Avoidants aren't the chasing type. If their feelings for you were not so strong, there is every chance they will simply try to block you from their mind and move on. Even if they do care for you, the very nature of an avoidant means they're unlikely to start a hot and dedicated pursuit of you.
Fearful avoidants both want and fear intimacy. So they seek closeness. But once they do, their fear of intimacy and attachment kicks in and they suddenly feel the need to escape, and this is when they need you to chase them.
After all, navigating your way through the signs an avoidant loves you can be challenging. The answer is yes. See, good news! It is possible for avoidants to chase the people that they're romantically interested in.
Although breaking up is a negative experience for most of us, avoidants feel relief when you stop chasing them. It's like binge eating on a diet or skipping work when you're not sick. It's a negative situation, but the avoidant feels good about it if they see you don't expect them to acknowledge you or contact you.
Once again, people with a dismissive-avoidant style showed that they did care about relationships. Dismissive avoidant students reported higher self-esteem and positive mood than non-dismissives—but only when told that surgency predicts future interpersonal success.
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.
Some studies showed that differences in attachment styles seem to influence both the frequency and the patterns of jealousy expression: individuals with the preoccupied or fearful-avoidant attachment styles more often become jealous and consider rivals as more threatening than those with the secure attachment style [9, ...
Feeling pressured to open up
Because of their childhood wounds, being vulnerable tends to be a huge trigger for people with an avoidant attachment style. They have spent years, if not decades, building barriers around them to keep others out.
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.
Avoidantly attached people are prone to “shutting down, numbing, rigid compartmentalizing, and pushing away,” Mary Chen, LFMT, tells SELF. And these suppression techniques can feel “exactly like rejection” to their partners, making it hard to approach—and therefore understand—avoidants!
On the other hand, people with an avoidant attachment may be attracted to anxious partners because their pursuit and need for closeness reinforce the avoidant person's need for independence and self-reliance. Anxious and avoidant partners may also seek their partner's traits due to wanting those traits in themselves.
If an avoidant starts pulling away, let them know that you care but do not chase them. It may be very painful to do this, but pursuing them is likely to make it take longer for them to come back. They need breathing space, to feel safe with their own thoughts and unengulfed.
Avoidant people may not realize how much their communication is avoidant as they may consciously want to have a companion. It is their heart (unconscious) that has shut down to being in a love relationship. As a result the person will give mixed messages.
They go out of their way to spend time with you.
So they often try to keep people at a distance for as long as they can out of reluctance to take things to a deeper level. This being said, if your avoidant partner prioritizes you and goes out of their way to spend time with you, they're likely in love.
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. 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.
As a result of turning off their emotions, avoidant attachers are not likely to over-reflect on why a relationship didn't work out. Yet, interestingly, this reaction means that avoidant attachers may struggle to move on from previous relationships as quickly as they could if they had dealt with their emotions head-on.
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.
So, they are more at a loss when you stop chasing them. They are miserable, sad, and broken. The worst part is that some avoidants may never differentiate their own emotions. They think 'being aloof' is the only way they can be safe and away from the emotional desert.
Every avoidant is different, but deactivation generally lasts anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. Most fearful avoidants will reach out or begin responding again after 2 – 5 days because they want connection and feel happier in relationships.
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.
Avoidant / dismissive adults still self regulate in unhealthy ways; they might feel threatened by triggering dating or relationship situations, such as a partner trying to get emotionally close, and they might shut down their emotions in an attempt to feel safe and avoid feeling vulnerable.
Dismissive-avoidant after breakup: short-term
So in the aftermath of a painful breakup, they are less likely to turn to friends and family. They want to deal with things on their own. And when it comes to challenging, romantic feelings, airing their 'dirty laundry' is often the last thing they want to do.
As such, individuals with a dismissive-avoidant attachment style tend to deny feelings and take their sovereignty to an extreme. They don't rely on others and don't want others to rely on them, they keep their innermost thoughts to themselves, and they find it difficult to ask for help.
Love Avoidants fear vulnerability, intimacy, dependence, and genuine love. This avoidance of connection stems from difficulty developing healthy attachments in their early life. It is a form of self-preservation.