How To Set Realistic Expectations That Get An Avoidant Ex Back

Processing a breakup is hard as it is, but processing a breakup with an avoidant who said they loved you but then breaks up with you can make you feel stuck and unable to move forward or move on.

In this article, I’ll answer both questions, but this only applies to relationships where both people felt and verbally acknowledged that they loved each other, but since the breakup have so many questions about what was real and what wasn’t.

The article does not apply to you if you didn’t exchange “I love you” words to each other either because both of you hadn’t caught feelings (yet), only one of you developed feelings of love, or there wasn’t enough time to find out how you felt about each other before things ended.

I always tell my clients, if your avoidant ex said they loved you, they did. I know this because I talk to avoidants on a daily basis and many of them tell me they truly and genuinely loved their ex. Even dismissive avoidants who are known for not expressing any type of “love emotions” and who tend to dismiss and even reject expressions of love admit that “I felt something that I’d never felt with anyone before” or “It was definitely love”.

Unrealistic expectations make it hard to properly process an avoidant breakup

Leaving someone you love is hard for many anxiously attached to understand. It feels like someone who doesn’t know what they feel or want. The anxiously attached mindset is, when you love someone you try to make the relationship work. Because an avoidant doesn’t want to work on the relationship, anxiously attached question if an avoidant ever loved them. This is not helpful if you’re trying to get back an avoidant.

1. It makes it hard to properly process the breakup. I’ve spoken to so many anxiously attached who are stuck unable to move forward or move on because they’re dissecting every single thing an avoidant said or did trying to figure out if an avoidant loved them or not.

2. It affects how you approach trying to get back with your avoidant ex. For example, you play games to make your ex miss you because that somehow proves that they loved you and/or still love you. This is essentially setting yourself up for failure. Even worse, you approach an avoidant ex with “you didn’t love me” or “you don’t love me” filter and often end up making things worse.

Securely attached don’t have this problem. Because they feel safe and secure in themselves and have confidence in their partner’s love, they have enough emotional resources, time and energy to invest in providing safety and security to their partners, while making sure that they are safe and secure too. This is the same attitude, energy and approach they use to get an ex back.

Securely attached don’t automatically assume that a breakup means their avoidant ex didn’t love them, stopped them or will never love them again, or spend their time and energy trying to find if their ex still loves them. They process the breakup to understand why the relationship didn’t work and what they could have done better to make an ex feel safe, secure, and loved.

• If after processing the breakup, they come to the conclusion that they did the best to make their ex feel safe, secure and loved, and there is nothing they would do differently, they move on.
• If they feel that they could have done better, securely attached

This attitude helps securely attached approach their ex with realistic expectations and work with things as they are and not how wish they were. Securely attached don’t say, “Why didn’t my (avoidant) ex say x or do you?”. The fact/reality is they didn’t. You can’t go back and redo the past and make it the past you wanted. You deal with things as they are.

Securely attached also don’t say things like “If they (my ex) said to me… I would…” or “If they (my ex) did… I would… because securely attached are not reactors to what others say or do. They set realistic expectations, do the best they can and cope as things happen. They don’t focus too much on what their avoidant ex is doing like anxious attached do.

The first step to setting realistic expectations that get an avoidant ex back

I understand that telling you, set realistic expectations, do the best you can, don’t focus too much on what an avoidant is doing and cope as things happen is an unrealistic expectation. You are programmed from childhood to worry and obsess ever an attachment figure’s love. You can’t just stop worry and wishing things were different, but you can start with reframing the breakup to reflect the realities of an avoidant breakup.

Reframing the breakup to reflect the realities of an avoidant breakup helps:

• Free up emotional resources, time and energy that you can then direct to creating safety for both yourself and for your avoidant ex, and,
• Release unrealistic expectations of how your avoidant ex should act for you know and feel that you they still love you, and even want you back.
• You not be too hard on yourself especially when you make mistakes (which you are abound to).

Many of my clients find that reframing their breakup experience and changing how they think about an avoidant breakup helps them feel 1) more emotionally calm and centered, 2) more realistic about their chances of getting back their avoidant ex and 3) more creative in the ways they create safety and security for both themselves and for their avoidant ex. Try it for yourself.

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