No Progress With Avoidant Ex One Year Trying to Get Them Back

Question: No progress my avoidant ex after a year of trying to get her back.

She is an avoidant and broke up with me because she said I was controlling and needy, but I think the real reason is that she’s afraid of commitment. She says I smother her, but she replies to all my texts. She also says she doesn’t feel the same way about me, but tells me she cares about me and who knows what the future holds. I’m not doing anything to suffocate her, and I only contact her twice a week. I tell her that I care deeply about her, but she keeps pushing me away. What do you think I’m doing wrong? What can I do to get her back?

Yangki’s Answer: What you are doing wrong is not listening to her reason for ending the relationship.

Telling yourself that she’s afraid of commitment may make you feel better because it puts the problem on her, but it isn’t helping you if she is telling you that she felt smothered and may still feel smothered.

It’s like trying to kiss someone who doesn’t want to be kissed because you’re stepping on her foot. She keeps pulling away and telling you why, but you’ve decided the real reason she doesn’t want to be kissed is because she’s afraid of intimacy.

When someone tells you that you are smothering them, you need to take that seriously.

You may not feel like you’re doing anything wrong, but if she experiences your behaviour as suffocating, contacting her once a week instead of twice a week isn’t necessarily going to change anything. The issue isn’t simply how often you contact her. It’s what happens during that contact and how she experiences it.

What is it that made her feel you were controlling and needy? And what are you still doing that may be making her feel smothered?

Maybe you’re constantly telling her how much you love and care about her, to the point where it comes across as desperate rather than loving or endearing. That kind of “puppy love” can be a turn-off, especially with an ex.

Maybe you keep trying to talk about the relationship when she wants to move forward rather than revisit the past. Maybe you’ve apologised so many times that the apologies have stopped feeling meaningful and have started becoming annoying.

There are many things you could be doing that you don’t see as suffocating but that, from her perspective, are putting her off rather than nurturing her interest in you.

If you want to see progress, your first priority is to stop doing whatever is making her feel suffocated. You can’t create renewed attraction while continuing to do things that are pushing someone away.

And based on the behaviours you describe:

• She says you smother her, but she replies to all your texts.
• She says she doesn’t feel the same way about you, but also tells you that who knows what the future holds.

She’s likely a fearful avoidant. What this means is she can genuinely care about you and still feel conflicted about getting close to you. She may want connection while also feeling overwhelmed by the connection.

So her pushing you away does not necessarily mean she feels nothing for you. At the same time, her continued contact does not necessarily mean she wants to get back together.

This is why trying harder to convince her of your feelings, prove that you’re not controlling or needy, or get her to decide how she feels can actually make her more resistant. If she already feels smothered, more emotional pressure is likely to reinforce that feeling rather than create renewed interest.