Does The Avoidant Care That You're Gone?

Added: 2026-05-06

[00:00:00]Do avoidants even care when you are gone? Why do you want [music] to know?

[00:00:04]Is there a part of you that deep down is trying to derive your sense of self-esteem through whether or not somebody external who maybe hurt you, who may not even be ready to invest in a relationship irrespective of how perfect or amazing you could be, or no matter how hard you try and how good enough you are in a relationship, that may not change their mind? What part of you is so desperate to find out, to get closure, to get certainty, to ask yourself do they care, will they care?

[00:00:31]And what need are you trying to fulfill by knowing? Well, I'll take you through in this video what happens to avoidants after they leave, but most importantly, if you are willing to look deeper within and get to know yourself and give yourself some love and consideration, we're going to talk about what part of you needs so desperately to know and actually why asking this question all the time is going to further tailspin you into exhausting yourself, abandoning yourself, and never even getting the certainty or closure that you're looking for.

[00:01:08]>> [music] >> So, here's what happens with avoidants, okay? I'll tell you this part, but please don't just listen to this part and then leave the video because you're doing yourself a disservice if you do that. Dismissive avoidants, if they're in long-term relationships, yes, they get into a long-term relationship, let's say anything over a year really, well, short long-term relationships, but you know, typical relationships we might see nowadays, once they've gotten enough needs met and derived enough comfort and safety from somebody, they do miss the person. It's just a delayed breakup period. So, when you're gone, especially if you go no contact, really specifically if you go no contact, phase one is that they feel relief. They usually feel relief initially because they feel relief from the fear and all the fears really that come up in a relationship, the fears of losing their sense of self or being enmeshed, the fear of being trapped, the fear of being seen as not good enough or not capable of being good enough at love and relationships.

[00:02:03]And all of a sudden there's a break from that. There is a reprieve. And that often causes a dismissive avoidant to go, "Ah, I feel free. I feel better."

[00:02:11]And then, when they actually are no longer operating from having to worry about those fears and some time has passed, namely about 6 weeks to 3 months, they start going through their actual delayed grief period where they miss somebody and they wonder about what that person's doing. Now, that missing is usually small. It starts off small, but that missing by stage three turns a little bit bigger. And they may actually try to revisit a relationship. They may try to reach back out. But here's what I want to be super clear about. Reaching back out does not mean that they are ready for a relationship. You should only entertain an avoidant if they reach back out if they're actively doing things in their behavior to move the needle on healing their attachment style, going to therapy, counseling, taking courses online, reading books, things that where they're actively already behaviorally doing things, not saying they would like to doing them. Those are really big green flags. And if somebody says that they're doing that and they come to you and say they miss you and they want to try again and they're working on themselves, those are green flags very much worth considering because contrary to popular belief, I've seen enough times in my practice and with many, many people that I've worked with it when dismissive avoidants try to actually do the work, they show up as very beautiful partners. They're grounded, they're reliable. I mean, I'm married one.

[00:03:24]I know that firsthand. I have a very, very lovely husband who did the work and showed up and became secure and still has that like deep grounded practicality of an avoidant, which is beautiful, but then the emotional availability of a secure person, which is meaningful.

[00:03:38]And that can happen, but it doesn't happen because people say they would like to. It happens because people actively are doing those things. Now, why? This is the most important part of the video, so don't click off cuz you you leave yourself, you abandon yourself and you're like, "I came here for the information about the other person and now I'm going to leave." What in you needs to know so badly? What need will it meet to know if they miss you or they're wondering about you? And usually when we break it down, it's the need for certainty, the need for control, the need for connection, and the need for validation. You're usually meeting multiple needs by trying to find out this information. But here's the thing.

[00:04:14]You find out this information, maybe you get a little bit of certainty, a little bit of validation. Okay, they might care. Okay, it wasn't my fault.

[00:04:20]Beautiful. It's not your fault. You're having somebody leave you who's not emotionally ready for a relationship has nothing to do with you. I can tell you that. But you're not going to close the loop on these repeating patterns where you keep investing in these same types of relationships unless or until you learn to meet some of those needs yourself. How can you start validating yourself instead of putting yourself down every day? Well, you might start journaling your wins every evening, so your mind is actually learning to perceive and take in validation. Because before you do that, if you're trying to always meet your needs for validation outside of you, then your mind is so used to looking outside of you and what happens the moment somebody's having a bad day and they can't validate you? Or you're dealing with somebody emotionally unavailable who can't be there to validate you or doesn't think of those things?

[00:05:05]I mean, that's a really fragile place to be trying to derive your sense of self-esteem from, is it not? What is it?

[00:05:10]Certainty? How can you build more certainty into your own life? Maybe through habits and structure and a sense of personal identity by getting to know yourself and spending time with yourself. And then maybe diving a little bit more deeply into a mission, a vision, a plan for your life across the seven areas. What do you want for your career? What do you want in the financial area of life? What kind of friendships do you want to surround yourself with? What do you want in terms of your hobbies, your interests? What's meaningful to you from a spiritual perspective? When you look into those things, you start to derive a sense of certainty because you know what your life is about.

[00:05:46]But until we build up a sense of self-identity, you're always going to be trying to derive your sense of self through does the avoidant like me? Will they come back? And that is a very, very painful place to be operating from all the time. It's great to understand cuz then you understand it's not about you, but if you stop there, you won't understand and then you might go to the next situation and be with another avoidant that you have to wonder about. So, what in you is trying to find needs through understanding? And how can you meet those needs in different ways?

[00:06:18]I want to come in here and share a free gift that we are giving away. It is our skyrocket yourself-esteem course that you get to keep for free for life if you sign up for a 7-day free trial to the Personal Development School. Within that 7 days, you'll be able to access every single course that we have at PDS, you'll be able to join live webinars, ask me personally your questions in there, and you'll be able to use that 7-day free trial to explore all of the other peer support groups, build community, and you will keep the skyrocket yourself-esteem course literally for free for life. If you cancel before the 7th day, you'll never be charged anything and you'll still get to keep the gift skyrocket yourself-esteem for free. So, I hope you enjoy. It's a really powerful course for helping you build more confidence, rewire limiting beliefs that are blocking you, and help you build and understand the relationship to yourself so you can honor your needs, your truth, and your boundaries.

[00:07:05]These cycles, they're painful and you don't have to keep going through them and that only changes when you change your relationship to the fact that this is happening and look within instead of looking without. I hope this is helpful for you today and I'll see you next time.