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.”
Dismissive avoidants can trigger your anxiety, so it's best to leave them alone for a while. Keep it cool and don't message them. The more you message them, the further you will push them away.
Texting infrequently or not at all is the default mode of existence for dismissive avoidants who value independence more than connection. They'll rarely make attempts to reach out. They don't have the same connection needs as people with other attachment styles. Try not to take their minimal reaching out personally.
Avoidants mostly see such texts as needy, distracting and disrespectful and think/feel “what do you want?”, “don't you have something better to do?” or “why do I have to make you feel better”.
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. But if you wait too long to reach out, they completely detach from the emotions and from you, and move on.
For these reasons, avoidant individuals tend to have fewer long-term relationships and prefer to either abstain from sex or have short-term and casual sex encounters. They are likely to use fantasy or pornography as a substitute for intimacy (similarly to the anxious group) and engage in emotion-free sex.
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.
Pushing or chasing a partner who needs space and emotional boundaries to open up will likely cause them to resist even more. Although it may be difficult to allow a partner with an avoidant attachment style to withdraw when they need to, they will likely come back quicker if they're allowed their space.
Why & How. But often avoidants won't initiate contact with their exes, and they rarely unilaterally initiate reuniting because it creates uncomfortable feelings of vulnerability, and they can feel they don't know how go about fixing things.
If your fearful avoidant ex regularly pulls away for a few days at a time, wait for them to reach out or respond. If it's more than 4 days since you heard from them, send a check-in text. A fearful avoidant leaning anxious will probably need more check-ins.
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.
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.
A fearful avoidant during no contact acts slightly differently from other attachment styles. Going no contact with them can become extremely distracting and often requires a lot of discipline. The fearful-avoidant does not express remorse or sadness over heartbreak in the initial weeks of the breakup.
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.
Give them space when they pull away.
Avoidants need lots of space to feel comfortable in a relationship. Since they're afraid of commitment, spending too much time with them will make them feel smothered. When they start to grow distant, respect their need for time apart, even though it might be hard.
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.
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.
"Hard-to-get behaviors seem to serve as strategies to self-protect and manage potential partners' behaviors. Avoidant people tend to be playing hard-to-get, and anxious people are pursuing them," Gillath concluded.
Because people with an avoidant attachment style fear not being lovable or good enough, feeling criticized or judged by loved ones can be particularly painful. Especially when it comes to things that they are not so comfortable with, such as their emotions and feelings.
An avoidant may also deactivate longer if you act needy, upset and angry when they need space away from you to feel safe again. Since fearful avoidants usually reach out after deactivating for 2 – 5 days, wait up to 3 days to see if they'll reach out before reaching out.
At first an avoidant will go through this period of separation elation and often won't feel your loss until they perceive that you have moved on. At that point they start to reminisce and could potentially start caring if you leave.
A Love Avoidant may only be interested in casual sex or one-night stands. They may have a reputation as a don't-need-anyone person. It's challenging to develop an intimate bond with Love Avoidant people. You may find yourself shut out, feeling lonely, and experiencing gas-lighting behavior.
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, ...