What it Feels Like to Break Up with an Avoidant

How you can let go and heal from emotionally unavailable partners

In my experience, there are two types of breakups that are the hardest to recover from: one with a narcissist and another with an avoidant.

While these two types of people are not exactly alike, they do tend to have overlaps and the results of the breakup with either of them is often more traumatic than your average end-of-relationship experience.

I’ve had the fortune (or should I say misfortune) of encountering both types of people and while I generally believe narcissists have a special place in hell, my experience with the avoidant was way more traumatic and excruciating than that of the narcissist.

The reason is, with a narcissist, the torture of the entire experience, the gaslighting, projection, emotional abuse, and all the rest of it, can even make the ending of the relationship feel like a relief on some level. But with an avoidant, there are zero red flags or problems in the entire course of the relationship and the sudden jump from the honeymoon phase to breakup can be way harder to comprehend.

Allow me to give you a little gist of what an avoidant breakup is really like.

Stage 1: Deactivation Followed by an Abrupt Breakup

When people with severe avoidant attachment hit their threshold for intimacy, they feel the need to pull away from the relationship. They turn to self-preserving deactivation to manage their distress. They try to rationalize their decision-making claims that you two weren’t compatible or that the relationship wasn’t going well or even top it off with a number of “flaws” they can create in their head about you in order to justify their decision to suddenly pull away. The truth is, none of this has anything to do with their partner and everything to do with the avoidant’s inability to regulate their emotions and need to deactivate and run.

A notorious habit that many avoidants have, is deciding the fate of the relationship and depriving you of a say in that decision. They have a need to control the end of the relationship out of their own fears of losing their sense of self. By withholding their emotions and information about the relationship from their partner, they never allow for an opportunity to fix any real or perceived issues at hand and choose their typical deactivation method to plan an escape instead.

The avoidant will start deactivating in what feels like (or sometimes actually is) an overnight sudden shift in behavior. There is little to no build-up to it, zero time to prepare and absorb it, it’s so sudden and abrupt that it leaves you questioning your reality. They go from “I love you” and “You’re so perfect” to “I don’t think we’re a match” or “I don’t want a relationship, so I want to break up” in a matter of days or even hours, with zero explanation or warning.

It leaves you questioning everything. Was the relationship real? Did they even feel anything? Did they really love me as much as they said they did? Was the whole thing a lie? How can they move on so presumably quickly and act so cold and distant while I’m here scrambling to get myself together and understand what happened? How is it possible that he was the one who said “I love you” first and made all the moves to solidify our commitment to each other, yet he was also the one who panicked and ran as soon as he started to feel deep emotions and started dating someone new within days? Well, I can tell you exactly how.

No, You’re not crazy.

No, You’re not delusional.

No, You didn’t do anything wrong.

Here’s what actually happened.

Your avoidant partner’s trauma kicked in and caused them to start deactivating as a defense strategy to keep them safe from what appeared to be a threat to their attachment system. When an individual with an avoidant attachment style starts having strong emotional experiences within a relationship, it can sometimes trigger their deeply rooted fear of losing their sense of self or independence, or at times the fear of intimacy and inadequacy which can then cause them to suddenly pull back and get into defense mode.

While it may seem like the avoidant attacher has moved on like nothing happened and is acting cold and distant as though they never had feelings for you to begin with, or even jumped into a rebound relationship right away to avoid the uncomfortable feelings of a breakup, the truth is they are just used to repressing and compartmentalizing their feelings. None of this is a reflection of how great your relationship was or how much they actually care about you.

Stage 2: Attempting to Move On from an Avoidant

My relationship lasted about a year and ended in a sudden unexpected conversation full of random justifications, or should I say excuses, made up by my avoidant partner to end a perfectly good relationship. Things as trivial as “You didn’t come on that one hike with me (even though you came on every other hike and trip over the course of the past year), so we are not entirely compatible” or “I like sweets and you don’t so clearly you’re not the one for me” because evidently having the same sugar consumption is the pillar of every healthy and long-lasting relationship. What a load of bullshit!

It took me a few months to gather my pieces and even begin to absorb what had happened. Unfortunately for me, I had also lost a job and a family member within the same week, so all this added up to emotionally paralyze me. As humans, any sudden change or shift in our lives, whether it be emotional or physical, is understandably difficult to work through as it destroys one of our most fundamental needs: Safety.

In my case, had this breakup happened within the first three months of the relationship or even the first six, it would’ve been a lot easier to process since I would still be assessing whether we’re the right fit for each other. But when you’re with someone who shows up consistently and continuously for over six months, saying all the right things, doing all the right things, and being on the same page with you regarding the future, you start to count on it as something that could potentially last, so the ending really caught me off guard and felt like the rug had been pulled from under me.

I tried countless methods to get some “closure” to finally put that puzzle to rest. Unlike a typical breakup, having zero information or reason for the abrupt ending, and jumping straight from an extended honeymoon phase to absolutely nothing, in a matter of hours, makes the healing process feel somewhat impossible. Our brains are wired to protect us from similar negative experiences recurring in the future, especially if you’re high in conscientiousness, so they will scramble to find answers in order to avoid the same pits in the future and in the case of this type of breakup, there are no “reasons” to be found so this can often get us stuck in a never-ending loop of searching for answers.

One of the things that helped me pull myself out of this cycle was to read as much on the topic as possible, whether it was through podcasts, articles, or books, I was constantly searching and trying to understand the behavioral patterns of an avoidant. Since our brains are unlikely to let go of this topic post-breakup, you might as well lean into it and learn something. It helps calm that part of your brain that wants to bring attention to this perceived threat, and it also helps you learn something about yourself and your own attachment wounds that you may have been unaware of to this date.

Another conscious decision I made following the breakup was to not avoid my feelings which was undoubtedly a hell of a rollercoaster. But as we all know, running from an emotion only magnifies it over time so allow yourself to grieve the relationship and the future you had planned with your avoidant partner. Feel the pain and let it pass through you, and while it may seem like it won’t ever get better, I promise you, it does.

Stage 4: Avoidant Partners vs. Accountability

I reached out to my avoidant partner a while after the breakup and told him how much he hurt me and how deeply this sudden betrayal wounded me. While it may be cathartic to let them know how it felt to be on the receiving end, you should expect that the response probably isn’t going to be great. They have no self-awareness of their deactivation patterns and hence are unable to take accountability, and in all likelihood, would just defend, justify, and even continue to project and make you feel responsible for the breakup.

In my experience, I considered all this before deciding to reach out to him, and the mere act of letting him know how he made me feel was somewhat therapeutic and allowed for healing to take place but if you were to attempt this with your avoidant partner, be sure to have realistic expectations about the outcome. They will not be able to understand why they hurt you or apologize or show any remorse or guilt, at least not on the surface, which can feel devastating.

But unlike narcissists, avoidants are capable of empathy and do feel sorry for causing that much hurt to someone they care about. Since they’re likely still in their deactivating defense mode months after the breakup, these feelings of guilt will only resurface and take over them like an emotional tsunami month or even years later once they manage to regulate their emotions. But I promise you, their emotions catch up to them, and in most cases, they realize what they lost by self-sabotaging and start to feel the depth of sadness and regret months if not years after the breakup.

At its core, it’s a deep betrayal that makes it hard to move on and heal from these types of breakups. These individuals can sometimes present themselves as secure and consistent in their behavior in the early stages of the relationship which allows us to trust them and show vulnerability. So, when they suddenly pull the rug from under us one day, like any other type of betrayal, it leaves us questioning our reality and sense of self. Safety plays a major role in our psychological health and someone deciding to abruptly take that away from us can create long-lasting trauma.

Stage 5: Life After Your Avoidant

When I read about avoidants, one of the most stereotypical behaviors they showcase was returning to the scene about six months after the breakup — once they manage to get distance and somewhat regulate their emotions. For the first few months, a part of me was really hoping that was true, and deep down hoping he would reach out again after we went no contact.

While not all avoidants do this, luckily (or frankly unluckily) for me- my ex was a textbook avoidant and I received that famous casual “check-in” message exactly six months (and one day) later. The irony was that by the time that message came, I no longer wanted it. As much as I still felt like giving in, remembering all the nights I spent crying myself to sleep, praying for the moment when he finally came back, I knew it was no longer what I needed. I knew he would repeat the exact same pattern had I allowed him back in my life and going through it once was painful enough so I certainly wasn’t going to put myself through that again.

My advice to anyone going through an avoidant breakup is to have enormous compassion for yourself. This is not a typical breakup and even if no one around you understands the depth of the pain or advises you to just “move on” or “get over it”, your feelings are valid.

Healing from this type of covert betrayal can take months or even years. My goal in sharing this was to create a space for people with similar experiences to know they’re not alone and that we will heal and get through this.

Ironically, this type of relationship often acts as a catalyst in our growth, and not just in the context of intimate relationships. Use this experience as an opportunity to upgrade your life and unlock your potential. I wouldn’t have believed this myself a few months ago but life after the avoidant is incomparably and infinitely better in every aspect imaginable. This experience forced me to make huge shifts in every area in my life and the transformation in the short few months after the breakup was nothing short of a miracle.

So, I promise you, even though it doesn’t feel like it right now, trust the process because it will get better. You got this!