How To Get Avoidant Exes To Want To Talk About The Breakup

One of the biggest mistakes anxiously attached make and so often ruins their chances of getting back an avoidant is insisting on talking about the relationship and the breakup, and/or trying to resolve the issues in the relationship when an avoidant is not ready.

In an anxious attachment’s way of thinking, “I want to explain my side of things because if they hear me out, understand my actions and see that I’m a good person with good intentions who truly loves them, they’ll want to get back together”. Some anxiously attached also think “the faster we resolve our issues the faster we can get back together”. So they push and push for a conversation about the breakup or issues in the relationship, because to them it feels so urgent.

The avoidant on the other hand probably has not yet processed the breakup, or is trying to cope with an emotionally trying situation the best way they know-how (avoid). Even avoidants who want to resolve the issues in the relationship, for closure or to try to get back together, push against being pressured to “talk” if they’re not ready. At some point, their survival instincts take over and they choose their safety over you, contact, getting back together etc.

The reality is every avoidant is different and every relationship is different, which means that there is no right amount of time to wait before asking an avoidant to have a talk about the breakup or the issue in the relationship. BUT there are right steps to take that make an avoidant ex want to talk about the breakup and make it a constructive conversation that will likely lead to getting back together.

1. Give yourselves time to properly process the breakup

There is a common misunderstanding that you need to go no contact to be able to process the breakup, but this not how safe and secure relationships work. If every time you have to cut off contact for weeks to process hurt feeling and difficult emotions, your bond will weaken, and if not communicated well, it will over time damage any relationship.

Keep the lines of communication open to a level that’s safe for both of you, but agree to not talk about the relationship or breakup for a period of time. This is to allow time and space:

• For an avoidant ex to process the breakup in their own time
• For the two of you to do your own self-work, grow and show change
• To practice heathier ways of communicating and interacting with each other
• Create a safe and secure emotional environment where both of you can feel seen, heard, understood and accepted

2. Set a time in the future to address things from the past

Never, and I say, never try to address your problems or have discussions about the breakup 1) so soon after the breakup, and 2) randomly between seemingly lighthearted conversations. It never ends well.

After the breakup, you are both in self-preservation mode and from what brain scientists have studied, our brains function in a different capacity when we are in survival mode. We are more emotionally reactive and act impulsivity because the brain can’t tell the difference between real threat and perceived threat.

Setting aside a time in the future to address issues from the past 1) helps keep hope alive because you’re looking forward to something positive, 2) makes you want to heal and grow because you want the experience to be positive and productive, and 3) helps you feel reassured that the other person is as committed to trying to work things out as you are.

If possible, identify emotional milestones that tell both of you that you are both ready mentally and emotionally to have a constructive conversation about your problems.

3. Don’t engage in or encourage breakup emotional dumping

Anxiously attached generally process breakups faster but not necessarily thoroughly because of their inability to self-regulate and to see the other person’s different perspective. Avoidants generally take longer to processes breakup because of they’re emotion-blocking strategies, but when they do, avoidants are much more thorough at processing breakups though they too have a hard time seeing the other’s perspective.

Before you bring up the breakup or issues in your relationship, try to understand each other’s perspective and how they might see what happened differently, and if necessary reframe how you are thinking about things. I said, “try” because that’s all you can do. Dismissive avoidants tend to process the breakup solo with no input from an ex, but some fearful avoidants especially those leaning anxious, may from time to time reach out, want answers or want to vent while processing a breakup.

• Respond when they reach out because their anxious side is looking for reassurance that you are still there.
• Answer the questions they ask because that’s what’s keeping them stuck and unable to process. Make sure to only answer what they ask and as briefly as possible to avoid being pre-maturely dragged in talking about the past without the proper guardrails and safety.
• Do not encourage venting or emotional dumping. Anxious-leaning fearful avoidants (and anxiously attached) have a tendency to unload their hurt feelings onto others without consideration for their capacity to handle it. Some of them say some really mean and hurtful things that are hard to get over or forget. If your ex starts emotionally dumping on you, say something along the lines (rephrase), “I see and hear your pain and want to be here for you in a safe and supportive way, but this conversation is not safe or helpful for either of us. You’re hurting and I’m hurting and I don’t want us to hurt each other more than we already are hurting. Let’s both focus on our healing individually, then when we’re both ready, sit down and have a constructive conversation.”

4. Learn safe and secure (non-violent) communication

Put in real effort to learn safe and secure ways to communicate how you feel, what you need and how you want to be treated. Part of this self-work is learning how to make another person feel heard. Fearful avoidants especially almost always feel unheard by others. Part of this is that they have a hard time communicating their feelings and needs, and the other part is anxiously attached and dismissive avoidants ignore or dismiss fearful avoidants when they try to communicate what they feel or need.

I discussed in my other articles that fearful avoidant take cues of how to treat you from how you treat them. Most of them had a chaotic childhood and/or unstable caregivers and had no role model to show them how two people interact or get along. If you get defensive, blame, counter-attack or take issue with how a fearful avoidant is communicating and what they’re communicating, they’ll also get defensive, blame, counter-attack or take issue with how you are communicating and what you’re communicating.

So make learning safe and secure (non-violent) communication a central part of your efforts to change and become securely attached.

5. Set safe and reasonable boundaries

It takes time to create a safe and secure emotional environment and to learn how to learn to communicate how you feel, what you need and how you want to be treated in a safe way, in the meantime, you need safe and reasonable boundaries to protect yourself and strengthen your bond.

Boundaries are a very important part of getting back together. Without boundaries and safer ways of communicating feelings and needs (both ways), there is a very high chance that the two of you will revert back to old ways and not resolve anything, and/or make things worse/ like they can never be resolved because you expected better, and it isn’t better. This makes getting back together harder.

In my experience, healthy and reasonable boundaries is sometimes the difference between exes who get back together and stay together and those who don’t get back together, or get back together only to break up again a few weeks or moths later.

6. Keep track of your dynamic to be able tell if you’re both ready to talk

You will know it’s time to ask for a conversation when things between the two of you feel good again. You treat each other with kindness and mutual genuine interest, you are open and understanding of where the other is coming from, you have no major disagreements or fights, your conversations are more forward looking than revisionist, and what happened in the past isn’t as important anymore, because your dynamic in present feels so much better. When you talk about the past, it’ll be as a reference and lessons learned instead of something you are reliving and brings up negative feelings about each other.

So before you ask to meet up with your avoidant ex to talk about the breakup and the issues you had, make sure you both have done your healing work, are in a good place emotionally and mentally, and they want to talk about the past or the breakup. This is to avoid 1) triggering each other and undoing all the progress you’ve made to create a safe and secure environment and 2) undermining the reason for having the conversation about your relationship problems and issues with each other.

This can take weeks and even months of lighthearted and emotionally connecting conversations, showing good will and intentions towards each other, and demonstrating personal growth that shows that things between you are consistently better than they were just before and after the breakup. The keyword is “consistently”, and not just one or a few conversations or meetups.

7. Ask your avoidant ex to meet in person

It’s unlikely that an avoidant will initiate a conversation about the breakup or the issues in the relationship. In the occasion that they do, I’ve found that it’s often because:

• They’re a fearful avoidant leaning anxious
• Are still angry about things that happened in the past
• Want closure and move on
• Are thinking of getting back together but are frustrated that nothing has changed
• An avoidant is ready to get back together

In 90% of the cases, you’re going to be the one to ask for a conversation(s) about the breakup or the issues in the relationship.

You have a better chance of having a constructive conversation in person than by text or phone call. Check with an avoidant ex to see if they are ready to talk. Use avoidant attachment preferred direct and to the point communication style. No “you broke up with me” passive aggressive attacks and no “it’s okay if you don’t want to” anxious attachment appeasing and fawning behaviours.

If an avoidant says they’re not ready to talk, don’t make an issue of it. “Not more” doesn’t mean “never”. Tell them that you will check back in a couple of weeks to see if they’re ready, or alternatively they can let you know when they’re ready.

If an avoidant doesn’t want to talk about the breakup or what happened in the past, it doesn’t mean they’ll not come back. In my experience, many avoidants come back without talking about the breakup or the problems you had. If this happens, use their willingness to come back as an opportunity to talk about your issues focusing more on how the relationship can work better than what happened in the past. It’s important that you have conversations about how things can work better if you want your reunion to hold long term.

RELATED:

How to Hold Your Avoidant Ex Accountable – SAFELY

10 Steps For Setting Boundaries An Avoidant Ex Will Respect

My Avoidant Ex Doesn’t Want To Talk About The Break-Up