Turned Anxious After Avoidant Breakup (Here’s What Do)

When you have an anxious attachment style or are a fearful avoidant (who leans anxious), feeling more anxious after a breakup is expected, even normal for some. Everything has suddenly changed, and your fears about separation, rejection or abandonment, feeling not wanted or good enough all came true. You don’t know if it is over, like completely over, if your ex will reach out, if they will move on and meet someone new, or if they’ll come back.

With an avoidant, you feel more anxious after the breakup because there’s much more uncertainty with very little information to work with. Sometimes you don’t know why the relationship ended or if you are even broken up. Not knowing exactly what is happening or what to expect adds anxiety to an already intensely anxiety, worry and fear triggering situation.

The difference between securely attached and anxiously attached or fearful avoidants is how they handle uncertainty in general and breakup uncertainty in particular. Securely attached have more tolerance for uncertainty and confidence in their ability to manage distressing situations. This makes them less anxious or not anxious at all even with an avoidant breakup.

Anxiously attached have low tolerance for uncertainty and low confidence in their ability to manage distressing situations. They also have expectations that make it hard to cope with the realities of a breakup with an avoidant ex. The combination of low tolerance for uncertainty, inability to manage distressing situations and expectations that often don’t match the realities of a breakup lead to information and reassurance seeking behaviours that make breakup anxiety even worse, and end up pushing an avoidant even further away.

Efforts to minimize uncertainty may actually create more anxiety

There is nothing wrong with seeking information or asking for reassurance from an ex. We all need some type of reassurance every now and then. There’s even nothing wrong with having certain expectations after the breakup. Expectations when trying to get back with an avoidant become a problem when your expectations don’t match your reality, and that reality is that you are not a couple anymore. The expectations you had of each other as a couple no longer apply when you are exes. And when you factor in an avoidant attachment style, things like not responding to a text within a certain time or even responding to a text at all, reaching out first or spending time together are things avoidants do even with exes they want back.

While an avoidant ex responding when you reach out and responding fast they respond is reassuring because it tells you they want talk to you, still care, and still have feelings for you, frequent information and reassurance seeking can make an avoidant feel pressured and/or feel like whatever they’re doing is not enough.

You may not even see it as reassurance seeking. You think that you’re just asking for an opinion, asking a question to know more, or to gain clarity, but because you are feeling very anxious about how things are and where you go from there, no answer is enough. The only answer that can temporarily calm your fears and make you feel better is one that tells you everything is okay – your ex wants to talk to you, still cares about you, you’re not wasting your time, you’re being led on or making a fool of yourself etc. But even this may not enough. It feels forced because you asked for it or feels like your ex is just saying what they think you want to hear. An avoidant ex may even be making a genuine effort to show they want to talk to you, still care, and still have feelings for you but because you have this overwhelming need to feel sure, remove all doubt or uncertainty, you don’t see the effort they’re making, and keep seeking reassurance.

You find that you’ve created a cycle of negative feedback where you ask an avoidant for information or reassurance and they respond negatively, which makes you more anxious, and need more information and more reassurance.

Uncertainty and the unknown can be a resource for creating a possible future

One way, and probably the best way to reduce excessive information and reassurance seeking is to adjust your expectations to match the realities of an avoidant breakup. The first and most important reality of an avoidant breakups is that you can’t control your ex’s actions. Your avoidant ex is going to do what they feel is right for themselves whether you like what they do or not. Choosing themselves over a relationship is a big part of an avoidant attachment style.

The more you worry about what your ex is doing when they’re separated from you or fear what they might do, the more anxious you’ll feel, and the more you will engage information and reassurance seeking behaviours that hurt your chances of getting back and avoidant ex (e.g. reaching out just to feel less anxious, repeatedly asking the same questions, arguing or challenging an avoidants answers or actions because they did not phrase things the way you would have etc.).

In addition to accepting that you can’t control your ex’s actions, it helps to practice facing the realities of a breakup head on. For example, there is a possibility that it’s over with your ex, and you are not getting back together. There is a possibility that your ex will never reach out. There is a possibility that your ex will move on or has already moved on. There is a possibility that your ex met someone new and is seeing or dating them. These (and more) are all realities of a breakup that everyone regardless of attachment style has to deal with. It doesn’t mean any of these things will happen, it just means, there is a possibility that they will happen.

Reasoning with all possibilities and finding possibility in the unknown is something securely attached do very well. Instead of fearing uncertainty and worrying about what might or might not happen, securely attached use uncertainty and the unknown as a resource for creating a possible future in which all the things that might or might not happen are factored in. For example, the idea that an ex might meet someone new paralyzes some anxiously attached and super hyper activates others. Everything they do is aimed at and calculated to stop an ex from meeting someone new.

Securely attached accept that there is a possibility that their ex might meet someone new. They consider all possible actions they might take if this happens, and how to achieve the best outcome whether that means continuing to purse trying to get back together, postponing getting back together to a later time, moving on or anything in-between. They don’t let uncertainty and the unknown stand in the way of what’s possible.

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Here’s How You Get A Fearful Avoidant Ex To Respect You

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