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Avoidants CRACK OPEN When You Do THIS (No One Talks About It)

Channel: Chris Seiter
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ujn20-kKqYk

Argues you cannot make an avoidant open up directly; the only thing that works is a "trust paradox" - giving space plus a calm, secure presence - and even that may not be worth the cost to your own identity.

Key points

What does not work

  • You can ask an avoidant to open up but cannot do it for them. Dismissive avoidants are often disconnected from what they feel, so they cannot express needs they do not understand. Opening up is a slow, personal process they have to do alone.
  • Being endlessly nonreactive to their distance is unsustainable: like a plant under a window whose light keeps shifting, you wither without steady emotional sunlight unless you get it from other sources.
  • People who date avoidants often stop being the "sun" of their own solar system and start orbiting the avoidant's needs. The more they orbit, the more crowded the avoidant feels and pulls away, breeding resentment on both sides. Seiter says about 90% of the people he coaches are stuck in this cycle.

The trust paradox

  • The trust we want cannot be reached by asking or pushing. Instead create a "trust gap" by not entering the avoidant's emotional space too fast, paired with "unconditional presence" - being consistently available without trying to fix, interpret, or push.
  • The most common pairing he sees on his site is an anxious client with an avoidant ex. Anxious people are natural problem solvers, which makes the not-pushing, not-fixing part especially hard.
  • Illustrated by an interview with Anita Boyd, a self-described avoidant who married a secure partner. When she pushed him away (e.g. at a party in Hawaii), he stayed calm, gave her space, and did not chase or seek validation. That steady presence let her move through her emotions and come back on her own.

The cost

  • Most viewers are not effortlessly secure; they are anxious, so the trust paradox can feel like a foreign body and like fighting every instinct.
  • Ask "at what cost?" - it is not worth losing your identity. The better move is to give space to yourself too: invest in your own goals, growth, and security, which pays off with or without the avoidant.

Reception

  • Strongly positive and emotionally resonant; many of the top comments are anxious-leaning viewers sharing their own avoidant relationships.
  • A dominant theme is gratitude reframed: several say the painful relationship was worth it because it taught them attachment theory and pushed them toward becoming their own source of validation and "the sun in my own solar system" again.
  • A large contingent pushes back harder than the video, urging people to simply leave: "it ain't worth it," "give them what they give you: nothing," and warnings to run rather than wait for an avoidant to change.
  • The "giving space for years" trap drew detailed agreement (one viewer gave space for 7 years and lost herself).
  • One viewer offered a counter-anecdote of the paradox working: she kept home steady, used "I choose you" over "I love you," and her husband gradually came back.