10 Strong Signs You Are Obsessed With Your Avoidant Ex

If you’re here reading this, chances are you still have strong feelings for your avoidant ex and want them back. Chances are also that you can’t stop thinking about your avoidant ex — to the point where thinking about them has started to take over your mind. What began as heartbreak may now be an obsession with your avoidant ex.

Grief, sadness, a sense of loss, thinking about an avoidant ex, and even longing for an avoidant ex are all normal parts of processing breakup pain. Nearly everyone goes through this. But when you spend an excessive amount of time thinking about your avoidant ex and the breakup — craving them, replaying memories, and trying to get back your avoidant ex at the expense of your emotional and mental health — you’ve moved beyond normal grief and into obsession.

An anxious attachment style makes you more prone to becoming obsessed with an avoidant ex

An anxious attachment style makes you needy, clingy, and predisposed to worrying, overthinking, and overanalyzing relationships. Your mind keeps scanning for meaning, reassurance, and hope. You replay conversations, analyze texts, and obsess over what you could have said or done differently. And when you’re with an avoidant, this scanning for meaning, reassurance is constantly on.

When a relationship ends, your attachment system goes into overdrive. Thoughts of your avoidant ex become intrusive, constant, and difficult to control.

The obsession doesn’t stop at thinking about your avoidant ex it morphs into behaviours that keep you stuck, emotionally dysregulated, and vulnerable to manipulation

To you it feels like you love too much because the feelings are raw, intense and persistent. In reality, it’s not that you love too much, it’s that your attachment system is dysregulated and confusing fear of loss with love and obsession with depth of love.

Here are 10 signs you may be obsessed with your avoidant ex.

1) Difficulty accepting the breakup

You know you’re broken up, but your brain hasn’t caught up with reality. It still feels like you’re together. You can’t bring yourself to get rid of reminders of your avoidant ex. Your phone or computer screen still shows their photo — or a picture of the two of you — as if nothing has changed.

2) Over-contacting your avoidant ex

Repeatedly texting, emailing, or calling your avoidant ex to the point that it borders on harassment is obsessive behavior.

Two or three messages or calls when an avoidant ex isn’t responding is not obsession. But four, five, or six unanswered messages — or continuing to contact your avoidant ex after they’ve clearly said they don’t want contact — is a sign you’re obsessed with your avoidant ex.

3) Feeling like your life is over

You completely enmeshed your identity with your avoidant ex and wrapped your life around theirs. The end of the relationship feels like the end of your life. Without your avoidant ex, you feel empty, lost, and like you have nothing to live for.

4) Checking your avoidant ex’s social media

Monitoring your avoidant ex on social media consumes a significant amount of your time. No matter how hard you try, you can’t stop yourself from checking what they’re doing, where they are, and who they’re with.

5) Wanting revenge

The obsession is fueled by the belief that your avoidant ex owes you. You gave so much to the relationship, feel “cheated,” and want your avoidant ex to pay in some way — emotionally, socially, or relationally.

6) Stalking your avoidant ex

You keep trying to see, meet, or “accidentally” run into your avoidant ex because you’re convinced it will make them want a relationship again.

7) Selective memory

You focus only on the good parts of the relationship with your avoidant ex while completely ignoring why the relationship didn’t work or why it ended in the first place.

8) Feeling overly jealous

You’re consumed by thoughts of your avoidant ex moving on and finding someone new. The idea of your avoidant ex with someone else sends you into panic mode and triggers feelings of inadequacy, insecurity, and worthlessness.

9) Fantasizing about getting back together

You tell yourself your avoidant ex loves you and must miss you, even when their behavior shows no interest. You’re willing to do anything your avoidant ex says they want — even if it comes at the expense of your emotional health, financial stability, or long-term well-being.

10) Difficulty letting go

The idea of letting go of your avoidant ex makes you anxious and depressed. You also have a pattern of staying too long in unhealthy or one-sided relationships.

If these signs apply to you, I strongly suggest getting professional help. Obsession with an avoidant ex leaves you extremely vulnerable to emotional abuse — especially by a selfish, narcissistic, or manipulative avoidant ex who knows exactly how to exploit your attachment wounds — especially your fear of loss and fear of abandonment.

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