If you’re wondering how to make an avoidant miss you, this is the guide for you.
It features 17 tips to make an avoidant lover yearn for your company after they have turned cold on you.
On the surface, this might seem like a manipulative romantic strategy. However, as we get to understand the psychology of avoidant people throughout this article, you’ll learn to understand why it’s sometimes essential to take steps to make them miss you.
In my role as a life coach, I’m often helping clients learn how to better understand and deal with important people in their lives.
That’s why I’m excited to share this guide with you.
So, let’s dive in.
1. What Is The Avoidant Attachment Style?
When I mention an ‘avoidant person’ or ‘avoidant partner’ in this guide, I’m talking about a person who has an avoidant attachment style.
There are three attachment styles, as defined by British psychologist John Bowlby’s attachment theory, created back in the 1950s.
These are:
- Secure. Those with a secure attachment style find it easy getting close to others. They can express their needs, depend on their lover and be depended on without any resistance. Their relationships aren’t defined by fear or insecurity.
- Anxious. Those with an anxious attachment style try to chase commitment too aggressively, often scaring potential partners away. This is often driven by a fear of abandonment.
- Avoidant. Those with an avoidant attachment style find it difficult to be intimate or vulnerable with others. It’s a struggle to trust them, depend on them or reveal their deepest emotions. They avoid having to do this by keeping physically or emotionally distant. Again, this tends to be driven by a fear of being hurt.
You can learn to recognise someone with an avoidant attachment style by reading my list of Signs Of A Love Avoidant.
I have also created a guide packed with Proven Strategies How To Communicate With An Avoidant. You can watch the video summary of this guide below.
2. What Are Avoidants Attracted To?
A love avoidant’s fear of intimacy is often framed as a fear of engulfment. An avoidant might tell themselves and others that they don’t want to be controlled by a lover, nor lose their freedom to a romantic relationship.
Often, they will fully believe this (as trauma from a broken heart or parental abandonment often buries itself deep in the subconscious).
However, it can also be somewhat true, especially if they were previously victims of an overly controlling parent, ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend.
As a result, the avoidant man or woman will often pursue people who are emotionally unavailable. A man might choose the party girl who is out meeting men every weekend. A woman might pursue a ‘playboy’ who she knows is arranging several Tinder dates a week.
Ultimately, when someone shows they don’t care too much, the avoidant feels more attraction.They feel free to pursue them, because there would appear to be no danger of the situation developing into something too serious.
This is a defence mechanism on their part. They make terrible dating choices with people who don’t care about them, so to avoid falling too deeply in love and having their heart truly broken.
Indeed, if people with anxious attachment styles pursue them, they will normally run a mile, accusing them of being too desperate or needy.
With that said, it is possible to pursue and create something meaningful with an intimacy avoidant.
So, let’s explore how to do that now.
Related: Avoidant Attachment Triggers & How To Heal
3. How Do You Make An Avoidant Fall For You?
An avoidant person is attracted to the same qualities as anyone else. The desire for someone confident, intelligent, good-looking with a fun lifestyle is universal.
However, the difference to bear in mind is how you go about building a relationship.
Aggressively pursuing them with your heart on a silver platter – as those with anxious attachment styles tend to do – is a bad idea. You’re going to scare them away by immediately revealing your sincere desires to be their partner.
It’s certainly more effective to be a bit more lassiez-faire, more patient, more mysterious. These are more proven methods to attract the avoidant, for sure.
Most likely, you’ll need to retain confidence in your pursuit, even if they don’t outwardly reciprocate any tokens of affection that you show.
It may also require a sprinking of patience and persistence if the avoidant indulges in their bad habit of disappearing for a few days.
You may want to try showing your understanding of attachment theory and suggesting that your partner may be an avoidant. A lot of people don’t have the self-awareness to understand this about themselves. They might not even recognise that they are taking these drastic steps to avoid intimacy.
If you do attempt to teach them about their fearful attachment style, don’t do it from a place of frustration. Maintain a positive attitude. Remain understanding and accepting of them. If you do this properly and a dismissive avoidant may be open to exploring how they can pursue a more healthy relationship.
This may be what it takes to spend significant time with an avoidant partner in the early stages of dating.
During this time, an avoidant will hopefully begin to develop trust towards you as well as lust. After seeing plenty of evidence that you’re not going to smother them, they may begin to open up and show their own affection towards you.
While you may have to put up with occasional distancing strategies throughout the relationship, it is possible to help avoidant types transform into secure types with time and patience.
Related: When He Pulls Away Do Nothing
4. Signs An Avoidant Loves You
You should barely ever expect grand displays of affection from an avoidant partner. They’re not ones to admit their own feelings, even within a serious relationship. But that doesn’t mean these feelings don’t exist.
If you’re dating an avoidant partner, look for more subtle gestures of affection. Holding hands or a small hug in public can mean a lot.
They might not be the ones to send the first message, but if they’re always replying to yours and accepting your invites, take heart from that.
If you can see that they’re at least trying to let you in from time to time, that really does count for a lot.
With patience, you may find these gestures of affection become clearer over time.
Related: 21 Signs An Avoidant Loves You
5. When An Avoidant Ignores You
When an avoidant ignores your calls or messages, the key is to be patient and understanding. In all likelihood, they’re suffering from a bout of cold feet.
It’s no use pondering too deeply over what you might have done to push them away. Often, it’ll be too minor for people with different attachment styles to understand.
The key is not to chase too aggressively for their attention. This is going to trigger their fears even further and it’s going to make them flee even faster.
As tough as it can be, it’s best to play the waiting game for now, so they can see they’re in no danger of being engulfed.
They may reach out to you first. Or perhaps you’ll get back in touch in a few days. Either way, silence is the key for now.
6. What To Do When An Avoidant Pushes You Away
It’s not just that a love avoidant might ignore your attempts to get in touch with them. Lovers with an avoidant style might also straight-up tell you when you’re being too intense for their tastes.
This can be upsetting especially if you suffer from low self-esteem. It may feel like you were giving your affection and they’re rejecting it. Hopefully, with a better understanding of the avoidant type, you can now see it’s not as extreme as that. You’re simply not giving them enough space.
You should be grateful for the honesty. This gives you the opportunity to talk openly about what your partner wants and to correct your behaviors for good.
It’s usually better to save that talk for another day though. Right now, you need to create space to make your avoidant partner miss you.
7. What Happens When You Stop Chasing An Avoidant
Perhaps you go radio silent for a few days. Maybe you straight-up tell them that you deserve something better and you’re leaving.
Either way, when avoidant partners realize you’ve stopped chasing them, it’s like a bomb going off in their mind and heart.
Their fear of being engulfed in love evaporates in an instant. It’s often replaced with an intense shot of fear of abandonment.
For many avoidant people, this is the greatest fear they were masking all along.
In a desperate effort to alleviate this true fear, you’ll often find an avoidant partner now chases your affection. The romantic words and gestures that were hidden for so long now emerge, given that there would now appear to be such a small chance of them being reciprocated.
8. How To Get An Avoidant To Chase You
To inspire anyone to chase you, they need the space to do so.
With that in mind, the first to get an avoidant person to chase you is to stop chasing them. That means no texts, no calls and no other attempts to hang out. Not until they start contacting you.
On top of that, it’ll help to do other things that communicate you have no interest in a serious relationship with this avoidant person.
Spend time with other people. Go to parties. Engage in awesome hobbies. Give yourself a complete makeover. Try and fulfil some realistic fantasies you have always had to complete in your life. This avoidant person shouldnt be the only choice you have for people to hang out with.
By all means, post some photos of your fun time on social media, so that the avoidant partner might see it, or your mutual friends will tell them.
If you’re a woman, it might be even easier. A lot of the time it just takes some racy snaps posted on social media to make a man regret breaking contact with you. Men are very visual creatures. Post some snaps he’s insanely attracted to and he’ll remember how much he desires physical intimacy with you. More often than not, it’ll make him regret leaving you. Usually, he’ll start missing you the moment he sees it.
9. How To Make An Avoidant Feel Safe
In case it hasn’t been made clear yet, the key to making an avoidant person want you is to make them feel safe.
They need to be able to trust that you’re not going to smother them, nor are you the type to make them fall deeply in love then abandon them.
Fearful avoidants have a constant fear of this happening, so it’s crucial for their romantic partners to be able to ease that. Without this, it’s going to be tough to maintain a good relationship.
Here’s a quick reminder of the steps you can take to make this happen and end up in a close relationship with a fearful avoidant.
- Don’t come on too strong initially.
- Maintain some mystery.
- Be patient if they turn cold on you.
- Show you understand how they feel.
- Don’t get frustrated with their lack of affection.
- Take heart in their small tokens of appreciation.
- Don’t chase if they turn cold.
- Give them space to miss you.
- Give them time to open up.
Couples therapy sessions can be a great tool to help you both understand each other’s attachment styles. But don’t push this on your partner if they give a negative response to the idea.
A reasonable woman or man might be able to see how this could help them build a healthy relationship, but those with a shy personality might not be ready to dive into what made them this way.
10. Do Love Avoidants Come Back?
This depends on how much investment they initially had in you. The deeper their feelings for you, the more likely that they may come back after running away.
You’ll need to take steps to ease their fears though. This means backing away for a short period of time. It means following the tips to make love avoidants miss you.
It’s not an easy job to enjoy a great relationship with an avoidant partner. But it is possible.
Ultimately, like an adorable house cat, you’ll need to be comfortable giving them the freedom to disappear, knowing that they love you enough to come back.
11. Focus On Yourself
The best way to make your avoidant ex miss you is to focus on yourself. Put yourself first and show him or her what they are missing on.
This will improve your chances of moving on, but it will also make them miss you. It’s a win-win situation!
12. Be Patient
If you want your avoidant ex to miss you, you need to be patient. They will take some time to come around, but they will probably eventually come to their sense.
13. Add A Touch Of Mystery
People with the avoidant attachment style really love mystery. They love when you play hard to get or when you add a touch of mystery to every conversation. It’s a recipe for success.
14. Pause Your Social Media Activities
Another way to make your avoidant ex miss you is to stop posting on social media or hide your posts from them. This will make them think about you and they’ll start missing you more.
15. Show Them That You’re Moved On
If your avoidant ex sees you’ve moved on with your life, they will run back to you. This is just how they are. So, if you want them to miss you, show them loud and clear that you’re happier now (yes, even if you have to pretend a little bit).
16. Dress Up For Them
If your avoidant ex sees you all dressed up and glamourous, they’ll regret letting you go. So, dress up when you go to see them and they’ll be yours for sure.
17. Boost Their Ego
Your avoidant ex is all about ego. So, take every chance you get to boost their ego and they’ll want you back in their life as soon as possible.
Any More Questions About How To Make An Avoidant Miss You?
Thanks for reading these proven methods to make an avoidant miss you.
Of all the attachment styles, it’s perhaps toughest to build a romantic relationship with an avoidant. Hopefully, the advice in this guide will help you to create that strong emotional bond.
If you’d like to ask a question about your love life, attachment styles or dealing with avoidant partners, feel free to do so in the comments section below.
It will be great to hear from you.
