Avoidants tend to be slow in texting back except when they're interested. When their guard is down, and they experience safety in a relationship, they'll text back more often and quickly. If they don't text you back, don't immediately take it as a sign they're uninterested. They may be analyzing you.
Avoidant Attachment Style
These people might feel inundated or overwhelmed by someone who texts them constantly throughout the day. They may interpret the other person's actions as clingy and feel suffocated by them.
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. They won't text you because likely when you were in a relationship with them, you were the one to initiate most of the contact.
An avoidant will miss you, the moment they realize that they have lost you forever. This is not easy for them too because at one moment everything is lovely for them. They want to get to know you more, but when the connection feels too heavy for them, they back up.
In closing, I just want to say going no contact works with pretty much every attachment style, but it's different for the fearful avoidant. You have to give it that time of three to four weeks in order for them to start to feel those emotions for you again and actually get back into their activated state.
Texting too much can quickly overwhelm a dismissive-avoidant. They tend to have a low opinion of people who prefer texting all day and believe they have nothing better to do. Dismissive avoidants focus on themselves a lot, and texting others (focusing on others) comes in the way of focusing on 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.
Do avoidants come back— Does a fearful avoidant chase you as well? Yes, but there's also a possibility that they might not return. A dismissive partner may or may not come back, depending on the relationship you both shared. It takes a lot for a dismissive partner to acknowledge their true feelings for you.
Less engagement means a dismissive avoidant ex needs more space, and more engagement means they need less space and you should therefore reach out more. As things pick up and there's flow of communication, dismissive avoidants start to feel the emotions that they'd numbed down, and reach out more.
This response isn't to suggest that avoidant attachers don't feel the pain of a breakup – they do. They're just prone to pushing down their heartbreak and attempting to carry on with life as normal.
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.
Rejection, for those who are fearful-avoidant, can also feel terrifying. In fact, many times this fearful style can lead them to perceive threat and rejection all around them. They have often not developed the mechanisms to deal with loss earlier in their lives and therefore struggle to make sense of things.
Some people, avoidant or not, don't like receiving “good morning” and “good night” texts from anyone. It's a boundary they don't want crossed. Some of them have don't text be before this time in the morning and after that time in the night boundary.
Avoidants On Average Take Longer To Reconnect With
Generally when they enter into a relationship they are looking for an excuse to leave the moment that other person is perceived as threatening their independence. Again, not the super complicated version of avoidants that you were probably expecting.
Whereas the avoidant is someone afraid of intimacy and emotional closeness and has a high need for independence and solitude. If your ex has an anxious attachment style, they likely moved on slower than an average person. Whereas if they have an avoidant one, they likely moved on faster than an average person.
Avoidants believe that no one else gets them, and they need time to themselves to organize their thoughts and feelings. It hurts, but chasing after them when they want to be alone will push them even farther away since they'll feel like their independence is threatened.
Do avoidants ever come back? Yes, but let's clarify. Avoidants do sometimes cycle back around to those they have shut out, disappeared on, and ignored. However, just because they come back this doesn't mean this is a viable relationship.
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.
Vulnerability is one of the biggest triggers for a dismissive-avoidant due to childhood wounds. Dismissive-avoidants value independence. Any need to rely on someone else triggers a sense of weakness. Fear of being trapped and controlled by someone else.
If you feel that your avoidant partner isn't recognizing your love or reciprocating your efforts, it's time to leave. While you might feel emotions like sadness, anger, fear, or grief, this is all part of the healing process. Allow yourself to feel the painful feelings of your breakup.
Avoidants will shut down if they feel like you're rushing them. Let your partner take the lead in the relationship so things progress at their pace. It might feel like you're going nowhere sometimes, but your partner will slowly grow more comfortable in your relationship. They just need to be sure you won't leave.
Double texts may turn them off. “Relationships are usually surface-level as they do not know how to be vulnerable with others,” Luther says, “and double texting could come off as 'needy' and not something [to which] the avoidant person is comfortable committing.”
According to researchers, avoidants distance from romantic partners by using various “deactivating strategies” in relationships. These methods and strategies are like an “anti-intimacy” toolbox. They consciously or unconsciously deny their needs for attachment and connection.
The avoidant side demands less fight, says they cannot remain present in conflict, uses abandonment as a tool, a weapon (“the silent treatment”)—the only thing their partner can hear.