Fearful Avoidants Who ‘Leave’ But Don’t Actually Leave

Fearful avoidants have a tendency of saying things that don’t match their actions – and the advice I give my clients is to pay more attention to their patterns and actions than to their words, because words can shift depending on how safe or overwhelmed they feel in the moment.

But when a fearful avoidant’s actions contradict each other, and their feelinfs seem to change so quickly, it creates a different kind of confusion.

For example they say:

• There’s no strong connection
• They’re not feeling the spark
• They don’t love you
• They don’t believe you’re “the one”
• They can’t offer you commitment

Then weeks or months later, they come back telling you they had missed you and realized you are “the one”. They’re more vulnerable than they’ve ever been, more willing to have the heavy conversations they avoided in the past and share with you things that make you feel this time around it will be different.

You get back together – kind of back together but not fully back together, but spending every single day and weekend together – and then like clockwork, their doubts creep back in. They still believe there’s no strong connection, they’re not feeling the spark, they can’t offer you any commitment or reassurance.

This can be so confusing especially if the relationship is amazing in many aspects. You have fun together, they’re caring, and do little things that make you feel special. But the “relationship” stays in situationship mode because their doubts always creep up and they pull away, but don’t actually “leave” in the sense that you are clearly broken up.

So how do you deal with this? How can you stabilize the connection enough for them to stay – is it even possible?

In this article, I’ll explain why a fearful avoidant’s feelings seem to change so quickly, why this can lead to situationships and what you can do (if anything) to stabilize their attachement system.

Why their feelings seem to change so quickly

Fearful avoidants experience both a deep desire for closeness and a deep fear of getting hurt.

When they’re distant from you, they feel loss and longing, and that’s when they start missing you and thinking “I want this,” “They’re the one.” It feels like a sudden realization but it’s really more about the conflict within themselves.

When you’re get close, the possibility of getting hurt feels real and normal doubts almost everyone feels in relationship feel like warning signs to fearful avoidants. The same person who felt certain weeks ago now feels unsure again, not because the connection changed, but because the perceived risk of being hurt did.

Some fearful avoidants even start resenting you and saying really mean things that can hurt deep and make you want to step away.

Then when they’re distant from you, they feel loss and longing, and that’s when they start missing you and thinking “I want this,” “They’re the one.” It feels like a sudden realization but it’s really more about the conflict within themselves.

Both states feel real to them in the moment. That’s why the switch can feel so convincing — and so confusing to you.

How their internal conflict can lead to feeling stuck

In my article on fearful avoidant accidental situationships, I talked about how they start off wanting to be in a relationship but their deep fear of getting hurt makes it heard for them to commit to a full-on relationship.

The same deep desire for closeness and a deep fear of getting hurt is also why fearful avoidants don’t fully leave.

They’re afraid of getting too close because it increases the stakes of getting hurt, but they’re also afraid of fully leaving because it will feel like abandonment – and that too hurts.

So you end up in a loop:

• Closeness – doubt – want to leave
• Distance –  longing – return
• Return – closeness – doubt again – want to leave again

And because there are real moments of care, intimacy, and connection, it’s hard to walk away.

It doesn’t feel like thing are so broken enough to end, but it also doesn’t feel stable enough to relax into. So end up in this place of constant anxiety – waiting for them to leave and waiting for them to fully come back.

The relationship feels like a situationship because you’re kind of back together but not fully back together, but spending almost every single day and weekend together. You even meet friends and family – without being sure “what are we?”

Can you stabilize this kind of connection?

This is the part I find hardest to explain to my clients because I know it’s not something they may want to hear.

You cannot stabilize this dynamic by trying harder, loving better, or being more patient because the instability isn’t coming from a lack of connection, feelings or even attraction – it’s coming from within a fearful avoidant.

No amount of reassurance from you will permanently override a pattern that gets triggered by a deep-seated fear of getting hurt — where everything seems to lead to one outcome: I’m going t get hurt.

A fearful avoidant may not even be consciously aware that this is what is driving their actions and doubts. All the may know is: I really like this person. We get a long great and I don’t want them out of my life… but something also seems off about how I feel about them.

And unless they become aware of their deep-seated fear of getting hurt and are willingness to work through it, the cycle repeats — no matter how good the connection is. This can happen even with a securely attached person.

What you can actually do

This doesn’t mean you’re powerless or stuck waiting for them to change. There are ways you can engage with this dynamic differently so that you’re not stuck in the “in-between” situationship type connecting or in “almost back together.”

See if you can pinpoint what exactly starts their doubts. Not just their fear of closeness, but what actually makes closeness feel like a risk.

Often, it’s not the connection itself — if it was, they would fully leave or not come back. It’s often what makes the possibility of being hurt feel like a real possibility. It doesn’t even have to be you trigering it.

You could be telling a story about work and mention a posible promotion that might require you to move out of state or country — and that triggers their fear that someday you might leave — or even than you are planning to leave.

You might mention a family member bought a very expensive car and that you wish one day you could have one like that — and that triggers their fear that they can’t give you want you want, even when you talking about the car had nothng to do with them.

The more specifically you can identify the trigger, the clearer the pattern becomes. You can then anticipate when their doubts are likely to surface, respond more intentionally instead of reactively — and more importantly, make them feel safe – not make them feel even more unsafe which creates even more doubts about you.

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Did Avoidant Ex Lie About Not Wanting A Relationship?