Why Fawning Makes Avoidant Exes Angry (And Avoid You)

Fawning is a trauma response developed when the child is so terrified of the parent or caregiver that they’ll do anything to appease them. They need the parent or caregiver for their basic needs and may even crave their love, attention and acceptance, but feel unsafe and/or frightened by the parent or caregiver. The child quickly learns that it’s easier and safer to get their basic needs met if they actively appease the rejecting, domineering, controlling, cruel or abusive parent or caregiver.

In their thinking, “If I’m good” or “If I do what they want” or “If I show them I love them” maybe they’ll love me, accept me, stay and not leave, not give me the cold shoulder, not punish me, not yell at me, not hit me, not sexually abuse me etc. It can get to a point where a child learns to lie and say what they think the parent or caregiver wants to hear to avoid “something bad” from happening to them.

You could even say fawning is an attempt to “prevent a bad thing from happening” The fawning person feels anxious or afraid but also hopes that they can somehow preempt a potential threat or “avert danger” by calming, appeasing or pleasing the person making them anxious, afraid or unsafe.

Common fawning anxious and avoidant responses

Because fawning somehow worked with a parent or caregiver, fawners use the same behaviours (and honed skill) in their adult relationships too, especially when they feel like there’s a chance they could lose someone (forever).

The most common fawn response you see after a breakup are:

1) People pleasing

Pandering to an ex, praising an ex too much, giving them a lot of attention and/or going above and beyond (with emotional support, monitory assistance or gifting, sexual favours etc.) to try to make an ex see them as a “valuable” person who deserves another chance.

2) Over apologizing

Apologizing over and over and even apologizing for things they haven’t done or aren’t responsible for in an attempt at “damage control”. Even the slightest hint of disagreement makes the fawning ex start apologizing because they think that if they apologize very quickly and/or repeatedly, it’ll reduce the tension and put them back in their ex’s good graces.

3) Conflict avoidance

The fawning ex senses that something is off e.g. the other person is unhappy, upset, frustrated, angry etc., and it makes them feel unsafe, so they try to change the energy by using flattery or “sweet-talk” to neutralize conflict and smooth things over.

4) Extreme agreeability

Conflating one’s feelings and needs with the wishes, needs, and demands of an ex, agreeing to things without really meaning it, and accommodating behaviour that most people wouldn’t allow (and they might have objected to and/or not accepted before the breakup) because they think it’ll make their ex see they’re a good match.

5) Glossing/toxic positivity

Taking all the blame for the relationship not working, minimizing or ignoring the problems that led to the breakup, and putting an ex on a pedestal or bestowing on the them ‘sainthood” in order to project (fake) positivity and appear happy.

6) Infantilizing

Treating your ex like a child who needs protecting, guiding and generally acting like a “good mom” or “good dad” e.g. applying for a job, finding a therapist, driving them around, running errands, doing their laundry etc. because you think your ex is too “fragile” and needs you to care for them.

Trauma responses create situations that recreate the experience of trauma

Whether fawning works to get back an ex or not, and whether you understand that fawning is just a survival response coming from another trauma victim, it is not safe or healthy behaviour in a relationship. It may look like you are not doing anything wrong (and you are not), your intentions are good (which is likely true), you’re just showing someone you love how much you love and care about them (and you are), but if it’s making your ex uncomfortable or unsafe, it’s hurting your chances of getting back together.

As in the example of my client above, a fawn response makes the person on the receiving end of it feel like a bad person and even an abuser. It makes them feel that they can’t trust you, lose respect for you, and avoid you because of how fawning makes them feel.

Some exes may not even understand why they’re uncomfortable or angry when an ex is not overtly doing anything “bad’, they just feel the “ick” every time an ex fawns. One client told me, “I love her, I do. But sometimes I want to take her by the shoulders, shake her so hard and tell her ‘Why are you making yourself so pathetic and so vulnerable like this?’. But I don’t because I have my own anger issues stemming from my childhood, so I kinda get her. I know her intentions are good but it’s just so annoying when she makes me feel like s**t because she’s feeling like s**t and needs to suck up to me.”

Some avoidants avoid a fawning ex because they can’t be honest with them’ “He starts blaming himself for how I feel and everything becomes about how I was so good and he ruined everything. It’s like I can’t even own my own mistakes.”

Fawning makes an avoidant angry and resentful, but fawning affects you the fawner the most. It affects your self-esteem over time and can create deep shame especially when you find yourself fawning when you don’t have a reason to fawn or when you want to be taken seriously but instead end up fawning.

Fawning especially with an ex who didn’t treat you with the love and respect you deserve can turn you into your own discarder and “abuser”. You become so emotionally dependent on their mood, constantly mind-reading, plotting, etc., that you don’t have time for yourself or your needs. You even feel shame and self-loathing because you see yourself as too weak to resist fawning over your ex – and it negatively affects your self-esteem and sense o self-worth.

RELATED:

Avoidant Ex Feels Numb – Should You be Concerned?

Fearful Avoidant Ex Seems Like A Different Person

Stop Self-Abandoning And Over-Giving To Avoidant Ex