most people think that the reason that avoidance come back after they lose you is some combination of you using no contact but usually only when no contact is used seeking comfort in familiar surroundings people with this attachment style often seek comfort in familiar surroundings and relationships or they were simply seeking Freedom they were seeking Freedom now this isn't technically wrong but there's a lot more Nuance to it than most people will have you believe this is my black hole Theory and I think it's the reason that most avoidance come back after they lose you now
there's a lot going on in this graphic so let's just start right at the beginning with stage one how secure Partners become anxious now many people believe that avoidance are naturally drawn to anxious attachment Styles I mean just look at the top Google results it's always some variation of avoidance are drawn to anxious attachment Styles but I think my perspective is a little different now don't get me wrong I'm not saying that avoidance aren't attracted to anxious people they very clearly are however I'm actually wondering if we have a bit of a chicken and egg
situation here you know the old adage what came first the chicken or the egg look at this this was a poll I conducted in 2021 where I asked my clients what they believed their ex's attachment style was as you can see the predominant attachment style most of my clients believe their X's have is dismissive avoidant I also conducted another poll back in 2021 where I asked those same clients what they believed their attachment style was and as you can see most believe they are anxiously attached but then I started thinking through the data and comparing
it to what I was hearing on coaching calls and it added another layer to this whole thing you see most clients would tell me they were anxious but only after first telling me that they used to be secure so what's going on here well let's get back to our black hole graphic and move on to stage two the attachment battle now one of the things I love most about attachment theory is the fact that they are fluid they can change based on circumstance or partner this circle represents you you are a secure attachment style I'm
going to color it green because green represents balance Harmony and emotional stability this circle represents your partner they are an avoidant attachment style I'm going to color it gray because gray represents a detached nature now here's what happens when they Collide a subtle battle will play out at first things might seem fine but over time the avoidance need for emotional distance starts to clash with your need for connection it starts with The avoidant Retreat the avoidant will pull away maybe they start to become distant unresponsive or shut down emotionally this triggers uncertainty in you you
as a secure partner might try to close that gap which of course causes the avoidant to push back the more you try to close the distance the more the avoidant partner Retreats and it creates this sort of feedback loop you start to feel confused wondering if you've done something wrong or why they seem to shut you out this tension keeps building until one of three things happens the first thing could be the secure person becomes anxious meaning the avoidant has one you the secure partner begin to feel anxious you weren't like this before but now
you feel uneasy constantly questioning the relationship and seeking validation in this scenario the avoidant attachment style has one pulling you into a more anxious space at you chase after the connection they keep at an arm's length or the second thing could happen the avoidant becomes secure this means the secure person has won in rare cases the avoidant partner May begin to open up and shift towards a more secure attachment they start to trust in the relationship and the emotional stability you offer which helps them overcome their fear of intimacy and then the third thing could
happen the secure gets fed up and leaves no one wins or the secure person grows tired of the emotional roller coaster they realize the relationship isn't worth the constant back and forth and they leave ending the cycle without either side truly winning the battle what I think is happening to most of my clients is they come into relationships with their partner as a secure individual but that battle unfolds and inevitably turns a secure person into an anxious one and this leads the way for a very dark self fulfilling cycle let's talk about that now as
we move on to stage three of our black hole Theory the self-fulfilling cycle tell me does this look familiar this is again my avoidant death wheel it basically describes every stage in avoiding goes through from the start of a relationship to the end of a relationship you've heard me talk about this in a lot of videos here's one thing I've never really talked about though stages three and four I've only really talked about them from the avoidance perspective it's just naturally assumed by everyone who looks at the death wheel that the avoidant is getting cold
feet because of the death wheel but the truth is that as the relationship unfolds that battle has already taken place your attachment style has shifted towards anxiousness because of their avoidance and as your anxiety increases so does the avoidance emotional unavailability I like to think of this as a builtin escape hatch that avoidance have and their relationship now I've seen this happen time and time again and while I'm not really sure if it's a conscious or unconscious decision it's definitely there the moment the avoidant senses that their partner is becoming more anxious it triggers this
escape hatch mechanism it's as if they have this pre-programmed response oh you're getting closer time to bolt never mind the fact that many of an avoidance partners are only acting anxious because of the battle that played out I talked about earlier what really unfolds is this weird self-fulfilling cycle the more anxious you become the more distant they become it's almost like your anxiety justifies their Retreat and in their mind they may even start to believe that your increased need for closeness is proof that the relationship isn't working this cycle reinforces itself over and over again
until the relationship inevitably collapses and that's really where the whole black hole analogy comes into play whether aware of it or not and avoidance starts most intimate relationships with this safety net a builtin excuse to end things it's really quite impressive if you think about it what starts is a small shift in attachment Styles quickly spirals into a full-blown collapse the avoidant distance themselves your anxiety increases and in response they activate their escape hatch and exit the relationship ah but the Fun's not over yet stage four the grasses Greener syndrome so really the focus thus
far with the avoidant death wheel has been on stages three and four but let's look at stages 5 through 8 that's an important part of the process as well with stage five they actually end the relationship nothing too shocking there with Stage six they are Overjoyed that they left and that's where we start to see a little bit of the grasses green are set in maybe they try to date someone else maybe they mope around all day I don't know eventually though they hit this critical mass of depression and in order to ensure that they
don't confronted head on they find a way to distract themselves distractions come in many forms for an avoidant they could focus wholly on work they could Rebound with multiple people they could fall off the face of the Earth and go travel for a few weeks at some point though they start to reminisce about your relationship enough time has gone by to where you aren't such a threat anymore they've likely gone through the whole death wheel process a few times pushing away partners then seeing those Partners find stability and happiness elsewhere it's at that point that
the avoidant might start to wonder if they made a mistake check this out this is a direct quote from attached specifically referring to how avoidant individuals think about relationships one of the consequences of devaluing your romantic relationship is that you often wake up long after the relationship has gone stale having forgotten all those negative things that annoyed you about your partner wondering what went wrong and reminiscing longingly about your long lost love that's not enough for you all right we'll try this quote from freeo attach.to long for an ex once that ex or person is
unavailable out of the relationship and typically out of context so they are Untouched by actual engagement and their deactivation systems aren't triggered both of these quotes are essentially saying the same thing once the relationship ends and the x is unavailable they begin to idealize the person free from emotional engagement or triggers this allows them to long for the relationship once it no longer requires vulnerability which sounds a lot like stage five of our black hole analogy the Phantom X phenomenon ah the Phantom X or as attached defines it on page 124 and avoiding convincing themselves
that they have a true longing for someone from their past one of the videos I'm most proud of is this video right here the shocking price of wance pay when they lose you in it I make a really interesting assertion about the Phantom X phenomenon one that I think gives a more accurate representation of what a phantom X really is for an avoidant you see I'm of the belief that the Phantom X isn't made up of one specific X it's made up of all the best parts of all the other X's once again pulling from
attached this fixation with a past partner affects budding new relationships because it acts as a deactivation strategy blocking you from getting close to someone else even though you'll probably never get back together with your Phantom X just the knowledge that they're out there is enough to make any new partner seem insignificant by comparison I think avoidance jump from relationship to relationship remembering and taking the very best parts of those relationship ships forgetting and discarding the worst until they've created this almost Frankenstein like phantomx that they call upon at any point during any new relationship as
the ultimate deactivation strategy but sometimes a dominant X will stand out one that they can't get out of their heads and here's the thing for an avoidant a perfect relationship is often one that's already doomed why well because the risk of actually having to commit is low almost nonexistent since the relationship already failed think of it like this and avoid it instinctively knows that reaching back to a past partner is emotionally safe the relationship is over so they won't have to face the demands of intimacy or vulnerability again instead they can idealize the relationship from
afar cherry picking only the best memories while conveniently discarding the messy parts that led to the breakup like attached notes this Phantom X becomes the ultimate deactivation strategy anytime a new relationship starts to get serious the avoidant Compares it to the unrealistic perfect image of their Phantom X making the current partner seem inadequate by comparison in their mind it gives them a reason to withdraw to sabotage and ultimately avoid true emotional closeness so while the avoidant may feel drawn to past partners it's not because they truly want to rekindle things it's because the past offers
a convenient Escape an unthreatening fantasy where they don't have to confront their fear of commitment the results they continue to cycle through relationships longing for a perfect connection that can never really exist and that leads us to Stage six the sadness of their plate this has been some really heavy stuff it's really easy to throw stones at avoidance to call them bad evil normally this is the part of the video where I sit back and say don't worry I'm not defending avoidance but I'm not going to do that today I'm going to defend them I
feel sorry for them I used to be one of them there's an old story someone told me once about a bird the bird was born in a cage so long ago that it never knew what it meant to fly freely this bird could see the sky through the bars and often long to soar to feel the wind under its wings like it was supposed to but anytime the cage door was opened the bird would stay inside too afraid of the unknown outside those bars over time the bird convinced itself that the cage was a safe
haven that the world outside was dangerous and uncertain it forgot what it was longing for in the first place even though deep down that desire to be free never really disappeared instead the bird watched other birds fly by wondering why it couldn't join them but it always stayed in the cage held back by its own fear in a strange way the cage became a prison and a refuge protecting the bird from the freedom it feared and so while it longed to escape it couldn't help but remain locked inside unable to break free of the walls
it built for itself avoidance are like that bird they're locked in a cage of their own making longing for connection but too afraid to step into the vulnerability that real relationships require it's in their nature to withdraw to stay inside the safety of their emotional walls and as a result they often end up longing for the very thing they fear most love and closeness this doesn't mean they can't change they can attachment Theory proves that the mistake most people make is thinking they can do the work to change for the avoidance but the truth is
no amount of Love reassurance or effort can fix someone who is isn't ready to face their own fears the avoidant has to take those steps themselves to open the cage door and be willing to step outside you can support them but you can't walk that path for them change is possible but only if they're willing to put in the work confront their avoidance and learn to embrace the vulnerability that they've been running from
