, the dopamine plummets, and now their insecurities are unmasked again. And then, just when you thought they'd change, they're discarding you all over again, and the second discard is often way more painful than the first.

08:28So, what are the five main reasons that avoidants do come back? One is loneliness. Okay, the relief of distance wore off, plain and simple. They do long for connection, they just don't have the capacity to sustain it. Two, nostalgia. The They're remembering the highlights and forgetting the problems of the relationship because remembering the highlights becomes a fantasy, another version of escaping themselves and chasing dopamine.

08:52Number three, a rebound failed. They went through the same cycle with someone new, it didn't work, and now they can ruminate on you again. So, funny how a new relationship never solves the underlying issues that they haven't dealt with. Number four, you stopped chasing. Your absence became real, they finally experienced the absence of you. And at some subconscious level, when you're chasing, they feel like they can always have you there.

09:15You're always going to be an option in their back pocket. And when you stop chasing, oh, I might lose this person. And human beings are naturally motivated by a fear of loss, and that kicked in. It doesn't mean they've changed, though. And number five, which is by far the rarest, is genuine self-reflection and growth. That can happen, it's just very, very be It's a very rare one, but it does happen sometimes. And if this is the case, then things might be different. But ask yourself this, what if they haven't done

09:43the genuine self-reflection, if they aren't taking radical accountability, what's the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over and over again expecting a different result. So the question that nobody asks is not why did they come back, it's what's changed since they left. What have they done differently? Are they communicating differently? Are they handling conflict differently? Are they taking radical accountability now? Are they staying emotionally present instead of

10:10distancing? Are they actually going deep instead of surface level? Are they actually meeting needs that they couldn't meet of yours before? Because if the answer's no, you're looking at a reunion round two, but you're not looking at a sustainable relationship, and your heart is about to get shattered again.