If Your Fearful Avoidant Ex Is Making Future Plans Read This First

One of the most confusing behaviours my clients experience with a fearful avoidant ex is  they make future plans with you — talk about going on holiday together, meeting each other’s families, or doing something meaningful months from now — and then, seemingly out of nowhere, they pull back, cancel, or act like the plans never existed.

Why? If they never intended to follow through, why did they make or agree to the plan in the first place? Why get your hopes up only to pull back on the plans later?

To understand why this happens, you have to understand how a fearful avoidant attachment works when anxiety is high and when avoidance later takes over.

Fearful avoidants don’t stay in one attachment mode

Fearful avoidants are often grouped under the label “avoidant,” but in reality they are anxious-avoidant. This means there is an anxious part of them that can behave very much like someone with an anxious attachment—especially when their attachment anxiety is triggered or more severe.

At the same time, there is an avoidant part that can look very similar to a dismissive avoidant attachment, again depending on how strong their avoidance is at that moment. While dismissive avoidants tend to sit at the far end of the avoidant spectrum, fearful avoidants often move back and forth between anxiety and avoidance, shifting their behavior based on how safe, connected, or overwhelmed they feel.

When they lean anxious — feel emotionally close, reassured, validated, or afraid of losing you, — they think about the future. They imagine and even fantasize about things working out again or the two of you still being close. This is when they make future plans.

They might say things like:

• “We should take that trip we always talked about.”
• “I’d like you to meet my family.”
• “Maybe in a few months we could revisit us.”
• “I can picture us doing this together again.”

In the anxious-leaning state, the fearful avoidant is focused

independence. The plans feel real to them in that moment. It’s not manipulation, it’s to a fearful avoidant proof that the relationship matters.

Why you shouldn’t get too excited when a fearful avoidant ex makes future plans

One important detail about many fearful avoidant future plans is that many of these plans are far enough in the future to feel emotionally safe at the time they’re made. A holiday months away, a family gathering “sometime,” or a vague plan to reconnect later doesn’t require immediate vulnerability and therefore doesn’t threaten a fearful avoidant’s independence. It also allows the fearful avoidant to soothe their anxiety without having to face intimacy right now.

So the plan serves a purpose:

• It reassures them they’re not losing you.
• It calms their fear of abandonment.
• It restores emotional control.

At this stage, they often sound hopeful, warm, and invested.

The shift usually happens when emotional closeness increases, there’s tension, they feel overwhelmed or  expectations become clearer. Now the same plan that once felt comforting starts to feel:

• Binding
• Expectation-heavy
• Like a loss of autonomy
• Like pressure to define the relationship

A fearful avoidant starts to lean avoidant. You might notice behaviours like:

• Delayed responses or emotional distance
• Minimizing the importance of the plan
• Saying they’re “not sure anymore”
• Claiming the timing isn’t right
• Acting confused about why the plan mattered

In extreme cases, they may deny that the plan was serious at all.

Examples of fearful avoidant exes making future plans then backing away from them

Example 1: The Holiday Plan

A fearful avoidant ex talks excitedly about taking a trip together in a month or two months. They bring it up multiple times when they’re feeling close to you. As the date gets closer and you ask about booking, they suddenly say they’re busy or can’t find the time, are overwhelmed, need space, or aren’t ready for something like that.

Example 2: Meeting the Family

During an emotionally intimate conversation, they say they’d like you to meet their family “soon” or “when things improve.” Weeks later, when you mention it again, they pull back and say it would be “too much” or that they’re not in the right headspace. They complain bout being “pressured” when the idea to meet their family was theirs in the first place — and they didn’t mention it just once, they talked about it a few times.

Example 3: Use of “we” language

They talk about “we” when they’re feeling anxious — future events, shared goals, hypothetical scenarios. But once emotional intensity rises or things start to feel real, the language shifts to “I,” and the future becomes uncertain or off-limits.

For most fearful avoidant exes “the plan” wasn’t a promise — it was conditional

From an anxious attachment perspective, future plans signal commitment, safety, and intention. They create a sense of emotional security by showing that the relationship is moving forward and that both people are investing in what comes next.

When those plans are later canceled or minimized, it doesn’t just feel disappointing — it often feels like rejection, mixed signals, or even deception.

But for a fearful avoidant, the plan was based how they felt in the moment — hopeful, excited  and invested in the future — but it also depended on things continuing to feel “right” or the connection remaining safe and stable. If they sense tension, expectation or emotional intensity, what once seemed like a concrete plan can suddenly feel overwhelming or risky.

It doesn’t mean they weren’t lying and it’s not future faking because a fearful avoidant is not deliberately making plans to manipulate, control, or secure investment without real intent. Their plans are genuine in the moment but conditional on how safe and steady they will continue to feel.

Understanding this dynamic doesn’t make it hurt less but it explains why the same person can sound hopeful and even make future plans one week and pessimistic and distant the next.

You’re not going to like this: Until a fearful avoidant can tolerate closeness without flipping into avoidance, future plans will continue to be made in anxious moments and undone in avoidant ones.

This serves as a reminder that when it comes to fearful avoidants, consistency over time and not “future talk” is the true indicator of their readiness for closeness or a relationship.

RELATED:

Why Avoidants Lie And The Lies They Tell More Frequently

8 Reasons Fearful Avoidants Deactivate After A Trip Or Holidays