Why Fearful Avoidants Come Back When You’re Happy

Fearful avoidants have a pattern of leaving relationships when their partner expresses unhappiness and coming back when they see an ex is happy on their own. You may even find that a fearful avoidant didn’t want to breakup but felt they had to as a favour to an ex.

Here is an example of a familiar conversation of a fearful avoidant feeling that they have no choice but to breakup because their partner was unhappy and dissatisfied with the relationship.

Anxious attachment: I need to know you care and committed to this relationship.

Fearful Avoidant: I am doing the best I can. What more do you want from me?

Anxious attachment: I want to show you want this relationship as much as I do.

Fearful Avoidant: What do you want me to say or do?

Anxious attachment: I don’t have to tell you what to do. Can’t you see we’re not happy?

Fearful Avoidant: If I’m making you miserable, then leave, go.

Anxious attachment: I don’t want to leave. I just want you to show you want this relationship.

Fearful Avoidant: You’re not happy and I’m not happy. It’s best to just break-up.

Anxious attachment: But I don’t want to break-up. I love you.

Fearful Avoidant: I can’t give you what you need. I don’t want to make you unhappy.

With these kind of breakup situations, a fearful avoidant dumper believes (and their experiences have confirmed it) that because you’re unhappy and they’re unhappy you will end the relationship at some point, or they will end it. They may have not planned to break-up or want it to happen, but they knew at some point you would breakup.

Fearful avoidants can leave the relationship as a favour to an unhappy partner

Fearful avoidants honestly believe that them leaving will make you happier since they’re the ones making you unhappy. This is a very different mindset from someone with an anxious attachment and a different way of thinking about relationships.

When you have an anxious attachment, you think that if you really love someone, you fight for the relationship and if they truly loved you, they will fight for the relationship instead of breaking up. You naturally assume that if someone breaks up with you or doesn’t want a relationship with you, it means that they stopped loving you.

Fearful avoidants believe, think and feel differently. A fearful avoidant dumper can still love you very much but break up with you because they’re unhappy and/or think that they are the reason you’re unhappy. If expressed unhappiness or complained, criticized and blamed them for you not being happy or for the relationship not working, they feel that they have no choice but to distance, leave or break up.

The conflict between a fearful avoidant’s love for you and feeling pressured to breakup often shows up in the mixed signals a fearful avoidant ex sends post break-up. They’re walking away from someone who made them happy but also made them unhappy not because they want to, but because they have to.

Some fearful avoidant dumpers after the break-up cut off all contact because the pain of the conflict within is too much for them to continue contact with you. This is often the case if a fearful avoidant feels that there was more unhappiness in the relationship than happy times. As far as they’re concerned, it’s better to feel sad from a distance than continue to make each other unhappy.

Fearful avoidant dumpers who feel that there were more happy times than unhappy ones often don’t want to lose connection and to distance from the happy memories. They ask to keep the lines of communication open, or ask the be friends and react negatively when an ex wants no contact.

In a fearful avoidant’s way of thinking, there were times during the relationship when they made you happy and you made them happy, and that’s worthy something even if they don’t want a relationship. They want to hold onto that connection and those positive experiences which for fearful avoidants are few and rare. Their experiences are mostly negative, chaotic and painful which makes them more appreciative of the positive and happy experiences.

I’ve found that fearful avoidant dumpers who feel that an ex mostly made them happy than unhappy, or that they made their ex happy even when they sometimes made them unhappy, have a more positive view of their ex and positive view of the relationship than a fearful avoidant who thinks the relationship was mostly unhappy.

An ex’s unhappiness makes fearful avoidants not good enough and unworthy of love

A positive view of an ex and of the relationship is a very good starting point and an advantage for trying to get back together. In addition to wanting to keep connection and making an effort to maintain connection, fearful avoidant dumpers with a positive view of you and positive view of the relationship take steps to do their own personal work. The implied message they’re sending communicating that they’re working on themselves is, “I can be better, and if I’m better, you will be less unhappy with me, maybe even be truly happy being with me.”

But even with has mostly a positive view of an ex and a positive view of the relationship, at the back of their minds, fearful avoidants expect their ex to express some type of unhappiness, frustration or resentment with who they are, what they say or what they do. They pick on very subtle clues of how their ex feels feel and react with either attachment anxiety or attachment avoidance.

A fearful avoidant ex can even completely avoid you – barely responding and not initiating any contact – because they think you are unhappy with who they are, how they’re dealing with the breakup or responding to you. Self-aware fearful avoidant are especially sensitive to an ex’s unhappiness with them. They are aware of their issues and behaviours and may think they are doing an unhappy, frustrated and angry ex a favour avoiding them.

This is why I advice against emotional dumping on fearful avoidant exes. Overly “emotional” long text messages or emails that make a fearful avoidant feel like a bad person for ending the relationship and unworthy of love for hurting you makes them less interested in being in contact and even coming back.

But when a fearful avoidant sees that you are once again happy on your own even if you are still unhappy with the breakup, you see them begin initiating contact and slowly come closer, and even want to meet. And if they think they are the reason you are happier, you will see things progress very quickly and you may even get back together very quickly. But if you express unhappiness, frustration or dissatisfaction, all the progress you made can come undone in a millisecond.

RELATED:

How To Deal With An Avoidant Ex’s Inconsistent Contact

Why Avoidants Lose Lingering Feelings After The Breakup

How Fearful Avoidants Comes Back – Explained In Detail