My Fearful Avoidant Ex Doesn’t Want Me To Wait For Her

Question: Should I wait for her or move on with my life?

My fearful avoidant ex says she still loves me and maybe we will get back together at some point, but she does not want me to wait for her. She said right now she wants to work on herself. Part of me wants to believe that she really loves me and wants me back, but the other part fears investing more of my emotions only to end up being rejected again. Either she wants to be with me or she doesn’t. Should I just let go, move on with my life?

Yangki’s Answer: Your fears are valid. There is a real possibility that you may be rejected again down the road, but there is also the possibility that you won’t.

Since we’re talking about a fearful avoidant, there are a few things you need to know about a fearful avoidant attachment style.

When a fearful avoidant ex says, “don’t wait for me”

When a fearful avoidant ex says, “I still love you but don’t wait for me”, it is a fearful avoidant attachment code for: I’m leaving the decision to stay connected or cut off contact to you.

Both fearful avoidants and dismissive avoidants say this when they don’t want to lose contact, but can’t bring themselves to say, “I don’t want to lose contact”. Being direct with how they feel feels very vulnerable in a way that can feel exposing or unsafe for an avoidant attachment system.

It also helps them accept your decision if you decide to cut off contact because they’ve already created a psychological buffer where your disengagement feels like your choice, not their rejection. If contact ends, it can be experienced internally as: “they chose to move on” rather than “I lost.”

Should you “wait” or move on?

The only person who can make the decision as to whether to believe her and hope or cut your loses now and move on is you. It’s your heart and your life!

If you decide to “wait for her”, it’s important to keep in mind that:

1. She’s not necessarily going to sustain contact

Just because an avoidant secretly doesn’t want to lose contact doesn’t mean that they are actually going to step up to sustain it.

It’s best not to over-function and over-invest while they’re still “working on themselves”. Only match her energy and keep contact balanced.

2. They may not want to get back together later

“Maybe we will get back together at some point” is not  promise. It allows them to keep connection alive without committing to responsibility for its direction. So don’t “hang around waiting”, move on with your life but keep the option that she may come back open.

What’s more important than waiting

What decides what will happen is not how long you wait, or even if she works on herself. What decides whether you will get back together is why the relationship ended and what has changed since the breakup.

Staying in contact allows both of you to see whether the original issues are actually changing in real time, and to see whether connection can exist without recreating the same dynamic that led to the breakup.

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