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the REAL reason AVOIDANT DISCARDED you

Channel: Guided Awareness
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mN8VDSvoHt0

The speaker, a therapist, claims avoidants who abruptly leave ("discard") usually are not acting out of malice but out of inadequacy, overwhelm, and a mistaken belief that vanishing hurts you less.

Key points

  • Speaker dislikes the word "discard" as degrading but uses it because it helps people feel understood.
  • Hidden internal struggles: the leaving may have nothing to do with you. External stress (family issues, a parent's divorce, loss, depression) plus low self-esteem about being vulnerable builds up until they snap.
  • Parallel drawn to anxious-preoccupied: both bottle up negative thoughts until they explode. The anxious activate and seek closeness; the avoidant deactivate and pull away. Same buildup, opposite expression. If this is the cause, they often reach back out once the issue resolves.
  • Feeling inadequate / not good enough: avoidant believes they can't meet your expectations (emotionally, financially), so leaving "makes it easier for you." Example given: anxious woman asks her tired, busy dismissive-avoidant partner to come cuddle for an hour; he declines as reasonable; recurring fight; he concludes "all I do is make you cry, I'm not worth it, I should be alone."
  • Too much fighting: they can't handle constant conflict and don't know how to resolve it.
  • Failed prior exit: they tried to leave before, you agreed to work on it, nothing changed; now they fear being "dragged back in" so they disappear instead. Speaker says this reflects their poor communication and lack of healing, not your fault.
  • Mismatched core values / low investment: if the relationship was short or not serious to them, they cut it off even though it mattered to you.
  • Felt pressured to change: forced to choose between themselves and you, early-stage avoidants pick themselves "11 out of 10 times" (22 years of self-reliance vs one year together); this weakens after 4-5 years. Suggested approach: give them space, then introduce change opportunities once closer.
  • Core summary: they thought a clean cutoff would hurt you less and that they were doing you a favor. Seeing you cry feels to them like adding hurt, not an opening to change. Their narrative: "I'm bad at relationships, you deserve better, let me get out of your life."
  • Speaker repeatedly frames these as explanations, not excuses, and reports them as the avoidant's perception.