Do Fearful Avoidants Obsess Over Exes After The Breakup?

Do fearful avoidants obsess over exes after the breakup? Yes they do. Not only do they obsess over exes, the obsession often starts after the breakup or separation. They suddenly develop an intense fixation on an ex.

When I started working with fearful avoidants trying to get their ex back, what I didn’t expect was for fearful avoidants to be so obsessed with an ex that there was no difference between them and anxiously attached presenting behaviours of love addiction.

At first I was like no way this person is a fearful avoidant, they must be anxiously attached and the avoidant behaviours are protest behaviour. Fearful avoidants have a negative view and generally don’t trust partners (and exes), they can’t be obsessing over someone they have a negative view of and clearly don’t trust.

But as I worked with more and more fearful avoidants, it was clear that they were fearful avoidants and not anxiously attached protesting the breakup. Then I thought to myself, because they’re anxious avoidants, when the anxious side of them starts to obsess over an ex, the avoidant side of them will create distance and in a way balance things off. But what I was hearing fearful avoidants say are things that anxiously attached obsessed with an ex say.

• “I can’t sleep. I can’t stop thinking about her.”
• “She’s my life. I can’t live without her.”
• “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. We are meant for each other.”
• “It was supposed to work out. I can’t believe this is happening.”
• “We were really happy together. We can still make it work”.
• “I need to give it one more chance. It has to work.”

The nerd in me went looking for any studies that explain the obsessive behaviours I was seeing with the fearful avoidants trying to get their ex back that were very similar to love addiction.

The fear of losing an ex forever can make a fearful avoidant develop a fixation on an ex

Most of the research on obsessive love or love addiction link it to an anxious attachment, but I came across one study that specifically looked at obsessive love in relation to a fearful avoidant attachment style.

The study published in the behavioural science journal in December 2024 confirmed separation anxiety and a recurring fear of abandonment as risk factors for the development of obsessive love . But the study also found that although both anxious preoccupied and fearful avoidant attachment styles are positively linked to obsessive love, there was a significant difference between anxiously attached love addiction and fearful avoidant’s love addiction.

Fearful avoidant’s obsessive love does not come from an idealized view of their partners, but instead, they overlook negative aspects of the relationship due to their fear of separation and fear of abandonment. In other words, the fear of losing an ex forever can make a fearful avoidant to suddenly develop an intense interest and a fixation on an ex.

But unlike an anxious attachment obsession with an ex which comes from a positive and idealized view of an ex, a fearful avoidant’s obsession with an ex consists of positive and negative emotions.

For example, they may:

• Experience intense feelings of longing but also experience intense anger towards an ex
• Feel despair and intense anxiety but also want to pull away and go no contact
• Repeatedly check their ex’s social media but block an ex from theirs.

Fearful avoidants who feel the breakup was their fault play the same events over and over again but the version of how things were supposed to be like and not how things are. If an ex ended the relationship, they remember the relationship in a way that makes it better than it actually was. By downplaying the negatives aspects of the relationship and playing up the positives, they’re able to bypass their inherent distrust of others, and allow themselves to imagine a relationship without the issues and problems that led to the breakup.

If an ex is in a new relationship, a fearful avoidant may also become obsessed with the new man or woman in their ex’s life. This more than common comparison curiosity obsession where an ex wants to know a little bit more about who replaced them. This is thinking about an ex’s new man or woman all the time, spending a significant amount of time on their social media, believing that an ex loves them than they love the new man or woman, reaching out to them etc.

What does it mean for you when a fearful avoidant ex is obsessing over an ex?

If you’re securely attached, it’ll most likely make you stressed because obsessive love is not healthy behaviour. If you’re a dismissive avoidant, it’ll likely frighten you because if feels like being chased and being wanted like that scares you. If you’re anxiously attached, you’ll likely have mixed feelings.

One side of you will like the attention because someone thinking about you all the time, messaging you all the time, wants to constantly spend time with you for a change will likely feel validating. The other side of you might worry how long it’s going to last, and for good reason.

The obsessive behaviours while they may make you feel wanted in the way you’ve longed for often result in an emotionally charged experience that can mess you up mentally and emotionally for a long, long time.

The love bombing part might feel good, but there is also the extreme anxiety, mood swings, lashing out, gaslighting, frequent lying, misremembering events, inability to take responsibility, impulsive behaviours (e.g. being blocked and then unblocked) and the stalking-like behaviours.

Some studies liken an obsession with an ex to drug craving and withdrawal. Today a fearful avoidant in obsessed with you, wants to give things one more chance because it seem like a good idea, they can see how the relationship can work. They reach out and try to get back together but immediately regret it and wish they hadn’t reached out. But after sometime it feels like a good idea again.

My advice, this is only if you want to give things another chance is not to get too excited when a fearful avoidant exhibiting love obsession behaviours. Take your time and pace things to allow for the craving and withdrawal to stabilize and for you to be sure that your fearful avoidant ex genuinely wants to be with you and not just because you’re a useful attachment resource for them.

And just in case you’re wondering, yes some love obsessed people grow and become healthier while in relationships. Some things about being in a relationship can help them feel safe and secure enough to want a healthier relationship but others can make it harder to heal from unhealthy and insecure attachment patterns, especially if you’re an enabler of the unhealthy behaviours or the trigger.

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Avoidant Exes Can Unexpectedly Come Back On Their Own

How Fearful Avoidants Feel When A Secure Ex Leaves