but there is a requirement for all of this to happen they need to realize that they've lost you avoidance often equate intimacy with a loss of Independence and this ultimately leads them to pull away when a relationship gets too close for comfort and that's where things get wild I believe that a lot of dismissive avoidance and fearful avoidance are caught in this endless loop of chasing honeymoon period after honeymoon period and this is why they have separation Elation it feels like they found their long long lost friend here's the most wild part it's all happening
unconsciously so they aren't even aware that they're doing it now the worst nightmare for an avoidant is all right let's do this check this out on June 9th 2021 I ran a poll in our community asking one simple question what core attachment style would you classify your ex as the results were pretty eye openening out of the 33 7 individuals who participated in the poll over 87% believe that they have either a dismissive avoidant X or a fearful avoidant X and that's when I knew that I had made a major miscalculation you see up until
that point I had ever only on this YouTube channel talked about avoidance one time that was in this video right here and now I have all this data basically saying that 90% of the people who watch my video have an avoidant X is this why you've been avoiding me lately so I did what any self-respecting content creator would do I bought books did research and talked to experts and that's when I started learning something rather odd about avoidance specifically how they react when they believe that they've lost you look at this this is my theory
on how avoidance specifically of the dismissive variety experience relationships it's a clockwise Circle that can be divided up into eight distinct stages you have stage one the avoidant wants someone to love them then you have stage two they find someone and enter into a honeymoon period Then you have stage three the avoidant core wound gets triggered yes now it's getting exciting usually this gets triggered by their partner's anxious core wound so some stuff to unpack for later then stage before the avoidant starts thinking about leaving the relationship and here's where we need to pause at
exactly the halfway point of this circle because everything that we're going to be talking about in this video will be happening after this point so really stages five and six are where things get incredibly interesting stage five of course being the avoidant actually leaves the relationship and Stage six the avoidant goes through this kind of Separation allation phase or this mini honeymoon period This is where things get really really really interesting look look at this research from the wildly popular avoidant attachment resource freeo attach.txt often feeling an initial sense of relief at the relinquishing of
obligations and the sense they are regaining their self identity and not tending to initially miss their partner this is separation Elation as the pressure to connect is gone and this does make total sense when you consider that the vast majority of people who have dismissive avoidant attachment Styles have a coron that revolves around losing their independence let's pull from attached to back this up now attached of course was written by Amir LaVine and Rachel heler to help adults find and keep love on page 118 of this book a very interesting assertion is made avoidance often
mistake self-reliance for Independence so avoidance often equate intimacy with a loss of Independence which makes sense because they pull away when things become more intimate with other individuals but this is really not a true expression of Independence rather it's a defense mechanism that they've designed to protect themselves from perceived threats to their autonomy so when they break up with you in order to protect themselves they enter into what I like to call this mini honeymoon period look at the position of stage six on our Circle do you notice how it's directly across from stage two
the actual honeymoon period this is very much by Design and it's because of this that I have a theory I believe that dismissive avoidance and fearful avoidance are often caught in this endless loop of honeymoon highs jumping from one relationship for the honeymoon period to the next relationship for a honeymoon period and breaking up and on and on again basically an avoidant falls in love with their partner during stage two of the circle partly because the relationship is new and partly because not a lot of commitment is being required it's only after more and more
commitment in the relationship is being required that the new shine of that relationship begins to wear off see that's the inevitable downfall that you see in stages three 4 and five of our avoidant death Circle stage six of course is where that mini honeymoon period comes into play where the first honeymoon period was more about enjoying love without strings attached the second honeymoon period is about them regaining their independ dependence and being Overjoyed by that fact and this is why they have separation relation it's like they found their long lost friend again after ages of
being away now for most avoidance this is an unconscious process so they're not even aware that they're doing it check this out according to free to attach avoidants are experts in repressing their emotions they do not feel much initially typically appearing to recover quickly after relationships and can move on Fast they're more comfortable seeking a new Pursuit situation they envisage that a new person could be the solution to their woes unable to healthily hold space for their own needs and effectively process guilt with a new person they once again feel temporarily safe from being overwhelmed
by someone else's and better able to enjoy that connection so theoretically the avoidance can just start the entire process and circle again from the beginning just with a new person now what's interesting here is they skip stages seven and 8 to do this effectively they're going on the bound but this got me thinking does this actually work is this an effective way to process grief I mean a simple search on YouTube will kind of tell you what the dating landscape believes about rebound relationships rebound relationships don't work today we're talking about three reasons why rebound
relationships don't work today we're focusing on six reasons why rebound relationships don't work for getting over your ex people who refuse to heal and take breaks in between relationships experience more heartbreak and pain and they also ignore red flags when it comes to new relationships so no most people do not believe that rebound relationships work or are an effective way to process grief yet everything I've researched for this video seems to contradict that belief according to the Atlantic rebound relationships have a terrible reputation in one study of participants recovering from breakups those who'd found a
new partner were more confident in their own desirability more trusting of other people and less likely to say that they still had feelings for their old partner Amy Hackney a psychology professor at Georgia Southern University who ran a study on college students said this the sooner the college students in the study began dating someone new the faster they said that they felt that they had recovered from that prior relationship ship so this common belief that rebound relationships don't work is kind of false and it would make sense that avoidants have learned that rebound relationships are
an effective way to process a breakup and it really lends further cence to this idea of them jumping from honeymoon period to Honeymoon period because remember every single relationship effectively has two honeymoon periods they have this honeymoon period that they feel when they get into the relationship with someone and this honeymoon period that they feel immediately after they break up with someone but here's where it gets really odd I looked for hours trying to answer one question how common are rebounds sure I brought them into this idea that some avoidance will skip stages seven and
eight in our Circle but what percentage of them won't and I have to say there was nothing I mean there was literally nothing I could find to answer this question well that's not entirely true the closest I could find was this sort of sketchy blog looking at divorce statistics that claimed approximately 7 5% of individuals in long-term relationships will experience a rebound after breaking up ultimately the references were a little weak nevertheless it does give us something to work with so I decided to conduct my own poll on this in our community 52% of participants
in this poll claimed that they had a rebound relationship 48% claimed that they hadn't so we're kind of close to a 50/50 proposition here yet for the 48% of individuals who did not have the luxury of skipping stages seven and 8 of our avoidant Circle something really interesting happens in that psyche effectively though stages seven and 8 of the circle are intertwined seven of course being the breakup starts to hit the avoidant and eight is essentially depression where the avoidance says why is this always happening to me I feel awful like dominoes once stage seven
hits them eight is inevitably around the corner let's pull from free to attach again avoidance are free to long for an ex once that person is unavailable out of a relationship ship and typically out of contact so they are Untouched by the actual engagement and their deactivation systems aren't triggered so basically at some point during stages 7 and 8 if you leave them alone long enough they'll get this nostalgic revery triggered and it can lead to them ultimately painting you as the Phantom X all right check this out on page 124 of attached it says
one of the consequences of devaluing your romantic relationship is that you often wake up long after a relationship has gone stale often forgetting all the negative things that annoyed you you wonder what went wrong and reminisce lovingly about your long lost partner this of course is called the Phantom X syndrome it's the ultimate deactivation strategy for an avoidant they'll frequently find themselves longing for this long lost partner or pining away away for this long lost partner that's just moments away from entering their lives again and this belief in existence of a perfect partner Fosters the
concept of a phantom X this idealized non-existent figure figure who perpetually outshines real and present Partners this Relentless pursuit of an unattainable ideal often hinders their ability to appreciate and commit to genuine connections that they currently have but something about this all is just bugging me no one ever really talks about if there is just one Phantom X or multiple Phantom X's once again I researched and nada I literally could not find anything about this I can't find anything here's what I think it seems like it is possible for an avoidant to have multiple Phantom
X's just at different stages of their life a high school sweetheart the first person they slept with the first person they lived with you get the idea each new stage that they enter in their life has the potential to create a new Phantom X but as I personally interpret the Phantom X syndrome it doesn't necessarily always have to be someone that they dated it can be an ideal the fear of missing out on this type of person but I'm getting off track basically during stages seven and 8 they start considering getting back with you having
painted you as a phantom X and if that happens well the whole avoidant death wheel starts over again from stage one but there is a requirement for all of this to happen they need to realize that they've lost you you actually do need to try to move on from them let's pull a quote from free to attach one more time avoidance are free to long for an ex once that person is unavailable out of a relationship and typically out of contact unavailable out of a relationship basically meaning that you've broken up and have moved on
or look like you're moving on typically out of contact basically means you aren't talking that's essentially the only way that an avoidant will feel safe enough to put you in that Phantom X category and therein lies our problem let's go back to Stage six for a moment the separation Elation stage the worst nightmare for an avoidant is to be overwhelmed by anxiety from you and constantly needing to give you reassurance one of the biggest things that I haven't covered is actually the very reason why some avoidance can skip stages seven and 8 and just start
the death wheel over again well this is why worst breakup worst breakup it was rough first person I fell in love with ended over text text dump me over Facebook Messenger I did not reply I technically kicked him out I care about myself and my feelings enough to not stay with a person that is not serving me threatening kill herself if by left someone asked me to marry them and it was at a market outside and I said no and they started crying the worst nightmare for an avoidant is anxious Behavior needing reassurance not giving
an avoidant enough space all of this stuff reinforces the avoidance decision to leave you and stay gone and effectively it prolongs their honeymoon period it's only after an avoidant truly realizes that they've lost you that they're given the opportunity to Worship You from afar at [Music] least
