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Mistakes You Make When Avoidant Pulls Away (And What to Do Instead)

Channel: Guided Awareness
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhkBoB5yMII

Therapist Anber Haq lists five anxious-partner mistakes made when an avoidant pulls away, then gives calmer scripts to use instead - the core message being that most of the pain comes from miscommunication and self-blame, not from the avoidant actually leaving.

Key points

  • Five common mistakes (the anxious narratives):
  • Assuming a short pull-away (even a few hours) means you have been ghosted or broken up with. Some avoidants do ghost, and past ghosting primes this fear, but crashing out over it is often what actually triggers the breakup that wasn't going to happen.
  • Assuming they are mad at you. She notes a gender pattern: partners of female avoidants try to "resolve the solution" (asking what they did wrong), while partners of male avoidants seek reassurance they aren't mad.
  • Taking it personally. When avoidants crash out they say things they don't mean; don't absorb triggered words as truth about yourself. Take those with a grain of salt (words said while calm are different).
  • Pausing your life waiting for them to return. Breaks can last a day or two weeks - keep living, grieving is fine but don't stop showing up, so you're your best self when they come back.

  • Pulling away to give them "a taste of their own medicine." Pulling away for your own needs is fine; doing it as retaliation backfires.

  • What to do instead:

  • Lead with curiosity, not accusation: "I've noticed you've been quieter, is everything okay?" rather than "Why are you being distant?"
  • Don't assume it's about you - consider external variables first (work stress, a bad meeting with the boss, health issues, a pressuring parent). Reality-check against the relationship's length ("we've been together two years - a random breakup over stress is unlikely").
  • Pick the right moment: after work, when calm and less distracted. Side-by-side settings (a walk, a low-key cafe date, a FaceTime) work better than a heavy romantic confrontation, because avoidants communicate better side-by-side.
  • Actually listen to what they say, not what you fear. Provided scripts: if they say "I need space," respond "That makes sense - do you have an approximate time, so we're on the same page?" Don't let the avoidant call all the shots or escape giving any clarification; you're a person too and can still ask.

Note: the speaker is a practicing therapist and doctoral psychology student; the advice is framed to an audience she addresses as leaning anxious/anxious-preoccupied.

Reception

  • Small comment volume (~40). Overall warm and grateful, with several viewers timestamping specific tips they found useful and asking for follow-up videos (no-contact / avoidant reconnecting), which Anber says are on her list.
  • The most-resonant thread is a viewer whose avoidant partner vanished on her own birthday and, when asked "what's going on?" after days of silence, broke up immediately - illustrating the exact "crash out triggers the breakup" dynamic. Others share long-distance and months-long-disappearance stories.
  • Notable pushback from self-identified avoidants: one FA-leaning-dismissive commenter says the video shames avoidants for pulling away and forgets that avoidants watch too and also date each other; their pull-away is a trigger response, not manipulation.
  • A recurring darker sentiment questions whether the whole dynamic is worth it - several equate the hot-and-cold behavior with covert narcissism or abuse ("it's really hard to see the difference between avoidants and abusers"), and one argues unhealed dismissive avoidants shouldn't be accommodated at all until they do their own work.
  • Some pure fan sentiment for the host's calm presence and signature sign-off; the top-liked comment is actually off-topic affiliate spam plugging an "anxiety quiz."