Latest / The Art of Love With Lucia / Avoidant Ex Regret Timeline: When They Actually Start To Miss You

Transcript

Avoidant Ex Regret Timeline: When They Actually Start To Miss You · The Art of Love With Lucia

• 0:01
  How long does it take for an avoidant ex to regret losing
• 0:05
  you? If you've ever dated someone who
• 0:08
  pulled away, shut down emotionally, or seemed
• 0:10
  indifferent after a breakup, this video or podcast is for
• 0:14
  you. Avoidant attachment styles make
• 0:17
  breakups feel confusing and painful because one day they're
• 0:21
  all in and the next day they're gone.
• 0:23
  So do they ever regret it and if so, how long does it take?
• 0:29
  Well, I'm going to discuss the psychology of avoidant
• 0:31
  attachment and what the research shows about whether and when
• 0:35
  they might actually miss you. Hi, this is Lucia with the Art
• 0:38
  of Love. I'm a dating and relationship
• 0:41
  expert specializing in helping you get your ex back or to get
• 0:44
  over your ex. And welcome back my beautiful No
• 0:47
  contact Army. I am still doing the promotion
• 0:52
  where if you leave a review, not a rating for my apps Silencio
• 0:57
  and the link is underneath every single video and podcast, then I
• 1:01
  will send you a copy of my book, No Contact Secrets, which you
• 1:05
  can find out more about at nocontactsecrets.com.
• 1:08
  It's over 170 pages, so there's lots of reading to be done, and
• 1:13
  all you have to do is, as I said, leave that review and then
• 1:18
  send me a screenshot at The Art of love.net and you can find the
• 1:25
  contact on that website. OK, All right, so let's get
• 1:31
  started. So first to clarify what
• 1:35
  avoidant attachment is if you're not sure.
• 1:37
  So people with avoidant attachment, they value
• 1:41
  independence over emotional intimacy.
• 1:44
  They pull away when things get too serious.
• 1:48
  They suppress their feelings after a breakup.
• 1:51
  They're more likely to use distancing strategies post
• 1:55
  breakup. They often report feeling
• 1:59
  relieved immediately after a split.
• 2:02
  They may seem cold or unbothered even if they do care.
• 2:06
  And that's because they're wired to distance themselves from
• 2:09
  emotional pain. So their regret, if it comes,
• 2:14
  often shows up later than you would expect.
• 2:17
  So this explains why your avoidant X might seem cold or
• 2:21
  unbothered. It's actually a coping
• 2:24
  mechanism, not necessarily how they truly feel.
• 2:27
  So when does regret hit? Well, studies on breakup
• 2:33
  adjustment show a clear pattern. So phase one is relief, and
• 2:39
  that's from zero to two months. And a study in Social
• 2:45
  Psychological and Personality Science from 2015 found that
• 2:50
  avoidance reported higher happiness levels immediately
• 2:55
  post breakup compared to anxious or secure individuals.
• 3:00
  They may seem indifferent or even happy, which can be
• 3:03
  confusing, but to them it just intimacy Feels like a trap,
• 3:10
  sorry to tell you. And they're relieved that the
• 3:13
  relationship is over. They don't have to deal with any
• 3:16
  emotional intensity or conflict. They're living their best life.
• 3:20
  That's why chasing after an avoiding and expressing your
• 3:23
  love for them after a breakup is the worst thing you could do.
• 3:27
  That's not what they want to hear.
• 3:30
  Now luckily for you, this is often short lived and you may
• 3:34
  have heard me say in another video the quote, dump her, laugh
• 3:39
  now, cry later. Dumpy, cry now, laugh later.
• 3:44
  Well, don't worry, the tables will soon turn.
• 3:47
  Although they're quote laughing now, not necessarily really
• 3:52
  laughing, but you know what I mean, And you're crying.
• 3:55
  Eventually they're going to be crying.
• 3:58
  So then we move to phase two, which is delayed emotional
• 4:03
  processing and this could take two to four months.
• 4:05
  And this is when they tell themselves a story.
• 4:09
  You know, they may think, oh, well, you know, you were too
• 4:10
  emotional for them. You weren't right for each
• 4:13
  other. It wasn't going to work.
• 4:15
  They're essentially rewriting history.
• 4:17
  They want to change the story so they can avoid feeling regret
• 4:21
  over breaking up with you. And they did care, but they need
• 4:26
  to justify what they did. And research from the Attachment
• 4:30
  Project shows that avoidance suppress their emotions
• 4:35
  initially, but feelings resurface later as the emotional
• 4:41
  dust settles and they start to reflect.
• 4:45
  Especially if they see you moving on or thriving.
• 4:50
  This can trigger doubt. This is why I have the two drink
• 4:53
  trick that you have to use but not right away.
• 4:57
  And that's where you show 2 drinks at a club or a restaurant
• 5:02
  or a bar and make it look like you're on a date.
• 5:06
  So you can't have two girly drinks as a female drink and a
• 5:10
  male drink. Yes, there is such a thing.
• 5:13
  Figure out which one is which. No umbrellas for the male drink.
• 5:18
  So they need to pass this stage in order to feel regret.
• 5:21
  And they can only feel regret if you leave them alone.
• 5:25
  Contact. Ignore my cat.
• 5:27
  Contacting them is not gonna make them feel regret.
• 5:30
  If anything, it'll send them back to the relief stage.
• 5:34
  The time apart from you is when they start to feel safe enough
• 5:37
  to remember the relationship as it was, not through the filter
• 5:40
  of their story. So then we have phase three
• 5:47
  which is months 4:00 to 6:00. This is where they are confused
• 5:52
  and I talked about this in my video from last week titled Your
• 5:57
  X is More Confused Than You Think.
• 5:59
  And I will put the link in the upper right hand corner on
• 6:01
  YouTube. And that's because they expected
• 6:05
  you to reach out, especially if you were anxious.
• 6:07
  And you know you probably were if you were dating an avoidant.
• 6:09
  Those two seem to be attracted to each other.
• 6:12
  So for sure they thought that you would reach out and chase
• 6:15
  them. But if you've been in no
• 6:18
  contact, if you've been a good little soldier, you haven't done
• 6:20
  that. And this forces them to confront
• 6:24
  their feelings and notice that they actually do miss you now
• 6:28
  since you're no longer around and it doesn't look like you're
• 6:31
  going to be contacting them. And this is where doubt starts
• 6:35
  to set in. They're not fully regretting
• 6:39
  losing you yet, but they are confused and missing you.
• 6:43
  And the reality of their decision starts to hit them.
• 6:46
  They're realizing that they can't just run away from this
• 6:49
  anymore. And there's a strong possibility
• 6:52
  that they're losing you and won't be able to get you back.
• 6:56
  And then finally, the phase you've been waiting for, yes,
• 6:59
  phase four, regret. This comes six months onwards to
• 7:05
  who knows how long. And this is when they fully
• 7:09
  start to feel regret. They finally start to see what
• 7:12
  they really lost when they broke up with you.
• 7:15
  They never thought you would move on and that would they
• 7:19
  would completely lose you. And besides regret, they're also
• 7:23
  going to start to panic. And this is when they reach out
• 7:26
  out of nowhere. One of my clients didn't hear
• 7:28
  from his ex until I believe it was seven months had gone by and
• 7:33
  in that whole seven months he did not receive 1 little
• 7:36
  breadcrumb. But unfortunately for her, for
• 7:41
  his ex he had already moved on. There's a longitudinal
• 7:47
  longitudinal study in personal relationships from 2017 that
• 7:53
  found that avoidance were more likely to reach out after long
• 7:58
  periods of no contact, especially if they saw their ex
• 8:01
  thriving. Avoidance often regret a
• 8:05
  breakup, but only after significant time and because of
• 8:10
  external triggers. Like as I said, seeing you move
• 8:14
  on. And also by this stage,
• 8:17
  nostalgia or loneliness is going to make them question their
• 8:21
  decision avoidance process loss and a delay.
• 8:27
  Their regret isn't absent, it's just slow to arrive, especially
• 8:32
  if you're anxious. You want to get them back as
• 8:34
  soon as possible, but you have to have patience.
• 8:38
  So how can you tell if they regret it?
• 8:40
  Well, look for things like indirect contacts.
• 8:43
  So liking your posts, random breadcrumb texts, watching your
• 8:47
  stories, all of a sudden asking mutual friends about you,
• 8:51
  mentioning memories or checking in?
• 8:55
  Hey, just checking in. Sure, hey.
• 8:57
  How are you doing? Just want to see how are you.
• 8:59
  Doing hot and cold behavior so reaching out and then
• 9:03
  disappearing, you know hey hope you're well.
• 9:05
  And then they're off again. So keep in mind that it takes
• 9:11
  dismissive avoidance a lot longer to feel regret than it
• 9:15
  does for anxious avoidance. And something you what
• 9:20
  absolutely must keep in mind is that you need to let them get to
• 9:23
  the stage where they regret the breakup if you want them back.
• 9:27
  Real regret is when they understand how they hurt you,
• 9:31
  understand why they did it, and they promise to work on being
• 9:35
  better. But remember, regret doesn't
• 9:39
  always mean they'll change because avoidance often repeat
• 9:44
  their patterns unless they actively work on themselves.
• 9:48
  That's why I say that the prerequisite for coming back for
• 9:53
  you, allowing them to come back into your life is they have to
• 9:57
  agree to work on their attachment style.
• 10:00
  Because if they don't, it's going to happen again.
• 10:03
  They're going to break up with you again and it's going to be
• 10:06
  worse the second time. So don't put your life on hold.
• 10:09
  Avoidance operate on their own timeline and it may not align
• 10:13
  with yours. So the best thing you can do is
• 10:16
  focus on yourself as I always say.
• 10:18
  Because whether they've regretted or not, you do deserve
• 10:22
  someone who chooses you without hesitation.
• 10:26
  So staying no contact, do not reach out.
• 10:29
  I know it's difficult but trust me, the pain of patience is
• 10:33
  nothing compared to the pain of regret.
• 10:38
  By breaking no contact you will most likely regret it and it's
• 10:43
  going to take a lot longer for them to get to the regret stage.
• 10:47
  OK so now I want to hear from you.
• 10:50
  Have you heard from your ex and what did they say?
• 10:54
  And if you haven't, how long have you been in no contact?
• 10:58
  And if you would like my help to get your ex back you can contact
• 11:01
  me at theartoflove.net/coaching and we will send you the rates.
• 11:07
  They are not on the website and the direct link to that is
• 11:09
  underneath every single video and podcast.
• 11:12
  If you found this video helpful, please like, subscribe and
• 11:15
  share. If you're listening to this as a
• 11:18
  podcast, the best way to help the show is to download this
• 11:21
  episode. And finally, remember, love
• 11:24
  inspires and powers up, lifts and enlightens.