How Do You Know When You’ve Finally Processed What Happened With Your Avoidant Ex?

I was driving when it happened.

No music. No tears. No familiar knot in my stomach.

A thought about him floated into my mind — and nothing followed.

No sickness. No spiral. No replaying the breadcrumb messages. No self-blame. No wondering what I did wrong or why I wasn’t enough.

Just… nothing.

For a long time, thinking about my avoidant ex felt like emotional whiplash. My body reacted before my mind could catch up. I’d relive the confusion, the sudden distance, the mixed signals. I blamed myself. I questioned my worth. I searched endlessly for the moment where I messed it all up.

Until I healed enough to see the truth.

When the Pedestal Finally Cracks

Eventually, I realised I wasn’t dealing with someone emotionally unavailable by accident — I was dealing with a rampant dismissive avoidant.

He didn’t run because I was too much.

He ran because it was real.

Because it was too real for him to hold.

That realisation changed everything.

The pedestal came down — not gently, but with a bang.

I saw the pattern clearly for the first time: the performance, the charm, the illusion everyone else had swallowed. Except me. I was the one who saw the wounding underneath. The freaking out. The back-and-forth. The constant internal checking in. The fear masquerading as independence.

And suddenly, his behaviour made sense.

He didn’t leave because of a lack of love.

He left because of love — and because he was too wounded to tolerate true closeness.

The Moment You Stop Feeling Rejected

That’s when the script shifts.

You stop feeling like the rejected partner and realise something far more grounding:

The choices they’ve made since were driven by fear, not by your insufficiency.

For a while, that understanding can even feel empowering. You recognise that you mattered deeply. That you are likely still held somewhere in their heart.

But then something else happens — something quieter, but far more important.

You realise you no longer hold them in yours.

When the Body Knows It’s Over

That’s how you know you’ve processed it.

I think of him now and there’s no lurch in my stomach.

No pain.

No heart twinges.

I sleep through the night.

No imagined conversations.

No dreams searching for answers.

My brain completed the story he couldn’t finish.

He couldn’t give me closure — so I gave it to myself.

I worked it out.

I processed it.

I understood it.

And in doing so, I freed myself.

The Energetic Bond Is Gone

There’s a moment when you realise you’ve unknotted yourself.

You’re no longer waiting.

You’re no longer an option.

The energetic bond — the one that kept pulling you back — is simply gone.

Not cut.

Not burned.

Just… dissolved.

It’s strange when you’ve lived so long missing someone, aching for them, carrying them with you everywhere — and then one day you don’t.

What’s left isn’t bitterness or longing.

It’s a quiet knowing.

A soft, steady sense of I finally get it.

And with that understanding comes something better than answers.

Peace.